Astros Have Rough Weekend Against White Sox

KILT-AM / SportsRadio 610

The Astros dropped two of three against the Chicago White Sox over the weekend. But the big story was the return of Lance McCullers Jr.  Payne & Pendergast break it down here.

Transcript

00:00Yesterday stunk for the Astros too. This weekend wasn't great for the Astros. Had it not been for

00:04Jake Myers turning into the Buddy Heald of baseball players on Saturday, this would have been a really

00:10awful weekend for the Houston Astros. The one good day was Jake Rake Day on Saturday where

00:15he had seven RBIs. He said, screw this, I'm not getting a cycle. Instead of a single,

00:20I'm going to get a second home run. How do you like them apples?

00:23Yeah, yeah. Let's not be cute here. Let's just mash.

00:26And both of those, they were nice home runs. Both of those home runs would have been home

00:30runs in all 30 ballparks. He just crushed them. All of his hits were over 100 miles per hour exit

00:35velocity. It was nice to see. I just, you wonder, okay, how can we put that in a bottle and bring

00:41it back to Houston? Because it seems like he thrives in the cold weather and he had a bunch

00:45of family there at the game as well. I mean, can we get a dormitory for his family to come

00:51stay in Houston or something and keep it in 55 degrees all day long?

00:54And those big blowers that they use for us out on the pregame for the Texans when it's hot out,

00:59can they wheel like three of those out there and just put them around the batter's box when he's

01:03up in the plate, cool things off a little bit, you know?

01:06Likewise,

01:08Collar's pitching in his first game in 900 days or whatever. I would have preferred that it wasn't

01:14quite so cold and rainy and miserable yesterday. Yes.

01:16Because Lance, Lance fought his, look at the box score. It looks pretty good. He fought his way

01:22through four, three and a third innings that I would, a lot of us, I think almost everybody's

01:27surprised he came out for the third inning and then he came out for the fourth inning and it was

01:32even more of a surprise. It was three and two thirds. And I know that because that last pitch that got

01:35cut, well, cause that would have closed the inning out and he would have been, you know,

01:38he would have gotten four. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He got, he got squeezed. He got squeezed. That's

01:43the only reason I bring it up. Yeah. He'd gotten some beneficial calls in that at bat. Like it

01:48could have, he could have walked him several pitches earlier. Yeah. Well, even in the second

01:52inning when he loaded the bases, some of these pitches, I'm like, Oh, this hump sucks, but I'm

01:56not going to say anything right now. Cause he sucks in our favor right now. One of my people on X said

02:01like, uh, you know, in fairness to the ump, nobody knew where the hell those pitches were

02:05going to try to have wild. Okay. So let's, let's dig into this. Cause there was some good and some

02:10bad with Lance. The good, I mean, the good obviously was when he needed to bear down,

02:13he did and he didn't give up any runs pitch count. You know, I think the other positive,

02:18and for those who didn't get to see that yesterday, maybe you were prepping for the

02:21Rockets game, the Astros lose five to four in what, like the game itself, if Lance weren't

02:26pitching, the big story would be, they somehow found a way to blow a game where they were rushing

02:31to get it to through five innings. Cause the rain was coming in and they're up

02:35four, nothing. And then by the sixth inning, they're like rain, please stay away. We just

02:39gave up five runs. You know, like the, the bullpen, the bullpen blew that game. And Zach

02:43Desenzo just had a horrific dropped fly ball that opened the door and all the runs. But

02:50yes, the big story yesterday was Lance McCullers. This is what his box score looked like. Then

02:55we'll hear from Lance and then we'll dig into it ourselves. Um, three and two thirds innings

02:59traffic. He had three, he gave up three hits, walk three guys. He hit a batter, did have four

03:07strikeouts. So the, some of the stuff was looking good. I would say the three walks don't begin to

03:12describe just how wild he was in this game. Like if we're, if we're judging, if we go with the theory

03:18that not all, not all balls can be judged the same in the box score, like, no, he got his money's worth

03:24on some of these, these sweepers and curves and sinkers that were tailing way the hell out of it.

03:30Like they were extra balls. Yeah. Balls plus balls. That was, there should be an, uh, when you score

03:35it, you should be able to write a ball plus on it. Uh, it was like three and the count was three plus

03:40and two. He was wild. He was wild. But again, again, at the end of the day, he was able to get out of

03:45there unscathed. Here was Lance McCullers after the game on his performance yesterday.

03:50Overall, you know, solid. Um, just, uh, felt like I overall stuff was pretty good. Um,

03:56you know, I just, uh, for whatever reasons, didn't feel the slider was not obviously very good.

04:02So you got a team that's five, six guys deep, uh, with the righties. Um, one of my main,

04:08my main weapons, main game plans is kind of, you know, evaporates kind of in front of you. But

04:13uh, overall, I mean, I was happy with the overall stuff. Physically, I felt strong through

04:17the game. Um, and, uh, you know, wish there in the second, after those couple of quick

04:22outs, I did a better job and let the inning get long on me. That's kind of, it's kind of

04:29with the count, I think throwing, you know, another 20 plus pitches there in the, in the

04:33second. And, uh, was one pitch away from getting out of there with like, you know, mid thirties.

04:37So they, they let him throw 87 pitches in this game. Like the most he'd thrown in his

04:42rehab starts was 71. So they let him throw 87 pitches and said, he nailed it. Like that

04:47second inning was the one that's the one where they loaded the bases, but it was all with

04:51two outs. Like if he can just get out of that inning and they were going to let him go into

04:55the mid eighties pitch wise, he might've gotten five. You might've gotten five full out of him

04:58pretty easily. And I can see, you know, everybody was wondering if they were going to, cause Taylor

05:03Scott was warming up in the bullpen in that second inning. You're wondering if he's going

05:07to come out for the third and he does. And he faces three batters looked great. And then

05:12you're wondering, okay, but he's getting up close to his, his pitch limit for the day.

05:16Are they going to send them out? They did. Taylor Scott continues to warm up. And then I was

05:21starting to worry about Taylor Scott. If he was going to come out kind of too far off of

05:25his routine from, from the, the warming up for so long. Um, I think the, the weirdest thing

05:31I, right from the get go, you know, his slider was like 80 miles an hour and it just didn't

05:37look like it had the right kind of movement on it. And a lot of the classic Lance you just

05:41didn't see. So he started leaning on his change up. This is where things get weird with Lance

05:45because I'm trying to, all, all your sense of time and like how much time has elapsed kind

05:51of evaporates because I was thinking as he's throwing all the change up, it's like, yeah,

05:55didn't he just add that? And kind of, but it was in 2018 where he really tried to, he tried

06:01to really work on changing his, improving his change up. But that was only a couple

06:07seasons ago. It all feels like a long time ago with that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The

06:13whole thing. Um, so didn't throw any fastballs, not a single one. It was all, it was all off

06:18speed stuff. Yeah. And his velocity. And that's why I wonder with the cold, especially if hopefully

06:24that's something that comes back with a combination of just getting out there more. And then also

06:29with some more comfortable environments. Can they break the air conditioning again this

06:33year at Dyken Park when Lance is pitching? I'll warm things up. Yeah. When Lance is pitching.

06:36They got to be careful because they can't do Fran. Franbury needs all the help he can get

06:39though too. So you got to, it can only be on Lance day. Yeah. So I guess overall, what

06:44are we, uh, what are we grading? If you had to give Lance a grade for the, how are we feeling

06:47about his performance yesterday? I'll give him a, all things considered and given the fact

06:52that as they were talking about during the broadcast and people have realized that it's a different

06:56strike zone. It's they didn't change the strike zone specifically, but the umps are calling

07:01a tighter strike zone this year because they get less of a buffer when they get graded. Yeah.

07:05They moved the buffer outside the strike zone from two inches down to three quarters of an

07:10inch. Yeah. And so for Lance, who hasn't seen it, the other pitchers have been dealing with

07:14it all season long. This is Lance trying to adjust to really a tighter strike zone. These

07:18umps, these umps, these guys were calling it tight strike zone. Yeah. Um, and it was, that's

07:23where I get nervous about Framberg too. So I give Lance a B. I give him a B too. B was

07:27what I wrote down. I give, I give him a B and the, the things that, the things that

07:31buoy the grade up, that pull the grade up number, he threw 87 pitches. I don't think

07:35he looked weaker in the fourth inning than he did in the first inning or anything like

07:39that. And I think the, the one, two, three innings, Seth, that you pointed out, I think

07:42we should point out that was the middle of their order. I know it's a bad team, but it

07:46was their three, four, four and five. So I thought that was, that was good too. So I'll

07:52give him a B also a B for the worst. They're the worst offense in baseball or one of the

07:57worst offenses consistently. So it was a, it was a nice soft landing for him, but obviously

08:02he'd be the first to tell you he's got to pick it up. He's got to just look more. So

08:06that, that was a great for him and what you're hoping to get out of him. It's not, he got

08:11out without allowing any runs with a tip of the hat to Taylor Scott on that one. But

08:15um, yeah, they just, I

08:17you

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