MLB Now | Steve Phillips weighs in on Houston Astros sweep Texas Rangers, take lead in AL West

at the AL West. Jeremy Pñena yesterday hit his 16th home run. By the way, Jose Tube also homered in that game. Uh breakout season for Pena. He has five and a half wins season. What a player he is. Also into the game with an outstanding defensive play. 104 mile per hour shot diving play. Great pick by Christian Walker at first base. The Astros beat the Rangers 5-2. They sweep the series. The Mariners snapping their 10-game winning streak. The Royals taking them out. And what does that mean for the standings? The Astros leaprogged the Mariners. They now have a halfame lead and they’ve got one extra game played. Uh they’re tied in the loss column. So the Astros and Mariners, by the way, oh they start a three-game series tomorrow. Now they are playing today. The Mariners are playing today against the Royals. So we’ll see that what ends up. They either be a game behind or they’ll be tied going into it. And Danny, I take a look at the Astros right now. Take a look at this West. The Rangers have kind of played themsel out of it with this series. Astros Mariners. Who you got? Yeah, I’m so excited about this. This is the kind of baseball you want at the end of the season. You want to see teams fighting against each other, having meaningful baseball with Houston. What they did really well against Texas was scoring early, scoring first. Their bullpen was really good except for game two. And for Seattle, for me, if you have an AL MVP candidate, if you have an MVP candidate on your team, you better be playing postseason baseball. You better be in October. I like Seattle a lot right now. They have this spark. They had that streak. They’ve had two massive winning streaks in this month. And I know during that time period they were having a little bit of a slump. I get it. Everyone has those slumps. I like Seattle more. They’re more together. Their lineup is really lengthened. Their starters are starting to figure it out, which was their strength last year. And then they have a bullpen. To me, I I like Seattle more. I think Seattle should win the division and they should have that top spot in the AL. A couple of things for me. Jordan is a huge loss. Yeah. I mean, there’s no question about it. The bullpen obviously with hater as well, another huge loss. You look at the Mariners and you look at this roster, they’ve actually been pretty healthy all year. What I like about the Houston Astros, though, is they play really well at home. I mean, look, you’re talking about a team that also plays well with one-run games. They’ve won 30 one-run games. They love playing at home. They win the one-run games. They’re they’re a team that’s kind of savvy. Abrau can go multiple innings. They’re really, really good. However, however, I like the Mariners. Why do they sniff out? I like the Mariners right there. The reason for that is because of the depth. I mean, one through nine, these guys can put together runs. These guys can slug as well. Their starting pitching is really good. I would think Woo is going to take that for the the ball in game one. He’s been outstanding. And then we know about that bullpen. They got high octane velocity coming out of there. A lot of strikeout stuff, a lot of miss and swing stuff. That’s why I like the Seattle Mariners. So this I mean listen, it’s going to be a great race. The Astros have some experience though. I think bringing Kareah back gives them that and by the way postseason pedigree for sure with him. And so I understand that the injuries we see Eso Prades may come back here shortly for Houston. that’ll help their offense a little bit. The Mariners feel like they don’t have any major weakness right now, right? They’re c pretty wellrounded, but there’s something about that experience factor for the Astros that I don’t think they’re going to give up the title that easily. Steve, you talk about Carlos Koreah, folks. Go look at the numbers. One of the best postseason performers of this generation. Like when the lights are the brightest, Carlos Koreah shows up. But I agree with Yonder. Not having Yordon Alvarez in the middle of that lineup at this time of year is huge. And you wonder how much a team can take in terms of all the injuries. We showed the graphic, the injuries that they’ve had and sustain the season. If you’re the Seattle Mariners, you’ve asked for your shot and you’re going to get the your shot with three against the Houston Astros to win the first AOS title you’ve had since 2001. So everything is there in front of the Seattle maners. You just got to go and get it. The other thing to know coming into the game tomorrow, this is tied 55 so far this year. So, whoever wins the series gets the tiebreaker advantage, which could become an important factor here at the end of the season. Here’s the two-1 out. And he rips it left field and deep for Aluve, his 26 of the season. I thought the first inning was the key for for our for our night. You know, having the Grum throw 30 plus pitches. Uh first two guys get on, he strikes out. um Altuve and Walker and he might see the end of that threat. But then Diaz big knock. I thought that we carried that momentum. We made him work. And Pñena hits it to right and deep. Garcia is going back looking up. See you later. Couple of rows over the pen. Fence an opposite field home run for Jeremy Pñena. His 16th of the year. I think Atlanta kind of set the tone to how we play this entire year. We carry some of that momentum. Um, I think these guys know exactly what’s what’s at stake. You heard a sound there from Joe Apata postgame manager the Astros and Steve I thought the game plan against Deg Grom was just great. I I I really do when I watched these guys especially last time out Deg Grom had a lot of success with the slider which he typically does. Um, yesterday’s game there was good plate discipline against it. And what I mean by that is guys taking the borderline pitch that was down early in the first inning. They run his pitch count up past 30. Um Niner Diaz with bases loaded gets a slider that’s hitable that he’s able to drive to the outfield. Brings in the first couple runs. I I love that approach. And then the the Rangers actually would score a couple and then you get good at bats in the middle of this game from Altuve. You heard the home run there, but also Pena who also drove out a opposite field home run as well off of Deg Grom. So once you recognize what the game plan is, have success with it early in the game, then Deg Grom’s got to go to something different, then they start attacking the fast ball, hitting it out of the hitting it out of the park. So great game plan. Christian Javier took care of business as well. I give the offense a lot of credit for the Astros. Yeah, the the Astros only swung and missed at at uh four five of the 29 sliders thrown by Deg Grom yesterday. They made him throw 35 first inning pitches. And and you know, one of the ways to get a good pitcher out of the game uh is to not just you may not get hits against him, but just work the count, get him out of the game uh that way. But they came up clutch yesterday, Jeremy Pñena just continues to evolve as a player. He made an hit the home run, but then made an outstanding defensive play and a laser hit up the middle. made a great diving play on it. Throw to first bait. Chris Walker made a good pick on it uh as well. But a good win yesterday for the Astros. And with that win and the Mariners loss, uh the Astros move into first place halfame up on Seattle. Uh now Seattle does play Kansas City today. Uh they are tied in the loss column. Uh as you see, both with 69 losses. The Mariners playing the Royals today. They’ll be uh potentially either a game up or even on Friday, a weekend series in Houston. Mariners Astros. That is going to be epic. And oh, by the way, the series this year tied at five. Five so far this year. So, whoever takes two out of three or sweeps a series will actually get the tiebreaker, which could be absolutely critical about being a division winner or being a wild card team. And so, something to keep an eye on there in that head-to-head matchup coming up over the weekend. And all right, we round third head home with a home run and the Chicago Cubs stamping their ticket to October baseball. Second half is there and the Cubs are in the playoffs. It’s going to be great to be back in the postseason. Um fan-based organization, the group of guys here um through some tough years, through some really close calls in the last couple years. Just I know all the work that they put in. I know all the work that we’ve put in from day one. Players, coaching staff, um means a lot. you know, the playoffs is where the fun happens and um and I’m so happy for all the people in the room for, you know, the the guys that are going for the first time. You know, our our goal is not complete yet and that’s um you know, during the regular season, we we want to host games at Wrigley. We want to play our first playoff game at Wrigley. That’s really important and so we got a lot of work to do left for that. But, uh, we’re gonna have some fun

MLB Now | Steve Phillips weighs in on Houston Astros sweep Texas Rangers, take lead in AL West

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