The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Mike Stanton Thinks Yordan Alvarez' Struggles Are All Mental

Episode Date: October 22, 2019

Sports Analyst for MLB Network and ATT SportsNet and former MLB Pitcher , Mike Stanton, joins Matt to talk Nats v Astros and Yordan Alvarez struggling at the plate

This is the Matt Thomas Show. 790. It is a Matt Thomas show. We will be visiting here shortly with Mike Stanton of AT&T Sportsnet. Astros tonight on deck starts at 5. Adam and Adam will be at home plate bar and grill in one hour from now. 713-212. 5-790. Those of you on hold will get to you in a manner of moments. Right now, as promised, our good friend, really underutilized this time of here. That's why I got to steal 10 minutes of his busy day.

Mike Stanton of AT&T Sportsnet, a man who knows about postseason baseball all too well. Mike, thank you for joining me again. Walk me through a player's night before game one of a World Series, please, if you don't mind. You know, actually, Matt, it's really not that indifferent than any other playoffs. to tell you the truth, the one that's probably the most exciting and you lose the sleep on the most is that first postseason game. Because now you're talking about, you know, you've already played, you know, potentially 12 games through two series. So, you know, it is exciting, but I don't think it's to a point that you lose sleep unless you're like a guy like Chris Devensky that, you know, just got put on to the playoff roster. So he really hasn't been out there. yet. He's got that new car feeling. Before we get to the games, from a logistical standpoint,

I know that the Super Bowl, the players are having to worry about tickets and that kind of thing. Does that become an additional stress level, especially if you are having a home game like the Astros will have tonight and tomorrow? Oh, sure does. You know, that that's one of the things, and there's several, but that's one of the things that every player has to learn to cope with. You know, one of the things that as you get more and more experience in the postseason, you figure out that, you know, the game hasn't changed. You know, in some cases, it might even be a team that you've even played during the regular season. So once you get in between the white lines, everything to think, it's all the external distractions

that can cause real havoc. And, you know, as much as you love your own family and everything, that is part of it. You know, you have people coming out of the woodworks, wanting tickets. Now, I think they're much more limited in their availability for tickets than, you know, say, you know, we were in like the early 90s. You know, we could kind of get whatever we wanted. Yeah. You know, you just, you know, what I ended up doing was I limited it to 10, you know, or maybe 10 to each side of the family. And then said, you know what, you guys figure it out and send me the list.

But all you're getting is 10. And I know it sounds harsh, but, you know, you got you, you have to draw the line somewhere or. You know, you end up getting so many people, and it just becomes too big of a hassle. Mike, stay at with us from AT&T, Sportsnet with us on the Matt Thomas show. Tell me something sneaky about the Nationals. Look, we've paid attention during this post season, obviously, but I'm not going to be honest. I'm going to be honest with the inside. I didn't spend a lot of time watching them in May, June, and July.

What scares you about them going into the series? You know, they're actually pretty similar to the Astros, to tell you the truth. should be a much more of a traditional old school type world series. And what I mean by that is starting pitching is paramount on both teams. You know, the Astros, I think, have a little bit deeper bullpen. You know, the nationals, that has been an Achilles heel for them. Oh, gosh, not just for this year, but for the last several years. But they have a couple guys at the back end of their bullpen now that they really trust. I think that what could, what could also cause a problem is they have a little bit different lineup than the Astros are used to seeing.

You know, the Yankee lineup, big, big, big power. A lot of swing and miss. Well, there's not a lot of swing and miss in the Nationals lineup. They don't have nearly as much power as the Astros or, you know, even the Yankees. But you're talking about a team that has a lot more contact. They run a lot more. You've got two jack rabbits at the top and Turner and Eaton. Those guys can cause some havoc if they're getting on base.

So it's a little different approach that the pitching staff is going to have to have in order to get through this Nationals lineup. If you were to walk in the clubhouse and Yordon came over to you and said, hey, Mike, you're a long time majorly pitcher. You've watched 100 of my games so far this year. What's wrong with me? What would you tell him? You know, I think what he needs to do is the worst thing you can do as a player is think. And I think that's really what he's doing. The confidence is shot a little bit.

Okay, that comes with going over. But it looks like to me he's trying to guess. He's trying to predict what the pitcher is pitching is throwing instead of just reacting to it. You know, he's been susceptible to the high fastball where when he was rolling in the regular season, he was laying off of it or fouling it off. But what we've really seen is they've attacked him down below the zone with the breaking ball. And he's just committing to it way too early. So I would say just, you know, go back to basics.

Go back to just hunting the fastball. And, you know, what, you know, I'm a coach also, Matt. I don't know if you knew that about me. But one of the things I tell the kids that I work with, I go, okay, what's the first step of hitting? And, you know, they'll say the load and the hands and all kinds of different. And that's not the answer. The answer is, first you have to see the ball.

And I think that he's committing to swinging prior to the pitch even coming, that he's committed to, oh, he's going to throw me a fastball. here, and he's not actually seeing the ball before he reacts to it. Is that mental or mechanical right now? All mental. It's 100%. Hey, this guy's got one of the, and I'm not just saying this because he's an astro. This guy's got one of the sweetest swings in Major League Baseball.

I mean, we rarely see him off balance. When I say rare, I mean, almost never. Even through this time he's going through, he still hasn't had a whole lot of real ugly swing. So his balance in his swing is outstanding. So this is all mental. This is all confidence. And as

quickly as it can change. Because, you know, he swung the bat okay in the DS series. You know, he got six hits in that series. It wasn't until the LCS that things really started going to ride. And it can turn around as quickly as one good swing also. So he just needs to remember how good he is.

And the numbers he's put up and that he deserves to be there and just get back to basics of seeing ball hitball. You as a longtime Major League of Reliever have been through thousands of different scenarios, both regular and postseason. When you were playing, were there such things as bullpen games? Because I don't really remember. I mean, anything close to that as a player? And the reason why I ask you that is, if you are in those spots, let's just use some names, Smith, let's use Peacock, let's use Harris. How do you prepare for that knowing that you might be in a scenario, say in the fourth or fifth inning, when you never in a regular season game would be put in that kind of position? Well, Matt, you never really called it a bullpen game, you know, but anytime you had your fourth starter out there,

you know, what are you really looking for from a fourth start? You're looking, you know, best case scenario is, you know, five innings, just give up a couple runs. We're in the game. So, you know, in a way, those are bullpen games. But there were situations in decisive games that, you know, I remember one in particular. We were, the Yankees were playing the Oakland Athletics. Andy Pettit, they beat Andy Pettit up bad in game four of a five-game series. In New York, we had to fly all the way to Oakland.

Joe Tori came to me before, actually even before batting practice. He goes, and I was a guy that used to go out kind of in the middle of the game into the bullpen. And he said, listen, in this game, we don't know what's going to happen. I need you out there early in this game just in case. And Yankees end up scoring four or five innings off of Gil Haredia in the very first inning. Strawberry hit a big home run to straightaway center. But to the athletics credit, they chipped away at Andy. I think it was Andy.

Maybe it was Andy that got beat up tonight. Whoever the pitcher was, they chipped away, scored a few runs. And I end up pitching like two and two-thirds. innings and came in in the third. You know, so, you know, you didn't really call it bullpen. It wasn't nearly as out there to the public. But in the postseason, you know, those are the kind of things that happened. But as far as, you know, starting a reliever, no, I don't remember any of that.

You were teammates with Hall of Famers. You went against Hall of Famers. And I'm not trying to put Garrett in that mix. He's still got a long way to go. But right now, as we speak to Mike Stanton from AT&T Sportsnet, tell me another pitcher that has been as dominant in a particular time frame, really since what, mid-May, that Garrett has been to right now,

where there has been no signs of any off nights, doesn't have his stuff, he just comes to the mound, and there is this over level of confidence for all the right reasons that even if he gets up a run, that's going to be it. Yeah, there's been a couple. You know, Max Scherzer is definitely one that has come to mind.

he has had some just absolutely incredible seasons. That's why, you know, last year or the year before, in my opinion, he overtook Clayton Kershaw as the best in the sport. There have been some guys in the past. Jake Areietta, the second half he had several years ago with the Cubs, kind of went through the same type thing. You know, I think when, let's see, when Randy Johnson came over to the Astro, it was that second half and just went on an incredible run.

I had like a 1-1-E-R-A through the whole second half. But, yeah, I don't think you can put the title Hall of Famer on Garrett Cole, but he is throwing as well as just about anybody we've seen in a long time. I mean, he's throwing that well. Now, you're right, he's got a long way to go to get the volume of work. But as far as the quality last two years, there's no doubt that's there. Yeah, it's amazing. So give me an intangible on both sides. Give me a storyline that we're maybe not prepared for that we might have to.

And I think you did it with a great job on the national side talking about how they got speedy guys at the top. It's more of a prototypical baseball game as compared to a bunch of home run hitting. Is there anything intangible on the astro side that you wouldn't mind seeing in this next handful of games? I would like to see the quality of the bat get better. You know, and that's strange to say about one of the best offensive teams, really historic offensive team in the regular season. You know, this team has not performed well offensively. I mean, you look at the batting average through the league championship series. It was 171 as a team, and that's the second lowest in baseball history for any team that has won the league championship series.

So what does that say? That says the pitching was outstanding, but they're better than that. This offense, you know, I felt like it was paralysis by analysis information. I don't know if they were – I don't know what the real issue was, but, you know, this team needs to have a little higher quality at bat because they're going to pick – they're going to face a starting rotation, a pitching staff on the other side that really can go toe to toe with your own. And I don't think they've really seen that against any other team this year. Yeah. Well, leave it at that. Your analysis is always top shelf, my friend.

I really appreciate you spending some time with me today and enjoyed this series. Wish you had some more role on TV. But maybe another time, another place, my friend. Thanks for the visit. Anytime, Matt. Go Astros. You got to thank you very much. Mike Stanton from AT&T SportsNet, doing a great job of handling some analysis for us here on the Sports Talk 790.