June 17, 2025 • 13 mins
Joe Espada Joins The Show As Astros Are Persevering Even With Injuries Plaguing The Roster
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
We're very happy to be joined by the manager of
the Houston Astros, Joe's Spota. Last night, his squad dropped
three to one to the whatever they're calling the A's
these days. A skip A good afternoon. First of all,
it was a great note from your PR department. You
were there for the very first game in West Sacramento.
Do you remember that game vividly or not.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I do remember parts of the day, don't remember much
of the game itself, but I remember teammates. Remember, you know,
walking into a beautiful, brand new ballpark, the excitement, the
energy in the stadium. I remember that aspect of that
day very well.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Do you have any good like thirty second Joe Spotta
minor league stories? I mean you you were well traveled
during there. I mean, if you have to protect innocent
people's names, I certainly respect that, But give me, give
me us something that pokes into the mind and soul
and body. Joe as spot as a minor leaguer man.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
You know, I uh, I did spend you know, ten
years in the minor League's great experiences, travel a lot,
you know, ran into some really good people, teammates, friends
of mine who are still close to close to me,
you know, Matt. I think about the hours on the
bus to grind the you know, the the fight that
(01:25):
you had to have, the desire to get to the
big league. See, it was. It was not easy. I
never got to play in the big leagues, as you know,
obviously as a minor league player, I worked really hard
to try to get there. Never never got this. I
just think about the journey and and how my my
minor league career just kind of shape out to be
who I am today. You know, I learn a lot
(01:47):
it put myself in minor league player's shoes to understand
what they go through. So when I conversation with my players,
young players, I remember what they went through. So that's
kind of what I took out of my minor league career.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Well, all right, next Tuesday and I'm I'm at dike
in Park, I'm gonna ask youing off the record store.
Then that's just you can't stay on there.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I get it. I'm just teasing you. It'll be good.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Hey, uh, I thought last night when Al Tuve hit
that blast, it was gonna be a fun night. And
h The pitching for Oakland stet Oakland for whatever they're called,
stepped up. It was another low scoring game. Are you
just that's just kind of the trend right now. Nothing's
going to be easy, but you've had a lot of
success as of late. What's it like going through these
phil like for the most part, not using Friday as
(02:28):
an example, but just generally speaking, these games that are
coming down to one run, lasted back kind of efforts.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Uh. You know. For for me, I look at the
positive match. Like you know, when you when you play
low scoring games, there's a lot of things that you do.
You have to do really well to be able to
stay in the game and have a chance to win
it at the end. Like we've been doing. One thing
that this team does very well. We're good coming from behind,
right like we we we played hard till the end,
(02:54):
so you know, we are doing a really good job
pitching and we played some really really good defense. If
you do those two things, you're going to find yourself
in every ball game. They hit, you know, the hitting
kind of go goes and goes throughout throughout the season.
It happens. You know, we ran into some some good
arms yesterday. We were able to score on a run,
but we were we were closed, we were one hit
(03:14):
away from opening the game up and winning that ball game.
But for me, uh, it's I'm gonna look at the
bright side of things man. You know, Gusto asking him
the night before a you we need you to pitch tomorrow,
he said, Joe, let's go. I'm ready to go. He
goes out. He points out five eight in five innings.
Those are positive man, our defense. You know, we we're
(03:36):
grinding through some of bats and eventually, you know, we're
going to open things up. But I really really like
the way we are playing right now.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
On both sides of the ball skip you Gutch PARTI
is back.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
You DHD him yesterday?
Speaker 1 (03:48):
How much d H how much their base do you
want to see or do you feel like you can
put getting back out there at some point in the
field this weekend?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, so so he'll play their base, uh today, And
we are you know, I'm monitoring really close. I want
to be careful on how much volume we give him
right off the bat. We were very lucky for that injury,
you know, not to be something that will keep him
out of the line up for a long period time,
(04:16):
and I want to make sure it stays that way.
But he is playing third base today and will continue
to keep an eye on him and the rest of
the boys since we are in a pretty long stretch
of games here.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
So a spotted with us here on Sports Talk seven.
Christian Walker had that big three hit game a few
games ago. Since then has slowed down a bit. What
are your conversations like been with him? Just take us
from maybe the start of the season to the struggles
and to where he is now, especially mentally.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
You know what, mentally, he's super mentally tough. I think
the mindset of Christian Walker is one of someone that
understands that, you know, the journey of how long a
season is and the ups and downs that come with
uh with with playing in in an atmosphere where you
(05:04):
expected to win, and he understands that. I do like
the fact that he is open about how he feels.
He's open about like sometimes he finds himself trying to
do a little bit too much, and you know, he
is working every single day through mechanically trying to get
himself right. And we see moments where we okay, he
(05:26):
is fully out of this, and then there's a game
or two where he hits some balls where he's unlucky
and you see his frustration at times, like, man, I
just need to get a couple of knocks and and
get going here. But he's added to it. It's it's
good we get him an off day. Two days ago
he came out, yes that I was from the bat well,
(05:46):
got a knock. They pitched him really tough, which I
expect him to. He's you know, hitting behind uh, hitting
in the middle of a lineup. But you know, at
the end of the day, I think this. I think
he's going to have a solid season for us. It's
a lot of baseball left and I expect him to
get going here and we need him to get going.
He's a big, huge part of our of our lineup.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Would Luis Giormany be your dark horse in a team
high jumping competition?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Well, a great play. You know, in the dugout we started,
we started talking to Peret, we started joking with parties.
But he's like, you think he could have made that play? Uh,
And and he's like, Joe, of course I could make
that play. I don't know, I don't know. Yeah, I'll
tell you that was Joe.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
He went five feet to left field. That's way too
far for him to go out to the left field,
isn't it.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, But he's like, he's like, you know, I thought
that he could make that play. But you know, one
thing about Gyormy, it's something he's done his entire career,
is he can really defend everywhere you put him on
in the infield, he can really make some place. He
take pride and he takes biding his defense. And he
made those two plays bare hand slow rollers which you
(06:56):
know kept us from you know, innings to get out
of control air for Gusto. So I really feel comfortable
when he's playing defense and he'll give you some quality
at bats when he's in there.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
So what is the doctor said for Lance to do
during this downtime? Obviously, you know, getting a day extra
tour is good for rest, but two weeks maybe a
little bit different. So what what can he do with
his arm and his forearm while is obviously nursing the toe.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
You know, you know what, and I think he can
continue to throw. You know, this is something that it's
not going to pull them back from continue to do
his throwing program or anything like that. You know, he
is getting some treatment done for his foot, so hopefully
we could get him you know, continue to play his
flag round, play catch, and once the foot starts feeling
(07:46):
feeling better, we get him on the mount and get
him to uh throw aside. But I don't expect this
to be longer than than the two weeks. So hopefully
we get some good news here in the next couple
of day and we get him back on the mount.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Do you ever call the Dodgers anybody in the organization,
They say, man, we got a lot of injuries on
our starting pitching, And you say, hold my beer. I
mean you these two baseball teams have been beset by
and you're powering through it. That says there's depth in
this organization maybe people the outsiders don't know about. You've
also got a bunch of guys that feels like to me, Joe,
that are making the most of their opportunities right now.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yes, yes, you know, Matt and I I've said this before,
how proud I am of this group. We we do
an incredible job developing players in the organization, you know,
especially on the pitching side. You know, I always feel
like when we sit down and we try to put
this piece together, this pulsele together, and when this pitcher
(08:47):
goes down who's the next guy up, And there's always
someone who's who we feel strongly about. Okay, this guy
can come up because he could he could do these
things very well. Our pitching department does a really good job,
you know, putting it play together for every individual when
they get up here. This is what we do. Well,
let's let's just get by this this storm here, because
(09:10):
once we get our guys fully healthy, we are going
to be fine. We've done this for years. You know.
It really sucks that it's injuries are piling up. You
mentioned the Dodgers, you mentioned us, but this is happening
throughout the industry and we have to find ways to
weather the storm. It's it's it's really hard. I do
(09:30):
get credit to our voice that we keep our eyes
on the prize. Man. We know that this will pass.
We know that this is part of the season. And
you know, this is a group that knows how to play.
This is a championship team that know how to play
championship baseball when you need it the most, which is
right now June, July, August. Man, you grind. This is
a grind grinding right now, and we are grinding through
(09:51):
this big picture.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
If I gave you five if I gave your pictures
five more seconds on the clock, big difference, little differ,
no difference at all.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
There will be that there's some difference. You know, there's
there's a lot you can do in the five seconds.
You know when it comes to either you know, gathering
your thoughts or you know, a breather, or you know
that there's much you can do with with five seconds.
You know, there's this mental game of baseball. You can
(10:24):
really put yourself back. And but we don't have those
five seconds, right, You have to just do the best
you can with the time that you get on the mound,
and it's important to keep your your momentum and your
and your focus and it you know, but you know,
five seconds, if you can use it well to your advantage,
(10:46):
I'm sure that we can. I think I'm sure that
you could do it, especially after the picture.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, I don't know if it's ever going to happen,
but I think because there's there's so many arm elements, Joe,
not only with your squad but around baseball, that at
least needs to be a conversation to say, what can
we do to at least slow these things down? Because
our arm booms are always a.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Part of it. Yeah, And I think eventually, you know,
we are looking and the league is looking at ways
to how can we, you know, do better job of
protecting the pictures. You know, I'm always thinking about, you know,
why not you know, giving us one more picture throughout
a certain time of the season. You know, maybe it
(11:24):
could be April or May when we when teams are
going through fifteen seventeen game stretch, maybe providing doing those
motion stretch from games, like maybe one extra arms where
we can actually you know, carry someone else, that we
could expand the rotation. It'd be easier for your bullpen
instead of having a seven men bullpen. And you know
(11:45):
there's ways that that and that we can potentially help
our pitching. But you know, it's it's a lot of
it's a lot of conversations that need to happen, and
eventually we do what's bets for the sports?
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Last question, you saw two pretty seismic homers, actually three
pretty good home runs yesterday, two unfortunately for the A's
and one for yourselves. How does the ball carry there
generally speaking? And is that a different atmosphere playing in
Sacramentos compared to playing in Oakland where last on looks
at the temperature is about sixty five degrees at first pitch.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeah, no, it was. Yeah, it was a beautiful, beautiful
ninety in West Sacramento. You know, I think all three
home runs would have been home runs in any any ballpark.
You know, the ball, the ball carries, ball carries well here.
I think the energy at the ballpark was awesome. It
was a really nice crowd, you know, temperature, like you mentioned,
(12:41):
was was gorgeous. You know, everybody, you know, I do
miss the college in personally, you know, I the history
of the ballpark and but I'll tell you what the
River catch Board parks, it's really nice. I played there
twenty years twenty five years ago and continues to be
one of the best ball parts in the Monto leagues
in America.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Great visus always, friend, Thank you very much the time.
We'll see you back in town. Have a safe trip
and nig get some more wins on that left coast.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Thank you, you got it.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
That's Joe a spot of Astro's manager with us here
on Sports Talk seveninety
We're very happy to be joined by the manager of
the Houston Astros, Joe's Spota. Last night, his squad dropped
three to one to the whatever they're calling the A's
these days. A skip A good afternoon. First of all,
it was a great note from your PR department. You
were there for the very first game in West Sacramento.
Do you remember that game vividly or not.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I do remember parts of the day, don't remember much
of the game itself, but I remember teammates. Remember, you know,
walking into a beautiful, brand new ballpark, the excitement, the
energy in the stadium. I remember that aspect of that
day very well.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Do you have any good like thirty second Joe Spotta
minor league stories? I mean you you were well traveled
during there. I mean, if you have to protect innocent
people's names, I certainly respect that, But give me, give
me us something that pokes into the mind and soul
and body. Joe as spot as a minor leaguer man.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
You know, I uh, I did spend you know, ten
years in the minor League's great experiences, travel a lot,
you know, ran into some really good people, teammates, friends
of mine who are still close to close to me,
you know, Matt. I think about the hours on the
bus to grind the you know, the the fight that
(01:25):
you had to have, the desire to get to the
big league. See, it was. It was not easy. I
never got to play in the big leagues, as you know,
obviously as a minor league player, I worked really hard
to try to get there. Never never got this. I
just think about the journey and and how my my
minor league career just kind of shape out to be
who I am today. You know, I learn a lot
(01:47):
it put myself in minor league player's shoes to understand
what they go through. So when I conversation with my players,
young players, I remember what they went through. So that's
kind of what I took out of my minor league career.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Well, all right, next Tuesday and I'm I'm at dike
in Park, I'm gonna ask youing off the record store.
Then that's just you can't stay on there.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I get it. I'm just teasing you. It'll be good.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Hey, uh, I thought last night when Al Tuve hit
that blast, it was gonna be a fun night. And
h The pitching for Oakland stet Oakland for whatever they're called,
stepped up. It was another low scoring game. Are you
just that's just kind of the trend right now. Nothing's
going to be easy, but you've had a lot of
success as of late. What's it like going through these
phil like for the most part, not using Friday as
(02:28):
an example, but just generally speaking, these games that are
coming down to one run, lasted back kind of efforts.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Uh. You know. For for me, I look at the
positive match. Like you know, when you when you play
low scoring games, there's a lot of things that you do.
You have to do really well to be able to
stay in the game and have a chance to win
it at the end. Like we've been doing. One thing
that this team does very well. We're good coming from behind,
right like we we we played hard till the end,
(02:54):
so you know, we are doing a really good job
pitching and we played some really really good defense. If
you do those two things, you're going to find yourself
in every ball game. They hit, you know, the hitting
kind of go goes and goes throughout throughout the season.
It happens. You know, we ran into some some good
arms yesterday. We were able to score on a run,
but we were we were closed, we were one hit
(03:14):
away from opening the game up and winning that ball game.
But for me, uh, it's I'm gonna look at the
bright side of things man. You know, Gusto asking him
the night before a you we need you to pitch tomorrow,
he said, Joe, let's go. I'm ready to go. He
goes out. He points out five eight in five innings.
Those are positive man, our defense. You know, we we're
(03:36):
grinding through some of bats and eventually, you know, we're
going to open things up. But I really really like
the way we are playing right now.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
On both sides of the ball skip you Gutch PARTI
is back.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
You DHD him yesterday?
Speaker 1 (03:48):
How much d H how much their base do you
want to see or do you feel like you can
put getting back out there at some point in the
field this weekend?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, so so he'll play their base, uh today, And
we are you know, I'm monitoring really close. I want
to be careful on how much volume we give him
right off the bat. We were very lucky for that injury,
you know, not to be something that will keep him
out of the line up for a long period time,
(04:16):
and I want to make sure it stays that way.
But he is playing third base today and will continue
to keep an eye on him and the rest of
the boys since we are in a pretty long stretch
of games here.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
So a spotted with us here on Sports Talk seven.
Christian Walker had that big three hit game a few
games ago. Since then has slowed down a bit. What
are your conversations like been with him? Just take us
from maybe the start of the season to the struggles
and to where he is now, especially mentally.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
You know what, mentally, he's super mentally tough. I think
the mindset of Christian Walker is one of someone that
understands that, you know, the journey of how long a
season is and the ups and downs that come with
uh with with playing in in an atmosphere where you
(05:04):
expected to win, and he understands that. I do like
the fact that he is open about how he feels.
He's open about like sometimes he finds himself trying to
do a little bit too much, and you know, he
is working every single day through mechanically trying to get
himself right. And we see moments where we okay, he
(05:26):
is fully out of this, and then there's a game
or two where he hits some balls where he's unlucky
and you see his frustration at times, like, man, I
just need to get a couple of knocks and and
get going here. But he's added to it. It's it's
good we get him an off day. Two days ago
he came out, yes that I was from the bat well,
(05:46):
got a knock. They pitched him really tough, which I
expect him to. He's you know, hitting behind uh, hitting
in the middle of a lineup. But you know, at
the end of the day, I think this. I think
he's going to have a solid season for us. It's
a lot of baseball left and I expect him to
get going here and we need him to get going.
He's a big, huge part of our of our lineup.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Would Luis Giormany be your dark horse in a team
high jumping competition?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Well, a great play. You know, in the dugout we started,
we started talking to Peret, we started joking with parties.
But he's like, you think he could have made that play? Uh,
And and he's like, Joe, of course I could make
that play. I don't know, I don't know. Yeah, I'll
tell you that was Joe.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
He went five feet to left field. That's way too
far for him to go out to the left field,
isn't it.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, But he's like, he's like, you know, I thought
that he could make that play. But you know, one
thing about Gyormy, it's something he's done his entire career,
is he can really defend everywhere you put him on
in the infield, he can really make some place. He
take pride and he takes biding his defense. And he
made those two plays bare hand slow rollers which you
(06:56):
know kept us from you know, innings to get out
of control air for Gusto. So I really feel comfortable
when he's playing defense and he'll give you some quality
at bats when he's in there.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
So what is the doctor said for Lance to do
during this downtime? Obviously, you know, getting a day extra
tour is good for rest, but two weeks maybe a
little bit different. So what what can he do with
his arm and his forearm while is obviously nursing the toe.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
You know, you know what, and I think he can
continue to throw. You know, this is something that it's
not going to pull them back from continue to do
his throwing program or anything like that. You know, he
is getting some treatment done for his foot, so hopefully
we could get him you know, continue to play his
flag round, play catch, and once the foot starts feeling
(07:46):
feeling better, we get him on the mount and get
him to uh throw aside. But I don't expect this
to be longer than than the two weeks. So hopefully
we get some good news here in the next couple
of day and we get him back on the mount.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Do you ever call the Dodgers anybody in the organization,
They say, man, we got a lot of injuries on
our starting pitching, And you say, hold my beer. I
mean you these two baseball teams have been beset by
and you're powering through it. That says there's depth in
this organization maybe people the outsiders don't know about. You've
also got a bunch of guys that feels like to me, Joe,
that are making the most of their opportunities right now.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yes, yes, you know, Matt and I I've said this before,
how proud I am of this group. We we do
an incredible job developing players in the organization, you know,
especially on the pitching side. You know, I always feel
like when we sit down and we try to put
this piece together, this pulsele together, and when this pitcher
(08:47):
goes down who's the next guy up, And there's always
someone who's who we feel strongly about. Okay, this guy
can come up because he could he could do these
things very well. Our pitching department does a really good job,
you know, putting it play together for every individual when
they get up here. This is what we do. Well,
let's let's just get by this this storm here, because
(09:10):
once we get our guys fully healthy, we are going
to be fine. We've done this for years. You know.
It really sucks that it's injuries are piling up. You
mentioned the Dodgers, you mentioned us, but this is happening
throughout the industry and we have to find ways to
weather the storm. It's it's it's really hard. I do
(09:30):
get credit to our voice that we keep our eyes
on the prize. Man. We know that this will pass.
We know that this is part of the season. And
you know, this is a group that knows how to play.
This is a championship team that know how to play
championship baseball when you need it the most, which is
right now June, July, August. Man, you grind. This is
a grind grinding right now, and we are grinding through
(09:51):
this big picture.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
If I gave you five if I gave your pictures
five more seconds on the clock, big difference, little differ,
no difference at all.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
There will be that there's some difference. You know, there's
there's a lot you can do in the five seconds.
You know when it comes to either you know, gathering
your thoughts or you know, a breather, or you know
that there's much you can do with with five seconds.
You know, there's this mental game of baseball. You can
(10:24):
really put yourself back. And but we don't have those
five seconds, right, You have to just do the best
you can with the time that you get on the mound,
and it's important to keep your your momentum and your
and your focus and it you know, but you know,
five seconds, if you can use it well to your advantage,
(10:46):
I'm sure that we can. I think I'm sure that
you could do it, especially after the picture.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, I don't know if it's ever going to happen,
but I think because there's there's so many arm elements, Joe,
not only with your squad but around baseball, that at
least needs to be a conversation to say, what can
we do to at least slow these things down? Because
our arm booms are always a.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Part of it. Yeah, And I think eventually, you know,
we are looking and the league is looking at ways
to how can we, you know, do better job of
protecting the pictures. You know, I'm always thinking about, you know,
why not you know, giving us one more picture throughout
a certain time of the season. You know, maybe it
(11:24):
could be April or May when we when teams are
going through fifteen seventeen game stretch, maybe providing doing those
motion stretch from games, like maybe one extra arms where
we can actually you know, carry someone else, that we
could expand the rotation. It'd be easier for your bullpen
instead of having a seven men bullpen. And you know
(11:45):
there's ways that that and that we can potentially help
our pitching. But you know, it's it's a lot of
it's a lot of conversations that need to happen, and
eventually we do what's bets for the sports?
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Last question, you saw two pretty seismic homers, actually three
pretty good home runs yesterday, two unfortunately for the A's
and one for yourselves. How does the ball carry there
generally speaking? And is that a different atmosphere playing in
Sacramentos compared to playing in Oakland where last on looks
at the temperature is about sixty five degrees at first pitch.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeah, no, it was. Yeah, it was a beautiful, beautiful
ninety in West Sacramento. You know, I think all three
home runs would have been home runs in any any ballpark.
You know, the ball, the ball carries, ball carries well here.
I think the energy at the ballpark was awesome. It
was a really nice crowd, you know, temperature, like you mentioned,
(12:41):
was was gorgeous. You know, everybody, you know, I do
miss the college in personally, you know, I the history
of the ballpark and but I'll tell you what the
River catch Board parks, it's really nice. I played there
twenty years twenty five years ago and continues to be
one of the best ball parts in the Monto leagues
in America.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Great visus always, friend, Thank you very much the time.
We'll see you back in town. Have a safe trip
and nig get some more wins on that left coast.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Thank you, you got it.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
That's Joe a spot of Astro's manager with us here
on Sports Talk seveninety
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