This was impressive, and I think that's where I'd like to start.

I mean, Smith was amazing.

You obviously didn't have the strikeout stuff that he normally does, but I kind of think that's a testament to he's getting the Astros to swing at a lot of pitches outside the zone.

He's really working the breaking stuff well.

I mean, every time I was watching a breaking pitch, I kind of felt confident that it was going to be swung at.

It was going to hit the zone.

He is just fantastic all around.

Like, that's

Like, what were you seeing that may- maybe was a lot different than most?

I think you see a lot of really young bullpens do a lot in these games.

Uh, for a lot of playoff teams, like unsu- surprising playoff teams tend to have very young pitching staffs in the bullpen, and that's a big thing that I kinda looked for first.

And from there, I was sorta like looking at this whole team, and I was like, "You know, like, if everything kinda clicks, like I think this is a .500 ball club." Because, uh, Vargas I thought was going to have that season this year.

I really did believe it after the end of last season.

I thought that was going to be it, like he was going to find it, and that one I was pretty sure of.

But Murakami, I was again pretty sure of.

Yes, is it going to be a potential weak spot? Sure, but I don't want to go in too deep because this is a good vibes podcast and we just made the playoffs and that's awesome.

If you could sum up, if you could give three reasons for what turned this team around, I know it's probably hard, but what would you say is kind of the three big factors from where they've gone from being quite literally the worst team in baseball to probably the most exciting team to watch in baseball and Andrew Benintendi is still employed? How does that work?

Well, I can give you very quickly the answer on the last one.

Ben Attendee has always been a pull hitter who, when he can find his pitch, he's still mashing it.

He's got eight home runs on the year, I believe.

Let me take a look here.

I think he hit his eighth on Friday.

I was wrong.

You play, I believe, every team