- 2 days ago
Seth and Sean lay out 3 winners and 3 losers to come out of the Astros' season opening series split with the Angels over the weekend.
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00:00Astros, I would say salvage the weekend, I think is the best way to put that.
00:04I don't know how I feel about this team yet.
00:06The starting pitching was a mess, and yet you...
00:10Look, if someone had told me, Seth, they'd hit one home run all weekend,
00:14should have been two except for the roof, but they hit one home run all weekend,
00:18and that the starting pitching was going to have an ERA of nearly 7.5, I would have said...
00:247.64.
00:25Yeah, I would have said 1-3 at best.
00:291-3 at best, and yet 2-2, and they came back in both of those games that they won.
00:34They came back in spectacular fashion.
00:37I mean, down 6-0, and feeling like there's just not a chance in hell on Saturday.
00:45That was awesome.
00:47I guess the starting pitching, I was trying to put lipstick on a pig this morning, early this morning,
00:52and I'm glad I fact-checked myself, because I just looked real quickly at innings pitched by starters,
00:57and I'm like, oh, look at that.
00:58The Astros have the fifth most innings pitched by starters.
01:01It must be everybody around the league is just, you know, taking it easy, and everybody's just only...
01:06And then I realized, oh, yeah, it's because they've also played four games,
01:10where most teams have only played three or some only two.
01:15Oh, okay.
01:16Oh, yeah, that's right, because a lot of teams...
01:18Yeah, in cities where there could be weather, they play opening day and then take a day off.
01:22They got a little bit of...
01:23Yeah, yeah.
01:23Yeah, I forgot about that.
01:24I think there's only like five teams that have played four games straight through already.
01:28So that didn't...
01:29That wasn't a salve or a bomb for me.
01:31I thought what you were going to say was that when you looked at it yesterday,
01:35that they hadn't added in Sunday's games yet.
01:38Yeah.
01:39And Emai only gave you two and a third innings.
01:41I mean, the first three starters averaged five innings pitch, which isn't great,
01:45especially when one of them's Hunter Brown.
01:47They went four and two-thirds, five and two-thirds, four and two-thirds, the first three starters.
01:52Not great.
01:52Not great.
01:53Pitch counts got real high.
01:55Hunter's the only one that actually kept the scoreboard clean.
01:59The other ones gave up...
02:00You know, Burroughs gave up five or six runs.
02:02Javier, I think five.
02:04Javier gave up six.
02:05Emai, you know, gave up a bunch yesterday.
02:08A lot of...
02:08Emai's issues were control.
02:10I mean, you could see early on, like, they aren't swinging at him at all.
02:13The pitch count's getting way up.
02:15He had thrown 63 pitches through two and a third innings.
02:19So you're like, okay, well, you know this guy, even if he tightens it up,
02:23he's not making it through five innings.
02:25So that's been an early issue with this team is they're having to go to the bullpen early
02:29and they're having to kind of stretch their middle relievers a little bit.
02:31So we'll see if it catches up with them.
02:33The Red Sox are coming to town for the next three games.
02:36I got three winners and three losers, Seth, from the Astros from over the weekend.
02:39Three winners, three losers.
02:41Three winners.
02:42Number one, Jordan Alvarez seems to have his stroke.
02:46If the ballpark didn't rob him of a home run on Thursday
02:52and the world plays out the same way over the rest of that series,
02:56then Jordan's numbers already look pretty decent.
02:59If he has a home run tacked onto there and one of his at-bats this early in the season,
03:04his OPS is through the roof.
03:05He's got multiple home runs, things like that.
03:07Well, they're not – I mean, and he's rarely getting pitched to also.
03:10So, I mean, if you get some support from the guys behind him especially,
03:17then Jordan's every bit as impactful as you want him to be.
03:21Yeah.
03:21Yeah, so I was very, very pleased with that.
03:24I mean, that first home run that was robbed from him,
03:26did you ever end up seeing a projected distance on that?
03:29I didn't.
03:29Because during the broadcast, they didn't.
03:31Maybe it gets cut short because they can't see the whole arc of everything.
03:34Yeah.
03:35But that was – I mean, that was – that was incredible.
03:38The thing was just – it was unbelievable.
03:41It would have been beautiful.
03:42Well, and the funny thing was the home run that he hit on Friday in the 6-2 loss
03:48only got 70 feet off of the ground.
03:51Yeah.
03:51Like that one –
03:52He just line-drived it out there.
03:53He just line-drived it into the right-field bleachers.
03:55So, yeah, like that thing barely left the ground.
03:57It got out in a hurry.
03:58But I think that's a real positive so far.
04:00You know, everybody that you listen to around baseball,
04:02and you and I have said this,
04:03that Jordan is their most important guy.
04:06You know, they've got to get 140 games out of him this year.
04:08And thus far off to a good start.
04:10Got no PS up over 1,100.
04:12And that's with getting robbed by the building for a home run.
04:17So, that's number one.
04:17Number two, Christian Walker looks pretty good early here in the season.
04:22Christian Walker not striking out nearly as much as he did last year.
04:25I think just one strikeout over the course of these first four games.
04:30Had a big hit yesterday, huge hit yesterday, to tie the game up at 6.
04:36Came up big throughout the weekend.
04:38He's batting .308.
04:40They've got him down in the lineup.
04:41You remember last year he was batting cleanup and fifth all year long?
04:45And it was like, man, why?
04:46This guy is just a rally killer as the cleanup hitter because he strikes out so much with guys on
04:52base,
04:52especially guys in scoring position.
04:54And they've moved him down in the order.
04:56And it seems to have agreed with him so far.
04:57He's having better at-bats.
04:59He's batting .308.
05:00He's driven in some runs.
05:02So, that's been good to see.
05:03I would tack on to him.
05:05The other pleasant surprise of the first four games, these way-too-early results, is just Loprofito.
05:10I mean, Loprofito has stepped right in after getting the call during spring training.
05:18He's really, like that Friday night, Thursday night game, he was pretty much the only offense in that game.
05:25Literally had two of their three hits.
05:26Yeah.
05:26Yeah.
05:27Yeah, Loprofito's been solid as well.
05:30And also, Vasquez currently leads the team in OPS.
05:34Oh, Christian Vasquez?
05:35Yes.
05:36After, I love him so much.
05:39He hasn't been a good hitter in a long time.
05:42But he was really good yesterday.
05:44He was solid yesterday, man.
05:45He got the scoring started with that base hit to right field.
05:49It was a nice piece of hitting.
05:51I'm going to put Isak Paredes in here as three winners, three losers.
05:54I'm going to put him in here as a winner.
05:56He's only hitting 188, but he got off to an awful, awful start.
06:00188's not great.
06:01It's just four games.
06:02But he was in the lineup all four days.
06:05You know, and it'll be, I think it's going to get very interesting to see, Seth, what happens
06:11when Jeremy Pena has the green light to play every day.
06:15Pena played every other day in his first four games.
06:18So it was an easy, easy insertion to put Isak Paredes at third and Carlos Correa at shortstop.
06:25But once Pena is fully given the green light to play every day, he's your everyday shortstop.
06:31So do we start to see Christian Walker get a rest day here and there?
06:34Do we start to see Jordan Alvarez become more of the regular left fielder?
06:39Jordan Alvarez played left field in two of the four games so far.
06:42Last I checked, that's on pace to play 81 games in left field, where his previous high
06:47for a season was in the mid-50s somewhere.
06:50And I said during spring training, the cheat code to get all these guys in the lineup,
06:56to get your best offensive lineup out there, is they've got to have more of a tolerance
06:59of putting Jordan Alvarez out there defensively.
07:01And so far, half the games, four games, they did that.
07:04So Paredes, he made a couple nice plays at second, helped turn a couple doubles, and also
07:11just, I mean, I guess if I have to maybe look at the swap of, okay, you had to let
07:18go of
07:18Mauricio Dubon, but you've got Paredes as your utility guy, I'd say that's a pretty even swap
07:24as opposed to Nick Allen, I suppose.
07:26I would say that's a, obviously it's more than even if it's Paredes.
07:29But that's kind of what Paredes is right now.
07:31He's your Dubon.
07:32A little bit.
07:35He's turned into a utility guy.
07:36If he keeps playing like he did yesterday, then they'll probably be able to get rid of him
07:41like they so desperately want.
07:42Well, about you, for sure.
07:44You got to, yeah, boy, you just need him to play really, really well so you can get the
07:47hell rid of him, is their philosophy right now.
07:49Better that he plays well than that he doesn't play well, that's for sure.
07:52As far as losers go, I don't know that we need to dig into the starting pitching much anymore.
07:56We touched on it earlier in this segment, but that's, to me, the two biggest concerns
08:01with this team so far are starting pitching and Brian Abreu.
08:04Starting pitching, we laid out the stats a little earlier.
08:07You really feel the Framber departure a little bit, that none of these guys could get through
08:10six innings.
08:11Hell, three of the four couldn't get through five innings, and one of them yesterday
08:14couldn't get through three innings.
08:16So there's that.
08:17Brian Abreu, though, and I'd be saying this even if they didn't yank him yesterday, that
08:22appearance on Saturday with Abreu, where they brought him in, he's their closer for now
08:26until Hader is healthy again, Josh Hader.
08:29That appearance on Saturday is exactly why Abreu makes me so nervous sometimes.
08:35He just, he comes in with these, he just, he messes around like a doofus up five, and
08:41then next thing you know, the tying runs in the on-deck circle.
08:44When he's on, he's unhittable.
08:47It's amazing to watch when he's on, and when he's not on, it's terrifying.
08:51There's no in-between with Abreu.
08:53It's either terrifying or incredible.
08:55Yep.
08:55The ABS system is the other third loser for the Astros right now.
08:59They have yet to win a challenge that they've initiated.
09:02Yeah, the ABS system isn't, aren't the losers, the Astros themselves are the losers.
09:06They've been awful at it.
09:07Really, really bad at it.
09:09What's worse, Altuve and Cam using up the challenges on Saturday, or Roderick Munoz, a middle reliever,
09:16challenging a pitch on Friday, when I think it sounds like Espada has given pitchers clear
09:20instructions not to challenge pitches.
09:23The Munoz, Munoz and how much I saw of Munoz this weekend, that's, it's all wrapped up into
09:29one.
09:30Yeah, I'm not, I'm not a fan of that.
09:32I'm also like, I don't look, I don't know if Yiner knows where the strike zone is.
09:38And I think it's like the fact that Yiner challenged one that was two inches outside the zone and
09:44that Yiner is also a guy that seems at the plate when he's a batter, doesn't know where
09:48the strike zone is.
09:49When he's framing pitches, it doesn't seem like he knows where the strike zone is.
09:53Yeah.
09:53That annoyed me.
09:54You know what you would like yesterday, Seth?
09:56Amy and I went to the game.
09:57Oddly high number of DuPont jerseys at the game that were being worn by Astro fans.
10:02A lot of people still with the memories of Mauricio in their deep in their hearts.
10:06Of course.
10:07Yeah.
10:08Sentimental favorite.
10:09I don't know that.
10:09Let go of him to clear up a couple of million dollars of space.
10:12Yep.
10:12I don't know that I've been to this.
10:15I've got a handful of observations from yesterday.
10:17And one of them is this.
10:18I don't know that I've ever been to a stadium where the percentage of jerseys being worn
10:24by fans are being worn by guys who aren't on the team anymore than Dykin Park yesterday.
10:30Oh, wow.
10:31A bunch of Springers and Bregmans and Tuckers and probably a bunch of Correas that were probably
10:36bought back during his first stint with the team.
10:39But luckily for them, he's back on the team now.
10:41That can be kind of depressing just because if you think about where that probably happens
10:45most often is on teams that have had great periods or stretches but are currently down bad.
10:53Yep.
10:53So, yeah, the Astros, they're not down bad by conventional standards.
10:58No.
10:59But, yeah, if you go to, like, Green Bay back before they got it around.
11:02If you went to Green Bay in the 90s perhaps.
11:04Yep.
11:04I bet there are a whole bunch of Packers, old Packers jerseys more so than current players.
11:08Well, okay, I'll give you one.
11:09Amy and I went to a Steelers game a year ago.
11:11Oh, yeah.
11:12We had a Steelers game.
11:13Huge percentage of old jerseys there.
11:15I would say higher percentage of Dykin yesterday.
11:17Just gut feel.
11:18Maybe it's recency or whatever.
11:20You know what?
11:20Because there's so many T.J. Watt jerseys in Pittsburgh.
11:22Yeah.
11:23Oh, okay.
11:24Yeah.
11:24The Steelers would be a good example where you want to talk about their many decades
11:28of really impressive play versus the last few years where they've been okay, but they've
11:34gotten away from having Steelers' blood in their veins.
11:42They used to have so many guys on defense that were just, they just felt like Pittsburgh Steelers,
11:48and they don't have as many of those guys anymore.
11:50Yep.
11:50They don't.
11:51They don't.
11:52Among other things at the park yesterday, Seth, I'm talking to a few of you out there
11:57that have these, these big foam orange cowboy hats.
12:02Yeah.
12:03You know the ones I'm talking about.
12:04They're just way up in the air.
12:05I just, I don't understand why they exist.
12:07They gotta go, man.
12:08They gotta go.
12:08It's like you're sitting behind somebody that might as well be raising a poster.
12:13The worst, the worst, the worst ever, ever example of that was Dwight Howard sitting behind home plate
12:21with one of those things on his head.
12:23Can you imagine?
12:24No.
12:25Especially, however much you pay for a Diamond Club seat there, or like your boss gave you
12:30the tickets for the night or something.
12:31It's literally...
12:32And then you got a seven-footer, six-foot-tenner, with an orange cowboy hat on his head in front
12:38of you?
12:38Six-foot-ten, seven-foot-ten with the cowboy hat on.
12:41No, like, probably seven, yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:45Those are, yeah.
12:46Oh, yeah.
12:46You gotta, we gotta stop with this.
12:48You gotta get rid of them.
12:49They're horrible.
12:51The other things, I, you know, we walked past the new Whataburger that's in there.
12:54A lot of people are complaining about the Whataburger at Dyken Park because of the expense
12:58of it.
12:59Uh-huh.
13:00Like, the triple cheeseburger, which is the biggest one they have, is 20 bucks.
13:05And I'm like, yeah, that's, that's what the price is for food.
13:09Like, a triple cheeseburger is a monster.
13:11Are people expecting to see the same prices at the ballpark that they see at the establishment?
13:18Well, I can't speak for everybody.
13:19There probably are some idiots out there that think that.
13:21But the thing that people are upset about is that San Antonio has Whataburger at their
13:25arena there as well, I think where the Spurs play.
13:28And it's less expensive in that arena than it is at Dyken Park.
13:32And I'm like, yeah, but you gotta live in San Antonio.
13:34You know, like, that's, that's, that's why you're paying less.
13:37You're living in a lesser city.
13:38You know, this, it's the Houston tax that you're paying.
13:41You live in a greater city than San Antonio.
13:43Sorry about that.
13:44I like, uh, I like the one kind of inside joke that people wouldn't get outside of Houston
13:50was just, um, when you tweet a picture of all the long lines at the, at El Tiempo.
13:56Yeah.
13:57Um, that all the, it's just kind of understood by a lot of people in Houston.
14:00You understand that an El Tiempo margarita packs a different punch.
14:04And, uh, so a lot of jokes and everything about, so there are a lot of people making jokes
14:08about, you know, being careful with how much you drink and everything and that people from
14:13outside of Houston were like, Hey, don't shame people just for having to want to have a drink
14:17at the ballpark.
14:17Like, no, they're making jokes about how, how, how incredibly and awesomely strong they are.
14:22They are awesomely strong.
14:23They better be strong.
14:23You know how much they're charging for them now?
14:25How much?
14:2625 bucks.
14:28Yeah.
14:2925 bucks.
14:30I don't know.
14:31I don't want to judge somebody that pays 25 bucks for a margarita.
14:34In my mind, I'm judging all of you.
14:35I think you're getting more for your money with an El Tiempo margarita than you might be
14:38with others.
14:38But it's 25 bucks enough for any margarita.
14:40They're not very big.
14:4225 bucks, man.
14:43What's a, what's a going, what's a going right on a beer?
14:46Uh, I bought several yesterday.
14:48I don't know.
14:48Depending on which one you get anywhere from 12 to 15 bucks.
14:51Yeah.
14:52Yeah.
14:52So if you're getting a margarita and it's a double, you know, that's what's the difference?
14:57Maybe.
14:57Uh, I don't know.
14:58Yeah.
14:59I don't know.
15:00I mean, the beers are pretty big and they're, yeah.
15:02So I, yeah, I don't know the answer.
15:04I feel like I'm, I feel like an El Tiempo margarita is at least a double.
15:07I don't, I'm not a big margarita fan.
15:09So that's probably some of what's seeping into it.
15:11Um, the other thing we need real quick, just here, Seth, I know the wave is not going away.
15:17It was happening yesterday early in the game.
15:20It was happening yesterday when it was six, six with guys up with runners on base and people
15:26are doing, I'm, I'm come to the conclusion.
15:30It's not going away.
15:31I know you people are going to do your stupid wave, but we need rules.
15:34We need guidelines.
15:35I'm willing to offer up a truce.
15:37We need some mediation with the wave people and the anti-wavers like myself to where we
15:43need guidelines.
15:44We need certain margins of lead or deficit.
15:46We need only certain innings wave away.
15:50But if it's a tie game in the eighth inning, stop.
15:53Well, I don't need people standing up in the middle of that inning waving.
15:56Yo, I think the biggest thing that you do, uh, in any movement like this, when you want
16:01to stop a social movement, you go and you beat the snot out of the person who starts
16:06it.
16:06Okay.
16:06They cut it off at its head.
16:08Trust me.
16:08So Amy was ready to, if you can identify whoever started the wave at the inappropriate
16:14moment, you just, you have four or five security guards go down and beat them with billy clubs
16:21until they're, you know, you don't have to, you don't have to be extreme and ban them from
16:24the ballpark or anything, just physically beat them to within inches of death.
16:29Yes.
16:30And then the, this takes care of the issue.
16:32The person that started the wave, or as I like to call them patient zero, because it's
16:36a disease, the wave, that's what it is.
16:38All right.
16:39But I'm willing to offer up a truce.
16:40If someone wants to represent the waivers, I'll represent the anti-wavers.
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