Speaker 1: I'll say it thing for you eleven four Sports Talk
seven and I let's spend ten. You know what, Brian
Bogus seven, We're gonna have to talk eleven minutes with
you this week because I need you to walk me
off the ledge because yesterday exacerbation, I don't know whatever,
you know, pissed off, expert, exasperation, whatever, that too, Bogie
three to one, Bray, you can't find the strike zone
in the ninth runners in scoring position, and it was
just another injury. It was like a microcosm of the
entire season. And I keep trying to hold out of
this notion that the Astros are still in first place,
in which they are and they'd be in the playoffs
today at the season end of the day. But man,
it has been really two and a half months of
just holding on for dear life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think one extra minute's going to be
enough to get you off the ledge that you're on.
Speaker 1: That feels fair, thank you, But yeah, you're.
Speaker 2: Right about yesterday. I think yesterday, you know, as much
as it hurt, because it's a loss in a big
game at the end of the season, and it's one
that it felt like was in your hand and you
didn't get it. That always hurts, but it's the way
it happened. It's kind of all of your concerns with
this team rolled into one. You know, obviously, the injury
that happens, We've seen too many of those.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It's an offense that can't pull away and make it
easy on the pitching staff. It's hitting with runners in
scoring position. It's a bullpen that is you know, depleted
and is starting to look gassed, looking vulnerable because they
look depleted and gassed. And you know, every one individual
concern that you could kind of point to and say,
ooh that might be a problem, ooh that might be
a problem. We saw them all all at once, and yeah,
that's you know, it hurts kind of doubly bad watching
it happen yesterday, because that's twenty games left in the season.
You can't have one in your hand and not get it.
Speaker 1: So bring you inherits that the closer's role when hater
goes down, and I mean the first four or five
appearances were like man and there is no slippage at all.
This is going to be fun. And now he's having
a hard time finding the striker zone. We talked about
this in the first Star. When you're a two pitch
pitcher against a team that doesn't strike out a lot
or doesn't have a lot of swing and miss, that's
a recipe for disaster. And we saw that again last night.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, when a brave New's right, it doesn't
matter who you are, what style of here you are.
His stuff is overpowering enough to get the best contact
lineups to swing and miss. I mean, the whiff rates
that he gets on each of his pitches individually are crazy,
but they have to be working together, right. He's got
to get that good crossfire angle on this fastball to
his glove side to set up the big sweeping slider
that comes off of the same plane but goes even
further out of the zone. And you know, if you
go back and look at kind of the pitch chart yesterday,
there were misses outside of the zone. That's a problem.
But the fastballs in particular that were in the zone
weren't getting to that armside or to the glove side.
They were in the middle of the plate. They were
hit able pitches. They were pictures that weren't going to
set up the slider going down in a way out
of the zone, and anytime a pitcher is missing up
into the arm side, the first thing that you think
of is fatigue, and then you start looking at the velocities.
It was a lot of ninety fives and ninety six
is yesterday, when typically we see ninety sevens and ninety eight.
And honestly, in a situation like that, where it's a
gotta have it game and against the first place team
in the American League, you would think a little bit
extra juice run. And I was waiting to see ninety
nine and maybe one hundred. So it's starting to look
like he's got I don't think the closer thing has
gotten to him. I don't think you know, he's an
eighth inning guy that can't do the ninth inning. I
think he's the one guy who's been the constant down
there all year. You know, he hasn't had an injury,
he hasn't had performance affect him, and him floated in
and out of the high leverage situation. It's been full go,
and they've probably they've leaned on him, you know, even
when Hayter was there more heavily than anybody. And it's
just it's starting to look like it's catching up to them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that just begs the question, what, what's the solution?
Just a couple of days off, just something he has
to work through. And I mean, it'd be nice if
if the offense could go out there and score a
bunch of runs, but they just end up in so
many high leverage situations because of the nature of how
the team is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you hit it on the nose right there. There.
There is no solution from a pitching standpoint. You only
got the guys you got. You only are you know,
have the availability of what you got. And if it's
if it's a closing situation, it's going to be Brian
A Bray you and you're going to have to live
and die with him because that's what you got and
that's what you're gonna have to do. The solution or
you know, way around it is exactly that. It's to
score more runs. You know, it's not if you lose
a one run game because the bullpen gives it up.
It's not necessarily on the bullpen. Guys aren't perfect. Guys
are going to give up runs here and there. Complimentary
baseball is there being times when you score so many
runs early that you're starting pitcher can really settle in
and just pound the strike zone and worry about nothing
but getting deep into the game. You know, it's creating
situations that aren't saved, situations so you can throw to
the guys who haven't thrown in five days, who are fresh,
versus the guys who've thrown, you know, three out of
the last five days and been getting worn out all year.
And we've seen far too few of those games where
it's the offense just taking over and saying, hey, pitchers,
you guys essentially have the day off today.
Speaker 3: Brian Bogusvik is here on Sports Talk seven ninety. It's
been a tough goal of it the last fifteen thirty
games or so for jose Al toove, and I find
myself Brian questioning like, Okay, is this just a typical
jose Al too a slump or is this some decline?
What are you seeing from him at the plate?
Speaker 2: A little bit, a little bit of both. Maybe you know,
he's he's always a guy who when he struggles is
going to get super aggressive, so you're going to see
some wild swen He's also a guy who you know,
all throughout the course of his career will We'll hunt
pitches and guess in certain situations, and every once in
a while, you know, he guesses wrong and takes a
swing that looks ridiculous. But you know, it's an extended
kind of version of that right now, which makes me
think that, you know, is he in a situation where
he's having to do more of those things to kind
of keep up and less and less just straight up hitting.
You know, Granted, he can always break out of it
and look completely locked in for the next you know,
months plus and just go on a tear that's still
in there. We've seen him get hot this season, but
it just looks like a guy who's relying more and
more on hunting one pitch at a time or one
location at a time, versus a guy who, you know,
there were times when it didn't matter what speed or
what location he's through it and he could hit it
in any direction at any time, you know, trying to
get himself out of it. But it just it hasn't
happened recently.
Speaker 1: Well, Gie, the runners in the scoring position number has
been the one that's discouraged so much. We look at
every single loss and we can go back to that
one particular category. Is there some sort of magic elixir
that you would give a particular hitter, whether it's a
different approach to the plate, whether it's swinging early, swinging later,
trying to position the you know, to pull the ball,
go oppo, whatever, because it just feels like that. So
much of the angst is these key hitters in this
Astro lineup with runners at second and third or bases loaded.
A couple times in that game last week against the Yankees,
when the ninth inning, with the tying run at the plate,
Correa strikes out, Walker strikes out. That that hurt. Those
aren't terrible, terrible ways to end games. What do you
do when you get the guys on the bases and
you're just looking for that one clutch hit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there's a lot of things that come into play.
First of all, crazy as this sounds, the thing that
correlates most of hitting with runners in scoring position is
just team batting average. In general. Generally, teams that can
hit hit with runers in scoring position. But that's not
been the you know, the Etros are near probably they're
probably in the top third of the league still in
batting average overall. And then we see their struggles with
runners in scoring positions. So that's kind of uh, you know,
can't make heads or tails of that. But I think
the thing that you would look at now, right, hitting
with runners in scoring position used to be all about
take what's out there. Right, there's a man on third
less than two outs, just get him in second and third,
get him over maybe, or get him in maybe get
the guy over at the same time, and kind of
take what's out there. But now you know, there's such
a different approach to hitting, where it's all about trying
to have biginnings, especially early in games, because that's what
wins games. Right, You have to put u big crooked numbers.
There are very very few two to one games anymore. Right,
everybody's getting on a race to five or a race
to six, and you have to have bigginnings to do so.
But when you're struggling with runners in scoring position, sometimes
I would think just take a step back, you know,
if you're up there and it's a man on third
with one out in the second inning, instead of taking
the approach of like, Okay, I'm having my regular at bat,
maybe I hit a double that'll score and put me
in scoring position will be in position to have that
big inning. Just take what's out there, maybe a little
bit earlier in the bat, earlier in the game, cash
in one, and maybe just that gets the ball rolling
a little bit. It seems like a lot of times
there's more focus on here's our opportunity to have the
beginning versus here's our opportunity to get that one that's
out there right in front of us. And you know, mathematically,
does it make sense to do that? Maybe not, but
at the same time, it could kind of jump start
things a little bit.
Speaker 1: We kept eleven minutes. Thank you very much of the
time as always.
Speaker 2: Are you off the ledge?
Speaker 1: No boy, and your boy Josh Reddick was losing his
mind last night too, So all you guys are space
that you're kind of feeling it right now?
Speaker 2: I think yeah, I think I think everybody's feeling it
right now. All right.
Speaker 1: Are you working this weekend?
Speaker 2: Yes? All right?
Speaker 1: Well, maybe maybe you're the ma. Maybe you're the election
that'll fix things because that series coming up in a
couple of days. Thank you for the time, as always, friend,
We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: All right, see you guys. All right,