Speaker 1: Okay, we had a lot of stuff to get to
so let's get serious here. Brian McTaggart MLB dot Com,
Astros dot Com, our weekly guest here on Sports Talk
seven ninety. Uh, we've been talking about that, Like I said,
a million things to get to you. Let's know what's tattoom.
I looked pretty good. Uh yesterday. There have been a
lot of talk about not necessarily the velocity of his fastball,
but the shape of his fastball. How do you think
that's looked so far in spring? And obviously the results
were good yesterday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he uh yeah, he looked Uh, he looked really good.
I mean, faced nine hitters and what he struck out
for four I believe. Uh yeah, I mean he's he's
looked better than I probably had anticipated. And I know
the Astros were sort of, you know, trying to get
a feel for him and his routine and you know
all that stuff. But uh, you know, I think they
got to be very happy. It's going to be really
uh fun to watch here as he gets stretched out
at you know, last couple of weeks of spring that
he gets up to five and six innings, to see
what he's capable of doing. But he's got a lot
of weapons. Uh, you know, got the reverse slider, which
you know drew Raves early in camp. And it certainly
looks like they might have really done a really nice
job getting this guy and getting him in the rotation
because it looks like he's going to be a big,
big part of that rotation this year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and same thing with Mike Burrows. Just your
thoughts on what we've seen from him, and then follow
up to that, if you had your crystal ball out
just at this moment, how the rotation would slot starting
opening day.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Burrows has been great too. I mean he's looked better
than I thought he would as well. I mean he
works at a really good pace. He throws strikes, and
I think he's going to be fun to watch because
the defense has to be on their toes. Mean, he
kind of reminds me of Oswald, you know, back in
the day, at the pace that he works at. So yeah,
I mean I think they're close probably the setting the rotation.
We all know Hunter Brown's going to go Game one.
I still don't know hope they're going to go with
a four or five i mean five or six man rotation.
I know they will do six for a lot of April,
but I think for the first week or so they
might be able. They won't need they won't need a
six starter for a while, So I mean, I guess
it will probably be Emi in the second game, m
Colors Game three, or Burrows. You know, I'm just sort
of guessing here, but I guess the better way to
put it is, there's four guys that are locks in
the rotation right now, and that's Im, Burrows, Brown and
the Colors and Hobby Aer. So I think those five
guys are locks in the rotation. I think Arrighetty, even
though he pitched really well yesterday, is probably not guaranteed
a rotation spot yet. And you know, if they go
to six man, he's probably the sixth man. But they
have to feel really good about their their starting pitching
depth at this point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's crazy, Brian, and I know everything we say,
here's what the caveat of It's it's only spring training,
but I mean, I don't remember a spring where you've
had this many good arms just putting up goose eggs,
and you know, am I with the goose eggs yesterday?
But Righetti, yeah, gives up the home run yesterday, but
six strikeouts over three innings. I mean, you know, even
Jason Alexandria had one bad outing but then a really
strong one and then they already sent him to the
minor leagues, like all right, you're gonna be one of
the best arms in sugar Land. So it's it's crazy
how this competition is shaping up. And you know, I
think we all thought, Okay, you know, we're gonna be
optimistic about this pitching staff, but I mean i've been wild.
But what they've done so far this spring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was their goal in the off season was
to go out and add pitching depth, and they added,
you know, six or seven arms. And the fact that
they were able to send Jason Alexander to minor league camp,
you know, three weeks before open a Day, despite him
pitching really well in a couple of games in the spring.
I mean, that's that's what they wanted. They wanted that
quality of starter at Triple A that they can bring up.
And the same with Colton Gordon, another guy who pitched
pretty well. He was he was among the first cuts
of camp, so he's gonna be in a Triple A rotation. Uh,
there's so there's two guys right there that you feel
good about that they can call upon that. Yeah, they
really did a nice job adding even some of the
guys that we don't talk about, but you know, a
non roster guy like Peter Lambert has really put himself
in position to make the team as a long reliever.
You know, they added Tang who is going to get
the start on Friday, and he's in position as well
to give them multiple innings out of the bullpen. So
they they've got a lot of arms, a lot of
quality arms. And the important thing is they have a
couple of guys in the bullpen who can pitch two
or three innings. They're also optionable the guys they can
move back and forth between the minor leagues all year
without any problem.
Speaker 1: Brian McTaggart MLB dot com, astros dot Com with us
here on a Sports Talk seven ninety. Let's go to
the position player side. It's with the outfield now. Three
weeks into games. We had a lot of questions about
how things would possibly slot coming into spring, and I
just don't know, how does it look to you, Brian,
because it doesn't seem like a lot of those questions
are really getting answered.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, the outfield is still still
a mix of guys, and I think that's probably the
area on the club that's probably the biggest unknowns. I mean,
there's still a chance Jake Myers could get traded, and
that's why Joey Spota hasn't yet saying hey, Jake Myers
is my starting centerfielder because he might not be. And
then beyond that, you know, you got the young guys.
You got low Perfido, you got Cam Smith, you got
Zack Cole. All three of those guys can play all
three positions. So and then Taylor Tremell has had a
really nice spring as well, swinging the bat, running the basis,
so he's put himself in the mix. And I think
if they broke camp today, Tremall probably makes the team. So,
you know, the injury to Panya probably opens a roster
spot maybe for Bryce Matthews. You know, he can play
some second in some outfield. But yeah, I mean, I
think the outfield is just we're gonna take this down
to the wire. And you know, you gotta remember they
still could make another trade if they trade Myers. You know,
they still would like to trade Peretis, and if they do,
they'll get a left handed bat which is going to
be an outfielder. So this roster could still look different
here in a couple of days when they get to open,
a couple of weeks, when they get to open a day.
Speaker 3: How concern Brian should fans be with the the overall
spring numbers? And I get it's it's small sample size.
You're talking starters playing you know, half the games, guys
who are going to be working at target in a year,
you know, coming in the later innings. So it's it's
not a full easy samples hae to look at. But
I mean dead lasting home runs worse than baseball batting
average one eighty nine, slugging two ninety seven, ops at
six twenty. I mean, it's some ugly offensive numbers. How
concern should we be?
Speaker 2: I don't think very concerned are all? I mean? I
mean these guys, these guys are that the established pay
players are down here working on their swings, tinkering with things.
So guys, I know Albarez has struggled in the spring.
I mean I would not be worried the guys that
the guys that need to hit a little bit in
the spring are the you know, the youngsters competing for spots.
And we've seen the bats come around a little bit.
We know Cole hit a home or yesterday low Berfido
swinding a little better. But the position players Walker Alvarez,
I mean going on, Alvarez could go low for thirty
in the spring and have four hits on opening day
and everything's right. So you know, it's these these games
are so weird. You're facing pictures late in the game
who are in in Class A ball, So I mean
half the bats are going to guys from minor league camp.
So it's not anything to worry about it. I mean,
if you want to worry about, you know, maybe some
of the younger guys competing for a spot that aren't hitting,
but uh, the overall numbers mean mean nothing. In the
star players, if they're not hitting, you don't worry about that.
They'll be ready to go, you hope on opening day.
Speaker 1: Obligatory infield question. What's the latest on Jeremy Painia's status
and just the logjam we've been talking about for months now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, status quo, and you know it's sort of resolved
itself a little bit here for the short term, because
Penya is going to open the season on the il.
I mean they haven't announced that yet, but I mean,
you know it's going to happen, So so they'll be
able to put Peretis at third and create a short
for opening day. Corey has been playing short here the
last couple of days in great Fruity Pay play. So
Hanya is you know, he suffered the injury a week ago,
So he's a week away from getting reevaluated, which I
guess would mean another X ray to see where he's at.
So but he's out there on the field doing all
the drills. I mean, he's out there with the short stops,
fielding the ball and flicking at the second base with
his glove and and the only the only thing he
really can't do is get the ball and throw and
swing a bat, which are two major things. But it
certainly looks like this is not going to be a
long term injury that goes deep into April. I think
he'll be back sooner than later. And yeah, I mean,
I don't think this changes a whole lot. They still
if he comes back healthy, they still have one too
many infielders, and they still need a left handed bat
because their lineup is so right handed. So I think
that's still going to be something to watch.
Speaker 3: Is that.
Speaker 2: You know, I think we'll still to see a trade
here in the next two weeks. On the infield, he.
Speaker 3: Quick quickly Brian with the hater news that he's going
to open up on the injured list. Give me your
you know, opening day, let's say they're up three nothing
heading into the seventh, who's your seventh, eighth, ninth inning, guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'll go backwards. I mean, obviously a Bray
is going to be the closer because he's you know,
he's your best reliever. You know, Brian King did a
really nice job in sort of a seventh inning setup role,
so you know, I think he's in there as well.
You know, seventh inning might come down to matchups. You know,
you got you got Steven Okirk, Bennett Suza Para lefties.
You know, if Peter Lambert makes it, he's a guy
that can come in and throw really hard. You know,
Tang's going to be in the bullpen as well, is
and Dela Santo is going to be in the mix.
I think, you know, I think the ninth and eighth
inning roles are pretty set. I think beyond that, it's
going to come down to matchups where they are in
the game, and there's a lot of different ways they
can go because they have you know, they have a
lot of versatile arms down there and guys that can
throw multiple innings.
Speaker 1: Great first meeting with Brian mctagger. We're going to have
him every week here throughout the Astros season, bringing you
coverage like nobody's business. Brian, let the folks know what
you got going on the website.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of good stuff on the website. We
got I'm gonna have an opening day roster projection coming,
uh coming tomorrow, so you know, keep an eye out
for that, and that always gets a lot of clicks,
so it's something that changes daily and uh yeah, so yeah,
just go to astrons dot com and uh, you know,
we got a lot of good stuff in there.
Speaker 1: All right, thanks a lot, Brian, appreciate it, and we
will talk to you every week throughout the season.
Speaker 3: You're welcome, all right, thanks guys.
Speaker 2: All right, there you go.
Speaker 1: Brianmick Taggart Astros dot com, MLB dot com great with
stuff with him as always,