Houston Astros Climb To .500 And Eye The Rangers

We’re back to .500 after sweeping the Angels, and the timing couldn’t be better with the Rangers coming to town. Ice Man breaks down what’s driving the hot streak, what still scares us about the roster, and why the next three games can put Houston in first place. 
• sweeping the Angels and reaching 55-55 for the first time since early season 
• Rangers series stakes and what it means for the AL West lead 
• Silver Boot rivalry and why one win matters 
• trade deadline priorities: left-handed bat and another starting pitcher 
• outfield offense as the biggest lineup need 
• George Springer return rumors and what he would add 
• bullpen strength, middle relief performance, and key arms returning 
• who’s producing now and who we need more from 
Tune into all the Astro games. Go out to one of the Astro games. Support your Houston Astros. Support Ice in the Cave. Jump on for the ride. Lots of room on this bandwagon. 

Transcript

Ice Cave Intro And Vibe

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Welcome to the ice cave. Cold facts like the ice case. Iceman with the blitz about to open up a cold case. Talk about it over cold drinks. Iceman in the building in the top of we can talk. What the blitz? How you feel with Iceman? And his wheels never out of pocket. Checker. It is Thursday, July 30th. Iceman, we can call it. And yes, I am in the ice cave.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

I'm not drinking in the ice cave as of just yet. It's hot enough to have a cold drink.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Ice in your capture,

Astros Sweep Angels Reach .500

SPEAKER_02 0:32

parents.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

But we're talking Astros baseball. If you were up late last night, you seem that the Astros finished the sweep of the Los Angeles Angels with a 7-4 win. Don't look now, but the Astros are 55 and 55 and at 500 baseball. That's the first time they've been at 500 baseball since they were 6-6. So good job, Astros. Good job, Joe. Of riding the ship. We're doing this with smoke and mirrors. Not getting a lot of offensive production from the outfield. Getting key hits from them, but not consistently. As I am recording this podcast, the Rangers have just lost to the Rays. So the Asp are now a half game going into tomorrow night's big series with the Rangers. They're a half game out of first place. And it is a big series starting tomorrow night here in Houston. Three-game set with the Texas Rangers. All Astros need to do is get one win against the Rangers this weekend, and they win the silver boot. And if you don't know what the silver boot is, the silver boot is the each team playing, each team, the interstate rivalry. Hoover has the most wins after all the series they play this year. Gets the silver boot. Astros need one. I'll take three. There's a very good chance the Astros will be in first place at the end of this series. Thinking positive. We are on that three-game winning streak. Good game last night from Yannair Diaz, our catcher, who's been off and on. He went four for five last night. He was seeing the ball really well. Jeremy Pinna still popping the ball out the park. Another home run. Still batting 311. What was a good sign to see Alvarez? Well, it wasn't good to see it, but Alvarez went 0 for 4, but we still scored

Rangers Series And Silver Boot

SPEAKER_01 2:38

seven runs.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Shows we can't score.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Even when Alvarez has a bad night, that's good to see. Still have the trade deadline coming up Monday, August 3rd. So we're three to four days away from that. I still think the Astros need a left-handed bat. And I think they could use a starting pitcher. But it's getting close. I know Dana Brown is working them phones now. Hats off to Joe Espada and his staff, the coaching staff. Lots of injuries this year. At one time we were 11 games under 500. Didn't look good. They were hard watched. We talked about that. But now we're at 55 and 55, 110 games. Leaves us with about 52 games left in the season. So lots of time to make some moves in the standings and on the roster. Christian Walker was decent last night. Altube, a little decent series. I like what I'm seeing from Isaac Perettis. Tramel, a few couple of good hits during the series. But we still need some help in that outfield. And one of the rumors I'm hearing is just like we did last year, bringing Correa home, we could be bringing another former Astro home. There are rumors out there that George Springer could be coming back to Houston. He's not the left-handed bat, he's that right-handed bat. It's a piece of the puzzle. It would be awesome to bring him home. I think we can get good value for him. He's not having a great year, but he's the last couple of weeks, he's been shown some signs of uh getting his bat back. Still need to get that left-handed bat, and I think one more starting pitcher. Astros don't have a strong farm system, so it is going to be difficult to pull off some of these trades. Still think Christian Walker could be part of one of these trades. Some of our young talent. We'll see. But I'm excited. That's uh we went 5-1 last week. So far this week, we're 3-0. That makes eight and one out of our last nine games. That's hot baseball. This team's playing good baseball at the right time.

Trade Deadline Needs And Rumors

SPEAKER_01 5:38

The dog days of summer. But they but they're playing an AC at home, so don't stress. Big, big, big series. I'll take two out of three, but I'd love three in a row. The middle relief of this, uh the middle reef pitching has been awesome with this team. They have did their job, they've held us in games. Haters being hater at the end of games.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

It was good to see Ebreyu pitching some good ball in this series. Alvarez didn't have a hot road trip, but we won three in a row.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

So, like I said, that's a good sign. We had uh Hayden Wesnewski back from injury. He's been out of the league for over a year, and that was his first game back last night. He pitched five innings, well, 5.2 innings, he pitched, came up seven hits, had a terrible first inning, a couple of bloopers, a couple of hard hit balls, a few walks here and there. Came up three the first inning, but then he he was liked out the next four innings. Good to have him back. If he can contribute, that will help. On Tuesday night, it was good to see Javier come in middle relief and pitch five scoreless innings. Lots of pieces in this puzzle that are still now starting to connect. But we still do need some help. I think it's important that Dana Brown make some moves before the trade deadline on Monday.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

I can't wait to come in here on Monday for the Monday, the weekend wrap-up.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

And I would love to talk about the first place Astros. We'll take them one game at a time. We do have Hunter Brown going tomorrow. Bianca will be pitching the Saturday, the Saturday game. They haven't named the Sunday starter just yet. We got to handle up against them, Rangers. We gotta let them know who runs Texas. Team ain't done yet. The Astros have had a great 10-year run, and they're not done yet. There's some good pieces. We got the MVP of the AL on our team. The guy's lights out. I mean, Alvarez is batting 321, 35 home runs, 80 RBIs, has an on-base percentage of 432, has 126 hits

Pitching Returns And Bullpen Praise

SPEAKER_01 8:36

this season. MBP of the American League. Give him the trophy now. Christian Walker has crept up to 235. Perettes is around 254. I can handle that. Altuvi is slowly, slowly climbing, but I need to see more out of you, Jose. Pinas playing all-star ball, defense and offense. He's hitting the ball with power, has 12 home runs this season. And he's been out with a few injuries. But when he's in the lineup, he's our leadoff guy. He's the one. If he goes, we go. It was good to see Diaz hit the ball last night. We're going to need some more out of Diaz from our catcher spot. I like where we are at our in the infield. I like where we're at. The outfield is where we're going to need some recruits to come in and help this help, not on the defensive side, but the offensive side. We need some more pops in the some pop in those bats.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

I'm high.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Not that kind of high. Haven't been drinking. It is Thursday during the day. I do have another podcast after this one. It will be the Dallas Cowboys in the Cave. So I'll drink a few cold ones later. But I did want to pop in here, like I told you last on Monday, the weekend wrap-up. I wanted to come in here and do a podcast before the Texas Rangers series because I'm excited. I said on Monday we needed to take care of the Los Angeles Angels and win all three games. This was a last place team. We were supposed to beat this team. It wasn't as easy, but we did win that series. This is why I'm hyped. We're back at even. And it was a tough climb. We could make some noise. We can get Major League Baseball Network talking about us. We get

Lineup Snapshot Outfield Concerns

SPEAKER_01 10:48

ESPN talking about us. If we take this series and on Monday we are in first place, all bets are off.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

It's a dash to the finish line. Gonna need some help, Danny Brown. Keep doing what you're doing, Joe Aspotem.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

We got some key figures starting to produce on this team. Cam Smith, I need you. Maybe Jake Myers comes back. Maybe he's part of a trade package.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

I haven't given up on Jake Myers, even though he's down to the miners. I haven't given up on him. Man, we need some outfield help. On the offensive side.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

This was my mid-week podcast going into the Ranger series, a huge baseball series. I'll be back for the Astros in the Cave on Monday for the weekend wrap-up. And I expect to be talking about the first place Astros. That's what I expect.

Predictions And Fan Callouts

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Tune into all the Astro games. Go out to one of the Astro games. Support your Houston Astros. Support Ice in the Cave. Jump on for the ride. Lots of room on this bandwagon. I'm gonna watch the series. I'm Iceman. I'm gonna talk to you on Monday. Let's go, Strows. Let's make some noise. This is the series.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

We're coming for you, Rangers. I'm not your boy Iceman. We can talk about it. And I am with the cage. How you feel what you thought?

SPEAKER_01 12:42

And I will have a few cold ones here in the few.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

I get that. You know I did that. My heart on my sleep and then do with a patch. Ice in the patch. Parents tomorrow this ain't no path, son. Ice with the M1. I call up the foul in the mouth in the case dunk. Ice in the case on everything blue, like the ice in the case on ice in the cave. Ice in the cave. Ice in the caves. Ice in the cave.