The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Alex Bregman Joins The Matt Thomas Show At Spring Training

Episode Date: February 20, 2020

Alex Bregman Joins The Matt Thomas Show At Spring Training

Close front of the radio show, the Matt Thomas Show, Sports Talk 790. I'll never forget the time you came in in full robe. I mean, that made you a legend in our town. The picture still is all over the place. Where's that robe right now? Is it the house? It's at the house. I don't feel like even as many years you've been allowed that you're a role-wearing guy around the house, are you?

Never, never. No, I just normally rock Lulu Lemon chilling, workout gear. I'm around the house. What did you wear when you proposed the girl? I actually had to dress up that time. I was wearing some jeans. Oh, really jeans? You're really stepping out.

Fancy, wow. Yeah, I got that. She must have known something was up. She was like, caught a little off guard. I kept telling her to straighten her hair. All right, can you give us the 30-second rundown of how it went down? When was the moment? Where did you do it?

How romantic did you pull it off? So it was in Aspen, Colorado, and I had four of my friends there and us, too. And Reagan actually came up to me and said, hey let's go to breakfast this morning and i was like oh perfect they'll go up to the top of the mountain ride the gondola up yeah and we'll go get breakfast little did she know that 21 of our family and friends are going to be there at the top of the mountain waiting at the end of the day but we leave breakfast and she actually tells me she's like hey when we get back to houston like let's go look at rings together and i'm like or you can just see if you like this one

did you feel pressure you're like you know i held it in for a few minutes and waited because i knew she wanted a photographer first of all i I applaud you for getting 21 people up there with your buddies and no one's saying a same thing about it. Nobody said a thing. They all turned off their location services were sworn to secrecy. They wouldn't tell her. And she did she had no clue.

She was shocked. We wrote up to the top of the mountain. She's like, do our parents know I want to face-time them right now? I was like, let's take some pictures first and go get a bite to eat and then we'll call them on the way to the airport. I made her pack her bags the night before she thought we were leaving. Yeah. Then everyone was there.

We stayed three more days. It was a blast. Unbelievable. And you did the right thing by talking to her dad first, correct? Yes. Yes. Oh yeah. I don't know.

I kept telling her that I was scared to talk to him, but I wasn't. I had already talked to him well before that. Yeah, I was going to say, I was scared to that at the 1997. I don't know today's kids do it in 2020, but that's not here nor there. You and I have known each other for a long time, and so I always come into you and say, how was your off-season? Things chill, and obviously it's been a different season. And as I told Chris Tivinsky a few minutes ago, you got an audience to listen to us right now

that is all into you guys that cannot wait for the games to start. Is that the overall perception of what's going on in that clubhouse right now is just we need to get these games going here. Yeah, we're excited. We got a great team this year. We lost a few people, but we added a few pieces. I'm excited. I think it's going to be a great year.

We got a great team, great offense returning. And then Verlander and Granky, the top of rotation is pretty special. So I got McCullors back. That's basically like a big free agent acquisition. I like it. I mean, we're going to be really good. Now, as Dusty Baker said, he's got a governor on him. So make sure he doesn't want to try to throw 200 innings

in his first first. month of the season coming back. We need Lance for a full six months. Oh, he'll be ready to go. Lance can't wait. Lance is fired up. What do you think about the hair? Who? Lance's hair? Oh, legit. He's got great flow. One of the better hairs on our team. Devansky's hair is good too. Yeah, I didn't realize that. You're going to have to grow yours out now. You don't want to see that. It's not a good look. I got to keep it. I got to keep it clean cut. Yeah, Jake Warren, New York Metskiers just kind of odd right now. Yeah, that's weird. That's weird. I face the guy that we got in the trade for him the other day in live A-Bs and he threw me a nice

95-month-hour cutter in on my hands. I was like, holy cow, it's pretty good. See you, Jake. It's been nice knowing you. Could you imagine that? You're a lot better noticed. Give me a thought or two about Dusty Baker. It feels like you could sit down with him. I don't know how many times y'all sit and meet before days. Maybe it's every day, but is he a huge storyteller? Is he a, hey, I need to get used to you?

What's it like right now as you guys are with each other now for a couple weeks? He's trying to get to know everybody. He's a, I mean, he has to meet a whole organization of people. And he's getting to know everybody. He's telling stories. He's doing his thing. He's making his rounds. He's been great.

And we can't wait to get out there and win games for him. Alex Breggman with us here on the Matt Thomas show here from West Palm Beach. You've always never been afraid to have swagger, and we want to see that. I don't know if you can get it right away. I know the first road trip, everybody's kind of winging out a little bit about that. How long do you think normally will take before things you really start to kick in here? I think it'll just take the spring training and we'll be back to feeling good. Yeah. Oh yeah. We'll be ready to go.

Because I think everybody, I mean, look, 49 states want Hyde. We say to Texas, the most important state of the union needs the Astros to be who they are. And I think that's, I think if they're going to look to you to say, all right, is he the one showing in the camera? Is he the one high-fiving and showing emotion? Do you feel like that's got to be still you in 2020? I'm just going to be myself. I know I know who I am as a person. I know what my family and close friends know who I am and know how I go about things. So I'm just going to go out there and play the game that I've always played, have fun, and get after it.

Well, if Ross and I had MVP coach, you would have won because you actually played in September, so I congratulate you on that. To finish second, though, I mean, what an accomplishment for yourself. I mean, taking just a step back, can you look at that and go, man, look where I am right now. Yeah. A lot of hard work. Oh, yeah, a lot of hard work. A lot of people that have helped me. throughout the course of my career.

And, you know, great, great teammates. That's what it's all about. I feel like the MVP is a big part of how great your teammates are. And to finish second was a tremendous honor. Mike Trout's an unbelievable baseball player. Marcus Simeon had an unbelievable year. He's a great player as well. And there's a lot of great players in the American League.

And it was fun to go out there and compete and be ready for this year as well. Your guy who's gotten better basically every year of your career, and you talked about coming into camp a little bit lighter. So what is coming in this year as opposed to a couple years ago? What is Alex Breggman now no better than rookie Alex Breggman? Well, I think the biggest thing for me these last three years has been getting off to a slow start, man. I've gotten off to a slow start every year and had to kind of make out for it with a strong second half. I think if I played the way I played the last two months,

the last three months of the season last year for the first three months and had a full season of that, that's where I want to do. That's where I want to be. And that would be pretty good. So, you know, we'll come to you after the month of April or May is not off to a great start. And, you know, no one's ever been worried. It may have it's followed your career. But obviously it's something that's bothered you the last couple of years.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. because I want to get off to a hot start and play and play that way for the whole course of a season but if you go for four an opening night what you're not going to do we're not going to kill you you know that right oh yeah because I every year every number you're looking at your home run totals your RBI you're on base slugging I mean everything is improving year after year after year so just don't have the way of the world in your shoulders in the month of April oh I know

this game this game's hard man this game is extremely hard and I know that everyone in that clubhouse knows that and they're they're there There won't be any panic button at all. I think it doesn't matter if we get off to a slow start or a fast start. It's 162 games, 162 big ones, and let's get after it. Now, if you can get seven hits into the Anaheim series, the second week of the season, I'd be okay with that. Yeah, me too.

That'd be pretty cool. I'd like that. Because there's some frisky folks going to be down there. It's all right. Well, I mean, at least there'll be people in the stands. For once. We've had, we've had beer poured on our heads. I mean, not on our family sections, heads in the reposing stadiums.

People yelled nasty things at us before. It's nothing new. And, you know, at the end of the day, people are entitled to do whatever they want. We're just going to go out there and play baseball and play to win. That's it. It's interesting to me. How do you think you want to just be normal or do you want to be chip on your shoulder? You know, you want to be emotional, but you don't want to be too emotional.

Have you thought anything in a way about that or playing? or you're just trying to keep business as usual? I'm going to try and just be the same guy every day when I show up to the field, try and get after it, work my tail off, try and be a good teammate. And then, you know, I don't think anyone's going to have a chip on our shoulder based on all this stuff going on. We're going to have a chip on our shoulder based on the fact that we know that we were in the World Series and we were seven outs away and didn't finish the job.

So we know how good we are. We know how good this team is. And it's time to prove that. You want to face Will Harris sometime this spring? No, it was one of my best friends, and I was sad to see him leave. LSU boys. Yeah, he's an absolute stud. So he made a perfect pitch, and Howie Kendrick put a perfect swing on it.

Hats off to them, they deserve to win that World Series. They played unbelievable baseball. Yeah, but we're all worried about LSU versus LSU, right? Oh, yeah, we face each other a few times in Live at Bats. Who wins? Who has one? Don't, okay, I won't bring it up, sorry. But, no, Will's a superstar.

All right, last thing. Are you ready to go and turn me? What do you want to get accomplished here? You've been through a few of these now. Is there anything, now that you're playing a little lighter, I mean, is it, do you notice anything differently? I mean, you're still grabbing everything at third base, I'm assuming. Yeah, I feel great.

I feel awesome. I'm ready to go compete and leave it all out in the field. Are you registered anywhere at this? point what do you mean like when you get married you have to get registered for oh no i don't know if we're going to do that i don't know how that works i don't know it's good it saves me a gift i don't know i don't know how we're going to do that just that i was going to say ask for cash but you make plenty of it's i'm not worried about you're making that no man this is going to be a fun year i think destination wedding or what yeah yeah yeah yeah we're all going to go uh i'm not sure

yet but bachelor party that's most important i don't even know i'm not even to that i'm not to that playing so sly right now. I'm not to that. I'm not to that point yet to figure all that stuff out. But I do know one thing and that's we as a team are excited for this year. We're going to leave it all out there on the field. And, you know, whatever, whatever happens, happens.