- 16 hours ago
ITL gives credit to McCullers for a big-time performance and what it means going forward.
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00:00because i felt the feeling i think i i i fully leaned into just i'm going to be an obnoxious
00:05fan and you guys got the brunt well you didn't get the brunt of it i tried to spread it
00:08out
00:09amongst other people so you didn't get the full effect of it but do you recall what the text is
00:12that i sent you i believe in the second baby in the second inning yeah i said uh i'll read
00:18this
00:19uh verbatim quote i've seen enough lmj is back i will be taking no questions at this moment
00:25that's what it felt like and thank god it continued out like i kind of got the text in
00:29early because i was afraid that this was going to fall apart as it has in uh in other instances
00:34where lance has gotten on the mound and uh you know yeah it's looked good for a little bit and
00:38falling apart for various different reasons and in this one nope seven innings four hits one earned
00:45run that happened in the seventh inning where you know things kind of just got a little away from
00:49him but he was able to reel it back in only one walk and nine count them nine strikeouts this
00:55was
00:55this was a magnificent uh outing for lance mccullers jr and one that was needed early on
01:01when we talk about the way that this rotation both of those things were important but first of all
01:05i mean we really need to give lance mccullers a round of applause here i mean we we really need
01:11to give
01:11him a round of applause i mean i was willing to do it but now when you put in this
01:16man put in canned
01:17applause yeah because i i started thinking about it right about the fifth and sixth inning and i and i
01:22was
01:23watching it with uh with my wife who's an enormous astros fan and i said you realize he's 32 years
01:28old
01:29he's had multiple surgeries multiple setbacks he's made 83 million dollars in his career god bless he has
01:36a wife he has a kid and that dude still with none of us seeing him you know doing it
01:43you know did the
01:44things when no one was watching you know he did the things when no one cory actually talked about it
01:48a
01:48little bit about just this past off season but he's done it for what four years i mean it's going
01:55on four years since since he went seven innings i think it was in 2022 that is correct yeah september
02:00of 2022 when uh uh he he went seven innings and so i was just really i'm with you like
02:07there was
02:07there was a real emotion you know kind of channeling there like talk about mad respect is this not what
02:13we get into sports for like obviously like it's it's these moments it's the moment of triumph and
02:18honestly i have such a great respect for him this almost feels like uh you know infantilizing to some
02:24degree but i think that you'll understand i bet he appreciates it a decent amount as well uh he
02:28had to keep coming out here no i just played out he had everything right he could have everything he
02:33needed right he could have just he would have gotten paid too i mean honestly he just keeps coming
02:37back out here trying right and he did not have to lay himself prostrate before us and failed the
02:42number of times that he has and trying to have this return to form and thankfully we got this
02:47the only thing i hope and i'm getting ahead of myself but tying a couple of stories uh together
02:53i kind of hope that this isn't the masters for tiger woods you know i mean where this is just
02:57the
02:58one triumphant final thing before we see the entire ending yeah i hope that this is a real beginning to
03:04the resurgence in part because we we were skeptical that okay this is the fifth star and he heard it
03:10right he heard it for four years we were skeptical that this is your astros fifth starter so the idea
03:14was all right he's the placeholder until you find your real fifth starter no if he's going to do this
03:18or anything akin to this no no he's a part of your rotation and i don't even think he's your
03:23fifth star
03:23well and that leads to the second part uh you know because the first part was just you got to
03:28appreciate what i don't know i don't think i would have done it if i had 83 million in the
03:32bank i'd
03:32have been like you know what i tried uh let's uh let's just cut bait here especially because you know
03:38is there is there a is they a position in sports that is more lonely than yes starting when you
03:43get
03:44out here exactly right because you know would you have done it i can't guarantee i would have i mean
03:49there's always competitive instincts but with everything that had already been accomplished
03:53and done and age and kids and family and multiple surgeries and setbacks and and bozos like us you
03:59know on the radio saying i don't know if he's ever going to pitch again that's right it might just
04:03resonate with you and you might say you know what i might not oh no i wouldn't do it yeah
04:06and i i have to be
04:07honest about this because i personally subscribe to the mantra or the thought process or the school
04:11of thought if you want to call it that that quitting is underrated we have made we've gotten ourselves to
04:15a place where we're like no never quit no sometimes quit yeah how about you figgy but i definitely would
04:20have quit before we got yeah or i would at least been like i i go in the bullpen i'll
04:25just become a
04:26bullpen type of play it out yeah yeah because that was the conversation more than just quitting it was
04:31just you need to get in the bullpen man you ain't no starting pitcher but now let's get to the
04:36here and
04:36out yeah and reggie you touched on it uh that was not only raising the question of if this is
04:42sustainable you know he's going to elevate himself on this staff i think it's exactly what this staff
04:47needed yes i mean outside of hunter brown who pitches today that you can't say a lot of great
04:52things about the starting staff we went through the numbers yesterday and here he goes with seven
04:56innings four hits one earned run i mean it was important for this squad for right now no without
05:02question and i we talked a little bit about this yesterday talking about the first time through
05:07the order or not the order necessarily but the rotation yeah of the starting pitchers and i go
05:12hunter brown yeah that's what i expect uh obviously i was kind of surprised that he went 102 pitches but
05:17i'm sure that that that makes me feel even more confident next time out we're good we're going we're
05:21competing uh the mike burrows of this all i go okay this is interesting right because the stuff was there
05:26just you know is the attack in the zone are people going to be able to just hit off of
05:30him that's a question
05:31that i'm not sure and we'll answer as we keep going tatuya imai that felt like that was more about
05:37him making his debut in america he talked about this a little bit how you know it's just it's
05:42different right it's just so different and he had some level of kind of almost trepidation on
05:47what america is and some sometimes just with something new you have to jump into it get a feel
05:52for it and then accommodate and adjust to it i think that that is there for him kristen javier
05:57we'll see like we'll see what that ends up looking like when we could when we continue to get there
06:01so
06:02like the thing that in fact uh and it's something i think we'll return to but um i think espn
06:08had when
06:08they were doing their projections or just looking at this season they kind of had some rankings of
06:13the teams you know just all 30 baseball teams the most confounding teams for them of the most
06:18confounding teams for them the houston nationals were one of those and part of it was there's a lot
06:22of question marks with this rotation and we're already seeing some of those question marks show
06:26up for good reason it's early and everything of course it's good to get a definitive performance
06:30even if this is just proof of concept right that lance McCullers can be that guy again this can't
06:36necessarily and i i would be remiss if i got out here and tried to sell this as lance McCullers
06:40is
06:40absolutely back and you you could just bank on him he's your number two starter so on and so forth
06:43can't do that right i i would be uh it would be dereliction of duty or whatever anything else that
06:48you
06:48want to put in that way of saying that however it is nice to see oh this is possible well
06:53and and
06:53the other thing that's possible and we talked about how it affects the here and now how it affects the
06:57rotation for the season perhaps i think it affected and sean brought this up i think it affected the
07:02team carlos correa was back to 2017 uh jose altube two home runs he was back to 17 uh you
07:08know guys
07:09like that weren't around back then but but they they felt the impact you know yordan uh who's by the
07:14way
07:14i think he reached based in 15 out of 20 play appearance or something scary yeah and and and cam
07:20smith and uh and all that in fact correa talked about it afterward i like this style a lot better
07:25you know he was pounding the zone he had the sinker and the cutter working um back in the day
07:30he relied
07:31more on the slider and the curveball and today it seemed like he was a complete pitcher um it was
07:36really
07:36fun to watch it was really fun to play behind kept us all involved with team filters um you know
07:41with the
07:41pace with the tempo we're involved in every single pitch um it never felt like anything was long it
07:46was it was beautiful it was a masterpiece a masterpiece yeah and i think the the underrated
07:53part of that is what he's talking about is the change that lance mccullers jr has made to his style
07:57and i i it did feel like because i you know in a in a vacuum you going the pitcher
08:03you know coming
08:04out here and performing in the way that he did right you know helped everybody at the plate and
08:07everything that feels like it might be a little bit of a stretch too far but i do think that
08:10the
08:11energy that was created around this game and seeing him kind of for lack of a better way of
08:16saying it overcome would have been kind of a tough road back i think that that got the juices going
08:21for
08:21some of these guys and saw the ways in which the defense wanted to show up for him it was
08:25a fast
08:25paced game right there's there's those things as well and then it doesn't hurt that i i think that
08:29them feeling that also allows them to get out here and be even more locked in and dialed in on
08:34what they
08:34want to do offensively because that's a portion of this game that we will talk about and we need to
08:38because they heard us talking bleep and they were like oh we're we can't be consistent with scoring
08:42on runs how about runs in you know in seven of our eight uh you know half innings that we
08:47end up
08:48playing right runners on base every inning right how about how about we do it this way and i don't
08:52know how much of that is also uh ron hair suarez which i didn't realize that we were calling him
08:56ron hair now i thought it was still ranger but my bad i will uh fix that but ron hair
09:00suarez uh kind
09:01of pitching like an entirely different pitcher than he had last year i don't know it had been last year
09:04i don't
09:05know but man this was really cool and i think the biggest thing that we have to keep front and
09:10center is indeed the lance McCullers i did find it interesting though he talked to because again
09:13he was he was the story of this thing he talks after the game um to the media and then
09:18he jumps
09:18on with mlb network this was lance McCullers jr talking a little bit more and i found this to be
09:23really interesting i hope that strikeouts are going to come but uh i think in the past especially last
09:28year i was just i was starting at bat and i was like you know i gotta strike this guy
09:31out i gotta strike
09:32this guy out so i'm i'm focusing oh oh i'm making too good of a pitch or you know nibbling
09:37all
09:38throughout the at bat and then i'm overexposing my stuff and and when the strikeout counts were
09:42there i was you know the bats were getting long they were grinding me out i would usually end in
09:46a
09:46walk so you know the coaching staff and spring training you know really focusing on just being
09:50in the zone the abs is here so we have to be in that zone we have to compete and
09:54then you know
09:55when strikeouts you know make a good pitch and hopefully get the strikeout um i did though some
09:59really good change-ups tonight uh i left a couple up that that went foul so that was that was
10:05on my
10:06side today but uh just make sure keep that thing down and just keep attacking well and the other
10:10thing about it we talked we you know we talked about a round of applause for for lance mccullers
10:14the other thing that needs to be appreciated is adapting you know well that's the thing adapting
10:19the curveballs he i mean we all remember what he did in the world series it was a 21 straight
10:24curve
10:24balls or something like that the torque and the pressure that it puts on that elbow he knows it
10:29and he's adapted you know he was more cutter and slider and change up those changes the change-ups
10:35were nasty but you know what that's less torque that that's that's adapting uh as you're getting
10:40into your 30s and obviously there's the physical adapting i think the mental adapting is is a lot
10:44bigger because you know what i heard when he's talking about that in his approach it feels like he
10:48stopped gripping his club so damn hard and stopped trying to you know muscle it and it's like hey let
10:52the
10:52club do his job to use a golf analogy because that very much helped me this weekend when i wasn't
10:56nearly as terrible as i usually am when i hit the course neither here nor there but you get the
11:00point
11:00right it felt like he was like let go let god man instead of trying so hard to make this
11:04happen
11:04get out here and just just pitch in the ways that you know you can without that additional stretch and
11:09lo and behold not only was it successful he got the strikeouts that he was so desperately looking for
11:15before so i kind of hope that that also not just helps him continue to sustain this because that's the
11:20question that we have now is now that we've seen you have this kind of performance is this something
11:23that we can ask for we can you know anticipate for a number of outings for the remainder of the
11:28season
11:28but then also is that something that translates to the entirety of the team where it goes hey this is
11:32a this helps us crystallize a mindset where don't go out here and force it hey get to the plate
11:37take
11:37your pitches you saw how that effective that was for you at the plate today you saw how effective it
11:41was
11:41on the mound remember this is the north star to help you be the best version of yourself because you
11:45had the
11:45talent yeah 100 all right you're in the loop here on sports radio 610 excited excited boss
11:50yeah baseball man it's the boogeyman we needed that well come on now figgy it's the boogeyman back
11:54all right we'll hold on to that thought maybe we'll circle back around to that but for the time being
11:58i'm just happy to be excited to see a really really really good performance from one lance McCullers
12:02you
12:03you
12:03you
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