The Astros Dug Their Way Out Of A Whole Into A Six-Game Lead. What Now?
Seth Payne and Sean Pendergast discuss the Astros clawing their way to the top of the AL West with a six-game lead after the way they started the season and dive into what the next goal is for this team.
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00:00The Astros sweep the Kansas City Royals over the weekend, 7-2 yesterday.
00:09The elite starting pitching's been the story this month, or last month, Sepp, I guess,
00:13now that August is done.
00:14185 batting average from the starting pitchers.
00:17This is with a staff that, as we discussed earlier, they've got just as many good pitchers
00:22on the injured list as they have in their starting rotation right now.
00:25It's really incredible.
00:27If someone had told you, I love playing this little game, if someone had told you back
00:30in April that the Astros would set a record for ERA in a month, or I guess second best
00:37ERA in the history of the sport in a month, and they said, I'm not going to name who the
00:41pitchers were, I'd say, yeah, that's possible, man.
00:42You've got Verlander, you've got Javier, you've got Framber, you know, you've got a couple
00:47other guys might rise up here, but no, like it's Framber, that passes the smell test.
00:54Hunter Brown, who's been one of the best four or five pitchers in the American League easily
00:59since May, that Spencer Arreguetti would be part of this, that Rennell Blanco would be
01:05part of this, that Yusei Kikuchi, who would have been on the Blue Jays at the time, would
01:10be a part of it.
01:11The most ridiculous thing about that part would have been that the Blue Jays, who have
01:15been kind of amping up all their weapons for the last few years to try to be a perennial
01:21playoff team, would have been in seller mode at the trade deadline.
01:23That would have been the most astonishing thing about that.
01:27And then that Verlander is part of it, but only with a couple of starts because he was
01:31injured and they weren't great starts.
01:33Like the first start was okay, two earned runs in five innings, and then he gave up
01:37four runs the last time out so that Verlander is still kind of getting his sea legs and
01:41that you had Arreguetti, who was in the minor leagues this time last year, Hunter Brown,
01:45who still hadn't really established himself.
01:48And then Framber, Kikuchi, Rennell Blanco, I haven't even mentioned Rennell Blanco's
01:53name.
01:54Like it's wild that that's the six that they did it with, you know?
01:58Right, right.
01:59Yeah, this has been, and not to mention the fact that, again, aside from the pitching
02:06and how unlikely some of these stories are, we know that it's way more likely to have
02:10a story like this in Houston than at a lot of other places.
02:14They're playing with defense behind them that are at times a bunch of minor leaguers
02:20that shouldn't be up in the majors yet, if at all.
02:25So the Astros' defense, and also in a year where Jeremy Pena has actually been way worse
02:31defensively than he typically is, there's so many improbable things about this run right
02:37now that the Astros are on that it's hard to keep track of.
02:40They have the worst hitting outfield in baseball for that same month.
02:43Yeah, yeah.
02:44They're not getting the run support or the lineup.
02:48The fact that they're winning games is just a testament to how dominant their pitching
02:52is.
02:52And the other thing, too, I wanted to, because I heard somebody say something along the lines
02:56of, well, you know, part of this is just how good pitching has gotten and how hard it is
03:00to hit.
03:01Yeah, there's some truth to that.
03:03And you'll hear batters talk about like, oh, because they can shape their pitches and
03:06everything.
03:07It's not like scoring is at an all-time low around baseball.
03:12There have been many, many years in modern baseball where there have been more runs scored
03:16per game than what it is this season.
03:19So when you talk about how the month of August was the second lowest ERA ever in the live
03:25ball era for a pitching staff, it's notable.
03:30That's not just some byproduct of the new rules or something.
03:33It's an impressive feat that they pulled off over the course of the last month.
03:38Right, they allowed a 185 batting average for the month of August.
03:44If that had been the best month of any team this season, it would be remarkable given
03:50who they're doing this with.
03:54Any argument about what era we're living in or what offense is in baseball in 2024 compared
03:59to previous years, you lose me on that when they're doing something that's
04:02the second best in the history of the sport.
04:06Sorry, this encompasses every era of baseball.
04:12I will say when it comes to batting average, it is one of the lowest batting averages right
04:17now if you were to finish the season at this on average.
04:21Across baseball, you're saying?
04:22Across baseball, yeah.
04:24So it's been, in the last few decades, 2022 wasn't so hot.
04:29But in 1968, a few of those.
04:32But it's just astounding what they've been able to do.
04:40I've almost started to take pride in Spencer Arrighetti's 4-plus ERA because nobody would
04:48know, including a lot of Royals fans.
04:53The Royals just had recent success versus the Astros.
04:56A lot of Royals fans probably look at Arrighetti and see that, oh, we're facing a 4-plus ERA
05:01guy right now.
05:02No big deal, right?
05:03Yeah, no, he's been really, really good, man.
05:05It's just his stuff has gotten really nasty.
05:10Astros got through the gauntlet.
05:11September schedule eases up significantly.
05:14This was the patch of schedule, the Orioles, the Phillies, and the Royals that people had
05:22been kind of circling like, okay, let's see how they do with this.
05:26Look, they split with the Orioles, probably could have swept them, but they split with
05:31the Orioles in Baltimore.
05:34So you take that.
05:35The Phillies series was disappointing, but they finished on a strong note in that afternoon
05:39game where Yordan hit the three home runs.
05:42By the way, the last two home runs Yordan hit of those three against the Phillies, because
05:46I think that was the day that I left, Seth.
05:49I'm thinking to myself, I haven't gotten to talk about Yordan's three-home-run game against
05:52the Phillies because I was out last week at the end of the week.
05:56The second and third home runs that he hit got out of the ballpark in like two seconds.
06:01They were like low-line drives that just kept going.
06:06He's incredible.
06:07He's such a freak.
06:09And then you sweep the Royals, 7-4 for those 11 games.
06:12You take that every time.
06:14That was what, too.
06:17The fact that they went 4-6 over that slew of Red Sox, Orioles, Phillies.
06:25And it never felt to me like, oh, yep, this is where it all falls apart.
06:32I saw some people trying to claim that.
06:34Like, yeah, yeah, you guys are 4-6.
06:36Yeah, it's baseball.
06:37Like you went 4-6 on the road against really good baseball teams.
06:41That's fine.
06:42You're just one game away from .500 there on the road versus three really good teams.
06:48I was A-OK with that.
06:50And I think it was actually in going 4-6 on those games where it felt like,
06:55OK, yeah, this is the real deal.
06:57This is what good baseball teams do.
06:59And it's not out of the ordinary to have a stretch like that.
07:03Sure, it would have been awesome to go 8-2.
07:06But then you sweep a very good baseball team this year, a very competitive baseball team
07:11in the Royals at home.
07:13It's astounding.
07:15It's one of my favorite moments of this 2015 through 2024 era.
07:22In some ways, it almost feels a little bit like 2015 because it caught you by surprise.
07:32It caught you by surprise in the way they were able to put themselves someplace that
07:37you didn't expect them to be.
07:38Yeah, it's funny.
07:39We're in a great spot as a city when it comes to baseball because we're now a decade
07:45to this era of Astros baseball.
07:47And I know a lot of the faces have changed through the years.
07:49Few of the core guys have remained the same.
07:51But we can actually have conversations like, OK, what near championship season does this
07:58one most feel like?
07:59What do we compare this one to?
08:01And I think the answer is this one is its own thing, man.
08:08There's no season where they made the playoffs.
08:13And certainly none where they made it to the ALCS other than the COVID season, which
08:16is its own outlier.
08:17I'm going to put the COVID season off to the side of the 162 game seasons.
08:22There's never been one where they've got off to as bad a start as this, where they've been
08:25hit with this many injuries.
08:27And I'm talking throughout the year, like where you've had to play without your best
08:30player for three months.
08:32And that's been your three best months of the year, you know?
08:35Yeah, that's I mean, they've had other seasons.
08:38I mean, last year they started off slow, too.
08:40But it was how drastic the slow start was.
08:43That's what I mean.
08:43Like, it's 7-19.
08:45We've never experienced that.
08:46No, no.
08:47I mean, that was at historical levels.
08:48That's when all those daunting stats about no team that started this record.
08:52At any given day, you could find an article that talked about how nobody had ever come
08:57out of, or it's very rare that anybody had come out of a schedule this bad.
09:02And I think that part of it is that it's because, like you said, there's no way you could have
09:08predicted which names were going to be a part of the turnaround.
09:11It's crazy.
09:12Hunter Brown would have been the biggest question mark.
09:14It's like, that was the name you would have been talking about.
09:16Yeah.
09:17Spencer Arrighetti, you wouldn't have predicted that he was going to be a huge key and cog
09:22in the turnaround.
09:23Blanco?
09:23He wasn't.
09:24And Arrighetti, to be fair, also wasn't really part of the turnaround, per se.
09:28But he's been kind of the cherry on top.
09:31He's been able to maintain it, for sure.
09:33Yeah.
09:33Arrighetti, Rennell Blanco, and obviously Kikuchi were three names you would have never guessed.
09:39Pitching at the level they are that they've been a part of it.
09:41And I don't think you would have ever guessed they would have done it without Verlander,
09:44essentially.
09:45You know that they did that with Verlander only providing a couple of starts since the
09:49beginning of June is incredible.
09:53Blanco, well, sorry, I mean, because people, regardless, though, the biggest thing with
09:59Blanco is that just him going to the relief staff and him looking like he had already
10:08recovered a little bit from however all the innings pitched were starting to tax on him.
10:16I wouldn't have predicted that this was how it was going to look or the way it was going
10:19to work out, that he was going to be pitching at an all-star caliber level, then was going
10:23to look like he completely deflated after that.
10:26But now you're feeling A-OK because he's going to be a part of a relief staff that's already
10:32been really, really good.
10:33Someone points out 7-19 and Espada was a first-time manager getting crushed.
10:38That's true, too.
10:39It's not like it was 7-19, but you're like, oh, they got the old steady hand there who's
10:44managed six teams and seen everything before.
10:47Welcome to Major League Baseball management, Joe Espada.
10:50Well, no, and I think the biggest fear, too, was, all right, when are they actually going
10:55to abandon the Jose Abreu experience?
10:58Looking at it in hindsight, even though it took a lot longer than they did, I mean, I
11:04don't know, is there any reality in which they would have just kept sticking it out
11:10there with Abreu no matter what?
11:14Not the way he was playing, you know?
11:16Yeah, like at some point they were going to have to pull the plug and they waited and
11:20waited and waited to do it.
11:21It would have been interesting to see what an acceptable level of performance, what that
11:27would have been.
11:28That's true, like what if he was hovering around a 690 OPS or something?
11:32Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:34Well, 690 would be like a 600 OPS, you know, like one of the current Astros outfielders.
11:40Right, right, right.
11:41If he was hovering around where one of the current Astros outfielders are, then I think
11:46at that point they would have stuck with it thinking like, well, look at what happened
11:49last year, you know?
11:50He ended up being really good in September and October.
11:53Yep, yep, yep.
11:55Astros have won a World Series every time a hurricane has hit us the last 10 years.
11:58That's a text message, that's true.
12:00Beryl going to get us another trophy?
12:02Maybe, maybe, we'll see.
12:04I just think, I mean, I think—
12:05Timing of it wasn't opportune.
12:07It was more backs up against the wall there than there is with Beryl, I think.
12:15Yeah, I'm going to have to listen in on a little Cleveland and New York and Kansas City
12:21today just to see what the—especially in Kansas City.
12:23I think that was a real wake-up call for the Royals, who were—you know, look, the Royals
12:27were starting to get back into the mix in their division, you know?
12:31The Guardians were starting to come back to the pack a little bit, and I think Kansas
12:35City, very optimistic coming here because they'd experienced nothing but success going
12:41back to last season against the Astros, you know?
12:43And the Astros—it was a good wake-up call for the Royals, man.
12:46Like, I know you won a World Series like a decade ago, but that was—other than Salvador
12:50Perez, that was all different guys.
12:52You had a young team now, man.
12:53Like, this is what playoff baseball is going to feel like, you getting your asses slapped
12:56by the Houston Astros.
12:58Sorry, that's how it feels, yeah.
13:01One quick observation about Minute Maid Park, they need to stop having concerts during the
13:08baseball season.
13:09It looks pretty rough out there.
13:10That outfield is trash right now.
13:12Like, guys dive to catch balls, and it looks like there's 25 invisible golf clubs swinging
13:18underneath them.
13:19Like, 17 divots pop up.
13:21It looks like they're playing on El Tuve's childhood baseball diamond that they did that
13:26documentary on in Venezuela.
13:29Yeah, it looks like they could—it's a Venezuelan outfield, and not in a good way.
13:33Like, yeah, we got a center fielder from Venezuela who said, no, no, no, you're actually in Venezuela
13:39with the hyperinflation and everything else when you're out there.
13:42Yeah, I think it was Chris Stapleton who did the concert here last week.
13:45I'm not going to blame Chris Stapleton for it.
13:47No, no, it's a payday, man.
13:48I don't blame him, but in general—
13:50Was he out there running around in cleats or something?
13:53Was that his shtick?
13:54I don't know.
13:55I haven't been to a Stapleton concert.
13:56He doesn't look like he runs a lot.
13:57I just, you know.
13:59Well, but that's why it's extra destructive on the turf.
14:02Yeah, that's true.
14:02You know?
14:03He's heavy.
14:03It's not built for NFL players.
14:05That's fair.
14:05That's fair.
14:06Yeah, just, like, it was—that outfield is trash right now.
14:09I'm just afraid somebody's going to get hurt, that's all.
14:11I always feel bad for the grounds crew, because those guys work their butts off.
14:14Anytime there's an issue with the field or anything, it's usually something that
14:18has way beyond anything the groundskeeper had control of, and yet he's the one that
14:25gets crushed for it.
14:26People used to—remember there was the fake Twitter account for the NRG Stadium groundskeeper?
14:31I do, yes.
14:32Man, come on.
14:33This guy's got—he didn't design the pallet system or build a stadium that doesn't get
14:38enough sunlight.
14:40We knew that was a problem in 2002, Sean, because we would go out and do walkthroughs
14:45in the stadium with the roof open, and as the year progressed and the sun got lower
14:49in the southern sky, you'd realize, oh, we're out here at noon for this walkthrough, and
14:54everybody's congregated down from, like, the 30-yard line, because that's where the shade
15:00is, which is also the area to swap those pallets out.
15:06They—it's, like, the furthest end of the stadium from where they have to swap the pallets
15:10out.
15:11So they would have to go—they would have to take all the pallets out to get to those
15:1530 yards, and then—it was a bad design.
15:17It was poor planning by whoever did that, and yet the groundskeeper gets all the crap
15:20for it.
15:21Yeah, yeah.
15:21It's not their fault, man.
15:22They're just trying to do their best.
15:25Forrest Whitley?
15:26Well, I thought, like, how are you going to predict, you know, the angle of the sun at
15:28any given—science has only progressed so far.
15:30It could be anything.
15:31Yeah, like, oh, these are the—like, this is a lot of—they didn't have—they didn't
15:35have the computers we have nowadays to know exactly where the sun was going to be in the
15:39sky.
15:39When—
15:41How can you predict the one thing that happens the same every single day?
15:44That's all I know.
15:45Yeah, I mean, we pray to the harvest gods, and the sun starts to go down after we get
15:51our harvest in.
15:51That's all I know.
15:53Yeah.
15:53Listen to you.
15:55Forrest Whitley, back in our lives, optimism level for this—for Forrest Whitley version,
16:03however—whatever dot O he is right now.
16:05He's been—there's a reason he's up here now.
16:07He's been really, really good at Sugarland over the last couple of months.
16:1120 innings, and he's got a sub-one ERA.
16:14I'd really like to see Forrest Whitley work out, man.
16:17That would be a great story.
16:18I'd love to, too.
16:19But it's—he's in that Lance McCullers zone where you've been burned enough times in hoping
16:24for it that you start to get—you start to get disgruntled even at the notion of hoping
16:28for it.
16:29So, with Whitley, he's not making the money that Lance McCullers is.
16:33So, I don't think there's the animosity for him, but there is that you're just—you're
16:37weathered and you're tired, and the sun is low in the sky because the harvest gods have
16:42decided that it's time to—it's time to start taking the sun away.
16:45Back to the harvest gods.
16:46Then pray like hell for the gods of spring to bring it back, yeah.
16:49Do you believe that Kyle Tucker could potentially be back Wednesday or Thursday when Dana Brown
16:54says it on the pregame show on the flagship station?
16:57I do believe it.
16:58Okay.
16:59He said—he had that quote last week that it was something about getting the juices
17:02flowing, and I'll tell you what, my juices got flowing.
17:04Yeah.
17:06I got—needed to get an extra rag.
17:09It was good.
17:09I'm excited about Kyle—saw him sprinting, looking like—I don't know, it's never once
17:15in his life looked like Kyle Tucker's running at max speed, even when he's running really,
17:19really fast.
17:20So, I was trying to hyperanalyze it, like, okay, wait, is this kind of like easy, smooth
17:25running the way that Kyle Tucker usually runs easy and smoothly?
17:29I think it is.
17:29It's better than the video that surfaced from Tampa when he was down there with the team,
17:34where he looks like he—I mean, literally looked like he had a broomstick, like,
17:38just, you know, where you're not supposed to have broomsticks.