July 8, 2025 • 11 mins
Joe Espada Joins The Show After Astros Big Weekend vs Dodgers & Yesterdays Lose vs Guardians
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Called a minutes with the manager of your first place
(00:02):
Houston Astros, a six and a half game lead over
the Seattle Mariners in the American League West, Joe A. Spota,
getting ready for Game two tonight between the Guardians and
the Astros. Skip. First of all, thanks for joining us.
Number two. How's our friend mister Gordon doing. That was
a pretty big bumpy took last night.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, thank you for having me. He's doing He's doing okay.
You know, we we kept an eye on him last night.
He went through some concussion testing and everything checked out. Well,
we'll see him. I'll see him here in a few
once h once he.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Gets to the ballpark. Yeah, you know, was that how
much of a conversation did you have to go through
a kind of a test and to say do you
know who you are? Do you know where you are?
That kind of stuff that has to be scary for
at least a short period of time.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Uh. He went out there and he conducts that that test,
and then he asked him to throw two more warm
up two warm more pitchers, and then he went through
another sequence of questions and to make sure that he
was able to, you know, to get back and to
get back in the game and finish that ending.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yes, if he says who's your favorite manager of all
time he doesn't say your name, you definitely have to
pull him out at that point, correct.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
No, we asked him where he was, you know, ask
him who hit the ball? Questions like that. Yeah, just
to make sure that he he was aware of where
he was standing at the time of the time.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Well, hopefully all is well when you get the report
later on the day. Hey, what a phenomenal trip. Look,
I don't mind, I don't care about yesterday. You want
to get all those victories, but this baseball is a
crazy sport and it's going to happen. Hopefully you'll get
back on the winning track with Hunter tonight. But just
a road trip at all, get take us through. First
of all, you beat the Dodgers to a pulp on Friday,
(01:53):
and that's the greatest loss I have ever suffered. And
then just to get consistency, great defense. You got some
hot hitters, Christian Walker played well, your starting pitching did good,
and your bullpen was lights out. It couldn't have gone
any better for you guys in Los Angeles during those
three games.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, and I think that's that's been the story for
for the last for a last, for the last month.
I think we have found consistency on both sides of
the ball. You know, everything starts with with our starting rotation.
They've been doing a remarkable job keeping us in the game,
us getting big hits, uh, you know, doing the game
and be able to hand the ball to our back
(02:28):
end of our bullpend too close to the field. Consistency,
you know throughout you know, a whole entire lineup. We
got some different guys stepping up every single day. We
just were got into a groop here what we all
believe in one another. We understand that they could be
a hero, uh, and new hero every single day, and
that's contagious. And we find ourselves playing really good baseball.
(02:51):
And I'm super proud of our effort. You know, going
through LA it's a hostile environment and uh, you know
the way we play at the the energy and the
passion and be able to you know, sweep them there
at home. It was It was a great, great feel And.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Now two V of course had a great weekend there.
What is it like for you as a manager. You've
been around him for so long and he's given us
so many wow moments, But at the same time, he
just continues to do stuff. Are there moments where you're like,
you almost feel more like a fan, You like, I
can't believe what I'm seeing one percent.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I'm I'm his biggest fan, especially when we go to
stadiums where he receives, you know, that kind of treatment.
I'm there looking at fans on the top step, you know,
behind the on deck circle, saying things that I would
never even imagine saying, especially in front of kids, And
(03:45):
he just goes out there and hits homers. He walks
by them, doesn't even acknowledge them. He's professionalism, he's toughness,
he's mindset. You know, I don't, honestly, I don't I
know how we do it, but I could not imagine
anyone else being that tough.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Astros manager Joe Aspata with us here, what is your
just mentality, especially as it comes to a line of
construction coming down the stretch here you have so many
different guys out, so many different mixed parts. Also wanted
to keep guys in a rhythm. What what has that
challenge been like for you recently, especially with the injuries
continue to pile up.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, just Tronto, you know, just Toronto. Obviously very important
is the guys who are playing every day or every
day starters, you know, trying to get them off their feed.
But also some of these new players who are in
put him in a position where they could match up
well against best starter or they're you know, their bullpen, whatever,
(04:47):
whatever the case may be. Trying to keep pieces on
the bench where I can you know, deploy them, laying
the game and trying to keep defense in the game
late in there. There's so many moving parts right now,
but these players are responding very well on communicating with
them the roles that they're in right now and just
(05:08):
shout to piece it together while you know the you know,
the Jeremy Pannas and the Jordan Alvarez and those guys
are you are sitting on the sidelines. And once those
guys get back and we could be on full force,
be we could you know, we can run those guys
out there and give us another boost.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
I want to ask about the intelligence you get about
your own players. Look, Joe, you have seen these guys
through the system. You saw them in spring training, but
when you leave for West Palm Beach, you're worried about
the twenty six in front of you. You have had
to go to the bulb to the minor league's a bunch.
I mean your lineup yesterday was especially back half of
guys that weren't with the team to begin with. You
(05:47):
don't need a refresher. But what is it like when
you get a new player? Who do you trust? Who
is the guy on your staff that says, all right,
here's what i've seen, here's the intelligent reports tells me,
here's where we can use this new guy to to
our best advantage.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Well, it starts with me building a relationship with those
guys when they're in West Palm. I've seen a lot
of these, you know, the players who came through the system.
For example, Kenny Corona, he's someone that i've He's been
around for the last couple of years. So I have
a relationship with Kennedy. I don't want that relationship. I
don't want the first time he gets you know, the manager,
(06:22):
is when he gets to the big league. No, I
he's in big league camp. I go down to the
monor leagues and watch him play. When we play a
night game, and you know the leagues are playing during
the day. Also, we have reports from our player development
where I get them before a player. Once the player
gets to gets to the big leagues, we have a
full report what the player's been working on, you know,
(06:46):
drills that the players is doing both offensively defensively. So
we can hand that information to our coaches so we
can continue their their development process at the major league level.
And we have a pretty good idea of what, you know,
the areas there that they're they're you know, they can
controlling offensively, they're doing well offensively, things that you know,
(07:07):
I need to be aware of not to expose in
certain things. And I get all those reports once those
players get here, so I have a pretty good idea
on how to use those players in different different times
during the game.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Uh tantor tramal Uh the the offense has not come
around for him much, but the big home run for
you yesterday. Defensively, you always knew he was a major
league guy. What's it like for him to get a
second chance knowing that his glove work has never been
the issue. It's been a consistent bad it's preclued him
from having a longer major league career.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, you know, I'm trying to put him in and
you know, against against pitching that I know he can,
he can handle certain areas up to play really well.
I'm trying to match him up against that type of pitching.
And then once he started getting the hard contact he
did yesterday, then you can start building up from there
and you start building up confidence. We know can control
(08:00):
the strikings and we know he's super strong. We just
need to get him to make more constant, solid contact
and once you once you do that, you you get
the production that that we we got from him from
like you saw last night.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
And with the injuries we talked about and guys like
like Taylor Tremmel and others stepping up, you have a
guy in Victor Carrottini who's stepped up in a huge way.
What is uh? I mean, how how does this happen
to where you know, guys are going down and people
are stepping up in Kartini? What is it about him
that just allows him to thrive in the way he has?
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah? I mean, I mean he did it last year,
got some huge hits for us, specially off the bench,
and I feel like the more he plays and more
confidence he gets, he really has to learn, uh he's
swinging while works for him, what pitches he needs to
stay away from from both sides of the place. He's
having some success, so you know. And and also the
(08:57):
job he does behind the plate, filling in for Christian Walker,
what he's at home with his family can provide some cover.
Staff first base Kartini can do so many things to
help us win games out.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
A couple more minutes here with Joe spot of getting
you ready for Game two of the series tonight against
the Cleveland Guardians. Look, you took on a Cleveland team
that had lost ten to row coming in. It's baseball.
You can get no hit one night and score for
thirteen the next night. But there are some fans that go, oh,
what happened to our squad? Take us through that because
(09:33):
we're not in a dugout. We're not playing the game
that even though teams that record wise are the worst,
can play better teams that aren't long losing streaks. I
guess my point is that people are like, well, how
could the team be letdown? I didn't think it was
a letdown. I think it was just a force of
you know what, you had some guys out. You just
finished a long road trip. And baseball is not a
(09:54):
game where you win fifteen sixteen in a row on
a regular basis.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
And I wish our fans will on the stand that
you're not going to win every game. We wish we can't.
I hope we can't, but it doesn't work that way.
And number two, you're talking about the Cleveland Guardians who
are lost tensing. You know, let me just remind folks
that you know this team went to the CS last
year against the Yankees. You know, it is a really
(10:18):
good team going through a tough stretch to have a
pretty good lineup, and and it happens any given night,
any given night. Pitcher can have a good day, caters
can have a tough, a tough night, and it happens.
One thing that I'll to tell our fans is that
we are a team that know how to turn the page.
(10:40):
We're going to get ready to compete and give everything
we got tonight and and and try to even the
series back up.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
All right, we won't talk to you next week as
you'll be on an All Star break. What are you
guys gonna do? Are you going to stay in town
run out of town for a few days? What's the plan.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
No, I'm staying in town with the girls and you know,
reset and then get ready for for a second half.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
All right, please tell Jeremy Payne he can go, but
he can't play. I mean, I just want to bubble wrapped.
I don't, I don't want. I mean, look, I know
it's hard for an athlete to get that kind of
accolae to not be able to play, but there's some
bigger fish to fry here at this point.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yeah. We you know, our focus is to get Jeremy
back on the field, so we we all our energy
is it's it's it's on that right now and and
hopefully we could get him back here pretty soon.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
And lastly, Jake Myers, shall we be overly concerned at
this point?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
No, I don't. I don't think so. You know, once
I see him, he's want to do some running in
the outfield and hopefully uh he's able to uh you know,
be in there today. But I don't think we should
be concerned about any of that, not right now at least.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Skip, Thanks for the time has always congratulations, had a
great run. We'll talk to you later on this week.
Thank you. That's Joe spot it joning us Here on
Sports Talk seven ninety are
Called a minutes with the manager of your first place
(00:02):
Houston Astros, a six and a half game lead over
the Seattle Mariners in the American League West, Joe A. Spota,
getting ready for Game two tonight between the Guardians and
the Astros. Skip. First of all, thanks for joining us.
Number two. How's our friend mister Gordon doing. That was
a pretty big bumpy took last night.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, thank you for having me. He's doing He's doing okay.
You know, we we kept an eye on him last night.
He went through some concussion testing and everything checked out. Well,
we'll see him. I'll see him here in a few
once h once he.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Gets to the ballpark. Yeah, you know, was that how
much of a conversation did you have to go through
a kind of a test and to say do you
know who you are? Do you know where you are?
That kind of stuff that has to be scary for
at least a short period of time.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Uh. He went out there and he conducts that that test,
and then he asked him to throw two more warm
up two warm more pitchers, and then he went through
another sequence of questions and to make sure that he
was able to, you know, to get back and to
get back in the game and finish that ending.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yes, if he says who's your favorite manager of all
time he doesn't say your name, you definitely have to
pull him out at that point, correct.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
No, we asked him where he was, you know, ask
him who hit the ball? Questions like that. Yeah, just
to make sure that he he was aware of where
he was standing at the time of the time.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Well, hopefully all is well when you get the report
later on the day. Hey, what a phenomenal trip. Look,
I don't mind, I don't care about yesterday. You want
to get all those victories, but this baseball is a
crazy sport and it's going to happen. Hopefully you'll get
back on the winning track with Hunter tonight. But just
a road trip at all, get take us through. First
of all, you beat the Dodgers to a pulp on Friday,
(01:53):
and that's the greatest loss I have ever suffered. And
then just to get consistency, great defense. You got some
hot hitters, Christian Walker played well, your starting pitching did good,
and your bullpen was lights out. It couldn't have gone
any better for you guys in Los Angeles during those
three games.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, and I think that's that's been the story for
for the last for a last, for the last month.
I think we have found consistency on both sides of
the ball. You know, everything starts with with our starting rotation.
They've been doing a remarkable job keeping us in the game,
us getting big hits, uh, you know, doing the game
and be able to hand the ball to our back
(02:28):
end of our bullpend too close to the field. Consistency,
you know throughout you know, a whole entire lineup. We
got some different guys stepping up every single day. We
just were got into a groop here what we all
believe in one another. We understand that they could be
a hero, uh, and new hero every single day, and
that's contagious. And we find ourselves playing really good baseball.
(02:51):
And I'm super proud of our effort. You know, going
through LA it's a hostile environment and uh, you know
the way we play at the the energy and the
passion and be able to you know, sweep them there
at home. It was It was a great, great feel And.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Now two V of course had a great weekend there.
What is it like for you as a manager. You've
been around him for so long and he's given us
so many wow moments, But at the same time, he
just continues to do stuff. Are there moments where you're like,
you almost feel more like a fan, You like, I
can't believe what I'm seeing one percent.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I'm I'm his biggest fan, especially when we go to
stadiums where he receives, you know, that kind of treatment.
I'm there looking at fans on the top step, you know,
behind the on deck circle, saying things that I would
never even imagine saying, especially in front of kids, And
(03:45):
he just goes out there and hits homers. He walks
by them, doesn't even acknowledge them. He's professionalism, he's toughness,
he's mindset. You know, I don't, honestly, I don't I
know how we do it, but I could not imagine
anyone else being that tough.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Astros manager Joe Aspata with us here, what is your
just mentality, especially as it comes to a line of
construction coming down the stretch here you have so many
different guys out, so many different mixed parts. Also wanted
to keep guys in a rhythm. What what has that
challenge been like for you recently, especially with the injuries
continue to pile up.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, just Tronto, you know, just Toronto. Obviously very important
is the guys who are playing every day or every
day starters, you know, trying to get them off their feed.
But also some of these new players who are in
put him in a position where they could match up
well against best starter or they're you know, their bullpen, whatever,
(04:47):
whatever the case may be. Trying to keep pieces on
the bench where I can you know, deploy them, laying
the game and trying to keep defense in the game
late in there. There's so many moving parts right now,
but these players are responding very well on communicating with
them the roles that they're in right now and just
(05:08):
shout to piece it together while you know the you know,
the Jeremy Pannas and the Jordan Alvarez and those guys
are you are sitting on the sidelines. And once those
guys get back and we could be on full force,
be we could you know, we can run those guys
out there and give us another boost.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
I want to ask about the intelligence you get about
your own players. Look, Joe, you have seen these guys
through the system. You saw them in spring training, but
when you leave for West Palm Beach, you're worried about
the twenty six in front of you. You have had
to go to the bulb to the minor league's a bunch.
I mean your lineup yesterday was especially back half of
guys that weren't with the team to begin with. You
(05:47):
don't need a refresher. But what is it like when
you get a new player? Who do you trust? Who
is the guy on your staff that says, all right,
here's what i've seen, here's the intelligent reports tells me,
here's where we can use this new guy to to
our best advantage.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Well, it starts with me building a relationship with those
guys when they're in West Palm. I've seen a lot
of these, you know, the players who came through the system.
For example, Kenny Corona, he's someone that i've He's been
around for the last couple of years. So I have
a relationship with Kennedy. I don't want that relationship. I
don't want the first time he gets you know, the manager,
(06:22):
is when he gets to the big league. No, I
he's in big league camp. I go down to the
monor leagues and watch him play. When we play a
night game, and you know the leagues are playing during
the day. Also, we have reports from our player development
where I get them before a player. Once the player
gets to gets to the big leagues, we have a
full report what the player's been working on, you know,
(06:46):
drills that the players is doing both offensively defensively. So
we can hand that information to our coaches so we
can continue their their development process at the major league level.
And we have a pretty good idea of what, you know,
the areas there that they're they're you know, they can
controlling offensively, they're doing well offensively, things that you know,
(07:07):
I need to be aware of not to expose in
certain things. And I get all those reports once those
players get here, so I have a pretty good idea
on how to use those players in different different times
during the game.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Uh tantor tramal Uh the the offense has not come
around for him much, but the big home run for
you yesterday. Defensively, you always knew he was a major
league guy. What's it like for him to get a
second chance knowing that his glove work has never been
the issue. It's been a consistent bad it's preclued him
from having a longer major league career.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, you know, I'm trying to put him in and
you know, against against pitching that I know he can,
he can handle certain areas up to play really well.
I'm trying to match him up against that type of pitching.
And then once he started getting the hard contact he
did yesterday, then you can start building up from there
and you start building up confidence. We know can control
(08:00):
the strikings and we know he's super strong. We just
need to get him to make more constant, solid contact
and once you once you do that, you you get
the production that that we we got from him from
like you saw last night.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
And with the injuries we talked about and guys like
like Taylor Tremmel and others stepping up, you have a
guy in Victor Carrottini who's stepped up in a huge way.
What is uh? I mean, how how does this happen
to where you know, guys are going down and people
are stepping up in Kartini? What is it about him
that just allows him to thrive in the way he has?
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah? I mean, I mean he did it last year,
got some huge hits for us, specially off the bench,
and I feel like the more he plays and more
confidence he gets, he really has to learn, uh he's
swinging while works for him, what pitches he needs to
stay away from from both sides of the place. He's
having some success, so you know. And and also the
(08:57):
job he does behind the plate, filling in for Christian Walker,
what he's at home with his family can provide some cover.
Staff first base Kartini can do so many things to
help us win games out.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
A couple more minutes here with Joe spot of getting
you ready for Game two of the series tonight against
the Cleveland Guardians. Look, you took on a Cleveland team
that had lost ten to row coming in. It's baseball.
You can get no hit one night and score for
thirteen the next night. But there are some fans that go, oh,
what happened to our squad? Take us through that because
(09:33):
we're not in a dugout. We're not playing the game
that even though teams that record wise are the worst,
can play better teams that aren't long losing streaks. I
guess my point is that people are like, well, how
could the team be letdown? I didn't think it was
a letdown. I think it was just a force of
you know what, you had some guys out. You just
finished a long road trip. And baseball is not a
(09:54):
game where you win fifteen sixteen in a row on
a regular basis.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
And I wish our fans will on the stand that
you're not going to win every game. We wish we can't.
I hope we can't, but it doesn't work that way.
And number two, you're talking about the Cleveland Guardians who
are lost tensing. You know, let me just remind folks
that you know this team went to the CS last
year against the Yankees. You know, it is a really
(10:18):
good team going through a tough stretch to have a
pretty good lineup, and and it happens any given night,
any given night. Pitcher can have a good day, caters
can have a tough, a tough night, and it happens.
One thing that I'll to tell our fans is that
we are a team that know how to turn the page.
(10:40):
We're going to get ready to compete and give everything
we got tonight and and and try to even the
series back up.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
All right, we won't talk to you next week as
you'll be on an All Star break. What are you
guys gonna do? Are you going to stay in town
run out of town for a few days? What's the plan.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
No, I'm staying in town with the girls and you know,
reset and then get ready for for a second half.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
All right, please tell Jeremy Payne he can go, but
he can't play. I mean, I just want to bubble wrapped.
I don't, I don't want. I mean, look, I know
it's hard for an athlete to get that kind of
accolae to not be able to play, but there's some
bigger fish to fry here at this point.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yeah. We you know, our focus is to get Jeremy
back on the field, so we we all our energy
is it's it's it's on that right now and and
hopefully we could get him back here pretty soon.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
And lastly, Jake Myers, shall we be overly concerned at
this point?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
No, I don't. I don't think so. You know, once
I see him, he's want to do some running in
the outfield and hopefully uh he's able to uh you know,
be in there today. But I don't think we should
be concerned about any of that, not right now at least.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Skip, Thanks for the time has always congratulations, had a
great run. We'll talk to you later on this week.
Thank you. That's Joe spot it joning us Here on
Sports Talk seven ninety are
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