00:00Happy light, happy flight.
00:01Oh, that happy light guy just went in the Crawford boxes.
00:07His first Astros home run since 2022,
00:11and he knows the point to the bullpen because he's a catcher.
00:14Christian Vasquez gives the Astros a 6-2 lead.
00:18Happy, happy, joy, joy for Christian Vasquez.
00:22Vasquez has started two games,
00:24and he's done good things offensively in both of those games.
00:26He had a big hit on Sunday against the Angels to get the offense started,
00:31two-run single early in the game.
00:33And then that home run yesterday, which the Astros won 6-4.
00:38That made it 6-2 at the time.
00:40But I'm telling you right now, watching Brian Abreu warm up in the bullpen,
00:44I did not want the Astros to take their foot off the cast pedal at all
00:48offensively in that game.
00:49Abreu's just been really shaky, gave up a home run to Roman Anthony,
00:54who's been awful this year with the first batter that Abreu faced was Roman Anthony.
01:00And then he struck out the next three guys,
01:02so I'm willing to back off a little bit on Abreu.
01:05But Vasquez is what I wanted to talk about, Seth.
01:07Yiner Diaz has been terrible to start this season so far.
01:12Christian Vasquez has been very good to start the season so far.
01:16Yeah.
01:16Is it an overreaction seven games in to say that maybe Joe Espada
01:20should look at evening the workload a little bit more catcher?
01:22Well, I know.
01:23It's an interesting question because we know what Yiner's upside is as a batter.
01:29Much higher than Vasquez, yes.
01:31Yeah.
01:31Like Vasquez.
01:33He might just be on a heater right now.
01:35There is no upside, okay?
01:36Yeah.
01:38Last year, he finished with 545 OPS with a 189 batting average.
01:45Yiner's brought him in with like a week to go in spring training.
01:47Like nobody was picking him up.
01:49Right, right, right.
01:49Yeah.
01:50So I would say this is the kind of thing where you have to let this thing play out
01:54a little bit, especially with Yiner.
01:55Because, again, where the entire team seems to be doing a much better job
01:58with their pitch selection, their judgment at the plate,
02:02Yiner's a guy that you hope benefits from that as well.
02:05And last year had a really, really rocky start,
02:07but really pulled it together and ended up with respectable numbers on the year
02:10offensively.
02:11So, no, I know we're close to that right now.
02:15And you know what I'm interested in?
02:17There's been a lot of talk about how, wow, A, people love the ABS system.
02:22And, B, does this make the umpires better now that they're being called
02:27to account immediately?
02:29And I think that's probably going to happen.
02:31I think the umpires, the human umpires will probably get that much better
02:34because there's that much extra scrutiny on it.
02:37But that also, that, you know, with the catchers, too,
02:41as they maybe start even viewing things a little bit differently,
02:45maybe that has a spillover effect onto Yiner at the plate.
02:48Maybe.
02:49That's my extremely overly optimistic.
02:51That's huge optimism right there.
02:53Yes, yes.
02:54Plus, Vasquez, I can never forgive Vasquez for being yet another catcher
02:59where I look at him and think, oh, man,
03:00if he had just grown up in the contiguous United States,
03:03he could have been an awesome nose tackle.
03:06And you realize now he's 5'8", 200 pounds.
03:08He's short.
03:09He's short.
03:10But on television, he looks like an awesome Division II nose tackle.
03:14Yes, no, him and Alejandro Kirk from the Blue Jays.
03:17Yeah, because Alejandro Kirk's not actually all that big either, is he?
03:20Not my football player.
03:21He's not tall.
03:21He's 5'8", also.
03:23Yeah, but they're both like 260.
03:25I mean, they're heavy dudes.
03:28Why are they not?
03:29You know what?
03:30That is – that's my rabbit hole afterwards is that Puerto Rico
03:35and their high school football programs, like why –
03:38we need to see more Puerto Rican football players.
03:40We do.
03:41Listen, any well-actuallys out there, I said contiguous United States.
03:44Don't try to give me a history lesson on –
03:46Oh, that they're a United States territory?
03:48That they're a United States territory, yeah.
03:49It's coming.
03:51It's coming.
03:52I'm watching the eighth inning now in the studio from yesterday's game.
03:55It's 6-3.
03:56Cam Smith's at third.
03:58Jake Myers just walked.
03:59Joey Loperfito is coming up.
04:01I believe he ends up walking.
04:03The bases were loaded for Vasquez in this instance, and I was very angry with him.
04:07And I think the guys I was at the game with were almost getting annoyed.
04:10I know my father-in-law might have been getting annoyed with just how much I wanted this streak
04:14to continue of them scoring at least eight runs.
04:16Yeah.
04:17I was so – I'm like, oh, they got a shot here.
04:20They got the bases loaded at 6-3.
04:22I was into it.
04:23And then Vasquez struck out with the bases loaded.
04:25So, you know what?
04:26I'm embarrassed I even put this segment together where I suggest that he take at-bats from
04:30Yiner.
04:30He's let you down in a segment that started with whether he should replace Yiner or not.
04:34You are now at – why is he on this team?
04:37Why is he even on the team?
04:37He started as the next Mike Piazza at the beginning of this segment.
04:40Now he's trash.
04:41Look, it is – honestly, that was one of the questions of the offseason, though, is that
04:45Cesar Salazar has not played a lot of Major League Baseball.
04:49And you're going into a season expecting potentially him to be your backup catcher to a guy who's
04:55still learning how to be a full-time catcher in Yiner Diaz.
04:59That – I was subtly nervous about that.
05:02I like having Vasquez back there just for his experience.
05:04No, I do, too.
05:05His experience – I think he's a good backup catcher.
05:07I know the numbers don't – offensively have not backed it up the last couple years.
05:11He's off to a nice start here.
05:12Maybe he's somebody else who's benefiting from a new voice in his ear, coaching, hitting,
05:17that kind of thing.
05:18And I said this before, too.
05:20You're absolutely right.
05:21When Salazar was the backup catcher in spring training, Victor Caratini was a high-level
05:26backup catcher last year.
05:27Right.
05:28And that cannot be – that cannot be overstated how important that is because that is a
05:35position where you don't look at a guy and say, well, the guy ahead of him is going to
05:38play 150 games.
05:39Like, no, a backup catcher on sheer load management alone is going to play 50 or 60 games a year
05:45at least.
05:46You know?
05:47The one thing you do miss in Cesar Salazar was that he was the second-best pitcher for
05:51the Astros last year with a 0.0.
05:53Oh, he's a mop-up guy.
05:55Yeah.
05:56Did he pitch a full inning?
05:57I think he pitched a full inning.
05:58I don't know.
05:58I don't know.
05:59I don't remember.
05:59He does – but he did finish the season with a 0.0 ERA.
06:02Good for him, man.
06:03Good for him.
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