The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Mike Stanton Joins Matt Thomas To Talk World Series Game 7

Episode Date: October 30, 2019

Mike Stanton joins Matt to discuss the Astros' Game 6 loss and Game 7 of the World Series

is the Matt Thomas Show. Our time is 102. The station is Sports Talk 790, and it is the Matt Thomas show here from Washington, D.C., where tonight I will be calling the Rockets and the Wizards. Normally a game, you'd all have your ears attached to your radios, cell phones, whatever. I get it.

Tonight might not be that night. I'm doing 35 games, so you want to catch me. one I'd appreciate it. I'm not going to get mad at you. I'd like you to listen tonight, but you know, I understand if you're not. Point being is this. It's Houston versus Washington on two different angles. Nationals and Astros for the World Series championship rockets and Wizards for game four of the regular season. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-790. We'll hook up with Mike Stanton coming up in just a couple of minutes. Let's first go to some phone calls before we catch up with Mike, and we'll start with

Josh in Richmond on 790. Hi, Josh. Hey, what's going on, guys? Thanks for taking the call. I was just going to join in on the discussion about, you know, the controversial call or supposed controversial call at first. And kind of, and, well, I'll tell you this. I appreciate the fact that Joe Titori came in and said what he said.

but let me raise up this idea. All is instruction. Why wouldn't, especially on closer plays moving forward in the future, why wouldn't infielders or pitchers for that matter be trying to target the ball and the right side of the plate, generally speaking, to maybe give themselves a better chance on close calls? You know what I mean? Do you understand what I'm saying?

Not really. I'm going to let Mike Stanton explain a little bit for his side of things because I know he has fielded a few ground balls in his day. And I think the way you're supposed to be taught is if you have a guy that's along that line, you throw at the back of that player so that ball hits the player. And then normally the umpire and the games that I have seen have called him out. Our friend Mike Stanton from AT&T Sportsnet, former longtime major league pitcher is here to discuss this. Mike, is that what you're taught is to, if you got a runner on this way to first base and he's in that line, throw at his back so the umpire will call him out well yeah that is something that is mentioned to

players but to tell you the truth things happen so quickly you almost don't have time to do it um you know really the the the funny thing about this is base runners are may are told you know from a very young age to run on the inside of the line to try and make that throw a much more difficult angle. So it's, you know, you're actually taught that if you get hit and you're inside the line, it's going to be called interference every single time. And, you know, the funny thing about this play is it actually meant absolutely nothing on the outcome of the game.

Right. I mean, I just got off my own radio show here a little while ago, and we talked about it for 40 minutes. And, you know, that was the ironic thing about all of this is it. had no bearing on the game, none, because Ron Don't hits the home run. But, yeah, I mean, it's just one of those obscure little rules in Major League or in baseball that, you know, we all, that we have that, you know, it's, it's, really Trey Turner is in a, a no-win situation because he has to reach for the base, which the

base is in fair territory. but if he does that and he gets hit by the ball, he's going to get called interference. Yeah. So, you know, it's kind of, I equated it to the same type situation when we went to the catcher rule where you can't run over the catcher anymore and they're supposed to be running lanes and this, that and the other. There are situations that the game happens so fast that players get in situations that they have nowhere to go.

And it's just an obscure part of the rule because the game happens faster than the rulebook states it should. Well, the only thing I'm going to say about this, and I think you eloquently mentioned the play itself, is that I don't know, Mike, and you and I love the game, you played it, you've been a part of it all your life, I don't know if I want my game six of a World Series to be mucked up with what that was last night, and the interpretation and the fact that it wasn't a reviewable play, and that you couldn't protest. That's not, I mean, look, baseball's the hardest game to talk about as a talk show host, I'll be honest with you, because there are so many intricacies to it, it's a hardest,

to comprehend of the three sports. But it didn't do itself any favors last night by having that long delay. Oh, no, no, not at all. And that's what everyone was talk about, whether it was post-game, whether it was, you know, today, the day after. And, you know, and to tell you the truth, by the letter of the law, that was the right call. By the concept of the law, by the idea of the law, of the rule,

it probably wasn't the right call because, you know, the ball was actually more towards the third base line. I mean, even if Trey Turner, you know, the ball hits Trey Turner, but the throw was a bad throw. You know, Peacock made a bad throw. The ball was up the third base line. So even with him on the inside part of the line, it really shouldn't have made that big of a difference if Peacock makes the right throw. Another storyline. But I'm sorry.

Yeah. Go ahead. But I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But, yeah, I agree with you. I mean, for that to be the storyline and not Strasbourg or not the Astros struggling offense or whatever it may be, you know, it's kind of unfortunate that, you know, a pretty good baseball game was kind of muddled up just simply because of that play. Mike Stanton, AT&T Sportsnet with us here on the Matt Thomas show. Mike, tipping pitches has become – it's been a part of baseball since you were playing, but I'm now hearing about it every single night.

I hear Strasbourg essentially admit that his glove placement yesterday was a sign of the Astros about tipping pitches. What has happened in the last three postseason series the Astros are in where tipping pitches has become such a huge part of the storyline here? You know, I think it's always part of the storyline, but we just don't get it publicly. And, you know, in this day and age where it seems like all the information is out there for us to see and view and everyone talks about it, It's out there. And I thought the fascinating part of this, Matt, was the simple fact that in Straussberg's post-game sound, he kind of just admitted. He goes, yeah, it's something I do every once in a while.

And they pointed it out and I fixed it. And we just went on that, you know, this is just kind of old hat for him. Now, there's the other side of this, that even if you know the pitch is coming, that doesn't necessarily mean the hitter is going to be able to square it up. you know, you looked in that first inning, those two balls that were hit really hard, both the Bregman home run and the Springer double. You know, those were both pitches basically right down the middle. You know, they were all over the heart of the plate.

And what did he do from there on out? Now, he may have fixed that little issue, whether it was really there or not, because there's the psychological side of it also. What he did more than anything else was he dominated with his curveball. He threw almost 50% curveball. last night and his curveball was filthy. The curveball and change-up combination, he really, he used well less than 50% of fastballs and, you know, major league hitters, including the Astros, struggle against off speed pitches.

And that's really what Strassburg attacked with after that first inning. Mike, have you ever received a cortisone shot or anything in that shoulder area? And I'm curious how long it takes to recuperate if you've got any teammates that have gone through it. And what legitimately are we supposed to expect out of Max Scherter tonight? Okay, first question, have I had cortisone shots? Matt, I can't tell you how many I've had. I've had them in my shoulder. I've had them in my elbow.

I've had them in knees. Usually they do say it's 48 to 72 hours after the cortisone for it to completely kick in. But, you know, we saw Max last night throwing in the bullpen. We saw clips of him playing catch prior to the game. game. He looked fine. It sounds awful to get a cortisone shot in your neck. I mean, that just sounds terrible, but he looked like regular Max Scherzer. Now, what do we expect from him tonight? Tateur, I have no idea. You know, the one thing I think you can count on is Max is going to

national everything that he can possibly give them. Okay. But the other side of it, I don't know. the one thing that the wild card and all this is he had to sleep last night. So this is where the big issues came up a few nights ago when he couldn't get out of bed was after sleeping awkwardly last night, the night before. It's going to be a fascinating game to watch just simply because, you know, with it being the last game of the season, regardless of what happens for either team, you know, the managers are really brought into the limelight here. You know, how long do you stick with Scherzer?

How long do you stick with Grinky? What moves do you make after that? Do you bring one of your leverage relievers in in the fourth inning to get out of trouble? Do you save them for late in the game? What do you – and this is something that, you know, Davy Martinez has actually done several times already this year. We haven't seen A.J. Hinch have to do this. Now, we've seen him – you know, Zach Grinkey has not gone deep into the games, and we've seen him go to the bullpen.

But this is going to be – this is going to be a fascinating. watch because I also completely 100% believe that AJ Hinch has Garrett Cole in his back pocket. Last question, and it's just on that. You have been starting since spring training. Granted, the length of those games are short, but generally, you know, he's over 200 innings, all the different performances. From Garrett's perspective, if you were to Lee, give him any advice, does he change his approach at all, knowing that he may be coming in a game with base runners already on the base pass, he may have to start out of the stretch, or he might be starting in the, say, fifth or sixth inning,

because that is obviously out of a norm for a guy that has been a starting pitcher for as long as he's been in Houston Astro. All right, so best case scenario for Garrett Cole is that he does not come in with runners on base, that you give him a clean inning. And that was that situation I mentioned just a second ago, where you bring in one of your leverage, you know, you bring in a Will Harris you know, in that fourth or fifth inning to get Grinky out of trouble. And then you give Garrett Cole the time he needs to warm up and have as much of a regular warm-up,

you know, like when he's starting pitching, have a regular warm-up and start the inning clean. I do not like the idea. We've seen it several times over the last several years. Managers bring starting pitchers in with runners on base. We've seen it work. We've also seen it not work. But to me, that is not setting up your play. years to succeed because it's a new situation. It's something that's never happened before.

The real ironic thing about this with Garrett Cole is that he's never relieved before. He's never done this. Now, I think it's a little bit easier for him because he's a max effort power pitcher. So he's used to being right there on that edge. You know, back in the day, you know, back, you go back to 17, you know, when you have a Dallas Keikle coming in, you know, much more of a finesse type pitcher. it's a lot harder to control your emotions and control the ball in those situations when you're all revved up. So, you know, Garrett Cole already pitches on the ragged edge anyways, so I would expect it not to be that big of a deal. But on the other side of it, you never know, because he has never come out of a bullpen.

So it's going to be a fascinating game. It's, you know, anything can happen on either side. And I think that's the one reason why AJ Hinch really didn't want to get to a decisive game seven is just simply because, you know, it doesn't matter really how good you are or how good the other team is, anything can happen in a situation like this. Mike, your insights are always very valuable to me, and I appreciate our friendship the last couple of years. Thank you for coming on my show today and enjoy the game, and more importantly, enjoy your

off-season, my friend. Thanks. Everybody enjoy game seven, the spectacle that it is, Matt, anytime, my friend. All right, thank you, Mike. Mike, standing with us here on the Matt Thomas show.