The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Continue to Slide... Was the World Cup Final a Bore?

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

Astros Continue to Slide... Was the World Cup Final a Bore?

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. On in H-Town. Good morning and welcome to a Monday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. Aren things around in a hurry to keep their playoff chances going. I feel bad for Robert Ford's dog. I think he just got kicked. Let me tell you something. I've been there, Robert. Trust me. and the asteros have left the bases loaded again. Hey, your friend is called some 60 lost seasons.

I know what this is all about. Christian Wood misses another three. Back come the Lakers and a jam, and they're up 19. I know, bro. In the second quarter. Time out. Stephen Silas, Rockets down 23. You don't have to say that.

I did see Stephen Silas in Vegas, by the way. He sends his best. And Justin Patton has missed another layup. Kelly Olinick on a three on two break A lot of bounds Hey Kelly Golinic had some good games Maddie Remember when the fan base was like We cannot lose Kelly Olinic

There's some dark times Garrison Matthews checks another three Oh Gary Bird Robert we understand your angst Your despair It's not that bad but it's getting there The dying embers of a dynastic run So, you know, I don't typically pat myself on the back.

I'm not looking for that, I'm not looking for the ferocious laugh of you. You're starting with a banger on a Monday morning, Maddie. That was a good one. So I did the 10th inning show yesterday in the On Deck show because Gordy is in Tampa at SEC media. He's usually Mr. Sunday, but he's Mr. S.E. He's locked in SEC mode. Oh, you're yawning four minutes into the show. This is a good sign.

I'm not saying it was you. Let's get your cafe. Yeah, get your cafe. I made a large coffee going here. Cheers. Cheers to you as well. We got our coffee going. So I do the show, I'm doing the show.

And remember, the Astros had scored six runs this entire weekend. Is that bad? I mean, it's terrible. It's not good. It's terrible. Okay. And frankly, if not for the Altovae home run late in the game, it didn't make a difference. It would have been a five-run series for the three games.

And so I go to the 4U tab, stupidly, like I normally do. And there's the fire Joe Espada. He doesn't know what he's doing. and fire Dana Brown and all that is going to eventually happen if this team does not reach where it needs to reach. In all likelihood, yes. So, I mean, I don't think we're speaking

on a school on that. But I took a lot of phone calls yesterday and I think I did a fairly good job of convincing the audience. It's going to take, whatever is going to happen with this administration on the field and in the front office is going to solve itself here

in about two months. So you go, going to your Twitter account and ferociously asking for Joe Aspire to be fired or Dana Brown to be fired probably isn't going to work. Jim Crane's not reading Twitter. He's not. And to his credit. Thank you.

So the first call on the show yesterday is like, you got to fire Joe a spot. I said, well, why? He goes, because on Friday, he took Peter Lambert out after five, six innings. Wasn't he at 100 pitches? 104, actually. Okay. I'm doing my research sports, RV. Don't, don't worry about me.

Oh, my God. And I kept telling the guy. I said, this is a ridiculous state. I said, stop. I'm going to save you from yourself. And he acquiesce a little bit, but he was still mad. And then the rest of the callers, the rest of the show, we're like, yeah, we get it. This is a 4A baseball team in many respects.

It's starting pitching. It's disappointing, including Hunter Brown. Hunter Brown's post injury has been below average. Not below ace. Below average. Yeah. Bullpen has been taxed a lot as per, you know, the last two days. Erigetti only going five.

Hunter goes less than five yesterday. Brian King has been beat up so badly. You've now at AAA. I mean, geez. Well, we talked about him just not being that guy. Not only was he not that guy, he didn't get demoted to a low leverage. He got demoted to living with room dog with Jake Myers

and Joylo Profito. Hey! And who else is down there right now that's been there? I mean, they're all... We'll have to talk about it. And then you lost Christian Walker and Jeremy Pena. Yeah, sounds like Pena will be okay. Walker.

Oh, okay. I've heard the Pena's okay story five times this year. Is he? I think he's trying to play through something and he keeps hurting himself. Okay. That feels fair. Because hamstring cramps, that's not a good sign. No, he's been having multiple.

He's had issues with both hamstrings. I think he knows this team needs him. They're 47 and 54 and he's putting it all on the line. Credit to him for that. Credit to him for that? But he just sees yo-yo. in and out of the lineup. And let's see.

Over the weekend, you were four for 27 with runners in scoring position. So if you took this show a week ago, and look, they had just come off a series loss of the Rangers, but I can guarantee if we went back to listen to the air checks, we'd be like, all right, look,

it was not a great way to end the break, but you are within a stone throw of not only division lead, but the Walg card because the American League is so bad this year. what does three days do to you post all-star break it puts you in full depression mode if you look to the standing 790 is not good standing 790 is depressing yeah we need the standing 790 Jonathan so we can get where is the sad one can you do a standing 790 with a bump bump boom oh whee or maybe we can just cry how about Jonathan you just like standing

yeah can we find the most depressing five seconds of the robert for we just played God, it was... And Gunner Henderson has scored again. I felt terrible for Robert. Again, somebody kicked to snow. A gunner, a gunner and an Adley. So you go... So you've lost four in a row and you've lost seven to ten.

Thankfully, the Rangers lost yesterday, but the Mariners won. So now you are four back in the division. Sodily in third place. And in the wild card, you have really fallen off the map. You are four and a half out of the wallet card with now four teams in four. front of you. Because guess who did play well as of late? The Baltimore or the Boston Red Sox have won 13 consecutive games. Baltimore has won seven straight. Three of them at your expense. Seattle's just hanging around because they frankly got the best quality of players top to bottom

in the division. They just have been underperforming. In Minnesota, I don't know how the hell they're doing it, but they're doing it. And now we have to ask ourselves, how foolish would it be to buy where a week later we're saying buy. It's funny because people did ask me that on two different occasions in the show yesterday when I was in the 10th inning show and my answer still to this is and this could obviously change a week from today but I would still stay as we speak here on what is today's day at the 20th I still believe they're in buy mode I'm I'm hesitant to fully go on to that but five or six games a seven and three run just like everybody else didn't have been able to do you can get you right back in this thing we've seen it before

you're fighting off too many teams. I think now are you saying they are in buy mode or they should be in buy mode? Because of me it's two different things. I think they are in by mode. I think they should not at this point. And there's more of you out there than there were, say, a week ago. And maybe there were some of people like that before, but now that group is really, really intense. It's a lot of the word sell.

Here's the question. What are you selling? Because let's go to what? We'll talk about this throughout the course of yesterday. What can you sell? What's the latest on Christian Walker? You can't sell Christian Walker right now. He's had a terrible month offensively.

Oh, for 15. With risk. You can't sell Jeremy Pena because hamstring issues, teams that are in contending don't want hamstring issues jumping on their baseball team. Right hip tightness. Seriously, if you want to say, Ross, if you want to sell, what are you selling? You sell on Lambert, Erigetti, Paredes, Lambert, You need a third basement.

Probably keep Arrogatti. He's controllable. Spencer Arrogati does not carry a lot right now. No, no. He's got too many walks. He's controllable. I mean, and honestly, he was, he wasn't terrible.

Five innings of one run ball. That's a quality start light. One hit. It's a quality start light. Yeah, but it was, it felt, it was laborsome watching him. He looked a little sharper in terms of some of the stuff. But, yeah, he was walking, guys.

But he, well, I'm scared to even say how. What is he? like 24, 25? Yeah. Okay. He's not like 27, 28, right? He's 26. 26.

Man, are you, are you age shaming, Spencer Erigetti? I'm not age shaming. I'm just saying like, mm-hmm. Okay, I know what you're saying. He's a 4-5 guy. The reality is this.

If you were to go into cell mode, what do you think you're going to get back? Just think about that for a minute. But what are you going to get back if you, it's better than buying? even if you get a couple of nothings. I really believe... The Miles Straw deal got you,

Yiner Diaz and Phil Meantan. You weren't expecting anything. That was something out of that. You bought Christian Vasquez in 2019. That got the Red Sox, will you're a bray? Like, smaller deals can pan out if you find somebody with even one tool

that you like and you can try to fine-tune it. Anything. Just accumulating accrue anything because this is not a good baseball team. even if they got into the playoffs can we have any type of feeling that they're going to make any kind of run? I don't. Can you give me 10 days?

Yeah, we can reevaluate. This is still fluid. We'll go over the schedule. This is still fluid. Yeah. But I am holding up the sell sign right now. You don't have to be with me. Yeah, I'm not surprised as you are, and I don't frankly don't blame you.

I'm just not ready to raise that flag just yet. This does not look like a team to me that is one or two pieces away. All right. 1013, it's Madden Ross. If you want to chime in on the frustration that was Houston Astros baseball this weekend, 713-212-5-790, 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. On the radio program today, we will get to a lot of Astros conversation. We will get to, what turned out to be and to be fair,

because I was working Astros. I was going back and forth. but largely a listless World Cup final game when one team does not get a shot on goal at all that's not necessarily a recipe for great stats it wasn't a back and forth affair the first half is certainly boring but it can heat up in that one way that soccer can be interesting

especially when they got down a man down is to kind of see watching one team sit back and try to fight off a barrage of shots and goals and scores and stuff like that that can be entertaining in itself and it's unique i can't necessarily there's not really another sports comparison that i could make in order uh in order for that to make more sense i guess no it doesn't have to you don't have to not everything in life has to be

conned i think i've learned that myself sometimes i always sort of comp things and that's when i go to my bad analogy so that's why i'm saying you know as someone i guess uh i think i have maybe like a a boxer who's gas and who's up on points and they're trying to hold on the last couple of rounds. Basically any Mayweather Paci'll fight. And avoid a knockout. Avoid a knockout blow. The one side is gas. They're also down them in and they're just trying to hold off the Spain attack all for the entire extra time.

And Spain just was relentless. They controlled the ball. It was a low scoring game like somebody told you on Friday under two and a half. And Argentina couldn't do anything. They were just completely outclass. Spain was the best team all tournament. They are the deserved world champions. The right team won.

But nevertheless, for someone, as I said before, and I'm going to remain consistent with this, I enjoyed just about every minute that I watched. And watch everything, but at the time I watched, it was compelling. I mean, I've watched more soccer in the last four weeks than I've watched in my previous 50-something years of my life. It's beautiful, Matt. Now, I'm not going to, again, this is just me and myself and I on this one.

It's not going to make me watch Champion League or Premier League. I'll watch the World Cup again in four years. There's going to be some carryover. I mean, MLS may get a small bump. They said we got, what do they say? We got it next or we'll take it from here or whatever. Whatever. Their phrase they went with it.

They're like, we'll take it from here. Then they had no pregame coverage and then their game got smoked out. Yeah. And the Dynamo are a terrible organization. So you're not doing much here. I mean, it is what it is. The going to the games is fun. Watching them on TV, not so much.

So, point being is this, if soccer grows 10% today, that's 10% more than they didn't have four weeks ago. So good for them. I will watch it in four more years. Like I said, I'm going to be going to a couple of matches a year from now when the boys and I are going to go to love it, England in September. So maybe I will, once I'm involved in it, I've got a vet, what is it, one of those things, those, not handkerchiefs, around their neck. Scarf? Scarf. I'll be wearing a scarf. You're getting a Totem Hotspur's scar? Yeah, of course. All right.

And I'll be singing all the songs and all that stuff and call a bunch of people a bunch of blokes and stuff. Yeah, I'm all under that. Okay. Great. Awesome. My son who was with at the house yesterday, my oldest one who's the big soccer fan. He's just like, Dad, thank God your soccer talking is over with. Because I would like do embellish things like, that was it a rocket shot that you know, you know how the soccer announcers are. You're like messing with him during the game. Yes. Yes. Oh, that sounds fun. And he's like, that's enough. Yeah. They're like poets. Yeah. There are some play-by-play broadcasters in our sports that do it.

There's very few. And you have to be really good at it. A flowery language on the fly. Or it becomes corny. Soccer guys get away with it because it's kind of entrenched in their vocabulary. Yeah, and I think just the English accent built in. This sounds nicer. Yeah.

Sounds more poetic. Maybe it's a Shakespeare. Watch that Egypt shot right down her throat. Dost thou protest too much. Yeah. Get a little Shakespearean on it? I give it to them on that. But, like, I can't imagine going, oh, Kevin, Kevin Durant, my goodness.

Watch out with the wives and children. He's coming after you. You know, stuff like that. You should do that. I guess. Kevin Harlan's kind of the closest person's ever done that before. You know, but. A flamethrower.

Yeah. And no regard for the men and below him. No regard for human life. Yeah. That's a classic. Got to be careful on those things. Again, because you don't want to be caught up in that. You don't want to for it.

it. No. It's got to be On natural. Gus Johnson. Huh. Excuse me. Just does do it.

Sorry. I guess. No, I didn't. What? No, no. You're right. He does. He tries to force it

sometimes. I'm going to continue to force. Stay optimistic with the Astros, but I understand if people do not want to be optimistic. I get it yesterday. Yesterday really got me, Ross. And I try to be as level-headed as I can because I try to balance being sportscaster and fan at the same time for the team because I am.

Okay. But yesterday was. to come out of the All-Star break, and Tim Kirkshan brought this up today when he was on with the Morning Dry Boys. Oh, really? He said that somebody told him, oh, it was Doug Rader, the former Astro,

told him a long time ago. You can always tell about a team the way they play as soon as they come on the All-Star break. And this was a dud. This was a dud, three games. The Friday lost when you had the victory 80% of the time.

You could have won the game on two different occasions on Saturday, and then yesterday it was just awful. I want to do that math again. Hopefully I'm wrong. Can't be four for 27 without his scoring position over three games on us.

You know how many, Cam Smith's hits had? Cam Smith hits that he had this weekend? He had some hard hit contact. I had as many hits that he did. When are we going to, and we like Cam, good dude, but when are we going to start labeling this thing? I'm buying Cam Smith stock. I think he's going to be okay.

Okay, I hope you're right. I know you're going to dismiss these stats, but his XBA's X-slug has actually been pretty good. Okay, I'll accept it. I think he's just asking people in Astro's circles. They're bullish on him as well, long term. Maybe not this year. But think about it. He got no minor league A-Bs.

So right now, it's like he's working through single A or double A into his second year. I get it. So he's got the tools. He's got the hard hit contact. his bat speed is insane. He's like 98th percentile in bat speed in baseball. Once he gets a little bit better in his approach and calms down a little bit, I'm not telling you he's going to be Yordon Alvarez at the plate or anything like that.

But could he be a guy who hits you like, you know, OPS around 850 with 25 to 30 bombs? I think he could be there. Well, I'll say this, to be brutally honest, he's the only outfielder. I'm not counting Yorda. He's the only outfielder on the major league team than I'm bowlish on. And that's very troubling, Ross. It's very troubling. Yeah, barrel percentage, hard hit percentages are pretty good.

Let's see. His XBA is down, 249. What's his actual batting average? It's like 200, right? Yeah, terrible series, though. Just terrible. Yeah. Average of 210, XBA of 249.

So, I mean, he's had some bad luck as well. I'm just long term. Long term. I'm not selling you he's going to unlock some kind of wave of potential in the next couple of weeks. but long time I'm feeling good about Cam Smith. Buy low on Cam Smith. Write it down.

Where's my gut feeling? Honestly, Ross, who else do we have to go to? We're not buying anything on Loporfito. We're not buying anything on... Lamont Way. We're not buying anything on... Lamont Way Jr. Oh, the bullet was off the road. By the way, Zach Desenzo, when you get a strike three called to end the game, he's like, I'm out.

He had no interest in running to first base. He's like, all right, see you later. I don't want to burn those calories. He's good. Yeah, he's got a rest. Not for the next day. Saturday pissed me off. Yeah.

All right. Let's talk about affordable tree service. Those are in the line. Stephen Evans will get to you in just a couple of seconds. I promise we'll get to you in the next segment. 713-212-5-790 if you want to chime in. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. If you need to check on your trees, we've got some weather coming maybe later this week,

but certainly the summer storms and hurricane season is well underway. Make sure your trees are looking the very best. In fact, also think about fall tree pruning. They help keep your trees healthy and can reduce the risk of disease and costly damage. There are a lot of different companies out there. The only place that you should trust to get your trees looking their very best is affordable tree service. 1034, Matt and Ross with you on Sports Talk 7.9. Let's go to the phones and talk to the great people at Houston, Texas.

713-212-5-790 if you want to chime in. 7-13-212-5-7-90, whether it be about the Astros' disappointment, whether it be about the World Cup, whether you've been able to memorize the NFL's top 100. Because you know I have, Rossi. That's what I did all weekend long besides watching the Astros. What's that? I memorized the top 100 in the NFL.

Oh, you did? I'm outraged! The C.J. Strauss not a part of the top 100 yet. Outrage, I tell you. He's probably in the top 10. It should be fine. I want every text into the top 100. Period.

We are being disrespected. Are they? Yes. Are people really saying this, Matt? No. Okay. No one's saying except dorks. Okay.

And dweeps. Dorks and dweeps. Dorks and dweeps. 713-212-790. Let's go to Los Angeles. 835 Pacific time. Steven, good morning to you. Hey, guys.

How are you this morning? Excellent. Thank you. So I guess where I'm at with the Astros after this weekend is that I am, I think I was Ross who was saying that he's leaning towards being sellers. And that's kind of where I'm at after just a really bad weekend top the bottom. You know, I mean, started pitching was pretty decent, but everything after that was pretty bad. And I just think that we're all fooling ourselves if we, a couple of minor moves is going to improve this team and get them, you know, barely into the playoffs because, you know, honestly, that's what they can do. You know, they don't have the prospects or the capital to make something significant that would really change the course of this team.

And, you know, one of the things I think that's the most concerning that makes me a seller is that you needed Hunter Brown to be the Sye young candidate that he was last year. And he's been far from that this year. And you just have no chance if he's going to be an average pitcher because that's really all you have on this staff is just a bunch of average pitchers. And you need an ace. And I think the thing that's, I'm struggling with and I'm really worried about it and I'd love to get your thoughts on this is that I just have a lot of reservations about a lame duck GM making significant moves one way or the other. You know, I don't know if I want him selling what little assets we have for marginal players to not, potentially not make the playoffs. and I don't know if I want him selling off the whole team and not being a part of this team's future because I think regardless of what happens, Dana Brown is gone.

That's just my personal opinion. I don't think he's long for this team after his contract is over. And, you know, worst case scenario is that, you know, Jim Crane and, you know, the circle of trust and the brain powers that he kind of keeps in his circle starts making moves this year. because we all know that he's got his fingers on the pulse of all the moves that are made in this organization. And that kind of scares me too. So, like, you know, we're not in a good position.

That's kind of where I'm at with all this. And I don't know, I'd just love to get your opinion on everything. Thank you, Stephen, for the phone call. Great insight, as always. And I get it. You are speaking for the majority of Houston Astro fans that are logically thinking. You're nervous as hell about what the future is. You don't have a pipeline of a lot of prospects.

You've got basically three dudes that get talked about more than anybody else. The rest of them just don't get talked about. AAA is a 4A feeder system. There's nobody on the cusp. I brought this up to you Ross a couple weeks ago. When was the last time we were excited about somebody getting the bump up to the big leagues? None. Lucas Spencer does not make anybody go nuts.

There was some very little buzz for Araggeti, like a little. I'm trying to think, but it's been years. Cam Smith kind of made his own buzz and then made the team. That was also from a trade. Yep. I don't know. And look, it's not fair to go back to the yester years because the Astros were so bad. A little bit of yiner?

I don't know. That feels stretchy. It's not fair, but we were excited back in the day when Breggman got the call up, and Korea got the call up, when George Springer and Kyle Tucker. but those were different times. That's when you were drafting in the top five because your team sucked for so long. Yes.

But it doesn't mean, but here's a thing that the Astros don't get the benefit that on. There are really good teams that bring up minor league prospects all the time that aren't top 10 selections. The Astros drafting and its Minal League system has let it down for way too long. Way, way, way too long. Yeah, Hunter Brown was a sixth round pick. and he's been your ace the last couple years.

You can, and he was a top 100 prospect coming up. So you can find guys. Absolutely. A lot of the top 100 is first round picks, but there are second, third, fourth, fifth, six round picks. By the way, Walker Yonick was reined stated over the weekend, by the way. Oh, is you doing okay? I have not looked.

Did he hit four bombs or? I can go look. Yeah, maybe, you know what? Don't. I would think, I would hear about it. Don't. Okay. So here's the question.

Are the Astros just snake bit because of injury problems at the minor league level? Is it because there's been massive misses? But there is not enough. And again, I don't have a deep dive on this because frankly, I worry about the 26th roster spots. But there is just so little buzz about the Astros minor league organization from those that pay attention to it, Ross. Yeah, a very little buzz. And I mean, Lucas Spence is here over the week. weekend, but he's your number 10 prospect, according to MLB pipeline, and he's really not thought of as much of a prospect.

But the caller brings up an interesting point. What is going through Dana Brown's mind right now? And how much is it marching orders from Jim Crane? How much of it is his own autonomy? Because if he's trying to preserve his job, he's going to want to try to do whatever he can to resuscitate this team. But he can't buck the system. I mean, he can't say, I'm making this trade, whether or not Jim Crane likes it or not. Can't do that.

Yeah, probably not. That's what I'm trying to figure out. Because I just think if we're, if we're being practical about this, they need to go ahead and get whatever they can for whatever they have. And that's why lame duck contracts carry a negative stigma to him because is he fighting for his job for this year? Or is he thinking about the big micro, the big macro viewpoint of this going, I'm trying to rebuild this organization. I want to make good trades. and only can benefit this team in this year, but for future years.

You can't do that when you're fighting for your job. Yeah, it makes it difficult for even Dana to know how to operate or what he wants to do. Isn't it crazy? Think about this. This happens all the time in sports. When NFL coaches or college coaches are down to a year, what's the first thing they say?

If you don't give me an extension, how am I supposed to get kids to buy into what we are doing here when they don't know if I'm going to be their coaches following year? It's almost like you're getting a freebie year. Yeah, I mean, I guess. the bottom line is Dana is told to do do whatever is best for the Astros not for yourself.

I think what's best for the Astros, though, is I don't want to say dismantling, but rebooting. Well, put it this way. If Jim Crane goes to Dana and says, we're sellers, that doesn't, and Dana hears that tone, he knows he's going to put up his house for sale.

Right? Yeah, we're sellers, including yourself. Well, we're sellers and we're going to give you a new three-year deal. What? Excuse me, what? I didn't hear that right. That doesn't happen. I don't know.

It's an odd situation for Dana. And it was odd before the season started, honestly. All right, Vince in Midtime, we'll get to you. 1042 is our time. It's Matt in Raw. 7-1-321-2-5-7-99. All right. Very quickly, I need to get this off my chest.

I have a lot of problems in my life. And a lot of them involve Facebook Reels. Oh, my God. And I'm on doing a new set of Facebook. Facebook reels. I see the faith Jonathan just made. I'm truly embarrassed. I don't even know if Facebook had reels.

Jonathan, good morning and shut up. Okay. Love you though. Oh, you should be treating him well. He voted for you in the Fantasy Five. Yes, because it was the best list. That man can't even get an hour of love. Come on, man.

You got 48 minutes. I'll get mad. That was a really good Fantasy Five on him. Thank you very much. By the way, our next Fantasy Five will be in two weeks. It'll be a sports one. I've already thought of it. Okay.

a couple weeks. So Facebook Reels really fast. One popped up, it's mean Elmo. Okay. And it's somebody with a puppet. It's a puppet of Elmo and he's dropping F bombs. He's talking about what a piece of crap you are, talking about people you work with.

Okay. And so I liked one of them and now that's all you get on. That's all I'm getting. If you like one thing, yeah. The algorithms are all over it. So I've been sending them to my friends. and I'm not sent any to you. Thankfully.

Because you're a terrible text or in a returner, so I don't even know if you'd get it or not. Uh-huh. But I'm obsessed. And my wife the other day, I was doing the On Deck show, and I was done with a segment, and I went to go check on them

and the Facebook Reels showed up, and she said, I can hear you from our bedroom with this Mean Elmose. Oh, my God. So I would like to send you a couple of Mean Elmo's. Will you judge them and say, Matt, back away, or these are pretty funny after? I'm already going to make it.

make a prediction. It's low brow fare. Thus, I come to admit to you that I have a problem. Some people have to worry about alcohol or food or nicotine. I have a bad addiction to bad Facebook reels and now me and almost consuming my life. Hmm. Okay. He calls a lot of people bitch. Bitch, unfortunately. It's making you laugh now. I know. It's so terrible. I'm so troubled. Oh, dear.

Yeah, send me your... I'm going to send you a couple. The best three. I'll send you three. Okay. Let's talk to Vince in Midtown. I'm just going to end up in my algorithm. Vince, good morning to you.

Hey, good morning, guys. On this World Cup, I noticed a lot of times there were altercations going on on the field only because the announcers would say something, but whoever the feed was on the TV were showing fans. all the time. And then after yesterday's game, there seemed to be a big, big something was going on and they didn't show it.

And so, does FIFA control the feed of the game? FIFA doesn't control the feed of the game as far as I know. They do have certain rules about the broadcast. Now, what I notice, and I can't tell you for sure, Vince, is that I believe

Fox takes the world feed but inserts their own graphics and all also can obviously put their own announcers in because I could tell there was a graphic of the FIFA World Cup they would swipe to start the game and swipe it at the very end of the game. That usually is an indicator to pull out of that feed. So I would not be surprised if everybody took one feed but then Fox put layered in with their own stuff. Yeah, because it was obvious they were trying to avoid showing that stuff. So anyways, another point, I was going to ask what constitutes a,

shot on goal? Basically if it's saved as far as I know. I don't think blocked shots on goal or maybe if it's saved at the line maybe, just if the shot is really clear it's going to be on goal, I believe. I'm not 100%

sure on that myself. So what was going on with Argentina? How is it possible they don't have shots on goal? I'm looking at the stats right here. 12 for Spain and zero for Argentina. Well, Spain was controlling the ball. And then, I mean, this is the deal.

You can have actions and attacking actions that don't result in a shot. So you could have it make a great pass down the right side and then it get crossed in. And then somebody almost shoots at it, but they get cleared away by the defense. So there's no shot there. But there was an action with an attack that could have resulted in a goal. Which is, by the way, Matt, I know you have problems with XG and I'm with you as well. There's zero XG. If you cross it in and then it gets cleared, that's zero XG, unless.

a shot is created. So I think it's a flawed metric. And I think if you just look at the shots and the shots on goal, yeah, you can have a situation where there wasn't a shot, but that doesn't mean there wasn't an attack, if that makes sense. Argentina was attacking some, but they just wasn't, it wasn't resulting in shots. You can go and bomb a shot from midfield, so what? Just because you shoot 20 times from midfield.

They were looking for good shots and they couldn't find any. So they were trying to attack some, but the first half was pretty slow, and then it was just a barrage of the Spanish attack. What did you think of the halftime? It was okay. Shakir was... Her hips, don't lie. Yep.

She's doing nice. They had one guy I was on from Apple TV broadcasts. Yeah, they got the Ted Lasso. I thought the Ted Lasso, like, pump up speech to Justin Bieber, and then Bieber came on. That was funny. It was creative. I didn't see it, but the thing that the Apple TV analyst was saying, was that in everything in soccer is so meticulously timed that it threw the guys off because

the halftime was way longer than they normally are accustomed to. Were they really ticked off? I mean, Argentina, Messi is like 39 years old. He needs a rest. Yeah, he needed a... Yeah. He wanted a... Madonna must have gotten some extra surgery. They covered up her face. She didn't look that bad. Yeah, how did she look? Everybody was lip syncing. She looked okay. I think... I was wondering if they were like, they were filtering the faces or something. It looked weird

Yeah Like there was sunlight right in the In the camera or there was like a They were throwing filters on faces It was weird And they were 100% lip singing That's not atypical for that kind of venue Oh then they had the the Korean boy band

I think BTS or whatever Everybody was happy about that And then the odds were out there was really odd They exploit the hell of those guys They're probably pretty okay They're okay They're making good money right I think they're pretty exploited

But I don't know how much Maybe they're making money, but yeah, they're doing okay. But a lot of times over there, the Korean, it's like, well, it's like, you know, in sync or O-Town or whatever, they're an exploitive contracts here, too. Hmm. Entertainment law is sports for RV. Well, just saying. Let's go to Dominic before the top of the hour. Dominic, good morning.

Hey, good morning to you guys. In regards to the Astros, is it, and Matt, you can tell me if I'm wrong, the farm system. Isn't that on Dana? And I'm not, I'm not a day. or basher or nothing like that. I'm just saying, I'm just saying like this carbon leaking oil for a last few seasons. And me

personally, I go all the way back to George Springer. Springer hasn't been with us for about seven or eight seasons and we still haven't replaced him. And that's not on Dana, but I just think that because of the farm system

and how weak the farm system is, that's going to cost Dana his job. It's going to cost Dana his job. It's going to, you're just, you're exactly right. It's going to cost him his job. This is not the pipeline, the trade's been okay, Dominic, honestly, Kakucci trade a couple years ago, worked out okay. The acquisitions that he picked up this year is going to hurt him

and the system's going to hurt him. Exactly. And that's pretty much what I'm saying. You can't, you can't blame the guy for trying, but he hasn't really hit on anything. but maybe a couple of players. Now, as far as the spot is concerned, great guy and everything, but the last thing that the fan base wants to continue to hear

is how, you know, we're right there or, you know, our competition, they also lost, so we're not that far behind. The bottom line is, you know, for those of us who go to the games and pay our hard on our money, the product on the field is just not what we are accustomed to. And, you know, we could say spoiled Astros fans,

which we are now. Sure. But here's my big thing, Matt, Jim Crane. And when I ask you this question, I'm going to hang up and listen. This is a serious question. Is he thinking about selling the team? Because it's like it's been cutbacks here and cutbacks there and not wanted to play certain players this and certain players that. And Matt, you know this.

Like you keep letting quality. We let so much quality just walk out. And we haven't replaced none of it. So it's no surprise that we are a below average baseball club at all. Well, I'll say this. You got so many layers on this, Dominic, and I can get to the top of the hour. You brought up a lot of good points. Matter of fact, maybe too many, but we're going to discuss all the things you just said coming back.

Dominic, good phone call. Steve East Houston, stay tight. We'll get to you as well. It is 1058 on Sports Talk, 790. Matt and Ross with you. I'll address all the things that Dominic said. Ross will get his comments in as well. And we look forward to hearing from you at 713-212-5-790.

We'll check in with Gordy. Coming up in about 20 minutes from Tampa and then to tell the truth today at 1130. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 1102, sports talk 7-90. Hi, Ross. Why are you chuckling? Nothing to chuckle about. Astros just got swept.

Well, we had a lousy World Cup final. Was it lousy? It was not great. You didn't watch it. I did. I went back and forth. No, you did. It was so bad I fell asleep.

You didn't watch it. I did. Oh, the Astros were a thrill. Yeah, watching them go four for 27 with runners in scoring position over the weekend. That was great. It was a real thrill. That's what, the whole weekend sucked. There's no reason to be laughing or feeling good about yourself.

You know what? Life is good, Matt. I woke up on the right side of the dirt. Got my dream job, working with Jonathan. A great, wonderful. Jonathan? Producer. Yes, Jonathan.

And an excellent, wonderful co-host. Yes. As soon as you get one, you'll let us know. No. All right, here we go. So Dominic brought up a good point. First and foremost, we are spoiled, okay? That goes without saying.

Number two, you can't be spoiled forever. Every team in professional sports has a downturn. No one has been able to be awesome for 15 straight years. There have been some that have been close, but nobody's straight awesome for 15 years. Even the Patriots post-Tom Brady suffered. Yes, they did. And then they went back to the Super Bowl this year. Even they get their ass kick.

Pittsburgh Steelers won four Super Bowls in the 1970s and the 80s. They were largely irrelevant. Mike Tomlin's out on his ass. Yep. Dallas Cowboys, three Super Bowls in the early 90s. I haven't touched the Super Bowl in 35 years. That's a shame. So you have a...

I know, no kidding. You have a downturn. So that's number one. Number two, the great getaways. And this is part of the reason why we do missing you, kind of jokingly. We, because of course on the backup short, stop. We have not been super burned by the players of yesterday year. Springers had some success in Toronto, but larger, that's not been a good investment for them. The Kyle Tucker contracts

have not been great. The Bregman contract has not been great. Now, what you do is, if those players do go away, you have, bless you. You have to trust that your system can replace them. If you make the concerted effort, Ross, that Carlos Correa needs to move along, do you have somebody in to replace him? The answer was at the time, Ross? Yes. His name was Jeremy Payne. And he helped you.

The problem is the Astros have tried to replace so many people in the last handful of years. It just hasn't panned out, which goes back to its central argument of when you're a team that doesn't write eight, nine, ten year, $40 million contracts per season, you got to use the pipeline. the pipeline has been largely unsuccessful. You've not been able to easily replace third base. You've not been able easily replace center field, easily replace the left field, easily replace the catcher spot. I mean, there have been moments of excellence,

but you move off of Yuleiguriel at first base. You go get Jose Abraeu, and he was an unmitigated disaster. You go to get Christian Walker, and Christians had a better season this year, but by means still probably pound for pound not worth the money that you spent on you've just you've missed and if you can't use your model league system you tend to overpay on short-term contracts and that's what the Astros unfortunately have found themselves

yeah they said we don't want to sign these long-term deals because then we're going to pay for the decline oh but we're going to pay for the decline of Jose Abraeu and well Christian Walker has been declining somewhat or he was bad last year and then now 766 OPS this year still good but it's but it was well above 800 for a long period of time yeah we would like to get him above 800 but unfortunately

we are not there. He's been in a massive slump and then lately he was like 0 for 18 and with runners in scoring position and he's hurt. So hasn't been what you wanted to do, wanted to see. And yeah, Dana was brought here to rebuild up the farm system. Now you've got a couple of potential gems

now with Kevin Alvarez who continues to climb up the top 100 list. There should be some middle of the season list coming out soon. I don't know how updated this is, but on MLB pipeline, Alvarez is 66th and you have 9s at 84th. So you do have two guys entrenched into the top 100 right now

who are recent acquisitions of Dana Brown. Elsewhere though, it hasn't been much of anything going on. As you mentioned, you know, Walker Yonik and some other guys who haven't really come through for you. And we'll see. So you get a couple of guys in a farm system of 125. Yeah. Dozens? I mean, AAA, if you go to a Space Cowboys game, you recognize 80% of the players. Yeah, a lot of Quadruplea guys. And look, every AAA team's going to have that. You don't

Phenoms, not prospects, phoenoms don't stay at AAA very long. Correct. But there are zero phenoms. No phenoms. There are zero phenoms who are in Space Cowboy gear. Zero. You've basically

have been rotating, I don't know, Rossi, five or six pitchers and seven or eight outfielders between Sugar Lane here, trying to catch lightning at a bottle. You just, they're just not there. There's nobody at double A that's pressing to go take a major league spot. And they're trying, you know, they use Uliola for a while to help out bullpen. Then he's got sent back down.

You've got, who's this new guy that's playing center for the last couple days? Lucas Spence. Lucas Spence. I mean, they tried Zach Cole. They've tried Desenzo. They've tried. Yeah, Lucas Spence profiles as like a defensive fourth outfielder. Good arm, good speed, not much of a bat.

Add that to the list. Bryce Matthews. I mean, unfortunately, Bryce Matthews' first round pick hasn't panned out. Yeah. Now, Bryce Matthews has value. He's got tremendous speed. He's got versatility. He's been able to defend multiple positions, which is, there's some benefit in that.

But you need some slug. The outfield slug for the Astros has been a D-Montas to an F this entire season. Yeah. Especially when Yordan is not playing left field, which is the limit time he's done that. Yeah. Lucas Spence and Double-East. 8.04 OPS with just four home runs in 170 played appearances

and in AAA OPS is 699 in 17 games. So don't expect to hold out from his bat. And if you're fighting for your job, he's your number 10 prospect. How long has he been with the team three years? Since 2023. So this is fourth draft.

Fourth year. So let's not even count this draft. Three previous drafts. You would have hoped one or two of them, which is the reality is Bryce Matthews. is one of them. Bryce Matthews is one. He's at the Major League level at least.

Xavier Nines was your first round pick. He's 84th on the top 100 list. That's good. Kevin Alvarez was not a draft pick. He was a international free agent. Ethan Pecco was a sixth round draft pick in 23. But he's at AAA. Those zero three guys we were talking about.

Yeah. Walker Yonick has been bad and hurt. Let's see. Yeah. Bruce Meyer is a 16th round pick in 24. He's your number five prospect, but he's also 24 in AA. 24 AA. Oh, God.

He's your number five prospect. No, don't keep giving me that number. I don't want to, I don't want, because the five prospect for the Astros may be the 23rd for the nationals. Mm-hmm. And Dana's a good dude, too. I mean, I, I, but it's about results. The problem is the minor league system has not been able to replenish the guys that have been lost the last handful of years. Ethan Fry is your number three prospect.

He was a third round pick in 25. You went and got Ryan Weiss. You went and traded from Mike Burroughs. You went and spent on E-Mine. Now that could be also Jim Crane's influence. So let's even take E-Mite of the side on that. How's old Ethan Fry doing? He's 22 and A-ball.

High A-ball. That's not terrible. That's not terrible. If you're celebrating 24th birthday, it'd be a little bit of an issue. but that's... Yeah. There's just not enough. And basically, you're seeing

anything that's close to Major League ready have already played for the Astros this year because they're trying to... They're trying to figure out somebody that can play the outfield. Not defensively, obviously, but offensively. Okay, Ethan Frye was tearing up rookie ball this year. It makes me happy.

High A ball, he's a work in progress. Okay. Let's go to Steve on the east side at 1110 on 790. Steve, good morning. Hey, good morning. I'm trying to remember who would have been a phenom that the Astros had

I can think of Berkman and then I guess maybe Correa spent just a little bit of time in AAA and Breggman I'm unsure of. Breggman was a highly thought of prospect. Kyle Tucker was a highly Kyle Tucker was a top 10 prospect in baseball. Yeah, but Berkman

as I can recall he spent just just a few games in AAA and then he was just in the majors and he never went they never sent him back down at least that's what i recall okay yeah so and and um tom cruise appearing on the pregame and he made a speech at the at the world cup i just kind of felt it was a kind of a square peg round hole kind of a thing And what did you guys think? I didn't see it, but I mean, you got to know that he's got a movie coming out, does he not?

And usually when those things come out, it's because he's got a movie to promote. I guess so. I mean, yeah, he just did a speech like, this is the world's game is here in America. Oh, let me tell you, if FIFA can get Tom Cruise to an event, they're going to get Tom Cruise an event. He's a worldwide star.

I didn't, I mean, it was what it was. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I don't like, celebrities to me in sports, typically nine-tiled-old-10, Steve, they're doing it to promote something. Yeah, he just did a little passionate speech. Like, yeah, this is the world game, and we're all here in America, blah, blah, blah. Stuff like that.

Does he have a new movie coming out? Is he part of Iliad or whatever, The Odyssey? I love that you went with the Elliott before the Odyssey. Don't they usually go together? No, he's not part of the Odyssey. He does have some new movie coming out. Digger. Yeah.

you go. Digger, D-I-G-G-E-R, Digger. Yeah. Apparently, he transforms into an eccentric billionaire facing an economic ecodastor. Okay. I'm so trying to... You know what? How crazy am I one to ten? I'm going to, like, fly or drive to Dallas to catch the 70-millimeter Odyssey IMAX.

You're going to fly? Now, look, I love to fly. I got points. But the problem is by the time you park your car, you fly, you park again, you're looking at... You'd be just as soon as fast as driving. and I hate to drive. I don't know why I'm even telling you yet. Yeah, but I got points.

I just literally to walk onto the plane, walk off, watch the movie, and then walk back on a plane. Oh, you're going to come back the same day? Thinking about it. How crazy am I? Four. Feel crazy.

Feel crazy. No. Okay. You know what I've done? What have I done? It was the craziest flying I've ever done. I have to see it in 70 million-a-meter I-mix. They have to release more.

They're all sold out. Literally all. I might do it literally after a show. Oh, I flew a red-eye to San Antonio to watch the Cougars play for the National Championship. I might have to go catch a movie and then fly back in the morning or something. We'll see. It's going to happen.

I'm going to see this on 7. Why is it in Dallas and not in Houston? Because the 70 millimeter IMAX projectors is only like 40 of them in the world. And why is Dallas getting and we don't? Dallas and San Antonio has it. But I heard the San Antonio theater is not nice. It's like janky. So I wanted everybody to go to Dallas.

We can't have you in a janky movie theater. Exactly. All right. 1114, Sports Talk 790. 713-212. 5.7.98. I'm being shamed by the reels I'm looking at during the break. I went to IG during the break, too. That was not good either.

Oh, Matthew. Look, when my baseball team is falling on a contention, I need to go to IG reels and Facebook reels. Don't hate me. By the way, I sold you a couple of those Elmo ones, and you laughed. It makes me happy. I was being polite. All right. Let's talk to Gordy. He is in Tampa.

Chris Gordy? The legendary Chris Gordy. He is a kid in a candy store. You are having the time of your life already. Are you not, Gordon? Well, it's just a little strange, like, because I was doing the morning show with Dan this morning, and we were still, we talked to heavy Astros, and then I believe we set a record as the first station ever on SEC Radio Row to interview Tim Kirkchin via phone. So, yeah, I'm like, I'm half Astros right now. I'm half SEC and all this stuff over here. Did you bump Tim Kirchian for Peter Burns? No, I fist bumped Peter.

Burns while we were talking to Tim Kirchins. Okay. All right, you're going to join us for every little day for a little update. I notice already that the Commissioner Greg Sanky had his kind of state of the SEC address. What did you gather from what he had to say?

Yeah, I mean, the big thing that was interesting was obviously, you know, he talked about the toughness of the strength of schedule with the SEC and going from an eight-game conference schedule to a nine-game conference schedule, but he says,

I think the quote was we had an unsatisfactory conversation with the college football playoff staff at spring meetings, basically saying they don't, you know, and we've seen this with the playoff committee the last few years, is they just look at your record. They go, oh, 11 and 1 or 10 and 2, and you're in. And they don't look at who you play. And I think it's a little stupid because the SEC's out here playing. You know, like we have a team like Texas last year who played, what was it, five or six top 25 teams? And they have a team like Indiana who plays one. and, you know, like, not all schedules are created equal, but the playoff committee, the whole reason we have a playoff committee is to get together and use crucial arguments and, you know,

or crucial thinking, and, hey, let's talk about this, let's hash this out. And it just seems they've taken the least path of resistance and just went, well, if you went 11-1, it doesn't matter how hard your conference was, how hard your schedule was, we're just going to put you in. And Greg Sankey is just saying, look, we need to talk about strength of schedule more. If you played a brutal schedule, you should be rewarded for it as opposed to just schedule as many cupcakes as you can. All it matters is wins. So let me ask you this.

Why can't Greg Sanky go to the CFP with his heavy stones that he walks around him in and say, if we're going to go to nine, give us our value on this. Give us the value of us playing a much more rigid schedule than the pack 10 teams or the big 10 teams are playing. Or even for that matter, some of the big 12 teams. Well, I think that's what they did. And even last year we heard it. The playoff committee spokesman came out. said, oh, we are going to put a heavier emphasis on strength of schedule. And then they didn't do it. They didn't, you know, they just went, ah, you went 10 to 2, you're in.

You know, it's like, and then we're going to prop up these stupid teams like Tulane and James Madison have no business being in the playoff. Yeah, but those were automatics, weren't they not? Well, but you're, yeah, but we're moving on from that because it's, you're wasting everybody's time with putting those teams in. It's just, nobody thought that two lane team had a chance to make a run. No, but you do, if you're, if you're making it, if you're making a qualified, get in, then you may not like the rules, but the rules are that a qualifier gets in.

The rules are changing. Like, we've got to put the 12, if we're going to do a 12-team playoff, it needs to be the 12 best teams. Not everyone gets a turn. Who from this conference wants to get in? No, no, Gordy, you're missing. This is not Chris Gordy's opinion. This is the college football program.

This is what they've decided. I mean, I know you're not happy with it, but the reality is they're not going to change it, especially if they expand the 16 teams. Group of fives are going to get in, if not one, if not perhaps two. So I know it's a complaint. It's going to be one. I mean, you'll get your participation trophy. Come and get your ass beat by a better program.

And congrats. You made the playoff group of five, Sun Belt or Mac champion. Yeah, I'm with you, Gordy. Get these cupcakes out of here. Top 12, no matter who it is, let's just get the top 12 in there. If Tulane happens to be in the top 12, then along get in there. Boys, that's never going to happen. It will.

Never, ever, ever, ever going to happen. How high did U of H get the Tom Herman year? They went top 12 for sure. Yeah. They would have been in. They were worthy. Boise State was eighth a couple years ago. They deserved it.

I put my name on it. Group of five's getting in or whatever group of six now. If a now a couple of pack 12th, you're going to get one automatic group of six in. I mean, you guys, again, I'm not necessarily argue with you, Gordy, because I mean, a mid-level or a high-level SEC is going to cream James Madison or cream Tulane. But they ain't going to do it. We are in for a group of five for the rest of our college football lives. We just are.

Yeah, and we'll go to 16. You'll get your one little seat at the kitty table. You get in. Here we go. And that's it. I mean, it's, again, no one wants to, unless you have a generational type quarterback, like, unless there's like a Mansell at an AAC team or a conference USA, like that, then okay. But I'm sorry, nobody looked at James Madison or Tulane last year and said they deserved to be in.

Same with SMU the year before. That was, I mean, come on. I can't remember. How did both Tulane and James Madison get in? How did they get in? Because ACC did not have a higher number. Oh. They got in because of that.

Remember, the ACC champion was on automatic, right? That's right. Okay. Okay. So it was one of the conference champions, and then it was the token. All right. So do you think they're going to stay with eight games or nine games at the end of the day? What are they going to do? Well, you've already opened Pandora's box.

They're playing a nine-game SEC slate. But I think what you're going to start to see more and more now is, you know, this awesome Ohio State, Texas. matchup in week two, this LSU Clemson game in week one, the SEC is going to send a message, why are we doing these? Why are we playing these games? There's no reason to do it.

Okay, well, let's get some new CFP members in there. Let's get a better counsel of people that are going to be, obviously, from say, Kentucky and from Alabama. Just a little. No, it doesn't have to be that. Just some, it's a bunch of dopes who don't even watch football. Like, I'd rather five Joe fans

from their couch go in there and get on the playoff committee. Like, at least they're watching the games. You got a bunch of dope sitting in a ballroom in Dallas. They don't even have notebooks. Dopes? They're not even taking notes. Damn, you are spicy on a Monday. I love this, Gordy.

You just called the CFP member of people in that room, Dopes. That's what it is. Meanwhile, have you checked out Indiana's non-conference schedule this year? No, because I know what Kirk Schenetti said the day he got there. I'm not scheduling anybody. Well, congrats. Stop rewarding them, then. Look, they were awesome last year.

They made a great run in the playoffs. But, like, to me, you need to earn a spot in the playoffs. So you're saying that last year's, team did not deserve a spot in the playoffs? I'm saying they probably, I mean... No, I know. They went undefeated, but go look at who they played. This year, the reigning national champs, Matt, the reigning chance, opened with North Texas, Howard

and Western Kentucky. Didn't they beat some good teams in the tournament, though? You can't do the who they played the tournament. They played Oregon and Ohio State, Oregon and Ohio State was in the Big Ten title game. So they had one good regular season team they played all year. How did they do in the CFP? They okay for them? Right.

They crushed everyone. So then the message is if you're Alabama, then go schedule just 12, like get out of the SEC, go play 12 cupcakes, stay healthy, stay rested. Because then when you play their good teams in the playoffs, you're good to go, man. You're not banged up at all. You're fully healthy. Let's go. Yeah.

I think the SEC is maybe a little overrated, Gordy. He hasn't been doing well in the playoff last few years. Yeah. But see, it's to me that you're making the opposite effect there, Ross. The opposite is true. It's such a grind and tough that they're beating up at one another. Oh, it's so tough. Yes, because if you're a top-heavy

If you want to send an email to Gordy, it's Chris Gordy at SEC.com if you want to send an email. Guys, if you have a conference that is top-heavy, and that team can rest players throughout the, you know, hey, tough game. They weren't resting people against Oregon or who had. Indiana wasn't resting people all season long.

But you get what I'm saying. Like, you're not having to be tested against UCLA as you win 56 to 6. Like, you're allowing guys, hey, if you're starting left tackles a little bit banged up, hey, let's sit them this week. Like you have that opportunity where in the SEC you don't. The worst teams were given the best teams games last year. That to me is the sign of a good conference.

Maybe that's a sign of the conference wasn't that good because they got their ass beating bowl season too. The bowl season doesn't matter. Oh, of course it doesn't matter. No, it doesn't. That argument's stupid because South Carolina's starting safety. South Carolina's safety that was going to the draft opted out at halftime. Okay, that guy mattered. He didn't play in the second half.

Guess what? They had defensive deficiencies. Like, there's all kinds of wacky, stupid stuff that had. in bowl games. You can't go by that. I'm just looking at Alabama's chuggernaut schedule. You had like 12 scholarship players in the U of H game. Let's see. They lost

to Florida State, Bama. Wait a minute. Are you shaming my Cougars dominant victory over LSU? Is that what you're saying? I'm not, I don't want to diminish it, but Oh yeah, you just did. You just diminished it. You beat a bunch of third stringers. Oh, my God.

You can never take, I will never take bowl arguments as a what somebody did in the Camellia Bowl. strength of dominance of a conference. No, what did you do during the season? You're not, yeah, I know. Did you play any tough games? You're right.

If the FCC went undefeated in both season, though, then it'd be all great. No. Let's see. If the other team, they were beaten Ross head starters sitting, you have to take that into account. Five lost LSU. If any other league, they would have won the championship. No.

Yeah, put LSU in the big 12. They had to go on 12 and 0. I'm sorry, six lost LSU. Excuse me. You should be arguing for your little longhorns. They were going to have been in last year. everybody sucks. Everybody's the worst. Love your college takes.

Let me say you something, Gordy. I don't want you to ever change. Indiana didn't even beat it. The National Undefeated Champion didn't play anyone. Nobody. Didn't play anybody. They played it. They played or, now, again, look at what they're playing. They're the reigning national champion. They open with North Texas, Howard, and Western Kentucky. Go test yourself. What are you doing? That's embarrassing. Hmm.

Would you be saying this if you were the Big Ten media days? Yeah, I'd say it anywhere. All right. Good. McNeese is on LSU's schedule this year, by the way. Yeah, well, dumbass. You're going to play two. You're going to have at least two. You're going to have at least two.

I'm saying Indiana didn't schedule. Like, at least they were opening with Clemson. Louisiana Tech. LSU's playing Clemson. Texas is playing Ohio State. Indiana scheduled Howard. Congrats. Western Kentucky, North Texas.

Well, you're making a joke of yourself, Gordy. As per usual, what's your college takes? We love you, Gordy, don't ever change. Be safe. You and Dan don't get any trouble down there. in Tampa, okay? All right, Phil. See you.

All right. I love fired up, Gordy. Seriously, was he calling me a dumbass? I'm actually about to be pissed. I don't think he was calling you dumbass. I don't think he was. It feels like he was. No, no, no.

We were just worried. It feels like I just got called a dumb ass. We're just smacked talking to each other. By the biggest Homer on this station. He loves the Massachusetts. Who can never see anything clearly. Especially when comes to Lane Kiffin. I love him, though.

I'm going to get up. I'm going to get up. No, I'm going to be with us tomorrow. cannot wait for more on this. That's why you listen to the show. You want to hear us argued by college stuff and insulting each other. We can do that here. To tell the truth is up next.

And then Tom will get to you and the rest of you. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Every Monday at 1130. Those of you online, Tom and Robbie, do not go anywhere. We will get to you. But first, a Monday staple. The show here is to tell the truth.

I have four opinions that I've written down. This last night, as a matter of fact, this is what we call advanced show prep. Gentlemen, I only believe one of them. Three lies, one truth. Okay. Then our music go, where'd the music go? Where did you tell the truth?

I don't know. Jonathan is about nine weeks behind winning this game. But you know what? Today is a double play Monday, Jonathan. You get two points if you get this one right. We're so beat up that we can't win in the... playoff. I mean, come on. Sorry, I'm still recovering. That's why Alabama lost to Indiana, 38 to 3 of the playoff. That was tough. All right, back to me. Three lies, boys. One truth.

You ready? Number one. Three lies, one truth. Only one of these four, I believe. Number one, when baseball settles its next labor agreement, whenever that may be. the next thing they should address is expanding to two more teams in baseball because when you always are looking for more revenue what's the easiest thing to do add to markets it's been a long time so we've seen expansion

in baseball. It was the 90s with the Rockies and the Marlins. One truth? One truth, three lives. Wow. Okay. Okay. So baseball settles the next labor agreement the next thing they should address is expansion. Number two I really think this, even though kind of people were goofing on a little bit, that 6-4 game they had in the third-place game in the World Club, I think you should create a third-place game in March Madness and the CFP,

and you play it for cash. Got to find a way to make extra money for these athletes. Play a third-place game, put it on TV, revenues go to the players. You're always trying to figure out ways to find more spots for revenue. A third-place game would do that in both March Madness and the CLEAS. Play it for cash. Never three. Soccer should adapt some of hockey's overtime rules.

If you really want to add scoring in the extra time, sports heavy, reduce a number of players in a field to increase scoring and extra time. Hockey goes three on three with a goal contender. You want three on three at soccer? No, but I mean, you can drop it down to eight or nine. Open things up a little bit? Again, this is a non-sucker person speaking, but I'm thinking if you want to get some more scoring in these extra times.

Okay. And number four. Not that I think about this a lot, but if I wish to create a Mount Rushmore of athletes of all time, my Mount Rushmore would be Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, and Messi. Which one of those four? Am I telling the truth? How we're kidding?

When baseball settled the next labor agreement, the next thing they should address is expansion. Number two, you should create a third place, game in March Madness and the CFP played it for cash because you're looking to always compensate these players. Number three, soccer should adapt some of hockey's overtime rules, reduce the number of players in the field to increase scoring.

And my new mushroom of all-time athletes, Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, and Messi. Which one of the four gentlemen, am I telling you the truth? How's it going, Jonathan? It's going good. I didn't know Babe Ruth would be in his Mount Rushmore. That was a point.

I'm going to shove that one. for now. Okay, the third place game, I think Matt is going to think it's nonsense. Yeah, especially for CFE. Yeah, there's no way. These kids, I'm trying to play third place games. Third place game was fun, though. Six to four. Are you kidding?

People love that third place game. But don't you agree, John, then are always trying to find places to find more extra money? Make that a money game. Yeah, but for who's getting that money? The players. For playing it and for winning it. Okay, soccer overtime.

rules is ridiculous. But would Matt believe it? I don't think so. I hope not. I don't think Matt is really all that into messy. So I don't know if he put it. I'm just going to go with number one. Yeah, that's what I was going to do. I'm not going to lie.

Come on, Jonathan. You can't make up ground that way. Well, hey, I'd rather get it right than wrong. That's true. That's right. Remember, it's about takes. I go with number one. Same as well. tell the truth. Yeah. Number one, you're not

doing a third place game. Nobody would care. Nobody would want to play in it. I don't care how much money it would be. It would be a waste. I don't have the stones to be a non-socker fan to tell you how to change your sport. So I would not change the rules of the overtime. I can't do that. It's not fair.

It would be gimmicky, as Matt Thomas would say. I would say that. Quite gimmicky. So it's down to baseball and expansion. and Mount Rushmore. Gentlemen? Oh, you didn't. Okay, yeah, you know. I got rid of two and three.

Gotcha. Gentlemen, baseball's in a bad spot. We don't have enough talent. You can't expand. What do you mean don't have enough talent? Have you seen the Astros pitching staff? The Astros don't have enough talent. It doesn't mean baseball doesn't have enough talent.

Have you seen the American League? My Mount Rushmore is Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, Babies, and Messi. I have come to appreciate Messi that much. Really? Absolutely. Wow. I did some checking on him. I'm actually proud of you.

Yeah, I figured you'd be happy. Why is Babe Ruth up there? Because he's the greatest baseball player of all the time. Matt. Barry Bonds. No, Roy's no. Are we being for real? We're being for real.

He played in segregated baseball. It's kind of hard to judge. But somebody's got to be the best. Everybody's going to have an argument. You've been Barry Bonds. But even... Who's the greatest baseball player of all the time? Right now, O-Tonnie is going to be ten times better than Bay, Babe Ruth.

O' Tottie. Chahelotani is not better than Bay Roos. Not right now. I will go and say Mike Trout is better than Bay Group. Oh, crazy. I'm not going crazy. Dude, what? They were even playing.

It was all segregated. You know, I don't know if I could say this word on air, but the Negro Leagues? The Negro Leagues. You can say that. You just say Negro Leagues. The reason why Japan has baseball is because of the Negro leagues and how they influence the Japanese baseball. Yeah. You're telling me, Babe Ruth, the greatest of all.

All time baseball player? You put Babe Ruth in 2026. He crushes. Are you kidding me? Absolutely. I'm going Josh Gibson greatest of all time. Oh my God. They were throwing 89, maybe 85 fastball down the middle.

I was watching, even in Barry Bonds, like when he hit his 756, the dude was throwing like 85 mile at hour fastballs. I was like, dang, come on, man. You're not saying Kareem? You're not saying any of these guys are better than Michael Jordan? No, Michael Jordan's greatest of all time. Because there's athleticism, the people he was playing against. Who was second in home run?

The problem of... Let's see. I can put Babe Ruth in 2026 and feel very confident. This is the thing, though, Jonathan. I just put... When Babe Ruth retired with 714 home runs, second place all time was Lou Gehrig with 378. So when you're going to go over his peers,

there is an argument for Babe Ruth. There is. But there wasn't integrated. I know. And that's obviously a debate point. That makes it an incomplete. It makes it an incomplete. for me. We don't know.

Yeah, no. I'm trying. I'm on your... Some people, some people could say that Johnny Unanis was better than Tom Brady. I'm defending your take by going 714 and second was 3.78. Like, he almost doubled the next guy in home runs. It's pretty crazy.

You know, I can't. No, I'm just going to... You're dismissing me, aren't you? Yeah, very. I feel dismissive. You're being roundly dismissed. All right. All right. That's it. With prejudice. Literally.

That was a double play Monday, by the way, too, for it to tell the truth. You're going to two points on that. 700 home runs with a 70 mile up per hour curveball. Come on. Like, that's not. Yeah, but he was still better. Nobody, he was doing it better than anyone else. Yeah.

And he also was a great pitcher, too. Like your boy, Shoha Hohan, who, by the way, has been told not to hit, not to pitch anymore for a while. What happened? A little soreness? He's got some discomfort? He got a hit yesterday, though.

You don't think Aaron Judge, if he was in that time period, he's not gone out. Oh, hell no. No, hell no. No chance. Yeah, Aaron Judge would have been all right. He'd have been fine, but he strikes out. All right.

Still strikes out a line, it gets hurt all the time. Gimp. Oh, play one for the gimper. By the way, those of you are asking, we did not have Paul Feinbaum on 20 minutes ago. I mean, that'd be a huge get, I guess. But no, it was not, it was Chris Gord. Yeah, C, C.

Can't win in the playoff because they all beat up on each other in the regular season. That's an all-timer right there. You're making me laugh. I'm not supposed to be laughing. Come on. Let's go. Bama lost 38 to 3 because of the regular, regular season.

And if Mississippi State and old missing back to back weeks. Yeah, really got them down. What should we do then? What's the solution? Just the SEC invitational? Only the 12 best ACT teams battle it out for the playoff? What do you call the CFP group? A bunch of dorks?

Dopes is what he called them. Dopes. I love Gordon. He falls into SEC sort of. like nobody else's a high-level shilling right there that's fine it's part of his charm all right in terms of the longest wait tom on seven on eight tom good morning do you thank you for holding good morning have a question about the rocket since you travel with them i think you'll know the answer but a similar one for the astros does the home team have an obligation to let the visiting

team use their laundry facilities monday in portland off tuesday wednesday and sacramento what do they do about getting the monday night jersey that's exactly what it is the other teams are reciprocal on on their washer dryers, yes. Yeah, I figured that makes sense because when the Astros, they may have been gone for 10 days or something. Here's my other... You think they bring their own detergent? No, shush.

I'm asking. Well, I didn't think they sent a staff member to the other team likes gain. You got to bring your own tie? I didn't think they sent a staff member to a 24-hour Washington with rolls or quarters or something, but anyway, here's my other comment, and it may make some

local fans upset, but I think that local fans tend to overvalue the team's talent. In other words, I have an opportunity to travel a little bit, and so recently I was in point, and they're talking about if this picture can come back from Tommy John, and if we could get Cal Rale to hit like he hit last year, we could run away. Well, everything is if, you know,

and when to listen to Dana Brown, it sounds like, you know, he's got this. For example, I don't know about this past, there were seven pitchers in the SEC that hit 100 or more on the gun. their throwers, not necessarily pitchers. And there's a difference between Greg Maddox. You know, he was a pitcher. You know, he never... A lot of movement.

Yes. He was a nibbler, as the kids would say. Well, yeah, I'm in the catcher's box. You know, we want to trade our number three guy of the bullpen for a number two starter. Well, you know, they're not going to do that. Oh, yeah, they will. There's a definite possibility of that. Number three, bullpen for number two starter, no question there's a possibility of that.

Well, with the right team, maybe. But now, like I said, I think people tend to overvalue their local talent. Not that they're not good players, but even with the Astros now, they've got four or five major leaguers, four average it out, they're going to win some games. Even at the end of the season, you're going to win games. And with a 4A roster, you're probably about where you should be. Yep. Thank you, time for the phone call.

I would disagree with you. Local teams are a little more brutal on their local teams. Just go look at Astros' Twitter. They want everybody fired. Yeah, but he was saying like you trade players and, yeah, like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's package up Joey Lopofito and Jake Myers for, I don't know. Bobby Wade, Jr. Yeah.

You're giving them two players. They're going to be able to replace two positions out one. It's a lot of sense. Yeah, I get you. Let's go to Louisiana. What part of Louisiana? Robbie, what are you calling us from today? Robbie, where are you?

Yeah, I live a little outside of New Orleans. All right. of your brawn and Norland's. What you got today, Robbie? Well, you know, I'm from Houston, but I, you know, I've now lived in Louisiana, but my wife and I, we make it back to several games a year. And this week, and we went to Saturday and Sunday, and it was a little extra special this weekend because we brought our grandson to his first couple games. And that sounds really exciting. But the point I'm getting out here is I want to give a shout

out to Josh Hater. um before the game he was given autographs and there was a long line to get autographs from him and uh I took my grandson down there and not only was haters signing everybody's autographs he also took the time to take

uh to pose for a picture with all these kids it was it was really cool for uh you know such a high caliber player to take that time for those kids so you know that's a positive on the Astros for this weekend you know I just wanted to give a shout out to him on that and then I want to kind of talk about the trade deadline. They played 101 games right now.

They are 7 under 500. They're on pace to win 75 games. Getting a left-handed bat is not going to fix that. The fact that they're mathematically in it is only because the AL is really bad. And I think, to be honest, you're going to need more than one or two pieces. to make this a competitive team. So is it worth trading away, you know, people to maybe? I mean, it's a big maybe even make the playoffs?

A lot of fans are discussing that right now, Robbie. Thank you for the phone call and the good story about Josh Hater. I mean, that's what people are discussing right now. They can't figure it out. Actually, they probably have figured it out. First of all, for all the issues the Asteros have, getting in their starting pitcher. getting a eighth inning leverage guy and getting a left-handed bat that's in the outfield.

You're asking for three crucial things to be done, Ross, for this organization, and you don't have a minor league system to use quote-unquote prospects to give the other teams in return. You could do all those things, and there's still no guarantee they make the playoffs. That's the thing. But people would like it. I mean, if you got all three, the chance of all three would be zero percent. Yeah. But if you wouldn't get three major upgrades in those three positions,

they're still maybe not good enough. Well, but people would at least say they're trying. Yeah, there's energy towards it. I mean, is that what you want to do? Do you want to try or do you want to win long term? Problem is. I mean, the reality is, this is a moot conversation.

They don't have enough players. Tim Kirkson mentioned this this morning. People know the Astros Farm System is not there. 13.3% playoff odds on Fangrass. Baseball reference runs their own simulations. They have them at 9.5%. So you're saying there's a chance. Yeah, it's not zero.

There's a very important question, Ross, I have for you. Are the Astros playoff hopes slip sliding away? Yes. Makes me sad. Makes me very sad. Let's tell the folks about synergenics, and then we'll think about what Paul Simon had to say a moment ago. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

That just was not fun watching that ball game. We're listening to it right here on 7. it yesterday. But hopefully things have changed. A new series begins tonight. Miami Marlins who have dropped, I think, six in a row. It was a brutal weekend for a number of reasons. I mean, the Orioles have been winning a lot of games lately, but seven straight, it's not like they're unbeatable.

You got mostly, I mean, you got a good start from Lambert on Friday. You weren't able to convert. Erigetti, five innings of one run. Run ball. A lot of walks. Okay, pitch count got up high because of those walks. But that's okay. You had opportunities to win.

That's what was so frustrating. 3 to 2, 4 to 2, 5 to 2. No offense. Frustrating. 4 for 27, runners in scoring position. You're coming back from the break. You're setting your rotation the way you'd like to.

And you get swept. No offense from the outfield again. No. Jose Altovae is looking okay. Yeah. that's good yeah home run late yesterday now it didn't matter because it was been from 5 1 to 5 2 but it still means he's getting around the bases okay i'm not gonna look at how many ballparks it was out in uh you don't have to uh i was not pleased with the way that the ball was played on saturday when he allowed the runner from second to score from home on a ground ball to shorts to the second base and he kind of slowly got over there and then they forgot yonner diaz forgot to worry about home plate and the run scored that wasn't great it was just a lousy weekend zach de senzo taking strike three in the game on Saturday. Ball drops. Catcher has throw the ball to first base and Zach that sends those

halfway into the shower. Bad. It's bad. Bad, bad. Unfulfilling, unsatisfying, frustrating weekend that had Astro fans going from, hey, let's get off to a good start here in the second half and get back in this race to you have fallen further back in three days.

Way deep down the wallet card and four back in the America League West because somebody is going to have start playing better and the Rangers have kind of done that with Seattle winning two or three against the Soski Giants over the weekend. Yeah, Seattle's 500. You're three and a half behind Seattle,

four behind the Rangers. Yeah, not even the muddled mess in the wild card. You're not contenders. You're not. They need to sell off whatever little pieces they can and regroup for next year.

That's what I think. You're behind the twins, Orioles, Mariners, and then the Red Sox have the third wild card. Four and a half back. So can I play? Can we roll play here for a second? Okay.

We've got the news of noon after this. Oh, that's right. If Jim Crane walks into Dana's office and Joe's sitting there with him and says, you guys don't need you to sell off pieces. Okay. You're essentially ensuring both those guys are going to lose their jobs. Yeah. Well, they get a paycheck.

What's the comp on this, Ross? I think I can come up with one. Oh, here we go. Uh-huh. I need to think about it, but I... Oh, okay. I've got a few things. Mr. Analogies on the case.

No, I don't want to be on the case. But the reality... You need a comp. You are destroying the infrastructure of a franchise. Well, it's your job. If you're the president and you're the eighth year of your term, you still need to do what's best for America. Because that's what you're in office for.

But members of the cabinet lose their jobs because of it. Okay. I mean, look, Dana and Joe are not going to worry about their next meals. They're going to be just fine. Yeah. But they want to keep their jobs. They enjoy being, I mean, Joe Espadoe enjoys being a manager of this baseball team. And I'm telling you, if I'm in the room, well, there's a great comp.

I can't even mention it. There's just a great comp. I can't even do it. Okay. But point being is that that would be as deflating of a, not, my thing, it's not the right thing to do, but I'm just putting the human aspect on this. If Jim Crane walks in and says we're selling, how does Joe and how do Dana keep their jobs knowing that their franchise today will not be as good as it was two weeks ago

because they're moving off the pieces that are tradable pieces. Well, I mean, we don't have to live in the real world, unfortunately. You put your best three stars up this week and you got swept by the Orioles. Yeah. All right, 1210, let's get to the news at news. Well, Matthew, yes, the Astros got their ass swept by the Orioles over the weekend. And, well, they start a three-game set with the Marlins today. Ooh, the Marlins are throwing some junk at you.

Jansen junk. Make it get ready for the puns on the radio and television broadcast tonight. Ronald Blanco getting the start for the Houston Astros tomorrow. And then it will be Tatuya. I'm sorry, today. And then it will be Tatuya Imai to tomorrow. As we mentioned, things slip sliding. for the Astros, four games back in the West, four and a half games back in the wild car.

We don't... I love the Yondex show tonight and tomorrow and the 10th inning tonight tomorrow. I'll have Wednesday. And Waxson and Client will have none of those. And then they're off on Thursday and I'll have Friday. And more no, not work, and I'll work Saturday. No, I think they do pregames on Friday. Oh, that's right.

I'm doing... It's a post only on Friday. And then I'm doing the pre and post on Saturday. Yes. Friday. Thank you. You're doing great, Matt. Thank you.

You're stepping up huge. Thank you. You're the real MVP. I would not argue with that. Okay. Also, of course, the World Cup final yesterday, Spain, the rightful World Cup champions with a 1-0-0-0-1-0-1-4. Argentina, Ferrant Torres, former Manchester City legend, with the lone goal in the 106 minute. It was just a bloodbath.

2.29 expected goals for Spain to just 0.22 for Argentina, who only held 35% of the position. Session got zero shots on goal. Zero big chances created as well. Did have 11 saves. Emmy Martinez was trying to help them as much as they could, but the Spain attack proved to be too much. They are the rightful World Cup champions. And also Rodry, the midfielder for Spain,

winning the golden ball, which goes to the best player and the golden boot. Thank you. One by Killian Mbapapé. Inabape, Meena. I got it right. It is called by Mr. Soccer himself. Matthew Thomas called Killeen Mbap.

He went with a longer shot. Harry Kane. He only finished with six goals. Mbapapé led the way with 10. Leonel Messi finishing second with eight. Yep. I had that one. Very proud.

Thank you, Matt. I told me on the pitch. Yeah, I like that. You used to be called I'm the bitch, but I was just called on the pitch. Oh, I like that. I appreciate that. All right, well, LeBron still hasn't decided where he's going.

Brian Winhorse reporting, LeBron does not care that he's holding up the television networks and holding up the entire NBA. He's going to make his decision when he's good and ready, he says, according to Brian Winhorse. So I would like you to get into LeBron's brain for a second. What do you think he's really thinking right now? I wonder if he's not decided. I think he was probably set on Cleveland or Miami and then Philly's making a good push. That's my thought. Do you think he's setting up any sort of TV performances or any like the decision way back in the day?

Maybe. I don't know. If you don't like it, don't watch. Oh, I'm not going to watch. I want my NBA schedule. That's all I'm asking for. Oh, this is just about you. You want your NBA schedule so you can fill out your MBA schedule.

I got you. That's exactly right. You got to move these refrigerators. Got to move these colored TVs. Yes. Thank you. All right. There you go, Matt.

There's your news at noon. All right. 1214 on Sports Talk 790 if you'd like to join us. All right, the reality is I tried two a week ago, even though the Astros lost its series in Arlington, to have a last half full mentality. And this weekend really got to me a little bit. Not that the glass is empty, Ross,

but my feeling is I'm significantly more discouraged today than I felt a week ago. Now, if the Astros can go win two out of three against the fish, We've lost six in a row coming into tonight. Go to Chicago win a series. You got to Anahehmers next week. You got 10 games. One's a really surprisingly good team.

One is a lousy team and one is a mid-team. They're fighting for a playoff spot. But again, the Miami Marlins are struggling now. I'm going to hold off 10 more games before I make the official declarations time to sell. I know that I'm fighting a deadline too. So it's probably not doing much. Let's see. Two weeks from today is the deadline, August 3rd.

But again, so let's do this. And I'll do this again for this noon audience of ours. If you are into cell mode, let's talk about the sales candidates. I think your best value for Jeremy Payne would come in the offseason if you were to do that. Yeah, you would take calls on them, though. Absolutely you would. I mean, especially because Alex Rodriguez every other day, he's talking about him being playing shorts up for the Yankees.

not even hiding the fact that he wants him there he's been well he's hurt right now he's been having hamstring issues for a couple of months Is Christian Walker's hip going to cause an issue to disable him that makes him pretty difficult to trade as well Plus the fact that he's had a bad month or so For the play

A little change of scenery, he'll do him right Is that what he had a hot start? I mean he's still got 20 bombs and a 766 OPS It's good but it was good Yeah Playing good first base He's never yeah The defensive work has always been spectacular

I think Esok Paratus should be a candidate for people to be interested in as well. And then it hopes that Carlos Gray comes back full in 100% next year. He's in their basement. There's your solve situation because he's under contract. Yeah, we don't have to talk all season about a log jam. Fisok Paratus is gone. That's fair. He's got some value.

Yeah. You've got one more year of control on ESOC. Would you trade Blue Ball? At this point, Blue Ball is getting you. No. I don't think so because I, I don't think so. because I don't because you're you're trading with him if you buy right would you trade Lambert if you're in a set this true sell mode here yeah Lambo's on a one-year deal right

yeah yeah he matter of fact he was yeah he was literally a street for agent he had to choose where he wanted to go and he chose the Astros yeah absolutely selling Lambo man we have not had these kind of deep conversations about this franchise in Selmo really what, since Berkman and Hunter Pence got traded? Wanda Rodriguez got traded. Remember all that stuff? That's 60, that Rossi, that's 15, 16 years ago. I think Lambert is a nice little chip. Get you a couple of low-to-mid-level prospects as a rental.

Been pitching very well. I mean, is there a case that Lambert get you the most return of anybody that's currently on the roster? I don't know, but probably Payne does, right? Right. but in terms of guys who were Esox got a year of control but Lambert would be up there.

Lambert, Esoc, maybe Walker, you field calls on Pena but you probably don't do that one. I would like Pena to be locked up long term but I just don't know that's going to happen and plus you got the impending offseason. Lambert seems like a perfect guide to trade. Teams don't have to worry about signing up him

long term or anything like that. Give a couple of small, lower level prospects, get a rental if you're trying to go all in for a World Series, you need some starting pitching. It's so weird that the lame duck general manager is going to be making these decisions

to essentially cement his legacy as an Astro. Maybe, I don't know. I mean, it seems like a 0% chance he's back or close to it. It's funny because it sort of happened here now, to a much lesser extent. The Astros were terrible. Ed Way was a general

manager. Drake McLean's like, shave our payroll down. I got to make this franchise as fiscally inviting as possible. So Ed Wade's like, all right, I'm giving my marching orders. I need to trade out these players. He did so. Jim Crane bought the team and immediately fired Ed Wade and brought in Jeff Leno.

I guess that's how the cookie crumbles. So I guess what you'd say? That's how baseball works. That's how business works. It's not show friends. It's show business, as some people say. Yeah. And that, I mean, think about this.

If you're Dana and you lose your job, you could go back and say, well, you know what? judging me on this year wasn't fair because I was told that I had to go sell off Sanchez. I had to go sell off Maricio Dubon and at the deadline when I'm trying to keep my job and trying to get this team better, I was told to sell off. Now again, I don't know if those conversations have ever took place. We're just going through some hypotheticals here. Okay. I want these hypotheticals to be discussed in 10 days.

I'm giving myself as an astro fan 10 days to think about this kind of thing. Now, whether the Astros do that or not remains to be seen. 713-212-5-790. Let's talk to some people in Houston, Texas, and we'll do that at 7-13-21-2-5-7-9. We'll start with Scott on 7-90. Scott, good afternoon. Thanks for holding.

What's going on, fellas? Hi. So, yeah, so regarding the deadline and me all are having a great conversation about it, Matt, you made the point that, you know, we haven't had these types of conversations about selling pieces in 15 years or something along those lines. And I think Jim Crane would be wise to read the room with that and kind of realize the cashed in his chips on the goodwill that he has bought himself. I mean, you know, as a fan base, yes, we're obviously disappointed and frustrated with how this season and the last couple seasons have been going.

But we're also still very much aware that we were the most dominant team in baseball for seven seasons. Like, you know, that's still very fresh in our minds, and we're not, Jim Carine has earned that grace from us. No, we don't always agree with the decisions that he's making, but, you know, in order to keep trying to push the window open and if they do some standing pat or even if they get hot over the next two weeks and by, like we would, this wouldn't even be a conversation if we're in the National League. It's almost a detriment to the future of the team that we're kind of unlucky that the American

League is so bad or this decision would be a lot clear. you know, but, you know, he's bought, he's earned goodwill from this fan base, and he would be wise to kind of help re-utilize that and reshape the future of the team. But, you know, I don't think he's going to, to be perfectly honest with you. I don't think we're going to sell anybody at the deadline, A, because you mentioned he's not going to let Dana Brown do it. So I think my prediction is that it's most likely going to be a whole lot of standing pat during that thing, which is fine as long as we address things.

in the off season. Yeah, thank you for the phone call. Good stuff, Scott. I mean, it would be new territory for Jim, because he always, what's that cliche phrase he uses? The windows always open. Yeah, it's not,

it's, the windows feeling pretty closed right now. I don't feel a breeze. It's hot hot air. Yeah. Why would you keep Peter Lambert? What do you gain by keeping Peter Lambert? Because you are in the America League and you, again, you don't need to agree with me.

I'm just giving you what I'm thinking. That you are a seven, three week away from being right back in the wildcard chase and right back in the division race. Because the America League is just so mid this year. I almost think, I'm going to the caller's point, if you're in the National League, this is an easy decision. In the American League, you have a lot of hesitation doing this because all it takes is a small run. And you're right back where you were a week ago when this team was. on the third wild card spot and a half or a game out of first place. I think we're, it's just,

it could be fool's gold. Astros, I think it is fools gold. I think they're probably not going to make the playoffs. Even if they do, they're not going to make any kind of noise or run, if you ask me, as the team is comprised right now, you want to sell me that they're going to make a smash starting pitching, left-handed bat and relief move? I don't see that being possible without ridding of what you have left in the

Exactly. You need all of that. Plus luck. Plus, that's no guarantee you get into the playoffs. That's no guarantee you can overcome. Right now, it's not even a wild card. You need to overcome the Rangers and Mariners. I mean, owning teams are fun and you make a lot of money.

But man, you have to... You're doing okay. You're doing okay, but this ain't fun. This ain't fun being teased and made fun of because your team's not good and you know, you're being criticized for all the goodwill and all the good success. The Astros of Organization have for 10 years and it's going to go down the tubes, so to speak.

Going down the tubers. The tubers if you let this thing continue to go on. Because people then are worried about how long this is going to last. Isn't it funny, Ross? We don't ever think about how long this is going to last. We're more concerned about how long bad times are going to and go on. Like the Texans, when are we ever going to get over the top? This year.

But that's been saying for a long time. It's always our year. This next year is our year. You know what I'm saying? That's the thing about us. sports fans. We don't ever embrace what we just went through. It's the, oh my God, where are we headed now? What direction is it going in? Well, the direction is pointing, the arrow is pointing down right now. You've lost four in a row and you just got swept by the Orioles after setting up your

rotation. And again, the team, and the worst part of this, you went against a team that you are competing with for one of those wild card spots. All right, coming up at 130 today, we got missing you. That's when we get to check in on former Astros. We'll welcome a new member to the missing your family coming up at 130. Because Jesus Sanchez still has not played for the Blue Jays in a long period of time. Oh. And Framber Valdez has not pitched in 11 days, so we can't give you a missing new update on him. Mm-hmm.

We'll welcome a new member to the missing your family today at 130. Hmm. Okay. All right. 713-212-570. Believe it or not, today is all things about Spain. We're going with that, Rossi? Yeah, Spain national team, and then maybe we'll throw on a...

couple things about the country if I get desperate or lazy. I would maybe lean towards lazy more than desperate. Okay. By the way, we got a lot of great prizes for this. Are you ready for this? No. We have John Mellencamp tickets this week. Really? Not John Cougar. No, I mean, just... Why did he drop the Cougar?

He's just growing up, me, more mature. Okay. Brian Adams' tickets with Pat Benetter and you know Giroardo? And Big Three tickets. A yay, yay. Wow. 15 tickets to give away this week alone. Damn. You know, we're going to have to do.

We're going to have to do one correct answer. Really? We've got 15 prizes. Okay. That's a lot of prizes. All right. We get away more prize in bounds in the city of Houston. Good luck, Jonathan.

I apologize ahead of time on that. He's eating his hamburger. He's fine. He's just not in his head. He went a yay, yay. Yeah. Let's go to Tim on seven outing. Tim.

Thanks for holding. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, guys. this is something for Ross. I was listening earlier, and I want to pre-qualify this by saying that I'm a pacifist and a peace-loving man,

and I believe that love will keep us together. Yes, it will. But I think if you don't get an apology from Gordy for calling you a dumb ass, that you ought to absolutely kick his ass. Wow. Thank you, Tim. I appreciate the support.

I was just taken aback by it more than anything. it seems like he's calling me a dumbass, but also he was kind of backed in the corner, and Gordy makes terrible arguments, and he's a bad shill for the SEC, and so he digs himself. We love him, by the way. You know what?

You corner somebody in an argument, Tim, and then they start name-calling because they know their argument sucks, and they don't know what they're talking about. Well, I'll qualify by saying anybody that's for Louisiana calling anybody else a dumbass. They need to take a look in the mirror. Yeah.

You know, in my older age, I'm trying to give grace to others. And he was backed in the corner. He had a bad argument. He always shills for the SEC. What he says was making no sense. He probably knew that as well. So what happens when you can't make a good argument, Tim? You just call someone a dumbass.

Yeah, that's a typical SEC apology. Typical SEC apology. Tim, where did you go to school, by the way? I might have gone to school at the University of Texas. Oh, there we go. There we go. There we go. So it's a man's intelligent.

I love the SEC. I'm all about the SEC. We have not been good enough yet to win the SEC. You know? This is the year. We have work to do, but I'm not going to make apologies for what we've done so far. We've done what we've done because we didn't do well enough. You should put that on a T-shirt.

That sounds good. Say that one more time. That's a little wordy. That was good. Say it again, Tim. That was really good. We've done what we've done what we've done. done, but we haven't done well enough.

We've done what we've done, but it ain't done enough. Oh, yeah. All right. And maybe Gordy needs to embrace that a little bit. Yeah. We'll check on him tomorrow. See if he's in a better mood. Thank you, Tim, for the phone call.

Thanks, Tim. I'm looking forward to have Gordy on tomorrow. I'm not going to get into physical violence. No, no need to. I was upset, though. I didn't want to be called it, dumbass. You're not a dumb ass. You're a lot of things.

I know I'm not a dumbass. Thank you. Maybe you're a terrible texter and lazy at times. But other than that, you're not, you know, that is great. When am I lazy? I don't know. When I write your trivia game every single day for 16 years? No, that's good.

I wrote it Friday. Okay. That's true. Not every single day, I guess. That's right. Easy. Easy. Easy.

Easy. Good afternoon. What's going on, gentlemen? Hey, Rossi. I told you, I think, spoke last Monday and I told you Spain was going to shock the world. And I told you there were the favorites. Oh no, you said they're over France?

No, yeah, you're right. They did beat France as underdogs, but they were the better team in the final. That is correct, sir. So now, let's talk about Dana Brown. Sure. He's only as good as his team around him. I mean, they're scouts. There's other people around him.

I mean, and he has an owner that, you know, he's a lot. He's baller on the budget. But, I mean, he can only do what he can do. So, gentlemen, this team is what it is because of there is a limit to where he can do. And, man, how can I explain to you? He's not as, he's not, he's a good guy, but he's not as great as he can be as a general manager because of what happens and what he has. and I'll hang up list, John. The reality is, and thank you for the phone call,

every owner puts limits governors on their general managers. Nobody except the Los Angeles Dodgers free spends, right? And maybe the Mets for a little bit. Okay, so it's 28 to 30. Yes. And by the way, when you take the Houston job to be a general manager,

the word was out on Jim Crane of who kind of owner he was. He's going to spend. He's not frugal. This whole thought of frugal well, Jim Crane is erroneous. He has spent money over the years. But the consistency is he will pay for fair market value,

but he will not do it for long-term contracts. Yeah, but they also did make the moves to avoid the tax. The Hesu Sanchez move was to avoid the tax. The Marisoubond move has hurt you, and that was to avoid the tax. So even if we're talking about not going for the long-term big deals that we talked about, Kyle Tucker has been a dud.

Bregman hasn't been worth the money he's been making. Framber are not worth the money he's been making. Like those guys, yeah, but also there have been some other moves that they make to just try and stay under the tax, which they did this year. Nobody, yeah. I think just saying giving Dana a blank slate with a new, and I'm talking about a manager, man. I mean, nobody except the Los Angeles Dodgers front office doesn't worry about money. Everybody does.

Maybe the Mets don't. But the Cubs worry about money. The Red Sox certainly worry about money. Detroit Tigers do. The Toronto, everybody worries about money. and there are certain rules that ownership gives to their general managers. Yeah, but that's also going to, if you also can't say on one side, hey, where the window is always open, the window's always open as long as I'm owner,

and then you do some penny pinching moves. That's the thing. I mean, that comment, unfortunately, is coming back to Biden. It is, and that's what owners, and that's anybody, that's front office people, that's anybody that says things like that. Now, if Dana was. given the directive to shave payroll. We love Maricio Dubon,

but there's nobody in this world. And I don't even care of members of the Dubon family would have anticipated how good of a season. He was going to have in Atlanta. Remember, we talked about it multiple times last year. Dubonania grew out of being available, not because he was excellent. He was a two, what was his numbers as an astro?

About a 240 hitter maybe, somewhere in that range? But even regular Marisio Dubon is better than regular. Nick Allen. Yes. Now, that's the one that's a head scratcher. If you're just, if you are trading prospects

or something you can get with it, but Nick Allen's, that resume was already set. A well below average hitter and an above average defender. Mm-hmm. But he wasn't going to be able to fulfill the different types of roles

that Maricio did. And that's what hurts is that he was a jack of all trades, had a little bit of pop, not a lot, but obviously more pop than what Nick Allen's provided for the Astros.

As an Astro, 256 with a 659 OPS. So OPS plus is 100 is average, he's 84. Not good. So let me ask you this. Two-time gold Glover. He is, but Ross, that's a tradable commodity.

It just is. It's a tradable commodity, but you trade it back a worse player. Yes, and that's what hurts, is that you traded back a player that was never going to be even close to a cop. Yes. And they were hoping that Nick Allen's glove and a little bit of pop would make people forget about Marisio Dubon. Marisouin's making $6.1 million this year. that's not you know and frankly for the production he's given the Braves

that's a steal for that value for that that is 16 and a half years old that's an OG 2010 drop this is the heart of the order mattie this is warm moon of the Houston owners and when I listen to sports radio in Houston I listen to Matt Thomas

this is Clyde Drexler when I used to live in Houston I used to listen to Matt Thomas head on to Drexler's barbecue that's not still kicking is it no I don't believe so This is O-A. Bum Phillips. Get some blue ribbon bacon and listen to Matt.

This is J.B. Biggarsaff. This is Bo Porter. This is Bob Ms. Brad Mills. These guys are... Matt is battling. He's special. This is his go-toes. Would you be nice? There guys are battling and the guys are special.

Yeah. I am nice. They all have the hell of these phrases. I don't know. I know. All right. 713-212-5-790 if you want to join us. We've got missing you coming up at 130 here on the program. Believe it or not today at 150. Tomorrow on the program, Joe Espada, that's A-N-N-1.

But I think we put on the marquee Tony Danza. Do we not at 10-30 tomorrow? Yes. Tony Danza, 10-30. You're saying, why would you have Tony Danza on? Why would you have Tony Danza on, right? It's Tony Danza. You get Tony Danza.

Yeah, he's playing at a place in Houston called Docs. Docs in Montrose or Doc's Jazz Club? I'm not exactly sure we're getting it right by tomorrow. I guess we should. But Tony freaking Danza will be on this radio show. Docs Houston is what they're calling. It is a jazz club and it is in Montrose. It's where the El Real restaurant used to be. Okay. It's quite nice. So here's what I got to do to be a good interview. I got to talk about the current stuff. Yeah, of course. But I do, I'm more fascinated by the old stuff that he used to do and his time on taxi and on who's the boss. So I got to make sure I don't, I got to be a, you know, You and I got to split the right down the middle.

He's playing at Docs July 30th. Okay. You want to go? I may have Astros on day. Oh, okay. You're doing every day. I feel like I got like 15 of them. Okay.

Let's go to Vancouver. You want to? Sure, why not? We are like a North America sports show. We had Los Angeles call in. Yes. We had someone in Louisiana. Yes.

New Orleans, he said. Yes. We got Brian and Pear Lane calling in. We had Gordon name calling in Tampa. You just got, it's his spirit, you know how a spirit he is about his SEC. It's fine. He did call your dumb ass, I just saw it. Oh, oh, thank you.

Thank you, thank you, Jonathan. Jonathan, just instigating. Jonathan, you're trying to poke that bear? RW in Vancouver at 1253 on 790. RW, good afternoon. Hey, guys, thanks to sports talk radio. I haven't missed a pitch in the last three years. and I'm really a strong Astros fan,

but I think it's evident that a spot that has lost the clubhouse, and I think you guys need a spark, get a great motivator in there as a, like, Biggio and Bagwell legend is to lead the team because you take a look at the Red Sox, what they just did recently, and then they got rid of a lousy manager and made a difference. Joe is too predictable. It makes too many blunders.

I think he really belongs in double A. Double A? You're dropping him from managing a major league team to going to double A? What about Lance Berkman? They could get Lance Berkman in there, RW. Yeah, he's another great one. What are the RW? What are the blunders that Joe has had? I'm very curious, these blunders you speak of.

Sometimes when there's a pitcher in there that's messed up, and I know there's that new rule that you've got to pitch to at least three guys before you can take them out, You should take those guys out sooner. You can't break the rule, RW? No, that's right. So after he goes to three batters, and he's really messed up, take him out.

There's somebody else's shot in there. I mean, it's just too predictable. Also, we don't, how many times have we had a double steal this year? These other teams are doing that stuff on us. Why not throw some ingenious stuff in there? I don't think it's time for a cell off. I mean, I just think that he needs to go

Get somebody in there that motivates him And see what happens What about Nolan Ryan? You think they could put him in there, RW? Nolan Ryan should be in charge of the pitching. Yeah, he should be like the pitching coach? No, in charge of the staff, look, there's so much emphasis on speed today

And not enough on control That's where I think these guys are getting hurt all the time There needs to be a lot more control I mean, even if you can't pitch more than 94 miles an hour, mix things up. Yeah. There's something different. I mean, these guys, I mean, how do you got to feel like when your pitcher puts you in a hole right in the beginning down four or five runs. Okay.

Or I can always tell when any one of the brines are going to get up there, something's going to go wrong. And the other thing is, do they have a psychology coach? I mean, Framberval does. He was a great pitcher, but he was nothing but a headcase. Once a few bad calls were made by the ups, that was it. So I think they really need something, but don't sell off the team. Try and get somebody in there and replace Joe right away, given a chance. Because this team is too good.

We shouldn't be given up on them, and they can turn things around. They've come so close, they come within the 10. game and a half of being the first place. But, you know, you guys defend Joe. I know the guy loves the team and all that stuff, but he's just not the guy. It just

has shown for a long time. For three years, it's really shown that stuff. And, you know, let's be honest, this team can really still get it done, but something has to be done. A spark, not a sell-off. Get a motivator

in there. 3-212-5-790. I think he had some good ideas. Maybe Bagwell and Bidio can co-manage. BGio manager, Bagwell hitting coach, Nolan Ryan's charge of the pitching. Cesar Cedano can be base running coach.

Maybe get Billy Wagner in there, bullpen coach. I can't comment. And the problem is this. I am compensated very well to comment. Man, I'm sorry. Folks, I'm, write this down. Matt 1130 Friday. Couldn't speak at 1257.

Dead air is not great for radio. It's just not. Deep breath. Okay. Final hour, Matt and Ross, straight ahead. 1258, Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. On Sports Talk 790.

See, the argument is when you make a managerial change in the middle of the season. Is it you've got a bunch of underperforming guys that need to hear a different voice, that all of a sudden the bats will wake up, their gloves will start feeling their positions better, well, it'll be pitchers that will start pitching better. And sometimes that can happen with a pitching coach change, a different look, a different see, a different look at the video, a different strategy, a different way of gripping the baseball, different pitch selection.

The reason why I don't typically talk about and endorse managerial changes in the middle of the year is because I like to see how the 26 guys perform. Are there anybody, is there anybody on this team? Not using father time as an example, Ross, but is there anybody that's not in father time that's winning the battle, performing well under expectations? There isn't a single outfielder that is underperforming. Loperfito was a borderline major leaguer.

Zach Descenzel is a borderline major leager. Taylor Tramel's a borderline major leaguer. Zach Cole is a borderline major league. I mean, they have gone through Bryce Matthews probably should be at still the AAA. Cam Smith probably could be at the AAA under most accounts. I've just given you a list of six different people, Rossi, that probably would not be on many major league baseball teams. And if they were, they would not be starting. And if they were on the team, they would be guys that would be the first or second guys

off the bench. It's just a low-hanging fruit. I mean, the team's not performing the way we wanted is is Hunter Brown struggling because Joe Espada isn't putting him in a place to succeed

in a spot city. No. Same thing for, I don't know, Tatsu Yima was Mike Burroughs. He was just ruined mentally by Joe Espada and his pregame speeches. So that's why he's one of the worst pitchers in baseball. No. It comes down to the players. At this point,

I mean, depending on what the direction they're going to go into, it doesn't matter because it doesn't look like Joe Espott is going to be back, barring some sort of miraculous run in the playoffs. No matter what.

But yeah, the Mets dismissed their manager. Mets haven't been doing much of anything. Red Sox are finally coming around, and they're on their 13-game win streak. There are a couple of games above 500 after firing Alex Cora. If you want to say that the cages were rattled and that's, if Phillies turned their season around a little bit because they fired,

was a Rob Thompson. And Don Mattingly, who doesn't have a great tracker as being a manager, but obviously they're doing much better. Yeah. So you're going to say because Don Mattingly is there, well, Don Mattingley wasn't very good when he was the Marlins manager. And he was somewhere else before that, right? Yes. I can't remember where. I have to go look that up. But that's what fans going to go to. Fire Joe's and is that going to solve all their problems? I'm going to have to yell for a second. If you call a radio show and tell the host,

the manager of a baseball team should be managing at a double A level, you lose me immediately. You'd make no sense. Thank you for listening in Vancouver. Appreciate the Heart Radio app. but you lose all credibility when you say that. 100% of it. I tuned you out.

If I was a smoker, I would have gone to smoke to cigarette. I don't smoke. It was a bad take. I mean, if you call in, Jeff Bagwell or Craig Bizio need to be the manager. Can I tell you something about Jeff Bagwell and Craig Bizio, two of the greatest, four greatest Astros of all time? Jeff Bagwell wants no part of coaching or managing.

He did it for half a season and was burned out. He doesn't want to do it. he wants to retire and live his best life Craig Bichio doesn't want to do it he's a special assistant to the general manager that is he gets to go to the ballpark whenever he wants you and has a nice pass they don't want to be in town evaluation

they don't want to be a manager they don't want to be a scout they don't want to be a hitting coach they want to be retired and they deserve that opportunity but again you hurt your credibility as a caller when you call and tell me these things when all of us knew it already I'm sorry thank you again Vancouver. We love you. Shout out

British Columbia. Shout out RW. Shout out RW. But when you called Joe Espada a double A guy and drop him down there, you lost me. And you say that Bizzio or Bagwell need to be the manager? Well,

it's a ridiculous take. It's ridiculous. And look, I have ridiculous takes all the time. Ask my wife. We are not, all of us are not immune to ridiculous takes. Some more than others. Brian, on 7 out of 1.07 Brian. Hey, good afternoon, guys. Real quick. I'll get to my point on the asteros, and then, or I'll get to my point to

the, on the asteros, but did you all see this article from ESPN? I think it was ESPN talking about how the NFL players are like, you know, hey, if y'all can afford grass for the World Cup and all that, why, you know, they're, they're, they're wanting these owners to do that. I wonder if that's something that they would push for in the next round of CBA of saying, hey, we don't like these terms and how it's inconsistent from, you know, stadium to stadium and all that, do you all think, and I'd be just curious to hear all flying, which I'll think, do you all think that would be something they push for and maybe try to be a little bit more adamant about in the next CBA, whenever that rolls around of, hey, we want, you know,

got growing in, you know, for the World Cup for a month and give it the attention that needs. Granted, that was only a month, but. Yeah, they did a targeted, they did a target. targeted campaign. It was like Caleb Williams, Laramie Tunsel, and some others were all hashtagging worth of the cost. So I think that certainly is something they want to put on their agenda. Yeah. I think it'd be, yeah, I think it's, I get why, you know, why you do it because you can have more events. It's just easier and all that. But yeah, I'd be curious to see that

something they actually fight for. And it's like, no, this is the hill we're going to die on just for her longevity. But Matt, I'm almost, I'm right there with you right now. I'm not We're quite ready to hit the cell button on everything. I'm getting close, but I think if you don't, I think now at this point, when it comes to that next Rangers series, I think you almost have to sweep. And I know it's getting dire, but you can't afford to just win two out of three and win one game.

I know there's still 60 games left roughly. But you're seven games under 500. Granted a bad division, but, you know, if you're going to make any kind of hay and try and make the playoffs, you have to sweep that Ranger series. I know one win gets you the tiebreaker, which at the end of the day is important in a lot of cases. But, yeah, I'm almost to the point now.

Just show what valuable pieces you might have, whether it's Lambert, a blue ball, whatever, and get what you can for him. And I think Kim Smith could use a little time down in AAA. Granted, he's the only kind of valuable outfielder you have right now. I'm not saying trade them. but I think just a retooling even for a few months down there

couldn't hurt because he looks lost but I was at the game on Saturday and it was, I don't fault Nick Allen for trying to score from that throw on 30. You force the outfielder to make that throw and unfortunately Tyler O'Neill, I think that was his name, just made

a perfect throw. It probably actually made a bad throw but just threw it in the perfect spot at the right time but this weekend was disheartening. I mean, yeah, you fire Joe Espada, great. Like you guys just mentioned, the odds of it working out and turning around are slim to none because, yeah, you get Omar Lopez, but as Dan Matthews says, he's not working with the Venezuelan All-Star team.

He's working with the current iteration of the Astros. But, yeah, I'm just curious to get you all thoughts on the article about the grass on the NFL stadiums. if you all think the NFL players actually kind of, hey, we want this to happen or no deal moving forward. Yeah, thank you, Brian. We're going to stop talking about Cam Smith of the minor leagues. We're talking about late July here. He's not going to the minor leagues.

He's, this is, he is going to get himself fixed one way the other playing. The Astros don't have enough outfielders. He has to play right-fielder. He's good enough out of the right-fielder to, unfortunately, he's having to figure out on the job. And as I mentioned, his XBA's ex-slug is a little bit better, a lot better than what he has shown. So he's been having some bad luck. I do feel good about him long term, honestly.

But I know the results haven't been what we wanted at all. Next CBA, NFL CBA runs until 2030 year, Matt. It doesn't expire until March of 2013. The players will not fall in the sword for this. I'm sure that I can imagine. They could ask for it. I don't know that they would get it. They'll ask.

They're not going to get it. They would have to concede something to get it. because the NFL runs out, they have their own little studies that they do to say, oh, this is fine. MetLife, MetLife turf is fine. Now, there are some stadiums to Brian's point that are atrocious. I mean, I'm sure the turf had to be fresh and beautiful at MetLife

because the normal turf they used for the Jets and Giants games is largely unsafe. I mean, C.J. Stroud got concussed on that field before. Yeah. Others have as well. Well, for the World Cup final, that's where they played it. That's where they played it, and they played it on grass. So my guess is it's kind of be more of an individual thing, but to collectively say that every stadium must be grass,

they're not going to win that battle. But the NFL is saying that we can't do this and, oh, this is a lot. Yeah, they're lying. Yeah, that's a lot. They just don't want to pay for it. That's exactly right. 713-212-5-7-90. If you want to get in, we've got one more segment of calls to get to.

We'll talk to Brent and to Jonathan. We have Missing you coming up at 130 with a new welcoming member of the Missing You Club. 120, Sports Talk, 790. Missing you, coming up at about 10 minutes here on the radio program. I know you guys are missing championship baseball. I was just getting ready for my Astros on deck today, and Hunter Brown seems bullish on his squad. Oh, that's great.

Yeah. We didn't say, we've got a sad sack of players here, including myself. I suck right now. Look, I would like to be proven wrong, but I'm just, I'm not, there is zero confidence inspired of what I've been seeing lately. I don't see enough.

from the pitching, from the hitting, consistently enough as well. Thank God Yordon's having the season that he is. It's outside of that, I mean, who has been your best, most consistent hitter the rest of the way?

Walker or Paratus, I guess. Pena's been good, but he's been in and out of the lineup the entire time. Yep. Tennis is part of the grade, Rossi. It just is. And not only do you lose him for his,

bat, but you lose him as your leadoff guy, moving Al Tuve to a leadoff spot. And Altuva, frankly, to me, is the number five-place hitter and has actually thrived in that but not thrive, but it's been more than solid than playing at the number five positions. Yeah, he's been a little bit better. At least, I'm just going with your best OPS plus hitters. So how Tuve's at 99. And then you have six guys who are above average. Alvarez, Pena, Correa, who's out, Walker Paratus, and Lamont Wade, Jr.

Good. Maybe he wants that left field spot. I've always been playing first base the last couple days. Yeah. Let's go to Jonathan on 7-90. Jonathan, how are you? I'm good, man. How's it going?

Good. So listen, I, first off, I think somebody needs to put in a call to Cal after Domeco season last year. We need to put in the high-ranking draft pick, Randy Bullock, to manage the Texans next year. I like that. I feel like that. Yes. That's the number one choice. Yes.

Like if we're all going to just hire players to manage the teams just because they played on the team, then let's go for it. Here's my problem. Why does Dana Brown and Espada have to be a package deal? Like if you're, I mean, Joe Espada, he's made some faux paws. I wasn't a big dusty fan. I feel like he made more managerial. mistakes than our current manager. But I don't get, I mean, this guy's been given a crap sandwich.

Like, do you want it on white or wheat? Like, he's trying to feel the team that is literally a bunch of nobody's. And I get that you got your boy waiting in the wings and everybody's kind of scared. Like, oh, he's got that was what was, that was a spotter, right? like that you've got to give the guy a chance i don't get why this is a package deal i feel like Dana brown has made some decent kicks uh or as far as like like who he's brought in but at the same time i don't see how any of this is on a spot at well the reason why in my the reason why they're a package deal is because their contracts and at the exact same time in theory they're

not a they're not a package deal you know so one could stay both Both could stay, both could go. The only reason why they're attached to the hip is because their contracts in the exact same year. That's the reason why. Oh, and you look at it like, okay, I hate to go back to like, okay, look at Moneyball, right? And you had, dang it, what was a manager? Art, was it? Art, how?

No. Art, R. How? And he was so ticked off at the field, at the players that he had to trot out there. he was like willing to lose his job over like well you're letting Giambi go like what are you doing and he had to go out there with the team that he was fielded do you think those conversations are being had in the front office of like do you think a spot is like guy what are you doing I mean I get the injuries but it's like what I have nothing to work with I literally have nothing to work with

that's just my two sense I feel like I I don't feel like any, I don't feel like any of this should be put on Espada. I just don't. Yep. I get it. I feel like if one of them goes, it's Dana. Thank you, Jonathan, for the phone call. Good insights.

Yeah. Joe has definitely not been given, what do they say, the groceries? Yeah. I have a dumb question for you, Matt. Who's the best manager in baseball right now? Who makes all the right moves, pushes all the right levers, and we think is just a genius baseballing manager. It's not Boone.

It's not Robert. Ask Dodgers fans. You're making my point. I can't, because I can't, I can't think of anybody. I don't know. Stephen Vogue with the Guardians? Kevin Katsay?

Kevin Cash with the raise. I mean, seriously, who is the manager? If Dana Brown could wave a magic wand and you bring in this guy the perfect manager for the Astros. Who is it? And how much does he turn this team around? In 2026.

There is no way unless you, me, and Joe went to have drinks. If we poured a big old gulp of truth serum down his throat, he would say, look at this outfit you gave me. Yeah. Look at these pitchers. Sorry, Dana.

Ryan Weiss, dud, Borough, off the team, Burroughs, bad, EMI, bad. You tried the trade Jake Myers, could get nothing in a fair of any kind of value in return on that. I gotta bring that up.

And oh, by the way, the catchers are being thrown on left and right. Yes, they are. And Giner Diaz can't even get the ball out of the webbing of his glove. Yeah. That was unfortunate. But, to be

brutally honest, you can either have the job or you cannot have the job, you think you not had the job. If you think the job is too tough or don't want to do it, then you don't get to be a managing manager. Yeah. I just don't know if there's any manager in baseball that is just

absolutely beloved. And if you bring this guy here, he's going to solve everything for everyone. No, what I'm going to do, and I'm not going to do it this week probably, but the next week I'm going to have, I'm going to go like a look at tweets of everybody that rushed, that crushed AJ Hinch,

everybody that crushed Dusty Baker, and everybody that crushed Joe Espottie. And you're going to see it familiar frame. Simpleton, dumbass, Astro Twitter hates managers. And for that matter,

most dumbass Twitter is hate managers. It's just the low-hanging fruit. You never, you know, baseball, some baseball fans don't ever want to

blame the blame on the players. They just don't. The fact of the matter is, Burroughs has been a massive underachievement. Emi, massive underachievement. Ryan Weiss thought he was

going to be a starting pitcher told us during Astro Fest, and now he's in AAA. Jake Myers is an OPS of 570, whatever that is. Zach Cole, God love him, strikes out every other at bat. You weren't given, you're trying to compete on Master Chef, and you went to the dollar store for your groceries. Boom.

Good job, Matt. Thank you. What's Master Chef? It's a show with Gordon Ramsey. Hi, Brian. Hey, guys. Rossi, Matt. great show as always.

Thank you. I'm going to have to disagree with you. I think our friend from the Great White North made a couple good points there. I think we should bring in Nolan Ryan as our pitching coach because he was famous, famously known for his control. Yeah, that's fair. That's a good point. That's fair.

Jeff Bagwell, instead of a manager, I'd like to see him as the lead scout in the head contract negotiator for aging first baseman. Yeah. He's got a lot of experience. I do have a lot of experience there. do have two real questions for you. So just by the nose. I mean, if there's blood in the water, he can smell it. You can smell it.

If he's been told that, you know, he's got a pass. It is what it is. And that's his business, not ours. But have you heard of him bringing in any kind of a specialist or advisors to help with some of the issues that the team has batting and pitching? Second question is follow up on the cut list. If this thing continues to turn south for winter, is Jordan I ever is on that list?

or do you think he's a mental piece that you just never get rid of? And I'll hang up. Thank you. I'll leave it at that. I was going to get to missing you here. Lifetime contract. Now. And I never think about this, but I'm going to say it.

I think they're going to do everything they can to make sure that Jordan Alvarez never leaves the Astros. If you're making an exception. I think, listen to me, this is the most turbulent the Astros offseason has been in 11 years, right? Give or take? If they have no general manager. So do you need a little bit of bright, sunshiny news? Yes. Tell me it wouldn't work out that well.

I'd feel good. It's up to 99 games played. Bright, sunshiny news and a despondent. Now, again, this is going to also have to... They're going to be locked out, so maybe this may not be for another year or so. And I don't want to make it a gut feeling because, man, that would be certainly even against my gut. But if there was a gut feeling in this, I would say the Astros will do everything in their power to make sure Yorna and Alvarez does not leave. the organization.

And frankly, going off of examples, the Astros have done a really good job of locking up their international players. I know if it's because they take less than, say, the Anglo players do. But... Okay.

Javier and Al-Tubei. Two great examples of locking up long term. Cray went away. Valdez went away. I mean, I don't know. Yeah, but I mean... But there are... But there are... They didn't lock up coal.

They didn't lock up Springer. They didn't lock up anybody, really. Yeah, that's true. It don't matter what they look like. But I think there may be, there may be, I don't know if it wants to get into that world of, let's go run around the country the rest of his career. He's in a good spot.

He's in a good spot. He's got a very friendly ballpark. He's in a good spot to win the Triple Crown, too. Yeah. All right, missing yet and more phone calls next. 131 on Sports Talk 790. All right, those of you online will get to you in a matter of moments. Right now, a quick check of what's happening around the rest of baseball among former Astros.

And the question I simply ask you, Ross, is, are you missing these people? We'll start with Kyle Tucker of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Four for 27 last week. No home runs, two RBIs. Who's this? This is Kyle Tucker. He's mailing it in. Seven home runs, 47 ribbies, and OPS is 702.

I ask you, are you missing? Kyle Tucker. I hope he's investing wisely. He's done going quite well for himself. California tax checks ain't no joke. I know. Next, Victor Caratini, a twins catcher, six for 24.

No home runs in RBI last week. Seven home runs this year, 35 ribies, and an OPS of 698. Are you missing Victor Caratini? Yes. Okay. I do miss him. Frumber Valdez is not pitched since July the 9th, so we're going to bump him out.

Oh, is he okay? He's fine. He's a family leave for a couple days and then the All-Star break, so he hasn't pitched yet. He didn't hit anybody or? I don't think so. All right. Can cross up anybody? Marisa Dubon?

Oh, God. Six for 31. Oh, God. One home run, four RBI, six strikeouts. Still has 10 home runs on the year. Has driven in 53 with an OPS. The 735. Are you missing Maricio Dubon?

He'd be batting cleanup for the Astros. That's not good. Oh, that's terrible. Yes, I'm, yes, you're asking me I'm missing Maricio Abon? Yes, I'm missing Maricio DuBond. It's terrible, terrible, terrible. Put him into the three hole. Alex Bregman, six for 27 last week.

Yikes. I keep waiting for one of these weeks to where you're like, Alex Bregman, 12 for 30. Now, of his six hits, three have left the yard. Oh, okay. Eight RBIs. Sure. Drew four walks, struck out seven times.

He now has 10 home runs on the year, so he's reached double digits. Okay, that's good. 43 ribbyes and an OPS of 698. Are you missing, Alex Breggman? He's at least climbing up. A little bit. It's taking a while. Pena and Walker are down.

Yeah, I'm missing Bregman a little bit. Okay. A little bit. Just a scosh. And I would like to welcome to the first time to the missing you club. Cardinal reliever Ryan Stannick. Right? Oh, stop.

Stop. Yeah, you're going too deep into the well. In the month of July? Oh, my gosh. Five and two thirds innings. What are you going to bring up Phil Maton next to? I thought about it. Two runs, five hits for Stannick this month.

And for the year, he's two and two. And then earning a 4.82 and 42 games. I ask you, are you missing? Ryan Stannick. That'd be Ryan, Ryan, Spelled Ryan. Yeah. But pronounced Ryan Stannick. Yep. Great Maine. No, I'm not

missing Ryan Stannick. Do you miss his Maine? Shut your bum ass up. No, I don't. He's fiery. He can hit a hunter on the gun. But no. All right, hopefully, Hesu-Sanchez, or Frobber Veldez replace him next week. Right. I'm missing you Monday.

What's Rafael Montaro up to? Yuleiguriel, I'm missing you. All right, that's missing you for the week. It's Cuban second league stats. Oh, my gosh. Let me see. Is Raphael Montero even in baseball? Tigers last year, was he not?

He was. And he apparently is in the minor leagues for the New York Yankees. Hmm. So he's in baseball. Oh, my God. If he pitches a meaningful ending in October. That'd be funny. Oh, my God.

Good luck Yankees fans. That's correct. crazy. All right, that's this week's edition of missing you. Let's go to the phones and wrap things up before we get to believe, believe it or not. And we'll start with Carl on 798-141. Hi, Carl. Hey, guys. I always enjoy the show. Thank you. I don't know if I miss her. I don't know if I misheard this or not, but did you save a spot? I got fired. Terry won't tell me. Who's Terry? Terry. I asked Siri and Siri won't let me. No, no, he has not been fired.

been fired. Oh, he's not been. Okay. I've read somewhere where Dana Brown is wearing dark sunglasses and avoiding calls from Jim Crane. I'm not sure if that's accurate. I don't know if that's accurate either. I mean, I think Jim knows where Dana's office is, so he can't avoid him too long. I got two other quick things.

In the game you have the night where Altupe did the shallow fly ball and what's his name, the shortstop got thrown out at home. Yes, Nick Allen. Yep. A couple observations. One is who are the two best no-outs? I try to happen, or was it one-out?

There was no outs because it was a double play. And the next batter after that was Lamont Wade, and he tried to bunt for a base hit to try to score Nick Allen from third, and it did not work out. Right. So who were the two best bunners on Astros? Probably Nick Allen and I don't know who there. Probably Al-Tube.

Probably Al-Tube. Probably, yeah. I'm looking at this. I'm watching this game going like, first of all, why is, Al-Tuban does this every once in while. I know he had a home run later in the game, but in yesterday's game, but he's so far off the plate now, and it was like, the dude that's short, he can't possibly drive authority on balls on the outside part of the plate.

Then the last thing I've got to say is I just noticed something that one of our children Children of Hall of Famers in Clemens got 18 home runs this year. Where did that come from? This is the one of Minnesota? Is it Cody? What's his name? I think it's Kobe, is it not?

Cody, Kobe? It's one of the Coes. He got 18 home runs this year. I'm not saying to go grab him or anything. I'm not saying to go grab him or anything, but it's very frustrating to watch them this year. But, you know, managers get too much blame when things go wrong, but they get too much credit when things go.

go right. So, I mean, a spot has been dealt a weird hand with all the injuries and, you know, we've got four outfielders playing our starting outfield. That's not good. No. So hopefully they'll make some kind of deal and we're very fortunate they were in a crappy division

that there's even talking about, yeah, we can come back. I'm not so sure, but I hope for the best. Me too. Thank you, Carl, for the phone call. Appreciate it. Yeah. Like I And I will follow my sword on this one, perhaps, Rossi, but I'm going to wait 10 more days before I officially say, I'm going to lob a phone call to date and say, sell. I think the next 10 days is a balance of mid-level team. The White Sox are huge surprise.

The Angels are terrible. Well, nobody's selling right now anyways. Right. So you can wait. But I would say start the conversations of, hey, I would say, I don't want Jeremy Payne to be traded, but put the Jeremy Payne to feelers out there, certainly put out the, the, the Peter Lambert Feilers, Christian Walker,

Esoc Paredes, start getting on the horn and seeing, hey, what would it take to get this guys? I would say to start drumming up the market right now. The negative on that is, though,

if you start making those phone calls, it's going to get out. Okay. Sorry, guys. Play better. It's easier than done on that. I know. It is.

It's easier than done on that. Because if you're trying to keep Jeremy Payne at some point. Hey, Jake Myers, dealt with the rumor is all off and how did that turn out for him? No, he did not. He's just fine. No, he's at the end and out in Sugarland all the time. Yeah. No, he's not doing great. He's doing great over there. He went from steak to steak burgers. The fountains are nice. He knows 59 better than anybody else. Yes, he does.

No, it didn't turn out well for him. No, it's exactly the opposite of what you just said. He's fine. All right, we're going to play believe it or not next. It's all things Rossi about. Spanish national team Spanish national team We got a lot of prizes to play for John Mellencamp tickets Did you know they eat paella before every game This is a national dish of Spain

They do it's a superstition now All right We're gonna put that as one of the blizzard I just made that out there That's not then That's not believable though right Have you met our audience Put in there

Let's see if they get it wrong All right so you're doing a knot Okay Okay So do that as one of your knots John Mellencamp tickets August 6 Woodlands Favilion Ticketmaster.com.

Brian Adams is at Toyota Center on July 29. That's at TotaCenter.com. Big Three Basketball, that's at big three.com. And that'll be coming up this weekend. Let's play, believe it or not next. 145 on 790. The show, Tony Danza with us at 1030. There's no other sports show in the marketplace

can give you Tony Danza. I don't care. If y'all don't want Tony Danza or not, you're getting Tony Danza. You're going to love the conversation because Tony Danza is a television icon. Two ridiculously successful shows on ABC for decades. decades. Taxi. And who's the boss?

And now he's a Broadway star. You're not going to get that on his radio shows. We can't guess. We can discuss. Win or not. CJ Stroud's in the top 100. Or you get Tony Danza. I'll take Tony Danza for the win. Joe's spot on the show tomorrow. Gut feelings tomorrow on the show.

Which, by the way, I'm going to cash in my Mbapapé Golden Boot Award winner. Mr. Soccer. That's what they start calling me. Mr. Soccer, five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We should play America's fastest growing sports radio game show. We simply call it B, leaving or not, and here's how it works. You call 713-212-5-790, 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-790.

Today's edition up, believe it or not, is all things about Spain? Spanish national team. Spanish national team. I'll read your statement about the Spanish national team. Statement completely notarily accurate. say this. Believe it. If a statement as erroneous full of bunk, a man up, you will say this. Two believer or nots in a row. Oh, excuse me.

One, believe or not in a row. Just one correct answer is all it's going to take. John Mellencamp tickets. Brian Adams tickets. Big three. Yay, yay, yay. All those or a 7-90 t-shirt. We are just giving the gifts away like no other right here on Sports Talk 7-90. Let's talk to Ken on 7-90. Ken, you're ready to play believe it or not? Believe it. Ken, with 181 caps, goalkeeper Iker Casilius.

Iker Casillas. Whatever, has appeared for the Spanish national team more than any other player. Believe it or not. Not. That's why it's Sergio Ramos. Congratulations. Duh. Duh.

Sergio Ramos, of course. Joe on 790, Joe, your favorite part of today's 10-2 radio show. All the astro talk. And I like Tony DeNs. Thank you, Tony very much. You appreciate you. with 59 goals. David Villa is the all-time Spanish leading goal score. Believe it or not. Believe it?

Yes. Paul on 790, ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Not only is the Spanish men's national team ranked FIFA's number one rank squad in the world. The women's team is also number one as well. Believe it or not. I don't believe it. You should. Bye. Brown. Honey-90 are you, women's team too.

Bernard. Bernard, you ready to play, believe it or not? Yes, sir. The Spanish national team played their first ever match in the 1920 Olympics, where they defeated Denmark won nothing. Believe it or not. Believe it. Yes. Congratulations.

No, Matt. Whatever, one nil. Mike on 790, Mike, you ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. The nickname for the Spanish national team is La Furia Roja, the Red Fury. Believe it or not. not that is how do you not know the nickname come on now

can you say that one more time no gill on seven out are you ready to play believe it or not yes sir gill's the prize or he's always ready with their world cup victory the spanish national team is not lost in 38 matches it's the all-time record believe it or not is the all-time record damn

All right. On 790, Alan, your favorite part of today is 10 to 2 radio show. All the Astros. The current head coach of the Spanish national team is Luis de la Fuente. Believe it or not? Believe it. Yeah, congratulations. Carl on 790, ready to play, believe it or not?

Yes, I am. As a superstition for the players, the Spanish national team, chefs makes palilla for the squad. Piaia. whatever, before the squad, before every match. Believe it or not. Good question, but not. Yeah, we just mentioned it two minutes ago. Congratulations.

I would have really lost faith in the humanity, Ross, if that would have been answered incorrectly. I think I would have tried to make some paella. That's rice, sausage, corn, could put shrimp, tomatoes. You put whatever he one in there. Yeah, paella is like jambalaya. It's like jambalaya.

Yeah, I think it's a rip-off. It's a definite jambalaya rip-off. All right, speaking of Jimbole, Gordi's on the show tomorrow. Tony Danz is on the show tomorrow. Joe Espada's on the show tomorrow. Got feelings tomorrow. More, believe it or not, and more unbelievable excitement of the Astros beating the fish

to end their four-game losing streak and extend Miami's losing streak to seven games. Boom. How about that? And Ronell Blanco is going to make his season debut, all part of what we'll discuss tomorrow here between 10 o'clock until 2. Up next, it's our friends.

Adam and Adam. are the team. Talk to you for Astros baseball at six right here on 790.