let's let's start with the American League because we're Americans who true Real red-blooded Americans that's us and we will talk about a mop that happened over the weekend because its relevance continues the Kansas City Royals who were like seven to eight outs away from mopping the Guardians last week there were articles abound including one from yours TR not yours truly is me but you mine truly I don't know Jordan truly you could say Jordan truly about how the Royals were here they were formidable since that day they have lost six games in a row they were mopped by the Astros they lost last night to Cleveland and even worse than that was they lost Vinnie pasquantino in one of those games over the weekend against Houston to a broken thumb on a freak play Bang Bang at first base Houston Astros just carved the Royals up um in all four games Houston pitchers allowed starters allowed one run one earned run yeah in the series that is tough to win now obviously any mop is goingon to feel a lot better or worse for one team than the other do you want to start with Kansas City or do you want to start with Houston because I have some some strong feelings about about both let's do Houston okay so let's start with that that nugget that you just dropped there right now I know they lost yesterday in Cincinnati and we'll fold in the Monday results to our our general weekend recap that's how we're going to do this episode we'll do the AL first then we'll take a break do the NL and then we we'll hit some quick hits at the end the Astros pitching becoming a legitimate strength after how much of a mess it was in the first not just the first month right like even when they started winning in May and into June we were still looking at this rotation like what in like besides ronel Blanco who was you know throwing no hitters every 5 days it was just like framber was not very good Verlander was out the rookies Hunter Brown was an atrocity arag Getti was getting blasted like all of these guys I mean at that point they'd still they'd called up Jake Bloss like they' had they' calling up all these guys that and it was just like what is and the bullpen wasn't good right like hater and Presley was injured in a mess and a br was given up R it was just like okay even if this offense starts playing like the Astros this this is they will have to be overcoming their own pitching staff you know maybe the bullpen we would expect to regress back to being being good and that's generally happened but now I mean now it's like they feel great about all these guys to the point where partially because of workload but partially because of how well everyone else is throwing they're like yeah ronal Blanco yeah probably not going to start a postseason game that's that's an astonishing turnaround because with Ron BL was all we could count on for the first two months and now he's borderline Expendable for them which is which is really a credit to the development of guys like brown the turnaround guys like brown who we've seen over in the big leagues you know kind of be able to make those adjustments and then arag Getti who's who's been spectacular and then Verlander obviously fits into that in a very interesting way as well and they've needed it because the offense is freaking banged up dude like Alex Brigman hasn't played in a couple days he's got an elbow issue Tucker still doesn't come back that's hopefully coming soon for them but they ran out of an outfield yesterday in Cincinnati of Ben gaml Chaz McCormick and Center who they sent down like three days before that and then Jason Hayward in right field so this Astros lineup when they play the team that you care about you're G to look at it you're gonna be like that's really not that good and then you're going to see Spencer edti who you've never heard of before and then it's the seventh inning and there are no run for your team yes however one other name that I forgot to mention which is very important to this well two two other names that have to be mentioned we talking about Houston one is you say Kikuchi they give up three prospects who are all close or at the major league level to Toronto for us say Kikuchi the rental and we say what are you doing you know okay it's good you went and got a picture that you clearly needed I mean no one doubted that the like the Astros needed a starting pitcher so in that sense and we even said at the time like okay this is a pretty have the price to pay for Kikuchi but I mean man like how good is you say Kikuchi Well turns out pretty freaking good especially once he starts throwing a slider 35% of the time instead of 20% of the time he has been fantastic and now you have a lot of confidence in a guy like him to start a postseason game but then the other one which hello duh is yordon Alvarez who has once again quietly I believe has the second highest OPS in baseball over the last two months behind Aaron judge and it's just it's just been I mean he's he settled into just that like so so because what he's doing is never quite like historic he's just been at this exact level basically now for four four years that it's just like yeah that's yordon of course um and because no one wants to like go out of their way to like be excited about the Astros which is totally fair yordon just kind of ends up being collateral damage and not getting the love that he absolutely deserves and he's yeah I mean he's one of he's still one of the best hits on Earth and while the rest of this offense has been either injured or struggling he just keeps on keeping on I was in the Press Box last week when he hit three homers in that game against Philly and he I'm like midc conversation with someone and he hits the third home run and everyone just starts laughing right it's just his home runs you just they're just that is a ridiculous thing for a human being to accomplish but the Astros look better on the mound than they have all year they have six players that you could legitimately start in a postseason game the real interesting conversation I actually want to save this for tomorrow is should justtin Verlander start a postseason game my opinion the answer right now is no he was shaky again yesterday in his third start off the I don't want to dig into it too deep let's table that for tomorrow the Kansas City Royals yeah however they are riding The Struggle Bus we have six losses in a row for them they right before the waiver wire deadline were incredibly active bringing in Robbie grman Tommy fam and Julie guel who's already hurt because 40 yeah so like respectfully like the the random hamstring tightness in your first game like yeah kind of the thing that that happens sometimes when you're trying to to to play 40-year-old players but that was the last ditch effort to you know backfill this devastating injury to Vinnie pastino the broken thumb that at the very least is going to keep Vinnie out for the for the remainder of the regular season I appreciate Vinnie very understandably being like my season's not over I'm going to try to come back I mean the timeline they give this is six to eight weeks that pushes it to you know the middle of October are the world still playing then who knows the point is right we hope so but you know it's good to I'm not surprised that they went out I mean it's probably likely they were going to claim at least one of these guys anyway um but because there are clearly still some holes in this offense but that's the thing I mean the they they could afford to have a bad weekend in Houston they I not sure they can afford to lose Vinnie at this stage so here's the deal with the Royals there's still four and a half games up on that last Wild Card yeah the bottom has fallen out here for them but the worst case scenario is them just falling ass backwards into October I can't really see the Red Sox chasing them down to get into the playoffs and then once you're in in and that if you're the six seed right and you're still only at game back of the twins if you're the six seed your first game is either going to be against the Astros or the Guardians right almost certainly and like you have Cole Reagan and Seth Lugo been really good and Bobby witch yor just like win a game for you so it's the to me the sky is not falling in Kansas City even though they have lost six games in a row