- 6 hours ago
Seth and Sean discuss the Astros being swept by the Rockies, Jake Meyers and Christian Javier leaving with injuries, and power rank the most indispensable Astros on the roster.
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00:00It's been tough going for the Astros lately. We all know this. They've lost five in a row.
00:04I think it's five in a row, four in a row at least. Five of their last six to teams
00:10that
00:10they shouldn't be losing five of six to. And it's one thing to lose, but it's another thing
00:15to be losing guys to injury. We already know Hunter Brown is going to be out for a while.
00:20And then yesterday, within five minutes of each other, out goes starting center fielder
00:27Jake Myers on a check swing in the second inning. First and third, nobody out. How about Jake being
00:33checked out now after that last check swing? So taking over in a two, two count will be Bryce
00:38Matthews as a pinch hitter. Okay. So, and, and Bryce Matthews came in for him and Loper Fido moves from
00:44left to center and Bryce plays left. They've got solutions in the outfield, including once they
00:48start playing in ballparks that aren't the size of an open Prairie, they can put your time back out
00:54in left field at times. So there's losing Jake is not optimal. You don't want to lose a guy who's
00:59that good defensively. And, uh, you know, and just, just for depth reasons, he's a major league
01:03baseball player. Um, that's not good. Um, this one though, and, and this, I say this with Christian
01:10Javier pitching terribly so far this year, but to see another starting pitcher go out, this is what
01:17it sounded like yesterday. If I literally at the beginning of the very next half inning, Christian
01:21Javier warms up and then calls the trainers and the manager out and says, I'm out. My shoulder
01:25hurts. Oh, this is not a sign Asho's fans. We're looking to see today. Christian Javier being walked
01:30off the mound due to an apparent injury. He pitched the first inning at the last three outs of the
01:35first
01:35inning. We were watching AJ blue ball beginning to warm up as the inning started. And we were a little
01:40bit shocked because Javier only worked one inning, but they obviously knew something was not quite
01:45right. Right. With Javier. And that is his final warmup pitch and tells Christian Vasquez. I'm not
01:51good. So AJ blue ball will be the new pitcher as he will be handed the ball by Joe Espado.
01:57Okay. So that's where we are right now, Seth, a rotation that aspires to be a six man rotation
02:04starting tomorrow is down to literally three guys that started in the rotation this season.
02:11They've got 13 straight games coming up. Something like that. Yeah. I think it's 13 straight games
02:15with a rotating cast of starters and relievers that have a whole host of issues. And you've got to
02:23mention multiple guys who are as of now early in the season are in the double digit ERA.
02:29The, yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. And they haven't pitched well. You're absolutely right. And this is the,
02:33this is the, the cruel irony of the six man rotation is that you're, you're having to do this
02:41even more urgently, a six man rotation because it's largely to accommodate Tatsuya Imai who is now
02:48your ace. Like he's, he's your best starting pitcher. So the irony is that to accommodate the
02:55guy who is now with Hunter Brown out is probably your best starting pitcher. You're having to bring
03:01up more potentially bad pitchers to plug into these games here. So really? Yeah. Yeah. No,
03:06it's a good point. You're, it's actually like Imai is 0.8 of your starting rotation. He's the best
03:140.8, 0.8 of a starter that you have in your starting rotation. Cause he, he needs an extra
03:20day
03:20of rest. Yeah. Yep. Um, uh, which is fine. That's not him. For those of you who don't know,
03:26that was the rotation that he followed in Japan. He's not accustomed to, um, going on normal MLB.
03:33They knew this, they knew this going in. They knew this. Yeah. So it's not like he's being a diva
03:36or anything. They're trying to be careful with him, which I suggest they continue. I don't think
03:41this is the time to say, Oh boy, you know what? We've really been hit with injuries with our
03:45starting pitchers. Let's just go ahead and roll the dice and see if Imai can go on four days rest.
03:51So the, I think, see if you agree with me on this set, I think clearly the two most indispensable
03:56players on this team are Hunter Brown and Jordan Alvarez. Um, I, I think it's those two. And I
04:03don't even know that it's particularly close. Uh, if you think I'm wrong, tell me I'm wrong. I,
04:07cause then now they've lost one of them. And the other one is, it feels like there's always the
04:12grim reaper of injury is always lurking around the corner. Yeah. It's, it's hard because I'm just
04:18judging. I mean, the one, obviously one of those guys is healthy and playing. The other one is,
04:22is on the IL and I'm trying to figure out if there's anybody else that I would be as distraught
04:29over being injured other than those two. So the, the way I felt when I found out that Hunter Brown
04:35was going on the IL. And then especially when I found out that it was almost definitely going to
04:40be two months or more for him to come punch, man, going through the infield, going through the
04:45outfield. No, there's nobody other than your Don right. This moment. I might argue, uh, um,
04:52Christian Walker or something right this moment based on how he's been playing, but no, for the
04:56entirety of the season, uh, it goes, your Don Hunter Brown, and then a bunch of other guys that
05:03I like a lot, but I'm not going to be, I'm not going to be angry and grumpy at home
05:07because it's
05:08a really, it's a strange dynamic because the presence of Isak Paredes, uh, you know, kind of
05:15makes the infield. If you feel like you've got at least a little bit of cushion in the infield,
05:20if something were to happen to one of these guys, you know, whereas if Isak Paredes, they
05:24may need to trade Isak just to get a capable starting pitcher here at some point. You know,
05:29if, if the drop-off it, you know, you lose Correa or Pena, and then the drop-off is to
05:34Nick Allen, then wow. So the Paredes dynamic is interesting. Um, look without even having
05:42thrown a baseball for the Astros yet this year, Josh Hader might be the third most indispensable
05:49guy. Like hearing about a setback with Josh Hader as compared to hearing, say, I don't
05:56know, Altuve has a oblique injury where he's going to miss three or four weeks, something
06:00like that. Like if I hear Josh Hader had a setback, oh my God. I mean, now you're talking
06:05about having to, having to change, either find somebody to close games for you or hope
06:12that somebody else can adapt better than Brian Abreu out of your middle relievers to being
06:17your new closer. Yeah. Okay. So Josh Hader was already, yeah, Josh Hader would be on
06:22that list. Those three guys and Josh Hader, we've already been going through that. So
06:26you're missing two of those guys. You're missing two of those guys right now. Those
06:30are the top three guys. I think so. I don't think, I mean, if Josh Hader had started off
06:34the season healthy and we, and we did this exercise on day one, I don't know if I would
06:40have said Josh Hader because that was before Brian Abreu rolled through with a 25 plus ERA
06:45for the first two weeks. What's his ERA up to? No, it's down. It's down. It's down. It's
06:50down. Cause he only gave up one run in one inning last night. There's one run in one
06:55inning, which translates to a nine ERA ends up drastically lowering his ERA under 20.
07:02Now. I think, I think it's, are you looking at it? I think it's, I think it's 19 point
07:06something, something. Yeah. I think it's 19.64. Yeah. Yeah. It's under 20 now. So he's,
07:11he's killing it. Yeah. He's, he's crushing it, man. He's out of the Andrew Jackson territory.
07:16I'm his man at a couple of Hamiltons and a Jefferson or something. Yes. I'm his, I am
07:22his. I'm looking at a, what is it? A Jefferson, a Hamilton and four Lincolns? I don't know.
07:25Yeah. Or Washington's. Yeah. Four Washington's. Yeah. Yeah. Once. Um, I, uh, Jefferson on the
07:3110. I don't, I don't know. I haven't dealt in anything less than a hundred in a long time.
07:35I rarely carry cash on me. So I don't know. Um, it's not that I don't deal with the smaller
07:40bills. Okay. Everybody, I'm going to get texts now. Like Sean only deals with Benjamin
07:44rich eyes and money. So Brian Abreu at 19.64. Yes. That makes Josh haters absence all that
07:50more conspicuous. I think it's hater. I, I actually did this list for the Houston press
07:54for tomorrow and I had out to vape third. I actually power ranked him. You're down one Hunter
07:59two. And then I, then I I'm with you. I like, I think that that's the two. And then there's
08:04a big drop off. It's kind of like the standings in the Western conference in the NBA. Like
08:08Jordan and Hunter are okay. See in San Antonio. And then there's this drop off to a bunch of
08:13other, like pretty good guys. Um, I had out to vape third, just based on the, he's out
08:18to vape. He's off to a hot start. Seems to have fixed a lot of things this off season,
08:22like a fully activated non mistake making high baseball IQ. Altuve is still a very dangerous
08:28baseball player. You're going to have to call up the Houston breast press. Tell them to stop
08:32the press. Stop the presses. Type setters. I need to type setters. Quit it. I need to
08:38move hater to three. Oh, stop the bandwidth. We've got an update, dude. E-my E-my might
08:45be next after hater, just based on how thin the rotation is right now. And he might, hasn't
08:51been great. He's had two starts. His ERA is in the mid fours, but he might be a top five
08:56most important guy now, just because you're running out of capable bodies. Okay. Of the guys
09:01who are performing like competent major league baseball players. So which one is at that sweet
09:06spot of man, we might be able to trade this guy for a starting pitcher, but also, and I
09:15really don't want to lose them, but boy, we really need that starting pitcher. Yeah. Who
09:20is it? Paredes. Paredes. Yeah. That's simple enough. It's per, well, it's just cause there's
09:24a surplus there. It would be. No, it is. I mean, it was a, the conversation has gone from trading
09:28Paredes for an outfielder to now trading Paredes for a starting pitcher. That's exactly right.
09:32That's exactly right. The baseball gods have shifted the conversation. So yeah, I think
09:36because of the circumstances thrust upon this team, I think now E-my, I think Burroughs
09:41is up there now in terms of just sheer importance. I don't think he's one of their 10 best players
09:46or eight best players right now, but I think you could argue that he, because of how thin
09:51the pitch, Lance McCullers is your number three starter right now, Seth. Yeah. When we started
09:56spring training and Lance's name will get mentioned as a guy they might use as the sixth guy in
10:02a six man rotation, we were a little doubtful about that. Now he's your number three and
10:06he ain't going anywhere. Lance could get shelled against the Mariners on a Saturday or whenever
10:12he's pitching and he's going to have, they're going to have to trot him right back out there
10:15again the next time, the next few times they've got no choice, man. It's just that some of their
10:20most important guys might be Sugarland space Cowboys right now. This is horrible. How did this
10:24happen in five days? What the hell? Has it been five days? It's five days. Thursday,
10:29a week ago today, I came in having sat 10 feet from an Astros win over the Red Sox to
10:35sweep
10:36that series. They were five and two and you and I were talking about how disrespected they
10:40had been around baseball. That's right. They're like right around. Yeah. We were upset that
10:47they were around 15th or 16th in these power rankings. How could the Red Sox be ahead of
10:51them? Looking back on it now, a six and seven baseball team might've been appropriately rated.
10:56How did, how did these baseball nerds not, not read drastically into sweeping the Red Sox?
11:03We apologize to nobody. All right. I apologize to no one. We apologize to nobody. They, they
11:09thought that Christian Vasquez was going to somehow come, come down below his 1000 OPS.
11:14No, I don't dude. He's still at eight 83. Is he really? He came up to the plate in a
11:18couple
11:18big spots yesterday. I'm like, Harry, here, here comes our nine 50 OPS catcher. That's the one that
11:24was, that was my biggest reminder during the Astros second golden era, which spanned over the course
11:28of seven days, second week of this Astros season was like, all right, Vasquez is probably not going
11:34to all of a sudden be four times better at the plate than he has been his career. I don't
11:38know if
11:39that's sustainable over the entire season. It turns out that may not be the case. Someone's saying on
11:43the, he's been horrible. It's how he started last year too, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, someone's saying
11:50Sean, go ahead and cash your ticket. This team ain't winning 80 games this year. Uh, I hope I'm
11:55wrong for people who don't know what that's referring to. I have a ticket on under 84 and a half
12:00wins for
12:00the Astros. And I will tell you when they were off to their five and two start and they looked
12:04like
12:04the 1927 Yankees offensively. Uh, I was happy to be on pace to lose that money. I want the Astros
12:11to be good. Yeah. It's an emotional hedge is what they call that. What they started off two years
12:15ago. They started off what? 12 and 24, 12 and 24, two years ago. Yeah. So they're, they're up and
12:20they were, and even last year, Seth, they started off 17 and 18, 35 games. So they were sub 500,
12:26you know, a month and a half into the season when they came back from 12 and 24, really not
12:30that many
12:30guys ended up playing like the back of their baseball card yet. No, I, they, I mean, they
12:36went on a hot streak, but I don't remember exactly how they got there. They went on a hot streak
12:39in
12:39the summer before they leading up to the trade deadline. Yep. Yep. And that was the year they
12:44traded for Kikuchi. I mean, he was their best pitcher the second half of that season. Yeah.
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