Episode Transcript
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The Shawn Salisbury Show continues on sevenninety and continues in your home. Say
Alexa, play Sports Talk seven ninetyon iHeartRadio. Fucking back with the Shawn
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Salisbury Show here on Sports Talks seveniinety Sean Bryan, Triple Lee. So
welcome in astros broadcaster Steve Sparks ofthe show. Yeah, our weekly Monday
eight thirty visit on the road.He's in New York. Day off today.
I don't know if it's the dayoff for them. Was they prepare
every day? But then the serieskicks in tomorrow and Steve, welcome in
Astro's broadcaster again for this weekly visit. Steve, let me get to the
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psychological side or the presence of likeYankee Stadium. You played and know about
all that, and I know it'snot the original Yankee Stadium, But does
it play a psychological factor good orbad for a team on the road.
Does it have a presence about itstill that would get somebody like Spencer Arraghetti
jacked up or overwhelmed or anybody.Is it different going in there for a
game like this in a series?You know it certainly could He's somebody for
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like aarraganty who has ever pitched therebefore, and probably gets a little jacked
up thinking about it for a coupleof days before he makes that start.
It could have an effect on him, you know, good or bad.
I'm not really sure on the typeof pitcher he is. Does he rely
on adrenaline or not? And Ithink he does. You know, he
goes through the swing and miss,so you know, if he can contain
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his emotions just a little bit,I think he can help him. And
certainly these guys, you know,Mexico worked out well for the Astros.
Maybe a diversion after that brutal seriesat Wrigley Field, a heartbreaker against Seattle.
I mean, losing so many gamesthat they should have won is tough.
So coming to Yankee Stadium, maybetaking your mind off what's happened in
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the past series, because that crowdin that state forces you to be at
the top of your game to winball games, might help them in the
long run. So we'll see theman just losing so many games that they
should have won. They should onlybe a couple of games out of first
place, and it makes it tough, Steve, how hard is it?
And you were around them every dayand about the current team, we know
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their confidence. You've mentioned that,the way they've been in the past,
and when you were a player,when you lose like they did against Seattle,
you know, getting three hit onSaturday and then losing on Sunday and
the way they did. How hardis it for professional athletes to get over
that. I know we all say, oh, you got to get over
it quickly and throw away the rearview mirror, but it's really not that
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easy. And knowing that the fansare not used to seeing this the last
seven or eight years, and theplayers know this, how hard is it
to get back into and not presstoo hard and find that medium of I'm
going to play my ass off,but I'm not going to press. Where's
that fine line? You know?I take it as a starting pitcher.
I was a starting pitcher for mostof my career, So take it like
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that. Is like you might havea bad game and for a day,
you know, you're working out andyou're doing your stuff. Second day,
you're throwing your bullpen. You startto feel a little bit better about maybe
some of the adjustments you're making.A fourth day, fifth day, you
get to the start and you feelpretty good until the first inning. You
know, it's almost like that MikeTyson line. As soon as somebody touches
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you in the face, everything goesout the window and you start to have
those feelings again. So I wouldsay, I would say if the Astros
got to the seventh or eighth inningand you walk the guy, another guy
got a a crappy hit, saya blue pit, it's human nature to
go, oh my gosh, herewe go again, and then try to
do too much. Then you tryto do too much, and then it
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gets sideways again. And I thinkthat's kind of where you are right now
with this Astros team is they've lostso many different ways. You know,
that back end was supposed to bethe clant down. They were supposed to
win all those games, you know, if they had the league, you
know, after six innings. SoI think right now that's where they are.
I think it's what's going to happennow. I think that's where they
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are right now. I mean,I know they have a lot of professionals.
You know, you feel good aboutyour swing and then then you line
one out to the third baseman andyou start saying, what else do I
gotta do? You know, justlittle things like that just keep creeping in
your mind and making things a littleharder. And when you start to try
to do a little bit too muchcollectively, you see you see a lot
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of different losses. See Sparks Astrosbroadcaster joins us for his weekly visit here
on Sports Talk seven ninety. AllRight, Steve, come out of that
Mariner series and tell me what whenyou come out of that series. I
know the losses, but find methe good stuff. Point to some stuff
that I should be that the fansshould be excited about coming out of that
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series. For the fans, yeah, not a lot. I mean,
I mean you get a little excitedabout Singleton. You know, how long
can this sustaining? And you're happyfor him. It's a great story.
Things like that, and you seelittle little pieces in your root for guys
to try to get better. RightBut right now, Sean and I've been
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in a situation like this. There'sno worse situation as a player or even
a fan base to have high expectationsand to not fulfill those expectations. You
know, because it's such a longseason, coming to the ballpark every day
is man, this is going tobe a major fight to even get back
to five hundred, and then toeven do that, and you know that's
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probably going to take another fifty gamesor sixty games of emptying the tank and
using your leverage relievers in games thatare tied or you're behind by one or
two, then everybody's going to begased. So this is going to be
I mean, you've got to threadthe needle to make this work the way
things are now, and when yougo around, you start looking, you
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know, coming out of that Seattleseries, how can you not look at
the Seattle Mariners and not understand thatthey're starting pitchers or are going to be
a handful. I mean, theyare going to make things on everybody.
Yeah, it's they're so good andthey finally got that right. You know,
they had a lot of guys thatwere contact guys for you know,
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Flexen and Marco Gonzalez and those guysin their rotation for a while when they
thought that they were going to becontenders. But those guys just couldn't strike
anybody out or this really didn't overwhelmme. And they gave up four runs
in five and a third. So, uh, it's going to be difficult,
you know, I think just winningball games, winning series, that's
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the right approach. You know,it's all cliche once you start listening to
these guys talk about that, Butthat's the only way they're going to dig
themselves out. They can't try towin four games every night. You know,
they just got to take it pitchby pitch, and you know,
those games that they're supposed to win, they got they got to figure out
a way to execute. Steve,I've got to get asked this from fans,
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and so I'm gonna ask you this, and you we've probably we've discussed
in the past. I don't knowwhat the answer is for. You know,
when guys are like Al two,they start out having a great season,
we it's not too early for usto say he could be having one
of those MVP seasons. It's nottoo early for us to say that.
On the good side. Yeah,when it comes on the bad side,
we all are, well, it'searly, it's early. So when it
when When is it okay to saythat there's some things that are that are
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a trend, that aren't good,that aren't going to be easy to overcome.
When when when is that threshold thatallows there were people I mean,
people can have an opinion they want. But where we start to see trends
that say maybe this is who theyare this year, that it's going to
be a grind regardless, are wethere yet? Well, I don't.
I don't think anybody really believes thisis who the are agreed, agreed,
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h but they But the fact ofthe matter that they've gotten off to this
brutal start and it's going to bebrutal to get out of it. It's
going to be very tough, andyou've got to stay really healthy. And
they are getting healthier, which iswhich is good. And teams may not
stay as healthy as they are rightnow. You know, you can look
at a lot of the teams thathave gotten off to good starts and they've
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probably have been pretty healthy, butthey may not stay healthy. And it's
a long season. We've talked aboutthat that anything can happen as far as
health goes in. A team thatmay look great right now in a couple
of months may may may not lookvery good. You know, it might
be a pretty easy sweep at somepoint if you're facing two or three triple
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A guys in the rotation at thatpoint. So things can change, But
I just know I don't feel likethis is who the Astros are, and
I think that's what makes things frustratingfor us, you know, as fans
and in whoever else is in anorganization. You expected this team to get
off to a good start and contend, contend for the division, and their
talent gives you hope to know thatthey can come out of this or believe
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they can. Right Steve that that'skind of what you hang on right now,
right, You're right, you knowthey can, they can do this.
And here's one thing you start tolook at who's struggling the most.
Well, you could probably say theback end of the bullpen, the guys
that are probably counted on in theseventh, eighth, and nights. And
that's what we talked about even beforespring training. That was one of the
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things that you talked about with otherbroadcasters. What are the Astros this year?
Well, they're probably a good sixinning team and they feel like they
should win those games in the backthird because of who they have in those
ends, because of their past andwhat they've done in the past. But
you know, they don't look thesame right now, and sometimes mentally or
physically or whatever it is. Thingschange from year to year. But I'll
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say this, they're really good andwe've seen them really good in the past,
so there's no reason not to thinkif they're not hurt that they'll get
it back. They'll figure it outand they'll get on some type of role.
So but they better get it donepretty soon. You know. They
better figure this thing out pretty quickly, no doubt. And Steve leave you
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with this. On the baseball partof it, Hunter Brown, we've talked
about his electric stuff, but theability to come out of that clubhouse and
out of that bullpen to start agame. Do you need a routine change?
I mean we all have our ocdabout how we prepared for games.
I mean I did, and I'msure you did, how we dressed,
what we ate, how many pitchesyou threw, What's going to get him
dialed in to start faster? Well, a routine change does help. Yeah.
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Sometimes. Here here's a little trickis that you can warm up,
do all your stuff, and thensimulate an inning sit down, and then
simulate another inning sit down and thencome into the ball game. Good point.
You know, try to create stuff, right, Steve, You try
to create you try to try tocreate some things that you've already been out
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there, so you're you almost feellike you're going out and it's the third
inning. You've already pitched through thefirst two. Correct, that's how you're
thinking about one thing you don't wantto do. When you're warming up before
a ball game, it's just sopitch after pitch after pitch after pitch,
because that's not the way the gamegoes. To get into the rhythm of
the game, you gotta rest fora few minutes every once in a while
and then pick it back up becausethat's the only way you can get into
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the rhythm of a game. SoI don't know if those guys are doing
that or if they know those thoselittle tricks to do, and I'm sure
I'm sure they do. There's enoughguts people around to help guys with things
like that. But there's different routinesthat you can do to help stimulate,
you know, what's going on inthe game, Like, Okay, here
I'm facing Stephen Kwan and we'll gocount. So you know, you catchers
call them signals and you're going throughit and then you face him and then
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you go into the stretch, sayhe gets on base and you get a
double play. You just work itout and try to figure things out.
But here's the thing for me withHunter Arraghetti, some of these guys,
all the swing and miss stuff isreally good. But how deep into the
ballgame are you going to get tryingto trying to get a guy swing and
miss on every pitch, and ifeverything's you know, if you've seen a
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lot of foul balls and all theysee. The only thing I'm saying is
every once in a while, alittle slower and a little bit lower it
is good to get an early out, or if you fall behind the count,
not kind to throw your best slider. You know, it just takes
something off of something else. Butyou know, being able to land some
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stuff in the lower rail is agood thing. You know, all the
stuff at the top rail with maximumeffort gets a lot of foul balls and
a high pitch counp And if you'retrying to get ten thirteen outs a game
out of your bullpen, you'll nevermake up the games that you've already lost.
Man, you've got to start gettingdeeper into these ballgates to take care
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of those relievers so they can bemore fresh for everybody. Hey man,
low and slow helps my golf gametoo, Steve True, I'm being serious
about that and tech Honest to god, it does, it does, and
my game needs it. So aswe go, what do you like on
a day off in New York?Do you still get like pumped when you
go to the city? Is ityou love to visit there? What do
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you do on a day off likethis in the city. Well, I'm
going to a Broadway show called sixNice and going out to eat and going
out to eat. Yeah, mywife flew in last night. Oh sweet
awesome. Yeah, so she's herein New York for three days. So
the off day to day we're goingto go see a show and he did
a good one of our favorite restaurantsaround here. We're going there. It's
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pretty close to the Times Square,so uh, see a Broadway show and
do that and then probably walk aroundthe city and just check thinks that's good
weather here right now at the rainowout of here, so we're good.
Then on to the Detroit after this. So it's a blast my old South
and Ground. So this is sixgames, two good teams and two good
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venues to go with and get tospend it with your wife. That's awesome.
I love going to Broadway plays andmusicals and stuff. I love it.
So you'll have a blast man.Enjoy fun. Yep, enjoy Steve.
You deserve it. And now we'lllook forward to talk to you next
week. Brother, have a goodone. Appreciate Sean, thank you.
That's Steve Sparks. That's awesome.And I love love good musical or good
play. That's awesome. The goodwife gets to be with him. It's
sports talk Steven, and come backand discuss what Steve said. Routine change
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sometimes works, and he is spoton Sean Salisbury Show