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Doesn't Matter Brian, AL West Champions Brian
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This week, Tim Costello and Scott Barzilla open by celebrating the Astros' clinching of the AL West title for the seventh time in eight years. The hosts discuss the significance of this achievement, the key players who contributed, and what it means for the Astros heading into the postseason.
The conversation then moves to the Texans, focusing on their tough loss to the Vikings. Tim and Scott break down the game, pointing out the struggles the Texans' offense faced and analyzing what went wrong.
The episode concludes with the show's staple segments: "Horses Ass of the Week," where they call out the biggest misstep in sports, "Tips of the Cap," honoring notable accomplishments, and "Scumbag of the Week," highlighting unsportsmanlike or controversial behavior.
As always, the episode blends humor, deep analysis, and a love for Houston sports.
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Be sure to follow the Born on the Bayou Sports Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089663917792
Find the guys on Twitter:
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Transcript
Introduction to Born on the Bayou Sports
00:00:07
Speaker
Welcome to Born on the Bayou Sports, a Houston sports show made for Houstonians by Houstonians. Join Tim Costello and Scott Barzilla every week as they break down the latest in Houston Astros, Rockets and Texans news. Tim's a former minor league broadcaster and Scott has written two books on the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Challenges in Astros' Rotation: Eric's Performance
00:00:33
Speaker
Yeah, if probably Eric could get it figured out, it would make things a lot easier because he was that guy everybody was counting on this year to be a Cy Young candidate, take that big step forward, and help anchor this rotation with Pomer. Since he's come to Houston, you can look at the development of guys like Carlos Correa defensively, Jeremy Peรฑa defensively, you can know, Alex Bregman, you know, certainly I think I'm better than average third baseman.
00:00:57
Speaker
And now you're putting teams in 3rd and 8th, 3rd and 7th, 3rd and 9th. Now here comes Will Anderson. Pin back your ears, let's go.
Introducing Co-host Daniel: Comedian and Writer
00:01:05
Speaker
So if you're by you, born and bred, or just like spending time in the age, sit down, relax, and stay Houston strong.
00:01:24
Speaker
Hey and welcome all my friends to the show that comes back again once a week and we are returning this week as again AL West champions and and Scott last week when when Bryce Young was benched I tossed around the idea of possibly bringing in a backup co-host because you know just the performance of backups typically you get that good one week spark and then we'll see after that. Well Andy Dalton gave a one week spark so I decided we're going to bring in a secondary co-host this week. Scott welcome to the program. Daniel we appreciate you joining us here this week. Thank you for having me.
00:02:06
Speaker
So before so let get and let the listeners and viewers get to know you a little bit I know you've been writing for the crawfish boxes for
Daniel's Astros Fan Journey and Comedy Career
00:02:15
Speaker
a while. So Give us a little bit about I guess your writing background and and and whatever else you would like to promote here Yes, so I've been an Astros fans since 2004 one of my earliest baseball memories was the bridge to ledge and And then when Kent hit that walk-off home run the in the NLCS, and then I started writing for the crawfish boxes about two years ago. It's been great, and currently I'm in New York, and one of my side hustles is I'm a stand-up comedian. So if you guys want to see my stuff, my Instagram is DanielJune1996.
00:02:59
Speaker
Awesome stand-up comedy is always one of my one of my go-to ways to just unlax unwind and relax say that Instagram or where they can find you one more time just to make sure all the All the more on the body listeners know where to find it ah Daniel June 1996 Fantastic. Well Daniel. We appreciate you joining us
Astros' AL West Championship Journey
00:03:24
Speaker
here. Let's kind of transition to to why we brought you on we are for the seventh straight season of full season baseball AL West champions here in Houston and
00:03:38
Speaker
I know this one is just a little bit different. I don't know how much of it you watched last night. I watched every, every moment of the post game show and, and during all of those interviews, that was the first thing that was mentioned, whether it was Julia or Todd Callis or blubber is, Hey, this one's different because it was harder. You know what, what were your, what was your experience like writing throughout the season, you know, transitioning from should we sell to, Oh my God, here we go.
00:04:08
Speaker
Yeah, so interestingly enough, throughout April and May, I was of the view that this is a good team that's just hit a rough patch. They'll pick it up. But in mid-June, when they lost to the White Sox, at that point, I was like, all right, it's mid-June. At this point, the team is what you got.
Young Pitchers' Impact on Astros' Season
00:04:30
Speaker
So I did not expect them to go on this run. I always thought this was a good team. But hey, since June 18th, they've ah Since that loss they've performed like a 100 win baseball team and I think if you really nail down What people think about the team? I don't think at that point anyone would have expected that um So there's that I think they just way outperformed what people thought after two months um, but then you know, I think what's interesting enough is that I
00:05:04
Speaker
We've gotten so accustomed to this and we forget like how special and cool winning a division title is. Because before 2017, you guys want to know the last time the Astros won a division title? 2001. Yes, correct. So, you know, and there's some really good teams that didn't win a division title. So 2005 team was a wildcard team.
00:05:33
Speaker
Yeah and same with 2004 and obviously you know things were a little bit different back then but it just it really just goes to show that like no matter what happens the rest of the season like the fact that they were able to come back from 10 games down and find a way to win the division you know pretty handily too I mean they c clench with five games in hand um or four games in hand That's really good, and no matter what happens the rest of the way, this is something to to be proud of as fans. yeah Tim and I have been you know kind of running this back and forth on our show, so i mean you can go back and listen you know at the time, but you mentioned around that June 18th date, so if you could pick like one move or one event that turned the tide for this season, what would be your go-to?
00:06:26
Speaker
Yeah, so that's a really interesting question. I don't really think there is any one event that you can nail this down to. I think really what you, when you look at this team, this was from the beginning, a really good team that suffered a lot of injuries. Uh, same with last year, but this year, for most injuries was of the starting rotation. And I think Brown getting a lot better, Aragetti getting a lot better. Obviously you got Kukuchi in the mix of the deadline,
00:06:55
Speaker
But all these younger pitchers, dramatically ah improving over the season, I think that was a big thing. And then, obviously, losing Tucker really hurt. But then on offense, um you know Bregman really picked it up towards the end of the season. There's a bunch of guys that had slow starts. And they all just kind of progressed. I guess, in this case, progressed to the mean in a really positive way.
00:07:24
Speaker
um But yeah, if I didn't nail down to any one thing, I would say it's our young pitchers, right? Hunter Brown and Spencer Arreguetti, you look at their whole season stats and Hunter Browns, is they're actually pretty solid. Um, but when you look at how they've done the last three months, I mean, Arreguetti still, I mean, I don't think that really tells a little story, but right now you had to hand anyone the ball in this Houston rotation. You take out.
00:07:53
Speaker
Valdez and maybe Brown and I think you have a really solid reason to put Eric Eddie so Without being too long-winded. I gotta to say it's our young pictures Maturing and growing into their own. Yeah, you know Especially watching some of the things from last night You know hunter Brown start in Detroit really was it was the turnaround for him. That's where he became the pitcher that I Um, you can hand the ball to every fifth or sixth day and and feel like you're going to have a chance to win a baseball game. So I think that moment right there, that, that outing he had in Detroit is a really, really big one.
Rookie and Acquisition Impact on Astros
00:08:30
Speaker
Uh, I think the moment that you traded for Kukuchi, right? It was, um, a lightning rod moment. I think there was a lot of attention on, on the ball club at that point. Most fans, um, wondered, you know, how did we pay that price for a guy?
00:08:47
Speaker
who had performed to that level up until that point. um and And yet, you know here we are where today he took his first loss as an Astro and didn't have a single earned run. So Kukuchi has been unbelievable for this team and he was exactly what but the doctor ordered at a time where we needed it. Because you know just sitting back and and thinking what what this team has on the IL right now. You know, Lance McCullers was supposed to some point come back this season, that never happened. Luis Garcia was supposed to come back at the season, that never happened. Erkidi never, you know, never really got it going. Christian Javier has um maybe a month before he goes on the IL. Justin Verlander missed a good chunk of the season, came back too early, wasn't very good. And so, you know, when you mentioned Spencer or Getty,
00:09:36
Speaker
This is a guy that Scott and I specifically have had the question of, should he be in that rookie of the year conversation? Because if you take out those first four or five starts where, you know, Major League Baseball kind of ambushed him a little bit, but he did exactly what, you know,
00:09:53
Speaker
Crash Davis told dukela Duke LaRouche you have to do when when you get to i'm sorry nuclearus when you get to the majors, you're going to get hit. But you've got to like act like it doesn't bother you and eventually figure shit out. And that's what Erangetty did in minus one star.
00:10:09
Speaker
where, you know, he had a bit of an outlier and actually, ah you know, one of his friends is literally like missing and no one knew where he was. He was posting on social media, trying to find the guy that has a bad start the next day. He's been fantastic for, um, you know, three straight months. And so I wonder if he deserves maybe not to win rookie of the year in the AL. There's some, some guys like Austin Wells in, uh, New York, my great full years, but he's a guy who should come in top five.
00:10:37
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think what's really positive about Eric Getty is most of the time when you see a rookie that's a flash in the pan, he starts off really well and then the league adjusts to him. But what's cool about Spencer Eric Getty is that he started off really poorly and he adjusted to the league. And to be honest, going to this year, I did not think he was going to be a major league starter.
00:11:06
Speaker
And I thought, the reason why I thought that is he walked too many guys. I don't think he had a good third offering that was going to help him get through the order three times. I just didn't think he was going to have the year he has. And really, to your point, the last three months, you look at some of his starts. I mean, how many starts has he had? He struck out eight plus guys.
00:11:35
Speaker
I mean, that's for a guy where he had all these questions about, you know, his fastball is good, but it doesn't like tear people apart. Walks a lot of guys for a guy like that, you know, to be as dominant as he was July, August, September. I mean, that's ah one of the stories of the year. And, real you know, real quick, too Scott, i I'm going to send this one back over to you, actually.
00:12:02
Speaker
with Coming into the year with basically a brand new catching staff. You know, Jinder had very few appearances behind the plate last year. How impressed with you are you, Scott, with with how the combination of Caratini and Jinder Diaz has handled this group when there's been so many different guys coming up and coming into the rotation and injuries and trades and, and you know, signings and whatever you have. This is ah a group that's done an unbelievable job from a game planning standpoint.
00:12:31
Speaker
Yeah, I was going to say, the one thing that is known about Eric Getty that the people talk about is that he is he is a baseball junkie. He is that yeah he's in the video room, you know, looking at video, you know, future hitters, looking at his own video. And he's a guy that's kind of unlocked that, okay, this is how I'm going to be the most successful. And so he's a guy that, you know, he doesn't have um he doesn't have like the the Cy Young stuff necessarily, but he's a guy that, you know, is basically outsmarted the league as a rookie. And you got to thank Yayner Diaz, and particularly, I got to think Caratini is having a big role in that. What I was going to bring up, because you brought up, Tim, the acquisition of Kukuchi and how people really poo-pooed that at the time.
00:13:24
Speaker
You know, you look at a lot of these moves that Dana Brown has made, at least in the immediate moment. Obviously those Blue Jays prospects, Loper, Fido, Wagner, they might turn into something blossom, certainly in the future, but he has pressed the right buttons this year. And so in addition to Kikuchi, cause that's the one that people point to, you know, what would you say like is that one under the radar move that you're like, wow, that really worked out well for us.
00:13:54
Speaker
oh I mean there's I I'm loving so we lost our our distinguished guests here for a moment, but I'm i'm loving the Jason Heywood Scott um This is a guy that when he we picked him up you were talking about he was having a fluke season and from a negative side, right? He was hitting the ball hard. He was making contact, but his babbitt was just crazy low. And in his time in Houston, maybe the batting average isn't great, but he's, he's OPS is above 800. So he's kind of progressed to what he had been the previous year in LA and what he had been with the Cubs for some of his better seasons. And this is a guy who's got veteran leadership. He's a gold glove level defender.
00:14:41
Speaker
He can play three different outfield positions. And he saw last night, he he makes a great catch. And as the baseball guys write it up, shows up in the very next ah half inning and hits the go ahead homer. Yeah, I'm going to be talking. Oh, looks like it looks like we got Daniel back. I don't know. I don't know if you heard my question. If we take Kukuchi out of the equation.
00:15:06
Speaker
What is like your your biggest under the radar move that you think was really big this year for the Astros and Dana Brown? That's a really good question. So I think Caritini is the obvious pick.
00:15:23
Speaker
um
00:15:27
Speaker
ah We dropped it. It dropped again. I'm going to blame it on New York. um but no ah He was saying Caratini. That's an interesting pick.
00:15:41
Speaker
um
00:15:44
Speaker
I mean, it's a great pick. Yeah, we can hear you. We got you now. I can't. But no, that's, that's I mean, Caratini is a good pick. And I think, um I don't, you know, when we signed him, right, you and I wondered if maybe there was a chance that this is a guy who could be playing more than one position, right? I remember in our off-season discussions, we had looked up, hey, he's played some left field, he's played some first base. Could this be a guy who, if Abreu does not rebound the way that we thought he would, could he play some first base? Now, it took a little bit longer than we thought it would to get him there, but
00:16:23
Speaker
Down the stretch, its or at least in the playoffs, Scott, it seems to me like we're going to see Karatini at first and Diaz behind the dish. And I wouldn't be surprised if Salazar is on the roster as a third catcher. Yeah. All right. let's As we continue just to just soak in the glory here, Scott, of of what is another AO West championship, um you know let's start to look forward to this postseason rotation, right?
Astros' Postseason Rotation Strategies
00:16:55
Speaker
You obviously, you know, you're going to go from and Hunter Brown, uh, in that first series. Do you try and close it out with Rene Blanco, who has just been wonderful this year, maybe a little bit tired down the stretch, or do you go Kukuchi in game three and plan to start a potential, uh, division series with Rene Blanco? Daniel chip in here. Chime in. You're not getting them. No.
00:17:21
Speaker
Oh, so I got him. He's okay. All right. So for me, uh, if you're asking me, um, obviously with tonight's game, uh, today's a this afternoon's game, I beg your pardon, I like Kukuchi, you know, starting any game that you can get the the the ball in his hands. Now we can hope that maybe we close out a wildcard series in two games, you know, and then they have Kukuchi start a game one, but yeah, in that scenario that you're talking about, I'd be okay with Blanco starting a game one because, you know, he's out of all the pictures. I think he's been the most consistent throughout the season. Yeah, I would agree with you if he had a little bit of ah of a bumpy patch, uh, maybe late June, early August, but seems to have settled down here a little bit. Uh, but again, the thing that I think
00:18:19
Speaker
a lot of Astros fans don't think about is Hunter Brown's probably thrown the most innings he's ever thrown. but now blanco's definitely thrown the most innings he's ever thrown aon getty's throne the most inyies of throne It's a lot of innings right now. Yeah, i am definitely. And it's going to be interesting what the shape of the bullpen's going to be. you know I think the two are allowed up to 13 pitchers.
00:18:48
Speaker
in the postseason roster, but you're going to see sometimes we might be as some teams have run it. I think the raise last year ran 11 pitchers and 15 position players on that roster. So it's going to be interesting what the breakdown is going to be because you you're only going to have three starting pitchers. So, you know, how many relievers do you really want to have on your roster? Well, I agree with you. It's going to, you're going to have to load that bullpen up.
00:19:17
Speaker
But here's where you can get a little, you know, playful or cheeky with how you use the bullpen, right? Like maybe you you pull Aaron Getty into the bullpen, uh, compost season time, knowing you can get two innings out of them, right? if If you have five innings of, of good baseball from Kukuchi and you want two innings to bridge it to, you know, a brand new and hater, let's, let's go to Aaron Getty. Cause we've used.
00:19:45
Speaker
These guys already a bunch right or you know, but if you start counting it down right like you're gonna have Abray you you're gonna have Presley you're gonna have a hater You got to think Hector Nares is gonna be in there um Taylor Scott obviously as I feel like has earned his playoff roster spot with his season um Probably king for the lefty or would you take Ferguson one of those? I think only one of those two get it Um, yeah. Do you bring or or do you, do you bring, uh, a starter or, you know, where do you, I think that's where the, the line has to change a little. We have to start looking at it. I think a preliminary hat tip, uh, I'm not going to give them the hat tip, you know, as far as, you know, for the full week, but I don't know if you saw Justin Verlander's comments. Which, which one more, he said he came back a little bit early because he wanted to compete.
00:20:43
Speaker
Well, that and the fact that he basically is giving the organization an out if they don't want to put them on the postseason roster. And to me, that I give you a hat tip for that because I think that's the obvious play, but he could have played the veteran. I'm a Hall of Famer. You're going to give me my spot. And he could have made things really uncomfortable for Joe Espada and Dana Brown. Absolutely. It could have been.
00:21:09
Speaker
It could have been a bad situation, but I think, you know, even watching um the post-game stuff last night, Julia and JV had a nice moment together where she kind of asked them, you know, your work with these young pitchers, is this your legacy, right? Like, are you knowing that JV's time isn't is it much longer and you have all this knowledge and it's time to pass it out pass it down?
00:21:36
Speaker
And you can see him tear up a little bit. You can see him Take that moment in and probably realize he's not gonna be on that playoff roster, but he's gonna be Every bit of mentor he's gonna be there to help Hunter Brown get through what he needs to get through during a start He's gonna be there to help Spencer a and get a preparer And I think that's what's so valuable about a guy like Justin Verlander is He's a team player, right? Like you look back to the 2017 World Series in that 18, or that it might have been 18, whichever the long game that we end up winning, right? Who wasn't who came back out of the dugout?
00:22:13
Speaker
to rally everybody and said, let's fucking go. You're going to go win this game right here. It was Justin Verlander, right? So you know at the end of the day, this guy has always been someone who is a great clubhouse presence, who looks to be a great teammate. And I think as Astros fans, we've just we've been blessed to be able to take in this part of his career, right? Because up until this season, you know JV Day was a thing. And like you just felt like you had a chance to win every single game that he pitched.
00:22:43
Speaker
Yeah. And I really, um, I wonder if he makes the postseason roster on the pen, because if you, if you think of it the terms of like, we could have 13 pitchers, that's three starting pitchers. So that leaves you at 10 bullpen spots. So even if you carried this whole bullpen, this entire bullpen, which I don't think you would, you would still add two, so you know, current members from your five man rotation.
00:23:13
Speaker
as a part of that bullpen. Yeah. No I I like the idea of having some starters in there because again when you look back to the twenty seventeen team you know it was Brad Peacock coming out of the bullpen in clutch moments to save the day. It was Lance McCullers with twenty you know twenty three straight twelve six bangers to close out the New York Yankees and in game seven it was Charlie Morton coming out of the bullpen to to make some clutch appearances right. So I I have no issues with with having some starters in the bullpen. I just worry with a guy like Justin Verlander, who has been a creature of habit for his entire career, how does he react to being thrown down into the bullpen instead of having 24 hours to prepare for, to pitch? You got, you know, five minutes. Yeah, that's true. um So it looks like, do we have Daniel back? Can you see him? No. Okay. Unfortunately, no.
00:24:12
Speaker
ah So, if you're looking at, you're filling out your bench, right? How many guys do you want on your bench? So if we rattle them off, like you're gonna have Diaz and Caratini, do you want Sal Lazar? If you're gonna have Caratini playing first base every day, then yeah. Okay, so if we assume that, you know, Dubon is the primary sub, who are who else, are And who else do we want on that bench?
00:24:45
Speaker
Well, somehow, you know, Greg Kessinger is going to find his way out of that playoff roster. because i know but he's He's always there, Scott. He's always there. No, but I mean, you go around, like you know, I heard Chas may be, Chas may be healthy, I've heard. I don't understand the point of having Chas, right? Like realistically, you've got five spots, right? Or after you've got Yeah, five backup spots um You know, so in general you've got 12 Is it 25 or 26 for the playoff process? Okay, this twenty you've got 13 13 position players spots, you know Bregman one I'll tube a to Tucker three Singleton for Alvarez five Myers six Dubon seven
00:25:38
Speaker
and Pena a Diaz caratini 9 and 10 Salazar's 11, right? Right now I have to have Jason Hayward at this point I think that is a must the way he's swinging the stick on top of his leadership on top of his positional versatility That leaves you one baseball player um And I feel like Mauricio do bond is going to get a large share of starts either in left field or in center field for Jake Myers of if he's not playing well. So probably I'm thinking another infielder, right? Like a guy who's got some positional versatility, you know, it's going to be either Kessinger or Whitcomb. And based on the fact that Shay Whitcomb made three errors today, I think it's going to be Kessinger for a late inning defensive substitution. You know pay you know that Joe Spada likes to
00:26:32
Speaker
pinch hit a lot in late innings and that leaves you needing some defensive substitutions. Cashinger can play every position on the infield diamond and could probably play a corner outfield spot in the ninth inning if you needed them to. Yeah, I think the big debate and I think that when I was there mentioning on the radio this this afternoon is I think you really have eight positions pretty well tied up. I think first base, you're going to see a kind of an ah unholy platoon between Caratini and Singleton.
00:27:01
Speaker
And so the big question mark is going to be center field. And so, you know, do you want Dubon out there or do you want Myers? You know, earlier in the year, I would have said Myers is definitely the guy, but he hadn't been hidden well lately and Dubon has kind of been picking things up. So, you know, who would you rather have out in center? I mean,
00:27:26
Speaker
This is all with the caveat of Yordon Alvarez is healthy and and able to play, right? Because then at that point you can DH Yordon, you can play Jason Hayward in left field, you could start Mauricio Dubon in center field, and then you can use Jake Myers sort of as the Jake Moriznik type player to sub in late in the game as a defensive substitution and and you'll go to your full maximum defensive alignment and in the outfield. but I don't know man. Jake Myers has been has been struggle busting it for I don't know two and a half months at this point the batting average below 235 and it's been headed down for quite some time. The O.P.S. is what in the five hundreds in the last post all star break not exactly productive major league at bats you know
00:28:14
Speaker
Well, he plays great defense. But in the playoffs, I need somebody who can find their way on base. And the one thing that Mauricio Duban does better than almost anybody, besides maybe Jose Altuve in this lineup, is just flip the ball into right field with two strikes. Like Mauricio Duban can stick the bat out there, make contact, and just find a way to force one into right field. And Jake Myers just does not have that in his game right now. Yeah, he's down to about a 220 average. One of the things interesting is that they said his OPS plus against left-handed pitching is 113. His OPS plus against right-handed pitching is like 70 something. So Dubon is a better player against right-handers. And so I think you'll probably see that kind of break down. Plus, you know, they kind of mentioned the fact that you got to look at who's on your, who's on the hill for your team. Fromber is a ground ball pitcher. um You know, Kukuchi is more of a fly ball guy. Blanco is more of a fly ball guy. Brown's more ground ball.
00:29:14
Speaker
so Do you really need a gold glove quality center fielder? When from her Valdez is pitching, you know, I wouldn't think so good well Especially I mean I gotta to assume if we get your non-healthy He's DH in the whole way through right? We are not gonna be in a situation where you're playing left field with this with this nice with this knee going on so in that case you're not a ah You know because for a while but the the the habit was to play your Don and left when Fromber was pitching because of how many ground balls he gets so in that situation I want maybe someone who can cover a little bit more ground and in center field because Fromber is the guy in left I mean your dogs the guy in left but if we're I mean again, we're hopeful that it's a he can D age every single day and it will be good with that and
00:30:01
Speaker
then I'm probably playing Jason Hayward or Mauricio Dubon in left, and then Myers is going to be playing center. If I'm playing Hayward in left, I'm fine playing Mauricio Dubon in center, because Hayward's got fantastic range too. Kyle Tucker on the other side of you has great range. So between those three players, you're pretty well covered. OK, so last last question before we get ah we switch gears, I have a feeling.
00:30:28
Speaker
oh There's like about three teams right there bunched up in the standings with three games left to play after tonight.
Speculating Astros' Wild Card Opponents
00:30:39
Speaker
Who do you want in that wild card series?
00:30:44
Speaker
I can tell you who I don't want is the Tigers, right? um On top of the fact that they are the hottest team on the planet right now and and a minor hat tip to AJ Hinch for getting that team to where they are right now. You know, if they win, if they win out against the worst team, if they went out, then they will be have been playing the worst team to ever play the game.
00:31:08
Speaker
they will be in the playoffs, right? And they will be um either the two or three seed, depending on how the Royals and and twins play out. I don't want that team. Scuball is a legitimate Cy Young candidate, and he shut us down one time already. Do you want to possibly start in a 1-0 hole um what in that scenario? However, he pitched today.
00:31:32
Speaker
So if the Tigers need him to get into the playoffs, they will pitch him on Sunday and he'll be unavailable for the playoffs. In that scenario, I'll take the Tigers. Otherwise, I probably want the twins. They've been. Not great, right? Like they've been knocked out of playoffs back in the playoffs here. I will see what happens with them, but I feel like they're the most vulnerable. The benefit is this series will be in Minute Maid Park, right?
00:32:01
Speaker
So take that for what it is. But you know I don't want the Royals. They've been a good baseball team all year through. I don't know. And the Royals have been kind of nose-diving as well. So I wouldn't mind that the team that I don't want in addition to the Tigers is the Mariners, if they were able to flip in somehow. Because we just can't seem to hit them. Yeah, I don't want the Mariners either.
00:32:27
Speaker
so and I'm with you on that one. And again, three, I would go twins as well. This, this Astros playoff run really just this lineup with Yordan versus without is completely different, right? So let's, let's hope to everything that is holy on the baseball gods altar of goodness that, uh, Yordan Alvarez can at least just give us four swings of the bat, a game, right? Like I, you can take two pitches and swing once. I just need you to be able to give me four swings a game.
00:32:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. You can, you can Kirk Gibson it around the basis. I'm going to go a Roy Hobbs kind of, you know, there goes Roy Hobbs. Best that ever was. All right, Scott. Well, speaking of something that was not the best that ever was, um, the Houston Texans look like shit on Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings.
Texans' Performance Analysis Against Vikings
00:33:21
Speaker
We had talked previously about, um,
00:33:27
Speaker
you know, Sam Donald's not an athlete. We don't have to worry about Sam Donald beating us on scrambles. Well, you know, it's Sam Donald. What's going on? Well, fuck, man. Sam Donald threw some dimes on Sunday. Sam Donald made our secondary look absolutely terrible. And Sam Donald diced us like a tong in San Francisco in the 1870s. Well, you know, actually looking at I do look at the numbers every week.
00:33:56
Speaker
They gained less than 300 yards total offense. I'm going to sit here and I'm going to try to tell you with a straight face to our defense to not play that badly. I don't think it played badly, but I think anytime you need to stop or you need a big play and get it. They made plays, but I don't think he made plays with his legs.
00:34:17
Speaker
i Mean he was you know he was up he picked up a big first down with his legs at one point There's a third down a third down where you could have gone off the field and say picks up a big first down You know it was the the first initial turnover Was a was a big killer right the CJ pick off the off the deflection gave them gate great field position ah then they had short they had a short field again for off the fumble for their second and Um, for their second touchdown, I mean, they they had great field position, but. You know, I looked at, I saw some statistics where in the first half, they, they played off coverage on.
00:34:58
Speaker
Jefferson and he just feasted on them and in the second half they pressed and he gets nothing now, obviously I get it He jammed his hand all that other stuff. But why are we not pressing? Why are we giving? Someone who is probably the best receiver in the league just a free fucking release and let him just get into his route What are we doing? Well, my question is and and I think we learned this last year. I hoped I thought we had and And you just take whoever their number one receiving threat is and you put Derek Stingley on them and say like, he's your guy. Take him. And you should win that battle more often than not. Now, Jefferson, I thought if you had put Stingley on Jefferson one-on-one and you had pressed coverage, Jefferson is going to get you once or twice because he's the, he's the highest paid receiver in football, or what at least was until CD lamb got his ridiculous contract. But.
00:35:53
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. Of course, now we got the the elephant in the room or the elephant at left tackle. Mr. $28 million dollar man. Six pildes, Tim. Six? What the hell? I have a theory on that, Scott. And again, this is full on, unsupported by facts, Tim theory.
00:36:21
Speaker
i think back i I think that the referees were told before the game, keep an eye on 78, he lines up in a bad position, flag it every time. I think they were told to make an example. Coming into this year, we were told that illegal formations would be a focal point for officiating. We saw it in week one. They flagged the same Tackle over and over again for the Ravens like no matter what he did He couldn't like he was lined up in a bad spot No matter where he lined up ah the TV would show he's lined up here on this one where he got flagged He's lined up further up on the next one. He still gets flagged Same shit for tonsil There are plays where he's not flagged that he's lined up further back and there's plays where he are is flagged There are plays where he's flagged where he is in line perfectly where he's supposed to be and he's still got a flat I'm not gonna discount the false starts false are totally on him
00:37:14
Speaker
But at some point, the illegal formation bullshit, the NFL is fucking with the game. The NFL is circling guys, telling refs, watch this guy flag it every time. I don't care how many times kill the drive if you have to. And to me, that's what it looked like. If I'm wrong.
00:37:34
Speaker
OK, but you will literally have to show me evidence that I am wrong for me to not believe that Roger Goodell or part of someone one in the head office isn't reaching out to the head officiating. And and when the assignments come out, say, watch this guy flag it every time. Watch this guy. This guy does this lines up offsides all the time. Flag it. I hate to both sides this thing, but I'm going to play um I'm going to play both sides. I'm going to play in your argument here. The legal formation is the stupidest fucking rule that there ever was.
00:38:04
Speaker
If I want to align 10 guys behind my center, that would be incredibly stupid, but I should be able to do it. You know, and now I could see like a a fake handoff to eight different guys. Then you finally give it to the 10th guy. You know, I would love to see what would happen in a play, but no, seriously. However, however, what position did you ever play a football and in?
00:38:28
Speaker
in junior high. I did. at Seventh grade, I was on both sides of the ball as a starter. And then eighth grade, first day of pads, I ruptured my spleen and was told you can't play football any anymore. Well, I had the same thing in eighth grade, except mine was a collarbone. But I was a wide receiver in seventh grade. kind You know what I did every time I ran out to my position? Asked if you were on sides. That's right. Ask the official, am I OK?
00:38:59
Speaker
You know, how hard is that? And we're we're teaching seventh graders to do that. And so to me, the the problem I have with Tunsel is, okay, I'll buy out, I'll buy your explanation that the NFL is looking for certain guys. And and and that's probably true. However, do you know who he blames whenever he's talking about false starts? Yeah, everybody but himself. I did see that. He's blaming the damn center.
00:39:29
Speaker
And it's like, dina it and Seth Payne, a former Texan, defensive tackle, Seth Payne says, you know what they would do to you if you were a rookie and you did that? They'd give you the silent treatment for the whole week. He says, you know, and you'd have no idea how awkward it is to go into meetings all week long and have nobody talk to you. But you can't do that to Tussle because he's the $28 million dollars man. Yeah.
00:39:56
Speaker
I mean, it's frustrating, right? Because at the end of the day, he does keep typically your best pass rusher off CJ Stroud's ass, right? Like he does keep him clean. However, I could think of like three different penalties last week that killed drives. Like big first, literally one of the first plays of the game, CJ Stroud hits Nico Collins on a big in route.
00:40:20
Speaker
Should have been a first down instead. It's a legal formation and in the next place cj's passes tipped into interception So you wiped out a big first down and instead you're first and deep and it passes intercept it now on the other side of things I saw another interesting stat Scott so far this season cj sprout has seen the zone coverage 87 percent of the time The stats show he's taking more sacks with his own coverage. The ball's not coming out as fast as Are you a little bit worried um with what you've seen so far as as this is a copycat league and teams have had some success slowing down these Texans weapons utilizing more of a zone coverage scheme than and less man? I'm worried more about the line that I'm about strong proud because to me, I think the big thing with this team is look what happened in week one. We scored 29 points should have scored more.
00:41:17
Speaker
Why did we have such a great week in week one, Tim? Because you ran the ball, kept them off balance, allowed you to do some different things. And it gave the offensive line the tenacity they needed from run blocking to be able to be successful in pass blocking. Absolutely. And you know when you gain over 200 yards on the ground, the defense has got to account for the run. You got to put an extra man in the box, which makes it easier to find those wide receivers and and Dalton Schultz.
00:41:46
Speaker
you know, behind that net front group. Whenever you're only gaining 30 or 40 yards on the ground every game, the defense doesn't have to respect the run. They could put an extra guy in the box. They can rush five. They can keep six in coverage because what the hell, you're not going to run the ball on us. So, you know, you, you've got five down linemen. Those five down linemen can't beat our five guys in the box. So I'm just going to rush five guys.
00:42:14
Speaker
I'm going to keep six, you know, keep a ah dime coverage. And then, you know, sit there and say, OK, fine. See if you can find your three wide receivers with our six guys in coverage. Yeah, that's it's definitely not good right now when.
00:42:31
Speaker
CJ's having to work through all those progressions and he can't see at the line of scrimmage that tanks in a mismatch This guy's in a mismatch and hit him within two or three seconds, right? Like he's having to work first second third fourth fifth progression on damn near every single dropback because They they are able to play 60 as you said. So yeah, it's a It's a little bit concerning from that side of things hopefully You know getting maybe pierce back this week helps a bit So you have just a different type of back to pair with acres, right? Like acres is more of a shifty guy. Hopefully pierce can Can give you a little something different but the the difference of mixing being there and not being there, you know This is why we went out and got this guy. Um
00:43:14
Speaker
and And it's just blatantly obvious when he's there versus what he's not So let's look ah look forward to as we talk about, you know guys who will be back Let's look at the the matchup first the Jags because I don't know if you know this or not Scott There's actually a rivalry in Jaguars fans minds between the Texans and Jags like they think that we're rivals I don't ever think about the Jags. Do you?
00:43:39
Speaker
No, and I asked their beat reporter today, you know, and and the part article will come out on on Friday. I have to definitely endorse his pick. He said the Titans are the team that they like beating the most. So I'd like to say I'm i'm going to second that notion and say, you know, you sir are right on the money. I there that's a team in disarray, but you know, that scares the shit out of me. I mean, if they go all in four, that season is virtually done.
00:44:10
Speaker
And that coaching staff is dead man walking. So you got to think they're going to come this Sunday with everything but the kitchen sink and probably the kitchen sink as well to try and sell out and win this game. That's going to be a desperate ball club. I think you and I both agree, you know, it's going to be all hands on deck for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Uh, every report coming out of, uh, the Monday night game was that shotgun was just more living than he's ever been at any point in the owner. He felt like his team was just embarrassed on national TV in front of everyone. He just extended sunshine, uh, to a big fat contract and he looks absolutely terrible right now. So I gotta think we get the Jags best shot, but
00:45:02
Speaker
I also think if the Texans and Jags both line up and play their best football, the Texans are a better football team than the Jags. Oh, yeah. and And I think that that's the the one positive that can come out of the Vikings loss is that I think the Texans are coming in with the right mindset. Because I think if they had somehow managed to beat the Vikings, you know, with another Gee-Wiz, we made a lot of mistakes, but we found a way to win kind of victory like we had against the Bears and Colts that we could have been, you know, fodder for, you know, just being tripped up by a team that's desperate. But right now we're kind of a desperate football team, not as desperate as Jags, but you lose this game, you're two and two and all of a sudden you're like, Oh geez, I don't know. You know, and I, so I think you're going to get a better effort from the Texans, but
00:45:57
Speaker
it still worries me because, you know, this is, you know, desperate football teams can do some crazy things. No, I couldn't agree with you more. I think um we're going to see the playbook wide open, right? Whatever Philly special they run in Jags, right? The Jacksonville special or whatever trick plays that Doug Peterson has up his sleeve, you got to think they get dialed up. And you got to think that this is going to be a Texans team that might Overpursue based on they're gonna be amped up. They're gonna be Looking to force turnovers and I think early Jacksonville is gonna try and take some sort of big deep punch early. I really do um Just try to get some momentum on their side early in this football game and and and just try and do something to To change the way their seasons going right? They've had it taken to them pretty much every game and so
00:46:53
Speaker
Um, I think they, they come out guns, blaze it. I don't think they're going to lay back, run the football, see what the defense gives them. i I think they're going to come out slinging the ball. Yeah. And, ah and defensively, I don't know what they're going to do because, you know, five straight drives into the touchdown. I mean, the bills literally stopped scoring because they didn't need to score anymore.
00:47:14
Speaker
I mean, the Jax defense didn't literally didn't stop anybody. I know they're missing, I think, Kaleis Campbell and and one other defensive player on that team. So that's going to be an interesting you know look as well. you know Can the Texans exploit some of the same things that the Bills did? Yeah, absolutely. ken Can they take advantage? Can this maybe be the big first game that we've been waiting for for CJ Stroud right this season?
00:47:42
Speaker
we've We've seen him do some good things. We've seen him make plays in the big moment, but we haven't seen that big breakout game yet. He hasn't thrown for 300 yards yet. Um, we'll see, right? Let's hopefully let's just keep him clean. Let's keep like defensive players from lighting up our quarterback on unlimited amount of times. I'd be happy with that as a star. If, if you go a whole game and don't give up a sack, I got to think you're at a great position to win that game. Yeah, absolutely.
00:48:11
Speaker
All right, Scott, I think that sounds about good for this week. Let's take a brief moment to give away some awards. It's that time of year. Baseball season's wrapping up. Voters are thinking, which way should I go? And you and I, as the voters of these awards, every week we have tough decisions to make. And I think we want to clarify a little bit as this show grows and moves which directions we're going to take these awards.
Show Awards Clarification: Horse's Ass vs. Scumbag
00:48:42
Speaker
Okay. So just to clarify, this, the the horse's ass award is going to be a sports related award. The scumbag of the week award will be specifically rated for people in the non-sports arena. However, they may be athletes doing things that are not in the non-sports world. Like you'll see this week. All right, Scott horse's ass of the week. Take it away.
00:49:09
Speaker
All right, I'm going to go with the TCU coaching staff. Because I don't know how much you know about, you know, TCU athletics, Tom. I know one horse's ass is there. Yeah, there's what yeah there's one horse ass. But, you know, you have SMU as our biggest rival. And SMU traditionally has been kind of like Jacksonville to the Texans, where, you know, we call them our crosstown whipping boy.
00:49:39
Speaker
because SMU has been the crosstown whipping boy. So what happened this weekend, Tim? On the heels of blowing a 28-7 lead to central Florida, TCU goes into enemy territory and loses 66-42. 66-42. Now, I'm okay as a TCU fan.
Criticism of TCU and Pirates' Player Management
00:50:05
Speaker
I could sit there and I could say, you know what?
00:50:08
Speaker
Every now and then you're going to lose a football game. But there is absolutely zero excuse for getting your doors blown off. And then there's going to be fans like, oh, and Sonny got ejected. It was a bad referee. No, you don't lose by 24 points. And that's with a couple of late touchdowns to get you the 24 points. You don't lose by that many by saying, oh, the referee screwed us. No, no, you fucking lost.
00:50:37
Speaker
You got blown out. That's what happened. Now. At the Dana Holgerson special, a couple of touchdowns late to make it look closer than it really was. Yeah, I guess he's on our staff now. Oh, I know. And paying dividends there on defense, obviously. ah No, but the secondary horse's ass goes to the TCU fans, because I'm in a couple of TCU fan communities, as I'm sure you're you know, plugged into the U of H scene, you know, at least to what the fans are saying, Tim. And a lot of these fans are calling for Sonny to be fired after four games. It's like, here's a guy that less than two years ago was in the national championship game. Now, Gary Patterson's recruits absolutely say what you want to say, but can we give this guy a full season?
00:51:34
Speaker
You know, one more full season this year before we start calling for his head, maybe let's not fire him until January. Can we say that? Maybe give him an opportunity to get this team bowl eligible to see if he can turn things around. Now I will say you're going to be on notice after these two losses. um I'm kind of looking at you with the side eye, but TCU coaches,
00:51:59
Speaker
So that includes, you know, offensive and defensive coordinators as well. Dana Holgerson, who's, uh, I think the, uh, God, what do they call those people? Offensive analysts, isn't he? Yeah. He's like a defensive analyst, I think. He's an offensive coach. There's no way he's a defensive analyst. Well, they brought in another day, but I didn't tie Graham, I think to be like an offense. So one of those is offensive analysts. One of those is defensive analysts. It doesn't matter. They both sucked. So.
00:52:28
Speaker
you know, the the entire coaching staff, you're getting the horse's ass from me. I think it's a great choice. I love getting mad at your alma mater because Diana Hogerson is a bum. So I think he was selected multiple times on the previous show. um My choice this week is the Pittsburgh Pirates.
00:52:56
Speaker
They DFA'd Rowdy tell us this week as he was four at bats shy of a $200,000 bonus for played a you know number of at bats for the season. He had a five games left to play. And instead of just even like putting him on the bench and not playing him because too many people would have asked, is this because he's got you know this thing in his contract? They just caught his ass. And I don't know how you are ever going to expect to attract high level major league talent to your roster when this is how you treat guys. When this is how you treat probably one of the better players on your roster this season and you decided just to cut them
00:53:42
Speaker
Cut him at a time where he can't be picked up by another team to be even part of their playoff run You've essentially just ended his season early all to save yourself Two hundred thousand dollars. How fucking cheap are you and what a horse's ass of a move? Yeah, I have to say now Paul Skeens He's got to be looking at that organization with a side eye You know because he's he's he's counting down that you know the days until I mean it's like a It's like Garrett Cole. I mean, Garrett Cole, you could tell, you know, when he was in Pittsburgh, he was just like, you know, how many more years until I get out of here? Is it, was it two, three? Damn it. And that's a team that unfortunately their general manager, Ben Sherrington has actually been starting to develop a little bit of talent to where they could be competitive.
00:54:38
Speaker
I mean, in addition to schemes, you got O'Neill Cruz, looks like a really good, nice young player. You got Brian Reynolds, you know, playing some good baseball. Joey Bart, they got from the San Francisco Giants. He's playing, you know, he's playing good behind the dish. So I just don't get it. I mean, I've seen ah quite a few pundits say like, they think the Pirates are the surprise team for 2025. Not when you're making moves like this.
00:55:06
Speaker
Because you're going to have to find somebody to play first base. Who do you want to bring into him? Yeah. It's not going to be Teles. I would never go. Could you imagine if they tried to bring him back next year? Yeah. Oh my god. That'd be the fastest hang up you've ever seen in your entire life, man. It is. It's insane to think that you could still opt. I mean, I understand.
00:55:32
Speaker
This is America, right? Like the moment that you want to try and manipulate your stock price, you lay off 20,000 people. If you're a fortune 500 company, that's how we operate. That's to the American way. It's just crazy that it's now made its way to major league baseball. Yeah. And for $200,000, which what is you know probably a hundred plus million dollar operation. Yeah, absolutely.
00:55:55
Speaker
and Insane, right? Like you should be happy that this guy reached that mark because it means he played well enough to get those AVs. But at the end of the day, that's not how it worked out. All right Scott, I think it's time to tip a cap. Some great things have happened this week. um Who do you have in mind for your hat tip of the week? Well, my hat tip of the week goes to Mr. Hayward.
00:56:19
Speaker
The you know recent pickup the Astros hits two key home runs in the Seattle Mariners series including the go-ahead home run that That ended up being the the quote-unquote game-winning hit I don't know if you ever You know saw on the baseball cards back in the day Tim where they had that as a stat, you know game-winning RBIs Did you ever see those? No, that wasn't really in my time of of buying cards It was more just the the classic batting average home run doubles, you know RBIs hits That was the the classic game-winning RBI. Now, reportedly, Dana Brown went to Hayward behind the scenes and told them, hey, we need you to step up because we're going to be without your dawn for a while. And so what does he do? And you referenced it earlier in the show, makes a great catch that saves runs, and then comes back and hits a two-run dinger. Now, everybody needs to understand who
00:57:19
Speaker
Hayward is. Number one, on my Hall of Fame index, he's a top 50 right fielder of all time. I don't know if that surprises you, Tim. It actually does, very much so. Because he is the second best defender in right field in Major League history, according to most of the metrics. Offensively, he's always been a guy that you, you know, but even back when he was with Atlanta and definitely in Chicago,
00:57:47
Speaker
He was a guy like, man, this guy should be doing more than what he's doing. Yeah. And he never did, but I always say you got to appreciate a guy for who he is. And for who he is, he's perfect for Houston. He's a guy that's going to hit six, seventh, eighth in the order. So you're not counting on him to be the straw that stirs the drink. You're counting on him to make some key defensive plays here and there. You're counting on him.
00:58:16
Speaker
to occasionally get a big hit. And I, you know, for one, wouldn't mind to see him back in left field next year, depending on the price tag. Because I don't know if you're going to want to count on Chas McCormick making a comeback next year to the Chas McCormick that he was. But if you are a smart GM, maybe you're going to give McCormick the opportunity, but you're certainly not going to count on it.
00:58:42
Speaker
So he's a guy that since he can play right and left, I don't know if he's a center fielder anymore. He has played center field in his youth, but as a guy is even at at worst a fourth outfielder. I'd love to see him back in Houston uniform. I think he's been just what the doctor ordered.
00:59:01
Speaker
um I think you're right. He's a guy that when he came up He was you know, we're thinking this guy's the next Griffey, right because he's athletic he can hit he can run He can he's a he's a tools II guy. He literally has all five tools He's had seasons where he's put all together and he's had other seasons where he hasn't but I think he's a he's a guy who's streaky right when he gets hot he stays hot and It sticks with him. So he's been a different player since he came to Houston. I Think he he like many guys who when they get here they enjoy being here um
00:59:32
Speaker
And and I love it and and I'm just excited and I hope he gets to Add a second ring to his his collection right because that means he would have done it here with us um I'm gonna give my hat tip this week to Dana Brown um Scott I know you didn't watch a lot of the postgame interviews last night But one of the things that that stood out to me in the interview with Dana Brown is he said like this year he got the control there wasn't a Any second guessing, there wasn't Jim Cray interfering. He had the reins.
Dana Brown's Positive Impact as Astros' GM
01:00:05
Speaker
So when you actually sit there and look at the totality of the moves that Dana Brown made this season, and if we're going to take them all at, these were Dana Brown's moves. You signed Caratini. Good move. You signed Josh Hader. Good move. You DFA'd Jose Abreu. Good move. You DFA'd Rafael Montero. Good move.
01:00:30
Speaker
You signed Ben Campbell. Good move. You signed Jason Heywood. Good move. You traded for Kukuchi. Good move. You bring in a guy like Ortt. Good move. You brought in Ferguson. Good move. So at the end of the day, if this truly is the first season that Dana Brown had had full control of everything, Guy made nothing but good moves. So I have to tip my cap to that.
01:00:59
Speaker
Yeah, and I think, unfortunately, I want to apologize to our guest, Daniel May. We had some technical difficulties where we had to drop him. We'll see if we can get him back at a future time. Because he was just starting to talk about some of the better moves whenever he dropped off the call. I want to say a minor hat tip to Jim Crane for giving Dana Brown that control, for relinquishing, taking the control away from the Reggie Jackson, Jeff Bagwell, you know ah you may call them a triumvirate if you're going to include Jim Crane in that. um you mentioned you did You mentioned Taylor Scott earlier in the episode. Another good move. Brian King, good move. And one of the things I think was, and what Dana Brown mentioned when he got hired and when they were having the opening press conferences, he talked about
01:02:00
Speaker
a marriage of analytics and traditional scouting. And I think this season has been an absolute testament to the marriage between analytics and and professional scouting. I mean, look what we got with Kukuchi. They went out there, they did the scouting, they looked at this guy, they looked at his stuff and they said, we can fix this guy. We can fix this guy quickly. So he comes into Houston and he has an ERA under three after sporting an ERA in Toronto of nearly five. So not only does it make your coaches look good, it makes the Blue Jays coaches look kind of shitty if you ask me. ah but you know One of the ones I forgot to mention too, Hector Neris, a guy who has not been great in Chicago, comes back home and even as he said,
01:02:50
Speaker
ah and In his interview last night when he got DFA by the Cubs He told his agent if the Astros called that's the only team I want to go to if the Astros and anybody else called Tell them no, I'm going back home to Houston and he said when he got here He said I felt like home. They said what are your thoughts on the Astros fans? He goes they love me, baby They love me here in Houston and you know, we do love them here in Houston Yeah, and and the thing was is if you look at his numbers, I think his numbers here approximated his numbers in Chicago and But he had. What was that game or yeah that extra inning game was the Padres game? Yeah, well, I told you, we just need a little in Houston. Hector Nares had has this weird ability to get himself into and then wiggle out of trouble. He didn't have he he got himself into trouble in Chicago. He just couldn't quite wiggle out of it the way he does here. There's something about the water in Houston where Hector Nares becomes a fucking magician, man. Caleb Ferguson.
01:03:50
Speaker
hasn't been perfect, but he was better in Houston than he was in New York. He's usable. Yeah, he's usable. I mean, he's going to be a copy of a guide. You're going to have your on your postseason roster. You know, you're going to have three lefties so you can throw a lefty at him at any point in time. Um, and that isn't even counting. That's assuming Kukuchi's the starter. So, I mean, this is a guy and, and to me, this is where I have to include Jim Crane in this. Jim Crane,
01:04:20
Speaker
had to have signed off on saying goodbye to Abreu and Montero. Had to have done it. That's too much money for the GM to just sit there and say, I'm going to do this unilaterally. Now GM has got to go up there and it's got to be a man's got to sit there and say, this is what we have to do to to for this team to move forward. And thank God the owner said, do it. Yeah.
01:04:43
Speaker
Cause you know what, as, as useful as it was to get a break you off this lineup or out of this lineup, this, this team really turned around when you stopped giving leads to Hey, to, uh, Rafael Montero late in ball games. Right. Cause that's the moment this team went on a run. I feel like was when Montero was gone. Yes. Things got better with a break you, but this team took off.
01:05:05
Speaker
when Montero was off the roster because Abreu was already gone. And it just felt like all the dead weight was gone. And everybody who was on this team was there because they deserve to be there. And they were playing at a major league level contract be damned. And that goes to Dana Brown for, as you said, having to make that decision, having to take the long walk into Jim Crane's office and say, I need you to light about $35 million dollars on fire right now. Yeah, absolutely.
01:05:32
Speaker
All right, Scott. So from good to bad, we go. um We love tipping caps. But you know what? Sometimes people are assholes. And sometimes it's know up to you and I to call those people
Critique of Ted Cruz's Ad Campaign
01:05:44
Speaker
out. So these people have offended us. And it's time that they be recognized as scumbags of the week. Take it away, Scott. All right. So ah congratulations to JD Vance, who escapes the top spot. Oh, narrowly. Narrowly. But he escapes the top spot.
01:06:00
Speaker
I am going to a frequent road winner, Mr. Raphael Cruz, ah better known known as Ted Cruz, to people in Texas. And I don't know, Tim, have you had a chance to see his recent Synodads? i have No, yeah, I saw them last night, actually. They're fucking terrible. We were talking about this. Yeah, so basically his recent ad campaign, and I'm going to go on alum.
01:06:30
Speaker
Give me a few minutes here, Tim. Because, number one, his basic thing is is that he brings in voiceover guy. And voice and as is actually voiceover woman, I think, in this case. And voiceover woman tells us, well, Cullinaw Redd should notice the difference between boys and girls. But he doesn't seem to notice the difference between boys and girls. Because the problem in Texas is boys playing girls sports. That's the problem.
01:07:01
Speaker
No, I know, Tim, you go to the grocery store probably at least once a week. The problem isn't your rising grocery bill prices. No, no, that's not the problem. The problem isn't the fact that our energy costs are going up and we're probably going to lose our our access to our energy when we have a freeze this winter because our scumbag of a governor can't seem to you know fix the fix that problem. but no So that's not our problem.
01:07:29
Speaker
Problem isn't like, you know, we're experiencing here in the Barzilla home, the rising cost of college or the rising cost of health care. No, the problem isn't me being scared. of athletes Oh, exactly. Oh, fuck all that trans athletes. Yeah. The problem isn't me being afraid I'm going to get shot by some lunatic in my school. That's not the problem. No problem is girls play playing girls. words All right. So yeah award that's what we need to worry about, Scott. You're safe to be damned. I'm going to I'm going to lay this out here, people. I have been teaching school for, this is my 27th year. That's a long time, Tim. Would you like to care to guess how many students I've run through in 27 years? Zero. No, no, no. How many like, how many students have I seen? How many students have I worked with? years Probably close to like 2,500.
01:08:27
Speaker
I would say probably maybe multiply that by like 10. Okay. Cause you know, we have like 2,500 students in a high school. So, you know, do you know how many, I can count on one hand the number of students I have seen visibly transitioned in 27 years in high school, at the high school level. So how many of those are girls becoming boys?
01:08:57
Speaker
We're not worried about girls becoming boys and playing boy sports. That's not worried about that. We're not worried about girls going in the boys' restrooms. I don't wonder why that's that's the case, Ted. No, we're worried about that one girl that might be, that one boy that might be becoming a girl. You're picturing it in your mind. He was six foot six and he's 220 pounds and he's like,
01:09:27
Speaker
I'm not good enough to build college basketball. so I think henry running a movie Ted Cruz thinks movie Joanna Mann is a documentary. i So here's the thing. Great movie, by the way. Joanna Mann. So here's what I'll say to this. I remember a simpler time, Tim, when conservatives were against excessive regulation.
01:09:54
Speaker
That was the the whole conservative thing. We don't want excessive regulations. But see, what do we have here with modern-day conservatives? We have this where we have a governing body that governs sports in Texas. It's called the University Interscholastic League, the UIL. So when Joanna Mann at 6'6 and 220 wants to play high school volleyball for the girls team,
01:10:19
Speaker
You know what you want a man has to do? You want a man has to sit there and petition the UIL to allow him to play girls volleyball as a girl. That's how these things work. So what does Ted Cruz do? He shows in his commercial in the background, you see a girl getting muscled out of the paint in a basketball game.
01:10:42
Speaker
You see a girl getting spiked in the face in a volleyball game. You don't see who spiked the ball. You don't see who knocked them out of the paint. So we're led to believe, well, that was definitely a Joanna man in his six foot six, mainly frame doing it. I've coached volleyball 10 for five years at the high school level. I coached it in club for two. I watched volleyball for 30 years. I've seen plenty of of girls.
01:11:10
Speaker
Get hit in the face. I had one girl. She was one of my favorite kids at Galveston ball. She was probably about maybe five foot two, but pretty heavy set. I'm not going to guess the weight because I'm not going to be me, but she busted her butt and she got to everything. She got hit in the face. She outweighs both of us, Tim. She got hit in the face and flipped over because she got hit in the face so hard. And you know what she did?
01:11:37
Speaker
She was kind of stumbly wobbly there for a bit, but she stayed in the game and played. Did she get hit by a boy? No, she got hit by a girl. I've watched matches for 30 plus years as a coach and, and, uh, you know, watching my sister's teams and watching my daughter's teams. My daughter had one game where she played against a boy who was nine years old when she was 10. Everybody knew it was a boy.
01:12:06
Speaker
He wasn't wearing a wig. He wasn't wearing a dress. He was wearing a shirt. Let's be honest. My daughter did as well when she was first playing at eight years old. If you if you're a boy and you want to play volleyball, where else are you going to play, Scott? There's no fucking boys league up here in Dallas. It's maybe co-ed. Maybe they will call it that, but you have no other choice. And and I will say, too, I don't know if this is the thing when you were a kid.
01:12:31
Speaker
But when I was a kid, there were at least one or two girls who did not want to play softball. They wanted to play baseball. So they were in Little League with us. And no one cared. They played their hardest, just like everybody else on the team. And no one cared. If they struck out, it wasn't, oh, that boy struck my daughter out. It was, hey, this is a girl who wants to play. And the odds are she's probably one of the better players on the team because she has to be or else you got to talk shit.
01:12:59
Speaker
Literally, I think Ted Cruz would have been better off if he just cut the scene from Meet the Parents where Greg Fokker spikes the ball into that girl's face. I think that would have probably got us pointing across a little bit better than the ambiguity ambiguity that he left it to. Yeah, and so Ted Cruz is a scumbag for many, many, many, many reasons. But this week... But but for this week, there's two main reasons. number one We were, and I was, did this, and I've said this for two weeks in a row, I poked fun at the whole, they're eating the dogs, they're eating the dogs. But real harm is coming to the Asian community. Real harm. And how long is it going to be before you have some jackass that sees a girl who, that jackass, I'm going to say it's going to be a male who thinks it's a boy.
01:13:51
Speaker
brings up his pitch for inside demand to see the birth certificate I demand to see her genitalia genitalia checks they don't want birth certificate and so How long is that gonna be for that happens? It's already started. It's already started. Yeah, the Algerian boxer for instance I mean what happened to her is just absolutely shameful Yeah, he's about to take JK Rowling for some cash but uh But then the other thing, as I've kind of pointed out, is that when you run this commercial ad nauseam as they have during NFL games, what you're telling me is that you think this is the most important issue facing Texans. And that's insulting. That is absolutely insulting. I think he thinks it's the one that he's going to get the most response to, because I think there are so many other things that he would just obviously look like such a hypocrite if he spoke to that this is the one that he's
01:14:49
Speaker
Sadly beat the drum on since day one And he looks like he was ahead of the curve on trans hate because sadly he has been But nope Ted Cruz always a good pick for a scumbag because he is a scumbag I think Ted Cruz might be the reason the scumbag of the week was invented It was him or Marjorie Taylor greed was heavily heavily a part of us choosing to do a scumbag of the week All right, Scott, mine's got a little bit of a sports flair to it.
Brett Favre's Welfare Scandal and Media Critique
01:15:20
Speaker
So back in 2023, it came out due to a fantastic Pulitzer Prize winning article from Anna Wolf. That's Brett Favre and the mississippi governor or the former Mississippi governor, Phil Bryant, um had worked together to defraud welfare in order to funnel money from the welfare department towards the University of Mississippi's volleyball team.
01:15:45
Speaker
um through these proceedings, a lot of things have happened, right? Brett Favre claimed in court the other week that he now has Parkinson's as a way to what I think is possibly try and gain some sympathy. But because of these filings, ah the governor and Brett Favre have actually filed defamation lawsuits against the journalist. And with that now, they are threatening to jail Anna Wolf and her editor, Adam Ganoshu, if they do not give up their sources.
01:16:24
Speaker
And now where it gets scary is the state of Mississippi has no shield law. And for those of you who are not journalists, the shield law protects the journalists from having to give up their sources. So essentially if you're ordered by a court and this is more in a criminal case. So this is where it gets really weird is the fact that they're going to try and jail someone over a civil trial and hold them in contempt of court because they refuse to give up a confidential source. So in this situation, the attorney general, the judge,
01:16:53
Speaker
Phil Bryant and Brett Favre, they're all fucking scumbags. You're a scumbag from stealing money from the poorest people of your state to fund it to funnel it to college athletics? It was $7.7 million. dollars You know who's got plenty of fucking money? Mr. Wrangler to add himself?
01:17:08
Speaker
Brett Favre. He could've very easily wrote a check for 7.7 million dollars. He could've got the whole fucking team sponsored by Wrangler, and done a commercial with him, and then, boom, you got your money that way. Instead, no. He steals from the fucking poorest people in the state. And then when he's caught, instead of, like, fucking, ah, you got me, what what can I do to make it right? The motherfucker doubles down, ensues the person who wrote the article for defamation, and now is trying to get that woman thrown in jail.
01:17:37
Speaker
for doing her job. At what point are journalists just going to give up? We're at a point in Texas where good OBGYNs are just giving up and moving away or or completely leaving the profession and working at something else. We are very, very close to in America, our journalists saying, fuck this, I'm done.
01:17:58
Speaker
Because why would you want to go to jail to like why should you have to go to jail to protect your source? Now this woman is willing to do that and I and i commend her for her and and integrity and her journalistic integrity and her ethics for protecting her sources. But it's absolutely asinine that you can expose that level of government fraud and corruption, and do it well, and when they pull a surprise for that reporting, then be sued for defamation because this guy's butt hurt? Fuck you! You broke the fucking law, you fucking criminal, and now you're trying to get that woman put in jail? Fuck you, Phil Bryant, and fuck you to the highest fucking mountain possible, Brett Favre. You know what that reminds me of, Tim?
01:18:46
Speaker
Uh, do you remember what happened when Ryan Braun got caught with PEDs? Uh, I mean, there was a bit of an uproar, but I feel like it just went away pretty quick. He blamed the courier. He said the courier must have tainted the test. That's right. Or Lance Armstrong, when he got caught, you know, that he played basically the same, I'm going to ruin your life, you know, for, for outing me is and then coming back later, like, oh yeah, I guess I did it.
01:19:17
Speaker
But, you know, by far he was doing it for his daughter, Tim. He was he was bankrolling. I mean, wouldn't what would you what wouldn't you do for Scotty or Sawyer? Fraud. Typically anything that involves federal prison. Sorry, kids. It is National Daughters Day here, Scott. But there is a fucking line and it involves a penitentiary. I went to Alcatraz. That shit's scary. Yeah, when we went to San Francisco,
01:19:46
Speaker
Anne took a picture of it and she just labeled it La Prison on her little picture because she was taking French and so she didn't know the the French name for prison so she just put a law in front of it, La Prison. Yeah, we didn't actually go to Alcatraz. We saw it from D'Gordelli's square there but But no, I mean, at the end of the day, right? Like, yeah, it's your daughter. But you're fucking Brett Favre. You played a long time in the NFL and collected a multitude of sizable paychecks for that job. And then again, you're Brett Favre. You were in 40.
01:20:27
Speaker
Wrangler commercials tossing the pigs kid around in the mud and the dirt like those paid pretty well And I'm like and i'm sure he had local Green Bay and and other deals wherever he was and what about that Like that thing you were if you had like arthritis or whatever the thing that he was advertising for That's right. Didn't you do gold bond for a little bit too? Yeah, probably. I think he was a medicated powder salesman at one point. But I'm just saying, you are a national fucking spokesperson. You don't have $7.7 million dollars just to give instead of stealing it for people. like it's just it's It's disgusting, man. like this is This is what's so frustrating about
01:21:04
Speaker
a Certain group of this country is that they see nothing wrong with with doing this they see nothing wrong with with Taking money from people who work hard every single day because they just need it more I mean two of the but former president's sons are never allowed to work with nonprofits again because they stole money for my fucking children's charity looking at you Donny jr. I Like, what the fuck, man? Like, there's a certain portion of this population who thinks it's just fine to take money from hardworking Americans because they deserve it more. And Brett Favre is one of those people. And I don't know what's going on in Green Bay, Scott, because the line from Brett Favre to crazy ass Aaron Rodgers, you got like, let's hope Jordan Love is just a normal guy. But it's looking like for his sake, like you're going to end up being pretty fucking crazy by the time you're done there.
01:21:57
Speaker
That's probably true. You know what it is, the moral equivalent of, you know, on a grander scale is like, you see like the people panhandling in the, uh, in the center lane. Do you ever pull that? I don't see you. Yeah. That's basically what Brett Favre is doing. It's like.
01:22:16
Speaker
Well, this doesn't know what Brett Favre is doing and sitting out of the car taking with nine iron capping the guy Stealing all the funds from his panhandling getting back at his car and putting that money in his gas tank Well, yeah, yeah but I'm saying but what they're doing is they're saying like, okay, here's seven million dollars. I Don't see I don't see you. I don't see you who could have actually used that money to feed your family I don't see you You're not there Is this good? Because it it raised money for his kid and for all of her teammates. And I could see in a very extremely warped sense where somebody can get there, but definitely it makes you a scumbag. And it makes you a scumbag when you're caught doing it. When you win a Pulitzer Prize, do you think they give a Pulitzer Prize to somebody that doesn't have good sources? Do they win a Pulitzer Prize?
01:23:12
Speaker
Do they give a Pulitzer Prize to the National Enquirer when they make up shit? No, not the last time I checked. There was no there was no Pulitzer Prize given out for the Joe laptop, the Joe Biden's, I'm sorry, the like ah Hunter Biden laptop story. That one didn't win a Pulitzer Prize. No, you got to do some real fucking reporting. And they did. And Scott, I would even argue, I don't think what you're saying with the panhandlers is accurate. I truly think they're looking him dead in the face and giving him the middle finger and driving away because I think they know what they're doing. And I truly think that Brett Favre is one of those people who in his mind thinks this money is in better hands with me going to fund this volleyball team because these women, they deserve it more. To me, that's what it reeks off. It's not even the don't look at you, don't look at you. It's the watch me do this because I fucking can because I'm Brett Favre and I'm the best thing that's ever happened to this state.
01:24:05
Speaker
And it's sad, it's fucked up, it's disgusting, but it's a way that a lot of people think in this country. it I mean, this is, we're not even a hundred years off of the richest people in America trying to overthrow FDR with the businessman's plot, right? Like that wasn't even a hundred years ago. It wasn't even five years ago that Donald Trump inside a riot that stormed the Capitol. Like these people are selfish. They want to do what's best for them.
01:24:33
Speaker
And that's all that they care about. And and and Brett Favre is one of those guys. I'm sorry if you're a Packers fan and you listen to this podcast. You can like what Brett Favre did for your team. That's fine. But Brett Favre, the human being, is a piece of shit. Yeah,
Promotions and Platform Transitions
01:24:47
Speaker
I can't agree more. Cannot agree more. All right, Scott. Well, that's all that we have here this week on the podcast. We appreciate everybody who joined us.
01:24:55
Speaker
um Be sure to check out the sub stack thoughts of a native Texan Scott has been going hog wild over there I got my my once a week Wednesday evening Thursday morning post coming at you coming out here this week as well But do not miss what's happening over there and again Scott has a little bit of time left here with the crawfish boxes before transitioning all of his sports riding time to um Battle red blog for the remainder of football. seasons Absolutely and and for those of y'all that are joined the page Facebook page because I've been dropping those articles from thoughts on the native Texan into that into that Facebook page So if you want to go one-stop shopping Absolutely go there, you know, take a look and if you haven't checked out any of Scott's Hall of Fame index pieces
01:25:46
Speaker
um those are really interesting and and scott will draw from those during the podcast you mentioned here tonight that um jason hayward was you know the second best defensive right fielder based on on these metrics right well if you want to learn more about what these metrics are that scott's using pop into the the hall of fame index when he puts those articles out there the really interesting scott is a a student of the game um and and really has some some great content on there about some players that you haven't thought about a long time you know he and i had a nice fun discussion about hadeki matsui yesterday uh just was like man i i want to talk about hadeki matsui so if you haven't checked out any of the hall of fame index pieces please hop on the uh the facebook page and do so
01:26:32
Speaker
Well, that's going to be it here for this week. We appreciate everybody who joined us and made us part of their week. We will see you next week on Born on the Bayou Sports.