MLB Now | Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners begins 3-game series – Brian Kenny breaks AL West race

MLB Now | Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners begins 3-game series – Brian Kenny breaks AL West race

Well, the Mariners beat the Royals yesterday two to nothing. Luis Castile went six shutout innings. Jorge Palano JP Crawford had RBI doubles and Andre Munoz picked up his 36th save. Mariners have now won 10 of 11 games. They’ll take on the Astros starting this weekend, tied in the AL West. They’re also tied in the season series 5 to five. So, the winner this weekend will also get the tiebreaker. Take a look at the pitching matchup today. This is a great one. We talked about Adam Avino with this Brian Woo against Hunter Brown. Then Saturday, George Kirby Framber Valdez and then Logan Gilbert against change of speed expert uh Jason Alexander. This is a great great weekend and the pitchers duels are fantastic. Uh and you know, you think about it, the Mariners playing good baseball. They ended up taking on the Royals. They end up winning yesterday to draw into a tie now with the Astros. Um what are we expecting in this series? because you it felt like we had two teams going in different directions until the Astros swept the Rangers. The Mariners are the rare team at this moment that know who their starting pitchers are and know how they’re closing a game. I mean, they could go five deep in their bullpen and trust people. They got all their starters back. They’re throwing their three best guys in this series. A couple of weeks ago, I branded the Astros the zombie Astros. It’s the same uniform. Some of the same guys are around. It’s just not the same. And yet their muscle memory is they know how to win. They know how to win this time of year. You know who doesn’t know how to win this time of year? The Mariners. They’ve been in the playoffs once since 2001. They’ve just missed it the last few years. They’re the only one of the current 30 teams that’s never played in the World Series. They’re perfectly set up to win this division against an old wounded champion. Can they seize the moment? This they must seize this moment. It feels like Muhammad Ali is the old boxer looking to take on any comer and still having some life left. Yeah. Well, it’s been impressive what the Astros and Job Spot has been able to do throughout the entire season because that’s the thing like you know they’ve had a hard time staying healthy. They’ve had stars come and go. um their pitching staff aside from Hunter Brown uh and Frambury even a little bit has been shaky and injured and coming back and and they’ve had to kind of piece mail it together where like Joel said like the Mariners right now have everything lined up as perfect as you can like you couldn’t draw it up any better like we were talking about the Tigers if you you tell me at this point of the season this is where you’d be same thing with the Mariners if you tell me at this point of the season you’re going to be this healthy have your pitchers are firing on all cylinders your offense which is something we had always talked about with this Mariners team over the is a strength of this team. Uh going into the biggest series of uh the year for you where you’ve had struggles in that part against the Astros, but you’ve been playing really good against them as of late. Is this the year that they’re finally going to do it because they’ve had so much heartache, you know, over the last few years about just missing the playoffs. Will they be able to, you know, kind of overcome that um and exercise those demons against, you know, their division foe? Now, if they don’t do it and they still make the playoffs, I don’t think it’s that like big of a deal. Like, there’s one thing about putting pressure on going into this series to try to win the division and that’s what you’re trying to do, but it shouldn’t like it shouldn’t knock them down if they come out with maybe only one win here. Like, obviously, you don’t want to get swept here, but if you play good baseball and you end up losing two out of three, you know what? Okay, tip your hat. But as long as you’re getting into the playoffs, because with the team that they’re featuring, anything can happen. And that’s that’s the ultimate goal, right? So the difference though is if you’re the division winner, you host the wild card series. And the likelihood is that if you’re not, you’re going to be the second or third wild card team and you’re going to be on the road in the wild card series. Now being on the road in the wild card series hasn’t been the worst disadvantage overall. But if they have to fight it out until the end and they’re burning every pitcher until the end, it doesn’t set you up all that well going into the postseason. Yeah, Alex is so much nicer than I am. And it’s so clear they need to win this series. They need to win the division. The the the division laid down for them, including the Astros to some degree. They were really active at the trade deadline. They built up for this moment. And Steve, you know this, and Alex, you know this from traveling. It’s a real They could finish with they could finish as the top seed in the American League and make everyone have to fly that long distance to Seattle. That’s an advantage. It’s not just that they don’t go on the road, but everybody’s got to get to the furthest region you could get to in our sport. This is their moment. If not now, when? Yeah. I think the other thing to remember is both the Astros and Mariners run the risk of not making the playoffs at all. Right. As you see going, of course, they’re all bunched up there. Somebody’s going to fall out of that. And I’m assuming at this point, Texas is out. So, it’s seven for six spots, right? Is it just that Cleveland never gets there and the six who we’ve kind of thought for a while are going to get there? There is this danger zone right now for somebody falling out of it. So that’s the other thing. Can you imagine? They could be the number one seed. They could just barely miss the playoffs for the fourth time in 5 years where they were this close. It’s if not now when? It’s going to be so much fun this week. It’s a terrible picture. I just gentlemen nice to see you. Court is in order. I’d like to let you know that although I look necklace, I am not spineless. Okay, just so so we’re clear uh with all of that. All right. Uh this is the balls in your court. So a chance for you two guys. I’ll put the ball in each of your courts to be able to sort of defend your positions on this. All right. So your top five players in the sport. Who would you want over the next three years? Your top five. Give it to me, Joel. Hopefully I’m not pointless. Um the I I’m going to go Otani, Bobby Wit Jr. Ski, Scooble, and Juan Sodto. Um, Otani, for obvious reasons, I have a chance from both sides of the ball. Uh, at the worst, I’m going to end up with a great hitter who might end up being a Gold Glove outfielder over the next, uh, three years. I actually think if I were starting a team from scratch, I’d start with Bobby Whit Jr. because of the age, uh, the upside, the greatness, uh, I think he has in him. I think there’s future MVPs in him. He was close last year. He’s going to be among the top three, I think, this year. I think October is going to reveal when you don’t have a true ace how bad off you are. And I’ll take the two guys who I think are the true aces of the sport right now in skins and school for the next three years. And I think the tough call is if you don’t have Aaron Judge on your list, it’s going to it’s but the next three the next three years are ages 34 to 36 for Judge. This is a a game we’re playing. The next three years I got to take ages 34 to 36 with Judge or 27 to 29 with Sodto. The one thing I know about Sodto is he’s going to hit at the biggest pints of the year. I’m putting together a team for three years to hit in the playoffs. Judge hasn’t done that yet. Sodto has. It’s not an easy call. Judge is an historic player who’s probably about to win his third MVP. He’s top five four alltime and Yankee home runs. It is not an easy guy. If you told me we’re playing for just one year, I’d change my list. But ages 34 to 36, I’ll take. But I wasn’t even thinking about like over Sodto. Thinking over one of the starting pitchers. Yeah. I mean, but don’t you think in October it’s going to reveal when nobody has horses just the value of the horse? No, I agree with you where you need you need that horse, but in as far as someone that can impact on a day-to-day basis, one of the best in the game, I think you you have that elbow injury scare you. Mr. Villa, you are being critical of his list. Can we see your list so that we know who you have on your list? This is this is my list. This is my list. So number five for me, I’ve got I’ve got Paul Skins. Number number four for me, I got Bobby Whit Jr. I kind of agree with Joel there with Bobby Wit. Like if there’s a guy that you you want to start a team with, it’s Bobby Wit Jr. Number three for me, I’ve got Juan Sodto. I played with Juan and I think he’s going to go down at some point as long as he stays healthy as one of the greatest hitters that we’ve had in this game. Aaron Judge is my number two and show Otani is my number one. So we disagree. I have Scubbo in my five and not not Judge. And look, Judge is a tough one. It’s really based on the three-year look. The fact that he’s ending this season with an elbow injury that worries me about the next three years and what his availability is going to be and where he’s going to play on the field. But he’s an historic player. I mean, I he was obviously considered at the worst number six here and I considered him for every slot because he’s that great. The question is for the next three years. So that’s the thing for for the next three years that would it would concern me a little bit more with the starters. That’s why that’s that’s the way I look at it. When you look at you’re talking about, you know, judges availability, some injuries there. Same thing we could talked about with Scooball now. Scoo’s, you know, has figured out a way to be able to stay on the field lately, you know, and figure out his body a little bit. But that’s what scares me sometimes with starting pitchers, especially the guys that, you know, you’re throwing max effort all the time. Every five days you’re going out there. there’s a lot less chance of being able to kind of sustain that over a three-year period as opposed to a guy like Judge who at least already has proven to me even injured can still be Does the age bother you though that you’re going to get Yeah. 34 uh 35 36 37 34 35 36 for this I think he ages well. I think he’s one of the superstars that ages well. And then we that’s the other thing we don’t have any previous thing to know what a player his size how it ages which worries me also like if we’re going to worry about pitchers I’m like what is a 6’8 guy what if he loses a little bad speed what does that look like. I mean look he’s a he’s a Hall of Famer today it’s tough to not put him in this list. I I easily could have put him in. I knew that was going to be the conversation not having him in. It’s pre-existing injury. no track record for a player this age and ages 34 to 36. The reality is that’s a little regret. Yeah, that maybe no, but I mean he he defended his position. Well, I don’t know that I would have included any pitcher on my list as you guys did. You had one, you had two. And so I get skins for sure. What we talked about with with Clayton Kershaw, Verlander, and Sher. I think he skins has probably the best chance to kind of bring back that, you know, last of its kind kind of starting pitcher. So c can I ask the judge a question then? Because you literally had to make decisions like this. If we were doing a dispersal draft, at what number of the draft would you be comfortable taking a pitcher? It wouldn’t be in the top five. Is it six? Do you take skins? Is it seven? Is it or do you never take scheme a pitcher as a number one pick in this kind of draft? I don’t take them. I don’t take them. I think the risk is too significant for injury. If I’m taking my first pick, I need a guy that I know and position players are much more predictable than than pitchers are. And so I get it. But one of the things I did notice is neither of you said Jose Ramirez. Big home run for him yesterday. Over the last five years, he ranks fourth in war. How come he didn’t even come close to cracking your list? If you said just position players, would he be a top five for you? No, he came close on my list, at least as I was looking at this. He’s easily I think for me, he’s easily in my top eight. Um I would I would put him up there. I played against him a lot over over the years while I was in Detroit and and obviously him in Cleveland. So, I saw it up close and personal and tried to have to get this guy out on a daily basis. Um, not my top six, but easily in my top eight. Again, it it became a are we talking about for this season or next season or the next few? Cuz now he turned 32 a couple of days ago, 33, 34, 35 on him, which worried me, but he was in that next little group and his durability was better. Like I think Cory Seager is better, but I would have taken him for his durability. Get on the field. Like like if we went to eight, nine or 10, he’s like you said, not even close to the list. He was clearly close on both of our lists. For me, age is a big deal. It in deciding a three-year look. Yeah. He’s so underrated, though. And I know Aaron Boon says we can’t call him underrated because when everybody says you’re underrated, they’re not really underrated. But he still is. And and you know what it is? It’s not the overall numbers like his OPS and those. It’s when he does it like he does things where he does place and and and where to win games without any protection in the lineup which to me is the most amazing part. It’s also impact on your team and your teammates as well. That’s something we always talk about with great leaders and great ball players, how they affect others. Can they make other players better? And he absolutely does that in Cleveland. He does. You guys make us better here, too.

MLB Now | Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners begins 3-game series – Brian Kenny breaks AL West race

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