ASTROS POSTCAST: Zach Cole Powers Houston Astros To Big Win In Big League Debut

ASTROS POSTCAST: Zach Cole Powers Houston Astros To Big Win In Big League Debut

This is the Astros Post Cast, your instant game reaction for the Houston Astros, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. [Music] It’ll be a night to remember for Zack Cole as he sparks the Houston Astros to a big, massive, easy victory over the Atlanta Braves to kick off the three-game weekend series and get the team a win when they needed it in the absolute worst way. And some breathing can be done across the Astros fan base tonight because they did score 11 runs in the victory tonight. Hello and welcome to the Locked on Astros postcast. after the victory. I am your host, Michael Connor. Thank you for stopping by and watching if you’re live. If you’re watching later on, we appreciate you. If you’re listening to this in its audio form, make sure you go over to the Locked on Astros YouTube page and hit subscribe. You can get this podcast anywhere that you get your podcast for free. You get this show and the daily Locked on Astro show with Brett and Eric uh every single day. Good stuff from them. Make sure you’re checking that out as well. Tonight’s episode’s brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Download the app today. I’m going to go ahead and guess that you know what we’re going to be doing. This is what you’ll be talking about. It’s the Zack Cole show tonight. Now, who knows what’s going to happen with Zack Cole. Who knows if he can sustain this heater that he’s been on for a minute, which started at double A, went to Triple A for like what 15 games, I think. Was it 15 games? And now he’s at the big league level. Who knows if he can handle it? Who knows if the major league pitchers get a little bit of a book on him if they exploit his weaknesses? Because there’s going to be weaknesses. He’s not a top top top prospect. But he’s a guy that’s been developing and been getting better. And like I said, yeah, 15 games with Sugarland, was redhot, hit number 350. Finished strong with Corpus, but didn’t have an unbelievable season with Corpus. Hit the ball well, but I mean, the numbers weren’t like, oh, this is next level prospect type of stuff. And the Astros are in a in a moment where they are so incredibly desperate for anything at the plate that they turn to a guy who again 15 games at TripleA Sugarland after an okay year for Corpus. He got hot and tonight, what a moment. What a freaking cool moment to see him go and take first pitch that he sees and just absolutely obliterated out of the ballpark like he did was impressive. If there’s one thing that you can guarantee from the scouting reports and everything you read and hear about him is that he hits the baseball hard. It was the third hardest hit ball of any Astro this season. The other two of course were off the bat of Yordon Alvarez. I think they’re both recent. The third hardest hit ball an Astros hitter has had all season long. September 12th and it’s a guy who’s in his first big league at bat takes a hack on the first pitch he sees and plants it like 400 I think it was 423 feet out there to right center. Unbelievable. And then to do it again the next at bat, not hit it over the fence, but to come up in a situation where you got a chance to drive in another run and smoke one through the hole and then oh do it again for a third time in three big league at bats and smoke one back up the middle on the ground and pick up your third big league hit and drive in your fourth run. Most runs driven in by an Astros uh player in his debut are just unbelievable. His family’s all there. They’re freaking out. I can’t imagine the the emotional high that he and his family are on tonight with what he just accomplished. In a spot, too. Think about this. In a spot where the team needs something now, they’re not bringing him up because they think, “Oh, he’s going to carry our team all of a sudden.” But they’re looking for anything. This is a team that just got shut out the day before. Gossman was incredible, but the Astros have also been in a massive huge funk. They scored six runs across three games total there in Toronto. They’ve been so up and down. They’ve been so feast and famine. And they’ve had basically Yordon and Kareah in the lineup that do any kind of hitting of late. That’s it. That’s it. And there’s you’re at that point where it’s like, okay, well the Mariners have tied you top the division. Bleep it. What’s it gonna hurt to start this guy out in left field tonight and see if he can do anything? What do you know? Lightning strikes. What a cool night. What a very cool night. I can guarantee you this. He will be back in that lineup tomorrow. That is a lock playing left field for the Astros. And good for him because they’ve again they’ve lacked some punch in the outfield. They’ve gotten Jake Myers back. He had a big hit tonight, too. Good to see Jake Myers come back and start to hit the baseball as well. But, you know, Jesus Sanchez has been incredibly bad of late at the plate. Cam Smith has pu pushed himself to the point where he’s unplayable, which is really unfortunate, but that’s just the truth of the matter now with Cam Smith for the rest of this season. And then you know you’re hoping that you can maybe maybe it sounds like get Esoch Paris back and that would be in a DH role to where okay you have an outfield that maybe can provide you something consistently. Time’s running out of course which by the way as we’re doing this show live it is before the Mariners have even started their game tonight. They’re playing the Angels once again. They walked off the Angels last night. If there’s one positive, I’m trying to be positive tonight. You guys know I’ve not been very positive of late because there’s no reason to really be positive with this baseball team. There’s a lot of doubt as to if they can hold on and find a way to win this division and even make the postseason at this point. And in all honesty, it really doesn’t m well, I shouldn’t say it doesn’t matter. If you want homefield advantage, of course, you’d rather win the division, but you know, if you if you go to the wild card, guess who you’re going to end up playing? You’re going to play the Mariners. Like that’s it. You’re going to play the Mariners, you’re going to play the Rangers. Cleveland’s still technically not out of it, but they’re three games out. You’re going to play the Mariners, you’re going to play the Rangers. It is what it is. Two teams you’re insanely familiar with, two teams that you’ve played in the last few weeks of the season, so whatever. Um, but you’re just in this spot where you got to get as many games as you can get, and they got one of them tonight. 80 wins now on the season. They have how many games left on the year? Let me do my quick math. Two, five, eight, 11, and 14. 14 games left. Nine and five win it. Nine and five win the division. Maybe. I think it might. Can they go nine and five again? I don’t think or I shouldn’t say I I’m not comfortable saying that. I I think they will. I think that would be a stupid thing on my part. I think at worst probably seven wins maybe. You got to get them. And tonight was one of those nights where you got the spark at least to start it off. Very very very cool moment tonight for the Astros. Um, they just they just had to have it and you got big swings when you needed it. Oh, and I know the other positive I was going to bring up. You know, the Mariners right now are on a on a winning streak. They’ve won, what is it, six in a row. You know, when that streak started, it started last weekend. They played Atlanta. They lost the first game of the series and they haven’t lost since. Maybe, maybe, just maybe, Atlanta is the slump buster that the Astros need in their lives. And if they can get that slump buster, all right, build a little confidence before you come back home for two massive series to close out the home schedule between the Rangers and the Mariners for six total. and then of course finished the season on the road uh against the Athletics and then the Angels as well. Let’s talk about the other side of things tonight. The pitching on a night where you went bullpin night stepped up. That’s next here on Locked on Astros Post. First up though, before we get there, I need to tell you guys, you’ve probably seen a million ads for hair growth products and thought, “Sure, like that actually works.” There are so many products out there. It’s hard to know which ones are actually going to do anything. 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And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Uh makes every game more exciting. Whether you’re watching your team or just watching keeping an eye on your fantasy lineup, it’s quick, it’s easy, it’s the best way to add a little more energy to your Sundays. So, are you ready to play? Download the FanDuel app today by visiting fanduel.com to get started. That’s fanduel.com to place your first $5 bet. Winner winner chicken dinner. The Astros had to have it and the Astros absolutely got it tonight over the Atlanta Braves and feeling better. Not feeling good, not cured. Nothing is nothing is fixed. What they have done now is they have set themselves up. I talked about this yesterday in the postgame show. They have set themselves up to have the best chance of picking up a sweep in this series. They’ve got Hunter Brown tomorrow. They’ve got Frober Valdez on Sunday. This team could use a sweep of a series in the worst way right now. Two best arms starting in the next two. You have to feel good about the chances. And tonight they got to a pitcher on the other side that had been pretty incredible for the for the Braves this year. He had not Walrip had not gone less than five innings in any outing to start his big league career. And my dogs want to bark right now. Hold on. Excuse me. Sometimes they just don’t know how to not interrupt the show. Um, but Walro had been pretty amazing and had not given up more than two runs in any outing that he had appeared in this season. The Astros ended that tonight with ease. So again, maybe, just maybe, they can pull off a sweep that they need. That would be fantastic. Now, shout out to the bullpin tonight for doing their thing as well. Uh the Astros had to go bullpen night. Of course, they’ve, you know, lost another starter recently. They’ve lost multiple pitchers. Hey, what do you know? Lance McCullers has landed back on the injured list as well. What a shock. Just he’s not going to retire because he’s not going to walk away from his money. I wouldn’t walk away from it either, but honestly, just pull the plug. Go ahead and rip that band-aid off, release him at the end of the season, give him his money away from the Astros, and move on. Um, they put Luis Garcia on the 60-day injured list today. We all know what’s coming there. There’s going to be the words Tommy John again. Uh, you’re probably going to see the words Tommy John for Spencer Aragetti. You’re going to see, you’ve already seen elbow surgery, which is probably Tommy John for Brandon Walter and uh, I think I’m forgetting somebody else who’s had Tommy John because Tommy John is the thing for the Astros. Um, but the bullpin tonight, Jaden Murray, fantastic. He’s been excellent since they’ve called him up. Uh the guy’s only allowed one man on base. He faced 10 hitters tonight. Got nine outs. I think he’s up to 17 batters face now in the big leagues and one guy’s reach base. Uh Blue Ball, he’s been awesome. Just absolutely awesome. Only give me an inning tonight, but that’s fine. Uh Nick Hernandez gets through his. Then Colton Gordon, four innings, eats up a lot of space there. He gives up three runs, but honestly, I mean, he’s not that great. He gets a save tonight, by the way. first career save for Colton Gordon because you pitched four innings uh to end the game. You get the save. It’s technically a save situation uh because you’ve covered so much ground there. So, shout out to those guys for doing what they did. It’s time to give out this. This is the locked player of the game. I wonder who it’s going to be. Hm. Let me think. Let me look up and down this lineup here really quick. It’s not Carlos Korea. He was one for five. Yordon 0 for four. No. Now Tuveet two for four home run. Okay. All right. Jesus Sanchez 0 for three. No. Sorry buddy. Victor Keratini one for four. No. Um Christian Walker three for five. Two runs batted in. Possibility. All right. Jake Myers two for three, two runs batted in. Nice night. Uh Dubon, one for four, two runs batted in. Pitching. I already mentioned Murray. Okay. Good solid night. Uh but no, it’s uh it’s Zach Cole. What a shock. Three for four. First big league home run. First swing as a big leager. Drives in four. Astros rookie or debut record. Now did strike out in his fourth at bat. Probably go ahead and start thinking about sending him back down. Maybe not even to just AAA. Send him back to double A. Uh but what a night for Zack Cole. Here’s the hoping. I mean, at this point of the season, we’ve, like I said earlier, we’ve we’ve done a lot of negative negativity of late with this team and and serious questioning as to where they’re going and where they can get. And you’re kind of at the point of hope and pray. And that was absolutely everything that you could have asked for and more. So, congratulations to you, Zach, Cole. Soak it in. Don’t get a big hit from it. I’m not too worried about that. Um, get back out there tomorrow and impact the game in another. And I got a shot to the defense, too. Look, he got tested there early. Ball out there to right or left field and he, you know, jumps, you know, has to make a jumping catch, crash into the wall. I mean, the guy was everywhere tonight. Every challenge that presented itself to him, he was fantastic. And I’m assum I’m sure we’ll see him in that same spot in the order tomorrow playing left field for the Astros as well. Of course, when that game ends tomorrow night, same time for the start 6:15. Make sure you come back to the Locked on Astros YouTube page and watch it live. We are live after every single game. And of course, you can find this anywhere that you get your podcast. Go and search for Locked on Astros. You guys have a great rest of your Friday night. We’ll talk Saturday night after an Astros win. Let’s call it now on the lock on Astros.

The Houston Astros have been looking for a spark and they got just that from Zach Cole on Friday night against the Atlanta Braves. Cole put on a show, leading the Astros to an easy win. Michael Connor breaks it all down on the Locked On Astros Postcast.

#astros #houston #houstonastros #josealtuve #carloscorrea #yordanalvarez #camsmith #christianwalker #frambervaldez #joshhader #zachcole #craigkimbrel #baseball #mlb #majorleaguebaseball #texas #astrosbaseball #sports

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