The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Steve Sparks on Astros Disappointing Sweep Against the Rays

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

Steve Sparks on Astros Disappointing Sweep Against the Rays

This is Matt and Ross in the morning. Every Monday we spend 10 to 12 quality minutes with our good friend Steve Sparks. Astros Radio, unfortunately called the series sweep against the Astros versus Tampa Bay. Sparky, a good morning to you. I hate it when we play your highlights and you bring up the word touchdown. I know we're in football season, but it's not supposed to be in your sport, my friend. Man, it was a rough one yesterday. You know you have games like that time to time, but overall, that when you're

look at the last couple of weeks when the Astros played a lot of good teams that the starting pitching held up to their end of the bargain. You know, when you look at these guys in the rotation now, especially this point of the season, you feel pretty good every night when you write down the starting pitcher's name. And you kind of judge where you are when you're facing other teams right now. And I think starting pitching-wise, the Astros are in pretty good shape, especially when you look at guys other than Lambert. There's some guys that miss time on the IEL this year. They haven't pitched. a ton of innings.

So they should be pretty fresh, at least fresher than the other teams going into this stage of the season. Speaking of fresh, I know when the game got out of hand yesterday that Joe pulled some starters, and I know that Yorda missed a couple of games. I feel like especially the top of the order, it's in a conundrum here, Spark, because they've been the most consistent part of your lineup offensively,

and they're also the ones that are getting the least amount of rest. Yeah, you know, it's just the way it is right now. You're hoping to, you know, you don't want to get ahead of yourself, but you're hoping to get a buy, you know, that first round. You're trying to play as well as you can just to try to give some of these guys rest because you have had to lean on them so hard this year. Hey, I think the first 50 games or 51 games, they were 11 games under. So they were digging themselves out a hole for the last three or four months.

And, you know, they played 10 or 11 games above, 500 since then so that's pretty good um but they are tired you can tell you know in games like that when you get punched in the stomach and it felt like all the air came out of the dugout so it's just the way it is you know you get an off day uh you come back home hopefully energized with with a nice crowd on tuesday and go back to work you know it's funny we spent a lot of time talking about you know the schedule and all these good teams coming up and above 500 and early on looked amazing and then obviously the Tampa Bay maybe in a special situation maybe they're just going to be the cream of the crop in the American link but as a broadcaster are you at times

confused about which not necessarily what aster team shows up but who you play well against and who you don't because it's it's strange how they struggle this year against like the angels or the mariners and then they go to New York and win as many games they beat up a good Chicago White Sox team yeah I get confused by that I get confused about about the offense sometimes against pitchers that don't look that good to me, to be honest with you. I know it's the major leagues, and I was one of those pitchers for sure. But you do get surprised that they get shut down sometimes, you know, score one or two runs and everything just kind of goes south.

But you have to look at almost every team is bullpen. When they get ahead, they've got their leverage relievers against your relators that aren't your leverage or laborers, and it becomes the mismatched second part of the game. So the first half of the game, if a guy goes out there and pitches well and gets to the lineup twice, then you're in the fifth or sixth inning, and then you're facing the other team's best.

So it gets a little difficult in situations like that, and you just got poured on. You've got to be ready early in those games to take advantage of, you know, I don't want to say this, but I'll just say you've got to take advantage of Kansas City. You've got to win two or three of these games at the very least. And it's not the end of the world if they don't. You know, you put your nose to the grindstone and just battle every game for 12 now.

But you've got to take advantage of this. The Astros haven't played a softer type team or a team under 500 in a while now. So now it's time to take advantage of it. And one of those guys struggling, we talked last week about Jeremy Payne, 9-0-4 OPS on August 2nd, down to 768 now. I mean, and also, it clearly needs a day off, but if you're Joe Espada, it's rear between a rock and a hard place, you can't give, especially somebody like Jeremy Payne the day off.

You know what? He's got the day off today. You know, that's the way you have to let it right now. And as a player and as a coach, because they need him. I think more than anything, mentally I think Jeremy has struggled at swinging at strikes, you know, and I think he's spoken about it. It's hard sometimes, you know, and you start trying to get five hits into a bat sometimes, and things go the other direction. So it's just a matter for him is to get maybe sometimes it's just get a little bit lucky.

But I've always felt like you get confidence from the way you prepare. And if you just go out there and you keep preparing the way that they know they have. He was the MVP of the World Series at a young age. he knows what it takes to do it right and to get it right. I think it's just a matter for Jeremy. Plain and simple, get good pitches to hit and lay off the ones that are sliding off the play. Steve Sparks with us here on Sports Talk 790. And another thing that's kind of crossed my mind, Steve, and I'm just curious to your perspective on it,

is that the Astros haven't really had, like, big blowout wins. How much of a mental drain can it be? It feels like they're in high leverage, I mean, way more often than not. Is that also something that can kind of lead to fatigue and wearing the team down? I think so. Yeah. I mean, you play a lot of those games and who are you going to use in those games. You're going to use your best relievers over and over and over again, and they have.

Before Stephen O'Kert got hurt, he was pitching in a ton of games. AJ Blue Ball has more relief endings than anybody in baseball. So it's those games that you're talking about, Ross, that they've had to lean. on the same pitchers over and over. Ray U and, of course, Hayter come to mind too. They don't always put shots of those guys warming up to the bullpen, but it gets closer, you know, and they're within two runs sometimes, and the game's close.

You get up those leverage relievers too, even if they don't come into the game. Everybody, you know, most teams are going through this, you know, especially the contenders are going through this right now. And we're starting to see teams, you know, Seattle's lost all of the games late right now. It's their leverage relievers that have given up the leads late in those games for the same reasons we're talking about with the Astros leverage or leaders.

Steve Sparks with us here every Monday on Sports Talk 7-9. Sparky about four months ago in our weekly Tuesday's second, we call it gut feelings. And I think I said the division winner in the American League West, and I'm not going back to May, I don't think it was going to win 85 games. That's not going to happen. How stunned do you that no one, whether it be the Astros, the Mets, the Mariners or the Rangers at any point this year we're able to pull away. I'm surprised that nobody in the division hit has gone on a sustained run.

I thought somebody would, well, the Astros did for a little bit. I think probably everybody, if we looked at their schedule, they won eight out of ten or something like that, but nobody's really been able to put together for a lengthy period of time, and they've gone through the doldrums, of course, quite a bit. The Astros have used 19 starting pitchers. And, you know, the injuries, you know, play into a lot of that, too. But, you know, at the same time, you just got to get in.

And nobody in the American League. And Tampa looks good, but the Astros could have won the first two games of that series just as easily. They look good. I'm not saying that they don't. And they've got really good pitching. But I think the Astros pitching is coming around. And I think with a little rest in the way the playoffs are set up if you get in, I forget that the Cardinals, I think, in 06, got in with 83 wins.

They won the World Series. Nobody expected that, but if you get in with the playoffs, the way they're set up, with how much rest that you get in between, you can lean on those leverage or levers and they're not nearly as gas because of those off days that are built into the playoffs. I wish the playoffs weren't set up like that because I think it would be more fair to play it more like the regular season, but that's just the facts. and the Astros have enough pitching to get the job done if they just get in. I got one more, and then Ross, I want more to wrap things up with you.

I'm just, I've learned from traveling on the other side as you do with the teams, and this is mine basketball, yours is baseball, but athletes are about the same, Sparky. Never too high when things are going great and never too low when things are down. Is there any way you can read the tea leaves at all about, we just beat up on really good teams and we get close and we try to give ourselves a little breathing room and then all of a sudden we're sitting there struggling in to hold on to first place of the game lead. Do you sense the vibe at all or is this just been such a remarkably consistent year of inconsistencies that the tenor of the team just hasn't changed much?

You know, I think it's hard for fans to realize that the players don't, they don't overreact the way fans do. I know this is sports talk radio, and you want to talk about things and gripe and lament, but I think the fans would be a little surprised if the teams don't panic. Correct. They just work, and they understand that, you know, that doesn't help the situation. And the culture for this team, and I see it when we fly, and after a bad game, you can't tell if they win or loss.

you get on the airplane, guys are in a good mood, everybody's affable, and you feel like, all right, they're going to enjoy their off day, they're going to get back to work the next day, and they know that that formula over time is the best way to be consistent. And they've done that for a long time here in Houston now. We've been spoiled by that, but they've had a good formula of understanding what it takes to be ready on a nightly basis. It doesn't look like it sometimes because games go awry. You know, guys are human and they make mistakes and they make errors and mental mistakes even. But at the end of the day, you try to be as prepared as you can. And overreacting is really not part of the equation, not that I've seen around here. And, yeah, just one more thing, Sparky, you mentioned the pitching improving, and part of that, I know it was a few days ago,

but I just wanted to get your perspective on what went right for Christian Javier and that good start yet. man he's he's staying a little taller i think his fastball profile uh looks like it did uh before the injury and we haven't seen it in a while we haven't seen the swing and miss at the top of the strike zone and because his fastball wasn't great for a while he had to he had to lean on some other stuff and he's developed a nice change app he's got this little sweeper now that he can throw it in any count and he started to conjure some some feelings about what it was like in Philadelphia in the World Series a few years ago, even for Phillies fans.

People were talking about it in the hallways in between innings. This is the same guy we saw in 2022. So that's a good sign for the Astros. And like I said, there's a lot of pitchers, you know, Hunter Brown is one of them. There's a lot of guys that don't have a ton of innings compared to other teams. And in your starters right now with Lambert and West Nesky, Peco. These guys look good, you know,

coming down the stretch. Javier's right in the middle of that. And I go back to, you know, when I'm filling up my scorebook every night, when I'm writing the starting pitcher going against the other team, right now, and I wasn't saying this earlier in the season, to be honest with you,

right now I feel pretty good with everybody I'm writing in there. Hopefully you'll be feeling good the next three days as you're right in the Astros, Royal's lineup. Thank you for the time. As always, we'll talk again next Monday and enjoy your off day. You deserve it.

Thanks, guys. Take care. We'll see. Steve Sparks with us here on Sports Talk 790.