Astros take on the Rangers with first place up for grabs

Summary

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Payne & Pendergast – Astros Take On the Rangers with First Place Up For Grabs

Date: July 31, 2026
Main Theme:
This episode dives deep into a pivotal moment in Houston sports. Sean Pendergast and (presumably) Seth Payne break down the Astros’ sudden surge and their crucial, upcoming series against the Rangers—one that could see Houston reclaim first place in the division. The show also touches on recent Texans news from training camp, the off-court drama affecting Rockets' Tari Eason, and the axing of the Houston Gamblers from the UFL. The hosts bring a lively, candid tone, mixing insightful analysis with humor and local flavor.

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Astros’ Resurgence: A Season-Changing Week

[01:15 - 04:05]

The Standings Shake-Up

• The Rangers blew a late lead to the Rays, allowing the Astros to move within half a game of first in the division without even playing.
  • Mark Sessler: “They didn't even need to do anything and they picked up ground on the Rangers... Now just a half game back in the division. Who saw this coming?” [01:17]
• Just a week ago, after being swept by the Orioles, the consensus was the Astros should consider selling at the trade deadline. Now, they're surging—winning 8 out of 9—and have a chance to take first place with this series against Texas.
  • Mark Sessler: “This team needs to sell. They just got swept by the Orioles... And now here they are. Since then, they've won eight out of nine.” [01:50]
• The upcoming series is billed as “the biggest of the season... maybe even going back to last season.” [01:54]

"Control Your Destiny" Banter

• The hosts riff on sports clichés about “controlling your own destiny.”
  • Josh Radner: “Save it on the text line with all of your, you know, logical arguments against whether you can control your own destiny.” [02:17]
  • Mark Sessler: “They’re in the driver’s seat. How’s that?” [02:23]

Pitching Matchups and Rotation Questions

• Uvalde vs. Hunter Brown opens the series, with Brown coming off a strong outing.
  • Mark Sessler: “Nathan Uvalde against Hunter Brown. Especially with Hunter coming off the last outing…” [02:35]
• Subplots include which pitchers are fully healthy—Blanco, Hunter Brown, Eric Getty, Wisneski all in the mix—and whether Tatsuya Imai will get his next scheduled start (he’s been inconsistent on the road).
  • Josh Radner: “Imai’s struggles seem to be... mostly on the road. He has a hard time adjusting to various mounds.” [03:08]
  • Mark Sessler: “His spot is coming up in the rotation on Sunday and they have not announced the starter yet.” [03:34]
• Highlighted series matchups: Uvalde vs. Brown tonight, DeGrom vs. Blanco, and both teams “TBD” for Sunday. [03:48]

Roster Moves & Astros Reflections

• JP France was released by the Astros.
• Discussion floats to the fate of past Astros pitcher Lance McCullers (now DFA’d by the Brewers) and Dallas Keuchel, who is trying out with the Oakland/Sacramento A's. The hosts reminisce on how both were once cornerstones of the team.
  • Mark Sessler: “Back in 2017… Dallas Keiko and Lance McCullers… a decade later, McCullers is getting DFA'd by the Brewers and Keiko is signing a minor league deal...” [04:24]
  • Josh Radner: “Keiko got screwed by them changing the strike zone… then they raised it and boom, there you go.” [04:49]

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Breaking Texans News from Camp

[05:56 - 07:17]

Injury Scare: Jake Hanson

• Texans linebacker Jake Hanson suffered a foot injury in training camp—carted off, described as “one of those situations where the entire team, both sidelines came out to give him the pat on the shoulder.”
  • Mark Sessler: “The optics… didn’t look great… the whole team gathered. That never looks good.” [06:19]

Training Camp Comparison

• The scene gets compared to last year’s scare with C.J. Gardner-Johnson, who was thought to be out for the season but returned quickly—only to “torpedo the first month of the season.”
  • Josh Radner: “Not only is he coming back, he's going to come back to torpedo the first month of the season.” [07:06]
  • Mark Sessler: “C.J. Gardner Johnson’s out for the year. Two months later I was like, oh, it could have helped if he was out for the year.” [07:09]

Upcoming Segment Teaser

• Further breakdown of Texans’ training camp is teased: “Seth is going to give his detailed breakdown… both sides of the ball…” [07:17]

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Rockets Drama: The Tari Eason Saga

[07:17 - 10:47]

Off-Court Turmoil Explodes

• Rockets forward Tari Eason is embroiled in a domestic violence/restraining order story:

  • Alleging his ex punched him and destroyed $92,000 worth of clothes with bleach.
  • Eason says he received threatening messages, feeling his life was threatened.
    • Mark Sessler (reading quote): “She would break both my legs and kill me.” [08:35]
  • Hosts riff on the ordering of the threats—
    • Josh Radner: “Could you just kill me first and then break my legs? At least show a little humanity.” [08:43]

• Humorous aside about how much designer clothing costs—joking maybe it was $92k of Costco threads.

  • Josh Radner: “Could have been from Costco. $92,000 worth of Costco clothes.” [09:21]

Performance and Personal Life

• They discuss how off-court drama may relate to Eason’s on-court struggles and reference similar issues with other athletes (Stefan Diggs, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan).
  • Mark Sessler: “Sometimes you just wonder what's going on in guys’ lives…who they associate with and everything. It's a big deal.” [09:38]
  • Josh Radner: “I don’t give anybody grace based on stuff going on in their personal life… Michael Jordan, all kinds of disruption. You compartmentalize.” [10:12]

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Local Sports Update: UFL’s Houston Gamblers Axed

[10:47 - 10:58]

League Pulls the Plug

• The UFL drops Houston as a market; Gamblers fans will get season ticket refunds.
  • Mark Sessler: “RIP Houston Gamblers…the league acknowledging that…changing name, venue multiple times…might be on us a little bit.” [10:47]

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Notable Quotes & Banter

• Mark Sessler: “It’s as fun as it gets for a team that has not been a ton of fun in the regular season the last couple years.” [02:35]
• Josh Radner: “Compartmentalize, man. Use it to drive you, not distract you.” [10:36]

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Timestamps – Important Segments

• [01:15] Astros catch up in the division; surge recap
• [02:35] Pitching matchups and Hunter Brown’s resurgence
• [03:34] Imai’s rotation spot uncertainty
• [04:05] JP France cut; McCullers and Keuchel career update
• [06:19] Jake Hanson’s injury—scene and implications
• [07:17] Tease for Texans camp breakdown
• [07:40] Tari Eason’s off-court drama: details and impact
• [10:47] Houston Gamblers dropped from UFL

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Final Thoughts

This episode provides Houston fans a heady mix of timely optimism (Astros surging) and sobering reality (Texans injuries, Rockets’ off-court troubles, Houston losing a football franchise yet again). The hosts’ blend of sharp analysis and quick-witted honesty makes for a fast-paced listen—even as the team allegiances and local humor remain front and center.

Transcript

[Josh Radner]

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[Mark Sessler]

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[Richard Deutsch]

Hey, this is Richard Deutsch, the host of the sports media podcast. If you're interested in what's happening with all the places where you consume sports, the sports media podcast has you covered.

[Mark Sessler]

I've been turning down interviews all week. Coda Copy reached out. Oprah, George Stephanopoulos. So I said no. I was booked on the Deitch podcast before the Taylor Swift phenomenon. I must live up to my responsibility.

[Richard Deutsch]

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[Mark Sessler]

All right, let's get to headlines. We've been football heavy in the first hour of the show, so let's get to a little baseball. The Astros were off yesterday. They didn't even need to do anything and they picked up ground on the Rangers. The Rangers had a 21 lead against the Tampa Bay Rays heading into the back end of that game. The Rays, though, able to hit a couple home runs and win that game. Couple solo home runs. They win the game 3 to 2. The Astros now just a half game back in the division. Who saw this coming? You get swept by the Orioles coming out of the All Star break. We come in on a Monday after that saying, this team needs to sell. They just got swept by the Orioles. This is how you spent your All Star break?

[Josh Radner]

Yeah.

[Mark Sessler]

Getting ready to get swept by the Orioles. And now here they are. Since then, they've won eight out of nine. They're a half game back in the division, and they've got the biggest series of the season. The biggest series in quite some time, maybe even going back to last season where they can. They can be in first place by the time they wake up tomorrow morning.

[Josh Radner]

They, you know what they do, Sean? They control their own destiny.

[Mark Sessler]

They do.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah.

[Mark Sessler]

That's always where you want to be.

[Josh Radner]

Save it on the text line with all of your, you know, logical arguments against whether you can Control your own destiny.

[Mark Sessler]

But they've existential.

[Josh Radner]

They're in the driver's seat. How's that? We accept that they're in the driver's seat. They can single handedly without having to worry about anybody else losing or anything. They can take the lead in the division.

[Mark Sessler]

It's as fun as it get for a team that has not been a ton of fun in the regular season the last couple years. Nathan Uvalde against Hunter Brown. Especially with Hunter coming off the last outing that he. Yeah, no, I mean, Hunter was outstanding in his last season.

[Josh Radner]

There's so many things when it comes to guys who are coming off the IL and what is their progress going to be? There's a whole lot of directions you could take with Blanco with Hunter Brown, Eric Getty and his continued erratics.

[Mark Sessler]

You know, Wisneski's back now too.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the biggest thing, I'm wondering like at some point if we got to get creative and we've got all these, you know, all of a sudden you're having a plethora of pitchers. Imai. Imai's struggles seem to be at this point mostly on the road. And he has a hard time adjusting to various mounds. He's had some good performances on the road, but it's only if the mound is just right. Apparently he's comfortable with the Dyke and Park mound, but if you got to start at least jockeying it around to where Imai can pitch at home,

[Mark Sessler]

well, his spot is coming up in the rotation on Sunday and they have not announced the starter yet.

[Josh Radner]

Right.

[Mark Sessler]

So this is. This is going to be. One of the interesting sub storylines of the weekend is just, you know, does Tatsuya Imai get his. Does he get his turn in the rotation?

[Josh Radner]

It's fun, man. If you want, you got Uvalde versus Brown tonight. You got DeGrom versus Blanco and then TBD on Sunday on both sides.

[Mark Sessler]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So should be a whole lot of fun out at Dyke and Park. JP France cut loose by the Astros yesterday, by the way. So he was. He was cut loose.

[Josh Radner]

How'd you guys handle. Because I was on vacation. How'd you guys handle the depressing news of McCullers being cut by the Brewers? Did that happen on.

[Mark Sessler]

No. It happened while you were gone. Yeah, it happened while you were gone.

[Josh Radner]

Really sad, man.

[Mark Sessler]

It was sad. Well, you know, it was sad. This is. I'll tell you how we handled it. It happened the same day that Dallas Keiko signed a minor league contract with the Oakland or the whatever they are. The A's, the Sacramento A's. So you had, you had two back on in 2017, they had two pitchers make the All Star team. Yeah, Dallas Keiko and Lance McCullers. A decade later, McCullers is getting DFA'd by the brewers and Kykal is signing a minor league deal with the A's. You know, you would think back then, these are your two. These are two guys that are going to be your foundation for however many years. Yeah, it didn't work out that way.

[Josh Radner]

Kaiko got screwed by them changing the strike zone. Yeah, he used to live at the bottom of the strike Z. And then they raised it and boom, there you go.

[Mark Sessler]

Jake Hansen, injured yesterday here at practice at Texans training camp. Today's day three. Yesterday, Day two, Jake Hansen, linebacker Injured here was d' Amico Ryan's after practice Giving clarification.

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[Mark Sessler]

Jake went down Today Jake Hanson went down. Seems to be a foot injury we don't know the extent of it just happened right now. So we'll evaluate him and see, see how it how he, you know, progresses towards getting back healthy. Okay, I will say this just to set the scene. The optics of what happened didn't look great because it was he got carted off and it was one of Those situations where the entire team, both sidelines came out to give him the pat on the shoulder kind of thing. Yeah, you had the whole team gathered. That never looks good.

[Josh Radner]

It never looks good. But that was the same scene with CJ Gardner Johnson last year. And then there was a report that he was going to be out for the year and we thought, oh, no, oh no. And then it turned out, no, he's going to be fine. He's going to come back practicing Monday. But wait, he's going to single handedly help you lose your first three games.

[Mark Sessler]

Not only is he coming back, he's going to come back to torpedo the first month of the season.

[Josh Radner]

What a roller coaster of emotions. Oh, no. C.J. gardner Johnson's out for the year. Two months later I was like, oh, it could have helped if he was out for the year.

[Mark Sessler]

Yep. So that was the update. That's, that's what went on yesterday here at Texan training camp. Stay tuned. In about 10 minutes, Seth is going to give his detailed breakdown of what we saw on both sides of the ball here in day two of Texans training camp. Boy, this Tar Eason story is crazy. Headline on tmz. Houston Rockets star Tari Eason. My export bleach on my designer clothes.

[Josh Radner]

Oh, no.

[Mark Sessler]

Tari Eason. And we know that Tar Eason went through it this season. He did not have the season he was hoping for. He was kind of betting on himself. Rockets made him what people said was a really good offer a year ago. And he said, nope, I'm going to hit restricted free agency. Now we do know this as well. He never hit free agency. The Rockets signed him to a new deal this offseason. Five years, a little over 80 million bucks. So tar Eason got a nice contract, but he is, if you're wondering when he went through that slump in the middle of the season, if he had stuff going on off the court.

[Josh Radner]

Yeah.

[Mark Sessler]

Tar Eason is asking for a domestic violence restraining order against his ex, telling the court she punched him in the face and destroyed some of his designer clothes with bleach. He filed a petition, which TMZ obtained on Thursday, and he's asking for protection from 32 year old Marilyn Maritza Melo Rodriguez, who he describes as someone he used to date. He claims that one of her friends called him to, quote, tell me she would break both my legs and kill me, end quote. Alleged threats he said made him fear for his life.

[Josh Radner]

Could you just kill me first and then break my legs? At least show a little humanity or something. Make it look worse after the fact.

[Mark Sessler]

Why you got to torture me?

[Josh Radner]

The quote was, and then she, Marilyn, went back to his Airbnb where he alleges she, quote, took all my clothes and poured liquid bleach on them, ruining them.

[Mark Sessler]

Yeah.

[Josh Radner]

He claims she caused $92,000 worth of

[Mark Sessler]

loss in personal expensive clothes.

[Josh Radner]

Well, yeah, I don't. I don't think he used the word designer clothes. I think that's kind of a boomer phrase. I don't think the kids are out there saying, look at my designer jeans. Y.

[Mark Sessler]

Right, right, right.

[Josh Radner]

You can tell. You can tell an old person. So plus.

[Mark Sessler]

But the price tag would indicate that they were designer clothes or it was

[Josh Radner]

just a whole lot of clothes.

[Mark Sessler]

That could be.

[Josh Radner]

It could have been from Costco. But $92,000 worth of Costco clothes worth of clothes. Yeah. This is where, man, this is when it's like it was Stefan Diggs. The. Not that I'm making. Tari, don't listen, listen, Tari's mom. I'm not saying he's a direct comparison to Stefan Diggs in any way, shape or form or anything, but man, sometimes you just wonder what's going on in guys lives. Like the stuff that's going on in their personal lives and the choices they make and who they associate with and everything. It's a big deal. And that's why with Stefan Diggs, I think right now there's a lot of teams that are taking their time and maybe are intrigued by Stefan Diggs.

[Mark Sessler]

He's not signed yet, but there's just

[Josh Radner]

always so much drama surrounding him and so much of it has to do with the people he associates with.

[Mark Sessler]

Yeah. Sounds like this is just a one time thing for Tar Eason, I guess. But it does explain. Do you give him a little bit of grace for the slump he had in the middle?

[Josh Radner]

I'm not blaming the victim. I'm not blaming the alleged victim here with him. No, no. I don't give anybody grace based on stuff that's going on in their personal life, you know, to a certain extent, because that's like the all time greats, you know, Larry Bird, he didn't know who or where his kids were. Like, there's a whole lot of Michael Jordan, all kinds of disruption. You compartmentalize.

[Mark Sessler]

You do, you got to go out and drop.

[Josh Radner]

Can be a mess. Stefan Diggs, to his credit, does an incredible job of compartmentalizing. He does.

[Mark Sessler]

He does.

[Josh Radner]

So no, I don't give guys, if it's drama with the women in your life or whatever. Like yeah, compartmentalize, man. Use it to drive you, not distract you.

[Mark Sessler]

RIP Houston Gamblers the UFL has decided to move on from Houston as a market, at least for the time being. There will be no Houston Gamblers football in Houston next year. The team in the league putting out a statement yesterday, the league acknowledging that, hey, maybe changing their name and changing the venue multiple times and changing a bunch of things as we went along might be on us a little bit. The league said that. So no, if you're a Houston gambler season ticket holder, you will be getting your money back. All right, coming up next, Seth Payne is going to he's going to empty his old school notebook on the crowd. What did he see at practice yesterday on the offensive side of the ball? Specific positions as well, including the wide receiver room. We will do all of that Here in the 7 o' clock hour live from Texans training camp. That's coming up next.

[Josh Radner]

Hey, football is fun.

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