- 7 hours ago
Seth and Luke talk about the Astros' 8-2 loss to the Nationals last night, how bad the pitching was vs them this series, who they can trust in the rotation and what the big need is at the moment.
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00:00Who do you feel good about at this point, right?
00:02So, the Astros lose yesterday 8-2.
00:05Spencer Arrighetti got knocked around.
00:07He now has an ERA of 8.74, so nearly 9 in his last seven starts for Arrighetti.
00:13After he started so great, this is a sharp regression to the mean.
00:17So, we've been talking the last couple days about, like, Burroughs, Emei,
00:21and we never really pondered Arrighetti, but he continues to scuffle.
00:24I don't feel so great about him anymore.
00:26There's not a lot of guys you feel very good about in this rotation at this point
00:31as we head towards the All-Star break, as the Astros end up losing that series.
00:34Arrighetti, I mean, we talked about Arrighetti just because this is what he does.
00:37He goes through these streaks of good and bad,
00:40and it looked like he might have been lifting himself out of a bad streak,
00:44but then he was right back in it last night.
00:47And I keep reminding myself that the Nationals are the –
00:51they've scored the most runs in Major League Baseball,
00:54or at least top two at any given time.
00:56And it's potent, but you'd like to think, okay,
00:59if this is a team that you're going to make aggressive moves at the deadline,
01:02that it's worth it and that you can actually –
01:04you can slug it out with teams like the Nationals,
01:08who aren't even a good baseball team.
01:10They're just – they've got a really good offense,
01:13and they've got paltry pitching.
01:14And, like, right now it just does – it does – after that series,
01:20this is not a team that feels like, oh, yeah, just with a couple little tweaks,
01:23here we go, we're off to the races.
01:26And we're stuck in a position yet again where, just like last year,
01:30when Dana Brown was saying that these guys –
01:34that's kind of where we're hoping to get a boost in the pitching.
01:38And, like, it's been a steady procession of guys coming back from the I.L. this year.
01:43And so far, as we wait and see Hunter Brown get back into form,
01:48the trips back from the I.L. haven't done a damn thing for the starting pitching.
01:52Yeah, Javier pitched last night just an inning at the end of the game.
01:54He looked okay.
01:55He's looked okay in his two appearance.
01:57Not great.
01:58Might get a start on Sunday.
01:59Yeah, that's the weird thing.
02:01Dana Brown is playing it very close to the vest.
02:03He said Javier might be an option.
02:05I think he said Blanco.
02:06What was the phrase he used?
02:07Something like has an outside shot of being the starter on Sunday.
02:11Something along those lines.
02:12They haven't mentioned Lance McCuller's name publicly that I've heard.
02:16They talked about –
02:17Wisniewski.
02:18Yeah.
02:19And at AAA, pitching prospects –
02:22I'm drawing a blank on his name at the moment,
02:24but he was just the pitcher of the month last month at AAA.
02:28They were talking about him potentially as an option as a spot start for Sunday.
02:32So, we'll see who actually gets that start.
02:34But all those names he mentioned, the guys are already in the rotation.
02:36Like, how many do you trust?
02:37We obviously don't trust Burroughs.
02:39That's why he's in AAA.
02:40I don't think we trust Emei a whole lot at this point.
02:44I don't know if we can trust Eric Getty.
02:46And then because of those injuries, like, how much faith or trust can we really put in Javier and Blanco
02:51and McCullers and Wisniewski?
02:53Yeah.
02:54You know, and Lambert's another guy pitching really well, but then it's like, yeah,
02:58but you're kind of waiting for that other shoe to drop because he just hasn't done this
03:01over the course of an entire season.
03:03Hunter Brown's the only one, but even he hasn't been great since coming back from the injury.
03:09I don't know who or how many you can trust right now in the starting row.
03:16At the very least, there's no way.
03:20I just, I have a really hard time envisioning right now feeling good about Emei at any point
03:24during this season.
03:25And even if he gets better, the thing that's bothering me the most about him, honestly,
03:32is that, like, Burroughs, Burroughs or Eric Getty or anybody else will sit out there and
03:38they'll just take their medicine.
03:39I, the, the, all right, you're having a rough day, but, you know, we just flat out, we can't,
03:45we can't afford to just be burning up our relievers every single night.
03:49And they sit out there and they take their medicine.
03:52Emei, I, like, in the times that he's been pulled after one or two or three innings, it's
03:57not like he's racked up a pitch count up into the high 80s or anything.
04:01He's been pulled with 37 pitches.
04:03He's been pulled with 30, in the 30s a couple of times, in the 50s once.
04:08I, that's where I'd, I'd start to get to a point.
04:11I was trying to evaluate myself in these situations.
04:13If I were an Astros player, where you're trying to always be a good dude and not criticize
04:17your teammates and everything, I would say I would be internally grumbling right now
04:20when, when Emei goes out there and it's not going well for him and he gets yanked.
04:27And meanwhile, maybe I'm a guy that's been left out there to die just to try to preserve
04:32the bullpen, no matter how bad my performance is and everything.
04:36Like, there's a, there's almost a, there's just, there's the performance side of things,
04:40but then there's also the, all right, man, you made this mess.
04:43You got to deal with this.
04:44Instead of treating them like, yeah, like all these additions that Dana Brown made in the
04:49offseason, where he just threw numbers at it, that's just bringing in all the pitchers.
04:55And Lambert's the only one that's really worked out.
04:59That, that there's, like, at some point, what are you going to do to get yourself out of
05:04this mess?
05:05Like, Dana Brown's, Dana Brown's fix for this pitching problem has really just been hoping
05:10for guys to get healthy or just signing and trading for a bunch of nondescript guys in
05:15the offseason, and then you spend the first half of the season realizing, oh, okay, well,
05:19Lambert's the only one we can really depend on.
05:21So, sorry about that.
05:22Hey, we saved a lot of money on five guys who aren't doing a damn thing for you, but we
05:27saved a lot of money on them.
05:30So, so in the sum total, could you maybe have spent that money on a starting pitcher or something,
05:35like a bona fide starting pitcher of those five guys?
05:38It seems, it seems like the math is relatively simple.
05:41Yeah, yeah, that's true.
05:42It's like quantity and quality.
05:44You know, they brought in those six arms.
05:46They have a combined ERA of nearly six this year.
05:48Three guys are already out of the big leagues, and it's like, well, you brought in six different
05:51guys.
05:51You tried it with six random pitchers, and Lambert is the, actually, I don't think he's
05:56technically included in that six-pitcher list.
05:59Oh, yeah, you're right.
06:00He was signed to a minor league contract.
06:02So, it's, you're like, well, hopefully one or two of these six hit, or you could have just,
06:07you know, devoted your resources to one more secure option.
06:12And, and felt a little better about the rotation.
06:14Kind of like Sonny Gray.
06:15They were in on Sonny Gray reportedly, got beat out by the Red Sox, and now Gray is the
06:19second best ERA in the AL.
06:21It's like, man, it'd be nice if we had that guy in the rotation here.
06:24But, to your point, an article came out yesterday that Dana Brown said the Astros' main need
06:30is still a left-handed hitting outfield.
06:34The holes in the lineup, too, especially in that outfield.
06:36We know statistically it might be the worst in baseball, but have we gotten to a point
06:40now where starting pitching has superseded or has become the bigger concern for this
06:45team than an outfielder?
06:46Yeah, I feel like the, the hitting is a one-and-nine proposition on any given night, and the one
06:54guy can help you and boost the lineup in other ways, et cetera, et cetera.
06:57But just with this starting rotation the way it is right now, I just, I don't see how you
07:01make it through a seven-game series, I think if you're going to get implosions from, you're
07:06going to have at least two implosions on any given night, or in any given series.
07:10If I take a seven-game series and try to figure out whether I can trust Emai or, I don't
07:17know,
07:17if Burroughs came back up or if Javier's in there as the starter, do I trust that two of
07:23those guys are not going to have an implosion in a seven-game series?
07:28And it's really hard to envision that.
07:30So, and we, and look, we've seen the, the games the Astros have lost despite scoring
07:35double-digit wins when one of your starting pitchers is having an implosion.
07:39I, that, yeah, starting pitcher for me right now feels like the, the biggest deal in terms
07:46of just, like, there's, you could bring in, you could bring in hitters that could do some
07:52good things for you, but they don't do a damn thing about one of your starting pitchers imploding.
07:58Unless you can, who are they going to bring in that you can count on, you know, scoring
08:02five runs on a night when your starting pitcher gives up seven or eight?
08:06Yeah, right.
08:07I mean, you have Jordan already playing at an incredible MVP pace, and that's not enough.
08:11They scored 11 runs the other night.
08:15Yeah, no, it's still a case of pitching still wins World Series.
08:19If you look at recent World Series champions, their ERAs are all towards, you know, like the
08:24top 10 in the league.
08:25You still got to be able to pitch well, and right now, the Astros just still haven't been
08:29able to pitch good enough.
08:30Yeah, just from Kawahara in the Chronicle, since May 21st, their record is 26-18.
08:37The starting rotation's ERA in that time is 5.60.
08:42They've been winning these games, but it's just not, it's not sustainable.
08:46It's not sustainable versus good teams.
08:48And great, you've been doing a good job of winning series, and that's cool.
08:53A lot of them are against either mediocre or bad teams, because you do play in the AL
08:57after all.
08:59And lo and behold, you go to your old nemesis over in the National League, and it's just
09:07a completely different story.
09:09Yeah, that's true, right?
09:10They played a decent team in the NL here this series and dropped two out of three in the
09:15starting pitching, obviously couldn't hang.
09:18The Astros starters still have the second-highest ERA in the majors.
09:22It's hard to win like that.
09:23We gave the example the other day of the 2006 Cardinals.
09:26They're the only team, though, that was able to, in their case, go all the way and win a
09:29World Series with a lousy pitching staff.
09:31You still need to be able to pitch to win.
09:34And they just haven't done that consistently enough.
09:37Now, to your point, it's a good thing.
09:40They're in the AL, and they've still been able to win series against these lousy teams.
09:44It's part of the reason why the Astros have the fourth-worst run differential still in
09:49the AL, and yet are two games out of first place, because that division is so bad.
09:55But this, look, the Rays series was big this past weekend, no doubt.
09:59But then this was another opportunity to continue that momentum.
10:02You're on the road against a decent Nationals team.
10:04You lose the series.
10:05And I was thinking about this, and I looked it up yesterday.
10:09But, you know, they've only had winning series against winning teams three times.
10:16The Guardians, who are one game over .500.
10:19The Cubs, who are having a good year.
10:22But remember, when the Astros played the Cubs, they were in that middle of, like, a 10-game
10:25losing streak.
10:26And then this past weekend against the Rays, which really was a good series.
10:29If I'm nitpicking, you can point out this comeback on Saturday.
10:33That was the difference in the series victory.
10:35But my point being, in all this, we're on July 9th.
10:39We're almost at the All-Star break.
10:40You can only point to three teams with a winning record that the Astros have actually taken
10:44a series from.
10:45So while we talk about all these series wins, and that's great, you know, it's been mostly
10:49against the Royals and the Tigers and the Twins and these teams that are just lousy.
10:53And when you play a Nationals team, pitching staff gets exposed.
10:56Yeah, and I think part of it, too, man, there's, like, last night, Bryce Matthews, you know,
11:04misses out on a fly ball in deep center field.
11:06And there's a part of it with this team where it just feels like they're stuck in this gray
11:14area of, you know, all right, you're going to play your young guys.
11:17You're going to play your guys with upside.
11:18That's great.
11:19That's cool.
11:20You're hoping that Bryce Matthews is starting to turn the corner as a hitter.
11:24But it just feels like you're doing the kinds of things that you'd be doing in the middle
11:29of a tank or a reset and getting your – and that's part of the whole philosophy anyway
11:36is he gets young guys out there as soon as possible and lets them learn on the fly.
11:40Like, that's a great, like, Tampa Bay Rays philosophy or something in the way that they
11:49typically – not this year, but the way that they've operated in a lot of ways.
11:52But this is the Houston freaking Astros, man.
11:54It's not supposed to be like this.
11:56Like, this is not a – this is not a, hey, let's just roll things out there and see how
12:02they do and eventually it will all work out.
12:05And then especially when you're having conversations about whether to be active at the trade deadline
12:09or not.
12:10Yeah, that's been one of my biggest complaints in the last year or two, that they should
12:14be a big market team or operating like such, like a top five team in the league, and yet
12:19they're trying in recent years.
12:20The payroll's gone down three straight years.
12:22They're trying to be more like the Rays or the Brewers or even the Guardians.
12:25And the Brewers and the Guardians and the Rays, they all find ways to win while spending
12:28less.
12:29But the Astros at times have really made it harder on themselves here in recent years by trying
12:34to spend less when – look, it's not my money.
12:36It's easy for me to say, but I don't think that should be the case.
12:38It's the third largest city now in the country.
12:41It's a big market.
12:42You've had success the past decade.
12:43I put you in the same category as the Cubs and the Mets and the Yankees and the Red Sox
12:47and all those teams.
12:48And those teams spend.
12:50They're not in the bottom of the league.
12:51Well, that's where the – the Astros are kind of stuck in a weird spot, though, too,
12:55where Jim Crane has spent into the competitive balance tax pretty regularly.
13:01Yeah.
13:02It's just that also they're not – they're a large city but not one of the biggest markets.
13:10And they're right there, right between the top and the mid-tier ones.
13:16And they spend, like, aggressively for their weight class, but it's still not enough to
13:21just ever – you know, like, you just don't have the revenue to keep up with the Dodgers
13:25and teams like that.
13:26The Dodgers – the Dodgers, their revenue is – it's something absurd.
13:30It's, like, 50% higher than the next highest team or other than, like, outside of –
13:37it's ridiculous.
13:38So I don't – I'm always torn on that.
13:40I just – I do feel like sometimes they get stuck in the world of half measures,
13:44and instead of just going full bore into – full bore into it, they're just always looking
13:51for the bargain or the semi-aggressive signing or whatever it might be.
13:56And it's just – it's been an uncomfortable gray area for a few years now.
14:00And we say this as Justin Verlander announces his retirement, the original pivotal big move.
14:06It was actually a pretty financially easy move for them to make.
14:09It was an easy trade for them to make back in the day.
14:12But that was, like – that was the – that was the first really, really bold move
14:17that just pivoted everything for the Astros as the golden era began.
14:22Yeah, is there a Justin Verlander out there to be had this year for the Astros?
14:26Because, boy, could they use somebody like that.
14:29Not Justin Verlander in 2026, but that type of move when it happened nearly a decade ago.
14:35The feedback – you can always text the show, 713-572-4610.
14:39And right now Astro fans – Seth, they're having a hard time.
14:43People are already saying time for football.
14:45Football, football, football was another message that came in.
14:48Someone said complete crap, really.
14:51Somebody said I have to watch a mid-team in a bad division with no chance.
14:58It's meaningless.
14:59So a lot of negativity amongst the Astro fans suddenly this morning.
15:03It's a rough time.
15:04July is a really, really rough time to be languishing in Major League Baseball.
15:10The kids are home.
15:11They're annoying you all day long.
15:13There's just – it's hot.
15:15You don't want to go outside.
15:17There's everything.
15:18There's nothing else going on in the major sports world other than this.
15:22And at least in the last couple years, the Astros have done us the honor of making a push this
15:28time of year
15:28and get you feeling good about things.
15:31But, again, that's where it goes.
15:33It gets so frustrating and annoying that they have been making a push in terms of wins and losses,
15:37but they've just got these incredibly huge chasms in your starting pitching rotation
15:43that make it really impossible to look at this as anything that's going to be sustainable
15:48through tough parts of the schedule or certainly in a playoff series.
15:53Yeah, yeah, it is.
15:56Some of it's kind of the fool's gold of, like, sure, you can make the playoffs,
15:59but this still does not seem like a team that can truly compete.
16:03By the way, thank you to the texter that reminded me.
16:06It's Ethan Pecco is that minor leaguer I referenced earlier.
16:09He was the pitcher of the month for June, but his ERA is still, like, 4.78 in AAA.
16:16But he's somebody that I know Astro fans are trying to get excited about,
16:20of, like, man, our starting pitching is not very good.
16:22Maybe this kid can come up and really develop into something.
16:25We'll see.
16:27And lastly, on the text line, someone said the Astros are a bad team.
16:30They're a turd.
16:31You keep turning this turd over and your hand's looking for something.
16:35That's the problem, though.
16:36They're not bad.
16:36They're mediocre, which is the worst place to be.
16:40It's just the absolute worst place to be when you just keep trying to swap out for a Sanchez,
16:46for a Loper Fido, or let's say, hey, let's see which one of these nondescript pitchers
16:52can come in here and take advantage of the Astros' car wash.
16:56Remember how they always just take all these guys like Charlie Morton
17:00and turn them into the best version of themselves?
17:01Those days are gone.
17:03Like, the withering, dying breaths of Brent Strom as in Astros,
17:08like, they've all evaporated out of the building.
17:10There's none of the Brent Strom magic left in there anymore.
17:15Whatever residue they were smoking off of his old seat in the clubhouse, it's been spent.
17:23Yeah.
17:24Ah, the good old days.
17:25Hey, let us know on the text line, what has become the biggest Astros need now?
17:29Who do you actually trust in this rotation?
17:31713-572-4610.
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