00:00The Astros win last night, 9-2.
00:02That was nice to see.
00:03Spencer Arrighetti gets you five innings,
00:07which feels like a complete game for an Astros starter these days.
00:10If you get five innings out of an Astros starter, you're laughing right now.
00:14Spencer Arrighetti gave you five innings, 96 pitches.
00:18Wasn't great.
00:19Put a bunch of guys on base, but was able to get out of jams.
00:22And that was good to see.
00:24Now we'll see what happens moving forward.
00:26The bullpen gave up no runs.
00:28Bullpen's actually been better of late.
00:31The bullpen has started to kind of figure some things out.
00:34Yeah, Sean, it helps when you have a starting pitcher go five innings.
00:36It does, and you're not taxed.
00:38Five innings.
00:39Yep.
00:40That's how meager our expectations have become.
00:43I genuinely get excited when I see the pitcher's gone five-plus innings.
00:48I look at those guys as throwback players almost.
00:52I would temper your excitement for tonight.
00:54Ryan Weiss is on the mound tonight for the Astros.
00:57I like Ryan Weiss's look.
01:00It looks like they picked him up down at the bus station on Main.
01:03Oh, for sure.
01:04Yeah.
01:04Yeah.
01:04He's just got a little bit of that river rat look to him.
01:08I like him.
01:09He's like our old guy, our old friend from Berkeley there.
01:13What's his face?
01:14From Berkeley.
01:15Never mind.
01:16Don't worry about it.
01:17Okay.
01:17I have no idea who you're talking about.
01:19Is Joe Espada in trouble?
01:21Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic had a piece yesterday, and the title was,
01:28The Mets, Phillies, and Astros have deeper problems than their managers.
01:31That doesn't mean they're safe, though.
01:35And he went through Carlos Mendoza with The Mets, went through Rob Thompson with The Phillies,
01:43and then went through pretty extensively Joe Espada, the case for and the case against Joe Espada.
01:50So I'll start here, Seth.
01:51Here's the case against whacking Joe Espada.
01:55Before I get into this, how much at fault do you feel like Espada is right now?
01:58Is Espada more a victim of this team right now, or is he a cause of this team?
02:03I wish, I really, really wish there weren't so many other issues that he isn't responsible for
02:11that you could actually figure out whether he is responsible for some things.
02:15Because when it comes to, okay, how is he handling the pitching rotation?
02:19How is he handling the relievers?
02:21I don't know who exactly is supposed to manage your way through all of these injuries.
02:27I mean, you brought up, they haven't had the same lineup a single time this season,
02:32but it's not because of some crazy extreme tinkering or something that Espada has had to do.
02:38They've just been hit with so many injuries that they have to shuffle some things around.
02:43So right now, I'm kind of, I'm sitting on the fence by and large.
02:47I think the fact that the base running has been an asset, the fielding has been a plus,
02:52and the judgment at the plate, even though it's taken a few years,
02:55has finally started to look more like what he's been trying to work on.
02:58Um, then I give him a pass on probably more things than I should, but it's because it's
03:04like trying to, you know, you know, criticize somebody's parallel parking when they're trying
03:08to do it in a, in a hailstorm.
03:09Yeah.
03:10Um, the case against whacking Espada, I mean, these are the bullet points that Rosenthal points
03:15out.
03:15And I, and I tend to agree with these.
03:17Um, he did come back from 12 and 24 in 2024 to win the division.
03:23You know, he's, he's gotten off to slow starts and the team, his, his only two iterations
03:29of the Astros that he's managed, both got better as the season went on.
03:33You know, they started 12 and 24 was a catastrophe in 2024.
03:36They went on a tear in the summer.
03:38They come back, they win the division last year, 35 games into the season.
03:42They're under 500.
03:43They're 17 and 18, 35 games into the season.
03:46And despite losing Jordan Alvarez and a bleep ton of pitchers, including Josh Hader down
03:52the stretch, um, they were still in it on the last day of the year.
03:56You know, the team, it's not as though the two teams that he's, that he's managed so far
04:01prior to this season, both got off to slow starts, but both were highly relevant at the,
04:06at a minimum down the stretch.
04:07And the team two years ago, won the division.
04:09Now they got swept by the Tigers.
04:11Joe Espada has yet to win a playoff game, but we'll eat what's on our plate for now.
04:16So he, he, he has shown a resiliency as a, as his teams have before.
04:20I think, well, and this is the other part of, you know, on a team like the Astros where
04:25the front office has a lot of say in how things are going to go and they, you know, the
04:30managers
04:30expected to rely on the analytics and all of those other things.
04:34I mean, I just, this is overly simplified, but swapping out the dual pitching coaches
04:41for Victor Rodriguez and changing the structure of how they're doing all of a sudden Espada
04:46looks like a better manager, but just cause guys are hitting the ball better.
04:50And I don't know how much the change in the coaching had to do with that versus sometimes
04:55guys play like the back of their baseball card.
04:57And sometimes they don't.
04:59But that side of the ball has gotten off to an incredible start.
05:02They're still, they're still second in the league in OPS right now.
05:06Whereas on the defensive side of the ball, they haven't made those overhauls in all of
05:09those changes.
05:10And, and, and then you add onto that, the injuries it's, is it an organizational thing
05:17or is it in a spot of thing?
05:19Yeah.
05:19Yep.
05:19Yeah.
05:19Then the injuries are the next bullet point Rosenthal brings up.
05:22This is how long ago this article was written.
05:24Seth, there were only 14 guys on the IL when this article got written.
05:28That was two full days ago.
05:29So there's now 15 soon to be 16 with Nick Allen and Taylor Trammell getting injured in
05:35the last few days, but three of the 14 guys on the IL are three of their four all-stars
05:39from last year, Josh Hader, Hunter Brown, and Jeremy Pena.
05:44And the last thing Rosenthal brings up in favor of a spot of the case against firing him
05:49is that Dana Brown, the GM may be more to blame right now about the product than the
05:54manager might be.
05:55He gave him a poorly constructed roster.
05:58Didn't go get an outfielder for him.
06:00Didn't go get the pitching solutions were low budget, hopeful, wishful thinking, pitching
06:06solutions, and none of it's worked out.
06:09Well, and some of the, but, but again, you go back to the injuries though, too.
06:11And I mean, low perfido now on the IL, but Cam Smith is working out really well.
06:18Jake Myers on the IL.
06:20Desenzo going way back is on the IL.
06:22Like that's, that's where I guess the biggest, the biggest thing I can look at in terms of
06:30the entire team is, all right, you've got certain offensive players in roles that you
06:34didn't expect to have them in.
06:35And because of injuries with the pitching, it's just bad pitching and whether guys are injured
06:42or whether they're not Hunter Brown and Spencer Arregetti are the only starting pitchers that
06:47have shown anything.
06:48And I, both of them have only done it for a couple of games between the two of them.
06:52You've got really four games to really look at anything.
06:56And in Arregetti, he went five innings last night, but it was on a, it was on a cold evening.
07:00He lost two runs.
07:02Like so far, so good with Arregetti.
07:04All the other starting pitchers have just been trash.
07:07Yeah.
07:08And, and, uh, until, until that turns around or rectifies itself, whether they're injured
07:13or not, they, and let's not forget too, it's the, you can't blame injuries when you're
07:19also bragging about the depth of pitchers that you have.
07:23And then when every single time somebody comes in, uh, all that depth that you bragged about
07:28having in the off season and options, those guys are coming in and not doing anything.
07:33So that's, yeah, that's hard for me on the broadcast the other day, you know, callous
07:38did the appropriate thing, which is like, you almost have to sound apologetic when you bring
07:42up Mike Burroughs expected stats versus his actual, he's been pretty unlucky for a guy.
07:47He's had a lot of bad luck, but I mean, his expected ERA is 3.88, which is all right,
07:54good.
07:54You're an average major league pitcher, but it's not like, it's not like you're saying
07:57like, wow, yeah, actually he's had really bad luck and he, and he should be one of the
08:01better pitchers in the league or something, but that's, that's at least passable.
08:05That's a big Delta though.
08:06Yeah.
08:06That's a big Delta for a guy.
08:07He's got the biggest gap in the league between his expected ERA and his actual ERA.
08:12Yeah.
08:12That, that checks out.
08:13He's given up a lot of soft contact the case for whacking Joe Espada in this article.
08:19I'll boil it down to a few things.
08:21One, do we even know that Jim Crane is confident in Joe Espada or Dana Brown for that matter
08:26to begin with?
08:26They're both doing the rare, I say rare for sports.
08:30It's really not that rare for Jim Crane.
08:32And as we saw with James Click to let a guy operate on the last year of a contract, you
08:37know, a lot of times you see, you don't see coaches or GMs even go into the last year of
08:42the deal because they, you know, it's a vote of confidence for them.
08:44Joe Espada and Dana Brown are both, their contracts are up after this year.
08:49The, I think the biggest, the, the biggest thing right now for Astro fans, and I predicted
08:54this after the world baseball classic, that if the Astros get off to a start like they
08:59had in 2024, that the drum beat for Omar Lopez is going to start.
09:04And sure enough, it starts in this article with Ken Rosenthal who mentions that they've
09:09got a sizzly candidate right there in the dugout in Omar Lopez.
09:13If you fire Joe Espada right now, Seth, I think it's more about trying to give the team
09:17some sort of jolt before it's too late than it is.
09:21Joe Espada is doing a terrible job this year.
09:23He's, I think Joe Espada is more victim than cause like everything is, there's probably
09:29elements of both.
09:31But if you're, if you're managing it, like if they were to, if they were to fire Joe
09:34Espada, my guess is that Jim Crane would do a press conference, I would think.
09:40And he would talk more about Espada.
09:43He would talk more about whoever it is coming in, being a spark in something Espada was doing
09:48wrong.
09:48Like, you know, I've been around baseball a long time and this just feels like a team
09:52that just needed a different voice.
09:54It just needed a jolt.
09:55And that's why we're doing this, but Omar Lopez, when they, when Venezuela won that
09:59WBC, man, Oh, the, the calculus on a slow Astro start and what the fan base was going
10:07to be like changed.
10:10You know, when you got a candidate who just won the WBC, cause I know a lot of you out
10:13there care about the WBC.
10:14So by proxy, you've got to care about Omar Lopez and think that he did a good job in a
10:19highly competitive environment.
10:20So that's the biggest variable for me is Omar Lopez sitting right there.
10:24Yeah.
10:25Yeah.
10:25Which, uh, another in-house promotion and just kick it.
10:30I don't know.
10:30Yeah.
10:31Well, he'd be the interim.
10:33I'm not saying he'd be the full-time guy.
10:34I'm just saying, right.
10:35Right.
10:35You know, like it's he, he, he'd be the jolt that crane thinks he needs.
10:39Remember there was that one report in Espada's first year early on that veterans had issues
10:43with, uh, Espada's communication style.
10:46We haven't heard anything like that since that, right?
10:49No, no.
10:50I mean, that was, and that's, you know, looking at it in hindsight, that probably just classic
10:54guy first time in his role.
10:56Um, that part of it, there's never, I've never gotten any kind of hint of dissension from
11:01any of the veterans or anything.
11:02Have you?
11:02No.
11:03They seem to like Joe.
11:04Yeah.
11:04They seem, they seem to like him.
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