- 2 days ago
Seth and Sean kick off the show talking about the Astros 9-0 no hitter win over the Rangers yesterday, and the need for Cam Smith to stop with the pitch challenges bc he's awful at it.
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00:00Call a third strike! The Astros' 17th no-hitter!
00:06That's a challenge by Brandon Nimmo.
00:09For now, it's the 7th no-hitter in the last 8 years, and it is confirmed!
00:14The Astros with a no-hitter!
00:17Alan Versanta, in his Major League debut, gets the last 6 outs with 2 perfect innings, and the celebration begins!
00:26Todd Callis on the call, and this is exactly what we thought we'd be coming into on Tuesday.
00:31A sweep of the Cubs where the pitching was amazing, and then a 9-0 no-hitter started by Tatsuya
00:38Imai.
00:39This is just what we drew it up as, Seth, on Friday.
00:41We said, when we come in on Tuesday, we're going to be talking about a 4-0 streak, and a
00:47sweep of the Cubs, and a no-hitter involving Tatsuya Imai.
00:50We kind of did talk about it, just because we had reset the season at the beginning of the last
00:55Rangers series, Sean.
00:57And since then, since we, for the good of all Houston, and our mental health reset the season.
01:02This was your idea. It was a really good idea by you.
01:05We reset Imai's season, and we reset the season in general. What is the record since then?
01:097-3.
01:107-3 since we reset the record.
01:12And if there's one thing I know about baseball, it's that 10 games is enough to tell exactly how it's
01:16going to go.
01:16That's a big enough sample size.
01:18Yeah, that's a big sample size.
01:19That's a big time of year.
01:19Right, yeah, sure.
01:21In April, it's not.
01:21Sure, 100%.
01:22Right.
01:22No, but if you had, I don't frequent the Kashi stuff, but I'm guessing if you had, I'm guessing you
01:31could have gotten some action on Imai.
01:34What is it?
01:35Kalshi.
01:35Kalshi.
01:36Yeah.
01:36Excuse me.
01:37Well, they're an advertiser.
01:38I just want to make sure we respect him.
01:39You've been around for nine months.
01:42So, Kalshi, what the odds were on Imai being part of a no-hitter when he couldn't buy a strike.
01:50Nope.
01:51I don't know if it's ethical in Japan to buy a strike or not, but here it's not.
01:54No.
01:55And you wouldn't have been able to either.
01:56Nope.
01:56He couldn't find the plate in a bad way.
02:00He's part of the first no-hitter since 2024, everybody.
02:04Yeah, in baseball.
02:05Not just with the Astros, because I was thinking about that last night.
02:08I'm like, man.
02:09Because what made me think of it was Vasquez being behind the plate last night.
02:12Because I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right.
02:14Vasquez caught the no-hitter in the World Series.
02:18And I'm thinking, was that the last time the Astros had one?
02:21Like, no, Ronell Blanco had one at the beginning of 24 against the Blue Jays.
02:26That was the first win of the year for them that year.
02:28They got swept by the Yankees.
02:29And then Ronell Blanco goes out there and throws a damn no-hitter.
02:32But this is the – I didn't realize until this morning when I saw the headline on my little newsletter
02:37I get from MLB.com
02:39that this was the first one in all of baseball since 2024.
02:42First one in all of baseball since 2024.
02:45And Santa, the rookie, again, for those of you who fell asleep early last night,
02:49came in for the final two innings and was the first rookie to be involved in a no-hitter since
02:561892.
02:58Oh, yeah.
02:58When that old bastard Bumpus Jones.
03:00Bumpus.
03:01Making one of only – one of his only eight appearances in his major league career.
03:06Well, that could be Santa, too.
03:07You never know.
03:08I know.
03:08That's right.
03:09I know.
03:09That was a little bit of – I didn't want to be that guy, so I'll let you do it.
03:12Yeah.
03:12Because, you know, you come in, wow, your first two innings are part of a committee no-hitter.
03:16Right, right, right.
03:17Nothing but greatness ahead for you.
03:19Yeah, yeah, man.
03:19Now, old Bumpus Jones finished his two-year career with a 7.99 ERA.
03:24Yeah.
03:24And managed to record 10 strikeouts in 41 and two-thirds innings.
03:28Probably sat on the assembly line in 1922 telling people about it.
03:33You know, back in my day when I was part of a no-hitter.
03:35Bumpus Jones.
03:36This is my last bit on Bumpus Jones because I did research this one.
03:39Yeah, yeah.
03:40Wikipedia.
03:40Mm-hmm.
03:41According to Bill James, the sabermetrician, Bumpus Jones was the least likely pitcher ever
03:47to have thrown a no-hitter in the major leagues.
03:49Yeah, he did the full Monty.
03:50He went beginning to end in the no-hitter.
03:52It kind of speaks to just how extremely rare it is for a rookie to be involved in a no
03:56-hitter
03:56because, for one, I think a lot of times you're not necessarily sending your rookie in there
04:01in that situation.
04:02Yeah.
04:02You know, if you've got a no-hitter going or something, like, hey, here's your debut.
04:08Right.
04:09But the Astros are in a bit of a unique situation here.
04:14And it was 9-0.
04:14It was 9-0, too.
04:15That helps a lot.
04:16That was a big thing, too.
04:17Yeah.
04:17So, man, that was fun last night.
04:19And, boy, so it's a weird thing, Seth, because the no-hitter kind of buries the more important
04:25picture.
04:26All these runs they're scoring?
04:27Oh, that is important.
04:31Tatsuya Imai.
04:32Yeah.
04:32Tatsuya Imai with six no-hitter.
04:34Now, he walked four guys, and it was a bit of a grind in the first inning.
04:38Now, if somebody told me after the first inning that Tatsuya Imai was going to make it six
04:42innings in this thing, I would have said, you're crazy, because he threw 24 pitches
04:46in the first inning, walked a few guys.
04:48It looked, other than the runs being, other than him keeping runs off the board, it looked
04:53a lot like an Imai inning.
04:55And then, to his credit, and this is really important, man.
04:57Because it's between the ears with him right now.
04:59He straightened it out.
05:01Yeah.
05:01And you got six no-hit innings out of him.
05:05Add that to what already has been starting pitch.
05:08And it doesn't involve any of the guys that you were counting on coming into the year,
05:11other than Imai.
05:12Yeah.
05:12Because Hunter Brown is throwing well in a rehab start.
05:16We don't know what Javier's going to be.
05:17You know, it's been Spencer Arrighetti.
05:20It was, you know, Lambert gave you a decent enough start to keep you in the game on Sunday.
05:26Tang has been a revelation all of a sudden.
05:29And now you've got Imai.
05:31You know, this is his first start back from the arm fatigue, air quotes, was looking okay.
05:39And then it got cut short by rain.
05:40So that's not his fault.
05:41And then this one, he looked, flat out looked good.
05:45This is, it feels nice to come in on a Tuesday and talk about encouraging things.
05:49Well, yeah, no, and I think we got to the point where we were just hoping that a starting
05:53pitcher would go five innings into a game.
05:56And I'm still a little bit at that point where, oh, he made it five innings.
06:00He allowed seven runs, but he made it five innings.
06:02It might not be a disaster with the bullpen over the next few days.
06:06That's gotten steadily better.
06:07They've been, they've been an above average staff in the month of May, 3.8 ERA or so.
06:12And where, but to put things in perspective, they still, despite being an above average
06:19pitching team for the entire month of May, they're the worst ERA in the league.
06:23Their, their start to the season was so horrendous.
06:26So bad.
06:26The bullpen is still in the mid, the bill, the bullpen is still like 5.6.
06:31Yeah.
06:31As a bullpen.
06:32It's crazy.
06:33So the, but, but the fact that they're scoring runs too, you know, and so last night it was
06:39a, it was a complete deal.
06:41You scored nine runs.
06:42The, there was a, a no hitter where your starting pitcher really lacked command early in the
06:48game, but there was really good defense behind him.
06:50Yep.
06:50So Payne made an awesome play.
06:52The, the double plays that bailed him out of some stuff though.
06:56It was just, it was a great, great night of baseball and especially versus the Rangers.
06:59Versus the hated Rangers.
07:00Yeah.
07:01Sure.
07:01Yeah.
07:01We got to keep our eye on the socials today to see if our counterparts up there are flipping
07:05out this morning.
07:06Uh, Sean and, and, uh, choppy up there.
07:08Oh, that's right.
07:09Cause they were, they were flipping out after the Astros beat them in a series two to one.
07:15Yeah.
07:16I'm well, it's entertaining audio.
07:18That's, that'd be the thing.
07:19And, and so they, we're concerned.
07:20We're good.
07:21And we're concerned.
07:21Yeah.
07:21Well, they're our neighbors on radio row every year.
07:24So that, but I, we got to keep our eye on that flip out of that.
07:27Cause they got no hit by a crew of pitchers.
07:29It included Tatsuya, he, my last night, by the way, this weekend, I, I went through and
07:34watched every single schedule release video looking for the shade and it was kind of disappointing
07:39cause the Texans, the Texans opponents this year really had as a group, awful, awful.
07:46Oh, really?
07:47When you look at that ranking on the athletic of the schedule release videos, there were
07:51only like two Texans opponents that were in the top 15.
07:54Yeah.
07:55And one of them, like a couple of them really, they had really good videos, but they didn't
08:00throw shade necessarily.
08:01Did the Chargers throw shade?
08:02Cause they're a little, oh yeah.
08:03Yeah.
08:03Yeah.
08:04Yeah.
08:04They did the, they did the halo.
08:06Um, they, they, they, they made it like halo, the video game.
08:10And they had two of the characters, one as Caleb Williams and one as CJ Stroud with the
08:15audio of CJ given Caleb Williams.
08:18Yeah.
08:18And they had at one point get higher 77, uh, Kevin Durant's alleged burner account.
08:23Oh yeah.
08:24And I don't know how the game works kids in Ben.
08:26And so, uh, they, they, they said, entered the chat or has entered the conversation or
08:30whatever.
08:30Um, I only saw the Rossini Vrabel stuff from the charger.
08:34I saw that.
08:35It was hard to watch though, too, because they, they showed the whole exchange, you know,
08:39and that, that exchange has gotten a lot cringier over the last couple of years.
08:42Oh yeah.
08:42Between CJ and Caleb Williams.
08:44Yeah.
08:44It's hard to find a power ranking.
08:46That's got CJ ahead of Caleb.
08:48Yeah.
08:48Yeah.
08:49So, um, though, no, but the most shade by far was the Cowboys where they had, uh, three
08:54of the Ryans on their team all together doing like a, uh, like a, it was like an intelligence
09:00briefing type of thing.
09:01Okay.
09:02Like a, you know, secret service intelligence spy stuff.
09:06Okay.
09:06Any types of stuff.
09:07Okay.
09:07But they, uh, one of them and he was off camera.
09:10So I didn't know which one, whether it was a Guyton or one of the other Tylers, um, called
09:15Houston simply ghetto Dallas, which, which I was like, all right, what are you, you scared?
09:22I don't know.
09:22Cool.
09:23I had like, fine.
09:24Um, but I also, I, I give that guy a pass because you just know that that was something
09:29that Jerry Jones really wanted to say, except that Steven told him, no, no, Jerry, you can't
09:34say that.
09:35So Jerry's like, well, I'll just make one of my players do it.
09:38Oh, Jerry wanted to say it.
09:40Jerry wanted to be like, Hey, what if I call him ghetto Dallas, Steven?
09:44We think that would be a good thing to do.
09:46And Steven's like, uh, dad, I got to tell you, I just, I really don't think it's a good
09:50thing for you to do.
09:50It's the worst idea you've had since wanting to draft Johnny Manziel.
09:53We've got that picture of you still sit outside the courthouse or the school back in the
09:58day.
09:59Um, you know, we really don't want that, but one of the players had to do it.
10:02You watched all 32 of the videos, huh?
10:04Yeah.
10:04Yeah.
10:05It was a labor of love.
10:06It was over an hour.
10:07Over an hour.
10:08Yeah.
10:08They're each like, I thought about doing that.
10:10I'm like, okay, this won't, this won't take long.
10:12And they're like, okay, they're each about three minutes.
10:14That's an hour and a half.
10:15I did a YouTube video on it.
10:17Um, oh, did you really?
10:19Yeah.
10:19Yeah.
10:20Okay.
10:20I'm anxious to see what kind of traction that gets.
10:22Not a lot so far, but I know it's because I got too creative with the thumbnail.
10:25People don't like it when you get too creative with the thumbnail.
10:27Okay.
10:27I just got to, I'll turn it, I'll turn the thumbnail back into something like me hating
10:31Dallas or something like that.
10:33Yeah.
10:34Yeah.
10:34They like the facial expressions.
10:36The thing about Dallas is the first, when I first moved here, going back to 2002, it was
10:40the, it was one of the first weird things I noticed was this obsession that Dallas has
10:45with thinking that is obsessed with Dallas and it's really odd.
10:50It's a very, I don't, it's like an insecurity almost.
10:53Um, and I think it's probably tied to the fact that they haven't done anything as a, as
10:57a football team since the nineties.
10:59And it's gotten, it's gotten worse steadily over the years.
11:01I think Dallas people would be very surprised to hear where the Cowboys stack up on the list
11:07of teams Texan fans don't like.
11:09Right.
11:10Yeah.
11:10I think Texan fans hate the Patriots more than they hate the Cowboys.
11:13Texans fans hate the Cowboys only because there's a guy at their office that won't
11:18shut up about the Cowboys.
11:19They never play each other.
11:20And they make the same arguments over and over again.
11:22Yeah.
11:23There's like five, five insults that they'll try to lob at you.
11:27Like, well, we won Superbowls a long time ago.
11:29Right.
11:29Right.
11:29No, this is where football's got it right.
11:31Like the divisions matter in football.
11:33And I think all three of the divisional, I like, I know I find myself putting much more
11:38energy into rooting against the three teams in the division than I do even caring about
11:41the Cowboys.
11:43The Cowboys fans have to be a little embarrassed, right, about, by this point, them being called
11:49America's team.
11:51I don't know.
11:52It's like, they're America's team the way Blockbuster is America's streaming service.
11:56It's just not, I'm like, I don't, why are you trying so hard?
12:00Yeah.
12:00You know?
12:01I feel like, I feel like Dallas, people in Dallas are, they're like the kind of, the
12:06Cowboys are the guy that counts hookers in his body count.
12:09You know?
12:10Oh, that's a notch?
12:11It's just, yeah, there's a little bit of, you know, the teased hair, the stereotypical
12:15vision and accurate vision of a Dallas woman who's having high hair and everything, and
12:20just trying like hell to put on a big show.
12:23You know what?
12:23I think, if I had to guess, I would, I think they're a little more self-aware about it
12:28because they're not showing up in Oxnard anymore.
12:30Yeah, they don't even bother.
12:30They don't go to training camp anymore.
12:32They used to pack the place.
12:33Not anymore.
12:35We need a good product, Jerry.
12:36That's what they tell them.
12:37So, yeah, they've at least got smart consumers over there.
12:40Their baseball team sucks now.
12:42Yeah.
12:42I just, like I said, you know, 10 games is, it's a hell of a large sample size.
12:47For this show, it is.
12:48For this show, it is.
12:49It's a hell of a large, everything you need to know about a baseball team, you can find
12:52out in 10 games.
12:53And so far, color me unimpressed.
12:55Right.
12:56No hit by, this is a text message, no hit by the Astros on Monday, swept by the Angels
13:00over the weekend.
13:01Ranger fans are not okay right now.
13:03Good.
13:04Good.
13:04Well, you're going to get it for three more days, Ranger fans, if you're listening right
13:08now.
13:08Yeah, so you remember back in the dark days of the Astros when they were in their reset?
13:12And I used to, I used to be, this is when I was, I used to go down to Kima
13:17Boardwalk,
13:18and I'd see nothing but little kids in Rangers hats, and I wanted so hard to just knock them
13:23into the water.
13:24Oh, I thought you were going to knock their hats off.
13:26No, no, no.
13:26No, knock the kids into the water.
13:28Oh, okay.
13:28And just watch their stupid dads do nothing about it.
13:31That's what I really wanted to do.
13:32Yeah, yeah.
13:33It wasn't as much about the kid as it was watching the father not do anything about
13:37it.
13:37I would usually just look at the dad and give him that look like, I could shove your kid
13:41into the water right now, and I know you wouldn't do anything about it.
13:44You know what I'm thinking right now.
13:45There were a few other things with the Astros.
13:47I would ask the dad if the kid could swim before I did it.
13:50Yeah, that's...
13:51Hey, hey, friend.
13:52That's the sporting thing to do.
13:54Have you taught your children how to swim?
13:56Sure did.
13:57Oh, sure did.
13:57Okay.
13:58Boom.
14:00If we can not ignore in victory what we would address in defense, Sam Smith needs to stop
14:08challenging pitches.
14:10What the hell?
14:12He did it again.
14:12I put this in the rundown on Saturday when he did it, and he did it again last night.
14:17And he's doing it on 0-1 counts?
14:19Yeah, that's what I mean.
14:20Like, he's bad at challenging.
14:21Awful.
14:22Some of these things are...
14:23The ball is...
14:25He's missed nine challenges this year.
14:27Comfortably wrapped up by the...
14:28It looks like it's in a cozy little home in the strike zone.
14:31He's got the second most challenges in all of baseball.
14:34He's challenged 15 times this year.
14:37He's...
14:37Miraculously, he's gotten six of them right.
14:39I haven't seen any of those.
14:41I only see these ones...
14:42It's just random chance.
14:43It's...
14:43Dude, it's...
14:44He's bad at challenges.
14:46He challenges a ton.
14:48He challenges on stupid counts.
14:49And he's doing it early in the count...
14:51Right.
14:51He's doing it early in the count, which I feel like is him...
14:54This is where it's psychological, almost like he's desperate and he wants a mulligan.
14:57Yeah.
14:58You know?
14:58Oh, no.
14:59I want another chance over at this.
15:01Well...
15:01It's more so than him challenging the pitch.
15:03It's out of desperation.
15:04It would be...
15:04And it's on a spot to...
15:06Like, dude...
15:06Yes.
15:06He is a young player.
15:08Don't tell me about how managers have to, you know...
15:10They've got to massage the relationships and everything.
15:13He's not allowed to challenge.
15:14No.
15:14He's got to be forbidden to challenge.
15:16And he's...
15:17Here's the other thing.
15:19It would be...
15:20It would be stupid if Jordan were doing it on an 0-1 count.
15:24Yeah.
15:24Their best hitter.
15:26He's doing it for the right to bat 193 the rest of the count.
15:29Right.
15:30For whatever he's hitting right now.
15:31He's hitting in the low 200s.
15:32His OPS is in the 600s.
15:34And he's screwing over...
15:37The rest of the team.
15:37Not just in that moment, but the rest of the team...
15:39The game.
15:39...when they end up losing their challenges.
15:41On offense and defense.
15:41Or when a batter who gets up that actually understands the strategy of it...
15:47...get up there.
15:47And he only has one challenge and knows he needs to conserve it.
15:51So he's going to be extra careful about it.
15:53If Joe Espada were to get fired, and I think he's got himself out of the heat zone right
15:57now with what they've been doing over the weekend.
15:58The pitching's kind of stabilized a little bit.
16:01They seem to have weathered this storm.
16:02We'll see.
16:03And they're going to get some guys back.
16:04But if Espada were to get fired over the next couple of weeks, the first thing I would
16:10bring up would be this...
16:12Like, this is tactical.
16:13This is easy stuff for you to implement as a manager.
16:17This is an easy thing on the margins you can do to make your team a fraction of a percent
16:21better, is tell Cam Smith you can't challenge anymore.
16:24This is why you're the leader of the baseball team, is to do things like this.
16:29The other thing about it, when it comes to the dumb stuff that the Astros are doing,
16:33that just...
16:34We're not as worried about it right this moment.
16:36Right.
16:36Because the new Astros are 6-3 since we reset the season.
16:407-3.
16:40Oh, excuse me.
16:427-3.
16:42Yeah, yeah.
16:42Sorry.
16:43I'm still 3-9.
16:47The base running.
16:49Yeah.
16:50McTaggart retweeted this.
16:51I sent it to you.
16:52It's the net base running positives through May of 24.
16:56Listen, don't worry about any of the particulars of this graph, other than that every single
17:01team in baseball has some kind of a positive, where the Astros are the only team at minus
17:09five.
17:09Minus five.
17:10Oh, net positive base running plays.
17:13Yeah.
17:13Yeah.
17:13It's like stolen bases, times you get picked off.
17:16Yeah, like the Pirates lead the league with 39 in the net positive base running margin.
17:22The Astros are at minus five.
17:23Which is a great lesson, that the Pirates are first, because that's a team that's trying
17:27to moneyball their way to something, and that's how you hang around in the playoff hunt when
17:32you're not as talented a team, is you do smart things on the base paths.
17:36The way you wind up 23-31 through 54 games, or whatever it was.
17:41The Astros get picked off routinely and regularly.
17:44The most in Major League Baseball right now.
17:46Seven times.
17:47Seven times picked off at first.
17:48Yeah.
17:49You had asked the question after, who was the latest to get picked off at first?
17:52It was Jake Myers.
17:53It was Jake Myers.
17:54Yeah.
17:54And you asked the question openly on Twitter, and Brian McTaggart, professional that he is,
17:58gave you the answer.
17:59He did.
18:00He did.
18:00He's a pro, man.
18:01They were leading the league before that, Jake Myers.
18:03They were tied.
18:04Pick off.
18:05Oh, so he was the go-ah.
18:07Yeah, yeah, they were tied.
18:08He was Jake Myers.
18:08Yeah, no, we got a lead in something.
18:09Yeah.
18:10Yeah.
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