00:00So Tatsuya Imai got sent back to Houston after pitching a third of an inning
00:04in his start on Friday against the Seattle Mariners.
00:08He was all over the place.
00:09He was walking, guys.
00:10He was – it was a mess.
00:12That's how you – you know, you pitch third of an inning, it's not good.
00:15And sent back to Houston, Seth, to get tests done on his fatigued right arm.
00:20That's the words – exact words of the team.
00:22He had right arm fatigue.
00:24The test came back clean.
00:26So they're now going to try to build up his arm strength.
00:29I guess spring training didn't do that, you know.
00:34I don't know.
00:35The best way – if it's fatigue, don't you want to rest more than anything?
00:39Well –
00:39It's not a matter of strength.
00:40It's a matter of resting and recuperation.
00:43My question is fatigue doing what?
00:45You got knocked out in the third inning of your first start.
00:48You had a nice start in your second start.
00:49I will – that's the one thing, the one, the only thing I'm going to grant him in all of
00:54this
00:54is he was very good in his second start against the A's.
00:57He pitched in – he was the only one to get a win in this road trip.
01:00He pitched that 11-0 game in Sacramento against the A's.
01:05And then you pitched the third of an inning.
01:07How the hell is your arm tired?
01:08You haven't done anything.
01:09Well, it's because of the different routine in America, Sean.
01:12Oh, that's why.
01:13That's why.
01:14Okay.
01:14Yeah.
01:14Something that – you know when you're watching Major League Baseball and you're like,
01:19wow, are every single one of these guys born in the United States?
01:22Right.
01:22It's crazy.
01:23Yeah.
01:24Oh, wow.
01:24Wait a second.
01:25There's somebody who wasn't born in the U.S. playing in America all of a sudden?
01:29Right, right, right.
01:29I've never seen such a thing in Major League Baseball.
01:31Seth, believe it or not, there are players, dozens of players, who have actually come from
01:37not just outside America, but from Tatsuya Imai's home country of Japan.
01:40I refuse to believe it.
01:42No, it's true.
01:42How did they handle the incredible challenge of, quote, the travel is different from Japan
01:48and also the timing when players eat?
01:50So in Japan, the players, when they get back to the hotel, they eat their dinner.
01:54But here, the players eat at the stadium.
01:56That's a quote from Imai we should point out.
01:58I didn't realize the challenges were so mind-blowingly great, you know?
02:02I just – wow.
02:03How has anybody else ever done it?
02:06Oh, my God.
02:07This is the other quote.
02:08These are his reasons for arm fatigue.
02:11Apparently, like Kai Wei-Teng's doing just fine.
02:15Yeah.
02:15In Taiwan, is it that markedly different than how they do it in Japan?
02:19I wouldn't think so.
02:20And it's just more like the American routine?
02:21Certainly, it's the same time difference thereabouts and everything.
02:25Do you know what time they eat dinner in Venezuela, Sean?
02:27It's like 9 p.m.
02:29A lot of these Latin American countries, they eat dinner at 9 p.m.
02:33I don't hear them complaining about how all of a sudden in America, they've got to adjust
02:37to an American dinner time.
02:39This guy is so faking this injury right now.
02:41This is such a phony injury.
02:43Seth just read one of the quotes when Imai was asked through an interpreter about this
02:47arm fatigue and why he's having trouble sort of dealing with – you know, why he's not
02:52very good at pitching right now and why his arm is tired.
02:54This is the other quote.
02:55You read the one about the eating times, which is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
03:00Because you can control that.
03:01Just don't eat at the ballpark.
03:03Eat when you get home.
03:04You can control that.
03:05But this is his other quote, just not able to adjust to the American lifestyle other
03:10than baseball.
03:10Baseball and outside of baseball, that's probably the reason for his arms.
03:15He said that's probably the reason.
03:17And the problem is, though, we had already been talking about this before this ridiculous
03:20quote comes out, where it just seemed to be every step along the way, oh, the mounds
03:26are steeper.
03:26Oh, the mound in Seattle was too hard.
03:32The ball is too slippery.
03:34Like, all of these things with every little difference.
03:36It was too cold at 64 degrees outside.
03:38I can remember.
03:39I guess that's why Otani sucked so bad his rookie year.
03:42Yeah.
03:43Yeah.
03:43It's because of all the differences.
03:45Oh, yeah.
03:46Or each row.
03:46Fact check me on that, Sean.
03:47Did Otani suck his rookie year?
03:49No.
03:49I didn't even need to open a browser.
03:50No.
03:51No.
03:52God.
03:52Yeah.
03:54So this is very frustrating.
03:55I'm not buying that he even has arm fatigue, because there's nothing.
03:59There was zero that came back.
04:01There's zero that came back on the tests.
04:03And these are the dumbest reasons I've ever heard for somebody failing at their job in
04:07baseball right now.
04:08Come on.
04:08The time that you eat.
04:10It's frustrating.
04:11There's a lot going on frustrating with the pitching staff, as many of you might have
04:14noticed, by way of them having the worst ERA in Major League Baseball.
04:18Yeah.
04:18What is the way out of this, other than we're going to see Arregetti.
04:22Yeah.
04:22And so, Arregetti maybe being the best version of himself.
04:26Okay.
04:27This is good.
04:27Taking inventory.
04:28That's possible, right?
04:30Hunter Brown is going to come back at some point.
04:32Some point.
04:32Well.
04:33Josh Hader will be back at some point.
04:35It seems like.
04:35You know what I just did, though?
04:36Like, how stupid am I?
04:38Well, Hunter Brown's going to be back in two months.
04:40It's the Astros.
04:41I haven't paid attention to a damn thing in the last three years.
04:44Yeah.
04:44Well, but no.
04:44But we are doing kind of best case scenarios.
04:47Yeah.
04:47Very plausible.
04:48Plausible scenarios.
04:49Hunter Brown coming back.
04:50Plausible.
04:51Plausible.
04:52I say with a sense.
04:52Plausible.
04:53Yeah.
04:53Me too.
04:55Arregetti pitching well.
04:56Plausible.
04:57Hader coming back and being vintage Josh Hader.
05:00Very plausible.
05:01Might be the thing I feel best about, just because they seem like they're being super
05:04careful with him.
05:05If anything, maybe, maybe a silver lining is that, yeah, he'll be fresher by the end of
05:11the season, too, because he won't have had the overall workload.
05:14I like where your head's at.
05:16Where else do you?
05:18Well, Lance, Lance, Lance, I mean, it's possible, but we shouldn't, I don't think we can call
05:23it plausible that you're going to get an entire season out of Lance.
05:25What about Jason?
05:26But that's at least one little, one thing that would be a huge thing if it happened, so that's
05:31a scenario that could work out for the better.
05:33What about Jason Alexander coming up and giving you a little of what he gave you last year?
05:37I would, I would say that if I had felt better in general about the Astros staff, the development
05:44staff, being able to get the most out of guys, I think that, look, one of our, one of our
05:48listeners is furious with me because I don't talk about this every single segment, but there's
05:52a burgeoning question and speculation about just how much, how much are the analytic staff
05:58actually helping versus potentially hurting the Astros pitchers by messing with their pitch
06:04selection so much and maybe asking them to throw pitches that they're not as comfortable
06:08with?
06:08What's the toll physiologically with that?
06:11And could be that, could that be a part of the reason why that, you know, you can look
06:16on a spreadsheet and say, wow, if you just threw more sweepers and, uh, you know, throw your
06:21fastball differently, et cetera, et cetera, that's all great.
06:24And it looks good and it works out for a little while, but if you're doing stuff that anatomically
06:28maybe, maybe sometimes guys throw the pitches they like because that's what their body
06:33is telling them and how far have we diverged from being what's good for like what's natural
06:39and what the math says in finding the happy medium in there.
Comments