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The Astros split the first series of the season with the Los Angeles Angels. Payne & Pendergast give their reaction here.
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00:00Now about these Astros, Seth, how's your feel?
00:03We'll get into the good and the bad here.
00:05Just what's your gut four games in here?
00:08No, my gut, honestly, I'm not even saying this sarcastically.
00:12The starting pitching was atrocious with some good things,
00:17but they've got a 7-plus ERA amongst the starters, and they're 2-2.
00:24They've scored a boatload of runs, a little bit in like last year's fashion
00:28where it all comes in one or two innings, which is concerning.
00:31No home runs.
00:32How about that?
00:32Yeah.
00:33Well, and then the biggest one, and I'm glad Chandler Roan pointed this out,
00:37El Tube's walked five times already, and it took him 80-plus plate appearances.
00:4392 plate appearances.
00:4592 plate appearances before he had five walks last year.
00:48So, I mean, it was ugly.
00:50The pitching obviously isn't dialed in at all.
00:55Hunter Brown had a good performance and yet just didn't have the control.
00:59Hunter Brown, as you would expect, is just the guy that didn't quite look like himself,
01:03but okay, that looks very much like getting into the flow of the season.
01:07He's just got to reel some things in.
01:09Had a bunch of strikeouts.
01:11Like, he still looks like his dominant self, just needs a little refinement.
01:13Okay, let's do that then.
01:14Let's overreact because I think the starting pitching is the story
01:18because I don't feel great about either of the two wins just because it's 11-9 for a couple reasons.
01:24One, it's 11-9, and it's 9-7 against the Angels.
01:28So, yeah, the pitching, especially the starting pitching, wasn't great.
01:30Brian Abreu stunk in both those games, too.
01:32That's an issue.
01:34Brian Abreu gave up a three-run homer on Saturday to make that a game.
01:37He comes in in a five-run game, and I get putting him out there.
01:40He hasn't had any work yet this year, but he comes out there, and next thing you know,
01:44in a five-run game, the tying runs in the on-deck circle against a team that's been
01:48hitting with some pop over the weekend in your ballpark.
01:51So, that's number one.
01:52Then he comes in yesterday, and this is how you know Brian Abreu is not your closer,
01:56is he gets taken out in a close game.
01:59The closer never gets taken out.
02:01You let him go, and you let him work through it.
02:02They had to bring in Brian King to save that game.
02:05I looked at these wins over the weekend against the Angels a lot like I've been looking at
02:10a lot like I look at the Rockets' wins over the Grizzlies and the Pelicans.
02:12I'm like, okay, they won a couple sloppy games against bad teams, and we'll see what
02:18happens when the Red Sox, an actual playoff contender, unlike the Angels, comes to town
02:23this week for the next three.
02:24So, the Red Sox are in town for the next three.
02:26Okay, so let's do this exercise, since I think, as you point out appropriately, the story
02:31for this weekend for the Astros is just how subpar and inefficient, probably a better
02:38word, the starting pitching was.
02:40Concern level over Hunter Brown.
02:41I'm with you.
02:42My concern level, on a scale of one to ten, is a one for Hunter Brown right now.
02:46I think he's fine.
02:47Let's overreact to the other three.
02:50Mike Burroughs.
02:51I'm just going in order.
02:52Mike Burroughs on Friday.
02:54Mike Burroughs, I'm very concerned about.
02:57It's just because this is, again, a guy that's had 20 or 30 appearances in Major League Baseball
03:03and has done some promising things in spring training and in the minors, but at the end
03:08of the day, he's still a guy that you need to see it before you believe in it, and he's
03:14your number two guy right now.
03:15Yeah.
03:15I'm about a three or, I'm like a four or a five on Burroughs, only because he got kind
03:21of Crawford boxed in that game.
03:23Yeah.
03:23Like, they hit a short home run.
03:25There was a double that, you know, Jordan was playing left field, and he jumped, and
03:29it hit off the top of the wall.
03:31Well, and the big thing with Burroughs was he at least almost gave you six innings and
03:3594 pitches.
03:36You know, he at least didn't overtax your bullpen at all.
03:39So, my concern level comes with exactly what you're talking about, which is he's still a
03:43wildly unknown commodity, but his performance, even though he gave up like five runs or whatever,
03:48I'm like, all right, I'm doing the whole thing.
03:50Like, in most ballparks, that's six innings of two runs, probably.
03:54He didn't give up a lot of hard content.
03:56You know, so that's, yeah, without letting the results sway you too much, it wasn't,
04:04it was, you can make a lot of excuses as long as it's just one appearance and we move on.
04:09Yeah, concern level's subjective.
04:11So, subjectively, I'm not overly, overly concerned about Burroughs other than his lack of experience.
04:16All right, Javier.
04:19Javier, I, it's a weird thing.
04:22I'm trying to figure out how I feel about the fact that he induced three double plays.
04:26Because unless this is some sign that he's going to become more of a, of a ground ball
04:31pitcher, that it was, the, it was even worse than it looked.
04:35It's that he got lucky and bailed out by a few, three double plays, which never, it's
04:40probably a personal record for him.
04:41Oh yeah.
04:42100% gotta be right.
04:43He, I mean, he only ever go, you can only have double, you can only have one double play
04:47every inning, right?
04:48So he's, and he only ever goes five innings.
04:51That's gotta be a personal high for him.
04:52I'm, my concern level with Javier is like a nine.
04:55The positive side of that is that the defense was really impressive by Correa, especially
04:58over the weekend.
04:59Yeah.
05:00And Correa, wherever he was playing second, like that was really, really nice.
05:05Yeah.
05:05That wherever he was the, I look at the double plays as complete luck for Javier as guys
05:10a fly ball pitcher.
05:11And he got three double play crowned out.
05:12It's like, it's, I think Javier's a circus.
05:15I think he's a mess.
05:15And I think there's a good chance he might be out of the rotation at some point here.
05:19He's, I mean, if that's what he is against the angels on Saturday, he's not usable.
05:23He, he's, he's, so he, I'm Mike, my concern level is almost maximum on Javier.
05:29What about Javier?
05:30Javier and then E-My, which, uh, which apparently we are supposed to say E-My, not E-My.
05:37Say what?
05:38What are we supposed to say?
05:39E-My, not E-My.
05:41Oh, we're supposed to say, it's E-My.
05:44That's what, uh, somebody said, somebody tweeted at you and me and a bunch of other people giving
05:48us a tutorial on the, uh, corrects.
05:50Until somebody from the Astros corrects me.
05:51I'm just, I got to go and find E-My himself, uh, saying his name.
05:55Cause all of it, everybody on the Astros is saying E-My.
05:57Does it change the number of walks that he had yesterday?
06:00No, no, no.
06:00If we pronounce his name differently?
06:02I, E-My, I give the most latitude to, just because as they discussed heavily on the broadcast
06:07and we did during spring training, there's a lot to adjust to.
06:10Yeah.
06:11From the steepness of the mound to the actual baseball itself.
06:14Yeah.
06:14The, the interesting thing about his appearance yesterday was that the angels were just not
06:19swinging at all to start off.
06:21At all.
06:21And, but I also felt like he was getting some bad calls from the ump.
06:26And the, I, you know, the uniqueness of the shape of his pitches and everything is going
06:32to be interesting to watch how the umps handle it.
06:35And well, meanwhile, Hey, great.
06:37We've got an automated strike zone now, but the Astros are atrocious at challenging the
06:42automated strike zone.
06:43They're really bad at it.
06:44They're real.
06:44They're over six.
06:46Yeah.
06:46Over six.
06:47Yiner, Yiner challenged one that was two inches above the strike zone on Saturday, Friday
06:52or Saturday.
06:53And it was Friday.
06:54It was Friday.
06:55Yeah.
06:55Friday.
06:56Yeah.
06:56And then, and so you think Vasquez should have been challenging it a little bit more yesterday.
07:00Would you?
07:00No, no, I'm not.
07:01I'm giving it time.
07:02I just gotta, I gotta get a more of a feel for how consistent and how good guys are doing
07:08it as a catcher.
07:09Even boy, figuring out the top of the strike zone where you're not just factoring in left
07:16and right and where the base definitely, or the home plate definitely is, but you've
07:20got the vagueness of, okay, exactly.
07:22Where is this anatomically?
07:24That's a, that's a tough one.
07:25Yeah.
07:25It's a tough one.
07:26Um, the, the, to say that they're atrocious at it through the first weekend might be underselling
07:32atrocious.
07:33And I'm talking about, you and I were texting about this on Saturday that, that they had
07:37burned through their challenges by like the fifth inning, the Astros, and that the two
07:42guys who burned the challenges, who by the way, they didn't, I, to my knowledge, I don't
07:47recall a successful challenge by the Astros.
07:50No, they were, they were over six.
07:51They just, oh yeah, that's right.
07:52They were over 60.
07:52You just said that.
07:53Sorry.
07:53Um, so they were over two on Saturday, Jose Altuve and Cam Smith burning through the
08:00challenges.
08:02And I said this, you and I talked about this there.
08:05If I were Joe Espada, there'd be three guys that would have the green, unless the catcher
08:09is lunging to catch a strike that gets called.
08:13Like it's a blatant miss call.
08:14If it's anything that's sort of around the plate, the only three guys that would have
08:19the green light for me on the Astros would be Jordan Alvarez, Carlos Correa, and Isak
08:23Paredes.
08:24That's it.
08:26That's it.
08:27At least until the ninth inning or in a critical moment.
08:30Right.
08:31It's got to be situational.
08:32It can't be early in the game.
08:33I'm talking like in the second and fifth inning when they got used by Altuve and Cam Smith.
08:38Yeah, right.
08:39You can't get to the ninth inning where a guy like Paredes could be up at the plate who actually
08:44knows where the freaking strike zone is.
08:46Yeah.
08:46And he doesn't have any ability to challenge.
08:48Because Altuve and a second year guy burned through him.
08:52Those guys.
08:53Yeah.
08:53At the end of the game yesterday, they had one good challenge and then the Astros.
08:58I know some people listening are saying, oh no, we saw the Astros win some challenges.
09:02Yeah.
09:02They won when the Angels challenged and were unsuccessful.
09:06But the Astros themselves, when they challenged, they didn't get a single one.
09:09Can I just tell you that I was at the game yesterday.
09:13I've got some observations from Dyke and Park a little later in the show for the opening
09:17weekend of baseball.
09:18It was fun.
09:19It's a fun game, obviously.
09:20High scoring, you know, long.
09:22But Trout came up in the first inning and challenged a pitch with two strikes.
09:28Challenged a pitch.
09:29And I'm going to tell you, that moment, that's seven or eight seconds where you're waiting
09:34for it, especially when it's two strikes, it's Mike Trout.
09:41Emai has already walked the first batter of the game.
09:44So it was a 3-2 pitch.
09:46So you're talking the difference between two guys on and nobody out with the heart of the
09:51order coming up versus one out, one on, and you just got through one of the best players
09:56of the last 15 years.
09:57I'm going to tell you, that seven seconds of waiting for that jumbotron to show you
10:02whether that was a ball or a strike.
10:04Yeah.
10:04That was some suspense for game four of the regular season in the first inning of a baseball
10:09game.
10:09It's Mike Trout.
10:11It's 3-2.
10:12It's Emai.
10:12His first start ever.
10:14I felt it, man.
10:15I don't know if you were at the game.
10:16If people were at the game and felt the same way.
10:18That was an early tense moment.
10:20I liked it.
10:20That was largely the take on the entire weekend was that, man, the automated strike zone and
10:27the way they're doing it is a huge hit with the crowd.
10:29Huge.
10:30The home, and it's really fun for the home crowd, obviously, when it gets overturned
10:35in your favor or upheld in your favor, it's a triumphant moment.
10:39Yeah.
10:39The really fun part for me is when people still boo, even when science weighs in and goes
10:46against the home team.
10:47Well, I like, but it's a fun boo, you know, it's like, ah, crap.
10:51How about the, God, the manager of which team?
10:53I can't remember.
10:54It was the, I can't remember the manager of which team it was this weekend, but he comes
10:58out and he starts arguing with the umpire over the ABS system.
11:01And the announcers were hilarious because it's like, he can't do this.
11:05What is he doing?
11:05You're not, you're literally not allowed to argue.
11:08Like the computer is the final word.
11:10If you argue, it's an automatic ejection.
11:12If you argue, there was even, well, there was the one Thursday night with the Astros
11:15when they, uh, like the, the monitor just wasn't showing when the call went in favor
11:21of the angels, but somebody from the angels came out to talk to the hump about it afterwards.
11:27And then the, the big one, the one that was viral this week one was the CB Buckner, the
11:33umpire, who's not a very good umpire, a guy who got shut down twice in a row.
11:38He got challenged twice in a row and, uh, people were, people were very excited.
11:43That's the part that'll be interesting to see play out.
11:45Cause the umpires, the baseball and sports, I think in general hate having their officials
11:50exposed to the incompetence level that they have.
11:54And that's this system puts that all on display.
11:57It puts it on display.
11:59And I mean, it also holds them to a higher standard since they started using the system
12:04or since they started using and working really strictly with the electronic strike zone a
12:09few years ago, the strike zone has become much more accurate and true to the actual strike
12:15zone.
12:16There used to be kind of a circle of where strikes were called and the corners.
12:20We're, we're not called nearly as often.
12:23Now you look at where umpires actually call strikes and it's a nice rectangle.
12:26Um, but the one, one trend so far early on is that older umpires are not as good as
12:32younger umpires.
12:33It makes sense.
12:34Yeah.
12:34Yeah.
12:34That would make sense.
12:35It makes sense to it.
12:36That's why you hear it and you're like, Oh, of course, younger guys would be good.
12:39I don't know.
12:39There's, there's a part of me that might think that also, yeah, the experience and everything
12:43and that maybe by making it a long time, but a lot of guys are probably going to start
12:46getting rolled out earlier in their careers than they, than they were previously.
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