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April 21, 2025 12 mins
Coming out of a series loss to the Cardinals recently and teeing off their three game series on Friday statistically against the best team in the MLB thus far being the San Diego Padres, the Astros look to have gotten the ball rolling a bit following a series win over San Diego down at Daikin Park. Taking 2 of the 3 games from the Padres and almost gaining a series sweep over the leagues leader in the power rankings, Steve joins and shares his takeaways from this weekends mind-boggling series and what position this now puts the Astros in as they roll on now to take on a pretty solid Toronto Blue Jays team this evening. 
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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Your Houston Astros take two out of three against the
best team in baseball, the San Diego Padres. Couldn't finish
off the sweep. But that's all right. You got the
series and join us now for his weekly segment to
talk all things Houston. Astros. Is our guy, Steve Sparks
from the Astros Radio Network.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Steve, Welcome in, man, Thank you very much. I can
always tell when you go take a leak, you come back.
That music last a little bit longer coming back from it.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Right, you talk Tony Races zipping up his pants, empty studio.

Speaker 4 (00:30):
Gordy, where you are.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Well, we're gonna play four more bars on the song
coming back, Steve, so he can finish.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
There you go, handwatching optionals, Steve's options.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Right, that's what I heard.

Speaker 4 (00:40):
Hey, Steve, let me start here with this.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
My favorite thing about the weekend, and there's a lot
of good things to like. You win the series. I'm
not telling anything you don't know was yesterday or last night?
Should I say that fastball up in about ninety eight
Campsmith hits it the other way? I mean there, you
know how you see little things and you learn every
week about something. There's nothing overwhelmed. That he's overwhelmed by
makes a great play running as well to his left

(01:05):
to make the play defensively. Seems like in both things,
and that he's growing on a daily basis.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Steve, It's funny you mentioned the little things, because that's
how he describes his batting practice. He says, little things
add up to big things, and I expect big things
when I do things the right way. In batting practice,
he goes the other way. He stays very disciplined. He'll
go at the middle, but just a nice, short, compact
swing and that's the way you catch up to heat

(01:32):
when it's elevated like that. And he's special. It's amazing
that he can say this discipline this early in his career,
especially with as little experience as he has. But somebody's
taught him really early on how to go things, how
to go about things the right way, and he does it. Man.
He stays to a nice little routine and I like it.

(01:53):
I think he's going to be able to probably alleviate
a lot of those pitfalls and extended lumps beacause of it.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Tago Steve Sparks here from the Astros Radio Network. Of course,
here I'm right here on sports talks of an Idy
and Sparky. The When I looked at this pitching matchup,
it was like, oh gosh, you know it's it's advantage Padres.
When you saw Heart, when you saw you know, Dylan Ceese,
and you knew you were gonna have to throw Ryan
Gusto and Hayden Wiznski. Who knew those would be the

(02:23):
two stars you end up winning. But I came away
just facing that lineup. Steve like overall just impressed with
what the pitching staff did in this series.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, me too. Gusto's start with Guesto five innings, not
only did he not walk anybody, but he didn't even
have a three ball count. I mean, this is a
guy that just comes in, He's not afraid of anybody.
He fills it up, He's going to be on the attack,
He's going to keep counting his favor and I love it.
He gave up nine hits those five innings, which is

(02:54):
a little abnormal for him. But more than anything else,
I just love his presence. I think he kind of
sets a tone with that, and I think the Astros
feel pretty good about whenever he's on the Mound. I
think he's an unbelievable long reliever, and Sean, you and
I have talked about how important it is for a
long reliever to throw strikes and be efficient and give

(03:15):
them innings, and he's been great at that, you know.
And it might be to his detriment for a little
while early in his career, because he's probably going to
be stuck in the bullpen when guys get healthy. But
I loved it. You know, that's a good point. Chris
is wes Nesky. He's been better than advertised in my opinion.
You know, I didn't know his stuff was this good.

(03:37):
A little crossfire as fastballs up to ninety seven miles
per hour, a nasty, nasty slider cutter and all those things.
I think he's going to He's going to fit in
perfectly in this rotation. So as they get healthier, they
continue to play a pretty rough schedule. I mean, I
think early on, they've played three of the best teams

(03:59):
in the National what the Giants, Padres and Metz, and
they've held their own. They won two of those three series,
and I think that the Astros are pretty well equipped
to going some kind of a little run here. Everyone
you know at some point to get him above five
hundred once they're the schedule weekends a little bit.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
Yeah, you know they were going to lose at least
one game because the guy in right field for the
other teams playing out of I mean, he's dressing in
a phone booth. It's absolutely ridiculous the way Tatisa is playing.
But we know he has that ability, Steve, you mentioned
we was Nesky and and and the way Paradus is.
We've talked about his addition there at third base and
now Cam Smith as we just discussed Steve, when will
we know and Tucker's no shock is raking in Chicago, Steve,

(04:40):
in your mind, when do you know when we can
judge a trade and say both teams won early on,
it looks that way. But when do you judge it
and say, okay, when all of a sudden done, we
could take a look back. When does that start to
kick in as how this trade turned out for both teams?

Speaker 2 (04:57):
I think I think a lot of times I'm gonna
I'm gonna judge this by by how well these guys
continue to develop. And when Dana Brown explained it in
spring training, he said that we traded thirteen years of
service time for one year of service time. At this point,
you know whether or not they still have a chance
to sign Kyle Talker back. By the way, he's going
to be a free agent and everybody's going to have

(05:19):
a chance.

Speaker 4 (05:20):
Why are you teasing people like that, Steve.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Everybody's got I like to tease.

Speaker 4 (05:29):
Now, you know what.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
I love Kyle Tucker too. Everybody does, and he's a
great player. But I'm also excited about cam Smith, West
Natsky and Parides and what they've done here early on
is great and I think they're going to continue to
get better. And I think that's what the Astros need
to be focused on right now, is what do we

(05:52):
do to move forward. I didn't expect Cam Smith to
be on this team. I really didn't, probably not even
next year. He's the play thirty two games as a
minor leaguer, so he's going to have some ups and downs.
But he does so many things which gets you pretty excited.
Last I think ten or eleven games has an OPS
over nine hundred. In the way he's taken to right field.

(06:15):
For somebody who's been an infielder his entire life, the
way he plays right field right now. Now, I keep
telling Robert in between innings, Man, he is so smooth,
so fast. He's going to make a couple of mistakes
here and there, but he's got a cannon for an arm.
He's going to turn into an unbelievable right fielder. In
my opinion, He's he's got a chance to be a

(06:36):
gold Glover out there. So that's exciting for me.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Yeah, Steve sparks Astro's broadcast for his weekly visit here
Mondays at eight o'clock on Sports Talk seven ninety. If
you have not watched him, and if you didn't know
what position he played, Steve, you just assume he was
a right fielder all the time. That to me showed,
I mean just his moving to be able to run.
That ball was by him, the one that was hit
to his left yesterday and he stabbed and made a
great play it. Just his reactions. Great, Steve, you have

(07:00):
to get to the guy next to him. I mean,
I know he hit two thirty or more and we
got a bonus the admiration. Yeah, is Steve breaking down?
Why is he having such success?

Speaker 4 (07:12):
Now?

Speaker 3 (07:13):
Is Jake Myers offensively and how close to this can
he continue? For a guy who's the last one two
or three years hitting around two twenty.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, we had him. We interviewed him after the game
on Saturday night and I asked him, I said, what's
different about your approach? He said, I'm just talking with
the guys. You know, I'm having a pretty good game
plan coming into a game, and I have a pretty
good idea of how they're going to try to attack me.
I just got to be ready for it. And this
is pretty good evidence here. He's I think he's eighteen

(07:43):
for thirty seven or eighteen for thirty eight before he
gets two strikes. So he's not missing putchies, he's not
fouling them off. He's getting something done early in the camps.
Now you don't want to hear this close your ears
if you need to, but he's over twenty one or
oh for twenty two strikes, So he's getting it done
early in his abs. But he's not missing them, he's

(08:04):
not found them. He's ready and he's ready to attack
a fastball wherever it is, wherever he likes it. And
I'm assuming it's kind of middle end. I think he
likes it. Elevate it a little bit. But he said
in deubles down the third baseline, he's staying inside the ball,
going to the office field gat. He's doing whatever he
needs to do to execute what he anticipates the other
guy doing, and that comes with experience. Is he going

(08:26):
to be a three hundred hitter. I doubt it. You know,
there is only a few of them in the American
League last year anyway. But anything you get from him offensively,
I think you're counting your lucky stars because what he
does defensively, and we saw it again last night, he
is one of the best. And he's not afraid of
the wall. For somebody who just dislocated their shoulder in

(08:49):
a wall in the playoffs few years ago, he's got
a lot of courage when he goes up against the patting.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
I guess the key to that, Gordy is hunt balls
early in the strike, early in the count, so you
don't get to two. And he obviously knows that. Now
hints why he's going out and putting a bat on
the ball early in the count.

Speaker 4 (09:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
I just say it frustrates me when aw Twovey gets
us first pitch pop outs.

Speaker 3 (09:08):
Like, oh, work account, work, account, But uh, guess what
that's not happening, and you know that, Steve.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
Lastly, for you, Christian Walker, the big two run homer
on Saturday, We're all going, you know, the yes, there
it is. That's the guy the Astros wanted. He makes
a big defensive play late in the game as well,
and then yesterday back to an zero for four to
three strikeout day bet in one fifty six. I mean,
I'm not going to make the parallels to their bray

(09:34):
You signing because you know they're two different players and
we know how that played out, but there's shades of that.
It feels like the aging guy, why is this not working?
And I know he missed significant part of spring training
with the oblique injury, but.

Speaker 4 (09:48):
How how do you do this?

Speaker 1 (09:49):
You know, sticking with your guy because he's eventually going
to break out of it versus man he's taken a
lot of you know, coming up with a lot of
at bats with guys on base and not coming through.
How far do we slide him down to order? I mean,
it's a tough battle there.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
Well, let's take yesterday out of the equation because I mean,
if you really watch the game, Dylan Seats was filthy
and it's like he was painting his slider on Walker
in particular. I'm not kidding. Walker got painted yesterday and
there's nothing that anybody could have done. So I like man.

(10:23):
I'm watching his VP and I like his like his swing.
It's nice and compact and it stays long through the
strike zone. So that's what I look for. When when
you see guys try to pull the ball a lot,
I think they're in and out of the strike zone
and they're easier to pitch too. And I think for him,
as he stays in the middle of the field and
he doesn't try to pull the baseball like he probably

(10:44):
was earlier in the season where he was easier to
pitch too. I think now right now, he's in a
pretty good spot where he's thinking between the gaps and
he's gonna he's gonna he's gonna probably rattle off a
lot of RBIs. I have to say, in the month
of May, I would put him in the top two
or three for the Astros and rbig and that's what
you got for. He'll be back in the four hole,

(11:04):
and I think Christian Walker is going to be a
big member of this offense as sing Peta. But I
like his swing man, I like his batting practice right now,
and I feel like he's starting to just kind of
relax a little bit where he can just be himself
again and not try to impress the new team.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
Yeah, not bad when you go from C's to a
closer pumping at one o two and throwing that nasty
change up too. You know it was a filter. Yeah,
that's tough to face with both of them. Talk about
a guy who painted throwing one oh one on the black, Well,
you can't.

Speaker 4 (11:33):
You can't get to it, Steve. It was stupid watching
it on TV.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
It was. Yeah, you know, that's why guys are doing that.
At the back end, we see hater doing Haters are
perfect eleven for eleven too, so you know, you get
down to the end in the Padres have only relinquished
one lead all season long, so they've got a great bullpen,
But so to the Astros. The Astros bullpen leads the
American League with an ERA below three, you know, and

(11:58):
they're doing it a little differently than a lot of teams.
It's not like high octane. They've just got a lot
of guys who missed back.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
Steve, great stuff, man, We appreciate you we'll do it again,
do it again next week. That was a big two
to one series win.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
Man.

Speaker 4 (12:10):
We look forward to talking to you every Monday, my man.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Thanks Sean, appreciate it, Appreciate you.

Speaker 4 (12:15):
That's great. Steve Sparks
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