The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Joe Espada Joins The Show After A Successful Stretch Of Games Dominating The AL West

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

Joe Espada Joins The Show After A Successful Stretch Of Games Dominating The AL West

Time for us to spend 10 quality minutes with the manager of your beloved Houston Astros. And we do that with Joe Espotted. Tonight, the Astros start a series with the Philadelphia Phillies and a three games set with the Chicago Cubs this weekend. Skip, I hope you enjoyed the off day. I got to go back to Sacramento a little bit. I didn't realize it was like home run derby in that ballpark. That ball travels fast out of that building, does it not? It looked like it did, yeah.

It played small. And, you know, but I thought, you know, both teams kind of knew going into the series, and there was some long home runs for sure during that series. Would y'all fee Mauricio Dubon on the road trip? Four home runs, my goodness. Yeah, so I'm really, from the bat really well. I really love going to Sacramento in front of his home crowd, in front of family and friends, and he really had a really good series.

also carry that momentum into Los Angeles. So on the bat really well put some good swing quality of bats. Really saw him, you know, stepping up and getting some huge hits for us. Four and three road trip. Give me a higher low of both of the trips so far when you saw. I mean, the numbers offensively were significantly better than maybe the previous couple of weeks. But you're starting pitching, you know, look, you wish you could go through the order every single time and get, you know, seven innings a two-run ball. but you were able to still get a winning road trip

despite the fact that some of your starters got hit a little bit. You know what? I thought we had a really good road trip and you want to play, you know, if you want to play 500 on the road and we did that, we did a lot of things well. We are getting good pitching from a lot of the fellas and, you know, it's not easy

when you are going through moments like this where we have had some injuries and we're asking guys to step up in people. pitch, innings, but I'm really pleased with the way we are, we're going about things. I couldn't be more proud of this group, you know, 13-games stretch of games, West Coast, you know, weather, and it was really warm in Sacramento, and we're really grinding through things. I'm just really, really happy, very pleased with the way we playing baseball. And Jeremy Payne continues to play well.

It feels like at some point, I mean, he's so far ahead of his career numbers. I'm kind of like, oh, is this going to keep going? And it just keeps going. How is he able to do this? Well, you know, there was no doubt that, you know, there's no doubt in my mind that he could keep this going for the rest of his career. He's a really talented young man. And he has made adjustment that I think he can prolong this four years to come. You know, he's smart.

He's really well prepared every time he steps on the baseball field. And his work ethic, he's impeccrower. and I know he can create consistency throughout his career because just how, you know, discipline he is. But he is right now all-star worthy. He is playing the best baseball

that I've seen out of Jeremy since he joined us. News coming yesterday that he changed representation to Scott Boris. Is that ever anything you talked to players about or in casual conversations or you just keep it baseball? Matt, I stay away from all those conversations.

That was raw. That's not me. That's me. You get mad at me. That's fine. No, no, no. I wouldn't do that. That's good.

Joe is spotted with us here on the sports talk 790. So Philadelphia and Chicago are coming in. This is going to be a nice little barometer test for you guys. Back home is A good, but B, to pair of first place teams. You don't see these teams once a year. Anything stand out with Philadelphia and besides the fact they're just crushing the ball these days. No, exciting. It's going to be exciting here, baseball for the whole week.

Two first place teams playing really good baseball. baseball, talented teams, you know, they not only the Phillies can hit, but they also have some really good starting pitching. So we are playing good baseball also. So it's going to be fun baseball for the next six days. And we need to continue the momentum moving forward. We play, you know, we're playing really good here at home. So we are excited to be here at home playing these two good teams in front of our home crowd. Skip, anything new on the injury front of you? I got a few guys that we got some positive reports on. Where are we, have you? Have you heard anything about Lance? I know Spencer's getting a little bit closer and you got some other

guys down the road and obviously getting Chas McCormick back giving you some outfield depth. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we are. We are getting some guys that are moving in the right direction. I know Lance threw up the mound yesterday and he went really well. Hopefully we get him to throw off the mound here in the next few days. One more again. You mentioned McCormick. He's also moving in the right direction. He's hitting. He's throwing. He's doing a ton of baseball activity. Hopefully we could transition him down to Florida here to get some of bats pretty soon. Spencer also is doing well. Luis Garcia and J.P. France.

All those guys are also doing well. Same as Jordana Alvarez. So we are getting some guys healthy. Hopefully we could get these guys back here in Houston and help us win some games. You know, it's funny to me when there was a lot of question marks about the squad coming in. I think there was probably some uncertainty with your bullpen, even as you were about to leave West Palm Beach. to go from uncertainty to, man, you can rely on those guys and have done so all year long. That has to be one of the huge storylines of the baseball season as we hit the halfway point.

Yeah, and we have been, we have been very lucky with, you know, with this guys. From day one, they show us to spring training, they're competing for spots. They knew the importance of having a, you know, a solid and healthy bullpen, and these guys have done that. doing everything in my power to keep those guys healthy that's very important you know our pitching coach is doing a tremendous job just keeping those

guys you know focused and prepared for every series you know we've been very fortunate to have a group of relievers that have really helped us you know win some games keep you keep us closing games so we could come back

and give an offense an opportunity to come back and win games you know very fortunate to have a group of relievers that has really helped up and And we've got a lot of baseball lessons. We're going to continue to realize guys, and we can keep them going. For a let you run, Skip. Ryan Gessel's been kind of your swing guy,

part-time starter, part-time reliever, and has been starting a lot because of obviously the ailments and the rotation. That is never an easy position for anybody. What is it like just getting with him and just saying, hey, enjoy the experience. You're a major leaguer. You were a guy that we were going to give you a shot at the end of last year, couldn't do so.

but now kind of taking the best opportunity he can. They're just trying to figure his way to stay on this 26-man roster. And he had, in fact, and you said it, man, he's open to helping us either out of the bullpen or in the rotation. You know, when Lanz went down, we asked him on short notice, A, we need you to start tomorrow or, you know, because of, you know, the injury to Lans. And he's like, listen, I'm ready to go. And he goes out and he, you know, he post.

and he throws the ball really well for us. You know, we've got a bunch of young kids who are eager to establish himself in the big leagues, who are ready to contribute. And that has been something that we have done here really well in Astros for a long time, identifying good young pitchers and developing into major league pitchers. You know, it's crazy to me. And look, not that you spent a lot of time looking at the baseball Americas and baseball perspectives. now is saying, well, you know, the Astros, Minalink Systems, bottom five.

Skip, you've been able to go to those guys so much, whether it's position players or relievers to come in to help you. I find this to be largely overrated. Where would you have not have been if you haven't been able to go to Sugar Land and get some guys over the course of the year? Listen, I trust our people in our PD department. I try not to read any into what the news and the forecast and the, I just don't like doing that because a lot of times they don't really know what we know about our guys, right? I know the character and I personally know a lot of our players. I know the coaches.

I know the people who invest hours trying to develop our players, and we have shown that throughout the years, that we don't need to be ranked according to baseball America or whatever it is. But that's not what it's all about. It's about developing these players, teaching them what it takes to be successful at the major league level. And we have had a really great history of doing just that. Last question. You know, you started Cam Smith bat eighth or ninth when he first got up here and he steadily moved up the lineup. Part of it is because guys are getting days off.

Part of the fact that his offensive has been much better. Is that what you kind of in thought when you first inserted him is like, hey, I understand. there's a lot of pressure on this young man for being a first-time major leager, and I'm going to take some of that pressure out by putting him in the bottom third. But he's got to grow with confidence when he walks, gets in the ballpark every day and sees him in the upper half of that lineup. Yeah, and you know what? I view him as someone who's going to be hitting in the middle of our lineup in the future.

I think we need to slow the process down and do it in a way where we are doing it for at the right time. against certain type of pitchers that matches up really well against them and protecting him that way. But there's going to be a day, Matt, where you're going to walk in here, and this young man is going to be in the middle of the lineup for years and years to come. But right now, we're in the process of developing for him to learn, for him to adjust, not be overwhelmed by a lot of things that goes on in daily basis. But right now, he's swinging the back really well. he's starting to drive the ball out of the ballpark

he's two-strike approach is really good so I expect him just to be kind of moving and hitting somewhere in the middle I line up for the next couple of weeks and if there's need to be changed to protect him I'll do that but I'll make sure that I communicate that with him to make sure that he understand what's the plan

Skip thanks for the visit as always we'll do it again next week and good luck this week against the Phillies and the Cubs we appreciate the visit as always all right man thank you That's Joe Spotted with us here on Sports Talk 7.90.