August 12, 2025 • 11 mins
Joe Espada Talks Recent Challenges After Start Of Series vs Red Sox’s
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
One of our favorite times of the week is to
spend twelve forty minutes with the manager of the your
Houston Astros.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
One game lead over the Mariners American League West.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
After yesterday's win over the Red Sox, Joe A spotted
with us here on seventy Skip, good afternoon. Do you
thank you for the time. As always, we've mentioned that
many a time so far on our show. Today, it
felt like you were in game one of the Alcs
last time at your ballpark.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Agreed, right, it did?
Speaker 3 (00:26):
It did feel like it. Yeah, the energy in the
ballpark was it felt like a playoff, playoff game. The
game itself, you know, the scoring right and trying to
keep maintain that lead, trying to navigate, you know, through
(00:47):
our bullpen. It really felt like a playoff game for sure.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I'm assuming you have no update for us on Hater
unless you do, and we'd love to hear it. But
let's go back a little bit. Tell me what your
conversation was when he first came to you and said, Skip,
I don't feel good.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
It's not that's the last thing you want to hear
from any you know, any of your pictures, any of
your players. Yeah, it was it was not a great feeling.
And we'll well, you know, we'll get more results here
this afternoon.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
You know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
What has happened in your world, and you deserve a
much better faith than this, because I feel like every
time something's going right, and I tease you about having
a bubble wrap guys, but man, oh man, I would
say this, at least it's the shoulder, not the forearm
and elbow, because we kind of hear when we hear
that kind of stuff, we automatically think Tommy John.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
So who's to say? But what was it?
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Like you said, navigating and you've had to navigate quite
a bit this year with a very irony guys in
your bullpen. Has that been your biggest perhaps change from
year one to year two is having to massage who's
getting days off, who's thrown enough, who needs to throw
that kind of thing?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Uh, Yeah, it's been it's been a it's been a challenge.
You know, I've been you know, we have been blessed
we having some guys that can actually have in really
good years in our bullpen, Guys who have been asked
to do a lot with not having a ton of experience. Uh,
and they have done a really good job, so that
that does makes it a little bit easier. But you know,
(02:25):
to keep everyone healthy and to trying to win as
many games as possible and protecting your assets for to
finish the regular season has been I think one of
the biggest challenges, uh for me. For me definitely as
a manager.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
You said something last night in the post game that
struck me funny. You said that was fun trying to
go through that with all you having your leverage guys.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I don't know how much of the fans agree.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
But uh, clearly I love that attitude from you, that like, hey,
this is just a baseball game, and you're enjoying this,
this late inning strategy, especially being down your guy, it's
kind of, uh, you don't have any other choice, right.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
You know, if it's for me I was talking, you know,
I know for you know, as a fan, as as
a manager, you want things to go smoothly and you
want you guys to all be up and available, but
that's not the reality of this games. And when I
said fun is as more personal the fact that you know,
I think about my career, my journey and be in
(03:26):
a position to uh manage a team and in an
organization that'd be so successful, and being in that spot
you dream about I dream about those moments, right, That's
what as a leader, you want to lead players set
put him in a position for them to have success.
They had to get big outs like suicide the last
(03:49):
out in the ninth inning. You know that's exciting because
I know how hard he's worked for that. Del Santos
getting an opportunity to get big out for us. He's
been bouncing around all year, okre or you know that.
That's exciting for me. And it's fun to watch my
players step up and and and have big moments in
(04:10):
their careers. That for me, I enjoy that that aspect
of my job.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Well, Christian Javier got the start for you, what did
you see from him out there? Of course, settling in
after that two run shot from Brugman and just conversations
with him after about how he's feeling good.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I was, you know, again, another another player who has work.
He's way back. I thought his stuff was really good.
Aside from that too run home run, I thought he's stuff.
You know, we saw his fastball to ninety four, ninety five.
He had the hop that we we know when Javier
is healthy. That that's the movement that we looking on
(04:46):
his fastball. He's breaking ball through some good one his
change it was okay, like we we we're going to
work through those things. But he looked healthy. He looked
like he came ready to compete and moving forward. I
felt really good aware Haveavier's at right now.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So these guys go through these rehab appearances down in
the minor leagues and they don't necessarily go deep into
games three and two thirds, maybe four, maybe seventy pitches.
So when you sent Christian Javier out there, you don't
know what expects, how much to expect from him, or
did you guys kind of have a game plan to say, Hey,
I'm gonna watch you through the first fifteen.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
We can try to get you to seventy five.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Take us through what that is like taking the guy
that hasn't seen major league competition and then asking him
to go beyond what you expect from.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
A starter when it comes to number of pitches thrown.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
No, you're right, And another thing is, like you mentioned earlier, earlier,
it felt like LCS game. That's also another thing that
you had to take in consideration. There was a lot
of stuff going on in our ballpark yesterday, the energy,
the Korea coming back, the Bregman there, the you know
you're as xavier as an individual getting back on the
mound after missing the whole entire season. All those emotions
(05:59):
play in your performance. So you know he's pitching into
play the lights as they're not as bright as in
the major league game. We're in a pennant race. I'm
looking closely to see how we react and how he
acts from you know, doing that, not only the pitch count,
but I'm also looking at his effort, how he's breathing
in between innings, my conversations within, how you feel, how
(06:19):
he's handling the hole. There's a lot of stuff that
goes on that goes into my evaluation of his performance
on that day.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
You're about to hit.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
A slippery slope because you've got forty or so games left,
give or take, and then you've got a one game lead,
You've got just a few days off, you've got some
stretches of games coming up where you'll play ten in
a row or thirteen in a row, something like that,
and you're custom to that. How do you feel like
you're going to balance off time with damn. We need
to win this game coming up, and I need my
full line up and there as often as possible.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, and you know, I think I think I will
use my DH, the DH spot to get those guys
off their feet. Also, well, I start I will start
asking these guys to show up to the ballparks a
little bit later and trying to make sure that we
sleep in, we recover and do all that kind of stuff. Uh,
(07:13):
you know, we we do have forty games left. We
do have some guys that are getting closed coming back,
so that's also can help give some of these guys
a breather. And but it's you know, that's another thing
I need to watch closely. We if we're going to
be in a position to make uh push you at
the end, we need these guys to be in a
(07:34):
good spot physically as shows.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Manager Joe Spotto was here on a Sports Talk seven
ninety Spencer Raghetti throwing for you again, how do you
assess where he is now and where what he needs
to do tonight? Little bit of bad luck in his
last start. He also did get the sixteen whists, but
the four in field hits, but also did get hit hard.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yeah, and you know, and I think I think, you know,
I expect him to be much better today. You know,
you know, commanding his pitches, getting to the lanes that
he needs to get to to get some swinging misses,
to get some quicker out.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
This is the line is the rest up the lineup.
You have to pitch ahead in the account. You can't
fall behind these guys. They go grind the bats that
put the ball in play. They hate balls hard. You
know that. I expect them just to have a couple
of lefties in there today. So you got to be
on top of your game. You got to have confidence
on your pitches, on your game planning, and being able
to throw your pitches in different counts for strikes and
(08:31):
expand when you have to. You know, I've seen a
Spencer throw the ball really well against these guys last
year in Fenway. I remember that start, and I know
he cannot. I know he can go back there and
do it again.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Speaking of starting pitching, Jason Alexander was brilliant for you
over the weekend. Look, when you're on the CUSP major leaguer,
sometimes battling between Triple A and Major leagues, you got
to just take whatever role you're given.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
But has he done enough.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
In your mind to say, all right, let's get that
arm ready for every fifth day is compared to bouncing
back between middle relief and starting.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
You know what, I think he's done well enough to
get an opportunity for our next start. You know, things
changes every single day. Like you mentioned, we're going to
have a long stretch of games here coming up after Thursday,
so we might need to change some things up just
to keep everyone fresh, to keep everyone uh, you know strong.
We do have some some some guys really close to
(09:26):
coming back from starters, really you know, close to coming back,
so those guys will also play effector and in in
in our in our push.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
All right to let you run again, let's read it.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
So, do you feel like when you get to the
ballpark today you'll get a better feel of Josh or
what have the officiaians told you in terms of how
long is going to take for them to evaluate what
was causing this.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Sore on us?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yeah, so we we're going to do more testing, uh
this afternoon, so you know, by by two three o'clock,
hopefully I have uh, you know, a better diagnosis of
what you know, what what the discomfort. Uh is so yeah,
I'm just I'm here right now. So you know, hopefully
we get some some good news. You know, you don't
(10:05):
you don't wanna ever want to hear one of your pictures,
you know, shoulder elbow like you mentioned, right, But but
hopefully we we we get to speak to the doctors
and we get some some good news.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
I'll say this, Skip and you know this a bray
who's been nails for you this year. You've got four
saves out of Bennett's sussa I mean of anything. And look,
nobody wants to lose Josh hater, but it's you've got
some great lieutenants that are ready to help out if necessary.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yes, yes, And I think yesterday was a perfect example.
Hands on deck. You know I'm gonna I'm gonna be
using everyone at different times, doing the game, different pockets, right,
these lefties, and don't be ready. These guys they understand
where we at right now in this season and and
and they know they need to pick Josh up.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Thanks for the visitors always, and hope you get some
good news out of Josh. We appreciate the time as always. Ah, right, guys, Thanks,
We'll see you Joe spottle with us here on Sports
Talk seven and
One of our favorite times of the week is to
spend twelve forty minutes with the manager of the your
Houston Astros.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
One game lead over the Mariners American League West.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
After yesterday's win over the Red Sox, Joe A spotted
with us here on seventy Skip, good afternoon. Do you
thank you for the time. As always, we've mentioned that
many a time so far on our show. Today, it
felt like you were in game one of the Alcs
last time at your ballpark.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Agreed, right, it did?
Speaker 3 (00:26):
It did feel like it. Yeah, the energy in the
ballpark was it felt like a playoff, playoff game. The
game itself, you know, the scoring right and trying to
keep maintain that lead, trying to navigate, you know, through
(00:47):
our bullpen. It really felt like a playoff game for sure.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I'm assuming you have no update for us on Hater
unless you do, and we'd love to hear it. But
let's go back a little bit. Tell me what your
conversation was when he first came to you and said, Skip,
I don't feel good.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
It's not that's the last thing you want to hear
from any you know, any of your pictures, any of
your players. Yeah, it was it was not a great feeling.
And we'll well, you know, we'll get more results here
this afternoon.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
You know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
What has happened in your world, and you deserve a
much better faith than this, because I feel like every
time something's going right, and I tease you about having
a bubble wrap guys, but man, oh man, I would
say this, at least it's the shoulder, not the forearm
and elbow, because we kind of hear when we hear
that kind of stuff, we automatically think Tommy John.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
So who's to say? But what was it?
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Like you said, navigating and you've had to navigate quite
a bit this year with a very irony guys in
your bullpen. Has that been your biggest perhaps change from
year one to year two is having to massage who's
getting days off, who's thrown enough, who needs to throw
that kind of thing?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Uh, Yeah, it's been it's been a it's been a challenge.
You know, I've been you know, we have been blessed
we having some guys that can actually have in really
good years in our bullpen, Guys who have been asked
to do a lot with not having a ton of experience. Uh,
and they have done a really good job, so that
that does makes it a little bit easier. But you know,
(02:25):
to keep everyone healthy and to trying to win as
many games as possible and protecting your assets for to
finish the regular season has been I think one of
the biggest challenges, uh for me. For me definitely as
a manager.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
You said something last night in the post game that
struck me funny. You said that was fun trying to
go through that with all you having your leverage guys.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I don't know how much of the fans agree.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
But uh, clearly I love that attitude from you, that like, hey,
this is just a baseball game, and you're enjoying this,
this late inning strategy, especially being down your guy, it's
kind of, uh, you don't have any other choice, right.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
You know, if it's for me I was talking, you know,
I know for you know, as a fan, as as
a manager, you want things to go smoothly and you
want you guys to all be up and available, but
that's not the reality of this games. And when I
said fun is as more personal the fact that you know,
I think about my career, my journey and be in
(03:26):
a position to uh manage a team and in an
organization that'd be so successful, and being in that spot
you dream about I dream about those moments, right, That's
what as a leader, you want to lead players set
put him in a position for them to have success.
They had to get big outs like suicide the last
(03:49):
out in the ninth inning. You know that's exciting because
I know how hard he's worked for that. Del Santos
getting an opportunity to get big out for us. He's
been bouncing around all year, okre or you know that.
That's exciting for me. And it's fun to watch my
players step up and and and have big moments in
(04:10):
their careers. That for me, I enjoy that that aspect
of my job.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Well, Christian Javier got the start for you, what did
you see from him out there? Of course, settling in
after that two run shot from Brugman and just conversations
with him after about how he's feeling good.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I was, you know, again, another another player who has work.
He's way back. I thought his stuff was really good.
Aside from that too run home run, I thought he's stuff.
You know, we saw his fastball to ninety four, ninety five.
He had the hop that we we know when Javier
is healthy. That that's the movement that we looking on
(04:46):
his fastball. He's breaking ball through some good one his
change it was okay, like we we we're going to
work through those things. But he looked healthy. He looked
like he came ready to compete and moving forward. I
felt really good aware Haveavier's at right now.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So these guys go through these rehab appearances down in
the minor leagues and they don't necessarily go deep into
games three and two thirds, maybe four, maybe seventy pitches.
So when you sent Christian Javier out there, you don't
know what expects, how much to expect from him, or
did you guys kind of have a game plan to say, Hey,
I'm gonna watch you through the first fifteen.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
We can try to get you to seventy five.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Take us through what that is like taking the guy
that hasn't seen major league competition and then asking him
to go beyond what you expect from.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
A starter when it comes to number of pitches thrown.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
No, you're right, And another thing is, like you mentioned earlier, earlier,
it felt like LCS game. That's also another thing that
you had to take in consideration. There was a lot
of stuff going on in our ballpark yesterday, the energy,
the Korea coming back, the Bregman there, the you know
you're as xavier as an individual getting back on the
mound after missing the whole entire season. All those emotions
(05:59):
play in your performance. So you know he's pitching into
play the lights as they're not as bright as in
the major league game. We're in a pennant race. I'm
looking closely to see how we react and how he
acts from you know, doing that, not only the pitch count,
but I'm also looking at his effort, how he's breathing
in between innings, my conversations within, how you feel, how
(06:19):
he's handling the hole. There's a lot of stuff that
goes on that goes into my evaluation of his performance
on that day.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
You're about to hit.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
A slippery slope because you've got forty or so games left,
give or take, and then you've got a one game lead,
You've got just a few days off, you've got some
stretches of games coming up where you'll play ten in
a row or thirteen in a row, something like that,
and you're custom to that. How do you feel like
you're going to balance off time with damn. We need
to win this game coming up, and I need my
full line up and there as often as possible.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, and you know, I think I think I will
use my DH, the DH spot to get those guys
off their feet. Also, well, I start I will start
asking these guys to show up to the ballparks a
little bit later and trying to make sure that we
sleep in, we recover and do all that kind of stuff. Uh,
(07:13):
you know, we we do have forty games left. We
do have some guys that are getting closed coming back,
so that's also can help give some of these guys
a breather. And but it's you know, that's another thing
I need to watch closely. We if we're going to
be in a position to make uh push you at
the end, we need these guys to be in a
(07:34):
good spot physically as shows.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Manager Joe Spotto was here on a Sports Talk seven
ninety Spencer Raghetti throwing for you again, how do you
assess where he is now and where what he needs
to do tonight? Little bit of bad luck in his
last start. He also did get the sixteen whists, but
the four in field hits, but also did get hit hard.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yeah, and you know, and I think I think, you know,
I expect him to be much better today. You know,
you know, commanding his pitches, getting to the lanes that
he needs to get to to get some swinging misses,
to get some quicker out.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
This is the line is the rest up the lineup.
You have to pitch ahead in the account. You can't
fall behind these guys. They go grind the bats that
put the ball in play. They hate balls hard. You
know that. I expect them just to have a couple
of lefties in there today. So you got to be
on top of your game. You got to have confidence
on your pitches, on your game planning, and being able
to throw your pitches in different counts for strikes and
(08:31):
expand when you have to. You know, I've seen a
Spencer throw the ball really well against these guys last
year in Fenway. I remember that start, and I know
he cannot. I know he can go back there and
do it again.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Speaking of starting pitching, Jason Alexander was brilliant for you
over the weekend. Look, when you're on the CUSP major leaguer,
sometimes battling between Triple A and Major leagues, you got
to just take whatever role you're given.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
But has he done enough.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
In your mind to say, all right, let's get that
arm ready for every fifth day is compared to bouncing
back between middle relief and starting.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
You know what, I think he's done well enough to
get an opportunity for our next start. You know, things
changes every single day. Like you mentioned, we're going to
have a long stretch of games here coming up after Thursday,
so we might need to change some things up just
to keep everyone fresh, to keep everyone uh, you know strong.
We do have some some some guys really close to
(09:26):
coming back from starters, really you know, close to coming back,
so those guys will also play effector and in in
in our in our push.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
All right to let you run again, let's read it.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
So, do you feel like when you get to the
ballpark today you'll get a better feel of Josh or
what have the officiaians told you in terms of how
long is going to take for them to evaluate what
was causing this.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Sore on us?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yeah, so we we're going to do more testing, uh
this afternoon, so you know, by by two three o'clock,
hopefully I have uh, you know, a better diagnosis of
what you know, what what the discomfort. Uh is so yeah,
I'm just I'm here right now. So you know, hopefully
we get some some good news. You know, you don't
(10:05):
you don't wanna ever want to hear one of your pictures,
you know, shoulder elbow like you mentioned, right, But but
hopefully we we we get to speak to the doctors
and we get some some good news.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
I'll say this, Skip and you know this a bray
who's been nails for you this year. You've got four
saves out of Bennett's sussa I mean of anything. And look,
nobody wants to lose Josh hater, but it's you've got
some great lieutenants that are ready to help out if necessary.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yes, yes, And I think yesterday was a perfect example.
Hands on deck. You know I'm gonna I'm gonna be
using everyone at different times, doing the game, different pockets, right,
these lefties, and don't be ready. These guys they understand
where we at right now in this season and and
and they know they need to pick Josh up.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Thanks for the visitors always, and hope you get some
good news out of Josh. We appreciate the time as always. Ah, right, guys, Thanks,
We'll see you Joe spottle with us here on Sports
Talk seven and
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