00:00Well, if Seattle does not win this series against Houston, is it time for us to say, yeah, it's over
00:08for Seattle come Monday?
00:10Because if they can't score, I think it's over and I don't see them doing it.
00:14I think it's over already.
00:16But, you know, again, there's so many games.
00:19There's really not a lot of games left.
00:20But in the 2026 Major League Baseball season, it feels like an eternity is left because everybody stinks.
00:27So, yeah, it's kind of fair to say, I think, for me at this point, Joe, if losing the series,
00:34I wouldn't say that their season is done because it's only a, you know, a swap of one game there.
00:40But if they get swept, yeah, I would say that's it.
00:44Yeah, any more is just it's so hard.
00:47I mean, at 57 and 65, Craig, and we're sitting here going, yeah, you know, maybe if they got like,
00:53no, no.
00:55The kind of season that Cal Raleigh's had, can you remember going from having a season like, guy, give me
01:04a player that you can recall that ever had the kind of year that he had last year that we
01:10were talking about MVPs and, you know, 60-ohm runs and all of this other stuff to a guy that's
01:16hitting a buck 59 this year.
01:18And he's not admitting any crazy injury, too.
01:21It's not like he, we're talking he's going to have 400, 500 at-bats, and he just, he can't hit.
01:27I've never seen anything like it.
01:29Yeah, I have no idea.
01:30Everyone, we were talking about it in the, you know, at the Marlins this week, too.
01:34It just, it seems unprecedented, Joe.
01:36Not for the course of his career.
01:39It seems unprecedented just from a drop-off for one season.
01:42Now, guys have been hurt before, naturally, and, you know, Stanton comes to mind when he was with the Marlins
01:47and then he went to the Yankees and he's been hurt a lot in New York.
01:51But, no, you're right.
01:52I have to believe that he's just gutting it out and not saying anything.
01:55Remember, if you have an oblique injury and you come back as quickly as he came back from that, which
02:01was pretty quick, I'm going to believe that maybe this is something that has been lingering with Cal Raleigh.
02:07So, to your point, you know, what's interesting is that if we looked at, like, rookie of the year to,
02:13like, being done from baseball, we could find a lot of those guys.
02:16But as far as MVP, yeah, but not MVP, but not MVP.
02:22You know what I'll do is during our next break, I'll take a look and see if there's been, like,
02:27a precipitous drop-off from guys who have won the MVP before and then, you know, sort of exited.
02:32There have been, like, random MVPs before in leagues.
02:36Yeah.
02:36How much of it do you think is mental, Craig, where he is, it really, the longer it's gone, it's
02:42the worst, because, you know, that's the worst it gets for guys.
02:45They can't get out of their own head.
02:46Yeah, maybe.
02:47And then all of a sudden, you know what I mean?
02:49It's, I think next year we'll answer a lot of those questions on whether it was, was it a flash
02:56in the pan?
02:56Was it an injury?
02:57Was he just maybe needs, it sounds, if anybody needs to get away for a little while, I think Cal
03:03Raleigh is a guy that needs to get away for a little while.
03:06But somebody else has got to be able to pick up the slack on that team, and it's going to
03:11start here tonight with Kirby on the mound, taking on Lambert for Houston.
03:16Now, if you're Houston, you're a couple of games above .500, too many close calls against the Giants in that
03:22West Coast, that whole West Coast trip was interesting there against the Padres and then the Giants.
03:29But they are at home here, and I still think they're the front runner to, if any team can put
03:36five wins together in a row with that bullpen and that crazy dude, triple crown, possible triple crown winner at
03:44the helm, it feels like they have the best shot at doing that here, Craig, no?
03:49Yeah, look, I was out on Houston, they've climbed back into it, and I think that they're still a very
03:56deficient team, they're a team that has had a negative run differential for the majority of the season, I thought
04:02on paper Seattle was better, I thought on paper Texas was better, but the good thing for the Astros, Joe,
04:09is that their offense is really good.
04:11It seems like they're sort of matchup proof, and they seem to be scoring runs every night.
04:15I don't love their pitching, and this isn't like when they had Zach Greinke and Dallas Keuchel and Justin Verlander
04:20and Franber, like none of those guys are even there anymore.
04:23But they slug their way in and out of some problems, and as long as Paredes and Alvarez, and I
04:28know Altuve is hurt, but I mean, you think of Jeremy Pena and Jose Altuve, and that punch that they
04:35have, 1-2 in the lineup, or 2-3, depending on when they hit them.
04:39And Joe, that's as good as any team in baseball right now, those two guys, Jeremy Pena may be having
04:45the best season of any shortstop in baseball, and so as long as those guys keep hitting like that, it's
04:51going to keep them in a lot of games, and then they do have what, you know, you could make
04:56the case Seattle doesn't have and Texas doesn't have, which is Josh Hader.
04:59So you get deep into a game, and then you expect Hader to be able to close out the game.
05:03So maybe it is Houston's on paper, but I would also say, you know, Texas plays Houston late in the
05:10season.
05:10I wouldn't be shocked to see Texas overtake them.
05:13Yeah, so I'm going to still hold off on Houston, and I really don't think Houston wins a playoff series.
05:18That I will say, too.
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