The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Come Up Short vs Rockies, Rockets vs Lakers Tomorrow Night... Are you Ready? 

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

Astros Come Up Short vs Rockies, Rockets vs Lakers Tomorrow Night... Are you Ready? 

This is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. Lockett-Ats Town. Good morning, and welcome to a Friday edition to the Matt Thomas Show with Ross from Los Angeles. This is Sports Talk 790. Jay, I'm out, bye. I'm out. I'm out. You're stupid.

Sorry. Dumb-dum-ass call. Hey, are. Dumb-ass call. You hear me? That was a dumb-ass call. Wow, we had a spicy week, sports RV. Good morning.

to you. Honestly, it was an incredible week of the show. I was very pleased with it. We had the Stand By Me moment. Yes, we did. We had Jay.

You and I screamed at each other about a guy leaving his tip tab open. Yep. And you and Jonathan are wrong. And the Astros won two out of three against the Rockies. Yeah. I mean, you'll play

667 baseball when you can, right? And they meet loafed it. It's not bad. Jonathan, do you know what Ross just said? Does it mean anything to you? Meatloft it? If you meatloafed it. 0.0% chance.

0.0% chance. It's frankly okay. There's a meatloaf song. It was called 2 out of 3 ain't bad. Not a banger. Okay. And we're not playing it today because today it's all L.A. and California music on the show.

That's true. I sent Jonathan a list. Did you really? Good for you. It's probably a stuff that I... I mean... Yeah, a lot of it's after 1976. Yeah, I was trying to figure out a way to delicately say this. But there's a lot of it.

Before 1976, I tried to put a balance. And I also, at the end of the day, it's dealer's choice. Jonathan is the DJ. Yes. I was going to say Josh, because we have two Joshes up here, and Jonathan. It's very confusing. Yeah, it is. All right.

Sorry, Jonathan. I know your name. We'll be our Mixmaster today on the show. And we will play. some music to kind of get you in the mood for a four hour radio show. It's anything goes Friday, ladies and gentlemen. Anything goes Friday. Here's how it works.

You'll call 713-212-5-7-90. Let me give the numbers again. 7-13-212-5-7-90. You'll conjugate your verbs properly. You'll have a decent or two-thought. Well, okay. You'll have a thought, whether it's decent or not, it remains to be seen. Yeah, we've got to be like elementary schools these days.

we've got to lower the bar. Again, we love Jay. Jay's been listening to us for a long time and we love him, but his takes are frankly, wretched. I'm going to be honest. If we're doing a Mount Rushmore of dumbest, consistent calls of all time, Jay's right there. Jay's probably number one.

Yeah, I would have to say. The dedication for bad calls, because I will even say this, Matt, you're going to, I don't know if you're sitting or on your bed, and I don't know how clothes you are. I don't really want to know. Would you like to know? But I don't want you to fall over as the point.

Okay. Jay's actually had fewer rational thoughts than Brad throughout our careers or my career of being on being on their show. And we love Jay because he seems like a really, if we met Jay, we'd be like, sit down, Jay, have a beer. Let's talk about life. Sure. But it does take some sort of level of excellence to have every take of yours be awful.

And we crush him. He listens. He can hear us crushing him. And he's just relentless. You got to respect it. Because he's probably going. These guys don't know what they're talking about. So we're going to come in here and I'm going to fix their issues.

And I'm going to give them the takes that people need to hear. But yet when you come on the show and we love you, Jay. Yeah. It just gets from bad to worse. Like, for those who didn't catch it in the little opening segment there, earlier this week, he thought the Astros were faking injuries. I mean, that's. they hate Joe Espada.

That's Hall of Fame-esque type of horrific. As bad. He's like the guy at the bar who gets shut down by like eight girls, and he goes for a ninth. You got kind of respect it. You feel bad for him a little bit, but you almost kind of respect it. Well, I mean, have we all not been with people in our lives, friends? Like, there was a guy in college at North Texas. His name was, I'll just say his name, but I don't even think he's listening.

If he is, I'm going to probably get in trouble. His name is Paul. and Paul thought he was going to go get some ass a lot in college. But he had a horrendous personality. No game. He at first time, in no game, he would brag about stuff that no one cared about. Like, we used to play cards all the time in the dorm. And he won like $25 one time playing cards, which for us back in the day,

we weren't working or anything. That's nice. That's crazy. Yeah, you're playing like dollar a pot. You pick up $25. That's nice. We're at this little watering hole. you know we couldn't drink but a watering hole on near campus and he's like talking to all

these girls like man i won 25 dollars playing whatever car game we're playing i'm thinking paul that's not how you get ladies no girls don't care about winning 25 dollars when a bunch of bros are playing that's hilarious cars he's like yeah baby i won 25 at the rummy game tonight so i thought i mean i've seen paul a few times over the last 30 years and whatnot but i'm thinking man you hadn't it's like i wanted to nickname him no game yeah And that's what Jay is. Jay's no tank. He was high with percentage before we even knew what with percentage was.

His ex-s-a was horrific. Or XLA is, I think, as we're saying on the show here. Yeah. All right. All you is one, yes. Yes. Here's the show today. John Ireland, a voice of the Lakers, going to join us at 1030 this morning.

Oh, John Ireland. We do not stereotype typically on the show. Ever. But it feels like we do almost on the daily. Yeah, that's fine. Um, e-Mayo doka. Let me tell you, can I peel the curtain back for email for a second? Okay.

So we're on the plane yesterday, and I'm saying, hey, can you squeeze 10 minutes? You know, we're in the Pacific time zone, so everything's two hours earlier here. And I said, hey, can you do 10 minutes tomorrow to kind of preview the series? And it's like, I said, I'm on 8th the noon. And he goes, you do a four-hour show? I said, yes, I do. Because that's a long time. I said, yes, I know.

And I'm very happy to do it. Yes, we are. four hours of entertainment, folks. That's right. We give you 20 hours. Whether he's all good or not. I'm sipping my coffee right now. There you go.

And he said, no, I can't because we're leaving in a certain time. And we have a coach's meeting. And then we have practice. And it's a half hour drive from where they're going to be going to. I think they're going to be practicing the Clippers facility. I don't know for exactly today because I'll be gone. I'll be on the air. And then as I'm turning, I said, no problem.

I get it. We'll talk maybe Monday or Tuesday. And he goes, wait a minute. I'm not having a coach's meeting. So let's do 10 minutes at 10, 20, Pacific time. So at full 20 today, EMA Doga is going to join us for a few minutes.

Hell yeah. Before he literally gets on the bus. Beautiful. And I'll say this. I don't think E. May, and I think E. May would be the first day. I don't think E. Mae loves doing media. It's not his favorite thing to do.

But every time he doesn't, and I will say this, Rossi, and this is for those of you that are O.G's the show. I put him in A.J. In the one, two category. Maybe AJ one, E.M.A.2. But, I mean, it's a small group of people he have had on that have been coaches,

or managers or whatever, question asked, question answered in a very respectful, I get why you're asking kind of way. And I love that from him. And you know what? There's no coincidence. Those are two very well respected and successful coaches. And you're absolutely right. He can tell he doesn't like media, but he knows he's part of the job.

It's part of the job. He gives good answers. He plays the game. And that, I mean, that's just a sign of professional character. Yeah. And again, he, I, Look, EMA was a fringe NBA player, not in terms of making rosters, but just was not, he was a ninth, tenth, tenth guy on the bench. I mean, he was not being asked a lot of media, so he didn't do a lot of it, frankly.

He went to college of Portland State, so we're not necessarily a media place. They didn't have big scrums over there? No, not like the New York basketball on downs. Yeah. But so he didn't do a lot of it, but he knows it's part of the job, and I have tremendous respect for him for doing that. So, E. May Adorkeville will join us at 1220 today, literally before the team gets on the bus to go to practice. And then we've got coming up today at 130. We've got now in Florida stories.

We got hell yeah or not at 150. So that's the radio show. But remember, folks, we give you leashes on this show Monday through Thursday. Other radio shows will not give you. That leash will be a little longer today on anything goes from. Absolutely. All right. Just caught bits and pieces of the Astros last night again because the time changed and the direct email like that stuff.

But boy, we were feeling good. Rossi at 2-0, weren't we not? Yes, we were feeling good at 2-0. Ryan, I was feeling good. I was like, all right, let's go. Let's get Ryan Wise to like four innings of one run ball. And then, well, he couldn't make it out of the fourth inning, unfortunately. Control problems, yeah.

Pitch count started to run up on him. He started issuing some walks, but he was tossing up zeros or a couple of zeros at the beginning, and I was feeling a little decent about it. Then unfortunately, he didn't go as deep into the game as you wanted. 76 pitches, three and two thirds, a couple of earned runs, four walks, as you mentioned, and three strikeouts. But overall, three runs given up, just didn't get enough offense. Yeah, I mean, five hits ain't going to do the job.

It's just not. Your Jose Altova's gold glove campaign continues, he made a couple of big plays in the field. Now, can we come back from this and talk about his defensive work? Because you have those metrics. Absolutely. I really do want to see. Okay. Now, I have to, you know what's funny?

I thought about this. And I was going to lay this out. Yeah. Now, I don't know exactly what the metrics are today. But you have to decide. You can't say the metrics are good and they're not valid. they're not valid or the metrics are bad or not they're not valid. So I need to ask you, Matt, before I look them up, if they're valid or not, you can't

decide after the fact. That's what a lot of people like to do. Well, I'm going to tell you right now what I've said before, and we'll do this coming about of the break here. I've always said the numbers don't lie. Okay. Give me the numbers. Okay. And there was a reason why the aster has made a decision to move them to left field last year,

because they know the numbers didn't lie. But I'm also more of a seeing-eye test guy. Not necessarily more than you are, but I just value it quite a bit. I value the seeing eye test, but I'm not watching 30 teams and every single ground ball. And I don't know the range and the spray angle of every ball of the exit VLO and what everybody's expecting to get at. But these, these, you call them baseball nerds, and they are, but these baseball nerds do. Yeah. But I will say this.

I don't think he's embarrassed the Astros at second base. My guess is the biggest thing that hurts him is that his range is gone. Yeah. Would be my guess. Now, the arm's not spectacular, but how many plays are, I mean, you could, I guess in theory, you can get a ball hit to right. field, you're the cutoff guy, and then you throw home, and there's probably some metrics to that. My thought is, again, not look at the deep numbers, that Jose's biggest detriment as he's gotten older was the range is no longer there.

He's probably among range. He's probably worst or second worst in baseball. Yeah, it would be a fair guess. One of the things that, like, Cam Smith and Jake Myers, they do make these great diving plays, but a lot of times what they do and why their range factors and all those are so good is they make the tough plays look routine. and so we noticed those less. So yeah, Jose Al-Tuvie has been making some spectacular diving plays.

Absolutely. All right. We'll find out how he's doing and we'll accept the numbers and maybe they're baseball geeks, but just like our friends at Pro Football Focus, they may be hounds too. You never know. You never know. John Ireland, Voice of the Lakers to join us at the bottom of the hour for a little preview. Plus you may join us on anything goes Friday at 713-212-790.

7-1-2-12-5-7. Yes. I think we share it, correct? Here comes a chord. I'm not the biggest Beach Boys fan. Nor am I. I respect the Beach Boys. I respect Pet Sounds as an all-time album. The early beat, kind of the way that I feel the same, similar about the early beat.

stuff as I do the Beatlemania stuff. Like it's just kind of poppy doesn't resonate with me 60 years later. But I respect it. But also it's just like the droning singing. I just can't. It just doesn't say, Where's a big of going to fuck? It sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me.

Yeah, there's four or five really, really good Beach Boy songs. Yeah. But there's probably five or six that I'll never want to ever hear again. Yeah, it's fine. And plus, I mean, they're ripping off. Was it Little Richard or Chuck Berry, who sued them? I mean, everybody's ripping off back in the days. They sued at that point.

Even the Beatles got sued. It's funny, though, I think if we were kids way back then, I think you had to go into one of three groups. You were a Beach Boys fan. You were a Beatles fan or you're Rolling Stones fan. I don't know if they necessarily crossed over to each other. I like all three. To an extent.

All three have their heads. All right. All right. You have the metric. on Jose El Tuvae. Now, what data point? Where are we going for this? Oh, okay.

Well, we can go to multiples. Yeah, please. Okay. Let's start with fielding Bibles, defensive runs saved, Matthew. Now, we're going only among second baseman. So the numbers are kind of low. They get bigger as the season goes along.

You can get as much as like 10 defensive runs, save 20 or whatever, depending on the season. Cole Young has the most among second. Baseman this year with four. The fewest is a minus three. That would be Edwell Gileon of the Colorado Rockies, Juan Brito, and so a couple of others. Jose Altuve has a minus two.

So where do you put among the... Fifth worst second basement in baseball. Okay. Now, I'll say this. Yesterday, he had minus three. So he picked up a... He made a couple of spectacular plays yesterday. He picked up an entire run saved. I mean, that's a lot.

Yeah. So these metrics, they... they equate them to literally a run coming off the border, extra run getting scored on the season. For example, last year among second baseman Jose Alte, Nico Horner was

the best second baseman with 17 defensive run saved. Jose Altuvae had minus eight run saved in 2025, but only in 66 games. Okay. Any other ones you want to mention

before we make our kind of deduction on this? Yes. Let's go to the outs above average metric. They have Nassim Nunez, Matt. I know you know the Washington National second basement as plus four. That's best baseball. I mean, there's some other guys you've

heard of. Luis Arias has plus three. Neco Horner has plus three. And they again have Edward Giulioen back down to the bottom. He's got a minus four and they have Jose Altuva at a minus two. Okay. So all these different scales that are people that are doing are basically agreeing with themselves on this.

Yeah. He's... No one's got something out of the ordinary. Okay. So not great. Again, I guess the question would be, you can't field nine players that are really awesome in every position. You're going to have to take the loss on some of them. Now, does his offense this year make up for what would be a bottom five, bottom six, second base performance?

I would say yes. Absolutely. Great year offensively. Yes, because if you're a good year offensively. Yes, because if you go to our friends who do war, wins above replacement, he's already at a 0.7. That's a great number. Almost a full win, almost 20 games into the season.

Yeah. Okay. Last year, all year, he was a 0.5 plus. According to baseball reference, there's different metrics, and we can get into that's a whole different thing. Yeah. Well, I'll just say this. I do believe there is, and I wanted to say,

is there earlier in the year, and now I'm going to believe my one of my own initial statement. I do believe there's a correlation between his better offensive production in the fact that he is back in the position defensively that he's very comfortable in. Yeah. By the way, according to Fangraph's award, the best player in all of baseball at this moment is Yordon Alvarez.

1.5 wins like above replacement. Even over Mike Trout. You know what Mike Trout did in Yankee Stadium? No, no. Five home runs. Yeah, he had two home runs the first game and then a home run each of the first. Didn't they say that was the first time that's ever happened against the Yankees?

Yeah, the highlights all over Sports Center last night and on my phone this morning were about Mike Judge. say this. Like Trout. My judge. My judge is actually very funny too, but that's a different issue. Mike Trout, is he going to be the greatest player of all time that no one knows about?

I mean, you know what I'm saying, but I mean, just stuck on a team that has been riddled with injuries and bad contracts and irrelevancy. You see that in the NBA all the time. There are a lot of great NBA players that have played for sucky teams. I'll give you one very, very small example for the 90s. Mitch Richmond played for the Sacramento Kings. Mitch Richmond could put up 40 with his eyes. Yeah, but Mike Trout was like the best player. Mike Trous has how many MVPs?

Yeah. I guess he is recognized. He's got at least three MVPs. Yeah. Would you go were, I guess when Ted Williams made like one world series and then the Red Sox were not great a lot of the time? Yeah, that's a good comp. I just, and not that he's feeling bad.

The Angels were any good. He would have won like five MVP. A lot of times are like, we don't want to give the guy MVP. They won 70 games. Yeah. And he's also playing 80% of his, not 80, but 6% of his games at 9 o'clock at night. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm.

All right. Here's one. Roger, I want you to hang tight. We're going to get to, I promise, because he says he wants to talk Astros and Rockets, and we'll get to him. We've got John Ireland joining us next. He is the voice of the Los Angeles Lakers on radio. And he and I, again, are in a small club where the only two guys in the NBA that do radio shows

and do play-by-play for our respective. team. So we'll talk to him next. Our time is 1027. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. If you want to join us, you may do so. 713 212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. The voice

of the Los Angeles Lakers next here on 790. And if you want these kind of dreams, it's kind of Yes. That was a suggestion list. No, it's good. We've got to keep the vibe going here. Matt in Los Angeles, Ross, back in Houston. Time is 1031. It is Sports Talk, 790.

We're with you till 2 o'clock this afternoon. Again, EMA Adooka will join this radio program at 1220 today. Right now, joining us, and we're in a small fraternity. One of the two of us get to do a radio show for our respective audiences back in our towns, plus get to call the games of the NBA team, and he's one of my favorite among the 30 NBA broadcasters in the NBA. It is the voice of the Los Angeles Lakers, John Ireland, with us on the Matt Thomas Show. Ross, John, I cannot believe this is your first appearance ever on my show. Good morning to you.

Good morning, yeah, that is an outrage. How is it possible that I have never been on this program before? I blame you completely. I know. We're going to wear you off. The time difference. We'll blame it on the time difference. That's right.

The blame the time difference. Hey, Matt, you're already in L.A.? Yeah, we got here yesterday. So is this 70-degree weather with no clouds okay for you? Yeah, just no, I don't even mean mudslides or earthquakes. Other than that, we're going to be just great. I think you might be okay. I think I'm knocking on what is I say it, but I think you might be okay.

I got you. Hey, John, I want to, before we get to the series at cell, And I get this asked this question all the time, and I want to throw it at you. I have had the great fortune of calling 10 years of basketball with James Harden on my team, Russell Westbrook. I obviously have Kevin Durant now. I've had so many. You've had the great fortune of having two of, let's bluntly say it, two of the 15 greatest players in the history of the NBA, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. And not that you're breaking bread with either one of them.

Maybe you are. Maybe you did. But what is it like just being with them on the road? in the arena and any differences between the two as you covered both of them during your broadcasting career. Kobe was an assassin, Matt. He was somebody that when the playoffs started, he sometimes didn't smile for a month. I mean, he just wanted, the difference between Kobe and LeBron is Kobe wanted to kill you.

LeBron wanted to beat you, and then after he beat you, he would just shake your hand and smile. Kobe would just kill you and then move on to the next victim. And, you know, that's been well documented that, Kobe, if you watch that Netflix documentary when all those guys, Kobe, LeBron, all of them were on the same Olympic team. And within the first 60 seconds of the first Spain game, he plowed over Powell Gasol, who was probably his best friend on our team and, like, really tried to hurt him and, like, absolutely unloaded on him. And that's Kobe. I mean, he's just an absolute killer. He will not. And by the way, Matt, that's in every sport.

Like, we play ping pong with this guy. And if he lost, he'd be in a bad mood for two hours until he came back and beat you. You know, so that's the difference. Kobe was somebody who wanted you dead. LeBron just wants to beat you. And both are okay, but that's the difference. All right. Before we get to the games itself, one more question about, and I like to ask this

of other people that do radio shows along, as you and I do, I always ask you this all fair, but I want to. want you to tell the audience on air, we are in a community of Houston that has unparalleled success with the Astros of the last 10 plus years. The Rockets have made routinely the playoffs, and the Texans get to what they normally do, go to the playoffs and they lose a division around. But it always feels like if the Texans were ever to do something in terms of going to the Super Bowl and or winning it, the football would just totally take over because Texas is a huge football state. It feels like to me all the years coming to California, this is severely a

huge Dodger, Laker Town, and everybody else is fighting for third. Is that fair? 100%. Matter of fact, one of the newspapers just at a poll, and they said, you know, it was just a poll of Los Angeles sports fans, pretty sizable one. They pulled like 5,000 people. And they said, you know, what rank your Los Angeles sports teams in order? And it was Dodgers 43%, Lakers 30%, and then everybody else fighting for scraps. And as one, Rosen, who is our new president of business operations, came up through the Lakers. He was Magic Johnson's agent. And then when Magic was a partner under the Dodgers, Lon moved over to the Dodgers,

so he's worked for both teams. And he said it best the other day, he said, whichever team has more recently won a championship will be at the top of that list. Because as you know, Matt, L.A. is a frontrunner town. We're a star-driven town. We're a front-runner town. I mean, our fans get to the game 20 minutes late. they leave 20 minutes early.

It's just people out here get bored pretty easily. So right now the Dodgers are on top, but if the Lakers were to go on a magic carpet ride and win another title, it would flip back. But the way you've assessed it is 100% accurate. It's Dodgers, Lakers, and then everybody else get in line. Ross, with you here in Houston as well, John. And on LeBron James, as you kind of mentioned,

a little bit of the off the court, or some off the court. but what about as far as playing basketball for him? You've seen, of course, the last several years. What have you seen from him in terms of an evolution of his game, especially as Lucas come over? He's been more off ball. And then really, even since Luca has gone down, how have you seen things change for him?

And how do you think as far as his role? Is he just going to have to be the do-everything guy at this age and his career in this series? In a word, yes. we don't have any chance to beat you guys unless LeBron goes nuclear. And I think he knows that. And I think the rest of the team knows that. Now, what's interesting, Matt and I called a game in Houston last month.

And it might have been LeBron's best game of the season. He went 13 for 14 against the Rockets. He scored 30 points. And Matt, I'm sure you had the same reaction that I did. You know, LeBron agreed to eat third. you know, behind Luca and Austin for that entire month of March. And when he agreed to eat third, to be third in usage rate, which JJ has been trying to convince him to do,

and they finally figured it out in March when they went 15 and 2, that night when he made 13 of 14 against the Rockets, it was almost all layups and dunks because your defense, the Rocket's defense, focused on Luca and Austin. And they kind of locked up Austin. Luca got his. but LeBron was so good because his shot selection went way, way up. The thing that will be different in this series is that now LeBron's back to number one in

usage rate, and it's going to be by a mile. LeBron's going to have the ball the whole time. And I think that's our only path to really making this a competitive series. The rockets are heavily favored. They should be. And if we're going to compete, LeBron has to basically average a triple double every game. And it's going to be really fun to see if he can do it. He's 41. He's the oldest player in the league. And yet, I don't know if you saw this, Matt, he led the NBA in

fast break points at age 41. And so he's a unique guy. I mean, you can put him in a very short list of greatest players in NBA history. I mean, any reasonable person would have him no lower than fourth. And some, my radio partner, Steve Mason, has them at the top, has number one, it's going to be, and if he's able to pull this off, guys, if he's able to lead the Lakers to a playoff series victory over Kevin Durant and the Rockets, without Luca and without Austin, it would be a crowning achievement at the end of an unbelievable career. But that's a huge if. I'm like everybody else.

I'm not sure he can do it, and tomorrow we start to find out. John Ireland, Lakers voice with us here on Sports Talks. 790. What is the latest or what do we know, if anything, about a possible return of Luca Donchich at the end of the series? And same thing with Austin Reeves. This is what I would tell people who are Rockets fans, Lakers, anybody that's going to get into this series. Unless you hear it from the Lakers, don't believe any of it. I don't buy this magical stem cell European potion that's going to miraculously cure Lucas hamstring. Austin can basically shoot free throws and that's it.

I would be stunned, guys, stunned if Luca or Austin played in this series. The one way, JJ Reddick's been using a word, he says, our goal is to extend. They want to drag this thing out as long as they can

to preserve that glimmer of hope. Now, I've got to break with the schedule. You know, the first round's always kind of dragged out, but there's two days off between game one and game two, three days off between, you know, if they can drag it out. If they can figure out a way to maybe get one of these two games in L.A. and then get one of the two games in Houston, that would open the door for a Hail Mary. But again, let me stress, until you hear it from the Lakers, don't believe anything. Because I've seen all these doctors putting on TikTok videos and explaining how this might work. every doctor I've talked to and everybody at the Lakers that I've talked to

is planning to be without both guys for the whole series. For a let your run, John, let's go to a wild card player for the Lakers that would make things interesting. Could it be DeAndre Aiton if he's vested? Is it Rory Acher-Mur with the outside shot? Is it Luravia, right place, right time? Is it Vanderbilt's defense? Is it Marcus Smart?

Give me the X-factor that makes things more interesting for the Rockets than they want to to be. So we're missing 57 points with Austin and Luca down. I mean, that's a ridiculous amount of points. The one name you didn't mention is I think the answer to your question. Luke Kennard has to score. We've got to make up those 57 points somehow. Hachamora can help.

Jackson Hayes can help. DeAndrea Aiton can help. But Kinnard's been the guy since Luke and Officer. and went down that has been the best kind of beneficiary of the minutes. He's playing point guard. He's taking a lot. They've been begging him to shoot more. And now he's finally doing it just because he has to.

So that's the guy. That's the guy I would watch. Hey, Matt, I was going to mention you say you have email coming on today, right? I do, yes. Okay. So here's a, ask him about this. This is an interesting subplot. Do you even know this that M.A. started his career with the Lakers?

We were the first NBA team he played for? I did not know that. Okay, so he did. He was on the Shaq Kobe Lakers in 03-04. They gave him a 10-day. I think he played in four games. I don't even think he ever was on the court with Shaq or Kobe, because they threw him in at the end of games.

But here's the thing I want you to ask him about. After he played for us, he went to the Knicks. He went overseas. He ends up in Portland. which is his hometown. Correct, yeah. Nate McMillan is the head coach of the Blazers and starts E. May and plays him in 75 games.

It's the most successful career of his year of his career. But then the Blazers cut him. And I wonder what EMA and Nate are like now. Because on one, and Nate, if you don't know, Nate McMillan runs our defense. He's our lead assistant. So, M.A. is going to see Nate. and he obviously played for him.

And I wonder if he, like, looks back at that and thinks, well, Nate gave me my shot, he made me a starter. Or does he think, I can't believe they cut me after I was playing in my hometown and playing well? So that's like a little subplot that's going, you know, EMA is a no-nonsense guy. I'm very curious if he has positive or negative things to say about Nate McMillan, because that's a little bit of a soap opera there that EMA is finally going to get to knock Nate out and maybe pay him back for cutting him back in, you know, 20 years ago. So let me ask you this. What if he hates him?

He's going to say, I despise the guy. I want him to live a slow death. I mean, what, wait a bit. Wouldn't you agree, though, that EMA is the one coach who won't BS you about that? That's true. EMA strikes me as ridiculously directly honest. Correct. I mean, I think that's what's made him a good head coach.

Yes. Is that he holds players accountable. So I think if you say, hey, we know that Nate McMillan was your coach in Portland when you had your best career. And then he cut you. So do you look favorably on Nate or not? And I think he'll be honest. Don't you think? He'll say, well, yeah, he's my guy.

He gave me my start. Or I've never forgiven him for that. At the time when Nate got, or when EMA got cut, he wasn't happy because it was in his poem town. He thought that he had finally made it in the NBA. He'd been passing around for a while. And then the blazers pulled the rug out from under him. And Ema strikes me, you tell me, Matt, he strikes me as a guy who probably holds grudges. You think?

Yeah, that feels about right, yeah. I mean, I think he and LeBron probably will never have dinner together. I'll be fair to say. Yeah, I loved it when he got in LeBron's face and said, what are you going to do about it? I loved it. I think you joke out. I know that your shows like mine, Matt, that half the audience tastes the coach and the other half likes them. Yes, that's right.

I'm in the like-sum camp. I thought Emay got a raw deal in Boston, got a guy. fired for something that happened off the court. We don't have to get into it. But I knew that he was going to land someplace, because he's a great coach. And the fact that he landed with you guys, I think is a good fit because it's young guys

looking to establish in the league. He's been there. He's been one of those guys. And I think he's going to hold him accountable. And I expect the Rockets to play well in this series. I pick the Lakers to win it because I'm a shameless Lakers Apologist. I understood. That pick is with my heart.

I mean, I'm hoping that the Lakers pull off a miracle. If I picked with my head, I think the rockets should be heavily favored. They're favored by five in game one, and the games in L.A. That tells you how much the gamblers think the rockets are going to handle the Lakers. But I'm hoping we get a good series, Matt, and I'm hoping we make it competitive, and that you and I aren't calling a 30-point blowout by the fourth quarter. I would agree with you on that, friend. It's always great to have you on for the very first time,

and I'm going to bother you probably three to four times the next five years. So just know that your phone is going to be buzzing big time from me. Beautiful. All right. Remember, only one scarlet per night while you're out here, Matt, okay? I am in the 90210 to be honest. So thank you, John. Thank you, John.

I appreciate it, friend. We'll talk to you. We'll see tomorrow night. That's John Ireland. The voice of the Los Angeles Lakers with us here on Sports Talk 790. Houston. Anything goes Friday. Sports Talk 790.

1130. Say you're sorry. in May Doca 1220. Like the strippers up before that. This is the jam, Maddie. It's not bad. No, it's the jam. Oh, it is the jam.

Excuse me. Not bad. Get them. Get them, Jonathan. This is the official California State song, right, Jonathan? You know what, Matt? You give us your next California song. No, I said it's a jam.

I'm agreeing with two-thirds of the show says it's a jam. That's good. Two-thirds of the show says you shouldn't hit somebody's tip machine. on the tip number? Yeah, one that one, one the instapole. 100% of the tweets I got were backing me up. Well, of course. Somebody going to send you a tweet says, no, you're wrong.

People wouldn't send me a tweet that I'm wrong. Have you seen my mentions? You got, you got a few minions on your side. All right, let's go to the phones. Talk to Roger on 7 out of 1054. Roger, good morning to you. Good morning, Matt. Good morning, Ross and Jonathan.

Yeah, those good, good interview with Mr. Tom Ireland there. Nice. Only on this program can you get such in-depth analysis on how the rockets are going to sweep the Lakers because that's exactly what should happen. And I fully expect that to happen because the huge void that's been created through Luca and Austin Rears, it should be over before it started. And I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry, but not sorry, but because that's how I fully

expect my rockets to go in there and just take care of business. And if they have a killer mentality and they have that, that, that, uh, Mamba mentality, they should go out there and do that. You know, R.P. Kobe, but that, you know, and go there and lay down the wood, man, because Shangoon should have averaged no more, no less than 26, 8, and 6. You know, something like that. And Thompson should be on a version of a triple double every night. And these guys, and Kevin Durant should be the ultimate closing, which we paid him to do.

So that's it. That's all I can see how this series can go. No miracles. No LeBron. going nuclear, not of that crap, because this one guy cannot stop a whole team, you know, but just it. On the, on the Astros. So a lot of people are saying, you know, DHS has a slow start.

It's only 19 games, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This crap has been spilt over since last season who he's been just garbage. And I don't want to hear about, well, if he saves some calls on the statcast with the balls, that's his value? that's his worth. That's why you're keeping him in the lineup. At least give Christian Vasquez at least two games. Maybe cancel the one.

I mean, I'd go from there. But Vaskas needs at least another game out of the week, don't you think? I mean, come on. Time. This guy's a bum. And everybody knows it. All right. That's all I got, guys.

Have a good weekend. Oh, Matt, are you going to be at the Texas Grove or the Kirby's Ryeis House? Where am I right now? Oh, that's right, you're in L.A. My bad. Well, I thought you had these, I thought you were a jet center, man. That's going back and forth, man. Just kidding.

I'm sorry. I forgot about it. All right, have a good weekend. See, Roger. Could I come back for the crawfishing and then still catch a flight and be here in time for tip-off rocks? I don't think so. Are you getting on, what do they call those super jets? They go, like, light speed?

Oh, yeah. Is George Jetson flying me here? I don't know. Do you have a rip-out? in the spacetime continuum and can you take a portal? Yeah, I will not be at the crawfish vet. Are you on Artemis 3? Yeah.

No, I'm not on. That's actually, I could land in the same spot. I mean, it's in California, Pacific Ocean. Oh, to Christian Vasquez real quick. Let's say a bit for the top of the hour because I want to see if you and I, you and I'm not going to discuss this. I have a take on this. Let's go.

I don't necessarily think it's going to be disagreement. I think it's a fairly easy answer on this. So what do the Astros do with the fact that Yonnier is off to a... We'll discuss. Yeah, we'll get to that. All right. Hour number two of the Matt Thomas Show with Ross coming up in moment. 713-212-5-790.

7-13-212-5-790. This is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. 11 o'clock. Hour number two underway in the Matt Thomas show with Ross. We'd love to have you. Anything goes Friday at 713, 212. 579. 713, 212 570.

We've got I'm sorry. It's coming up in one half hour from now. We'll wake the strippers up in an hour from now as well. Emaidoka, 1220. Now I'm Florida Stories and hellier or not. That's the rest of the show, but really a lot of it is in you and me and Ross, and you are certainly always welcome to join this show at 713-212-5-790. The thought of Christian Vasquez being the start.

starting catcher on a majority basis for the Astros, ladies and gentlemen, is a non-starter. Athletically, he can't do it. When you become the backup catcher for any respective team, especially when you were just literally picked up off a monologue contract with an invitation to those major leagues spring training camp, your best days are behind you. Christian Vasquez can help you in limited doses.

Christian Vasquez, athletically, I feel this with every pore in my body, and not catch five days a week. That's not a non-starter, okay? Do you want to bump into a second day? I could see that. Do you want to pray that Walter Yonick becomes a hitter that can at least bat 200? You love that, but he's

not doing it at the minor league level on a consistent basis. The biggest problem the Astros have, Rossian, I'll let you get in on this too, is that the future of the Astros, the first round pick, is behind schedule, and that hurts the organization. Yeah, it's just you have to plug all the holds of the roster.

You can't have an All-Star everywhere. You want Yiner Diaz to work out. Yeah, I'm with you, by the way. I mean, Christian, folks, it's the, it's with the falling for this. I'm going to start handing out the Fell for a Short Sample Award. Yeah, he's OPSing 900, but he's not playing every single day. It's just way too oversimplified of a thinking to think he's going to be an everyday guy. Look at his results the last couple of years.

He's been terrible. And as you just said, Matt, you got him on a minor. League deal late. It's been nice to have him be as good as he has in limited spurts. But Yiner Diaz has to be out there and you have to try to figure something out with him and watch him turn something around because he can't be this bad. That's the thing. At some point, things are going to turn. He's not going to hit 186 all season long. And the best way to turn around a season is to be out there. And you really got no other choice. As you said, because Walker Yonick isn't ready. He's he's defensively ready by all accounts, but the stick isn't anywhere close.

And then if that would, that would be the thing. He would come up. Everybody would be banging the drum for him. And then he would struggle and he would start off like one for 21. And then everybody would turn and call him idiot. Call the Astros idiots. So there's just no winning right now because Yainer Diaz is struggling and you don't really have any other option. And you're not putting Christian Vasquez out there every day. He has not been an everyday catcher. He wasn't even ever, an everyday catcher when he came in 2022. He's a perfect number two. I knew when the Astros assigned him to that minor league deal

that Cesar Salazar's days as a number two was, this wasn't in the plan. Cesar Salazar is a third catcher, a September call-up, a guy that you can add to your roster for additional depth. Not a backup catcher. Christian Vasquez, professional backup catcher. Was the ones a starter in a mainstay? Good.

Those days are long gone. Two days a week, max. You would start to see regression in his back. I guarantee it and you see regression behind the plate. Yeah. I'm sorry. This is a dead spot for the Astros right now. And the only way it's going to get fixed is for positivity

and hoping that Yonair Diaz is looking at game tape and in the cages and making subtle changes because they need him. Because the guy behind him, the guy that was supposed to be up is, you know what, to get up here and take his spot, ain't ready yet. Yanor Diaz has always been a streak guy to where he gets in these huge funks

and then he starts hitting like 400 for a couple of weeks. So you're just hoping for that turn. Joe Espada needs to hope for it. You're not going to go to Vasquez every day. Perhaps you can do a little bit more of a split. But at this point, I want to say it's been like 15 games,

Yiner and eight Vasquez or something like that. So, I mean, you've been getting some Vasquez. But you might get some more. I mean, Diaz did not have a hit in the entire Colorado series. It's eight games to 15. That's about right. That's the ratio it should be.

Two to one. Unless the Astros make a move to go get somebody, and I don't think that would be on the top of their list. God, what disaster yanner's been, though? It's not been good. He's never been great behind the dish. Got up to a very bad start on the ABS, improved on that.

as we would expect most catchers to do. He's got to get out of it. Because you, I mean, if they're going to be issues for this baseball team and what they're going, look, what are the Astros using the ninth different starting today? Is that right? Did I see that correctly? Is that true? I think it's nine. Oh, my God.

That's, gang, that's the issue. It was insane last year. And I think they had, I don't remember, it was like 13 or something. I'm going to go look this up. If it's really nine, and I'll have to double check it. I don't know, because I'm not calling you a liar at all. I mean, it feels about right, doesn't it? They've played 20 games.

20 games and nine starters? The fact that they're not 3 and 17 right now is nuts. Wow. Hold on. Oh, I pulled up the wrong year. This is just fantastic. Oh, no, I didn't. Here we go.

Yeah, they've already had nine starters. Oh, my God. Four on the IL. Javier E. My Mike Brown Bolton. Who's starting today? What guy I've never heard of? Oh, is it, yeah, I know.

Peter Furman or whatever? No, it's not Peter Frampton, no. Peter Frampton? Peter Lambert. Yeah, that'll be their 10th starter. Burroughs McCullors. Lambert is starting. Don't call him Peter.

I think he likes to be called Peter. That would be their 10th starter already this year. Wow. And honestly, eight and 12 with nine starters. Could be worse. Last year you had 15 different guys, but O'Kard and Jaden Murray were openers. So if you don't count them, that's 13. So here's the thing about Lambert.

It's not Lambert's fault unless he tosses this magnificent gem tonight. He's not going to go deep in games. Everybody the Astros are putting in. And again, it's nobody's fault. These are just arms that are just guys. or working to become really good major leakers. You're throwing guys out there. I mean, did Ryan Weiss?

Was anybody expecting Ryan Weiss to go six innings last night? Probably not. I had a complete game shutout. Is that what you bet on? Yeah. I bet you got great odds on that. I mean, wonderful odds. Yeah.

What is it? It was like a sideways eight symbol. For those of that are mathematicians, you love that line that Ross just gave you there. Like eighth grade math, not even. Smarter than a fifth grader question? hopefully. By the way, two game shows are on last night when I got to the hotel.

Calfel. Scrabble? Yes. I like Scrabble. To play? I like to play it. To watch 30 minutes of a game show, it was terrible, and then Trivial Pursuit was on. Terrible game.

Two terrible game shows. I dig your ass. It is anything goes Friday. Let's talk to Koso at 1109 on 790. Koso, good morning. Good morning, Mr. California. How's it going? It is amazing. It is beautiful. 70 degrees, not a cloud in the sky. Man, you know, you are, Mr. Texas, but as a fellow Texan myself, I have such a soft spot for the state of California.

It is a beautiful, beautiful place. It wasn't so expensive. I'd probably be out there doing God know, whatever. but I just wanted to let the people of the great city of Houston, Texas know that. We need to wake up, people. We got a playoff basketball game tomorrow night for the city of Houston. I know the Astros have been struggling, but come on, man. We need to switch gears, and we need to let the people know that they got to turn on them TVs tomorrow and cheer on the rockets, man. It's going to be a great game, and I've got some stats for you, and I want to run through a brick wall right now because Al-Prin Shingoon's going to have a quadruple drubble with 28 points, 10 assists, 10 rebounds, maybe 12 turnovers, but that doesn't matter because Amin Thompson's going to step up.

He's going to have 30 points. He's going to have 10 rebounds, and he's going to have five stocks. But it doesn't stop there because Kevin Durant's going to come in and pour him 34 and 10, and the rockets are going to woo their way past the Lakers. And they don't got a shot, and I guarantee it. I want the people of Houston to know we coming from Dumpanee Lakers. Y'all have a great day. Go, Rockets. That's a promo cut right there, my friends.

Let's go! You know what I'm ready to do now, Ross? What's that, Matt? As soon as this shows over at 12 new Pacific time, I'm going to put my tennis shoes on. I'm going to get out of the side of my hotel room. Wow. And I'm going to go down to the lobby.

Get $40 pancakes. A fancy hotel in Beverly Hills. And I'm going to walk outside. And I'm going to go down Rodeo drive. And I'm going to go give me a $19 slice of pizza and a Coke zero. And I'm going to go, can I get a hell yeah from Rocky fans? Hell yeah. And then I'm going to walk around.

I'm going to say, are you in for a man, Thompson, and Jabari Smith and Kevin Durant and Alper in Chingle? They're going to be like, excuse me. Who are those people? I'm sorry I'm sorry but your salon date has been reserved for other people goodbye and I'm going to go down one more street to Bohemite Drive one street off a rodeo drive and I'm going to walk around and go

can I get a rocket for the Western Copper Championship and I get a hell yeah and they're like what are the rockets is that the thing that just dropped the Pacific Ocean hell yeah I don't think NBA basketball in Horty-Tority Beverly Hills isn't going to get much of a jam, but I'll try. I'll do whatever I can.

You might get arrested. Now, you can run around Houston right after the show today. Honk your horn. Yes. Have the Rockets song that we used when I used to do the lineups back in the 90s. Have that bumping around your music, turn all, roll all your windows down and get people fired up? Oh, okay.

That German house music song? Yeah. I always forget what it's called. I mean, too. Yeah. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, Ross's one car parade will be coming to a community near you. We'll be tracking your vehicle like we'll track Santa Claus on Christmas Eve

on that Novak radar system thing. No, I'm going home and taking a nap. All right, that's not how you get people fired up for the end-game. You're not so tomorrow. Well, that's true. We'll be at Kirby Ice House, myself, Cole Thompson. I don't know if any other special guests are going. It's the official Rockets Watch party.

I'll be there for the pre-and-post game. You should have rocket launch pad dancers sitting with you during the game. Cole Thompson's doing shots for every Amin Thompson and Alpern Chingoon three-pointer. Well, that's interesting. How many shots is he going to do? Between the two of them? Mm-hmm. All right, I'm going to set the number at three between the two.

Under. Okay. We're talking to attempts? No, make. Oh, okay. I'll go under. That'd be cool if I was wrong. Four.

Four? That's a decent number. I'll probably go under. It's a good number. All right. Back on the phone's next. 11.14 is the time. It is Matt and Ross.

And anything goes Friday. It's clear of the case. So Ross's one-car brigade is not going to take place today because he has to nap. I will be walking around L.A. in full rocket gear, yelling, who's ready for a little rocket championship basketball in L.A.? We'll see how far it gets me. 713-212-5-790. Need to apologize somebody? That's in 15 minutes here on Sports Talk, 790.

So apparently, Don't know why, because every time they do a show at the end of this year, I don't know why, because every time they do a show at the Sphere in Las Vegas are drawing 12,000 people, about $250 to a ticket. He was like, is he's 80s? Yeah. Sounds fantastic. I saw him last year when the Rockets played that Vegas event. And then Vanessa Richardson and her mom went last week, in fact,

and said they were just outstanding. That Joel Walsh sounds terrible, but he always sounded terrible. I'm not a Joe Walsh fan at all. What? Leiceman Goods a jam. It is a jam. Rocky Mountain Way, jam. It can't sing it anymore.

It's awful. Terrible. Well, you said he always sounded terrible. I disagree. Okay. Congratulations to Jose Feliciano and his wife, Kwanza Jaze. Jones. They are the

co-owners of the Chelsea Football Club, Ross. How do you feel about Chelsea in general? I thought Jose Feliciano died. This one did not. He's Jose E. Feliciano. Oh. For those who are playing it. Oh, and the other Jose Feliciano is alive. Yes, he's a, believe, a blind country music star, correct?

Or was? I mean, like, he did the Felice Navidad. Yes. He played some Spanish guitar. Yep. So the reason of why we're congratulating them, they bought the St. Eagle Padres. Oh, really?

$3.9 billion. NBA teams are like, hold my beer. Interesting. Aren't L.A. aren't like NBA teams going for like $9, $10 billion, something like that? I think so. Well, hell, the rockets were bought, for Tillman bought them for, what, a little over three, Billy.

Yeah, and I think they're worth $6 billion now or something like that, according to Forbes. right there. Jose E. Feliciano. Stanford MBA, Princeton University. It's a real dummy. Mergers and acquisitions.

Yeah, Goldman Sachs. He's checking a lot of boxes here. He's private equity, which is a turn all you to learn. Yeah. Yeah. How about private equities, Rossi, buying into colleges and running college organizations? Because they're businesses.

They're not, they're not, they're not, uh, areas of higher education, these athletic departments are businesses. It's not good. Get around for a profit. Or at least, you know, hold your head above water. Maybe I don't want to think about this. Okay. I mean, I didn't mean to bring it up, but I mean, you got the airplane merger happening.

Oh, I hope that doesn't happen. Let's see. Cisco just bought Restaurant Depot, which some people should know that that's actually a really big deal. A lot of monopolies going on. But anyways, I digress. it's fine it's fine too much

you know what we'll never utter private equity anymore on today's show I may not be able to do it long term but all right anything goes Friday

713212-1-2-5-790 Terry wants me to apologize to him we're going to save that for the bottom of the hour okay what did I do wrong with Terry Ross I don't I don't think he likes you calling him Joe Biden

yeah but you're the one that plays the soundbite it's not me why you gotta out me like that? Oh, I'm sorry. I don't know why Jonathan plays those sound bites like that. There we go. There we go. Let me tell you something, Jonathan.

I've been thrown under the bus when I was a producer way back in the day. It's time to earn your stripes. You gotta know. They hear my voice every day. They trust me. Oh. You're telling little white lies over there. We make deals back here.

Oh, my gosh. That's funny. All right. Hey, congratulations to, the gamblers who almost won yesterday. You're congratulating them for almost winning a game? So I saw a picture of the crowd. Is that where you're going?

Well, yeah, they announced the ticket sales at a little more than 4,000. But I saw crowd shots and it was on the 4 U tab. I would never follow any gambler related because no one cares. The crowd looked like there were less than 100 people there. It looked like there was less than a dozen people there. Yeah. And here's the worst part. And let me tell you, can I,

I need a ruling on this. So for some reason, the gamblers sent me their public relations releases. Last week, they sent me a release about them losing their game. I think they lost, I don't know what the score was. Because you know what? The score wasn't in the release. So I sent an email to the people that were on the release. I said, hey, just a little FY, it'd probably be a good idea if you include the score in your release.

You said that to them? Yes. And they did not respond to me. So this week, they played last night in front of, again, maybe 150 people, who knows. And I read the release, and again, it did not have the score in it, so they didn't listen to my advice. They lost an overtime, apparently. Again, I don't know what the score was because it wasn't in the release. 24 to 22.

And the release, and Rossi, I don't mean to be rude, but I'm going to have to be because we are honest and truthful in the show. the comprehension level of the release that was written was like it was written by a fourth raider I honestly I don't know if the rock is listening to us right now will you please take this team out of Houston before the season ends it's making everybody look bad your PR staff is a joke your stadium or you're playing is too hot and humid typically for any of it's very uncomfortable your state nobody cares kevin sumlin is literally just taking checks to take a check

no one's going your team's not good i do not want them i don't want to when i was a kid ross i love the houston gamblers of the u sFL i love them he said had jim kelly and it had gerald mcneal and it had a bunch of really cool players it was competitive again a bad business model but that's not here nor there this is third-rate talent with a terrible PR staff nobody cares nobody goes to the game

please send them somewhere else send them to Dallas send them to Abilene send them to I don't care do not call them the Houston gamblers they have completely botched spring football in this town and I don't want them here anymore

I want them out immediately why because they're going to fold they're not embarrassed If a football game happens and nobody watches or cares, did it happen? Well, when I get fourth grader releases sent to me, it does. Oh, okay. Let me just block them.

Just unsubscribe. Oh, I'm going, I wish I was looking for the unsubscribe button. I can't do it. Oh, that's very smart. I'm going to send them to junk mail. That's very smart on their part. Maybe they're dummies after all. Oh, no, no.

It really, it is a colossal failure. I can't watch any. I mean, when it's on the TV on a set, like a Randall Saturday. I like to see what the crowds are. people at Fox never show the crowds because they don't want to see how bad it is. They probably were told by the league. Don't show the crowd pictures. Yeah, the product's not good.

I don't even know how they say afloat. They're not. They're down to what I think they have eight teams or ten or whatever and they move every year. If you're a gambler fan, the three of you that are, go check out your team because they're going to be done at the end of the year. They're not going to be anywhere near Houston. It cannot be here in Houston anymore. It's embarrassing. And I don't like our town being embarrassed.

I just don't. So I'm personally taking a personal vendetta against the fourth grade releases and the terrible product and the nobody's showing up for games. Hell, they don't even practice it. There's nothing about Houston and it's about their team. They practice in Dallas and then they drive on buses that come down in Houston play the games. It's not even a Houston team. That's just not real football. I don't concern myself with it.

All right. Time for people to apologize. You're ready to apologize? Yes. You've said and done this week. I guess I can come up with something. Well, Terry wants me to apologize. You should.

If he's given me a justifiable reason why I need to apologize to him, I'll do it. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. Let's say this. I'm sorry, this and people. We'll do that next here on Sports Talk 790. It's the most cathartic half hour of your week. We supply it here on Sports Talk 790.

All you're going to do is call 7-1-3-212-5-790 and say this. I'm sorry. sorry. All right, here we go. You need to apologize the things you've said and done this week, and we're here for you. 713-212-5-7-90.

Now you're saying, Matt, I don't know what I need to be sorry for. Maybe you said something that was insensitive to somebody, and their feelings were hurt. We're about to find out right now if that happened to our friend, Terry, in Ohio. At 7-13-212-5-790. It says, I need to apologize. apologize to him. Terry, Sports Talk 790-11-32.

Terry, what am I apologizing for? What do you think of our military? I love it. Thank them for their service. Well, it's a Navy SEAL. In Vietnam, I got shot in the face and you guys play a Joe Biden clip. Give me a freaking break. How are we supposed to know that, Terry?

You didn't tell us that, Terry. Thank you for your service, Terry. You never told me you guys shot in the face. Yeah, the first time I called you. Well, I mean, I take hundreds of calls a week. I don't remember everything. First of all, thank you for your service. Yes.

Second of all, even if you, I mean, you served for all these decades. I can still, we can still tease you like what you sound like. And I mean, your political stance. I sound goofy. People make fun of me. I don't take it personally. Yeah. all right thanks Terry

thank you for your service oh I'm sorry yeah that sounds horrible sorry that you had to go through that Terry I'm wishing you the best yeah all right can we

light things up a little bit yeah what do you got apologize for Matt I was gonna say I was going to apologize to Jay but after thinking about Jay's horrific takes over the years Jay owes me an apology for consistently calling the show with horrific takes. The Mount Rushmore of terrible takes.

It's him, it's Brad, and we got spots open for three and four. Ooh. You probably put your guy Gary there. Oh, Gary for sure. All time? We used to have a co-worker. He had horrible takes, too. Who?

One out of. Nice kid. Okay. All right. We have one spot open. Gary, Jay, Brad, who gets the fourth spot on the Mount Rushmore of horrific sports takes on the Matt Thomas. You cannot. You cannot. Oh, dang.

I'm certainly eligible. You should mean callers? Yes. Yankees' key's not that bad. Yeah. We'll leave that spot open for an eligible participant. Ross, what are you apologizing for? So I saw

I've been looking for some shoes For hiking And I saw a good deal on some shoes At a certain retailer But I needed to see what size I was So I had to go to a different retailer And get fitted And the guy spent like a good 15 minutes with me

And I was never ever Ever going to buy the shoes from him So I feel kind of bad But I needed to go find out what size I was with this certain type of hiking shoe. Okay. So I'm just sorry to the guy for wasting 15 minutes of his time. He thought he was going to get some commission,

but I was like, all right, thank you. And I went and bought the shoes online. So you use the guy just for sizing, and that's all you use for him for? Yeah, what else am I supposed to do, though? Did you tell him ahead of time? No. Because?

Am I supposed to say, hey, I'm going to buy these shoes online, but I need to see what size they are? I guess I could have done that. Yes, you could say that. Absolutely. I just said I'm looking at these shoes. shoes and I'm just want to know what size I am. I mean, I didn't lie to him.

But you didn't just, you didn't give out the full truth. Right. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that it had to be him. Because he's, he was super nice. Yeah. He spent time. He cared about you.

Yes. He gave you the good customer service. Oh my God. Spick 10 out of 10. Oh my God. Yeah, I do say sorry to him. Yeah, I'm sorry. He was like, yeah, I would do this.

He's like, I have these in this shoe. You want. to do a size up because they're hiking shoes. Your feet flattened out. Then he had me like stepping and walking and everything. And I was never going to buy the shoes from him. Oh, my God. I know.

I know. Oh, yes. But I mean, I had to find the right fit, you know. You're not the, okay. Who do I do? To be fair, you're not the only person's ever done that. Number one. Number two, you did say you're sorry.

So you know what? You're exonerated from any further curriculum. I'm, I didn't feel great about it. And you said, did you say sorry to him personally? But I had to find the proper fit. I'm sorry. Did you apologize him directly? You know what?

I'll have to think about it. That was a lie. All right. I'm going to give you a reverse of that story. Would you like to hear this very quickly? And I'm not the only one's ever done this before. So when I was younger, and I would do this even today, my wife and I would go to Florida, and we wanted to go to amusement parks.

Well, they offer you severely discounted tickets to, like, Disney World and Epcot and Universal. If you listen to a sales presentation. all right yes you basically you could get like two one day passes for Disney for like

75 bucks but you have to listen to this 45 minute spiel about time shares so Kim and I this and we were just got married

it's got to be maybe 1999 2000 and I go to the guy I said look I'm not going to buy this time share I can't afford it

I don't want it I'm here strictly for the discount and he's like okay that makes sense but you still have to listen to it. So I said, okay, that's the rules I got to do it. So I listened to this 75-minute spiel

about how this amazing time share in Orlando, and at the end of the day, when the 75-minute's over with, I said, sir, thank you very much. I told you no, and I meant no, and I'm not going to do it, and he was, frankly, pissed off. Really?

He gave me the two-for-one, which was fine, but I was very much up front with him about the fact that I was not going to buy it. So he owes me in a point, apology for being so mean to me. Wait a minute. You can't apologize and then you're asking you for an apology now. I didn't apologize.

I'm not apologizing. I said it's a reverse situation. Oh, okay. Apology. At least I was honest with him. I did a timeshare thing in Cancun. It was like a couple hours for like a couple free excursions. Yeah.

Man, they are, they are hounds. They harassed you. I did one in Hawaii one time. And I mean, like, like, uh, I mean, hmm, an aunt pollen a picnic basket. it. Yeah, they lie to you too. This is why I don't feel bad. Because they lie to you. They're like, oh, it'll just take, it'll be a 45 minute presentation. And then you're there for like three hours. You know why? Because they bring in reinforcement. Yeah. They bring in the guy, they bring in the regional manager. Then they offer you a sweetheart deal. Then a sweetheart deal. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. I'm like, no, no, no. I didn't feel bad at all. I got a free breakfast. Got a, like a free excursion. I just think the rules should be if you go in there and tell them in advance, we're not. buying this that when they ask you to purchase it you say no they go okay thank you and goodbye we're saving them energy frankly it's their job though i know but just a word to the wise for the young man

jonathan if he's ever on a cruise or something like that they're going to keep you there for hours yes now the discount's good i'll give him that yeah but it doesn't come without any pain jonathan what are you apologizing for you know what guys don't believe you don't believe me go I've been good Oh, come on. I do what you're going to say. You know what we're starting doing? Every time you say that, we're going to call your girlfriend.

We're going to ask her what you have to apologize for. Oh, wait, hold on. Did I bump in somebody? No. I was at the Rockies game, Astros game. Tuesday? Yeah. Wednesday, no, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday.

No, no. No, guys, I have nothing. I think I was just a saint this week. Oh, wow. You know, I even read my Bible. Wow. It's good. All right.

St. Jonathan has done nothing wrong this week. You know, I've been driving better, too. Wow. That's good. Wow. Yeah, you know, I've said screw the left lane, man. It gives me too much anxiety.

To a stress. It's chill in the right lane. Right-hand lane. But, yeah, that's it. I really can't think of anything. All right. Jonathan's girlfriend? Cart Blanche, 713.

212. Now, she's in school, so we can't even back this up. I can, if I could call it right now, she was talking about you. No, she's busy educating today's youth. Don't interrupt her. Take me from what my word is, man. All right, I'm going to do that. As a matter of fact, if any of you are like Jonathan and you want to say you've had a perfect week, let us know. I don't, I think it's impossible to be perfect all week. I just do. So apparently Jonathan's got nothing to sorry to say. Oh, sorry.

No chance. No chance. No chance in the world. 713-212-5-790. Brian and Pearland, Brian, what are you sorry for? I got two things. Last night I got upset at my wife. One of our kids goes to a Montessori school every day. And I want to go by and pick up my son because I was going to have to spend all last night with my daughter while my wife went out with some friends. and totally, totally fine, but my daughter was acting kind of crazy. And so I just wanted that 15 or 20 minutes in the car by myself to go get my son. And she's like, no, I want to go get him. I want to go get him.

So to make her happy, I let her go. But I was fuming the whole time because I just wanted that. I knew what was in store for me. So just wanted to say, I'm sorry. She was like, what's the matter? I was like, nothing. I'm fine. I really wasn't.

I was mad that she got to get out of the house away from our daughter who was upset. and throwing a fit. So, babe, sorry. And then to Christian Walker. I want to apologize for slagging you off. We all wanted you, most of us wanted you traded this offseason. You have been a breath of fresh air this year turning more to the Christian Walker we hoped and expected. But for wanting to run you out of town and up a flagpole for your dismal performance last year, Christian Walker, I am truly sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. There be some others that do that. Thank you, Brian, for the phone call. That may be a lot of folks don't need to apologize for the Christian Walker hate.

He's been good this year. He asked. I just remember something, guys. Oh, good. What is it? Okay, it was at the Astros game. All right. So, you know, we were going to win. So we got up our seats on like the eighth inning. Mm-hmm.

And your boy had to go. Okay. And I wasn't really trying to go, you know, waiting a lot. know those nasty you know. Oh yes. It's not a good situation. And my girl

wanted something from the gift shop and I kind of like was just speed walking ahead and I didn't really care and then you know we got in a car I'm just driving

I'm going fast and she's like you know why didn't you stop I really wanted to go like why I really wanted something like why couldn't I go like I felt like you control me

me and I was like that's not the case I just had to go you know I had to go to the restroom and, you know, I felt bad. Wait a minute. They have restrooms at Diken Park. I didn't.

I didn't. I didn't. It was one of those things. You couldn't do it there. You know what I mean? Couldn't do what? You couldn't go. You know, you couldn't go.

You made her leave the game? No, no, no. We were going to go, but she won't go to the gift stop. Oh, you just skipped a gift shop. Yeah, and I kind of just ignored her. I was just like in my own world. I just got to push it. Oh, man.

That's tough. So you're saying because of your urinary issues, your girl could, more than that. Yeah, that's yeah. Oh, see you. Oh, I got you. See you what I mean?

He didn't want to do that at the stadium. Happens all the time when I do pre and post. And we're already trying to beat the track. You don't want to go during the game. You got to go before the game or after the game. You get what I'm saying? During the game, it's a zoo in there. I already had the LTMpo mark and I was feeling, I was like, you know what?

Let me just go ahead and go because I'm not. No, it's going to be a mess. So I felt bad. I wanted to say I'm sorry. Sorry. I mean, I kind of get it. I don't have nearly that phobia that others do, but I understand I'm in the minority on that.

That's not great. I mean, the floors are nasty, the facilities are nasty. I'm not holding. I cannot drive a half an hour if I got the bubble guts. I just, I can't do it. Nobody said he had to begis. Nobody said he had the BGs. I'd say I had to go.

Yeah, but I think we're, presuming that you were not looking to just... Okay, we're going to break. When there's a wheel is away? So sorry. If it was a urinal, then it's on you. If it's not that, I mean... Let's y'all mull that over as we take this short time out here

in the Matt Thomas show at Ross. 713-212-5-7-9. If you want to apologize for anything you've said or done, 7-13-212-5-7-90. I knew it would only take a few minutes to get you guys come in and apologize with things that you've said and done this week that's why this half hour is the cleanse of your life because we forgive you when you make mistakes as long as you say i'm sorry cj on 790 cj what are you apologizing for uh yeah okay i thought i had one but i got to

i want to apologize first to dusty baker i'm so sorry i thought that maybe you were the problem with this Astro team and that maybe, you know, you need to stop and retire. Since you've been retired, my team has not looked the same, and I just want to say I'm truly sorry. I knew now that you just might have knew more, and maybe Dana Brown was probably the issue. We still haven't had a good pitching staff since you left, and I just want to say I'm truly sorry, Dusty. Okay, now my second one, though, Dylan Brooks, I am so sorry.

I knew better. I really did. I've seen what happened with Memphis. And I said, that couldn't happen to us. And I was wrong. I'm sorry, Dylan. You deserve to be on this rocket team. This defense would be way better with you here.

Sorry. I think I'm ready to say it. It should have been tired. I'm sorry. Sorry, please forgive me. Would Tari have been enough? That's the question. C.J., thank you for the phone call.

Ross, it's easy for us to reflect on us because, again, Tari's second half of the season has not been good. Would Tari and Jalen been enough to get Kevin Durant? I don't think so money-wise, for sure. Yes, because you are inheriting a huge, you were at the time inheriting a Kevin Durant contract. Tari's stolen his rookie deal. Yeah, I don't even think that's a possibility.

you'd have to include another player. But even so, I mean, Della makes good money. So you'd have to really start to stockpile players to send money back. It's funny, the two biggest things everybody was on Dusty for was playing more Chas McCormick, who's like on a minor league deal, correct? And playing more Yonner Diaz, who's having a horrible season. Mm-hmm. Yeah, we reflect on things sometimes.

Now, it's not anybody's fault, per se that all these pitchers that the Astros have acquired, they're dropping like flies here. But again, it should also teach you a lesson that just because you've got pitching depth doesn't mean it's excellent pitching depth, especially when your number one guy and your perceived number two guy are hurt. You can't make that up with a bunch of... I mean, give me an analogy here, Ross.

You're getting your 10th starter when you're your 21st game. Yeah, I mean, that's insane. You lost the filet mignon and you're serving sloppy Joe's now. Oh, how about that? Come on. Can I get a little for that? I mean, you'll leave sloppy joes. But you'd rather the filet mignon, right?

All right. I tried. You're playing spades and they took the ace of spades out of your hand and the king and the queen. So you're playing now with the queen of hearts. No one ain't really smart. Nick, what are you apologizing for? Hey guys, good to see y'all. Yeah, I'm up first I want to apologize to LeBron James.

I'm sorry, you're going to be by yourself. You're about to get beat down by the Rockets. And I know you don't have much help, but I'm sorry. You're 41 years old. You're not going to be able to do it no matter how much you think you can. I'm sorry. That's number one. And then I just want to mention that I think I probably had probably closest to the perfect week

someone could possibly have last week. on Monday I hit my first ace after playing golf for 18 years the week went well at work and nobody died and on Friday on yesterday I found out I'm getting a check for a card that I traded in that I thought I was just breaking even on and the bank said no you you were going to give you a check we owe you money so I picked up that check today so that's a pretty good week huh Ace on Monday.

Yeah. Good week at work. So what exactly are you apologizing for? I'm apologizing. I'm saying sorry, not sorry for having a great week. And I apologize to LeBron James for, you know, in advance for us beating your butt. This week for the Rock is beating their butt. I'm sure.

So, Nick, I have a question for you quickly. Did you go to the bar inside the golf course when your day was done? I they tried to get me to go I was in a hurry I had to hurry up and get the heck out of there because they were going to try to get me to pay everybody's uh tab isn't that crazy that you have to buy the tab I know I've talked about this before many times for those that don't know when you get a whole on one you're supposed to go to the restaurant of the bar and buy everybody around the drinks you're the one you got the accomplishment you got to buy exactly exactly it doesn't make any sense so I'm sorry I didn't buy everybody drink So there we go. There's my sorry. There it is. I got out of there.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, Nick. Real quick, Ross and Jonathan, rulings on that. Should the rule, should the time old tradition change where if you get the whole one,

you should be getting drinks? I don't know. No. Just don't tell anybody, right? Oh, hell yeah, I would tell the whole world. I got a whole one playing golf all these years. I'd be telling the whole world, absolutely.

Hmm. Hmm. I'm saying don't tell anyone at the bar. I just want to have a coalition built for those of us that aspire to get a hole in one if you get one that you should get free drinks as compared to you buying the rest of the bar. That'd be cost them. If they're like 20 guys in there, each hundred and $8, that's going to cost you $200, $200 for a hole in one? That's ridiculous.

It sounds like a rule of a bunch of alcoholics made up. You can drag about it? Last one, Gio on 790. Geo, what are you apologizing for? All right, guys, you know me. I want to start up by saying, great show. You guys don't go nowhere because if you do, I don't know what the hell I'm going to do between 10 and 2 because the other shows don't cut it for me, all right? You guys, you rock.

I want to give a preemptive apology to Lakers fans to L.A., to LeBron James, that, baby, look, we're going to go to L.A., bring out the brooms, baby, all right? We're sweeping your asses, man. You don't have enough firepower to deal with what we got over here going on in Houston, baby. bring out the brooms laker nation i'm sorry lebron he's junior boss spot out of here boy sorry sorry sorry oh gosh that comes through the man's bald spot thanks can i give you a self-serving uh i'm sorry yeah very quickly really quick uh i was nominated for a houston media alliance award yes for sports personality of the year in houston you had my vote and uh i did not win and I had no chance of winning.

Okay. 50% of the vote was by, or 50% of the vote was an essay I had to write to just by why I was going to win the award. Mm-hmm. And I never wrote the essay. Why not? Part as I forgot and part of it is why don't need to run an essay about bragging about myself. How about I just, you know, when you go for an Academy Award, you don't write the Academy Award saying why my picture was best picture. You just do it.

Yeah, I don't know. They do some lobbying, but I don't know how that works. works. Thank you to the Media Alliance of Houston for nominating me, but I had no chance of winning, because I didn't write the essay. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't write. Next year, Ross, I'm going to write the essay. Okay, good. Give myself a chance. Yeah, you got my vote. Thank you. Let's

wake the strippers up, and I want to apologize to the room next to me, because I'm going to yell here in about two minutes. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. In H-town. Go! Three of the Matt

Thomas Show and Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. Zander Schaffler? Zandhi Shafali. You know Zander Shafali? American. Minutes 2. Shafley has an excellent weekend of the Masters.

I felt really bad and really fat, so I had to replace the cookies, and I apologize. That is as heartfelt. I'm sorry as I've heard in quite some time. When you eat your wife's cookies? Excuse me? I apologize. I'm sorry.

And I was in Sedona and I was hanging out and I was hanging out with touchpad. Very inefficient. I know. And we may be having a relationship, but I don't want to tell you that. Honey, who is this woman in your phone as fun bags? She's not in there in fun bags. Reportly, it wasn't the big man on campus, so to speak. But now they can all suck it 40 years later.

Not to suck it. I mean, like, suck it. me. The little term. You guys are put me in a bad spot today. I didn't put you anywhere. Didn't put you anywhere. One after the other, getting hurt on the road trip.

Gotta get some more from Mike Burroughs today on 790. Gotta have faith. Gotta have baseball faith. But you gotta have faith, the faith, the faith. On Astros, faith, the faith. Jay, is injury is a byproduct of quix of quix? winning? Hey, I honestly think they're not hurt.

Jay, I'm out, bye. I'm out. You're stupid. Sorry. Dumb, dumb-ass call. Hey, you heard. Dumb-ass call. You hear me?

Jay, they're faking. That was a dumb-ass call. Jay, thank you for listening. And my friend, you are on the Mount Rushmore. 1208 sports talk 790. By the way, I was listening to that version of me singing in the faith with the Astros. That was pretty good, Ross. I mean,

oh, incredible. Ad living in the very, no preparation time whatsoever. Yeah, the media alliance needs to get their head out of their ass. Hey, the whole clip was actually pretty good.

I can only give you a little bit. You can give us more? It was like, he went off for like the whole minute. Yeah, it's probably too much. But yeah, I'm going to write the essay next year so I can win,

I think, or I at least have a better chance. I had no chance of winning last night, but that's a different issue, different time. Rossi, how the hell are you? We're halfway home on the Matt Thomas show

with Ross here on 790. I'm doing. and great. Energetic as ever. Ready to rock and or roll. Let's go with the news at news. Yes, Matthew, we have the news at noon. As the Houston Astros, unfortunately, as you know,

you did the 10th inning program, a loss of the Colorado Rockies 3 to 2. Ryan Weiss? I did the 10th inning last night. Oh, you did? I thought you were on the list. No, I did it two nights ago. Thanks for asking. Are you all swap? Yeah.

Okay. Well, okay. I was flying yesterday. By the way, did you know that people you can watch planes land at LAX? And there's a Twitter account that saw our plane landing yesterday? What do you mean? There is like a live feed of planes landing at LAX. Who the hell's watching that?

I don't know, but I got a bunch of Twitter people like, hey, I see Matt's plane land. You know, the rocket's plane. Were you on? I'm like, yes, I'm on there. Okay. I'll send you to tweet. I'm good. I'll send it to everybody else.

Okay. Keep you on. Yeah, I forgot. You were on the list to do this show, but you guys are always swapping. Anywho, Rockies beat the Astros, three to two. They could not sweep them as Ryan Weiss gave up two earned runs. In three and two-thirds innings, he walked four. Three strikeouts as well on 76 pitches.

Offense couldn't get much going. Two for ten with runners in scoring position, and they only scored two runs in the first. inning did not score after that. As you also got to say, I mean, Chase Dolander came in after the opener and he was incredible. Striking out everybody.

Five and a third inning's pitch. What's his name again? Nine strikes. Jeez. Yeah. Young man was dealing. He's pretty much an ace caliber pitcher. Yeah, nobody knows who he is because he plays with the Rockies that typically no one cares about.

That's unfortunate. So there you go. Astros lose. They started three games. set with the St. Louis Cardinals tonight. Getting the start. Matt, tell me your three favorite things about Peter Lambert. Sneaky fastball. What's so sneaky about it?

It's got a little late break to it. Oh, okay. All right. That's number one. Number two, I would say mixes his off-speed pitches in effectively. Oh, okay. And number three, durable.

Oh, wow, okay. Kyle Leahy on the mound for the durable. Okay. Kyle Leahy on the mound. We need some durability on the Astros rotation. He'll be the 10th starter tonight. Well, our friend Peter Lambert, has been in Colorado the last four years. Ooh.

Do we have the career numbers there? 5.72 ERA last year. Career 6.28, whip a 1.6. Oh. Peter Lambert's ready to deal And tomorrow it will be Lance McCuller Jr And then Mike Burroughs on Sunday How are we feeling?

Two out of three ain't bad A three will not be bad meatloaf it Yep Another meatloaf series Love that By the way the key to a good meatloaf is the ketchup crust around said meatloat I thought you might be a brown gravy guy

I can do both but I like the ketchup The crust that you put ketchup on it's much With mashed potato and green beans. Oh, you're set. In some sad news, longtime Angels outfielder, Garrett Anderson has passed away at the age of 53. No cause of death

has been given, but the team did announce it today. That's sorry to hear that. 15 of 17 major league seasons with the California and then Los Angeles Angels. He is a member of the team's Hall of Fame. Yeah. Yeah, many a night's

at Enron slash Minute Maid slash Astros Field for sure. Okay, let's keep it with some baseball news. The Padres are finalizing a deal for a major league baseball record sale $3.9 billion. Jose E. Feliciano, also co-owner of the Chelsea Football Club and his wife, Kwanza Jones, are purchasing the San Diego Padres. Sale price easily tops the previous record of $2.4 billion set by Steve Cohen when he purchased the New York Mets in 2020.

Sale must first be approved by 75% of Major League Baseball owners. Next owner meeting schedule for June. And we got a pair of NBA playing games tonight. That is true. Hornets Magic, I like the Hornets. Okay. Warrior's Sons, I like the Sons. All right, they call you Chuck Thomas.

That they do. Those are the favorites in the matchups. Yeah, Hornets are actually a three and a half point favorite at Orlando. That'll be Jamal Mosley's last game if he loses that game. Coach of that. Yeah, it's a whole lot of bad. stories coming out of there. Yeah, not good.

Bad vibes for the magic. And we need the Sons to beat the Warriors just for mental health sake. Yeah, let's just go ahead and... I'm with you on that. And frankly, the Sons would give the thunder a little bit more of a competitive. Let's go, Sons.

All right. E. Mae Doke is going to join us next. It is 1214 here on Sports Talk 790. We're going to grab five minutes real quick with the head coach of your Houston Rockets. Tomorrow night here in Los Angeles, Rockets, Lakers game, one of a seven game. First round

Series. Emay Doca joining us here on the show. Coach, thanks for the time. Good morning. A thought or two about how the guys took a couple days away. I'm assuming to get away from the sport and then what it's been like for practice the last few days. It's been good. You know, you don't play in the plan.

You get an extra amount of rest time to recover from a long season. Mentally step away for a second. Physically, you get right and then lock into obviously a game plan with three, four days of really good practice. during the season you don't get those daily reps in with the games piling up but the chance to get those live action reps go against the game plan and prepare for one specific opponent instead of nightly opponents is a good thing for us. Do you find yourself because you've been an assistant coach obviously for a long time learning the business, when you get to a series where you're seeing the same team five, six, seven times, do you sometimes, does your head shake trying to find something a nuance that you didn't see before?

you overspend time on tape or is it an easier scout because it is just one opponent? No, I think you zero in on what you think is going to work well. You take a look at obviously the season and the trends that the team is having and kind of dial in on those, but you always have adjustments, plan B, C, D, E, F, whatever it is. And like you said, you spend all this extra amount of time prepping for a team and you start to see things, but you don't want to overthink it, overcomplicated for your guys. You know what works, so it's worked so far. the season and the things we do well.

So it's not always about the opponents, about our side as well. What we want to do well offensively and how they're defending, but I think you definitely have to have the adjustments at hand. But at the same time, you want to try to execute your original game plan of things you've done well all season. I'm going to assume, and look,

people are kind of curious asking me, who's EMA going to start? Is it going to be Josh? Is it going to be a man? Is it going to be Reed? And I've never been, to you ever worried about who starts. Always to me, it's about who finishes. But has there been part of the the film study and the part of the metrics about figuring out which comment which one of those guys works best for an extended period of time against the

Lakers? In general, we know what each guy brings to the table throughout the season. That's the benefit of having that fifth rotating starter that we could see different things, but also adjust on the fly. And, you know, we understand that different opponents lend to different lineups and we have benefits, pros and cons from all the guys that start. whether it's Reid, Tari, Josh, whoever. And so we're going in on that.

And like you said, with me, as always, it's who's finishing, who's playing well, and what combinations we feel are doing great out there. And so starting is one part of it, but whoever plays in the meat of the game at the end of the game is honestly more important. What is it like for you, balancing, whether it be the starting rotation or anything that is going on

about wanting to trust your process or if something's not working to try to decide, like as far as sample sizes and trying to figure, out what is just maybe some bad luck or maybe some is bad process in terms of rotations or anything in a playoff series? Yeah, I mean, you understand, you know, sometimes lineups out there that don't work. A team of specific people or players can be a victim of the lineup and it's nothing they did specifically.

So certain lines are better together and certain are not. And so I think in general you look at that, you're not just looking at a guy's plus-minus and not looking at the circumstances surrounding it. And so for us, yeah, we've had all season to look at things. Like I said, I think we like a lot of things with certain lineups. Some aren't as good, but something comes down to offense, defense, and situational basketball. Rocket Tech coach, Emaidoka with us here on Sports Talk 790. Of course, with Fred Van Vleet and Stephen Adams out,

you're just going to need everybody to play well in terms of making a deep playoff run. But I think especially it has been key for you guys, this run for Alperin Shingoon to play up to his all-star level. What you've seen from him in terms of an improvement especially on this winning stretch you guys have been on lately? Yeah, he's been very aggressive.

You know, for him, he was going through a lot of injury situations and being banged up. Nothing he couldn't play through, but it's stuff that definitely hampers you on the game-to-game basis. And he pushed through him. Obviously he played an all-star level all-season, but getting back to his consistent level is

what we're going to need going forward. And I think he's feeling much better. Obviously, this rest time will benefit him as well, but looking forward to him having a huge series and impacting the game all the ways that he does. You may, real quick for a let you run, we had the Lakers announcer earlier, and he thought the missing piece for them

to kind of stay competitive in this series would be a guy like Luke Conard with, you know, LeBron having to do a lot of the heavy lifting. What, in terms of your study of them, without Luca on the floor, and without having Austin Reeves, Are there some other intangibles that your guys are keeping an eye on, obviously?

Definitely. Anytime some major players go down, other guys will step up and kind of take on that responsibility. I think Karnarad has been one of the biggest pieces of another handler out there for him, besides Marcus Smart that has done a lot. He had triple double already in the game. His usage is way up. But him, we have to Murray all these guys. Numbers have gone up.

Aggressiveness have gone up. Shots have gone up. And you understand that when two guys have Reeves and Dodger, level go down. You're going to have to make it up by committee, and those guys are being extra aggressive and understanding what they need to do to help their team. Lastly, I mentioned we had John Ireland on, and he brought up the fact that Nate McMillan's a defensive coach for the Lakers. You obviously had a chance to play with him. What's it like going against a guy that was once the man that was controlling your time

in Portland for a while? It's been great. Every time whether Nate's head coach, assistant coach, getting in touch with him. You know, he was a guy who gave me my first real opportunity in the NBA, and, you know, a lot to him, but saw something in me not only as a player where I started that whole season in Portland for him, but also as a coach, he was a guy who mentioned to me that I would be a coach in the future. So whatever he saw with the way I played, the way I thought the game, he kind of put the bug in my ear as far as that, and, you know, love to catch up with him all the time and I always give him his flowers for what he did for me in my career. But he must be defeated, EMA. There's

no doubt about that, correct? Yes, indeed. All right, thank you for the time, Coach. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Appreciate it. All right, that's Emaedoka, joining us here on Sports Talk 790. 12-28 is a time. And again, Ross, literally, I'm looking at the bus. They're about to walk on the bus right now, so I appreciate him.

Oh, nice. Joining us, yeah. Yeah, he's great. Yeah. So, and he wasn't afraid. I mean, it's funny, we talked to John Ireland. If you missed the conversation earlier, we discussed that Nate gave him his opportunity to play a bunch, and then for his hometown team, and then they said, well, we're going to move on.

And so, he may could have been a lot worse about her, saying, hey, screw you, but I think you appreciate it. But it's interesting that Nate was the one that put the bug into EMA being a coach. Interesting. Yeah, that is a nice nugget. Yeah. The other stuff you're not going to find on other radio shows. That's correct.

All right. Hey, we have 90 minutes left to go on the show, Ross. This show is flying by today, don't you think? Absolutely. All right. We have some, I think, pretty big breaking news. Yes. Really big breaking news.

And we'll have it for you next here on. Sports Talk 790. We're going to have to bug out of this. We're going to save this for next hour. This is a good song. We've got to get the breaking news. Hit it. That's one.

Of course. Yeah, let's go. One more. The reality is Will Anderson is one rich mofo right now. Ross, tell them all about it. Texans and all pro edge, Will Anderson, Jr. have agreed on a blockbuster three-year, $150 million, extension with 134 million guaranteed

to make him the NFL's highest paid non-quarterback ever. The deal, which includes a rare no-trade clause, was done by Nicole Lynn of Clutch Sports. Ian Rappaport, of course, shouting out the agent. That's a shock. Yeah. Ian, you're not going to get this information for me unless you brag about how great I am.

Comes with the territory. That's how the game is played. All right. two things. It's three years. On top of... The guaranteed number is ginormous, $134 million.

And there isn't no trade clause as part of the contract, which does not apparently happen very often for guys at that stature. Woo! And Ian Rappaport has quote tweeted himself like three times. Saying I'm very happy I worked hard to beat this. Four times. Dude, he's getting the impression farming going. Did he say Sucketcher?

Is that what he said? No, he did not. Actually, they're bros now. They have to be. Are they? Why? Because Rappaport works working for NFL networks, which is owned by ESPN. You're not always bros with everyone up in Team 790.

Who am I not bros with? Over the past? Yeah. Oh, I mean, I'm not right now. Okay, there you go. That's good. Good for him? I don't know.

This is the great news. for CJ Stratt on, honestly. Why? That is a lot of money for one player. Now, granted, the salary cap goes up every year because the NFL just prints money. Yeah, this is an extension. So does this kick in after the fifth year option year?

Or does this kick in next year? Not next, 2026, I mean 2027. Yeah. That's what I have to figure out. I think generally speaking, if it would... It would be after the option year? Yeah, because they would have said this canceled out the final year. And again, I don't know if I'm just...

We're literally reading the tweet here a minute and a minute ago. So that means he's here for at least five more years. That's pretty good. First of all, super guy. Yes. Second of all, a hell of a football player. And worth every bit of it. You know who's bragging about this?

Nick Casario. Yeah. Because Casario's like, I'm going to get the best defensive player I can find. Hannah's like, get me a quarterback too. But I really like this Will Anderson. that's fine. Get me a second. Give me a quarterback in it. Yeah, Will Anderson Jr.

I mean, he was one of the most ready-made prospects out of Alabama. I mean, I'd have to go back and listen to our shows or go back and look at old reviews. There was very little hesitation about him being a very solid NFL player at the very worst. He was like one of the biggest can't miss in the last several years. Yeah. And he did not miss. He did not miss.

Yeah. I'm looking at Spot Track here. They have not updated it yet. So it's a club option for 2027. But yeah, he's an unrestricted after 2020. So I guess is that kicking after that? I mean, who knows? And again, the general population doesn't particularly care how much does.

It doesn't matter. But Nick Ocerol needs to. He's here and he's making a ton of money and he's been awesome. Yeah. No question about that. So congratulations to Will Anderson for earning his paycheck. And I don't know Will very well at all. or if at all, but I would assume that this is a guy that's not going to sit and go.

I got the big contract now I'm happy. Think about that, Ross. That guarantee, he's got 90% of that contract guaranteed. He's everything you want for everything to Miko Ryan's wants in terms of like a culture fit, works hard, does a great job, good teammate, all that stuff. You know, it's funny because people always will call us and say, hey, you know, why do NFL players hold out or why do players worry about their futures perhaps more? than say baseball or basketball players. And I say, well, a lot of that's because their money's not guaranteed. We are seeing now a trend in the NFL more and more guaranteed money going to the athlete.

So it's not all the way like the other sports are, but it's getting closer. When you have 143 of a possible 150 guaranteed, he's set for, I mean, he was always set for life beforehand, but he's really set regardless of how he performs. Yep. And deservedly so. But the DNA says this is not a guy that's going to all of a sudden get fad and lazy. And it hasn't crossed my mind, no. He's not going to Laramie Tunsell this bad boy.

You know what I'm saying? What did Laramie Tunsell? You mean be one of the best in his position? Yeah, but he's going to show up at OTAs. He's going to be at mini camps. He's going to be more about teen than I. And Laramie was never about that. Still good, but I like team guys.

Yeah, me too. D'emiko did too, but I like guys who can perform on the field. This is the utmost important. Is he the scariest player in the NFL that people don't talk enough about? Hmm, that's interesting. Because the Texans, even though they are a playoff team, even though they have made appearances in national television, we're not household names. I think Will Anderson is pretty close.

He is not necessarily Micah Parsons or Miles Garrett, but I think people know who he is with Max Crosby and, I mean, those types of guys, the top edge guys. I think people know Will Anderson Jr. is in that mix. Texans are on national TV a lot and their defense was incredible. Yeah. But it's interesting because who has gotten more run? I think J.J. Watt probably did more so than Will Anderson, but Will's got a chance to suppress that.

I don't know. Three-time defensive player of the year. Don't you try to get that by default? Yeah. Let's talk to Emanuel in California. There's a little breaking news for you here on the show, 1238 on 790. Emmanuel, good afternoon to you.

Hey, Matt. It's good to have you here in California. You know, it's nice to hear the waking up the shippers at 10 in the morning from you at the same time I always hear it. Because it's 10 for me, but it's usually 12 o'clock for you guys. But I love that every Friday. Please don't ever stop doing that. Thank you. It just warm us my heart.

Thank you very much. That's funny. Yeah, real quick, I have to talk about it. I got to go back to U.A. That was horrible. I know we played horrible in the Final Four game. There's nothing. There's no ways around it.

We've got to own it. We just fell apart. They just weren't ready for Michigan. And that's that. Unfortunately, we'll get ready for hopefully next year. And at least we kept the coach. And hopefully we keep some of the players. But I have to talk about it.

You know, I was over there crowing about them, but I got to take it when they lose too. So, yeah, they went, it ain't pretty. But really, I really want to talk about our rockets. I'm so excited they got to play the Lakers because, and there's just so many Laker fans, over here, you know, being in South Cal and I got so many of them already trying

to talk trash, and I'm like, you guys don't even have half, like two thirds of your starting lineup. I don't think it's going to be a cakewalk, though. I mean, they will fight and they'll play hard. But I think it's going to be a, I'll call it a gentleman sweep of 5-1 series victory for the Rockets.

But yeah, one of the, to me, the main X factor of the whole series is Operation and how, he works on the block and gets the easy points, pushes around their smaller defenders,

and also definitely going to need help from Capella, of all of all people to help push, get Aiton and get him in like foul trouble. That will help, definitely too. But I think we have enough firepower to beat the LeBron and the rest of their players, even if Luca comes back game six, but I don't even think that's going to happen.

I think we got it done. And it's going to be nice to beat the Lakers and win a series because everybody is telling us on social media. That's all I hear is, oh, we're a first round. Right. We're going to be out in the first round. We're going to be out in the first round. And that would be fun.

I would love to beat the Lakers and crow over here. Where my rocket gear and then just see everybody look at me. Probably all mad inside. They're like, that was lucky. You know, nobody talks, they talk about their injuries, but we went the whole year without Fred Van Fleet on. a top-notch player who's won a championship as a starting point guard and also Adams, which is amazing off offensive rebounder and defender on the block.

But I'm glad you're here. I hope everything goes good, and I'm looking for some Rockets beat down. I won't even be surprised they win tonight by like 10 or 12. Go Rockets. They'll always win tonight because they're going on the town. We'll win the city. That's tomorrow we're going to beat the game. That's the game.

Thank you, Manuel, for the nice phone call. We appreciate it. 41 on Sports Talk 790. Yeah, honestly, Ross, I just want a series win. It'd be nice that they could do it in four or five, but it's still a Brown on their side of the court. He's, I mean, he's at 41. He may not be able to throw 98 on the fastball,

but he's still throwing 92, 93. Yeah, it's, that's not going to be enough. He just doesn't have his friends with him. And we had John Ireland earlier, and he talked about how he was, he thrives, and he's great as a third option. He's just not the number one, number one. but the days off will help.

He's going to try his best. He's going to rack up some crazy numbers, but I just don't think that it's going to be enough. Yeah, if Luke Kinnard beats the Rockets, then it was never meant to be. Looks nice, but he's just not a guy that's going to be able to take over games.

Right. Rueh Machemura, Marcus Smart, Jackson Hayes, I go on and on. All right, 1242 on Sports Talk 790. There has been, with Astro fans Rossi, the low-hanging fruit of this guy sucks. We must get him out of here immediately. And I feel like through the early portions of the 2026 season,

there has been one player that has been wearing it more than anybody else. I think you know who it is. Those of you driving around Houston right now, do you think you know who it is? We'll discuss that next. We've got non-flora stories at 130. What is today's edition of a hell yeah or not at 150? I don't know. All right.

Oh, Will Anderson, right? Sure. Go back to the archive. See what we got there. Garrett Anderson? I'd rather celebrate Will. Okay. Just saying.

Okay. Give a positive. That's good. Anything goes Friday. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. I will say this. Crypto.com on a length of game night.

And John Ireland brought this up a couple of hours ago. People show up late, but they're still celebrity. I've seen well, Diane Cannon was a star back in the day, but I don't know. I've seen Samuel L. Jackson here multiple times. I've seen the Baldwin brothers here a couple

of times. Really? I think I saw Jack one time that he doesn't come anymore. I've seen Donald Sutherland here one time. Is he still alive? Yes. We love L.A.

Not really. We love L.A. to lose, especially the Dodgers, and hope for the Lakers the next week or so. All right. 713, 2.12.5-790. 7-1-3-1-2-1-2-5-7-90. If you want to chime in, we've got Public Enemy Number 1.

Yonnier-Diaz, right, Ross? It's not even a distant second, correct? Yes. He's been the scapegoat. Do we do that every year with our athletes? Do we pick on one guy and we give them too much love and too much praise that don't deserve it? And then we also do the same thing on the other side of it. We just, not weak collectively.

Yeah, I was going to say, I don't hate Yon-Yon-R-Diaz right now. I want him to play better. I mean, I'd love for an Astros' first-round pick to come up in play, but Walter Yon, I ain't ready to do it yet. There's a close. There's always scapegoats. The number one thing, if you really want to describe why the Astros are under 500, so far.

It's the fact that nine starting pitchers have started to play for the Astros this year. You're hitting 10. It's going to be their 21st game and their 10th starting pitcher. Yeah. I have to keep looking that up to make sure that's right because it sounds so insane. It does. It is it's frankly

unfair. It's just ridiculous. They did 13 all of last year and 13 was crazy. Here it goes. Burroughs four starts. McCuller's 3. Me My 3 Javier 3

Brown 2 Bolton 2 Gordon 1 Erigetti 1 Weiss 1 1 There's your 9 Jesus

Peter Lambert starts Number 10 So everybody That is Again the fire Espada fire Dana Brown Can't come fast enough That just that just rolls

off the tongue of Astros Twitter so incredibly quick Go get me the Who is the best manager in baseball Ross now? Because I'm telling you, my good friend, Adrian Chapparee, the voice of the, of the Rockets on Spanish, he hates Dave Roberts. He hates Dave Roberts. Despises him. A.J. Hinch?

AJ's got to be in the mix. I mean, it's not a huge group, but a lot of them are not super well-known names, honestly. Yeah. Craig Count, I'm just looking up the managers. Craig Counsel's highly thought of, I guess, with the Cubs. Who's one of the things in Cleveland now? Oh, it's Stephen Voked, right? Let me look. Former catcher, they like him over there, I think. Yeah, Stephen Voked.

But Alex Cora was considered a genius until things got sideways with their front office and not resigning refrains and they want Cora out of there. I like Mark Cotsay with the A's. Yeah, he's doing a lot with a little. But my point is this. Go get me the two or three best managers in baseball. Tell me, go tell A.J. Hinch,

He's going to use 10 starting pitchers before April 20th. And tell me what his reaction would be to that, or anybody for that matter. And unfortunately, injuries are excuses. Now, if you want to do a deeper dive on it and say, why are so many pitchers on one baseball team getting hurt, that's a different conversation for a different time. That would require you and I bringing in our two or three favorite sports positions and running in and going, okay, how are you guys conducting your business?

Yeah, we just, we don't know. We can't know. We don't know. We don't know. We'll never know. Because you have to have alternate universes. Is there an alternate universe where there's a different training staff, different pitching regimens, and then you put, like, in some kind of lab, you have to run simulations? Because there's no way for us to know how people got hurt, when people got hurt, what got them hurt. Would they have gotten hurt anyways?

Because are they due to get hurt? Because think about it, aren't pictures due to get hurt? Yes, they are. Astros are emphasizing spin and velocity. Oh, show me the team that's like, hey, guys, keep your spin rates down. And you know what? Maybe throw about 85 max. Yeah.

Take, throw the fastball once every nine pitches and see how long you last. Everybody, everybody goes half effort. The only thing it hurts Dana. And again, it's kind of that ill-timed comment is that he says, we built up a depth chart. Well, they did. That indeed is accurate. But nobody builds depth charts of 20 game winners in Cy Young, followed by Syung, followed by Syong. No.

Sometimes they're just a collection of just a guys. And right now the Astros, in their starting rotation, for the most part, have just a bunch of guys. Like every other team Ross would have in Major League Baseball. Nobody's got three future sign winners in the front of the rotation in AAA. You'd like to have it. Out of 30 teams, there's got to be one with the most injuries. Unfortunately, it's been here in Houston.

Oh, it's so frustrating. But think about this again. If they were teaching atypical, bad fundamentals of how to throw a baseball, how to put more torque on something, how to ultimately hurt your elbow, your forearm, somebody in the Astros pitching staff would say, would go whisper to a Chandler Rome or Brian McTaggart or somebody and say, man, what are we doing here? They're endangering our lives.

But nobody's doing that. there's nine guys and there's Rossi there's seven or eight guys I could easily go whisper that to a media member and say man we got something going on in here yeah it doesn't look good that's just anything and it's human nature we see something happen and we look for a pattern we look for a reason

for the pattern and sometimes there is reason and sometimes there isn't that that's what just can be so so difficult to figure out and like I said we need years and years of data we need to make any sort of definitive conclusion I just

chalk it up to And maybe I'm being naive. I don't think I'm being naive, but maybe I am. I chalk it up to a snake bit. It's the state of baseball in 2025 and 2020, 26. Yeah. What was it about 700 years ago, the Astros went through the rotation over 20 times?

We should have cherished those moments. In 2018, they had the same starting five until September, I believe. And then somebody went down. I can't remember what that. That's more of a one-off than what we're seeing now. We're seeing more. We'll see more teams of pitching arm issues like this. It just won't be nearly as quickly as the Astros have gone through so far.

Yeah. Let me pull it up. Yeah, 18, they were blessed. You got 30 plus starts from Verlander, Kichel, Cole, and Morton. And then, yeah, McCullors had 22 starts. Hey, Frommer got a little taste there. Five starts from him. Josh James started three games.

Josh Flames, James? Yes. Flames was right. He wasn't strike throwing James, though. No. He wasn't Josh location, James. No, he was pinpoint corner James. No.

He was just flames. Final hour of the Matt Thomas show at Ross starts in a matter of moment. 713, 212, 579. Remember, folks, it isn't anything goes Friday. What do you want to get to? We have a half hour left to talk with you before the end of the week because we've got non-flora stories at 130 and hell yeah, not at 150. We're on through a quick headline check that will include a football note,

basketball and, of course, the Astros. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. We've got a half hour left of your phone calls. If you want to chime in, we are the friendly show, and it talks to you, the great people. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-1-790. Matt here in Los Angeles for game one of the Rockets versus the Los Angeles Lakers.

It'll be tomorrow night. Ross, remind the folks where you're going to be hanging out. Yes, we'll be at the Kirby Ice House Heights location. It'll be the official Rockets Watch party, so should be Clutch and I believe some Clutch City dancers as well. But most importantly, it'll be me and Cole Thompson. You can come hang out with us and I'll be there for the pregame, also staying for the game and doing a little bit of postgame,

talking to the postgame drunks as well afterwards. After a Rockets win, 1, 116 to 105. I like 11-point wins Because here's the one thing that's been bothering me all season long as it's bothered you Rockets just aren't a very good fourth-quarter team at times They aren't seen double-digit leads on the road evaporate At home against the Lakers At New York

At Minnesota They're going to be fine They're ready to go All right Rockets in five I said it earlier I want to make sure we're I'm doubling down on it. Rockets and five.

Rockets in five. Craig would not give a prediction yesterday. I heard that. Fence sitter. How about John Ireland? He said, look, I'm rooting for the Lakers because he's got a bias for it. And he's picking the Lakers? Why not?

Breaking news, voice of the Lakers picks Lakers. I'll tell you a funny story. There is somebody that used to work for a team website that was after to do a preview story and that person who I know no longer in the business. predict the other team to win and the team's like, what are you doing? I mean, you've got to be honest. I don't pick the Astro.

I didn't pick the Astros and win 95 games this year. If you want to keep your job, you have some times you have to lie. I guess if you're a team employee. Yeah. All right. Well, Anderson, $150 million extension. Rossi keeps him in a Texan uniform through 2030. That's what I'm talking about.

Let's go. It was easy. I mean, it was chalk pick. It was just about how much money he was going to make. Yep. So the $150 million over the three years, I believe those three years will be bigger A.A.V. than Micah Parsons to make him the highest paid non.

Right. Quarterback in football. And, uh, C.J. Straud's like, good for you, bra. Do you think, C.J. You think, do you think David Mulligetta, his agent texted the Texans said, okay, is it our turn next? No, I think the lines of communication are open.

I think they know it extension's not happening anytime soon. unless the Texans want to do some kind of like, you know, bet on C.J. Stroud to blossom. It worked with Nico Collins. Nico Collins got a big extension and now he's outperformed it. I just don't know that that's going to happen with C.J. Stroud. So let's do just real quick before we go to the phone. Okay. If I came to you and said, I'm hearing that C.J. Stroud is going to have an extension in the similar type numbers.

Because quarterbacks now can make as much, you know, in theory can make about 60 million dollars. 60 is. Yeah. Highest A.A.V. is still DAC with 60. Okay. So let's say that C.J.

signs the exact same extension. 143 guaranteed. No trade. 150 total. Keeps him in Texans gear to 2030. Because in theory, with him being in the same drive class as Will Anderson, that could happen.

Today, Houston Texans fans are rejoicing. Tell me what the phone lines would be like, the Twitter streets would be like, if the exact same offer was made to C.J. Strought. Again, not knowing, not particularly caring Ross about money, it's just about giving him money for a guy that

could not have had two worse ways to end his football season. I think most people would be upset. 50 AAV would put him at 11th behind Jalen Hertz. That doesn't sound crazy. And what to think about is this. Oh, gosh.

In 28, 29, 30, 50 million for a starting quarterback wouldn't be nuts. As crazy as that sounds. I don't think it's happening. I don't either. It feels about right.

It would be about three years, 50. Fitty apiece. Because honestly, I don't have a lot of cowboy fans in my life. Kind of intentionally, I think. I mean, when you marry into a Dallas family, you might do, but I didn't do that, so it's not an issue. But how do cowboy fans feel about DAC making 60 a year? Because what they could say is, okay, Dak's good, but does the 60 million

all that money you're paying him, does that deplete them at a particular other part of a position they could spend money on because they can't because so much money is put on the quarterback. It does, but it's the nature of the beast. That's just, that's how it goes. Yeah. The Eagle did a good job for a year, but then they had to sell off everyone.

You can't keep everyone for a long time. That's the beauty of the NFL. That's why windows close so fast and open up elsewhere. That's why they have the best parity. And that's why people were so bent last year that this amazing potential Super Bowl, not potential. It was a Super Bowl caliber defense. Couldn't go further because the offense was such a train wreck.

713-212-5-790. James at 110 on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. James, good afternoon to you. Yeah, this is going to be more of a Matt question, but I went to the game last night, and of course, we lost in overtime. But I don't remember that Summerlin was conservative. Was he that conservative at U.S.? Because, oh, my God, he wouldn't take any risk at all as far as softens. Oh, you were to the gamblers game last night? Yeah, I went to the gamble game last night. You were the only one that was there? Well, actually, it was about 4,000 people, but they're going to need more than that.

But it was a, they were motivated. They were, we were making some noise. There's no question about that. Now, okay, James, I want you to be honest with me because I've never lied to you. Well, I probably have, but that's a different issue. Okay. There is no way there were 4,000 people at that game yesterday. No chance.

There was, okay. Okay, the first 5,000 people got a T-shirt, all right? Well, they gave me two T-shirts. So there wasn't any possibility I wasn't going to get a T-shirt that night. But there was probably between 3,000 and 4,000. I'm not lying. And we were energetic, and we were making a lot of noise. The officials took away a touchdown and an interception, which, I mean, it was crazy.

They called back a touchdown on a hold, and an interception, they said, pass-in-appearance. And they showed the replay. They wouldn't know damn pass-deference. We intercepted that ball. But we had a good time. I took a couple of my friends, and they had a good time. But it's just disappointing to lose in overtime.

No. I'm sorry for your loss. I mean, if anything goes Friday, so I thought... You know what? That is fair. Thank you very much, James. Rossi, James is going to die on that gamble, or Vine Indy. I don't know what the hell he's thinking. That's fine.

By the way, we have this listener, Timothy. He was always defending CJ Stroud. He just tweeted us, Herbert and Lawrence have less playoff wins than CJ. Who would you rather start a game? for you. Why is he, he's such a Timothy W. Davis. Thanks for listening. Yeah, they got Stroud Truthers.

Yeah, why are you as true? He sucked. I got news for you, ladies and gentlemen. This is really more for Timothy because he did watching different games. Your starting quarterback was bad against Pittsburgh and putrid against New England. Putrid. And what was it? Five fumbles followed up by four interceptions.

He was bad. That's a fact. Timothy W. Davis. Do I think I should start putting in my mental initial in my name, Matthew L. Thomas? Think I should do that? It would help with confusion

because we always think you're that basketball players in Greece or whoever everywhere is now. That's fair. You know, for the rest of the show today, I'm Matthew L. Thomas. Good. Because you're always taking L.

I don't think I heard that. I know that you did. Maybe. Oh, I'm sorry. Matt Thomas is with Bestique. Besheed Gust. Good for him.

In Turkey. I think that's where, isn't that where Alperin came from? That sounds right. Is it B.E.S.T. Something like that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Bessie.

This is a special message for you, Timothy W. Davis. Yes. Timothy W. Davis. C.J.W. sucked. Oh, my gosh. Look at Gordy. Now he's posting pictures of himself with Will Anderson. Oh, no way.

I'm going to retweet this. Seriously. I'm retweeting this. He's really doing that. Come on, Lockdown, Gordy. I love it. Oh, Consent City. Matt Loser Thomas. Oh, he doesn't follow me either.

Dush. Let me tell you, Content City. I'm a winner. Oh, on Timothy W. No Nico and Schultz in eight yards rushing. CJ was in a horrible situation. He created that terrible situation by throwing picks. He wasn't a,

a bad situation, but four interceptions was bad. I think two, I would have to go back and look at the tape, but two to three of those were completely his fault. Just bad, bad, bad throws and decisions. But this guy, content city, he hates

me. Jesus. I'm like 90% of his tweets are about how much he hates me. Oh well, it's fine. I'm a winner. I'm not a loser. Just mute him. I don't even know who you're talking about. 713, 212-7. 719. 713.

212-1-2-5-7-9-0. Non-Florita stories in 15 minutes here on 7-90. Did we run out of L.A. songs? We're saying for Monday. We're playing a long week in L.A. We've got to space ourselves, that's for sure. Time now for the daily Diana Rusini update. Numerous.

Rucini update. Update. All the man, Thomas show. Rossini Update. Is she really? All right, we're moving on. Who is she next? Going to what?

What? What is she going to do? Go get employed by. All right. Word has it that the private investigator photos that you've been seeing that were sold to New York Post? Yes. The man who ordered the photos. Her husband. Her husband. Oh, wow. The man who saw the photos, the New York Post.

The husband. Oh, he profited of it, too. It's good for him. Hey, you got to get the money back. I mean, I don't know what a PI costs Matt, because I'm not in that business. Thank you. I understand. I'm scared to Google it, too, on my work laptop. Yeah, I know. Does a private. But that's crazy. So you're like, A, I want that money back. B, somebody's going to pay it. But C, I'm basically outing my wife for the entire world to see this.

Up to $2.50 an hour plus expenses for a private investigator. Well, those expenses would be like first-class air travel. You got to fly them to Sedona. Fly into Sedona. Got to stay in Sedona. Got to rent a car, which is two hours from Phoenix. Yeah, he needed to get his money back. You had to sell those picks.

now what what source are you getting this from by the way is this reputable i don't ever what's going on know what's going on in your four you time i know i know uh i've seen it by a separate i don't have the particular one in front of me but geez it does kind of all make sense though yeah everything every time ross we've guessed about this we've been right yeah okay i see this on times of india i don't know if i see this on anything reputable matt wait a minute i love times of india i got to see it on the Hindu stand times, which I know is a go-to for you for non-floor stories. Would it not make complete sense?

He's like, this, you know what, is effing or doing things with Mike Ravel? Yeah, it makes perfect sense. And that the kids are like, do it, dad. You think he consulted the children? Well, I mean, if he didn't, that would be even worse because then he's now putting their mom out there. Maybe he didn't care. Maybe he's so pissed off that he just, care. Look, everybody's

get their own lives to live and how they handle such events, but I don't know if I'd, I mean, if I was mad at my wife, I don't think I'd be putting it out there because she is still the mother of my children. Everybody has to make their own decisions about that, but somebody sold them, and let's connect the dots really quick.

You paid for the photos? That private investigator works for you? He hand you the photos? That private investigator, those or not his photos. He's not selling, I don't think he's doing cutting his own deals. Do you think?

I mean, I think you'd be out of business if you did. Because private investigator means private. Yeah. It's crazy. So, I mean, I tend to believe everything I'm reading. I want to watch a documentary on this.

By the way, shout out also to Shannon Elizabeth, star of the American Pie movies. Okay. You remember her? Was her not a noddy in that movie? She was Russian. I will never forget.

I mean, good gracious. A 1990s late. She's now going to have an OnlyFans account, those of you that are interested in such a thing. Really? Yes. Now, OnlyFans is trying to go legit. Define legit. Non-sex stuff.

What does that mean? It's like bikini photos? Yeah, just, you know, opportunity to DM a star. Oh, like, yeah, what's that website? You're on. Camio. Yeah, but Camio is you're just shooting videos. So if you want to have a personal relationship with Shannon Elizabeth.

I'm going to start getting on cameo. I used to do a bunch of cameos. I don't do very many anymore. You got to promote it more, Matt. You know what I probably need to. If any of you would like for me to do cameos for you, I'm a very affordable part. I'll pay you $50 to say you're not Mr. Texas. You should do that.

Yeah, you're rates. You're rates too high. $49. That's good value. I do good job. Those are Julia Morales prices. Robert and Katie on 790, Robert, good afternoon to you. Hey, guys.

I was just wondering how you're feeling about Joey's back. We've got a boy back, and I know when he was gone, everybody kind of made fun of him. But now he's back, and he's doing pretty good. He has been a pleasant surprise, Robert. Thank you for the phone call. again, I didn't think life ended for the Astros when they moved him. They had to go get Kikuchi, which it worked out well for them for the short time he was on team. And Joey has done enough.

I mean, there's been, I mean, again, small sample size, but he gets a hit a night, it feels like. Fields his position well, he can play two different positions. I think it's been, I mean, I don't think long term. I'm sending up a all-star campaign for him, but I can. Could be wrong. He's been cooling off. Yeah. He's down to 713 OPS.

He's not at a thousand-isher anymore. But we'll see. Yeah, I would... I would just say... Fourth Outfielder long-term, right? Yeah. I don't think you're building a team, but he's a majorly player. Yeah, I'll go with that.

And as long as the team doesn't have Jake Myers available to him, they need to play them every day. So, let's go, Jake. All right, non-Florida stories. Really? Up next. Where is yours from? Turkmenistan.

Really? Yeah. Mine is from Kansas. But I might, you know, I'm going to, I might see if I'm fine, a better one. I would hope, where did you say yours is from? Turkmenistan. That's quite a pull. You just randomly chose a name out of your ass, and it worked out well for you.

Thanks. People tend to believe you. I'm a good improviser. What is today's edition of Hellyer and out at one-fif? Oh, God. It's going to be Will Anderson, but there's going to be some Garrett in there. I'm sorry. It's just where it is.

A couple of Andersons. All right. Yeah. Non-Florter Stories next year on 790. We find interesting stories that occur outside the state of Florida and share them with the people of Hughes. It's time for not. All right. This is an oldie from non-Florter stories, but it happened to show up on my timeline because it was

two weeks ago, I was talking about April 1st and April Day Fool's jokes, which I hate. By the way, I hate April Fool's Day. All it does is get people in trouble. And I have an example for you in this. Go ahead, Matthew. All right. Arthia Willis.

She's 58 years old. Althea? I didn't think she was going to be 24. Arthia Willis, 58 years old, lives in Wichita, Kansas. Okay. And a few years back on April the 1st, she called her daughter one day. And daughter picked up, said, hey, mom, how you doing?

Arthenia said, I've been shot. Her daughter, realizing what had happened, quickly hung up, called 911. And between 15 and 20 police officers rushed to Willis's home armed with guns in response to her daughter's call. They broke down Arthenia's door down her house. No one was inside. They later learned that Willis was actually at work and it called her daughter as quote-unquote a prank. What? The daughter said, I'm still shook.

They took it seriously and this is on you, Mom. The 58-year-old woman, Arthenia, was then arrested on suspicion of an unlawful request for emergency service assistance. geez. Please, please, please. Our little advice from this little radio show we do here, 10 to 2, for the love of God, stay away from April Fool's jokes.

And if you're going to do one, do something silly, not call your daughter and tell her you got shot. Oh, my God. I mean, there's just a special place in hell for women to do that, or anybody for that matter does that. What would possessor to say that? Probably drugs.

could be then she gets arrested for having they call 15 to 20 officers think about the tax dollars and the time and effort that those guys could have been doing or ladies could have been doing other things instead they're chasing down people to Wichita House that nobody was there and that my friends is my

I'll be a little delayed April Fool's Day non-Florida story okay okay wow terrible very unfortunate what's all doing? I will go

because I got to write some Anderson questions. Matt, have you ever flown Air New Zealand? I have not, but I saw this story on the Today show yesterday. I'm going to pick this up. Well, Air New Zealand has been looking for solutions for people to help people get to sleep on long haul flights

in their economy class. and they will soon be offering their solution. Apparently, they are going to have triple-tier bunk beds with people wearing special socks and you can book the bunks for four-hour stints. Not eight, just four. You get one four-hour shift at this point. Yeah, what if you need just about 15 minutes?

I saw these bunks on Today Show. they're super tiny. Yes, flyers can get cozy, but there will be no bed sharing, no strong perfumes. Correct. And no food. In the bunk beds. Do you tell them, you want to tell them the price for this, by the way?

They will be on the 787 Dreamline 9 Dreamliner Aircrafts. Plan servicing Auckland to New York. Cost will start at $495 New Zealand dollars, so that is $291 American dollars. That will be on top

of the price for the plane ticket. So again, just put this perspective. Those of you that are driving around. These are six bunk beds, one on the lower row, one in the middle, and one of the top. They're only for one person.

If you wanted, like, make some good love on the flight, it ain't happening in that. those. Unless you're hooking up with somebody in the lower rack. But they're not spacious. If you're like, like I'm 6-1, I think I could barely fit in them. Ross, you're at what, 6-4, right?

I'm sick too without shoes. So we'll go 6-3. I thought, okay, whatever. I don't know. These things looked highly, highly uncomfortable. Essentially what you need to do, what you're doing is you're paying about $300 American to lie down. and get on your phone.

There are places to put battery to charge your phone. There's a pillow. There's a blanket. But I saw these things. They're not comfortable at all. I would not spend that money. You do like to nap, though, Matt? I'm a huge napper.

Matter of fact, I'm going to take a nap in about 21 minutes. Although I should be listening to 18. That'll help me go to sleep, too. So that's rude. You need to have Friday apologize for that. No, it's not. You just said this show puts you to sleep. I'm in sleep. Apologize right now.

No, no. Let's put things in perspective. Number one, they have easy to listening voices. Oh, my God. If you're saying a show put you to sleep, that's never a good thing. No, no, no, no. Unless the show is literally sleepy time with Dave. I got up at 645 Pacific time.

So cut me some slack, Jack. I'm not cutting you any slack. Why? Because. You got there, you left the show earlier. Why am I yesterday? Why am I cutting you slack? You got there last night.

I get the road, Jack. Yeah. No, but I'm saying that I woke up at 6.45 to do an 8 a.m. show. I'm sleepy because of that. Thus, you put on some soothing voices or music, and you go to sleep to it. Okay. Well, I'll have you take it up with the Adams. You said their show puts you to sleep.

If you think that's a compliment, I guess, go ahead. I love the 18. They know that. And they're my partners for the playoffs, so we're good to go. Yeah, that's true. Let's tighten up those post games. Oh, look who's throwing shade. Say you're sorry.

Do it right now. Why? I'm not sorry. It's fine. They've been doing great. All right. Jonathan, what's your non-floor story this week? I'm going to take the story back to my old stopping grounds of Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Oh, no. The smoking gun reported on March 26. Oh, this is going to be a good one if it's on the smoking gun. A police officer in Bowling Green notice a man on top. of a horse around 6 p.m. His name is Jorge Hernandez, 48 years old, and reportedly when they called in, was

slumped over his horse, as it was galloping and taking him across the neighborhoods. The officer then had to come and conduct a traffic stop when the duo had moved onto the sidewalk, so he went from, Jorge went from the main street

into someone else's yard and the sidewalk. Just to find out, a smell of alcohol, slurred speech and had a bag from the liquor store tied to the saddle of the horse. Jorge was taken to custody but was released pursuant to immigration warrant and no words on the horse's fate. Now someone being from, well, not from, but been there, this is like a typical story over there in Bowling Green, Kentucky. I'm not going to lie.

So you got a, basically a guy who is intoxicated on his horse, is what you're trying to tell. The horse was just taking him in the wind. Yep. blacked out is the guy okay he was taken to immigration pursuant to immigration warrant and where's the horse

there's no words in the horse spate I don't know maybe he said a good vet somewhere they have good vets over there so if it's not bowling green Kentucky gentlemen really quick Ross what another what other U.S. American

U.S. city would you have a man get arrested for intoxication while riding a horse go ahead and give me a short list. I have no idea. Lubbock. I'll go Nacadojosus, Texas. I should have said Kingwood. Let's see what else would be a good...

Maybe someone like Tucson, Arizona, maybe? Oh, yeah, like New Mexico or like Albuquerque. Or how about... In Pennsylvania, what do they call it? Not the Quakers. What are they... What do they call up there? You know the ones that travel by a horse buggy.

The Amish, yeah. I'd say Al-Tuio would be a good spot. Where's Yellowstone take place, Montana? Yeah, Montana. Maybe on the mountain range in Colorado. So just be just a little ward of the wise. If you're going to go take your horse out for a nice walk around town, do not be worried about drugs and alcohol as part of the package,

because you're going to be taken and be deported, apparently. And those are the non-Florah Stories for the week. All right, hell yeah or not is up next. Let's open the prize vault. I'm assuming we're done with Neil Diamond and Neil Diamond. With Rod Stewart tickets, correct? Yes. So we're playing for, what are we playing for?

Oh, let's take a look here. The psychedelic furs? Is that all we got? I think it's all we got. All right, I'm going to see how many of you are die-hard psychedelic fur fans. May 23rd, House of Blues. Tickets are on sale at Ticketmaster.com. If you love you some psychedelic furs, you play, believe it or not with us next.

713 or Helly are not. 713, 212, 5, 790. Now, if you don't want to win psychedelic fur's tickets, we do offer shoutouts, and shoutouts are really cool. It gives you an opportunity to say something to someone you love or hate for that matter, and we'll give those away for those of you that win it. So psychedelic furze, tickets, or shoutouts on today's edition of Helly, yeah or not. It's coming up next here

on Sports Talk 790. John, I don't need a ruling on this one. I don't be so honest, I have never heard a song, but I know it's about Kyle playing. I've never heard this song either. Not familiar with this one. It's like punk rock, I would say, assuming early mid-80s? Sure, why not?

The band is called X-1980. Oh, good pull. Genre punk rock. Actually, this says yacht rock here on the It does not. It won the Grammy that year for best Yacht Rock album. It does a mind right here too. Oh, my God.

1980s, yeah. Okay. I really despise you both. Stupid made-up genre. It is a great genre, and you and I need to go see Toto and the rest of that yacht rock review coming up this summer in Houston. Let's go. How about you go see Santana the Dubies?

We'll go see that. That's almost right. That's not really bad. When is that? Like in August, I think. Yeah. Okay. You know me.

We'll be underneath. Don't worry. We'll be comfortable. I like the lawn. You're a hater. I'm a, I'm a covered... You say you've never been on the lawn once. Never.

Ever. Ever. It's not a man of the people. It's fine. Five minutes have to go on the show. What should we do? We should play America's fastest growing sports radio game show. We simply call it.

leaving or not Monday through Thursday, but on Fridays we call it a hell, yeah, or not. 7-13-21-2-5-7-90. Today's edition of Hell-Year-Nout, the category is all things about Will Anderson with a couple of Garrett Anderson's in there. I'll read your statement about one of those two Andersons. The statement's completely utterly accurate. You'll say this. Hell yeah!

If the statement's erroneous full of bunk and made up, you will say this. Not. Two, hell, yeah, or nots in a row. When you're a prize, you're going to see tickets to see the psychedelic first. Ross, your favorite psychedelic first song? All the way now. All the way now. 713, 212, 5, 790.

Chris, on 790, Chris, you ready to play Hell yeah or not? Hell yeah. Chris, good luck to you, friend. Here we go. Here's your question. Will Anderson Jr.'s 17.5 sacks for Alabama in 2020. are an all-time SEC record. Hell yeah or not?

No. Frank on 790. Frank, you're ready to play, hell yeah or not? Psychedelic first, Frank here. Hell yeah. During draft season in 2023, Mel Kuiper Jr. call Will Anderson Jr. the most can't miss edge rusher since Bruce Smith back in 1985. Hell yeah or not. not not

oh here we're halfway down frank we're rooting for you 2020 will Anderson Jr named MVP of the under armor all-American game in san antonio hell yeah or not not

yes you win congratulations you're going to see him let's go oh that warms a cockles of my heart uh casso on 790 what was your favorite part of today's 10 to 2 radio show whatever y'all play x that band rules more punk well Anderson wore numbered 55 at Alabama in honor of his favorite player as a youth and that was terrell suggs hell yeah or not

hell yeah no he wore number 31 Andrew on 790 Andrew you're ready to play hell yeah or not hell to the year according to 24-7 sports coming out of high school will Anderson junior was a five-star recruit and the number five overall play player in the country. Hell yeah or not. That sounds like something Ross made up, but I'm going to give it a hell yeah. Hell yeah. Statement number two for the win, Andrew Goodluck. Will Anderson Jr. has five older sisters.

All of them played sports. Hell yeah or not. Not. Roger on 790, Roger, I know you're ready to play hell yeah or not. Hell yeah Garrett Anderson was a three sports star in high school It was even all sitting in both baseball and basketball here in Los Angeles Hell yeah or not

Hell yeah Statement number two for the way Garrett Anderson is second on the Los Angeles Angels all-time runs batted in list behind Mike Trout Hell yeah or not Hell yeah No he's first I'm so sorry

Frank's going to see psychedelic furs. He'll buy the furs round of drinks. Ross, have a great weekend. Look forward to hearing great reports from you guys at Kirby Highshouse tomorrow. Can't wait. I can't wait for the team. Now until six. Astros baseball at six right here on seven.