00:00I'll tell you what else I'm excited about, Luke, is the Astros.
00:03The Astros, they've won five of the last six
00:06against some quality opponents, I would say.
00:09Looked really, really good doing so.
00:11And instead of just a 30,000-foot view in this thing,
00:14I want to drill down real quick because this is big.
00:16This is big.
00:18Maybe I didn't express it on these airwaves
00:20the way that I internally was processing this.
00:22I was worried about Hunter Brown.
00:25I was worried about Hunter Brown in a way of not just,
00:28boy, he's performing bad a little bit.
00:29And look, I wasn't necessarily on a Hunter Brown track
00:34and watching every article that was written about him,
00:37but I obviously see the two or three back-to-back performances
00:41that weren't ideal, subpar to put it nicely.
00:45I remember initially when he came back from his injury,
00:47the velocity being down, and that kind of planted a seed of like,
00:50man, is he good? Is he okay?
00:52Is there some kind of strain or some kind of injury?
00:54Is he not going to get back to 100%?
00:56And then all of a sudden you start digging into those previous games
00:59and you realize, man, he's walking four, five, six guys in a game.
01:02What the hell is going on with Hunter Brown?
01:04And so I was really concerned of like,
01:07have we seen the best Hunter Brown we're going to see in 2026?
01:10Could he potentially be hurt?
01:12Well, Luke, this weekend was big for the Astros on many fronts,
01:16but Hunter Brown is back, folks.
01:18Hunter Brown is back.
01:19There's no need for me.
01:20I don't know if anybody out there was under this impression.
01:22There's no need to worry about his health.
01:23My man was touching 97, 98 throughout his outing.
01:29I hadn't heard this discussed in a while,
01:31but 17-plus inches of break on some of his off-speed stuff.
01:36The other cat that he faced that was on the mound was getting 14 or 15,
01:39and I was waiting for him to say that Hunter wasn't getting that much.
01:42They said, no, he's getting 17-plus.
01:43I said, oh, my God.
01:44So he's getting the movement on his off-speed stuff.
01:47Seven innings, two hits, seven strikeouts, and most importantly, no walks.
01:53Hunter Brown's performance this weekend, for all Astros fans,
01:56had to be a big, big confidence boost moving forward.
02:00Yeah, for sure, because really the only guy you could count on in that rotation
02:03previously was Lambert.
02:05Yeah, that was it.
02:06And Hunter Brown, like you were saying, I mean, since returning,
02:09the numbers had not been great.
02:10He was averaging less than five innings to start,
02:12had almost as many walks as strikeouts.
02:13It was ugly.
02:14So to see that old Hunter Brown return, at least for one outing over the weekend,
02:19certainly promising, because you're going to need him if you want to go anywhere.
02:22Not only making it to the playoffs, but, like, once you get to the playoffs,
02:25you actually need three starters at minimum you can rely on.
02:30And prior to this weekend, I think, again, we only felt good about Lambert.
02:34Now at least you have Hunter Brown.
02:35And if you were to make it to the postseason, you throw those two,
02:38and then, I don't know, you figure out the rest.
02:39You hope he has a good night in game three.
02:42But you need enough starting pitching between now and then
02:45to be able to actually compete in a postseason series.
02:48And right now they still don't have it, but at least Hunter Brown.
02:51I mean, that's such a huge boost for this rotation
02:53and for this team here coming down the final two months.
02:55Well, Luke, it's not like this team's not foreign,
02:58and we as a fan base are not foreign to, hey, man,
03:00we got two big boy starters that are pitching really well,
03:03and then we're going to figure out a way to get three innings out of this guy,
03:05and we're going to piggyback, and we're going to –
03:07I mean, there was – I don't remember what that was,
03:10but I know it was a combination of Ron El Blanco, Jose Urquidy.
03:17I think Christian Javier was even in that mix.
03:19There may have been even one more.
03:20Every time they took the bump, we'd be on the right time about,
03:21hey, man, can we get three?
03:22Mm-hmm.
03:23Hey, can we – if he makes it to four, it's a win for us.
03:26And we were in the playoffs doing well.
03:29So it's not like we're foreign to that.
03:30I'm not saying that's a path that we want to take by any means,
03:33but it's not that we're foreign to it.
03:35To your point, though, Luke, there is – I mean, let's be honest, man.
03:40The Hunter Brown thing is bigger than just having another starter.
03:44I mean, you have no – we've talked a lot about just getting to the playoffs,
03:48and I said I think the Astros just get to the playoffs
03:50and then see if you can get hot and maybe upset a few people.
03:53I don't think it's a – this team is ready to make a legitimate run,
03:56even though the AL is awful, so who knows what can happen.
04:00But the point is you have no chance.
04:04I don't give a damn how bad the AL is.
04:06You have no chance if you don't have that one dude that you know can swing a series.
04:10Like, if you don't have that one dude, whether it's the first start in a series
04:13or the last start in a series or somewhere along the way,
04:16if you don't have a guy that you know, hey,
04:18we've got a really good chance of getting this game right.
04:22If you don't have a true ace that can give you that, you just –
04:24I mean, the playoffs, you're going to be a joke in the playoffs.
04:27So not only is it the starter, the number of starters as you count down,
04:30but that guy being the one that's coming back and pitching well is huge.
04:36Yeah, and then just peace of mind in general.
04:37Like, even beyond this year or trying to make the playoffs,
04:40you know, when you see Hunter Brown pitched so well last year
04:43and then you have this injury and he comes back and he's not pitching very well,
04:47there's concerns of, okay, how long could the recovery be?
04:50And then, you know, knock on wood, you never want to think that one injury like that
04:54could alter a guy's career.
04:55But we saw a trade happen over the weekend in baseball where the Red Sox moved on
04:59from one of their young pitchers who right now has some elbow issues.
05:02And part of the thought is, well, you know,
05:04maybe this is going to become a bigger issue than has been let on.
05:08So point being, like, you never want your ace to have an injury
05:11and then really scuffle afterwards.
05:12So it's nice to have, even just for the peace of mind for next year and beyond,
05:17you know, beyond even the postseason this year, to know, okay, Hunter Brown,
05:20he's back to the Hunter Brown we were expecting.
05:22Again, at least for one outing, hopefully this is the start of something,
05:25but it was good to see that Hunter Brown from a year ago,
05:28hoping that that's what you get now moving forward.
05:30Astros winners of five of the last six, two impressive series,
05:34one they swept, one they just won.
05:36And this brings me to this, two games back in the division,
05:39two games back in the wild card, Luke.
05:42Are the Astros out, look, we're a week away from the trade deadline.
05:46Are the Astros out of the seller conversation now that we're a week away
05:49and we're sitting that close to wild card and the division lead?
05:52I think they always are out of the seller conversation
05:55just because of Dana Brown's situation.
05:57He needs to try to save his job, and so I imagine he'll do whatever he can to do so.
06:01But I think if we're being realistic, to me, this Astros team should be sellers regardless.
06:07I think, as I've been saying all along, you need to focus on the record.
06:11Those are the numbers to pay attention to as opposed to games back.
06:14Yeah, they're only two games out of a playoff spot,
06:16but they're still under 500 and we're almost in August.
06:20And as you saw yesterday, like Eric Getty goes back on the IL and they got knocked around yesterday.
06:25You can still see the holes show up far too free, as we saw yesterday.
06:30The offense is still not deep enough.
06:32It's too inconsistent, too reliant on homers and Jordan.
06:35And the pitching just has so many issues right now where now the hope is like Hayden Wisniewski's going to
06:40come back
06:40and take Eric Getty's spot.
06:42Like you feel a whole lot better about that.
06:43So I think this is, as I told you before we came on the air,
06:47I think this is the turning point for this organization.
06:49And you could really improve this team by being sellers here in the next week.
06:54Problem is, when you have Dana Brown who's fighting for his job,
06:57he has no motivation to be a seller.
06:59I think they're going to be buyers no matter what happens between now and Monday.
07:02I think they're going to be a seller.
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