The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros 1st Baseman Christian Walker Joins Matt & Ross From Spring Training

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

Astros 1st Baseman Christian Walker Joins Matt & Ross From Spring Training

Thomas Showwood Ross has promised. Our friend Christian Walker will be soon after he finishes the major league career analyst for Turner. NBC, ESPN, Peacock, Yahoo, it'll be someplace for you to go. Far down the road. Far down the road.

He wants to club another 150 home runs where he calls it a career. That would be nice, huh? How many got all together now? I don't know. What? To be honest with you. Okay, how about this?

You look it up, and then we're going to try to guess to see how close you did. I know I got 150 over the course. So last year during the first half. This is a terrible guessing game now. I'd say 171. 174. I'm glad I guessed.

It was close, though. That's good, yeah. Didn't guess that. They've been weird if you said 450 or something. Then you've got to get the 200 this year. That's low-hanging fruit right there, right? That's first half. First half stuff, baby.

Come on now. Yeah, let's hope so. Okay. So I asked you in the clubhouse how you lost the weight. Grown-ass men usually don't do that. But we just did. So did you make it a concerted effort to say, I'm carrying too much weight? I want to drop 10 pounds?

How did you decide? You know what? I'll go a little leaner this off season. Yeah, I mean, a little bit of both. Step one, I was having a baby. We had a baby last summer. So first off-season with a kid. You weren't losing baby weight.

She was probably a little right. Dad strength. There you go. Apparently men hold on weight, too, because there's some hormone. Your body's prepping for sleepless nights or something. Really? I heard some. Yeah, I was like, oh.

That's my excuse. Sounds like cheeseburger's 11. I don't even go with that. But wanted to embrace parenting and not, I feel like so many people survive. And, you know, obviously the baby's behavior has so much to do with that more than, you know, we think. But just wanted to really make sure I had a grip on my discipline. I wanted to make sure I was eating right, sleeping right, hydrating, training to benefit, obviously myself. But to be in a good spot to be a dad.

and to be a husband, and, you know, parenting is a fun thing. So that was at the forefront of my brain. And it wasn't necessarily to, like, lose weight or I thought I was playing too heavy last year. But, you know, me playing at 215, 220, I think, is a much cleaner spot than, you know, maybe mid-220s or something like that. Have you noticed it so far running some of the drills out there at this point? Yeah, I think my foot works a little cleaner. Hard to tell. It's, you know, when you spend time with it, it's you don't see the big changes as much.

but yeah i think i think long term too maybe a little less weight on the legs and helping recovery and all all right uh christia your first and second half were significantly different tell me about the first half tell me about the oblique and how much that put you behind the eight ball in terms of getting off to a good astro career start yeah i think um you know as much as i don't want to admit it or using his excuse i think it's it's very much a thing these abatt's during spring training are important um you have in these you know low stress environments to explore some timing things and feel a different direction and play with your approach at the plate. You know, I felt competitive when I came back, but I think there's the being able to compete

side of things, and then there's trusting your body and proven that you have the reps and you've build up volume. So I think, you know, looking back objectively, maybe I was caught in between. I felt like I was in a spot to help the team win, but maybe not just quite as competitive as I wanted to be, right? It was an embarrassing first half. I'm not sitting here trying to justify it or make excuses or anything like that. But it is also part of the game.

By far the slowest start I've had to a year. But to be honest, I'm proud of myself for still putting up some okay numbers, and the slug came back around. The average climbed a little bit late, and I've seen a lot of guys, start with a really slow first half like that and, you know, give up and pull the shoot. And I wanted to finish strong. And I did that.

I proved to myself that I could bounce back even with a really tough start. So, you know, overall, I'm proud of, you know, how it finished. Do you feel like you learn something about either both physically and mentally with those struggles that you went to? What would you learn about yourself? I think there's always time. You know, I think it's always. okay to have some stretches that are slow. The baseball season is so long.

You have a really good month. It's like no matter what you do, you're going to have a really great month and you're going to have a really bad month. And then those handful in between. It's like, are you on the 280 side of things or are you on the 220 side of things? So I think just being really, you know, realistic, I think giving myself some grace. I'm hard on myself naturally. I take this thing really seriously.

So I think Look at myself in the mirror And saying it's okay You're working as hard as you can You're preparing the right way It's the game's tough Yeah was that something Did you do that more in season

Or maybe more as you look back I think I was forced to in season Yeah Because I felt great about how I was preparing And I felt ready To compete I felt prepared to play And help the team

It just wasn't showing up on the field As consistent as I wanted it to So you ask yourself like, okay, what can I do different? Like, I'm not going to sit here and feel bad for myself. So how do I get out of it? How do I make it better? What should I be doing differently? And when I prepare the right way and I train the right way and I feel like I'm living right,

there's not much else to do but weather the storm. Trust the work. Trust yourself. Know that, you know, hey, I got another 300 at batts on the table. I can do a lot of damage in that amount of time. You came into camps that I want to play 150 games. That's what you normally have done for most of your crew. career. You've won the gold gloves. You get an outstanding resume. But, you know, look, Twitter

streets may not be accurate, but the reality is names get brought up. Yours was brought up a little bit here and there. Do you take that with a grain of salt? Do you go, all right, I got to change things a little bit. Do you go, you know what, unless my agent hears something, or I talk to Dana, I'm not going to worry about any of that outside noise. I'm in that, in the ladder there. I'm a less. I applaud you for that because he and I are, we have terrible self-esteem issues. So congratulations for I've done my fair share of armchair GM and for sure. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, honestly, it just gets exhausting for me.

There's so many scenarios. There's so many possible outcomes, and none of it is in my control. Like, yeah, if I would have come out last year and hit 300 with 40, like probably wouldn't be talked about getting traded, right? So that side of things is in my control. But the business side of the game is very real. So for me, I actually, I deleted all social media off of my phone for a while, like jealous. Yeah, not avoiding things, but it's just a smoother day-to-day if I'm not aware of all that stuff.

I trust Dana. The line of communication between me and Joe and me and Dana is pretty solid. I think if something had some traction, you know, I'd expect that somebody would reach out, and I understand it's not personal. It is what it is, but never heard anything serious, so I just kept on with my business. Your offseason is in South Carolina. That's not the epicenter of media in the world, so can you really, can, can you really, decompress from everything. Frating about looking at Europe, but just what is it like for the news cycle? I mean, do you watch the World Series? I don't know if you're running to a Columbia Sports Bar and eight or nine playoff baseball games are on. You know what I mean?

It's your heart of SEC territory there. Yeah, it's very much Gamecock football season when I get home in the fall for sure. But I love high-stakes sports. You know, obviously the tide of baseball is there. I enjoy watching the postseason. I think it's something that we've grown to appreciate. I got a taste of the World Series in 23. It was a big part of why I came to Houston.

I think it's fun. It's why the Olympics are fun. I don't know the rules of the half of these events and sports, but I'm into it. I'm like, I'm hanging on every moment. You know, when you're playing with something on the line, it's just fun to watch. And I think as a professional athlete, I just really respect something about that. All right, so you've lost the weight. Two stolen bases last year.

11 career high. What are we thinking for 2026? I'd like to sniff double digits again, but I think what's important about last year is Paredes had zero and I had two. Okay. Just got to remember that as long as I steal more than Paredes, then he can't talk crap to me. So who is the slowest player on the team? Oh, depends he asked.

Not counting catchers because they get a free pass. That's crazy. Catchers. Man, it might be Paredes. I like to think I'm faster than I look, but. maybe we need a race you know well we can probably find the feet per second

yeah it's the max at least we got a big metric guy here he'll find it don't worry he'll do some doubt but no let's just keep you trotting hit it over the fence and then you can trot ground rule doubles we love too we had zero issues with that yeah Jose's gonna be front let you run

Jose it looks like he's gonna be back at second base he's not gonna say it so we're gonna interpret it as you know he did what was best when he thought was best for the team but I think naturally you know this too guys want to be in their natural positions, what will be like to have consistency within that infield, at least for 2025?

Yeah, it's important. That consistency, I think just as a player, I've tinkered with learning a new position. I played a little bit of left field in the minors coming up. I think it's like one of two things that either really frees the guy up and they think, like, well, there's no pressure because I'm not supposed to play this position and it can really help. I think the other camp is like, oh, no, I'm learning a new position. I don't want to be the reason why, you know, we lose. a game or I give up runs for my pitcher or something like that. So, you know, I've seen both

things. I think Jose did a great, great job of flowing into a new position in the big leagues. Like the guy has done something at an elite level for so long and then you ask him to do something new. His mentality never changed. His energy never changed. He was embracing left field for us. And he helped us win a lot of games. That's another huge bat to have in the lineup. And if he's willing to do something like that, that's, you know, as far as like a team captain and a leader, that's, I mean, that's everything you're asking for. else, my man? I think I'm pretty good.

I mean, look, we're rooting for a lot of success. He's ready to go. I know. I know it's a little awkward with all the talk here and there. I just, you guys, you were so close. Do you think about one game or do you think it's such a macro sport in which you play? You can't go to one game, go, man, if we would have just turned that double play, or if I had just got that key hit, or we would have scored that last run of the ninth thing.

Do you think about that kind of because it was such a close separation between you and Detroit? Yeah, I think it's easy. You could probably pick out some spots. To be honest, I think when I look around the clubhouse at the team we had last year, I feel like it shouldn't have come down to one game. We should have been a handful of games out in front of the division, right? Like, we had plenty of talent, plenty opportunities to win the division last year. Not taking any credit away from Seattle and these other teams.

They did a great job, right? They did what they needed to do. They're cocky, though. Yeah, it's good. You know, you should be. You won the division. Like, good. You know, it's, it's, we had a target on our backs. We have a target on our backs. We're, we have a reputation. Yeah. I want other teams to come in and try to, try to knock us off the pedestal. But, you know, to answer your question, no. I don't think it's fair to anybody or ourselves to try to pick one spot. The season's long for a reason. You got nine guys on the field for a reason. It's, it's very much a team sport and we're playing the long game. Lastly, playing in West Sacramento, is that like playing in AAA, like PCL? Like, I can swing with one hand and hit the ball 450 feet. That place looks like that he and I could hit a home run in that ballpark. I love it.

Yeah, it's awesome. I wish that we played twice as many games there. No, it's a hitter-friendly park for sure. I don't know what it is other than that. Like, if it's good wind, I don't know if I don't know, like, know where the altitude is. If you're really grown, you should switch on the other side of the plate running a home run. Yeah, I'm trying to make them count. I got a couple of right.

I love it. Christian, thank you very much for the time. We wish you to know about the very best. Congratulations on the baby. Enjoy that beet juice. Have you ever had a beet juice, Rosie? Yeah, it's, it gets you going. Nitric oxide.

I know what's going to get me going. We'll not be doing it in the show much longer. Christian Walker here to start the final hour of the Bad Tava's live program. We're going to be with you until 2 o'clock today here on Sports Talk 7.9. Thanks, gosh. Thanks.