Robbie Ray Debuts for Padres Against Astros at Petco

Another new shiny toy out on the mound here tonight for the Padres. Robbie Ray, who was quietly having unbelievable success with the Giants. Uh, I mean, unreal. I mean, practically forget about scoring on a man on just a great job. Not to mention never got any run support because the Giants can't hit. So now he's with the Padres, a team that he just blew out last time out, uh, pitching against them. Uh, but he's got the Astros coming to Petco. Notorious, uh, for suppressing runs in this ballpark. Blanco is going for the Astros. He's gotten lit up like a Christmas tree since coming off the IL. So does Robbie Ray just continue his dominant ways here against this Astros lineup? Yeah. I like to listen to the Astros are playing great. Both teams are really playing well, especially Houston, right? Uh, 12 and three of their last 15, hard to bet against that, right? But you have to, cause you said a Blanco has been awful. He's had three starts. He eats one as bad as the next. He's not turning good pitch or you're a decent pitcher anyway, but he has not shown anything. And the Padres are actually scored runs. They're averaging close to six runs a game. You know, uh, since the all-star break, they're, they're 10 and six. They're playing a little bit better. Seven and one last eight at home. Um, and, and a quirky little thing, but you know, the numbers do jump out at you. Houston off yesterday. They're seven and 18 after a day off. Makes no sense. Seven and 18. It's like, wow. Oh, okay. Um, and you got Robbie Ray making, like you said, his debut for San Diego. So you're getting the Padres basically a pick them, you know, they're playing. Well, man, maybe the best ball all season. I'll take them against Blanco and Houston. Yeah. Blanco is not good. I mean, both bullpens, the Astros bullpen much better now that it's healthy. Uh, and they are very much alive for that American league, uh, West, uh, crown there, uh, at two games over 500. Yeah, but I'm kind of with you here. I like them in the first five. I'll take the Padres to have the lead, uh, because whoever has the lead after five, Scotty, I think both bullpens are more than capable of holding it down there, which is why I think, uh, the Padres need to score early in this one, uh, to get it done there and don't forget Robbie Ray was in, what was it? Toronto. He was in the American league and faced Houston a few times, right? Was it Toronto? He was with forever. I think he wanted to saw young there. Um, so yeah, it's, he's got some Altuve experience and you're on Alvarez and saw it and so forth, but yeah, Petco notorious for keeping the scoring low there, but I think the Padres get it done in the first five, but it begs the Somebody's got to win the American league West at some particular point. Somebody has got to figure out, uh, is it going to be Texas? I don't know. We've got that game coming up that we're going to talk about because yeah, you would think that, oh, it should be Houston. Nobody expected Houston at this point, Scotty, to even be in contention for that division, right? Did you expect Houston to have a good enough year to actually win the American league West? I had Texas with an activation. I thought that it would be there. I didn't think they would necessarily win. Didn't like Oakland or the A's didn't like the angels. Uh, but I, I figured it would be, you know, I think most people just figured Seattle away with it, right? That would be the one, but Astros played well, you know, probably six since y'all start, right? Like I said, 12 and three last 15, they turned it around. They got some hitting. I got a little healthier. They've been bagged up with injuries, but, um, you can play 500 baseball and eventually turn it on, which is, I guess why people still think Seattle might end up winning that division, but Astros, you know, uh, playing well enough and it doesn't take much to win that division, like you said, or the central for that matter. And it's so funny, Scott, because the Astros have a guy that is likely going to win the triple crown and nobody's talking about you're not Alvarez is your American league MVP. It's not most people don't even, I haven't heard anybody talk about the guys leading in batting average home runs and RBIs and people, people pretending like they're all the Astros and tech, like, no, they're not. And the last, uh, triple crown. That we got winner. Was it Cabrera was the last one or was there somebody else that did it? It was Miguel Cabrera, right. And with the tigers, when, and was he a DH then he might've been as well. Could you imagine if Ohtani and your Don Alvarez two DHS win the MVPs and the nationally American league. See if that's ever happened before.