The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Steve Sparks Breaks Down the Astros Tough Home Stand

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

Steve Sparks Breaks Down the Astros Tough Home Stand

All right, so you get back, and you get back in the States, and you find out the Astros do not do enough damage against the Mariners. Okay, whatever. They don't do enough damage against the Angels, and you're like, oh, God. And then you come back to watch the last two against the A's. I mean, you could not have come back in an absolute worst time, unfortunately, for the Local 9. That's true. You know, and I thought about it about three weeks ago, too.

I thought that the Astros had a bottom doubt against Baltimore. They played poorly for that series. It felt like they probably should have won that series and thought, All right, maybe this is a low point. And they'll start looking up from there. And they did. They put together a nice little run. But here we are again, man.

This is probably as low. You're hoping as he gets in, thank goodness, that they're in a division. Matt, and they're in a league where they're still right in the middle of it. They're tied for first in their division. Second place, you know, the second place is still in play. You know, when you look at maybe having the second best. overall record as far as division winners go to have a buy so that's still in play and they've just got at some point they've got to go nine and three you know they've got to do something like that to separate themselves and i think they can do it i think they can play better baseball and and i expect them to uh ross with you here as well sparky uh got a question for you about hey how's it going i'm doing great good to hear you guys yes sir all right so the rotation

obviously it has been a struggle all season long. You felt like Hunter Brown was going to come and stabilize things, and it's been a bit of an issue for him. I know obviously this is a league-wide thing in terms of guys not going deep in games these days, but what are you saying from some of the pitching? Just guys not able to go deeper into games and be efficient? I think it's just lack of command compared to what it used to be. I mean, guys are throwing harder.

They're getting way more swing and miss. There's more effort involved in the pitches. that they throw. I think the Astros are a good case of point. Just a quality start, you know, and you can say what you want about a quality start, which is six or more inning, three run runs or less.

Just a quality start at the Astros bulk in at the 2-2-E-R-A. You know, just give me six-innings, so I don't have to cover so many outs per game. One of those guys is usually going to falter at some point if you're having to use four or five relievers every game. So I'm with you. I want these starters to go further, into these games being more efficient, maybe more concentration on strike one, whatever they

have to do. Maybe it's better targets from your catcher. You know, it's changed a lot as far as catchers go as far as dropping their glove so they can steal that low pitch. But with the ABS talents, I'm not so sure that's even that big of a deal anymore. So I don't know. Just throw more strikes, get ahead of the count. We know there's a huge difference when you get ahead of the count on one and two.

rather than two and one. It's a massive difference in on-base percentage. I think it's about 180 points. So that would be my message. So two of the first three pitches for strike. Let's go. Steve Sparks with us here on a Sports Talk 790, specifically Hunter Brown.

And he's a guy who, even when he was at his best last year, doesn't necessarily go deep into games, but has had a little bit of a trouble with the walks. And I listen to you a lot of times you're talking about his mechanics and things that he's trying to do in terms of like slowing down. just give us some insight into how he can limit those walks and be the guy that we thought that he was going to be when he came back? You know, we saw about three starts in a row where he started to command his fastball better. He's taken a step back maybe in his last one or two where he's walked

a few more than he's wanted. Maybe not even the results you just look and you can just see that he's spraying the ball a little bit compared to what he was. And what he was doing when he was doing it really well. He was slowing his hands down. And that was allowing his arm to catch up with his body. So then you get to a point like, okay, you know, I've thought about these mechanics. I work on it in between starts and things are starting to look a lot better. At some point, and this is the secret to sports, and no matter what sport it is, when you're competing at a very high level, you cannot think about mechanics. You just can't. You just got to see it and hit it, or see the glove and hit it, see the target and hit it.

But if you're thinking about where your elbow is or what your hands are doing, where I'm striding, anything like that, that detracts from what you're really trying to do. That's compete at a very high level. And that is the antithesis of what you're trying to do as an athlete, whatever sport it is. That's the secret. I mean, if you're going to school right now and you're listening,

when you're competing, there's a time and a place for mechanics. It's not when, it's not game time. Now, there might be a simple thing you can say every once while. I was like, you look down, you know, drop your chin a little bit when you're making your turn. Something like that that can get you back on track. But, you know, big mechanical thoughts are just taboo. Steve Sparks with us from New York. Asteristart a series of the Yankees tomorrow here on Sports Talks 790.

Sparky, the clubhouse and you've been around them as a player and as a broadcaster for a long period of time. It's a marathon ebbs and flows. You can't get too high. You can't get too low. It felt like a couple of comments coming out of the clubhouse yesterday from, namely Christian Walker, was a little more sense of urgency. So let me ask you this. If you are underperforming, you can say, all right, guys, let's get it together.

If you are who we think you are, and like the reality is, it's a 500 team. It's been that way for 75% of the season. How do you motivate when you look around and you were not going to call, I'm not talking about you particular, the general player in that room, knowing that you've got some guys that are very talented and you've got some guys that are just overmatched. How do you motivate this time of year with the playoffs still in hand when you've got a roster that's probably got quite a few holes at least from an offensive standpoint getting a decent playing time? Well, let me start with this. I think the American League is full of rosters that have a lot of holes. you know, and I don't want to point fingers at specific guys or anything like that.

I feel a roster, you know, I feel at the lineup part every day. You know, nobody, no other team is really jumping at me thinking, like, I can't pitch to certain portions of this lineup and feel pretty good about it. I mean, just nobody has, like when the Astros were batting Gurriel seventh, nobody has that right now. So that's the situation with that. I think you get confidence, from practicing really well and preparing really well.

And that should give you confidence going into a game like, okay, I'm ready. And the other thing is, is you've got to be honest with yourself and say, did I have a good approach and did I execute it? And here's what I mean by that. Is my approach to not try to pull this guy, try to go the other way, because I'm going to take what he gives me, or am I going to get greedy at a certain point and pull off and try to hit a home run into the Landry's Cropper boxes when the account changes.

When I come out of my approach, I need to be honest with myself and say, hey, you know, stick to your plan, you know, and I think that's what we see sometimes. Guys trying to do too much in certain times. We saw it in the first inning for a long time. You know it's been since June 12th at the Astros that scored three runs in the first inning until yesterday? That was a game where they scored nine in Kansas City, but it's been over two months since they scored three runs of the first.

and it wasn't for lack of base runners. It was for lack of approach and execution and getting a big hit in a big moment just by going the other way maybe sometimes. And it was nice to see that the Astros were able to do that. They scored six runs yesterday. Should have won, but that's baseball. But I like the approach.

You take what they give you. If you're thinking the right way and you just react, I think that's the proper approach. And I think that's what Christian in his post-game comments is talking about. It's like we need to stick to what we do best, and that's to have a patient, selfless approach. We'll wrap it up with another pitching question

because we respect your acumen on that as much as anybody in this marketplace. Peter Lambert looks like he is struggling a little bit. I'm not going to say that we're going to expect to see nine runs again in a short period of time like he had earlier this week. But it's been a month where it just hasn't been the same Peter Lambert. You know, we have been so accustomed to baseball fans. fans and broadcasters about watching pitch count when you get to 90, 95, 97.

Uh-oh, time to get the bullpen. At this point of the year, if your arm is healthy, I'm talking about every single guy in that starting rotation, can pitch count be damned? Are we still sitting there worried about it because there's been so much wear and tear? And maybe Peter Lambert's a good example that because he's pitched a lot of innings. But where do you see Lambert, first of all, and then where do you see the pitch count overall here with a month left to go in the season? Matt, I think it stems from what people, you know, in the next.

numbers that you see the third time through the lineup is where it stems from. You know, and the numbers suggest that like third time through that the opposition has a much better, as much better numbers, much more success against his difficult pitcher. But if you're a guy like Peter Lambert in my eyes that can execute and pitch guys differently that third time through, then I think there's a little more leeway that can be granted. And I think with him in particular, he is kind of a, you know, unicorn in the fact that is a right-handed pitcher. And this is, I mean, people think just because you're in the major league that these guys

can command their fastball at will, they can't. I mean, this has been going on forever. Guys who can command their fastball, righties, inside the lefties are few and far between. And because of that, lefties can lean out over the plate and go the other way or keep their front shoulder closed and really inflict a lot of damage against guys. But if you're making them honest inside and throwing strikes inside, then you make them protect both sides of the plate. And Peter Lambert does that as well as anybody I've seen on the Astros in a few years

when he's going well. Last couple of days, he's gotten away from it for whatever reason. But I guarantee he gets back to it. But he commands fastball inside the lefties as well as anybody I've seen with the Astros in a while. So, you know, the velocity is still fine. We can probably look at any pitch comparatively to the last season or two when he was in Japan and just make sure that you're not jumping that too far. But I feel really good every time he starts.

And when you write his name in the lineup card, for me, I feel like the Aschers are going to win.