August 19, 2025 • 10 mins
Joe Espada: This Is Just Baseball, Sometimes Its About Who Wants It More
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Skip.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
How are things.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm doing well? Guys here Detroit raining right now, hopefully
clear is up for for game time.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey, my partner here, Ross is going to do the
postgame calling show. Let's pray for a three hour rain delay.
What do you say?
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Oh, come on man.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
No no, no, no, no, no, no, we you know we we
need this game to start on time. It looks like
you're going to be clear for for game time. But
right now, yeah, it's pretty well outside.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
All right, Well, thank you for the weather update. Update
on your squad. Look, you can move the line up around.
You could move guys in and out. You've tried, You've
in combination of things. Do you want to chalk this
up to dog days of summer? Is this a team
wide funk? Where are you right now? As you've seen
your team unfortunately not be competitive the last couple of days.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
This is this is baseball, man, I is August. It's
late grinding through things. You know, the guys are are grinding.
They they're preparing himself very well. Now when it's time
when the game starts, he's taking us. We're having difficulty
executing our game plan, which is which is part of
(01:13):
the game. This is what happens in a long season. Now,
our job is to walk in every day with a
winning attitude. You know, we we're going to do whatever
it takes to put ourselves in the best position to
win today and not talk about yesterday. You know, today's
a new day and we got we got you know,
we got Hunter on the mound. We're going to prepare
(01:34):
ourselves to put a height against Google.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I want to ask this. I know that Jeremy was
kind of feeling it this weekend. I know that you
had to leave Christian Hobvier off the mound early the
game on Sunday. Is there any sort of sickness going
to the team right now or is just a couple
of remote guys.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
You know, just just a couple of remote guys. I
think it. You know, we there's been like a like
a bug around and some of these guys were you know,
they're under the weather a little bit. But that's part
when you are, you know, at home with your family
and your kids, and you know, that's how I consider
our club house is a family, and we are around each
other all the time. So some of these stuff is
(02:12):
going to spread around. But right now, you know, things
are the guys are feeling better, and those guys that
had the little we're not feeling well, they're starting to
feel better.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
You know, no one's going to ever question it. They do.
They're ridiculous about the game plan, the approach going in.
But when the game gets going, are there things I like,
maybe taking a pitch, not taking a pitch, trying to
go the other way, not go the other way? Are
there little intricacies that maybe you're not seeing right now
from this team that maybe you saw earlier in the year,
(02:43):
Or am I just trying to get really micro on
this trying to figure out why the team is struggling
offensively these days?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
You know what, at the end of the day, you
have a game plan and sometimes it comes down to
the fundamentals of the game. Sometimes it comes down to fighting,
grinding in a bat, doing what it takes. You know,
when you get too strikes, hits ball the other way,
you know, it's a you know, making the starter, you know, work,
let me take a few more pitches. You know, sometimes
(03:10):
you've got to do things that are uncomfortable to become comfortable.
So we're trying to do those things. We do it,
We've been doing it lately the last couple of games
we have not it has not work out our way,
and sometimes it's about fighting. Sometimes it's about who wants
it more than the other team. You know, that's the
(03:30):
message that we always continue to preach our guys that
sometimes when things get tough, you got to be tougher,
you have to fight, and you know the fights in there.
It just things haven't gone our way the last the
last two or three games.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
You mentioned maybe taking some more pitches as far as
an approach, and we kind of talked about when Estak
Paradus went down that that was a big piece of
the lineup that was missing. But what exactly what does
that mean? Like in practice, you just talk to guys
because you want guys to stay within themselves but may
be more patient. But also if the guys out there
throwing strikes, you can't just sit there and take pitches correct.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
But you know, another thing is you know they're not
always going to throw strikes. That's the part of the
game that yes, the guy's throwing strikes, but once they're
head in the account, they're just not going to continue
to throw the ball in the box. So us recognizing
is where they go with their Mythus, what pitches do
they want us to chase when they're ahead? And if
we are overly aggressive. Now we see pitches that we
(04:29):
normally don't swing at, Pitches are on the edges that
we usually take. We're chasing because because we find ourselves
on our heels. And so that's the balance when it
comes to having an approach. You know, we know we
have the tendencies of the pitchers, we have faces pitchers
in the past. Now is us staying within ourselves, not
(04:50):
trying to do too much, trust to plan and fight
through our back and and that's that's what leads you
to good offensive games like we saw in that series
against the Yankees against the Red Sox in Miami where
we grind it and we got the starters out of
the game in four or five innings. And we need
to kind of go back to that. And we saw
some of that, yes, Eb Flairty where he was high
(05:12):
pitchcounts to three or four innings and and and we
were we were right there and then things just got
out of just got out of our hands.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Astro's manager Joe Spotta was here on a Sports Talk
seven ninety What did you see that you liked from
Spencer Arraghetty yesterday, and what does he need to improve on?
Speaker 1 (05:30):
You know what I think the last you know, every
start he's gotten, he's gotten better. He stuff's gotten better, Yester.
The first two innings it was a ton of strike,
sweeper fastball, uh some through some really good changes against
some lefties. So so you started seeing the signs of uh.
The Spencer that we've seen in the past now is
once you get into the middle, middle of the game
(05:52):
and you start building up the pitch counts seven, you know,
the sixty seventy pitches, keeping the quality of pitches going,
you know, limiting the walks. You know they're falling behind hitters.
That's when hitters kind of capitalize the same way we
do against our opponents, when we start seeing the pitch
coown go up, our bats get better. He's got to
be able to you know, finish some of those get
(06:12):
some of those hitters up. Joe.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I've tried to avoid getting into a deep injury conversation
with you because it's been a broken record unfortunately, and
I want to talk about one player we've not talked
about a lot. It's going to be playing today for
the Corpus Christy Hooks and that's Jordan Alvarez. Yep, can
you definitively and maybe there's not a definitive answer to it.
What do you want to see? What is the game
plan from an organizational standpoint to say, Okay, all this
(06:38):
time away, the rehab, going down to West Palm, it's
all paid off. He's coming up here. He's gonna play
for you. You're gonna put him in the heart of
your lineup and hopefully he stay as healthy the rest
of the season.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Yeah, you know what. For me, to be honest, I
really not looking out the outcome of the game, like
performance wise, you know, I'm not looking for him to
go there and get three or four hits today. I
just want what's what comes after the game, how he
feels postgame, and how he feels tomorrow morning. If he
(07:10):
feels good and he's able to play tomorrow Wednesday, I'm
feeling great. So for me, I'm not really looking at
how many a bass equality of a bath You're done
is a great hitter? All I want to hear that
Joey felt good, I'm ready to go tomorrow, and then
we could continue to move forward and building building him
(07:32):
up to get him back at some point.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Do you want him in the outfield at all during
this time down there or does that come when he
comes to see you.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
You know, we one day at a time. Right now,
he's going to DH and we are focusing on just
trying to get as many as at bats we can.
You know, if we put him in the outfield, which
we probably would during this rehab, the problem with that
will be if we you know, he has him play
on the field for a few months. So if he's
(08:02):
six innings and he needs to come out of the
game because of the length of the game, he could
miss out on a few of bats, and I want
him just to try to get as many as a
beast as possible. And the best way to do this
is you're dhing. You lead him off and just let
them control the volume of swings and the volume of
the game as he goes in that DH spot. If
(08:22):
he feels good and we could get him in the outfield,
let's go for it. But right now DH, let's try
to get as many as the bats as possible. Want
to make sure that he feels good postgame and tomorrow morning,
a couple.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
More minutes here with Joe spot It from Detroit Astros
and Tigers here tonight on Sports Talk seven to ninety.
You lost Josh Hater for the regular season. You've got
Brian braw now as your closer.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
To me.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
The indirect effect of that is, I think Brian Brow's
got closer stuff. He could probably close for ninety percent
of the teams around baseball. You're now going to be
asking some guys that were your fifth sixth inning, midleverage
guys to be in some higher spots. And I think
right now you're kind of thirsty to find that guy
that wants to take that seventh inning from anybody in
this Astros bullpen.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And we've had guys that have shown capabilities of doing that.
But you're right, you know they they're going to be
exposed to more of those big moments the next six weeks,
and I know that they're capable of doing that. They
have shown the toughness and the ability to do it,
you know. But it's different now when we get to
(09:28):
August September, right the stage becomes much larger, and now
it's us helping them manage that volume, those big innings,
those big moments, because we know that they have this
stuff is the toughness to do it. It's just making
sure that they know how to do it day in
day out.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
The chas McCormick making his bid, is he telling you
he wants to close it games out?
Speaker 1 (09:54):
You know? I I kicked my hat to chast because
he understand them the situation that we've been the two
days for sure, And as a professional man, he's he's
a Joe, I understand, I get it. I go out
there and do it. You know, he's not a pitcher,
uh and we'll know that, but he's a team he's
a team player. That's a class act what he's doing.
(10:15):
And I have a lot of respect for him for
doing what you know, what he's done the last the
last few days.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
And hopefully you never have to see him anymore this
season on the mound, to be honest with you, Skip,
that would be great. Thanks Joe for the time as always.
All right, guys, you'll see Joe spotted with us from
Detroit
Skip.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
How are things.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm doing well? Guys here Detroit raining right now, hopefully
clear is up for for game time.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey, my partner here, Ross is going to do the
postgame calling show. Let's pray for a three hour rain delay.
What do you say?
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Oh, come on man.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
No no, no, no, no, no, no, we you know we we
need this game to start on time. It looks like
you're going to be clear for for game time. But
right now, yeah, it's pretty well outside.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
All right, Well, thank you for the weather update. Update
on your squad. Look, you can move the line up around.
You could move guys in and out. You've tried, You've
in combination of things. Do you want to chalk this
up to dog days of summer? Is this a team
wide funk? Where are you right now? As you've seen
your team unfortunately not be competitive the last couple of days.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
This is this is baseball, man, I is August. It's
late grinding through things. You know, the guys are are grinding.
They they're preparing himself very well. Now when it's time
when the game starts, he's taking us. We're having difficulty
executing our game plan, which is which is part of
(01:13):
the game. This is what happens in a long season. Now,
our job is to walk in every day with a
winning attitude. You know, we we're going to do whatever
it takes to put ourselves in the best position to
win today and not talk about yesterday. You know, today's
a new day and we got we got you know,
we got Hunter on the mound. We're going to prepare
(01:34):
ourselves to put a height against Google.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I want to ask this. I know that Jeremy was
kind of feeling it this weekend. I know that you
had to leave Christian Hobvier off the mound early the
game on Sunday. Is there any sort of sickness going
to the team right now or is just a couple
of remote guys.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
You know, just just a couple of remote guys. I
think it. You know, we there's been like a like
a bug around and some of these guys were you know,
they're under the weather a little bit. But that's part
when you are, you know, at home with your family
and your kids, and you know, that's how I consider
our club house is a family, and we are around each
other all the time. So some of these stuff is
(02:12):
going to spread around. But right now, you know, things
are the guys are feeling better, and those guys that
had the little we're not feeling well, they're starting to
feel better.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
You know, no one's going to ever question it. They do.
They're ridiculous about the game plan, the approach going in.
But when the game gets going, are there things I like,
maybe taking a pitch, not taking a pitch, trying to
go the other way, not go the other way? Are
there little intricacies that maybe you're not seeing right now
from this team that maybe you saw earlier in the year,
(02:43):
Or am I just trying to get really micro on
this trying to figure out why the team is struggling
offensively these days?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
You know what, at the end of the day, you
have a game plan and sometimes it comes down to
the fundamentals of the game. Sometimes it comes down to fighting,
grinding in a bat, doing what it takes. You know,
when you get too strikes, hits ball the other way,
you know, it's a you know, making the starter, you know, work,
let me take a few more pitches. You know, sometimes
(03:10):
you've got to do things that are uncomfortable to become comfortable.
So we're trying to do those things. We do it,
We've been doing it lately the last couple of games
we have not it has not work out our way,
and sometimes it's about fighting. Sometimes it's about who wants
it more than the other team. You know, that's the
(03:30):
message that we always continue to preach our guys that
sometimes when things get tough, you got to be tougher,
you have to fight, and you know the fights in there.
It just things haven't gone our way the last the
last two or three games.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
You mentioned maybe taking some more pitches as far as
an approach, and we kind of talked about when Estak
Paradus went down that that was a big piece of
the lineup that was missing. But what exactly what does
that mean? Like in practice, you just talk to guys
because you want guys to stay within themselves but may
be more patient. But also if the guys out there
throwing strikes, you can't just sit there and take pitches correct.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
But you know, another thing is you know they're not
always going to throw strikes. That's the part of the
game that yes, the guy's throwing strikes, but once they're
head in the account, they're just not going to continue
to throw the ball in the box. So us recognizing
is where they go with their Mythus, what pitches do
they want us to chase when they're ahead? And if
we are overly aggressive. Now we see pitches that we
(04:29):
normally don't swing at, Pitches are on the edges that
we usually take. We're chasing because because we find ourselves
on our heels. And so that's the balance when it
comes to having an approach. You know, we know we
have the tendencies of the pitchers, we have faces pitchers
in the past. Now is us staying within ourselves, not
(04:50):
trying to do too much, trust to plan and fight
through our back and and that's that's what leads you
to good offensive games like we saw in that series
against the Yankees against the Red Sox in Miami where
we grind it and we got the starters out of
the game in four or five innings. And we need
to kind of go back to that. And we saw
some of that, yes, Eb Flairty where he was high
(05:12):
pitchcounts to three or four innings and and and we
were we were right there and then things just got
out of just got out of our hands.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Astro's manager Joe Spotta was here on a Sports Talk
seven ninety What did you see that you liked from
Spencer Arraghetty yesterday, and what does he need to improve on?
Speaker 1 (05:30):
You know what I think the last you know, every
start he's gotten, he's gotten better. He stuff's gotten better, Yester.
The first two innings it was a ton of strike,
sweeper fastball, uh some through some really good changes against
some lefties. So so you started seeing the signs of uh.
The Spencer that we've seen in the past now is
once you get into the middle, middle of the game
(05:52):
and you start building up the pitch counts seven, you know,
the sixty seventy pitches, keeping the quality of pitches going,
you know, limiting the walks. You know they're falling behind hitters.
That's when hitters kind of capitalize the same way we
do against our opponents, when we start seeing the pitch
coown go up, our bats get better. He's got to
be able to you know, finish some of those get
(06:12):
some of those hitters up. Joe.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I've tried to avoid getting into a deep injury conversation
with you because it's been a broken record unfortunately, and
I want to talk about one player we've not talked
about a lot. It's going to be playing today for
the Corpus Christy Hooks and that's Jordan Alvarez. Yep, can
you definitively and maybe there's not a definitive answer to it.
What do you want to see? What is the game
plan from an organizational standpoint to say, Okay, all this
(06:38):
time away, the rehab, going down to West Palm, it's
all paid off. He's coming up here. He's gonna play
for you. You're gonna put him in the heart of
your lineup and hopefully he stay as healthy the rest
of the season.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Yeah, you know what. For me, to be honest, I
really not looking out the outcome of the game, like
performance wise, you know, I'm not looking for him to
go there and get three or four hits today. I
just want what's what comes after the game, how he
feels postgame, and how he feels tomorrow morning. If he
(07:10):
feels good and he's able to play tomorrow Wednesday, I'm
feeling great. So for me, I'm not really looking at
how many a bass equality of a bath You're done
is a great hitter? All I want to hear that
Joey felt good, I'm ready to go tomorrow, and then
we could continue to move forward and building building him
(07:32):
up to get him back at some point.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Do you want him in the outfield at all during
this time down there or does that come when he
comes to see you.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
You know, we one day at a time. Right now,
he's going to DH and we are focusing on just
trying to get as many as at bats we can.
You know, if we put him in the outfield, which
we probably would during this rehab, the problem with that
will be if we you know, he has him play
on the field for a few months. So if he's
(08:02):
six innings and he needs to come out of the
game because of the length of the game, he could
miss out on a few of bats, and I want
him just to try to get as many as a
beast as possible. And the best way to do this
is you're dhing. You lead him off and just let
them control the volume of swings and the volume of
the game as he goes in that DH spot. If
(08:22):
he feels good and we could get him in the outfield,
let's go for it. But right now DH, let's try
to get as many as the bats as possible. Want
to make sure that he feels good postgame and tomorrow morning,
a couple.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
More minutes here with Joe spot It from Detroit Astros
and Tigers here tonight on Sports Talk seven to ninety.
You lost Josh Hater for the regular season. You've got
Brian braw now as your closer.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
To me.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
The indirect effect of that is, I think Brian Brow's
got closer stuff. He could probably close for ninety percent
of the teams around baseball. You're now going to be
asking some guys that were your fifth sixth inning, midleverage
guys to be in some higher spots. And I think
right now you're kind of thirsty to find that guy
that wants to take that seventh inning from anybody in
this Astros bullpen.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And we've had guys that have shown capabilities of doing that.
But you're right, you know they they're going to be
exposed to more of those big moments the next six weeks,
and I know that they're capable of doing that. They
have shown the toughness and the ability to do it,
you know. But it's different now when we get to
(09:28):
August September, right the stage becomes much larger, and now
it's us helping them manage that volume, those big innings,
those big moments, because we know that they have this
stuff is the toughness to do it. It's just making
sure that they know how to do it day in
day out.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
The chas McCormick making his bid, is he telling you
he wants to close it games out?
Speaker 1 (09:54):
You know? I I kicked my hat to chast because
he understand them the situation that we've been the two
days for sure, And as a professional man, he's he's
a Joe, I understand, I get it. I go out
there and do it. You know, he's not a pitcher,
uh and we'll know that, but he's a team he's
a team player. That's a class act what he's doing.
(10:15):
And I have a lot of respect for him for
doing what you know, what he's done the last the
last few days.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
And hopefully you never have to see him anymore this
season on the mound, to be honest with you, Skip,
that would be great. Thanks Joe for the time as always.
All right, guys, you'll see Joe spotted with us from
Detroit
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