The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Joe Espada Joins The Show After A Succesful Series vs Seattle Mariners

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

Joe Espada Joins The Show After A Succesful Series vs Seattle Mariners 

Very happy to be joined by the manager of your Houston Astros 1232 as a time. Matt and Ross with you on Sports Talk 790 as the Astros start a series of the ace tonight, game and a half behind the M's in the American League West. And Joe is with a skip. First off day in 17 days. I'm going to assume your honey-do list from misses a spot. It was quite lengthy. Yes, we had a really nice time together after family.

I must need a break, Matt, for the coaches. But most important for our players, it was a long road. And I thought we played really well during those 17 games. So we're ready here to get going against the ace. To me, Skip, the biggest positive was you didn't get a whole lot of length out of your starting pitching. Framber gave you some quality starts, Hunter, and whatnot. But you had a lot of nights where you're having to battle using your bullpen guys in a six inning. And correct me if I'm wrong.

wrong, it feels like everybody got a good amount of work, but nobody felt like they were overused. Yeah, I think so. I think, you know, that's been, you know, one of our strength this season has been our bullpen and everybody contributing and everybody's getting big innings, getting, you know, some of these guys fall out, some of them are going there for two out, for two innings. You know, credit to those guys, they've been really good, preparing themselves very well, getting rested. And like you mentioned, getting some quality starts from some of our guys and then piecing it together with a few others. But I thought this run was pretty good.

And now we, you know, we're getting, what, a few Mondays off here after six in a row. So it should be good. You know, I was going to ask you about your thoughts about the six-man rotation. But really your sixth guy is a guy that you bounce backwards and forwards to the bullpen and starting rotation. It's Ryan Gusto. Is that kind of the plan, at least, for the foreseeable future, to use him as a swing guy? You know what right now we are, we're talking things through. You know, we do have these off days coming up.

Gusto's done a really nice job being that swing man. But, you know, obviously we really like when he goes out there and give us, give us, you know, strong five innings. But he's also a piece that we could use in the bullpen and gave us, you know, strong six out, six, you know, more than two innings of work. So we're trying to figure it out what's going to be our next move here moving forward. against the 8 and then we got four against Tampa. So

you win three or four against Seattle. Look, a division can't be won or lost in late May, but the reality is if you had a drop three or four, you'd have probably felt pretty sick to your stomach. Winning three or four kind of changes the morale of hey, we survived this, we've had Yordon gone for a long period of time.

Our starting rotation is a mess because of injuries at this point and hell, we're a game and a half out. You really couldn't ask for much more at this point. No, yeah, the effort was there. You know, these guys, they knew the importance of this series, even though it's in May, but anytime you could win series against a team in your division, you know, you're gaining, you're gaining some games, you're gaining some ground, and you're carrying some momentum,

and you don't want to be too far away from these teams once, you know, June, July comes around. So I thought we show up and we play very well. We got some big hits when we needed to, and our pitching again, doing a fabulous job, keeping us in it. Speaking of Yordon, I know you're probably getting tired of Vass basically every day, but just any update there? He's going to run the basis today. He's going to do some outfield defense. We want to keep them, you know, in game shape. So once he tells us, Joe, you know, I'm ready to go.

He, you know, we feel like he's strong enough physically, you know, lower half so he can start playing right away. But, you know, he's going to come in here today. He's going to hit again off the machine. and then and then we judge from there. Astros manager, Joe Espada, with us here on a sports talk 790. How about seven hits from Cam Smith in the series? Looks like he's really blossoming at the plate. Yeah, he is. He has made some adjustments.

He's starting to gain some confidence, you know, success, bring some confidence to your game. And he's starting to, he started to feel good about where he's at offensively. He's done a nice job in right field. You know, we knew that this guy. it's going to be a really, really good player. But our job is just kind of moving him along, help him through this process. But he's starting to, you know, drive the ball, getting some, I've done some big hits for us. And, you know, excited to have him.

He's, you know, he's been really good for us. So, you know, we'll keep him going. We'll keep an eye on things and we'll keep him going. So, Joe, if you weren't the manager of this team and you and I were sitting in a bar having a beverage and I said our favorite baseball team is going to put a left fielder out there has ever played left and a right fielder has ever played right before. You're going to be like, oh, oh, how this is how bad it's going to be. First of all, Cam is fielding his position beautifully. And then Altube's throw Friday night, which got out the base runner by like 30 feet.

I mean, all things considered. I mean, it could have gone a lot worse. And I'm not trying to jinx anything here. But my goodness, especially with Cam and right field, you guys are not missing any beat out there, at least defensively. Well, we're having that beer at the bar and we're talking about this particular situation. I'll tell you that I had no doubt that these guys can do it because you've got to take in consideration the athlete that you're dealing with, the mindset of the player, the work ethic of the guy. So I had no doubt that these guys are going to have some success and figure things out. And we're not there yet. They continue to work and get better.

But I had no doubt that both of these guys have the ability and the mindset. to make these adjustments. What is in your mind the most difficult part of his transition from being a infielder his entire life to playing outfield? Is it the angles? Is it the cutoff? There was maybe one throw this weekend that you probably weren't crazy about. But generally speaking, what do you think is the biggest thing?

Not necessarily he has to overcome, but he said to you, hey, I can do this, but give me some time in this particular area of the game. For me, it's just perception of the ball off the bat, right? You went from being on the infield dirt, the ball's getting to you quicker, so you to it much sooner. Angles and direction that you take to the ball are more quicker. And you're reacting to the ball now. The ball is traveling, you know, farther away from you and you've got to cover way more

ground communication is a factor, you know, in Altuva's case, you know, having Jake to his, to his left, you know, dealing with that game situation, knowing the speed of the runner. and now you've got to keep double-placing orders. There's so many factors that go into this, and the same thing with camp. But I think one thing is that we coaching these guys up. We have weekly conversations with them. We're showing video.

We go over game situations and just to make sure that we are still teaching them how to play the position and continue to adjust as we go. A couple more minutes here with Astros manager. Joe is spotted with us here on Sports Talk, 790. So you've got these games coming up now with some off days in between. You've also mixed in a lot of Jose doing some D-Hing.

And I know that younger players never want to D-H. Have you noticed a change? I know that Jose wants to play wherever he can play. Left field, second base, whatever you ask him to do. But has he been more forthcoming and saying, you know, the D-H days aren't the worst things in the world? Yeah, I think he's open to that. I think Jose knows that, you know, behind it, it's the fact that, I want to keep them, we want to keep them healthy.

And this DHS days, you know, it gives him an ability, a chance for him to be off his feet. And he's been more open to that. Also, he knows that gives me the ability to get some of these young players on the field. And he knows that for us to win, we need to develop these next generations of, you know, major league players that are going to allow us to keep this winning culture going. So, you know, Jose, he's all in. But definitely more open to DH. You know, I normally text them or call him or tell him the night before my plans.

And, you know, he's always been honest and open with me how he feels when he comes to his playing time. Speaking of that, we haven't been seeing much of Brennan Rogers lately. It's been a lot of Dubon. Ideally for you, you'd probably like to see more from him at the plate. But how do you think the whole second base situation shakes out with Rogers factoring in? you know what he's going to continue to play dubon has been swinging a good bat off late so we're going to do that but you know just like the rest of these guys i'll i'll put him in there and give them give them opportunity to try to match them up with some pitching that i that i feel

like they can handle and and but it's you know it's not an easy situation with having all these players here and i want to get them involved and i want them all to contribute so communication is important, being patient through this process. But he's going to get, he will get more, he will get some opportunities here to play soon. And speaking of communication, Lance McCullors Jr. on the hill tomorrow. What has that been like for you? It's very unique situation. Are you still kind of checking and monitoring him more than most, but he did throw 91 pitches last time out?

Is it kind of like he's just one of the guys now? Where are you at with him? No, you know, I think he's always been one of the guys. I always just talk to him, make sure that he feels okay. I watch his bullpen just to make sure that he's, that he's, the process is in place that he's not rushing to any of this

or we're not rushing them to any of this. So he's been, he's been really good. He's bouncing back very well. He's working in the weight room. He's great. He's bullpens in between starts. We have like no issues. Now it's,

he'd be more efficient in the games. throwing stripes, putting guys away so he could get us deep in the game. Listen, the stuff is there. It's just more execution. And once he gets it going, I could see him pitching deep in our games. It felt like to me, Skip, you were trying

everything in your power to keep him out there for that fifth inning and get that victory. And that had to be a hard walk for you knowing that he couldn't get it because of that. Yeah, you know, really trying. But he also, you know, he understands, you know, we're trying to keep him healthy and we're trying to win games. But yeah, I really wanted him to get that last out there in the fifth inning, put him in a position to win a game.

But he'll win some games here coming up. Skip, great visit as always. Good luck against the ace tonight. We'll talk again next week. We appreciate it as always. All right, fellas. Thank you. You got it.

That is Manager Joe Espotted with us here on Sports Talk 790.