00:00Excited? Is this the word? I don't know.
00:02I'm a little anxious, honestly, and I shouldn't be for Astros-Angels tonight,
00:06the rubber match of this three-game set.
00:08You think so?
00:09Yeah, yeah.
00:10The first game, which they lost, was kind of just a weird game.
00:14You got a good effort out of the Angels pitcher, young pitcher that they hadn't seen a whole lot.
00:19Is it Klasson?
00:19Klasson, yeah.
00:21So that happens.
00:22It seems to happen to the Astros a lot, which is just bizarre.
00:25Every time they face a pitcher they haven't seen a lot, they struggle.
00:27So, okay, chalk that one up to those.
00:29That's one of the things that happened.
00:31And their offense was bad.
00:34Yesterday, you faced their best pitcher.
00:36And, frankly, I thought they were going to lose yesterday's game.
00:38You know, it just had all the markings, you know.
00:40Because old buddy in the Crawford box?
00:42Oh, my gosh.
00:43What is wrong with that, dude?
00:45Let's stop there for a second.
00:46There was the two runs that the Angels scored.
00:49I thought they were going to lose off of that.
00:50Yes, yes.
00:51Both runs scored on that play, right?
00:52The two runs that the Angels scored happened because of a fan interference that happened.
00:57He was with one fan, not in Astros gear, mind you.
01:00Not in any gear whatsoever.
01:02And very proud of himself.
01:03It was like three of them cheering.
01:04Yes, very proud of himself.
01:05None of them had Astros stuff on.
01:07Hanging over the yellow line of the Crawford boxes to have fan interference on.
01:12What would have been probably like a double off?
01:14Actually, maybe not even a double.
01:15It might have been a single with how hard he hit it.
01:16Depends on how it came off the wall.
01:17Right, but it looked like coming off the wall, it might have just been falling right into the left of
01:21his glove.
01:21It could have had an opportunity to do it.
01:23You know, who knows?
01:23Who knows?
01:24Yes, definitely a possibility.
01:25I have a question, though, because this knucklehead that did that, you should know better.
01:32Thank you, Charles Barkley.
01:34But I have a question.
01:35I haven't sat in the Crawford boxes in a long time, probably close to 15 years since I got tickets
01:40out there.
01:41Can someone help me out?
01:43Because I think the Astros, or every major league team, are there signs on that wall facing the stands that
01:49say,
01:50do not reach over the fence?
01:52Because there should be.
01:53Because the temptation is to always go get it, but if you see that, maybe it kind of limits you
01:57a little bit.
01:58I don't know if there's actually a sign, but this was actually very convenient because this was the game
02:02where the entirety of the broadcast booth was broadcasting from the Crawford box.
02:07They were like five rows behind him.
02:09They could have gone down and gotten him.
02:10You can see the broadcast from when the guy interfered with the ball.
02:13Right, so Cowlice, Blummer, even Julia Morales is out there.
02:16And I mentioned Julia because she, after this happened, she says that, yeah, the front row is apparently like,
02:21almost like an exit row on a plane.
02:23Supposedly, they're like told, hey, man, don't get involved with a play.
02:27Don't reach over.
02:27So there's not an excuse, even if there's not signs.
02:31It seems like there's some level of addressing of those people like, hey, just so you know.
02:36He was proud of himself.
02:37Yeah, I saw it in real time, in real action.
02:39And I'm like, what are you doing, man?
02:41And you know how when you let somebody else drive the car and you hit the brake over in the
02:47passage,
02:47I kind of threw my hands up like, hey, what are you doing, man?
02:51Don't reach over.
02:52The other thing is they stayed there.
02:55Wouldn't you have been humiliated and just left?
02:58I thought he was going to get the jet.
02:59Well, this might be a case of not knowing the landscape because people on the text line are saying that
03:07the dudes were from Australia and this is their first baseball game.
03:10So they probably was just caught up in the moment.
03:12They were lost in the sauce of this all.
03:14You know what?
03:15You almost give them grace on it.
03:17Well, he did a whole 180, J-Lo.
03:19Yes, I did not know that.
03:21Were they?
03:22If that's true, then I probably had to walk it back a little bit because it kind of makes sense
03:28if they was because they were so excited.
03:31I'm like, what are y'all doing, man?
03:32You know what doesn't make sense, though?
03:33We're getting a lot of texts.
03:34Apparently, it was.
03:36The Astros fans that were sitting next to them cheering.
03:38Don't cheer for that.
03:39You know better.
03:39That's one of those where you know better.
03:41But that's one of those where you go up to them afterwards and say, hey, not your fault, but.
03:46Yeah.
03:46No, but like, if you watch the replay, the fans next time are like, yeah, I'm like, no, no, yeah.
03:51That's not your team.
03:52What's happening here?
03:52Well, they got a story now.
03:53They're going to go back to Brisbane or wherever they're going to say.
03:57You're not going to believe what happened.
03:58Is Brisbane your first Australian city that you come with?
04:01Melbourne, Sydney.
04:02Yeah.
04:02I think that Brisbane is at least third.
04:04You know why I said Brisbane?
04:07It's fun to say.
04:08No, I was just talking to a buddy from Brisbane, which y'all feel free to mock me.
04:12I know people from Brisbane.
04:14Damon Olsen from Nomad Lures.
04:17Shout out to Damon.
04:17He lives outside of Brisbane, yeah.
04:20Anyways, all of that.
04:21We just got angry about this one play.
04:23But honestly, that was the only way they scored.
04:25It felt like at times the Astros were having a tough time scoring.
04:28Regardless, though, Jeremy Pena had a really scary circumstance where a ball hits him basically
04:34on the hand.
04:35Yeah.
04:35And weirdly enough.
04:37Strike out.
04:38Yeah.
04:39Don't get me started.
04:41I kind of love that Joe Espada got himself thrown out of the game behind that.
04:45It feels like this is a team that maybe needs a little bit of that fire right now.
04:48I got mad at Joe Espada.
04:49Why is that?
04:51Dude, you got thrown out for a very stupid reason.
04:54He was in the dugout saying, hey, you know, and then he came out and all that stuff.
04:58Get your money's worth, man.
05:00Joe Espada.
05:01Get your money's worth.
05:01His dial don't go up to 11 like you want it.
05:03It needs to.
05:04That was him maxing out his dial.
05:06Yeah.
05:07Have you ever had the TV?
05:07He looked like Steven Silas.
05:10I don't know.
05:11I don't know if that's actually a good comparison because Steven Silas looked like he'll whoop
05:13your ass.
05:13No, but remember when he tried to be angry?
05:16Remember that?
05:16They got to play defense, guys.
05:17They got to play.
05:18And then he's like.
05:19Oh, I'm thinking Paul Silas.
05:20Yeah, Steven Silas.
05:20Yeah, you're right.
05:21You're right.
05:21You're right.
05:21I'm scared.
05:22Paul Silas is a scary spell.
05:23The rest of the piece of Paul Silas.
05:24I'm scared of him.
05:24Remember Steven Silas?
05:25Like you can almost see on the cue card.
05:26Bang table now.
05:29They're not getting to the bucket.
05:30They need to play defense.
05:32He goes, come on, man.
05:34That's what Joe Spada looked like.
05:35He was letting them know.
05:36But Jeremy Pena, he gets hit on the hand and then he ends up coming out for the next half
05:41inning to play defense.
05:42But then when his next at-bat comes up, he's taken out of the game and it got a little
05:46scary.
05:47But this brought me back to a thought I've been having.
05:49Are we properly appreciating what Jeremy Pena is?
05:52And I recognize if you look at his splits over the last couple of weeks, it's a sub-Mendoza
05:57line batting average.
05:58However, this is actually in line with what has been a larger trend in baseball.
06:02Have you realized that shortstops have just kind of been bad this year?
06:05Not until you mentioned it yesterday.
06:07Like shortstops have been pretty bad all the way around.
06:10The MLB batting average for shortstop as of maybe a few days ago was .244, which is
06:15the worst since 1975.
06:18A half decade's worth of like the worst baseball or at least batting average from the shortstop
06:24position.
06:25And I mean, it is all the guys that you would imagine.
06:28Mookie Betts, who's playing shortstop, has missed a bunch of games.
06:31His OPS is 7-0-1.
06:34If you want to talk about Carlos Correa, we know he's a third baseman now.
06:37He's injured.
06:38J.P. Crawford hasn't been particularly good.
06:40He moved to third base.
06:42Lindor hasn't been particularly good, had injuries.
06:44Trevor Story, Trey Turner, Corey Seager.
06:47It's been a substandard for a lot of the names that you even think about at shortstop.
06:51Talk less of the breadth of this circumstance.
06:53If you look at the best shortstops in creating offense, and I recognize I just
06:57told you, over the last couple of weeks, Jeremy Pena's been down.
07:00He's still the fourth best shortstop.
07:02And that's including a guy in C.J.
07:04Abrams, who has been the best offensive shortstop, just got moved to second base because his defense
07:09has been bad.
07:09Jeremy Pena's been giving you pretty solid defense.
07:11Not the best of his career, don't get me wrong.
07:13It's been good.
07:14But good defense.
07:15He's been one of the three guys you can even depend on on offense.
07:18Like, have we properly appreciated what he is right now?
07:23Well, first of all, what you just said about shortstops in baseball, that's not a good
07:27thing for the Astros.
07:28That means he's going to get paid.
07:29And that's where I wanted to go with this.
07:31He's going to get paid.
07:32Doesn't matter what his numbers are.
07:33Because, you know, he's the tallest small person.
07:37I'll put it that way.
07:38You know, and I think that's not great for the Astros.
07:42Hell, the Astros may be in a place after this season where they want to do that.
07:46Where they want to pay him?
07:48They want to move on from him.
07:48Oh, move on from him?
07:49Yeah, move on from him.
07:49Do you think this helps them move on from him?
07:51If everybody in the league is having shortstop type seasons where they're looking around
07:55and going, ooh.
07:56Yeah.
07:57Maybe we need to get somebody who we know feels, I guess, recession-proof.
08:01Right.
08:02Right?
08:02Shortstop recession-proof.
08:03And Jeremy Pena does feel shortstop recession-proof.
08:05He's still batting .283.
08:07Yeah.
08:07Yeah.
08:08He's been damn good this year.
08:09And that's with a huge slump.
08:10He's in a big slump right now.
08:11Yes.
08:12He's been damn good this year.
08:13Yeah, I think it's overshadowed because of Yordan, honestly.
08:16I think we've all been kind of focused on Yordan and the whole just the MVP type of race.
08:25Yeah.
08:25And we haven't been paying attention to Jeremy Pena.
08:28And, I mean, he's been leading off.
08:29He's going to be a large reason why a lot of those RBI come across for Yordan is because
08:35he's doing a decent job being a good bat ahead of him.
08:38Yeah, man, it highlights, again, kind of the real problem with not having Jeremy Pena's
08:43contract done or, honestly, maybe not trading him at the deadline.
08:47I understand that the circumstances that make it such, you're contending and now you're at
08:51the top of the AL West.
08:53But I wonder, does this make, I imagine this makes it harder for them to actually come to
08:57terms with him and extend him in the offseason.
08:59I think this might push him even further out of the door.
09:01I think it absolutely does.
09:02Because you know you're not going to do anything with Yordan, you're bound to not do anything
09:07with Altuve, that kind of narrows the odds here if you are going to truly rebuild after
09:12this season.
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