The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Joe Espada Talks Series Lost & The Last 6 Games Of The Season

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

Joe Espada Talks Series Lost & The Last 6 Games Of The Season

We always look forward to talking with the manager of your Houston Astros, and we'll do that again right now. Sacramento, California, the site for a three-game series with the A's, then a quick trip to L.A., four-three against Anaheimers, and then hopefully a nice post-season run, Joe Espada, with us here on the show. Skip, good morning, how are things? Yeah, good morning, guys. Things are well here in Sacramento, like you mentioned.

It comes down to this week right here, very important week for us, man. It is important. And I brought up this parallel, and I don't know how you treat it. You play 26 weeks. In 25 of those weeks this year have been, this team is overachieved. It's had so many injuries. You've had so many different lineups, so many guys overperforming, some many guys underperforming, and that it's a wonderful story.

The Astros have been competitive. And now it's in your hands. I know you've got to worry about some scoreboard watching, and I know you hate doing that. But realistically, you guys go 5 and 1 this week. you're going the postseason. I mean, I hate to dumb it down, but does that kind of have the feeling in your mind as well? Just win and scur everybody else?

Yeah, you know, I think Destiny is still in our hands. We decide our future. And how we treat the next week is crucial. And we have been in this position before. I've been here long enough where we entering the last week of the season down a game and a half, two games out. you know, from the division. Like we have been in this position before. So this is not new for us.

It's how we handle business today on the baseball field, how we play our game, not letting this past series, you know, affect our focus and our preparation. None of that. I think it's in the past. Today is a new day. It's a brand new week. And we have to take the field and fight. This is a dog fight.

And, you know, don't count this team out. I hear and I read stuff where people think that we're out. We're not out. We're very much in this fight. Joe, what was the hardest part about that Seattle series? Was it that Seattle just came in super hot and just nothing you could do to stop them? Was it missed opportunities on your part, a combination of both? Because, look, we knew Seattle was good coming in, but they really had a successful weekend in your ballpark.

Yeah, yeah, they did. And, you know, we knew coming in that they have made some changes to the roster. some players have been playing some really good ball and they outplayed us and you know we we have some opportunities we didn't play our best in credit to you know Seattle they they they they beat us

but it's in the past we have six very important games there's going to be you know a lot of folks you know watching the school boards and we you know we all it's going to be fun I'm really looking forward to this week because this is what you play for and this is what the team

is built for and I'm looking forward to it. You had to make a late scratch on Sunday for Jeremy Pena did not play. Can you update the folks on how he's doing right now? Yeah, so we are going. I'm going to get to the ballpark here early and we're going to see how we feels. He got some treatment yesterday. It went well. But for me, to make, to put him in the lineup, I have to see how he feels in the next hour or two.

With that, keeping on the injury front, well, not injured because Isok Paredes did play for you this weekend. How did you feel about the way he looked, obviously had the big home run, how he's moving and potentially playing him in the field. Is that on the table? You know, a play on the field, I don't think we're still quite there yet. He's moving okay. For me, it's more can he react and, you know, that quick first step playing third. base charging on a slow roller. You know, we're not quite there yet.

And it's just more how he feels mentally trusting his leg to make that kind of push and move. But he is, you know, he's feeling good. For now, the plan is to continue to deach him. And we need his bat. We need his offense to continue to be as good as he's been all year. Astros manager, Joe Spottable is here on Sports Talk 7. You got the series here in Sacramento. We know that the ball can fly out there.

Is there anything you tell your hitters or pitchers to do anything differently? Or do you just try to keep everything the same? Yeah, I know. We keep things the same. We can. You know, you got to pitch to, we want to pitch to our strength, you know, exploit the hitters weaknesses. As a hitting club, we, you know, we have an approach that we have to carry out.

We got to get on base. We really not need to score. and set the tone from the very beginning. And we know that this could be a high-scoring series. You know, you cannot score enough runs here in Sacramento. We knew that the last time we came here. And we understand the importance of us playing our best. And, you know, again, I'm really looking forward to see our boys go out there

and get this last push for the last week of the season. I always think, Joe, that managers in baseball, when it comes to playoffs, have to manage differently. You don't give the leash of the starting pitcher as much as you would. Maybe you make a change in your lineup. You move guys around

a couple of different spots. Will you find yourself this week doing a little more of that because, let's face it, this is de facto playoff time, even though there's still six games left to go on the regular season? Yes, this is, you know,

we got to treat this week like the playoffs. We have to we have to attack and stay on the offensive from the very beginning. And I got to treat each game as, you know, do or die, do or die game. Like, we have to play well from, we have to do our best win all six games, right? So, you know, how we play and how I manage, it's just, it's playoff.

So things might look different. I might do something differently just because it's all hands on them. lineups change all the time in the middle of July and August that just happens. Do you anticipate keeping it in Penn this week or do you think there'll be some fluctuation with these lineups depending on who you're pitching and how guys are doing it? What do you think putting your crystal ball out about what you think you're going to be putting on that lineup car for the next week or so? You know, we have some guys that are they're going to be hitting in their spots.

You know, we have guys that are, they're get, pay a lot of money to, to, to, to, get on base and to drive people in. This is, that's what we, we have them in the lineup. And we lean on those guys and we believe in those guys. And I trust those guys because they, they've done it for a very long time. So changing things around and trying to get all different in towards the last game, that's not the way, the way it goes, you know, but doing things differently, maybe running a little bit more.

Maybe, you know, maybe we got to get guys over early in the game trying to get an extra run. Things like that, I think, um, are. are needed. But we just need to trust our guys and let them do their thing. And hopefully, we know we can score a ton of runs and go here on a nice run. I know, Joe, this will be an update for in a couple of days. But I know that Yordon will not be available for you, or at least you're anticipating him available for the A series.

What do you know at this point? Again, things could change on the daily here about Yordaun and about maybe trying to get him in at some point in the Anaheim series if he's available to do so. Yeah, it'd be great. It'd be great. I know he's feeling better every day. It'd be great if we could get him on the field. But this is a day-by-day thing. See how he feels and we continue to monitor his progress.

But we have to do it. You know, he's not here right now. We have to do it without him. And I know that we have the guys here in place to get this done. I don't want to go macro too much because we've got six games in front. but the season as a whole, one of your starting pitchers, Framber, gave you double-digit quality starts in a row, but the last two months have just, he's been a different kind of player. What, what, not necessarily what happened, but where is that guy that we saw in April and May

that was giving you seven innings with his eyes closed? He's still there. I think he has struggle commanding and his pitches and finishing hitters off. But I know he's still there. One thing I do know that he's got one more big starts to come in here in the next few days. And we need that guy to show up. And I know he's very capable of doing that. I know he wants to do it.

And we have to prepare him to give us the best start of the season right when we need it, which is right now. One of the silver linings over the weekend, very good performance by your bullpen. Only had to use Brian Abray you once. You're feeling pretty good about the guys you got back there. get those starts that you need, good starts that you need to follow up with the bullpen. Yeah. Yeah, they're rested. And, you know, we score early and our starters give us a good five, six innings, and we can hand the ball to our bullpen who's on a really nice job. We'll be great. That's the strategy. But it starts with us setting the tone early,

scoring some early runs, and putting the pressure on our opponents. We cannot, you know, wait around and wait to the last innings. You know, if we get out, swing to the bat well, get some people on base, get some hits with many scoring position, give our starter something to relax on or just do something to be comfortable on. That would be great. Joe, thank you for the weekly visits. We hope they do not end today. I hope that you and I are visiting again next week prior to the Wild Card Series.

We really appreciate it, and good luck this week in Sacramento and Anaheim. All right, fellas. Thank you. You got it. Joe spotted with us here on Sports Talk 7 in.