Here’s how Houston Astros will hope to sustain MLB-best run

Here’s how Houston Astros will hope to sustain MLB-best run

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome into stone cultr episode 21 of season two I’m Brandon strange I’m joined by Charlie Palo and Josh Jordan read Charlie’s column weekly on sports.com follow him on X at pillo read Josh’s work daily on sports.com and follow him on X Josh Jordan 975 guys I you know I I say it every week but what a difference of month makes now uh the Astros you know look let’s let’s start with the pitching on how they have really just turned this around and and by turn around I mean going from 10 games back to now knocking on Seattle’s door for the division lead here uh let’s start with the pitching Astros at the end of that met series don’t get their typical Blanco performance but the offense Picks Them Up Late in that game and then in the opener of this Toronto series Hunter Brown keeps his dominance going one run over F his last five starts look they are walking a tight RPP with depth right now with pitching and just availability of guys what are you seeing Charlie um that’s allowing them to walk this Razor’s Edge right now first off if not for those pesky licensing fees we could have used his entry music today good times roll little tribute to the cars there um they’re just now doing the stuff that over the last years the Astros routinely did if the right didn’t get you the left would if the left didn’t get you the right would uh their earned run average in June was the best in the American League at 3.54 you know what the Astros earned run average in May was 3.62 barely higher March let’s season started the 28th through April the earned run average was 5.01 so the pitching was horrible the first month all the bullpen meltdowns iffy starting pitching was just a lousy pitching sta stabilized in May excelled in June and you know will presume he’s going to get back in rotation at some point after the All-Star break if he pitches reasonably well upon return people are going to start saying hey that Justin Verlander he reminds you of Hunter Brown as opposed to the the other way around uh hun Brown largely junking that fouram fast ball at least as his primary fast ball it has absolutely 180 the guy season 180 the guy’s career and he’s just been magnificent right American League pitcher of the month with a 1.16 earned run average and so why not start July with six scoreless Innings against a weak but not absolutely pathetic Toronto Blue Jays offense so Hunter Brown absolutely A1 in terms of jun’s pitching excellence uh Blanco hasn’t been super duper crisp every time out but you know what he hadn’t gotten bombarded in one start this season so at minimum he’s gonna keep you in a game start if not quality every timeout over the last six eight starts then where they’ve been a little bit off right Eric Getty’s been in and out uh bipolar pitching fber I mean inning to inning much less game to game they weren’t able to overcome him Friday night in New York uh but overall right the offense boomed and we’ll get into that in more detail and you know one of the biggest early season bugaboos the bullpen part of it but it was just always something if you got pitching you’d figure out how to lose three to2 if you hit well you’d blow it and lose seven to six right over the first two months they lost six games they LED after seven seven Innings uh came close to doing it Saturday but didn’t do it Saturday you know the Astros haven’t played a one-run game now in three so if you’re GNA suck at one-run games don’t play any more one-run games they’re also six and nine in two-run games if hater doesn’t give up the Home Run Monday in the ninth inning that would have been a another three1 a three run win so not only Astros just winning they’re winning with relative ease during this stretch now of 10 wins in 11 games but the bullpen Taylor Scott certainly gets high Commendation hater’s been by and large excellent now for over a month uh Abu he dances through the raindrops sometimes but his overall numbers have been outstanding for over a month and even Presley’s uh generally speaking cleaned it up in recent weeks so there just back to being a really big b a really good ball club and uh Brandon you touched upon it the the tight wire of the depth the starting rotation and you know what you play the course in this stretch they’ve had a nice sprinkle of off days they’re going to have stretches in the second half where they play 18 days in a row 16 days in a row 13 days in a row and if you go with a fourman rotation with a iffy guy or two and then the bullpen day that’s asking a lot well one of the things you ask is for the offense to clobber people and they’re doing that with more regularity now yeah I’m kind of excited with the pitching to to think that Luis Garcia might be back here in in a few weeks you know he’s expected to take another step forward go down to Corpus Christie hopefully throw a couple Innings that’ll be huge if you get him back Lance mccullers’s Maybe couple three weeks after him I know it’s Lance mccullers’s I’m not I’m not betting the farm on that but it is what it is he’s scheduled to come back and then you look at Verlander he’s starting to throw the ball around a little bit that’s what you need and if you get you know starts from Shan Dubin if he can come in in a pinch and give you three four Innings I mean there’s not a lot more you can ask for there that you know fber is kind of the one concerning you know element in this he’s he’s given up at least five runs in two of his last four starts and when he starts getting frustrated I noticed with him he just rars back and tries to throw it as hard as he can you know when he gets when he gets lit up you can expect a 98 M hour fast ball coming from fber after that just out of just anger and disappointment but that that’s that’s not what got him to where he is it’s about focusing on hitting your spots trying to get guys to hit the ball into the ground so we’ve seen a lot of that with fber where we just tries to throw it pass guys when he gets frustrated but right down the middle and we know Big League hitters these guys can time bullets you got to you got to get him off balance you got to work in your breaking stuff but we know farber’s pedigree we think he’ll be okay so if he’s kind of your main concern and in an erati where he’s just a rookie you don’t know what to expect from him from start to start you’re you’re in a good position here it’s great to see what the Astros are doing I am a little concerned though with seems like hater gives up a home run every other appearance uh I know that’s not exactly the case but I don’t want to be too hard on him because at least he’s he’s throwing fast balls and trying to get ahead and counts when he has a few runs to play with that’s what we want him to do you don’t want him walking guys and and getting into big Innings if he gives up a first pitch home run when you have a cushy lead not the end of the world there and like you mentioned with the bru you know the o02 pitch the other day against the Mets and he gives up the home run you know really close to to coughing up the game on Monday as well but he’s got great stuff and he’s been used a lot so i’ like to give Brady the benefit of the doubt that guy’s pitched a lot of innings already this year and they’re going to need him for more but overall you got to love what you’re seeing from the pitching especially if you look at what could be coming back not not not that far in the distant future and then the trade deadline they may go get an arm there as well yeah hey hater has history of giving up dingers you gave up 15 and 75 innings in a season in which he actually had a decent erra a few years ago as you referenced Josh if you’re hard and straight Major League hitters can can turn it around on it some I just want to amplify on fber who’s so exasperating including to himself I’m starting to think fber Valdez may not win a gold glove during his career and when it goes I mean it goes completely that was just a a stupid flip try at the plate the other night but the Angels game right it was one inning where Homer Homer Homer Line Drive Line Drive Line Drive really one inning in the Mets game where it just fully eroded um but that the Mets knocked him around good starting pitchers every once in a while they’re going to get wrapped and the Mets were the best offense in baseball until the last two days of June um so they’ve been doing a lot of damage against a lot of people but from even when he gets cuffed I forget the opponent when he gave up three in the first and you’re like oh it’s bad forber Knight he gave up nothing after that he still gives you Innings almost every time out and that is very critical in a rotation that as a rubber band is is being stretched pretty far yeah we talked about it the other day uh Josh on our bonus episode how sometimes you can have uh uh sometimes a guy you haven’t seen uh Works uh well against the opposition uh Blue Jays come in on Monday with Uriel Rodriguez and uh shut the Astros down outside of a Jeremy Peña home run and thankfully yon late tax on those Insurance runs runs which as you noted was super huge considering Josh hater giving up that Dinger in the bottom of the inning um look Astros had the best record in all MLB in June have won 10 of their last 11 uh just as a side note I saw some Mets fans talking about how the series should have been a sweep uh and I don’t know how that was New York was fighting from behind the entire game uh on on the uh the series finale uh Josh you talked about some of the uh the injuries catch every everybody up uh on some of those before we get to the offense here uh Dana Brown on the pregame show talked about how uh you know they’ve got Garcia you know he’s up to throwing 93 94 now on his first you know some of his early uh forays into pitching off the mound um and so they’re excited about his uh progress he projects into July early August for Luis Garcia Jake Bloss may get one more uh pen before uh he does a rehab start or he just may go straight to a rehab start so it looks like his shoulder inflammation he’s coming back from that well you mentioned JV playing catch from 60 feet Dana Brown mentioned he still doesn’t have the strength back so they’re going to expand his uh toss length until they get uh comfortable with that and so he can start throwing again um and then Tucker uh swinging off a t still sore I thought it was interesting they talked about how they’re continuing to get MRIs to look at uh what’s going on there as the swelling subsides uh but he still got pain there so working out but not really doing uh you know a lot of baseball activities outside of swinging off that te Charlie how much more amazing is it that this team is doing this without one of their quality Sluggers and it seems like it’s coming from top to bottom in this lineup you’re getting timely hits they saw a stat that coming into Monday’s game in his last 15 games John Singleton 12 of 40 43 hitting for 279 and a 354 on base you know he’s kind of an antithesis of parts of this other parts of this lineup where uh some of the guys are uh you know not are good hitters not necessarily always patient uh he’s kind of the the antient of that he’s he’s a very patient hitter not always good hitter uh but has been on a nice run talk about how the contributions from up and down this lineup even getting a late uh RBI from Chaz in that series finale against the mets has really helped buoy the well like buoy is not the right word helped them to to maintain this white hot streak they’re on well Wednesday will mark one month since Kyle Tucker last played I mean at this point Who’s going to be shocked if it turns out there was some sort of hairline fracture uh in there and that the swelling that that you know even a bad bone bruise shouldn’t take a month but if it does it does but Kyle Tucker was by far their best offensive player this season when he went down um I put in the the most recent Sports map column I don’t think he needs to familiar familiarize himself with Wally pip uh the guy who had a headache got benched a kid named luk Garrick went in and played and Wally pip was never seen again um Kyle Tucker is gonna go right back into the lineup and right field every day batting third or clean up wherever spot of places him but you lose Tucker and all you got from Verlander in June was two poor starts five innings four earned runs in in each of them before I guess he owned up to yeah my neck’s not right and my arms attached to my neck uh so that you where the Astros War at the may he said yeah you’re about to lose Kyle Tucker for almost the entire month and Verlander is going to give you two poor starts and then he’s gone for the entire month you know there’ have been a lot of well maybe 2024 is just not the Astros year but as we talked about you know when they were at their ner points seven and 19 and then again 12 under 500 at 12 and 20 there’s a lot of season a lot of season a lot of time for worms to turn that could be good or bad but specifically with the offense which simply was not good in May mentioned earlier the pitching was fine in May the offense is why they only went 15 and 14 well in June to join a pitching staff that posted the best uh ER in the American League the Astros put up the best offensive numbers in the American League averaging nearly five and a half runs per game after averaging barely over four runs per game that’s a huge difference and you know back in the day there were the Killer Bees I’m going to call them the alpha A’s right it start doesn’t end but it starts with Altuve and Alvarez in May Jose Altuve had his worst calendar month since 2013 in the Batters box he was awful he had 237 his Ops was sub 600 well he went back to being Jose Altuve in June 333 batting average Ops near 900 um yordon Alvarez in May in terms of run production was in weakling for the entire month he had two home runs for RBI Ops wasn’t terrible 776 but certainly sub yordon well in June seven homers 19 runs batted in Ops over 1100 so your two best players with Kyle Tucker out of the mix certainly got back to being your two best players and then there’s the when it’s going well the little things that H they messed that up or the other team came up with the one key hit Monday most recently jerey PNE hadn’t homered in 141 at bats he’s been a horrific offensive player for over a month and a half and until the insurance home run from yard on in the nth that was it and maybe if it was only one nothing Josh haer doesn’t give up a I don’t want to say token Homer but maybe he’s sharper to start that inning you win that game one- nothing and it’s because of Jeremy P’s home run who’s been nothing offensively for about six weeks uh Alex bregman right went off for about a month he flattened out was 0 for 14 and then delivers the two out game-winning hit in the ninth inning Saturday uh at New York and the one other guy who needs to be really given a doth of the cap is Jer Diaz who was not 2024 Martin Maldonado s because Martin’s digging for new lows even by his standards uh but Yer through May Ops lower than where Maldonado was over his three years with the Astros well Jer in June few games missed in there where kartini filled in with a couple of nice moments before he got hurt but J finishes June hitting 363 he hasn’t homered now in nearly 70 at bats but that’s okay when you’re producing singles and doubles and some timely runs batted in mixed in there right Jake Meyers fell off sharply and then he mixes in just enough here and there Chaz McCormack hasn’t found it but he had the one-w home run game that when your heavy lifters are doing the heavy lifting you just get a little bit here a little bit there from the kind of the supporting actors you add it all up and the Astros are back to being as potent in offense as there is in El leite yeah for me I’ll just focus on the Outfield quickly Jake Meers is making so many plays out there defensively in Centerfield I just and he’s been hitting pretty well he went over on Monday but most of the team struggled at the plate on Monday so I’m not going to hold that against him too much I mean just to give you an idea he batted second with Altuve out and you got bregman at lead off so that tells you what a spot is seeing from Jake Meers that he wants him at the top of the order and I just think it’s interesting too we we were seeing low peredo play every day for a good chunk and now that’s kind of gone away they they seem to be going more to Trey cabbage over the last few games and he’s looked pretty good at the plate he’s made some plays in the Outfield as well Chaz is still scuffling but but he’s been in the lineup so I’m interested to see what they do with low peredo if Singleton starts hitting better are we not gonna and by better I just mean a little bit I know he kind of is what he is at this point in his career but we saw lero at first base the other day he looked okay in that game are they going to mix him in there he he got got that big hit over the weekend so he is doing something but he was kind of we talked about it in our last video Brandon that he’d had a few po games in a row and as spot responded by getting cabbage in there so I’m curious to see how the outfield’s going to shake out especially when Kyle Tucker returns and then finally one more thing on Tucker if I remember right he drilled a foul ball into his shin and then he did it again on the one that he’s been out for so you have to wonder if if you really just hit it right in that same spot and and he kind of injured it really twice not just once I wonder if that might be part of why it’s taken so long for him to get back yeah uh it does make you it does make you wonder and I know he took a foul ball uh off that same part last year as well and uh so that maybe invest in a higher taller Shin pad I’m not real sure like maybe like one of those uh you know shinguards from MMA or something but um yeah and look I Mauricio duan’s also been a very timely hitter too uh and where would you be at if you didn’t have his Bat in this lineup and who would have thought we’d be saying that a couple of years ago you know like that you’d be saying thank goodness dub Bond’s bet is in your lineup uh but you know 23 and and or 2023 in this year have been a Redemption story for Mauricio dubon nothing impressive but is always up there giving you a good bad outside of the the last couple of games he’s a guy who tends not to strike out too much that that’s uh turned a little bit over the past couple of performances but you’ve needed that guy uh you know whether it’s uh coming up with a big guy you big hits and uh run Runners with scoring position or just you know keeping an in and going going Station to Station and that’s really been one of the the things that I’ve noticed that has kind of turned the season for them is doing a lot more Station to Station manufacturing runs bunting uh getting uh RBI groundouts uh you know sacrifice flies so they’re really doing a lot of the little things to tack on runs throughout the throughout the Innings as opposed to just scoring all their one runs in one inning like we saw a little earlier before this streak what have you seen from uh you you talked about you know low per fitos use uh you know moving guys down the lineup Charlie what have you seen with Joe aspaas specifically where you’re uh is is there anything you’re noticing from him where maybe he’s managing guys a little different are responding to uh you know how batters are performing we talked a little earlier in the season before the Abu uh Saga came to a finale there how we kind of felt like he was a little painted into a corner by having to use a Bru now that he’s got a a clean canvas so to speak what are you noticing from the skip well yeah it is liberating when you lose the worst player in your offense as as an option or a mandate whatever it was there the end with with Jose Abu um I I’d lik SP willingness to move guys up and down in the lineup subject to who’s doing well uh I don’t want to call it controversy with bregman when he dropped him as low as six Jeremy P has been somewhat on a a sliding scale in the lineup where he was their cleanup hitter for a while even when he wasn’t hitting very well but was one of my options uh ultimately it’s very simple your best players need to lead the way and the secondary guys need know their roles um Alvarez and Altuve playing poorly gives the Astros no chance to have a good offense they’re two total studs and batting first and third they come up more than almost everyone else in the lineup so if they’re going to be a one-two fail as they were in May you’re just not going to have good offensive production two guys isn’t enough to have a good lineup but if your two best players aren’t pulling their weight probably means you’re going to have um a bad lineup and again the manager only makes so much difference Terry Franc con is probably going to be a Hall of Fame manager he retires in Cleveland the Guardians have been tremendous this year I don’t think stepen vote is some sort of savant the Indians have just hit a lot better former Indians put put that in the fine Shar uh the Guardians offense has just gotten a lot better this year and you can you know look at other spots through history a managerial change sometimes there’s an initial jolt you know if guys are awakened by the need to pick it up or if I guess a very unpopular manager was finally let go um but in the end it’s it’s a players game over 162 games whether you have a menza or making the decisions in The Dugout it’s not going to be a difference of 10 15 games with that manager players need to do work and the Astros players key guys individually and the overall collectively they have been doing work yeah just his his management of the bullpen you look a lot better when guys like Taylor Scott are pitching the way they are I mean they’ve gotten some big contributions Seth Martinez I know he’s had hadn’t been perfect recently but over the course of the year he’s been very good Brian King has been somebody I’ve been impressed with and limited work it’s really great how they’re doing this even Montero came in and pitched a clean Inning on Monday he was the only guy they didn’t really use in that Extra Inning game on Sunday so I was curious to see what are they gonna do with Montero because he’s been very poor this year but he had a clean inning so thank goodness so I hope you see a little more of that from him but the numbers just don’t dictate it he’s a guy where you know in case of emergency break open glass that’s Conor Montero when it’s your last option you can go to him he’s not getting L of swinging Miss but that’s okay he he’s not a guy you’re counting on that much so I think asata has done a good job and and just getting fber out of the game against the Mets the other day after he gave up six runs and you know it was only four and two-thirds Innings but he pulled him out he wasn’t 95 pitches so I understand that part but then the bullpen holds him to to more no more runs for the rest of the game and you win that ball game by getting fber out of there so I like that as spot is like no you know you don’t have it today we’re going to try and keep this thing as close as we can we have a good bull pick maybe maybe they’ll keep us in this ball game and they did the bats came through they came away with the series win they start the the blue jay series with the bullpen looking good as well Hunter Brown looking good this is what you wanted this is what you knew the Astros could be this year and they they’re finally hitting their stride yeah you knew they could but you have to admit it looked like they’re defying the odds and doing it though considering the fact you’re down so many pitchers and Kyle Tucker as well so the fact that they’re able to do this and again Monday’s game you know Altuve sitting that game so to and that lineup was very strange but it worked uh and you know like you said you get timely hits here here and there manager looks like the smartest guy in the room uh what I like is the fact that this does provide some flexibility for a spot to be a manager and to manage based on who’s hitting well uh you know who you based on Merit and not necessarily based on who’s getting paid the most and Josh to your point I did find it very funny that uh even in a five run lead with a five run lead late they went to someone else besides uh Montero so uh you said break in case of emergency Monday’s game was that they were down to they needed Montara to come up and thankfully he got the job done a pretty efficient inning All Things Considered um so we we’ll wrap it there that’s it for uh part one of Stone Cold shows toist listen to the full podcast uh go to your favorite podcast app and we’ll have that post a little later and to watch part two of this conversation we’re going to have it posted on this channel on YouTube tomorrow so check back on the channel later we’ll be releasing that shortly and as always ghost Rose

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