The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Joe Espada Joins The Show Talking Recent Games & Why He Has High Hopes Moving Forward

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

Joe Espada Joins The Show Talking Recent Games & Why He Has High Hopes Moving Forward 

1232. Let's spend 10 minutes with the manager of your Houston Astros. Joe Espada. Skip, back-to-back road winds. Did you celebrate with a Tampa cigar? Yes or no? No. Why should I be celebrating with a cigar, man? We are, you know, it's too hot to be smoking cigar here in Tampa.

Seriously, how miserable was that? I mean, y'all are dripping sweat like at 4.30, right? Basically with the way the weather was in Tampa yesterday? Yeah, you know what? It was warm and humid. You know, we usually would come, when we come here, we have the dome. And so we haven't been exposed to this weather yet. But, yeah, but it was a little bit warm.

But when you, you know, the guys liked the warm weather. It just, it was like a heat wave immediately when we got on the field. And we started sweating. But, you know, it's part of it is summer. You know, if you want to get ejected again, tomorrow's games at 1-10, Tampa time. I'm just throwing that out there as a possibility for you there. No, you know what? I'd rather, I like watching the games from the dugout

better. You know, the other day, watching the game from the office, it was hard. Just happy that we were able to pull that win. Well, I will editorialize very quickly and say, I applaud you for doing it, and needed to be done. Now, let's go to the logistics of it. So you get tossed, you go say what you need to say to say goodbye. Are you jumping the shower right away? Are you still in uniform when the guys are playing. How does that work out? And how do you kill two hours of time when you're buying

that in their clubhouse with you and the clubbies? No, I don't shower. I don't take my uni off. I'm still on the fight with the fellas, even though I'm not in the dugout. I, you know, I'm watching every pitch. I do shut the door because I don't want to hear the fans' reaction because there's like a 10, 15 second pause, 15 second pause on the TV. So I want to feel like I'm watching the game live. So I kind of shut everything off, try to to keep the noise from outside. And I just walked myself in and I continue to watch the game. And, and, you know, hopefully we can turn things around.

And, but, you know, it sucks watching it sometimes from the office. Does Mrs. Spada notice the difference in pay stubs when you get it about the ejection or does she not even pay attention, that kind of thing? No, you know, the nice thing about those fines is that you're able to donate it to charities so I don't mind, you know, making a donation to some of my, some of my favorite charities to, you know, help, you know, children with cancer or autism, awareness, all that kind of stuff. So I don't mind at all paying the fun. Absolutely.

Hey, let's get to the numbers. And again, if you looked at your season box score and last night was a great example that 3, 4, 5 in your order went 0 for 12, you're not supposed to win games like that. but you're getting contributions from the bottom 30 order. Your defense for the most part has been spectacular this year. Your relief core has been nails, and your starting pitching is getting you to the fifth, six inning for that great bullpen.

Do you, even if you were not the manager of this team, and you looked at the season box goal going, man, this team's got to be in trouble, but yet you're just a couple of games out of first place. You've got two straight wins. You've won three out of four. Are you even surprised that the team's offensive numbers have not exploded, yet you're still hanging around

through about the first third of this season? No, that the way I see it, this is the sign of a good team. When you have different, different parts of our lineup contributing, picking each other up, that's what good teams do. When our middle lineup gets hot, just think about how we're going

to, you know, put wins in a row once, are often just gets going all at once. So good teams find ways to win games. The bottom-all-order pickers up yesterday. Our bullpen has been doing F-fabulous job. I really, rotation is keeping us in the game.

It's easy when everything is going smooth and everything is moving the right direction, of course, you know, but it doesn't happen in a 162 season. We have to pick one another up. We have to motivate our players to continue to make adjustments to stay, you know, to stay the course because things change as we did last year. Part of those contributions from the back end of the lineup have been from Cam Smith. What has it been like for him? got, I believe, what is it, nine hits in his last seven games.

So things coming around for him, just for your conversations and things you're seeing from him in the batters box. Yeah, developing very nicely. I think he has made some adjustments to a swing. You know, the guys have been trying to have a little bit more rhythm, more on his timing when he approaches, you know, when he puts his foot down, they want to have a little bit more momentum, trying to create more power. And he's working out very, you know, very well, very nicely.

you know, McCormick had a nice game for us last night, trying to get him in there, trying to get him going. We, we'd be getting a solid production from Jake Myers again, you know, not only he's doing it with the glove, but he's been very consistent with quality at best night after night. Joe Spada Astros manager with us here on Sports Talk 790. Brandon Walter making his first major league start. Do you just have a speech recorded at this point for guys that are making their first

major league start? You know, I tell him, go out there and have good, you know, have fun. you know, Walters has been in the big leagues before. But for me, it's more go out there and just do your job. Give us an opportunity to win, pound the zone. You have great defense behind you. Don't try to do too much. Be yourself.

And we have a nice game plan for him. I want these guys just to know that, you know, and I told him in spring training, all of these guys. At some point one of you guys will come up and will help us, you know, and start throwing some innings out of the bullpen and at bat. some way you will find yourself contributing to our season, because it's a long season and injuries are going to happen. So, you know, today's Walter's chance to contribute and help us win tonight's game.

Back to last night and the defense, your final two outs, Al Tuve with the great grab, and then you have the – how much help did you guys give Isok when he's coming your direction towards that third base to the dugout? we do and you know it's funny man that you say that because here in this ballpark you know we we haven't playing in the ballpark a few of our guys that play here in spring training uh before but the dimensions are are very you know they're different right from tropicana field because there's not much foul territory um the wind it you know blows out and right not really blows out to left um you know so the lights it's kind of dark because the light sits low so there's a lot

elements that we haven't been used to coming to this ballpark. So, you know, we had to do some work early in the day, just trying to get a feel for the dimensions and the surface and the walls and stuff like that. So a lot of credit for Paredes is staying with that ball and some defensive play that we made behind Graham Taylor and our relievers. You know why they know, I commend there, because you don't take your veterans with you to long-ass spring training trips. That's the reason why.

Why don't you toughen up, Skip? Why don't you tell, let's see, who would you tell? Joseo Tubei, guess what? You got a three-hour bus ride. Enjoy it, baby. No, you know what? It's those other thing about spring training that you have to be smart about how you, you know, how much work you give. This guys and which trips you take them and, you know, trying to build these guys for a season.

So, you know, not really concern about those guys, not. seen any any getting any reps here at a baseball park you know most important thing is that we we met our adjustment yesterday and we play and we play really well we got two more games here two important games to go for let your run skip you have had the ability to use victor and use yarn air in the starting lineup together and that's because you got the third catcher and look hopefully get yorda on back and i'm not in charge of making your roster moves you are but has it made you contemplate what you want to do if indeed you want to carry the third catcher if and when Yordon comes,

but when he comes back? Or is that a situation that you're just kind of taking advantage of the situation that's in front of you? Yeah, you know what? I'm just taking the situation in front of me and try to get these two guys opportunities to get their bats in there, also get him off their feet, get both of them behind the plate, and give him some rest that way.

You know, and once we get to the Yordaun decisions, we make that decision when it comes, Our goal right now is to get your done healthy and get him back in that lineup. Hey, one thing I do want to bring up, and you were asked about this last week about the long stretch of games, and you had, I think somebody asked you when I was at Mnambay, and Dike and Park about Jeremy Payne, how you said he was built for 162. And I did the post game show on Saturday when he got the air, the swing wasn't great. And I know he likes to play it, but reality was that was a perfect time for him to kind of just take a step back.

Did you sense that? He spent that, and how hard of a conversation was it to say, hey, I need to give you a day here? You know, he's actually on pace to play 162, by the way. He hasn't missed a game yet. He did come in that game that he did not start. Oh, I see what you are. You're just being sneaky that way.

I got you. I got you. I'm just telling you. Okay. The thing about it is that you watch how he, and it's not so much physical break. It's more mental. breaks that these players need.

This guys do a tremendous job taking care of their bodies, their sleep, their recovery, the way they eat, especially like Jeremy, right? So it's more the mental grind of every day that he needs that break. So that's what I'm really more looking at that actually performance when the mental, when he needs that mental break, if that starts maybe holding him back on his performance, and he's a bad start suffering because he's trying to do a little bit too much. That's when we pulled back and say, you know what, today is a good day to get a breather. And we gave him a breather that day and he bounced back today.

It bounced back yesterday with a really nice offensive game. Great stuff as always kept. Thank you for the time. Bass a lot. Let's make it three in a row this evening against the race and we'll talk again next week. All right, buddy. Thank you guys. I'll see it.

All right. That's the manager Joe is spotted by.