The Josh Innes Show - Astros lose a stinker

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

The Astros offense was a total no show in Game 1. What happened to Framber? Why bunt in the 9th? Are Astros fans bored? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Please play responsibly. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. The following was recorded from inside an ice plunge. Ah! Woo! Okay. All right. When a core's life is cold enough,

the mountains on the can turn blue. So the next time you want a cold lager, cold filter, cold package, Coors Light, just wait until those glorious mountains on the can turn blue. It's easy to say that fast when you're freezing cold. All right, everybody. Astro's game, crappy ending. Well, actually, the ending was far more interesting than anything that happened in the rest of the game. It was really the eight innings that preceded that that was woefully boring, all that stuff. And I get that. So you got to take what you can get against him. But when he's out there in two of his innings, he only has to throw five pitches.

That's a problem. You didn't get enough good at bat. You didn't make them work for anything. Gave him a lot of easy outs in that game. Not a ton of hard hit balls. Fromber was last year's playoff fromber. Yes, he settled down. And at the end of the day you go what'd he go five and a third i guess or four and a third whatever it was um and gave up three runs so again it could have been worse he at least bounced back to some degree uh but oh that's brutal man um again good ninth inning but here's here's where i think they made a a mistake and maybe it wasn't catastrophic and maybe it didn't cost them the game. Maybe it's not fair to say it cost them the game. But when you've got it moving like you had in the ninth inning and people are reaching base, you catch that break on the foul tip

so you get a reprieve. Then you get a base knock after that and you've got a little momentum going. You're in the game. You've got two on so the tying run's at the plate. Nobody out. I know you don't want to hit and do a double momentum going. You're in the game. You've got two on, so the tying run's at the plate. Nobody out. I know you don't want to hit and do a double play there, but still, you're in a position where you don't want to just give them an out, especially when you've got a pitcher who's reeling.

When you've got a pitcher who's just, like, you've got a pitcher who's just like he's got to be feeling it. This is not a team that used to play off baseball. This is new to them. It's not new to you. You're the big bad wolf. You've been in the postseason every year here for the last eight years. You're at home. You've got a bunch of veteran dudes or at least enough veteran dudes who have enough experience in the postseason where you're comfortable. Hey, it's three nothing. Your bullpen's giving you a shot to win. Now you've got a couple of guys on base. Jordan hits the one off the wall that gets the line moving.

You get a couple of hits, and then before you know it, you're in this damn game, and you've got a shot, and there's nobody out. Generally speaking, I am not anti-bunt guy, but the bunt has to make sense. For instance, if it's the new extra inning rule during the regular season, you're the home team, the opposition didn't score, bunt the runner over to third and try to drive him in. I'm totally cool with that. Very National League baseball, but I'm very cool with that.

I think that's the move you've got to make there. But in this scenario, when you've got a pitcher who's reeling, you can't just give him an out and then give the opposition the out. So you bailed them out and you bailed the pitcher out by bunting. I don't like it. Now again, it still worked out in the sense that they still had an opportunity to win the game late and guys had great freaking at bats. This is not a team that had good at bats today there were a couple you know Bregman had a really good at bat at one point there was that 29 pitch inning uh that Scooble had he didn't have a ton of those I mean Scooble was pretty much dominant the Astros didn't hit the ball hard against him they had two five run any or five pitch innings against him so it is what it is but you knew going in it was

going to be tough sledding but you made it easier they took bad at bats and they've taken bad at bats all year but in the ninth inning when you've got a pitcher feeling it and you're not hitting him hard for the most part but you're getting it through the infield and now there's pressure you had very little traffic throughout most of that game. You've got traffic, and you've got an opportunity to win the damn game. You have a chance to win it, and you've got a chance to keep pouring it on, man. Put pressure on him. What do you do?

You bunt. You give him an out. And worked out in the sense that you got the bases loaded, had a chance. And, hey, look, credit to Hayward. Hayward hit it hard. You hit it right at a guy. What's the old adage? The name of the game is hit it where they ain't.

And they didn't do that. Throughout that whole inning, it was hit it where they ain't. And then one time you smoke one, one of the hardest hit balls of the day, right at somebody. And that's ball game and now your backs are against it now what do you do i don't know if they have they named a starter yet i don't know i would assume it's kukuchi tomorrow uh but you gotta win to stay alive if you're wondering about my bets for the game i hit zero of them i was disastrous in this one. I took, I had a boost from FanDuel. It was a 30% boost on any

play. Max bet $200. So I'm like, I'm taking the Astros money line. 30% got me to like minus 105. So it was basically even money. So I said, why not? It'll give me some rooting interest. My God, the game itself was dreadful. Just a woefully boring, slow, very little action. Like, it is very possible. I was debating with some guys on Twitter about this. It's very possible for a 3-0 baseball game to be exciting. The problem is it wasn't. Most of the action happened in one inning for Detroit.

And they had more traffic than the Astros did throughout the afternoon. But the Astros didn't have much at all so even though you're losing three nothing you're having five pitch innings you're having uninteresting at bats you're having non-competitive at bats so the game itself was just kind of blah like and by the way while we're talking about blah and look I'm not one that likes to shit on people for not going to games. We all have our reasons for not going. Games are expensive. Like I saw Bootsy post a picture of his $28 margarita, his LTMPO margarita, $28 at the game.

I don't know how the hell you can cry poor and say you can't afford to pay Bregman and Tucker when you got $28 margs at the game. But there's a lot of reasons to not go. And there are far more empty places than Minute Maid. But when they were showing the crowd early, and it almost felt deliberate. It almost felt like ESPN was trying to make the Astros look bad. Because they're scanning the crowd, and they're just focusing on certain sections that were very empty. And I've had people tell me that, well, it's the early game time, Josh, it's early game time. Sure. I'm going to assume that there are some people who work, couldn't make it, had to sell their tickets,

whatever. But when I went in 2017 and I went in 2018, I had season tickets. And look, if we're being fair, like there were times I had a hard time unloading my ALCS tickets. Like I put them on StubHub and people weren't buying them. Like I couldn't sell, I believe it was Yankees tickets. I had Yankees ALCS tickets and I couldn't unload them until at first pitch. So Houston's always been that kind of town. Look, I'm not trying to shit on Houston. You're my people. But there's not going to be a scenario, at least at this current point, where Philadelphia, Boston, and probably New York will have that situation. You will not have a scenario where it's, I'm sorry, the game was at 130. We couldn't make it. Houston's a different

animal. We've always known this about Houston. We are a passive sports city. There's a ton of passion, but it's also a very passive place with a fan base that's kind of fractured. You have fans from a bunch of different teams and fan bases there. So it is a different animal than Philly, which is basically only people that are from Philly, and those people never leave Philly. But I'm going to tell you this. If it were Philadelphia, that place is going to be full at 1.30. If it's Atlanta, it won't be. We're closer to Atlanta. It's kind of the same city. I've always said this.

Houston is Hispanic Atlanta. The fan bases are kind of passive, kind of transient, late arriving. That's who we are. But game one of the playoffs, and here's another factor I think that goes into that. Speaking of Atlanta, I think once you've gotten eight, nine years deep into a playoff run and you've won a couple of World Series and you've kind of been there, done that, it loses some of the luster. You know, I mean, let's put it this way.

A guy told me this once, and it's always kind of stuck with me. No matter how hot a chick is, there's some guy that's tired of her and is ready to kick her out of bed. And that's kind of how it is for the Astros. Once you've been, you know, eight years deep into the playoffs and you've won two World Series and you've gone to, what is it, seven NLCS or ALCSs in a row. I think a first round best two out of three, and this best two out of three has kind of taken some of the fun out of it too because it's

bullshit. I mean, you get to the playoffs and then you blink an eye and it's over. I mean, that, I guess, finished in the top two and it's not a factor, but it is a factor. You have to play a best two out of three series. I that's part of it it's like oh we're playing Detroit we've been there done that I don't want to go to the ballpark spend 28 bucks on a marg if I'm going to do that I'm going to wait until the Yankees are in town or wait till it's the division series or the LCS but let me tell you there were tickets on StubHub close to game time for a dollar. To put that into perspective, the Cardinals are about 13, no, they're about 17 games under.500 combined the last two years.

Their tickets are a dollar on StubHub for random games, not a playoff game, a dollar. Again, I'm not going to shit on people for not going because look i get it it's a pain in the ass maybe you do have to work maybe you don't have the cash i get it but eight years ago that wasn't the issue or seven years ago that wasn't the issue when i'd walk my ass into minute made park now the argument was josh well those were later games bullshit game one of that red socks series and that's the red socks that plays a factor, and the Astros still hadn't won a World Series yet, so there's a hunger. That's the thing people don't talk enough

about about sports teams. It happens to basically everyone. It's that, it's Rocky III. Once you win it, you lose that eye of the tiger, man, that edge. And I'm a big believer in that. I'm a big believer that once you start winning enough, winning actually gets boring. It goes back to there's always somebody waiting to kick her out of bed. And I think that's what the Astros are right now. There's always somebody waiting to kick the hottest chick out of bed. And the Astros are kind of bored. It's like the 90s Braves.

The Braves only won one World Series in all those years. They had Glavin, Smoltz, Maddox, and they were the class of the National League for most of that run. They won one World Series out of those 15 years they made the playoffs. They went 15 years, I believe it was, 14 or 15 years in a row they went to the playoffs. By the time you got to the late 90s, early 2000s, people weren't showing up for playoff games in Atlanta. Why? Because it got kind of bored. You got kind of used to it. That's kind of who you were. You're like, hey, we're used to this.

We're kind of bored with it now. Call me whenever we do something different. So I think people in Houston are just bored with first-round playoff baseball. And I think another important factor into why the vibe doesn't seem the same. This team doesn't feel the same, man. Like, Altuve looked lost out there today. Throughout the whole season, they've been a pretty boring team that won a bad division.

Like, this is one of the first times in watching the Astros I felt like they've played in this bad division for the whole time they've been good. This has been a really mediocre division. But this is one of those years where I'm like, I think they only won this division because of how bad the division is. You know, they dealt with a ton of injuries and you know that, I mean, Jordan's still hurt. They, I get they were that tuck for a lot of the year. They dealt with a ton of injuries. Verlander's been hurt slash not the same so I get that I respect it all that

but like it just feels like a different team like I'm glad they put up a fight in game one I'm glad they made it interesting I bet 200 bucks on them to win so I wanted them to win I root for the Astros I wanted them to win but it just feels kind of different people were commenting that on my Twitter as well like you know it just doesn't feel like the same team. We know this team is kind of mediocre. And they kind of are. You know, I saw someone, it was, what's his name? Greg Toohey, who I don't know if he still works for Fox or not,

but he's a Houston guy, big Astros guy. And he said the reason the Astros are losing is because the Detroit middle of the order is five for nine. No, you're losing because you can't hit for shit. You should be in a ball game if the opposition has three runs through eight innings. Problem is you had zero. So it's just kind of a weird feeling. It's a different feeling than I've had about the Astros before, especially when you watch it and you see just kind of that lack of interest. And I don't think people have turned on the Astros,

and I don't think that people are like, I don't give a shit about the Astros. It's just a natural thing that happens when you're good for a long time. You know, I think anywhere that's the case. Look at it in St. Louis where I live. The Cardinals for basically 15 years were arguably the best run and best winning team in baseball for about 15 years. From 2000, really if you want to even look at it differently, from 2004, the first year they made the World Series,

2004 to 2013 they made the World Series four times and won it twice. And won a lot of divisions and went to the playoffs a ton, well-run everything. And even in their bad stretch where they haven't been winning playoff series, they've been a winning baseball team for most of the last two decades. Walk into the ballpark now, you'll have a day where it looks like there's 10,000 people. That's just the way people are. Human nature does that. And I think the Astros fan base is kind of jaded by the idea that they have to play early baseball. They view it as a slight. They view it as an insult. They view it as, hey,

we've been the class of baseball for the last seven, eight years, and you still dump us in this time slot. People are working. I got a tweet that said Houston's a blue-collar city. You know that. Well, listen, dude, most cities are blue-collar cities. Unless you're Los Angeles, you're pretty much all blue-collar cities. You think Philadelphia is not a blue-collar city? It's a massive blue-collar city. Every city is a blue-collar city. Every city's got rich people.

Every city's got guys that are 9-to-5ers and shift work guys and gals. So you can lose me with that. I don't care about your argument about, oh, well, we're a blue-collar city. Well, every city has that element. It's not because you're a blue-collar city. It's not because people are out working. I think if that game meant more to people, that place would be full, and you wouldn't be looking at dollar tickets on the website. That's all. Not ripping you. I don't know that I'd have been that interested either until I saw that it was dollar tickets, and I get myself in. You know what the problem is with buying a dollar ticket?

You get your ass in there and you buy a $20 beer. And I'm not trying to cry poor here, but these franchises are going to price themselves out. To me, it's bullshit that you go into a ballpark and it's going to cost you $18 for a beer. That's bullshit to me. I don't care how the 25 ounce beer, 18 bucks is preposterous. And if I'm going to go into a ballpark and I'm going to buy an $18 beer, your ass and ownership cannot cry poor to me. Don't give me your bullshit about how you can't afford Tucker and Bregman on the same squad. Don't give me any of your crying poor bullshit. You're all billionaires and you want me to buy an $18 beer at the ball

game. And I will, because if I go to the ball game, I'm not not going to drink. What am I, Mother Teresa? I'm going to go get lit at the ball game. That's what I do. I'm going to go into debt for going to the ball game. But either way, now you got to bounce back. I haven't seen, I haven't been able to look. I'm recording this on my phone as I drive around because I left the house. I was bored with the game. I listened to the end of it on the radio because I enjoy listening to Sparky. And I've actually grown to kind of like Robert Ford a little bit too. And I got tired of hearing Tim Kirkjian, who I just find uninteresting, like cool.

There was a moment in the game where they were showing Jordan, how Jordan is like one of the youngest dudes or through his first 600 games or something like that to have 300 walks and 300, I forgot what hits, homers, I forgot what hits, but whatever the hell it was, something, RBIs, I forgot what the actual stat was, some dumb combination of stats, which as you know, I'm not a big fan of just glomming together a bunch of stats to try to make a case for somebody and making up these attributes. But some of the players on there were like Gehrig and DiMaggio or whoever it was. And Tim Kirkjian was ranking these hitters.

I'm like, dude, you did not watch Luke Gehrig play baseball, so shut the hell up. The guy done had Luke Gehrig's disease before you were born probably. Like I hate that. That is a pet peeve of mine when people give you a breakdown of a baseball player or any athlete that they never watched play now you can look at their stats and say statistically I think this guy is better if you didn't day in day out have the opportunity to watch this guy play in his prime then you don't know what the fuck the dude was doing. Of course, I digress now. Now I'm just going off on a tangent. But anyway, so Astros have to win tomorrow. I mean, at least they're not facing Scooble. So there's a positive in all this, but they made it dramatic. That's a positive. I lost $200. That's a negative.

Shit. The sack bunt. Why? Again, did it cost you the game? Probably not. It doesn't make sense. You don't bail a guy out by giving him an out. And even if you ground into a double play, like I get it, that sucks. But you gave the dude an out when he didn't need that out. He was reeling. Take some better at bats tomorrow, for the love of Christ. And I'm a masochist. I'm going to go probably bet on Altuve to hit a home run again tomorrow. Probably Jordan tomorrow. Try to do another pod for you about that too, but like don't bail a guy out when he's struggling.

Like you're hitting little bleeders that are getting through. He's stressed out. He's never been here before. You have been here before and you let him off the hook. Stupid. All right. I love you.