00:00Tatsuya Imae had his second rehab outing.
00:03This one went a little better than the first one.
00:05The first one in Corpus, he got shellacked.
00:07This one, he was just walking a bunch of guys.
00:10He didn't give up.
00:11He only gave up one hit and one run.
00:13He walked five guys in three innings, so it's still suboptimal, obviously.
00:18He's got to find himself, and quickly, if he's going to help the Astros get back in this race.
00:23But this was his translator listing a couple more reasons
00:27why Tatsuya Imae just can't get right over here in America.
00:31So I think that one of the reasons is in Japan, we don't have any pitch clock,
00:36and then I'm able to take more time between pitches.
00:40And then also, for example, before games, in Japan,
00:46you can take some time every pitches, and then I can go to throw inside to the lefty,
00:53we can get a first pitch strike with sliders.
00:57And then for here, we do scouting report, and we talk about the weakness of the hitters.
01:04And then I'm thinking I want to do more, I want to talk about more of the strength
01:10that I have using a slider for the first pitch count,
01:14get more strikes with a slider than other pitches as well.
01:17Okay, so let's throw two more logs on the fire of Tatsuya Imae's excuses
01:22for why he sucks at baseball right now.
01:25So we've got dinner time.
01:27That was one of them already.
01:28We already had dinner time.
01:29We had the slippery ball.
01:31Slippery ball.
01:32The mound was too hard.
01:33Yeah, the mound was too hard.
01:35Yeah.
01:36The dinner time one also came with sort of a general inability to adjust
01:42to sort of the social life here in America as well.
01:45I don't remember seeing that specifically.
01:47There was just like the, I remember there being two,
01:50I remember there being like an adjunct to the dinner time thing.
01:52Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:54Just life in America.
01:56Yeah, so, but now we've also got the pitch clock,
02:00which lots of pitchers had to adjust to a couple years ago.
02:05And it's not like he got ambushed by this.
02:08Right, right.
02:08You knew there was a pitch clock when you came over here.
02:11He was signed in January.
02:13It's not like it was some WWE match where they all of a sudden
02:17throw a guest referee in at the last second.
02:19And I have a hard time.
02:20Like, honestly, do the Astros operate that differently
02:23that they're trying to attack batters' weaknesses instead of,
02:28I want to throw the, I want to predictably throw my slider
02:32on the first pitch as much as possible.
02:34And they won't let me know.
02:35Yeah, Major League batters hate that.
02:37If they can, if they know that you're going to pitch the pitch
02:40you really like throwing on the first pitch of the count.
02:44Yeah.
02:44Yeah, I don't, I don't know, to his, I don't want to say to his credit,
02:50but to give him a little bit of a break, I don't, you know,
02:53we don't know because we can't hear the tone of his voice or anything
02:56as he's actually saying.
02:56I don't think he's sitting there and like, you know,
02:58asking people to cry him a river or anything.
03:00Right.
03:00He's giving explanations for why he's having these struggles.
03:05It's just that you just, after enough explanations and bad performance,
03:10it just feels like an excuse.
03:12Yep.
03:13These are all issues that other people have to face and overcome
03:17in terms of Japanese pitchers, okay?
03:20I know it's different than other people from other environments
03:23having to adjust to it, but he's doing a really, really bad job of it.
03:27So here's what I recalled from the Chandler Rome when he tweeted this out.
03:33When the arm fatigue, with air quotes, first started popping up,
03:37through an interpreter, this is back on April 14th,
03:40through an interpreter, Tatsuya Imai said he is, quote,
03:43just not able to adjust to the American lifestyle other than baseball.
03:47Baseball and outside of baseball, that's probably the reason.
03:50So he said that and then continued to say, for example,
03:55the travel is different from Japan.
03:56The timing when the players eat in Japan, when they get back to the hotel,
04:01they eat their dinner.
04:02Here the players eat at the stadium.
04:04So it sounded like it was a big-picture lifestyle thing,
04:06and then the eating was an example of that.
04:08Wait, did he say, but that's the part, and I'll put this on the interpreter,
04:11not Imai.
04:12I was confused about that quote originally because it sounds like he's saying
04:15it's not just the baseball.
04:18It's not outside of baseball, but it's outside of baseball.
04:22Can you read the first part of the quote again?
04:23For sure.
04:23Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
04:24Tatsuya Imai said that he is, quote,
04:27just not able to adjust to the American lifestyle other than baseball.
04:31Baseball and outside of baseball, that's probably the reason.
04:35So maybe the interpreter's correcting himself or something.
04:37Oh, so outside of baseball.
04:38Yeah, he probably repeated the word baseball.
04:39Okay, that's why I got confused.
04:41Yep, yep, yep.
04:41Because it sounded like he said outside of baseball.
04:45Either way.
04:46It sounds like it's everything.
04:47Yeah, none of this reduces my frustration level with Tatsuya Imai at all.
04:52And it doesn't seem like with his two appearances in Sugar Land post arm fatigue
05:00that he's really fixed anything.
05:03He's walking guys.
05:04Unless he's working on stuff down there, I have no idea.
05:06If he's treating it like guys treat spring training sometimes, I don't know.
05:09Maybe it would be a different version of the American lifestyle in Sugar Land perhaps.
05:13You know, you get out of town, you go to Sugar Land,
05:16and it's just a completely different vibe there than in the city of Houston.
05:21It's totally different.
05:22Yeah, you don't even recognize it.
05:25It's, yeah.
05:26You got that city center type mall there and everything.
05:29I like that.
05:30Yeah, good restaurants.
05:32I asked ChatGPT for some nicknames for the Astros, Seth, as requested.
05:36ChatGPT chose violence right out of the chute.
05:39Yeah.
05:39And I asked a pretty good prompt here.
05:41I said, the Astros are the most injured team in baseball,
05:43and they're in last place in their division.
05:45What are some funny nicknames for this team?
05:47The very first thing, the Houston asterisks.
05:50What the hell?
05:51Ah, ah.
05:52The hell ChatGPT?
05:53You know what, man?
05:54Somebody pitching Ninja did a really funny graphic of Altuve.
06:00For those of you who didn't see the game,
06:01Altuve had the most Altuve reach ever.
06:05It's the worst one ever.
06:06Like, it was, Otani threw a sweeper that was, like, three feet outside the zone.
06:14The ball didn't go over or under the bat.
06:17It was to the outside of the bat.
06:19So, Pitching Ninja, when he first showed it, he said Altuve missed it by two Altuves.
06:25Yeah.
06:26But then the next one, he actually had Altuve holding, instead of a bat, an Altuve.
06:32A little image of Altuve, the same height.
06:35Swinging himself.
06:36And he had him swing it with it.
06:37And it looks like he might have gotten it if he was swinging an Altuve-linked bat.
06:40Close.
06:41It was close.
06:42Yeah.
06:42It was really, really close.
06:43It was funny.
06:44But it was hilarious.
06:46All right.
06:46Now, after asterisks, it does lean into the injury.
06:49Oh, so anyway, underneath that tweet, that was where I got annoyed.
06:52Because you get all these guys.
06:53They really, I think they think they're coming up with something new.
06:58Hard to hit the ball when you don't know what pitch is coming.
07:02There were no trash cans or something like that.
07:05It's just they endure.
07:06And it doesn't bother me other than that I feel like a lot of these Dodgers fans,
07:11I think they think they're coming up with it.
07:13That's what annoys me.
07:14Right.
07:15I want to go to their homes and sit down in their living rooms with them
07:21and ask them if they thought they came up with it.
07:24And then I want to strangle them to death.
07:25Yes.
07:26I just want to strangle them until they're dead on the floor.
07:28Yep.
07:29Is that wrong?
07:30No.
07:30Okay.
07:31No, not at all.
07:32You can go full Ted Bundy on them.
07:33That's right.
07:33That's right.
07:33That's right, old Seth.
07:34I'm not going to go that far.
07:35I'm not going to cut them up and eat them or anything.
07:37That's right, old Seth.
07:37No, you do what you got to do.
07:39You do what you got to do.
07:40Okay.
07:40I only eat organic Dodger fans.
07:42So, there's a texter, Seth, that is, I think, upset that we've targeted Kendrick Perkins
07:51with some of our ridicule.
07:53I see for some reason you guys like dissecting certain people's opinions on sports and making
07:58them look foolish as if they're talking politics or something.
08:01LOL.
08:02Sports is unpredictable.
08:03It's very opinionated.
08:04And I'm quite sure, I'm quite sure if I dissect every show you guys talk on, I probably could
08:11do the same thing and make you guys look foolish because sports is opinionated and unpredictable.
08:16Thank you for the, thank you for the education.
08:18Thanks for letting me know that it's about opinions and sports, Copernicus.
08:22Yeah, yeah, yeah.
08:23Yeah, let's get over yourself, fancy lad.
08:26Listen, don't be one of those annoying people that listens to sports radio while all the while
08:31thinking, I'm too good for sports radio.
08:33Well, what's better is that person's a classic person that, because we see the cycles with
08:37this.
08:37Yeah.
08:38We'll have somebody come to us and say, you know what, I've realized that sports is actually
08:41really silly.
08:42I'm going to devote my time to more serious matters.
08:45And then, and then three years later after the Astros lose a game in the, in the playoffs,
08:49like, I can't believe that my life has been turned upside down by this.
08:53No, this is the reason it's because Kendrick Perkins is good at his job.
08:56Yeah.
08:57He, he says really interesting things.
08:59And sometimes, sometimes we agree with them and sometimes we don't, but he does it in
09:05a really entertaining fashion.
09:06Yes.
09:06That's why the worst take of the week when we do take a mania, it's not always the genuinely
09:11worst take of the week.
09:13It's somebody, it has to have some entertainment value on top of that.
09:16Yeah.
09:17And Kendrick Perkins is really good at grabbing people's attention.
09:20And, and either when you agree with him or disagree with him, he excites emotion.
09:26Okay.
09:26Two things on this one, this person seems to be kind of like, you know, trying to defend
09:32Kendrick Perkins.
09:33I'm going to tell you the bottom of the list of people that care that Seth and I went after
09:37them for that opinion sits Kendrick Perkins.
09:39He does not give a damn.
09:41He's doing it for a reason.
09:43Number two, generally speaking people in our industry, the debate, the debate shows, talk
09:48radio, we are not paid to be right.
09:51We're not paid to be right with our opinions.
09:53None of us can, if you want to, Hey, a texter, knock yourself out.
09:56If you want to go and I'm going to tell you, you probably don't need to go very far.
09:59You can probably just listen to the first three hours of this show and find stuff to come
10:02after us about.
10:03We're pretty open and transparent about the stupid stuff we say.
10:06It tells me again, like, uh, I don't, I don't believe that person has listened to our
10:10show very much.
10:11I say something incredibly stupid at least three times a show and, uh, usually Sean will
10:16catch it and point it out and then we have a big laugh about it.
10:19That's right.
10:20You know, that's right.
10:20We don't care that we're right or wrong.
10:22And then after the show, I hate myself so much that I pay a hooker to slap me in the
10:26face.
10:27But it's a, but it's a process.
10:29It's what you do.
10:29Do you do what you got to do to get through that up and take it to your little interwebs?
10:33There you go.
10:33There you go.
10:34Yeah.
10:34So I just, I, yeah, like you're, you are, you texter are way more worked up about this than
10:39both we and Kendrick Perkins are.
10:42I promise you that.
10:43I promise you that.
10:44Read the part though too, about like, I don't understand the, it's interesting that it's
10:47about opinions.
10:48Yes.
10:49So like, so when we voice our opinion about his response to an opinion, is that, uh,
10:54uh, or is it that you want us to read box scores?
10:57He thinks that we're, he, I think he thinks we're trying to make Kendrick Perkins look foolish.
11:01Well, yeah, yeah, that's more entertaining than not doing it.
11:05He'll be okay.
11:06We're not slandering him.
11:08Hey, Hey, Hey, you texter, you know what else you got big, stupid ears.
11:12Yeah.
11:12Everybody knows it.
11:13Everybody knows it.
11:14Yeah.
11:15You can't walk into the room.
11:16Everybody.
11:17Hey, was Jim there?
11:18Uh, yeah, he knocked over, uh, he knocked over a vase on his way in and with his big,
11:23stupid ears.
11:25Ooh, you want highbrow entertainment.
11:27Oh my God.
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