The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Couldn't Get It Done in Game 1 vs Twins. Lebron Is Leaving LA??

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

Astros Couldn't Get It Done in Game 1 vs Twins. Lebron Is Leaving LA??

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. In H-Town, good morning, everyone, and welcome to a Tuesday edition. The Matt Thomas show at Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. But end up falling tonight in game one of their series against the Minnesota Twins by a final score of 5 to 4. Kind of felt good to do this because, first of all, Whitney's one of the greatest voices of all time.

Second, it kind of fits. And then number three, Clive Davis, his memorial service was yesterday. And Clive was largely responsible for discovering this young lady by the name of Whitney Houston. I think she would have made it. Yeah, but somebody's got to mean, somebody has to discover her. Although, my guess is if there was American Idol in 1985, did she have been just fine? Yeah.

And Simon Cow would have gotten credit for it. I wish Bobby Brown didn't discover her. but that's a that's an underrated 1003 line thank you Matthew sometimes you come out of the get-go and it's a hot mess but that was good at 1003 not sports related but certainly the the pop culture reverts are just fine oh the Astros almost had it all all right I think I know where you're going to go with this I did not I think I saw one tweet on it from you okay I certainly didn't I mean I would like to

said I listened to the 10th inning show last night, but I... That's okay. I went to bed as soon as the game was over with. You and most people. You were locked in on Morocco and Netherlands. Who won? Morocco. Okay.

I know that Germany lost because now, what's his face? Is looking for something to do for two weeks? Well, everybody got off there, Germany and Japan getting eliminated in the United States yesterday jokes. World War II was the obvious go-to. God, that's... What do you mean? It's good.

Too soon. Too soon. It's 1945. I mean, that's almost 100 years. I think the rule should be 100 years. I will say I saw like Adam bomb jokes and it's like that's a little much. Like Franz Ferdinand jokes you can put in there because, of course, that was the cause of World War I. Oh, look at this guy.

Yes. Archduke Franz Ferdinandons. So if you want to bring in some Franz Ferdinand jokes, you can do that at 713212-5-7-Di. I don't think Prussia is in this World Cup this year. Yeah. Okay. So last night, the Astros in this rally, as you just heard, We almost had it all.

They kind of. Christian Walker, the pitch that went right by him. Yes. Should have been called a ball. It was called a strike. Yes. Should have been ball four. It was a full count.

Should have been ball four. That would have really made things very interesting. He takes a glance over to his dugout. He walks towards it and then turns around and puts a challenge up. And the empire's like, shut your bum ass up. Yes. Correct call. That was going to mean, you bury.

Oh. Sorry. Did you think it was the right thing? Look, Astor Twitter, which is the worst Twitter of them all, was like, oh, screw that umpire, he's wrong. No, unfortunately, there were mistakes done. And look, Christian Walker's had a great season, and it's still new to a lot of people, but it was the correct call for two reasons. One, you can't glance over to the dugout. That's a number one.

Number two, you can't make, you can't walk towards the dugout, then all of a sudden do a flippee and do it. Yeah. And then third, and the most important thing, which I think a lot of players, learn from yesterday's experience is if you know you have challenges, just use it. Just use them. It's the ninth. I'm with you. Yeah, he was basically halfway to the dugout.

He had his hand in the sunflower seeds bag and then started to tap his head. You can't do that. Omar Lopez was like trying to pat him on the back. No, he wasn't. Yeah, to me it was three full. One, the walk, to the flip around into delay, and three, not knowing that he had two challenges in his pocket. it. And we do this often throughout the season. And I ask again, state of the rotation, how are we feeling?

Peter Lambert, three home runs giving up, three walks issued, ERA creeping up a little bit to 351. It's not terrible. And do we, you know, we weren't necessarily expecting a guy to come from Japan and be an ace and be top a Cy Young candidate. In previous six starts, he was. was 4-0 with a 297 ERA. But the three home runs were big. And unfortunately, it was part of the story of the loss last. Well, you know what? It does for me.

It once again proves the point we've been talking about since the start of the season. Pitching depth is wonderful. But it ain't smoltz, Glaven, Avery. You know what I mean? Yeah. Also, your top four, who are your, obviously, your, four best hitters. The way we went 04-16, 0-4-14, excuse me, with two walks. The reality is this.

On the pitching side of it, it is, you have a lot of mids. You have fours and fives, and you're trying to figure out who's your best fourth starter, who's your best fifth starter, when none of them will ever be really known as a one or two. I mean, Hunter Brown has had a couple, I mean, the two performances before, and he will join us today. he threw 85 pitches in that three innings and he said look I just didn't have it and that's going to happen he was a little bit better obviously in his last start against the Tigers but

it's still a situation where he is your clear number one and the battle for number two is I mean it's EMI could be do you what I'm saying Burroughs could be Lambert

Burroughs stop me if you heard this before another big start for Mike Burroughs tonight you know it's just a lot of mids and if somebody could kind of take the bull by the horn and become that number two, that'd be wonderful. Unfortunately, we are now almost 90 games into the season, and the Jackson 5 analogy still works.

I wish it would, did it didn't work anymore, but it still kind of does. Especially with the recent regression of Spencer Arigetti. I would like to use the Osmond brothers as well, but since I only know two of them and want the Osmond's. Donnie and who? Well, that's exactly right. Larry and Curly? No, there was one that recently died.

And rest in peace to his family. I mean, frankly... Well, that is the whole family. Well, I mean, the entire family, I'm sure. But Donnie and Marie are doing okay. Donnie's doing great. Marie looks great. I had a crush on Marie for the longest time.

Well, so did Donnie. That's weird. May I tell you a Donnie Marie story? Are we going to be back to sports? You saw the way they looked at each other's eyes. May I tell the Donnie and Marie story, or should we move on to this other's things sports-related? Let's move on. I'm too late.

I'm telling it. I have to get rid of the stain that is over here. So Jonathan, Donnie Marie are, were a very, and they're still out of this day, but they're a brother and sister, and they were very popular in the 1970s in particular. They had their own TV show. A lot of musical acts, Jonathan, you don't know this. Really turn his microphone off over there. Put him on a three minutes of probation. It's off. It's off.

Would have variety shows. So there was a Donnie Marie variety show. So a buddy of mine went to go pick up another buddy of ours at the Las Vegas airport, and we get back, we get to the airport, we pick up. him up and we bring them back into the to the strip area of Las Vegas. And Donnie Marie were doing their show at the Flamingo Hotel in downtown Las Vegas. And those that don't know, when you have a headlining act, they tend to put up these lives, well, how would you describe these photos of them? Banners. Banners that cover up the entire hotel. So there's Donnie Marie on covering up 30 floors of this hotel. And the guy says to me in the car, he says, man, Donnie

Marie are so performing? I said, yeah, they've been around doing it a long time. He goes, Man, I thought they got divorced. There was silence in a vehicle for approximately five minutes. You brought up incestuous relationship. I brought up just like somebody that thought they were married. You're back out of probation. Which would be what? A simple mistake.

Okay. Okay, here's the reality. None of the radio show in the marketplace is going to give you Astros baseball and Donnie Marie references twice in one segment. Nobody's going. Astros, Hunter Brown is Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 to Donnie Marie.

No, they're not. Except us. No, no, we're done with it. I'll never bring it up again. Thank God. I don't believe you. I will definitely not bring it up again. We have a busy show today. Thank God. Oh, yes. Hunter Brown, 1.30, baby. Tell your friends. I'm 1.30, yeah. Yeah, 11.30, we got gut

feelings. Oh, lovely. 1230, we have Joe Espada. Okay. And 1.30, we have Hunter Brown. We are crushing it. And believe it or not, today at 150. Oh, we also kind of buried the lead. Please. Jeremy Pena.

IL. Yeah. Left calf injury. Third I.L. Sten in one year. Am I right about that? I think it's two. The other time he just missed a game and he came back with the right hamstring.

Okay, it was a grade one hamstring strain. Then he had the cramps a week ago. That's right. Didn't miss any time. He didn't even really miss a game because he had to come into extra innings as a pinch hitter and then play the extra innings. And he was like in full sprint, and I was concerned then. Now left calf.

So is that compensation from the other injury or whatever? We don't know. That's something we can ask Joe coming up. It really doesn't even matter. It doesn't matter. No, no, no. But it's another injury. Well, I mean, if his right leg is still hurting and he's been playing through it,

just take some time, Jeremy. But also Joe saying last night his hope of it is in a minimum aisle stint. Could you imagine Joe Espada said, you know what? I'm kind of hoping it's something more severe so you can take some real good time off. I just saw that bad boy off. Well, like, you know, maybe a month will be away from the team will be good.

So it's all good, guys. We got Nick Allen at shortstop instead of Jeremy Paine. How to go get last night? You got a hit in a walk? I mean, that's, on base of 500. Now, it was a weak bloop. But in the scorebook, it's line drive, man.

Just don't bring up Maricio Dubonzo in Atlanta. Just don't do that. Nick Allen's doing okay. OPS is 630. All right. 713-212-5-7-90 if you want to chime in on the Astros performance last night against the Minnesota Twins. What's the guy named Zebby? Zebby.

Yes. This is not a joke. Daniel Zebulon Matthews. That's weird. Known as Zebby Matthews. I'm going to assume that his parents... Daniel Zebulon Matthews. I bet his parents have a pet monkey in their house.

You think they have a pet monkey? Yeah. I was going to say they're big X-Files fans. Is there a connotation to that? I don't know. Zebulon sounds alienish. You can get mad at me. I've never seen one episode of X-Files. Tell the truth.

And how many Lifetime movies where they are at the Christmas tree farm have you seen? That's Hallmark. And the answer is I don't watch those anymore. Dozens. But that's, you said anymore. The keyword being anymore. I never choose to. If I want to spend time with my wife, sometimes she has the television.

I commanded during sports events. You know what? Maybe they're coast-to-coast fans. Daniel Zebulon Matthews. Buru, Daniel Zebulon, Nabur, Matthews. Lizard Man, Matthews. 713-212-5-790. It is 1021 on Sports Talk 790.

Good morning, everybody. Matt and Ross with you with you. And on a very busy day, we've mentioned Hunter Browns' booths' at 1-30.30. I'm excited about that. Victor Caratini with a home run. We're going to have a missing-you, a Victor Caratini edition? I mean, his... Well, who'd you rather have?

Victor Caratini or Christian 248 Vasquez? Oh, I don't know. There's the Christian Vasquez truthers out there. They're still out there, by the way. Oh, yeah. I literally saw them this weekend. Yeah. When I put out my joking, I'm sure Joe Espada is getting full credit for this winning run. I'm sorry, 216, Christian Vasquez with a 601 OPS.

I am missing Victor Keratinny. He has seven home runs, 32 RBIs, OPS of 716. That's great. He has played in 60. He's a switch hitter, so he's a. a good pinch hit option. He's their everyday guy, by the way. Oh, I didn't know that.

He's played in 62 games this year. I would presume he's an everyday guy, right? Yeah, I guess. I don't do a big, deep dive into Twins baseball. I used to, but not right now. Yeah, that's another I mean, Jim Crane wanted us to add to the tax so you can't afford Victor Caratini, so you get Christian Vasquez on a minor league deal and you hope for the best.

Now, in fairness to him, that sometimes is an easy decision to make. If you're looking to trim a little bit of payroll with a guy, I mean, Victor Caratini, what do you have? You use that war thing, right? I mean, what's his typical? Yeah, I mean, he's not going to be a huge difference maker.

He's 0.2. Vasquez is a 0.5. So, yeah, Vasquez has been better. Yeah. Must be the defense. Caratini defensive work must not be great. No. But how many great defensive catchers are there anymore? I don't know.

Caratini, I mean, two years 14 mil seemed like a little high. That's right. I mean, again, it's easy to crush an organization for every move they make. I will. I know. I'm just kidding. I know. No, I won't. The Dubon move was penny pinching and it's cost the team. The Dubon move hurts.

There are no way around it. I mean, he was a jack of all trades. Now, the batting average wasn't spectacular, but there were some intangibles to it. Far be it for me to be like the Dubon. I'm not a Duboner. Dubon truther, like those people. Like, he needs to be every day and he's going to save the world. But it's nice to have somebody like that. Yeah.

Especially in the example of exactly what's happening right now. Right. with Jeremy Paney going to the IL again. Yeah, you could plug in Dubon in shortstop and be fine for two weeks and get you're going. Nick Allen's a nice guy, but Nick Allen will never be the type of player. Now, again, glove-wise, well, no, I mean, they're about the same, right? Give or take. I mean, Nick Allen.

They're both great, yeah. They're both very good. I mean, Nick Allen was a gold glove finals. I think Dubon was one as a... Dubon is won two, I believe, multiple gold gloves as a utility guy, yeah. Right, or multiple or one. He was at least nominated twice. Point being is that that was one that was one that.

that hurt a little bit. Because he was so popular and he was a jack of all trades. I just think, and I remember talking about this with you and certainly the callers on the call-in shows after games, Marisa Dubon was not built to play six days a week. He's proving that wrong now in Atlanta, but that's really the first time of his career that he's been able to put up the type of power numbers he has

for as much time as he's been playing. He's got eight home runs in 78 games. It's crazy. Yeah, multiple time utility gold Glover. Yeah. I would like to have him, especially now. I mean, it's going to be Nick Allen and Raynell Dogado's getting called, back up or guess? Have we got a move

yet? That I don't know. Has he even unpacked his bag? Thank God Sugar Land's down the street. It's close. There have been times, Fresno, California's for the home or they're trying themselves. You know what they ought to do? They ought to get a corporate sponsorship tied to it. A serious stupid question. If you are a guy who's in AAA and then you get like,

do you get a extended stay in Houston? What do you do? It depends on what you, what you are. Are you just literally a fill-in or are you a guy that's on the cusp of being a major leager. What if you're Kai Wei Tongue right now? Oh, you're living in Houston. Okay. You're just commuting back and forth. You're commuting? Yeah. Every day? Yeah. Unless...

Now, he's got his interpreter with him, too, so maybe the two guys share an apartment. Although they can HIV. That's nice. I guess, I mean, I'm assuming you get a stipend of some sort. Yeah. And I'm sure there's an apartment complex that's littered with space cowboys. If any of all know, let us know.

I mean, there's lots of complexes around there. There's actually a lot of apartment complexes near Constellation Field. Okay. That was something that was brought up to me, speaking of the minor leagues, and why the Astros don't have what you would consider a high-end and haven't had a high-end minor league system in a long time. Think about we haven't had a phenom. Help me out with this.

Maybe I'm wrong. Have we had a phenom run through Sugar Land in the last year? No. Now, Cam Smith being a first-round pick, if he gets the call-up from AAA to the big leagues, you probably could have said that. Uliola has been down in the minor leagues forever. Jake Myers was down in the minor leagues forever. He was a pheno. Who?

Jake Myers. Okay. That's the fan club boy in you. Excuse me, the fan boy in you. The, was Bryce Matthews a phenom? No. He made a former first round pick, but it was. Yeah, but he was fringe top hundred.

list. I would say probably we might have to go back to literally Kyle Tucker as like the because Yordon I believe was a top 100 guy but Kyle Tucker was like a top five top 10 prospect in baseball. Does that strike you as a little alarming

that we haven't had a phenom run through here? It's bad. Yeah. Yes. Because we're like, oh yeah, the minor league system's doing great. You know, all these guys get called up and the Miguel Uiola's. and the whoever else is Zach Cole

and yeah, these guys, they're doing great. You literally have a shuttle system involving Zach Cole, Colton Gordon, Zach Desenzo, Logan Van Wye, help me out with some other people.

A joey-low perfido to a smaller extent. These are all guys that aren't on a top 100 list. They are the true definition of 4A players. Yeah, I'm trying to Yeah, in 2019, Yordon was number 34,

Baseball America, Pipeline had him at 44, Prospectus had him at 49. I remember when the Astros were babies and they were sucking, but you thought, okay, here comes the, we're going to hear about Carlos Corre.

Here comes George Springer. Here comes Alex Bregman. Here comes Lance McCullors. Yeah. That was fun. We would be checking in on their stats. Oh, Carlos Corrie did this. Oh, Carlos Corrie broke his leg.

Remember that? That was like devastating news that a minor league broke his leg. The reality is the only guy that I even look at is Walker Yonik. Well, Kevin Alvarez and Xavier Nions are budding hopeful, true gems in the system. But they're also 18 and 19 years old. So, I mean, the math says a lot of 18 and 19 year olds wash out. Does that mean they're going to? I hope not.

So, because I mean, they're moving up and they're still showing a lot of power. Yeah. All right. 713212-5-790. If you want to come in and say hello, 7-1-3-1-2-5-790. We had a major upset in the World Cup yesterday. Yes. Ross, you will explain that.

Okay. And then I'm going to explain why Freddie is becoming a bigger fraud by the hour. What? Freddie the German fan, for those who don't know, Freddie the German fan influencer. all the games yesterday were incredible. You had the late winter from Brazil and then Paraguay and Germany

and Netherlands, Morocco went to PKK after Morocco scored and like at the death. Great games. And we're going to hear the... Great drama. Great ratings. Yeah, everything's going good. It could not have gone better. Matt and Ross would do at 1035

on Sports Talk 790. 713-212-5-790 if you want to get in. How are the calls in the 10th? show last night? They're plentiful. Really? No, not really. But that's okay.

We talked a little ball. I mean, World Cup was on, and they were down 5-1 early in the game. There was the late comeback that didn't mean anything. By the way, I was just looking something up real quick, Matt, about Christian Polisic. The best player on Team USA, as they'll be in

action tomorrow against Bosnia. You may have called his father's games. His father played for the Harrisburg Heat in the 1990s. What is Harrisburg Heat? It was indoor soccer. No. Did the Houston Hot Shots ever play the Harrisburg Heat?

No, they were in what they called the Continental Indoor Soccer League. Okay. And they played, frankly, they played big markets. There was a team out of Las Vegas. You're talking about the hot shots? Hot shots. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Oh, and then never mind. The Harrisburg Heat were in the major indoor soccer league. Yeah. That was the first ever legitimate indoor soccer league. Okay. And then there were like, you know, spawns of it. Dang. Okay.

That would be cool. MISL back in the day, I'm talking about the 70th. This was right after I think Paley really became a national item. They would draw 10, 11,000 people in games. Really? People really did for a while enjoy indoor soccer. You know what it was is because people were saying, hey, I don't like the fact that these games are so low scoring. You put it inside an arena and you put an air conditioning and you put a shorter field together.

You're going to see nine, seven games and people will be able to get their, a lot of, lot of soccer in a short period of time. The problem that the MISL ran into was they couldn't get a national television deal. And the players that were coming over were like, you know, how do I put this? I mean, it'd be like guys playing arena football.

Nice kids, but we're never going to be considered prime football players. Like Christian Polistic's dad. Well, the shoe fits. He played at George Mason. Okay. So, Germany lost yesterday. Yes.

And I don't know. I was, I know it's on PKs, better than I don't know much about the contest itself. Freddie put out his, the social media, darling. You could say darling. He's a social media darling. He went from 11,000 followers to like 800,000. That's a darling. That's a darling. Said, our flight back home is on July 23rd, L-O-L, period.

We need a lot of good suggestions for what to do in the coming weeks. Jonathan, my Gen X friend. Z. Whatever, Z, X, Y, I don't know. What's going on? Do we have any idea how much this cat makes? Because he has been in the States a couple of weeks now, right? Yeah, he's been like two months over here.

Is he like the son of a German diplomat? How many Gen Zs can run across the world for five weeks without a game playing? I don't even think we can afford over a weekend, so. Can't even get a weekend in Galveston. So this cat comes to this country, the land of the home. Land of the free. Land of the free. And the land of the home, I guess.

Yeah. I guess. Land of a home. Land of the free, home of the brave, man. So Frederick, that's by my mind my mind my start naming him Frederick. Oh, okay. the United States for five weeks without a game plan, just going to get in a car and see where it takes him?

Did he think they were going to make the final? You know, even if they did, that's still a lot of money. But since Germany did not make the final, he could call, I'm going to assume, Ruvranza, or Rarachan, or Schmited, or Melta. Yeah, just not Buntier. or Spirit, may it rest in peace. Wasn't flying to Germany at the time, but there's four or five airlines.

Imagine flying all over to Germany on Spirit? You could fly Rurkish if you wanted to. Excuse me? Rorkech Airlines? Bless you. I need somebody to expose this dude. Because this thing smells bad. You know, that is a very good point because what does he do for work?

He could get on a plane tomorrow. He could just be a rich kid. We don't know how old he is. I mean, but if he's a rich kid, do you see where he's eating? Do you see where he's staying? Unless Gordon Rams is getting,

or JJ Watts getting into his stuff? Yeah, but two months adds up. You still be a rich kid and you got to kind of slum it in America for a couple months. I'm just telling you, Jonathan, something smells. You don't,

if your team loses, and he's already had the time of his life. Yes. Okay? It's time to go home. Right? So he's staying. He's like,

He's not leaving? He just said on Twitter yesterday. He's standing on July 23rd. July 23rd, which is still better than three weeks. That's Thursday. The final is the 19th of that Sunday. Can he just go back and then come back? Oh, I guess it's more money. Congresswoman Kat Kamik from the state of Florida. Oh, here we go.

He's grifting, John. He's grifting, John. My colleagues and I would be happy to host you guys and give you a tour of the nation's Capitol in the people's house. D.C. Plus, July 4th is going to be incredible. We'd love to have you and your friends come to the celebration as our guest. Grypting!

I'm calling it out right now. Something ain't right, and I need someone to expose this. You know what? Okay, I just, you know, maybe he didn't start off like this, but now it's I can't come to his defense, because you're not going to go home for another four weeks? Four weeks, and he's already been here, probably

three or four. I mean, like Ross says, I mean, Americans go backpack Europe for a year, I guess. We are a lovely group of people. Franny, whoever this franny person is, has had his arms opened up by several people, including J.J. Watt, including the city of Houston, NASA, Mayor John Whitmire. J.J. Watt. I mean, he's come here and done his bit. Mm-hmm. Or else, he took me mention NASA already. $750,000 followers from 11,000.

we go at Vegas oh I have some ideas maybe message us that's good good for him no it's not good for him

are these like people actually getting that much like profit from like inviting freight stuff do you think for them to be all doing it well it doesn't cost them a whole lot to give him a couple hotels and you get I mean

he's getting like millions of impressions on every little thing he does Guillem what he is is the senior marketing director for at McDonald's. Oh, wow. He says,

I'm trying to get out of this here. Here, his flight back on July 23rd tweet, Jonathan has 6.3 million impressions. Happy to give you a global tour of McDonald's headquarters if you stop by Chicago. Every tweet he's putting out is getting like 5, 6 million impressions. Do we

just sound like jealous media people? No. No, no, no. No, no. No. No. I mean, I don't care that. I didn't bring it up. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I would have never brought it up, but yes, Matt's jealous. Okay, am I jealous? Correct.

But because I'm jealous, I'm jealous. It doesn't mean that I can't call it off for what it is. That's fine. I don't care anymore. It is interesting, though. I'm like on the fence. Like, I don't care. How could you possibly on the fence?

Homeboy ain't leaving for four weeks? Seriously. He's doing a good job of grifting. You know what? Don't hate the player. Hate the game. I see. He's at.

At SMB attorney, how did you get so much time off? Yeah, what does he do for a living? How old is he? I'm sorry, this is part of our World Cup coverage, but I'm just saying, well, Germany's eliminated, Matt, so you've got to be happy. He's not going any more games. Unless his name is Greg Jones, and he's just bump around the country looking for free stuff. Somebody was saying, now, these are all, like, it's unverified social media accounts.

Like, they had him talking, and he had an American accent. Now, this is, again, unverified accounts. Here is the question, Jonathan. under the conspiracy theories. We already have Joe Minkson being shot by a bullet on his foot. What does this have to do with Freddie at the World Cup? Are we adding this to our list of sports conspiracies? And will I let the sleeping dog lie or is it going to bark?

Let me come back. I'm not the only one who thinks this. I just know I'm not. Something ain't right. Something ain't right. And if I have to be the social media insider, like I am with so many other things in this marketplace. You're so ridiculous with the Joe mixing thing.

When do I get paid? When we find out when he starts playing again. When he starts playing again? Yeah. Yeah. He literally, he needs to have a press conference and say, I did not shoot myself in the foot. That's the only thing you'll take?

That is correct. You're so ridiculous. Well, if he's in a walking boot, it's going to help me out a little bit. Why? Because it should be healed up by now. Can we talk about your favorite trading app? Yes, we can. And we could, nothing makes me happier than having several of my friends and coworkers in the industry text me during the break.

I had at least three texts. I should have counted four that said, Matt, I'm with you. Conspiracy. This something, something's fishy. Now, it could be something as simple as he's taking advantage of people's generosity. And people are generous. And that's great. But the no pictures, the I'm staying for four more weeks.

I have nowhere to go. Nothing planned out. Four more weeks. Four more weeks. Yeah. I mean, did a homeboy come here with like a couple hundred bucks and said, hey, I'll see what I can do and how much I can get away with? I don't know.

I mean, he's getting the Ferris Bueller treatment. And maybe that's a bad example. That's actually not terrible. Are you sure? I'm bad. I mean, he got the water tower, save Ferris. That was pretty cool. I mean, honestly, right?

Don't look at me. trying to get my earpiece in. Come on the wrong side. That's the reason why. Okay, now I'm better. Matt and Ross, let's come back to sports. Come on. People need more sports in this time.

All right. Asher was rotation. How are we feeling? No, we're going to do other things. We're certainly going to do that, but I mean, I'm just saying. We don't feel great about the rotation. It's just okay. Hey, how about this? Yesterday, you got Taylor Tremel went two for four with a home.

We're at Cam Smith, went two for four with two home runs. That's a better question. And then you lost because everybody at the top of the lineup did Nothing. Jose Al Tuve, 0 for 4. He's hitting, I'm sorry. Oh, don't do it. Oh, wait. I got Freddie people mad at me. You do your old table. I don't think he should be leading off. He's hitting 2.36.

Well, who's, okay, so if Pena's out for the foreseeable future, who's next? Who's your lead off guy? I don't know. Isok? Boy, you are. He gets on base. He does. But, boy, he's, I mean, not because he was ever fast to begin with, but I think the injuries over the last few years have slowed him down a little bit. I know.

I understand that. But he at least gets on base, and Jose Altuva doesn't get on base, and Jose Altuve is not as fast as he was 10 years ago. But if you would have a foot race, I think Al Tuve wins every single time. I'm sure he beats Eastside Paratus, but I don't know what else to do. I understand. I guess the question would be, is it okay to have a slow player in your lead-off position? I mean, that would be very atypical of a lineup.

It'd be atypical, but how many bases is Jeremy Pena stole this year? At the lead-off position. How many bases is Jose Al-Tuvae stole this? but the problem is is that he's not going to score he's not going to go first to third very much which you love to get that the base pass going

well you're not just needs somebody on base for yordon to hit it over the fence that is actually true that is actually true okay so uh jeremy pain has got eight stolen bases it's actually more than I thought in 2000 26 that's a pretty good decent number right Jose Ltuvae has one stolen base

so he's got one more than eastok parades okay so let's do this let's let's when uh when joe is with us today let's recommend somebody all right let's take a look at the lineup honestly Nick Allen I don't want him getting

no no no if you really wanted to do something if Taylor Tremel is getting enough hits to give you I mean he's done that before I believe Taylor Troll has let off

before at some point in his uniform I was going to say Taylor Tremel but the problem is Cam Smith is his OPS is less than 700. I need, and now two ways it down to $6.90. I kind of

need at least the 700 OPS guy's been a lead off guy. Gives me a better shot to gun. Yeah, you're short on options. Yeah. I mean, Tremel's got a much smaller sample size. His Ops is 791 now. Maybe Taylor Tremel is, maybe you think Taylor Tremel knocks on Joe a spot

his door and says, you know, I've done enough. I don't need to be rotating anymore. I don't need to be the fourth outfield. I need to be one of your top three. Well, Joe is a guy who likes to hot hands. So, I mean, it kind of doesn't matter. It's certainly we, and I'll put myself in this category too, just worry too much about it. Whoever's out there, they got a hit.

And Jose Al-Tuvae, if he's going to wake up at some point, honestly, though, I do believe it does matter because whoever is in front of Yordon and behind are probably your two most important spots next of Yorna. Yeah, but you don't have any, you don't have a lot of options. You're not putting Walker up there. Paredes is, I just like him because he gets on base. I know. I'm just throwing something out there.

I mean, it's not like he, he's Mr. Speedy. In today's edition of I'm the manager, I will recommend you Taylor Tramel. Do you have any serious arguments with that? I'm okay with that. Okay. I mean, El Tuvae there's fine because you just don't have any options, but Jeremy Payne out there right now. Well, here's the question.

This is a difficult one, and I think the answer still is going to be Al Tuve, but if you have, if somebody is getting a fifth at bat in a game, do you want it to be Jose Al Tuvei or Taylor Tramel. Do you want it to be Jose Al-Tube or Cam Smith? Well, if we're going off of current stats, it's Taylor Tramel and it's not close, unfortunately. If I said to you, now, don't say their names, if I said the guy with a 791 OPS, or the guy with, what is he, 686 or whatever? 690, you would say the other guy. But also Taylor-Tremel's shorter sample size, Jose Al-2, you're hoping his numbers will improve.

Last seven games for Taylor-Termal, the last seven games he's actually played, four for 15, 267. But he does have tremendous slug. He's got three home runs, including a couple of the weekend. Four ribbies. He's drawn two walks. Striked out three times. No stolen bases.

So 267 in his last seven games. You know what? I'm going to just tell me to shut my own self to shut my own bum ass up. Why? Why? He's going to wake up. He's going to hit better. We've got to believe, baby.

Well, yeah, history uses that. But, you know, again, Father Time is undefeated, right? Father Time is undefeated, but he's, better than a $690 guy. I would believe so. He's better than $2.30. I don't think he'll ever get it again, but I can see it. I mean, what is league average? You said $7.25?

Even lower than that maybe now? He's lower this year. Pitching has been great. Pitching has been fantastic. Overall, what is the, I wonder what the, what is the ERA of baseball this year? I can find all that if you just give me out. You have to give me some time.

How about we promote our Instagram accounts? Yeah, you know what? You know what? I'll just you find me. At sports RV. Sports RV. Oh, you can look at. Okay, I got average OPS. What is the average OPS?

718 this year. Okay, that's actually a little bit lower than last year, I think. And then what is the average ERA? I'd have to go to, I didn't have to go to... Sports RV for pictures of cutlets of meat. Sometimes, yeah. You never know. 713-212-5-790.

7-1-3-212-5-790. It's Matt, it's Ross. We're with you till 2 o'clock today. We've only got one hour in the book SportsRVee. That was quick first hour. We have... Is it gone already? Yeah.

We have gut feelings in one half hour from now. and Joe Espada and Hunter Brown. Yes. Average ERA 417. Is that lower than usual? It's about what it's been the last couple years. It's been... I would assume because of D.H.

It's a lot lower than it was 10 years ago. 10 years ago, it was 418. This year it's 417. So even with the pitcher's not hitting, huh? Mm-hmm. Okay. You know, you... Pitching has gotten better.

You know, I would say ERA of 4.17 is not terrible. Gives you enough offense. average whip at 1.3. So pitching isn't as good, maybe. These numbers are actually pretty consistent in the last 10, actually the last 20 years almost. You know what you could do? You can go have something to eat. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

1104, Sports Talk 790, Matt and Ross with you. A friend of the show, Chris Gordy, sent me a text and says, typically. No, I don't know if you, I don't, let me make sure I correct. Oh, Europeans, famously, he says, go on holiday for four to six weeks at a time. Yes. That might be true, but they don't run to another country four to six weeks at a time, I would think. I mean, that just takes a lot of money, unless you have a lot of money.

And then if you do, then it's, you got the time of the money. I think labor laws can be a little different. Do they do four-day weeks over there? I don't think everywhere. I don't know. I think they were saying they're going to do that in France. Is that happening now? countries.

It's funny, if we went to a four-day week, no country has adopted it. Yeah, we would not be able to do it because there's too much stuff going on in sports five days a week. We have a sports seven days a week, frankly. Oh, now Belgium is going for it, apparently. Yeah. Iceland's gorgeous. We go to Iceland. 86% of the workforce transition is shorter hours in Iceland without pay reductions.

Hmm. Interesting. the things you learn on the Matt Thomas show of Ross. We've given you the first hour, Freddie Spit, Donnie and Marie, the Jackson 5, the Astros pitching staff. By the way, if we said to Hunter Brown at 130, what's it like being the Michael Jackson, the Astros rotation? Let's not say that. It would be a very uncomfortable way to open up to visit the show. I'd rather not. It would fit, but it would be odd.

Yeah. I mean, Peter Lambert's been good. Eric Getty's been good for the balance of the season. He just had a bad couple of starts. He can round into four. But again, it's... It's Gladys Night and the Pips. There you go.

They're not another bad one there. We got the Pips as part of our rotation. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. Yes. Ray Charles and the Raylets? Yeah, it's true. Nobody's sleeping with him like Ray was. Ray was sleeping with a couple Raylets.

Ray did quite well for himself. Yeah, he did for a blind man as well. Yes. 7-1-3. See, 2. We believe in color interactions a huge part of the show.

Yeah, please call in. Or we're going to end up talking about Ray Charles sleeping with his bandmates. Yeah. See, that's the thing. If you don't call and ask us questions and bring up topics, we leave a lot of material to ourselves,

and it gets us in a lot of trouble. So Norway and Ivory Coast coming up at noon, Matt. So, Wexel and Clinton do a show without any phone calls. They seem to be on Target most of the time. Yeah, that's true. Eh, well, I don't know. I don't listen. Okay.

I'm sure they love that ringing endorsement from you. Well, I just don't listen to a whole lot of radio that's not this show. Only half listen on this show. I know. Back to what you were saying, please. Ivory Coast, Norway. That's supposed to be a pretty close game, Matt. You got France and Sweden.

That's supposed to be a blowout. France is supposed to destroy Sweden. I mean, France is the runaway favorites right now. They're trading at 30 percent on Cal. you right now. Okay, remember you use it. Code 790 for a 20 for 20. And the big one, of course, Mexico, Ecuador. The streets of Houston are going to be flooded

with watch parties. Everyone's going to be locked in on Mexico versus Ecuador. May I give you a comp or slash analogy? Uh-oh, here we go, Jonathan. To how I feel about the World Cup. Okay. So, these amazing games are being played. And I enjoy them for what

they are, but when they're done, they're done. Okay. I equate this to. Stay with me on this. Watching the first round of the NCAA tournament when Iowa State is playing Florida Gulf Coast

and it's a very interesting knock down drag out on the edge of your seat type game. Will I be totally invested in what I'm watching? Absolutely. But when the game is over with, I don't particularly care about any Iowa State player or I don't care about any particular Florida Gulf Coast player. I'm enjoying

it for what it is. Yeah, that's fine. We've been making that analogy. the last couple weeks. I just want to make sure I'm okay with that one. That's okay. All right. You don't have to get invested, but you can enjoy it. Yeah, I don't know who's all the top five players for Ivory Coast.

We don't know a couple plays on Norway. Of course, Erling Holland, Manchester City legend. And you're doing this off of your ties to the teams that you are a fan of and you follow. I think we'd kind of do that in the Olympics, too. Yeah. Two Manchester City players, well, one former one, Kevin DeBroner, the greatest Manchester City player of all time, is on Belgium. So if USA and Belgium play, I'm going to be, it's going to, I'm not going to be conflicted.

I was going to say, you almost pause for a second. I'm going to want them to do well. Obviously, USA number one, and Belgium always flops anyways. But Jeremy Dooku, I love, he's on Belgium as well. And yeah, that's how you know a lot of these top players are from, from they play in the Premier League or they play in Europe. I kind of saw that with all the Canadians that were playing for the Canadian basketball team during the Olympics. You know, she, Gildos Alexander. Of course.

Nikila Alexander Walker and Steve Nashway before that. It's the same thing. And yeah, that's every four years, same thing. By the way, somebody tweeted out yesterday, I want a World Cup of Fibah. They have one. But somebody else said the exact same thing. It must not resonate like this does. I mean, for the fact, it does not.

I don't know if they got to build it up or something. And I'm a decent basketball fan. I don't remember going, man, I can't wait for this World Cup in four more years to see this World Cup of Fiba. I just don't remember him. No. It's because the Olympics basketball has the history and the heritage. Yeah.

Okay. So I wasn't the only one thinking that there was, that there was not another tournament such as this. Because for instance, World Cup, soccer and Olympics does not resonate at all. Are you going to be watching, Matt? United States, Bosnia. The answer is frankly. Now you are working the Astros for me. I'm working Astros, so I'm going to be kind of flipping back and forth.

You've got Astros tonight. Oh, I thought you were going to the stadium. I'm going to see him on Wednesday I can still watch on my phone and computer There were people in the press box watching the World Cup I was just watching their laptops Really?

Mm-hmm Is McTaggart there yesterday? Is he still gone? I think he's still in Paris Because he was not there. What kind of life is he living? What do you mean? He travels the country going to,

he picks and chooses his series and then he gets to go to Paris for a week. Just half the season off? Half the year, I should say. I mean, he does a few stories here and there, but yeah he does but pretty good life it's fine he's not it's not a bad gig also our gig's not bad man we come here we talk sports for four hours and then we're off well some of well then i got two more hours with adam clinton and then i got pre-imposed tonight but it's fine yeah uh and i'm working

saturday yeah and sunday mm-hmm so uh i'll be out of town where you going austin just for uh rust and relaxation a funeral oh i'm sorry to hear about that thanks for bringing it up Appreciate it. So United States, Bosnia. You're going to be locked in. United States minus 265 in the betting odds right now. If you want to go Kalshi Wei, which is what you should do, they're trading at 84%. So the raceco centers are 84% chance.

84% to advance. That puts them in the quarterfinals. No, round of 16. Round of 16, yeah. So who would be their round of 16 opponent, you think? Belgium or Senegal. And they would be a disadvantage in that. Belgium is the slight favorite.

Yeah, Belgium's, I think, 10th in the world. I think Senegal is somewhere around the United States. The FIFA World Rank is around 16. I think Senegal's around there. So I think it would be a toss up either way. The way that United States is playing, I think they're outperforming their ranking. I think they're playing like a top 10 team. That's why I had my tell the truth.

I think they're going to the quarterfinal. I ain't scared of Belgium, although I'll play the over in that game. And I ain't scared to Senegal, especially with home field advantage. I was thinking about getting a World Cup expert on. but I'm working with one. Why don't even get somebody else? I am not an expert at all. No, at all.

But you speak, I mean, you need, unfortunately, you got to dump it down for a lot of us. Yeah. Oh, I wouldn't. I wouldn't call myself an expert. Well, I'm going to call you an expert. Okay, thank you. So yesterday, the Astros fall to the twins. And it's funny, we're watching MLB Network right now.

They're talking about the challenge system about whether it's too late or not too late or when you should be able to use it. Case in point yesterday, Christian Walker. and we'll discuss it coming back out of the break. Again, for those of you just joining us, Christian made, I think, three full pause on that, and we'll give you what those are. But the Astros did amount of comeback yesterday, which was kind of cool.

Not enough, though, and that has been one of the teams. Astros, frankly, the last two weeks have been one of the best teams after the seventh inning. A bunch of runs again yesterday to keep it close. 713-212-5-7-90. If you want to chime in and say hello, 7-13. When we have some basketball breaking news. How big?

Hmm. Rockets are really big. Okay. I'm not going to look at Twitter. Okay. Don't. Close your laptop. So the laptop is closed.

Yeah. We have NBA. Get off the only fans there too. I'm just kidding. Come on. On the work laptop? Do you think I'd be on my work laptop, Ross? I'm just kidding.

It's funny. You can't use debit cards on those things. I heard that from a friend. Okay. Break. 713-21-2-5-7-90. Breaking News and Christian. and Walker's three faux pos yesterday

in that ninth inning of that loss of the twins. It's all straight ahead here on 790. 19 on 790. Ross says there's some breaking news. All right, that's one. What do you think? Definitely two. Does Jonathan know what it is? No. I'd say at least three. One more.

All right, this better be good because I'm going to judge you on. Shams Sharania. Yes. LeBron James will continue his NBA career for the 27th season and has informed the Lakers that the franchise can move on without him because he will play elsewhere. According to Clutch Sports CEO Rich Paul.

So LeBron James is done with the Los Angeles Lakers and he is coming back next season. We just don't know where yet. That's a been a four. Four? All right, throw another one in there. Well, you know what? Throw another one on the grill.

It probably is a four when he signs where he goes. I would agree with that. Three is, I'm going to go, I'm going to lean with you on this one and say three is good on that one. Four is when he signs. Okay. So there you go. Eight seasons as a Laker. Yeah, four seasons as a heat.

Eight seasons as a Laker. 11 seasons in two stints as a Cleveland Cavalier. Pretty crazy. The most consecutive seasons anywhere in his career has been with the Lakers. as I've said before five million times he is so vain and it's not because

he's anything less than any other great players he probably thinks this song is about him he thinks the league is about him he would like to get the logo change from Jerry West to him but that's a different issue for a different time or did he say that no I'm presuming that he is not he is going to retire

and let everybody know before he retires he wants the farewell tour like so many other greats have gotten So this will, none of this will be the, I'm doing it in the middle of July, Fond Farewell. He will do it in plenty of notice. He will make some announcement whether it be in an All-Star game or a weekend or in midst of a playoff. He's like, this is it. So I knew he was coming back.

I really thought he was going to stay with the Los Angeles Lakers. So this one to me is a surprise. I think we both, that's a gut-feeling L. I think for both of us. That is a gut-feeling L for this. So it feels like to me, with the Draymond Green, opting out of his. his contract yesterday. They did re-sign Chris Tapp's Porzingis,

which meant they could not offer him. And again, I don't want to get in the weeds on this because it confused the hell out of me, but they could not offer LeBron the full level exception on that. Maybe there's a sign in trade that could happen with the Lakers. I don't know the finances of the sport, like I probably should. It's just confusing and the audience would be confused by it. But he's going to make less, I think he's going to make a lot of. money wherever he goes.

Or is he? He's so driven by money. Well, I don't think he's driven. I don't think he's going anywhere where he's going to make 40 or 50 million dollars. He's driven by money as he is by his personal and team success. And I think that's okay. You can be that guy for a variety of things.

I don't, I mean, I can't, I don't know that. I think I know that. I mean, he's taking discounts. But not major ones. In places he's been.

He's, been poor. He's never taken a veteran minimum or a five... What is his... No, nobody takes a veteran minimum. No, but I mean... For an all-time superstar to take a veteran minimum. Nobody's done that. I think for what he has... Like, Michael Jordan only came back in 98 because they paid him like $35 million.

Like, yeah. But I don't, but I think it's an unfair to characterize him as a guy that... Like, for instance, Tom Brady has taken significant less money. Tom Brady did, but that's a one-off. But that was also, Tom Brady was getting a... He was getting upfront bonuses and then it was lowering his cap number. So I don't know how much money Tom Brady actually left on the table. I'm going to look right now and see how LeBron's done.

Jalen Brunson left some money on the table, but that's also been like the exception more than the rule. I mean, since joining the Lakers, and God, it's been there a long time. 35 million to 37 to 39 to 41 to 44 to 47 to 47. to $48 to $52 million. That's not leaving a whole lot on the table. He could have made a little bit more, yeah. But I would not characterize him as a guy that is doing this for the best. He just looked it up.

He took a pay cut in his last Lakers contract. Well, Hoops Hype says otherwise. This says he took a pay cut on his two-year $100 million extension. He took a pay cut of $2.7 million. See? Okay. So you're wrong, man. No, no, no.

You are wrong. I'm very right. You are dead wrong. If loving he was wrong, I don't want to be right. He took a pay cut of $2.7 million. $2.7 million he left on the table, Matthew. You know what he did it for? Brony?

Probably, actually. That's probably exactly matches Brony's salary. You know what? He's the second-gradest player of all time. For as much as I think he's whack about some of his off-the-field off-the-court antics, I still enjoy calling his games. Do you know I have had a chance?

What are he off the court antics? He talks out of his ass sometimes about a variety of things, like all of us do. He's not immune to it. He's not immune to it. He sounds like a brawn hater. What does he say? No, no, I don't have anything in particular, but there's just what the China thing

was kind of inconsistent. Oh, what's about the oldest of? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't even really want to get into that. It doesn't, I don't choose, I can separate. He's cheesy. Like, I can separate when actors go nuts on plot. political stuff. I like if I like an actor, like an actor, I don't think about it.

So I separate that. I still enjoy calling LeBron James games. Now, it's been more fun for me watching you miss three-pointers and miss free throws. And it also irritates the hell. I mean, when he plays as well he did against the Lakers, the playoffs series, but he's still good for the sport no matter how many haters. And when you are on that pedestal of the all-time grades, second, you're going to have haters. So knowing what that is, I still enjoy. watching his games. I don't think he's done. I don't think he's even, I mean, he might be 60

percent of what he was, but 60 percent of LeBron James still plays very well in the NBA. He's not, I don't even, I would say maybe even third best player on a championship team. Probably not even second at this point. Part of year, 20 points a game,

seven, seven assists. Dang, okay, that's pretty good. 21.7 assist, six rebounds. that's a career year for some people. That's by far his worst season ever. And the reality is this, I do want him to go to Golden State.

I do want him to go to Golden State because I do want to see how that old-ass team's going to do. There's no way. I mean, he's done. He's going to ring chase. I think he does take a big discount somewhere in ring chase. I thought he wasn't. I was with you.

When I thought he was going to be the Lakers, because the Lakers can sign him of the most money. Now that he's not on the Lakers and there's no bird's right situation or anything like that. Can you force us? Trin, is that doing any good? I guess he could. But he's not going to make,

I don't think he's going to make close to $50 million. It's ring chasing time. Even if that's, that's, that's, excuse me, that's LeBron, Porzingas, who is no spring chicken anymore, and always hurt. Dremont Green, Steph Curry, Steph Curry. If it goes to the Celtics. That is the unction. Can the Celtics afford him?

Go back to the east. Yeah, I don't know. If he really wanted to go really, you know what? Put an exclamation point behind his career. He can go help out James and Donovan Mitchell in Cleveland. That could happen. But who's playing defense on that team? Who's playing defense on the Warriors?

And Jared Allen. You better get 15 blocks a game, buddy, because there's going to be some blowbyes. Let me ask you a serious question. LeBron James, blow by. James Hardin, blow by. Mitchell, blowby. Because to me, they're getting carved up

like a Thanksgiving turkey. Janice does not make the Miami Heat the number one contenders for the Eastie. They make them a better contender, but I don't think they're the number one. I don't think LeBron is the missing piece for anyone. Quite frankly, just because his defense is so poor. You'd have to go somewhere with there,

where maybe there is like an Evan Mobley and a Jared Allen. And both of those guys can short for your mistakes. He plays 60 games a year. That's what he's been doing lately. He could Roger Clemens this. No, the last, no, he's been. He hasn't, I haven't looked it up, but I don't think when's the last time he even played 70 games?

Let me look. Oh, geez, that's a lot of scrolling on his page because everything's 20 years. Jesus. And by the way, all these videos that pop up, I'm not looking at these videos. I'm not going to buy your advertisement. Sorry. He played 60 games last year. Yeah.

He played 70 the year. What? He played more than I thought. 70 the year before, 71 the year before. Then 55, 56, 45. Oh, I think LeBron could play three or four more years at 60 games a year. He's insane. because he has he made the most money in NBA history

or is that somebody has that Duran? That's Duran, isn't it? Maybe. It's got to be close to LeBron. I mean, I can't imagine LeBron. I mean, even if he's taking half of... You look at the top of the list, it's kind of a funny list. Like, I think

like James Hardin is up there. Oh. Oh, I'm getting a Google server here. Did you see he's going to sign a new deal with Cleveland Extension? Yeah, $581 million. LeBron James is one. Durant, Steph Curry. Yeah, this is the...

Because we brought this up recently, and it was kind of funny. Paul George's made fifth most money in NBA history. Jimmy Butler's 8th, Dame Lorde's 9th, Anthony Davis, 10th. Is there any thought of maybe LeBron being the first $750 million dollar player? It would take him five more years to get there, probably. His career earnings are 581, so no, I don't think so. And... Because if you're down with the Lakers, and you've got nothing left to build...

in your resume except maybe more championships. Wouldn't you want to go to the East where it's a little bit easier? I have something to say and it's going to be unpopular. Right now or you want to go to break? When we come back. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, if you already hated Ross, that's one thing. He said something, he's going to say something that's said is unpopular.

And I don't even know what it is. Yeah. Am I going to agree with it? No. Am I going to be mad at you? I don't think so. but I'm going to disagree with you. Yeah.

Okay. Believe it. So we'll come back with that and then we'll hold the gut feelings because I... I'm going to have to kind of apologize, but I believe what I believe. I'm actually a little nervous about this. That's why you listen to this radio show. What is Ross going to say that is nervous that's going to make some of us unhappy? We'll find out next.

713-212-5-7-90 plus gut feelings here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. We'll get to gut feelings here in just a minute. Now, Ross has given us a tease, and we've already got Philip and Richmond who wants to disagree with you. And we don't even know what... You know what? We're going to try this. We're going to try something here real quick. 713-212-5-790.

7-1-3. Shut up. 7-1-2-5-790 if you want to join us. Emails MT at Sports 790.com. I love this. Twitter at SportsMT at SportsCV. So, Philip, what do you disagree with on Ross's take here? Well, he hasn't made his take yet, right?

Well, then how could you possibly argue with it? Well, I know it's probably going to be something that's just absurd or wrong. Okay, well, then, Philip, that's what? That's what most of my takes. I mean, at least you've been listening to show for the last 16 years, Philip, and for that, we thank you. All right, here we go. Now, what is your topic that's going to make us disagree with you on? What is it on?

LeBron James is the greatest basketball player of all time. he's number one I'm sorry I mean that's that's not an absurd take from the get the playmaking ability the fact that at 19 years old

he's rookie in the year the scoring championship the longevity the dude is 41 years old he's averaging 21 7 and 6 that is a career year for like any 25 year old he's the greatest of all time

I'm sorry I know MJ fans are going to cry and get mad because he was a better winner he got six championships all that type of stuff but the longevity the ability the playmaking ability the guarding one through five in his prime and the fact that he is

he is a sought after free agent how sought after we'll see at the age of 42 it's insane he's the greatest basketball player of all time that was what you're coming with yes I think you I already knew that about you

I thought you were on no I was more like 50-50 but it's over. It's over for me. It's done. There's no doubt in my mind. I had a lot of doubts, but I'm not doubting now. How do we feel about this, Matt? 22-time All-Star. Here's what you could do, Jonathan. This is why you'll learn this, for those of you that are going to get into speech communications. Great debates can be argued either way. Jonathan, if you said to me, Matt and Ross, come back to the show tomorrow with an argument for each side, I could do it for 30 minutes on LeBron. I could do it for 30 minutes. I could do it for 30

on Michael, and I think Ross could do the exact same thing. So it's a great debate. I see both sides of it. He's got five top finishes in the defensive player of the year. Should have won it the year. Mark Gassal won it in like 2015 or whatever it was, 14 maybe. He should have been defensive player of the year. All I'm going to say is, I have a seeing eye test as my tiebreaker. And at their apex, at their greatest, Michael was greater than LeBron.

Michael is the greater score. LeBron James is the greater basketball player. I need a shot to win a championship. I'm taking Michael over LeBron. That's scoring the basketball. If I'm starting a set to win a championship, I'm going with LeBron James. But that's a basketball. It's a basketball play.

Right. He's scoring the basketball. If I need someone to start with the ball at the top of the key, I'm taking LeBron James because he's also, not only is he going to be able to make the clutch shot, which he has done over and over in his career, he's going to make the right play. And I can say that about Michael Jordan. He's not going to clear everyone out and say, I'm going to shoot over five people because I am the guy and I'm going to, he's going to be the better team player. He's going to make the right play for the team. So I would take LeBron. If we're saying the ball is leaving his hand, who do I want? I'll take Michael Jordan. But if I'm saying the ball is going to be in his hands to start the possession, I want LeBron James. But Michael also passed Tony Cooch

and passed Steve Kerr. He did. He did pass the Steve. Absolutely. He made great place. And also we're splitting hairs. Oh my God, we're splitting Chateau Brien. You love Chateau Brione. I love Chateau Brio. You're the only person in America eating Chateau Brioan. It's so delicious. So delicious.

And a beautiful filet. We just are. Yeah. So in my mind, if I close my eyes, Jonathan, at 1139 on a glorious day like today, hot day, Hamin, humid. I close my eyes and I go, I need one shot from one place. player, again, forgetting about scoring. I'm just saying, if I have so many similar, excellent things about the player, Michael Jordan's my guy.

If it's one shot, I'd go Steph Curry over LeBron James. If it's one shot, I might even go Kevin Durant over LeBron James. But who's the better basketball player? Who am I? If we're lining them up, this is the argument LeBron James made, and I agree with him. If we're lining up every single basketball player that ever played. And I'm a general manager and I'm starting my franchise around this one player. Actually, to me, it's two guys. It's LeBron James and then as probably Kareem. Kareem's great too.

Kareem's on the Mount Rushmore. LeBron James is 6 foot 8 and a half. He could, I saw him in his prime locking down Prime Paul Gassal switching on him. You can switch one through five. He could guard the... I saw him locking down Prime Paul Gasol and then erasing MVP, Derek Rousal. rose off the floor in a seven-game series.

Who is doing that? Both of those things. Jordan can do one of those. I don't think he's locking up Powell Gasol, seven-foot Powell Gasol in the paint. I'm seeing Michael Jordan with some Scotty, obviously. And the greatest coach of all time? Not much else, honestly, win championship after championship after championship.

Horace Grant's not a lot of... Dennis Robin's a Hall of Famer, and is a rebounder, but gave you nothing else but that. again you're bringing up a delightful conversation I'm bringing up what I The longevity It's You're also still seeing it

You're still seeing him right now I know Or if Michael Jordan was playing right now Maybe you would not You would not see it so one side You're right Well I'd be watching him shoot 30% from three Mm-hmm

That'll be watching him retire three times So I went to the finals three times You know whoa I'm tired Each time to retireo I'm retiring my plying He talked like that he's going to bury you in cement. I'm the greatest winner of all time, but I quit three times.

Okay. Well, if they made nine straight finals like LeBron. LeBron James made nine straight finals and he just kept playing. Well, one of them was because he got into gambling issues. That's something like that. Whatever you want to say. He's in the prize. Watch the last dance.

He said it himself, I was tired. That's what he had to say. What if LeBron James went to three straight finals and was like, man, I'm tired, guys. I retire. How bad would he get crushed? No, he had gambling issues. How bad would he have gotten crushed? He had gambling issues.

All right, so let's find out here before we go to break. Philip, we went to you and we didn't know if you were going to argue with him. Let's find out if you really are going to... I told you, people, it's going to be unpopular. Philip, what do you got? I got three words, first off. Space Jam 2. Now, Space Jam 1 is a lot...

Space Jam 1 is very superior to Space Jam 2. I watch all of space. One is a movie of a generation. First off, Absolutely. I believe I can fly. Space Jam 2, that's a heckle. You can just give it to LeBron.

Space Jam 2. Does anybody ever talk about Space Jam 2? Hey, do you ever hear anybody talking about Space Jam 2? Hey, did you go see Space Jam 2? Yeah, that's all I've ever heard. I mean, I'd give it like a 5 out of 10. Wow, that's about right. Second, second off, okay.

Six rings. Six rings is. Okay. Bill Russell, 11 rings. You got two hands with 11 rings. Yeah, Bill Russell's the greatest of all the time. He's got 11 rings. But.

No, we're not trying to put, we're not trying to put Bill Russell in conversation. This is, we're trying to just, we're trying to separate the T's two. Yeah. Now, now you're, now you're, you're eluding to another, very good basketball player. You know, don't get me wrong. But, you know, MJ, nobody's out there going in line enough of the new the new uh the new lebrons

you know michael jordan he's just the greatest have you ever seen so you went with shoes in a movie is your biggest part of your argument i got one more thing matt i got one more thing oh you ever seen a a a or i'm sorry am i talking to ross i don't know you are talking to ross i'm just sitting back listening no ross sorry but um Okay.

You ever seen a highlight of Michael Jordan just passing the ball off and not wanted to take that last shot? Yeah, Steve Kerr, like we mentioned, he pinched into Steve Kerr in the corner and John Paxson, right? That was calculated. It was calculated. He just said it didn't happen. It happened. He wasn't scared, though. Oh.

He wasn't scared. He's a big timer. No, he's scared. He's scared. He was afraid. He couldn't handle the moment. He said John Paxson. you take the shot because I'm afraid.

I'm kidding, obviously. Because he made the right team play. So yes, I have seen him pass it off. To John Paxson and Steve Kerr. He never had to announce that he was taking his talents to Chicago. No, he announced that he retired in the middle of his prime because he was... Phil. He was exhausted. What I don't want you is, I don't want you use this other fluff.

That's another thing about LeBron that bothers me. It was that whole decision thing. But that's something to do with about the performance of the player. Look, this is to me, and I'm sorry, is I'm much more level-headed about this, because they call me Mr. Level-Headed. Yes. It's 50.1 to 49.9.

It's so ridiculously close. And, you know, I can do that. And tomorrow I may, if LeBron wins too, if he goes back to Cleveland and wins two more titles, I may flip to 50.1, LeBron. But I've been sticking on this, and I've watched LeBron. I know. I'm amazed.

I never called a Michael Jordan game. I've called 25 miles. LeBron James, so I've seen it. It is awesome. it's 50.1 to Michael Jordan for me. And I might be losing my number. I might be losing the group of people. No, I think if we pulled 100 sports fans,

the most popular answer is going to be Michael Jordan. That's crazy because Michael's been gone a long time. We've got to get to a break. All right, sometimes good radio shows have to pivot, and then our show pivots do. So we're going to do... Yeah, I see what you did there, boss. We're going to do...

Gut feelings are going to push that to 1 o'clock today. Because that's our only kind of a prediction segment's kind of fun. But we've got some interesting people coming in. How's your Twitter? You don't okay on that? People are upset, some of them. It's okay. It's a good debate.

Ivan says you're going to hurt a lot of people. Am I trying to hurt anybody? It's just Tom and downtown. Robert already has seven rings. Of course, has the, not as the number one. I mean, Michael Jordan has six rings as the 1A. And LeBron only has four rings as the 1A, for sure. Yep.

Tom and downtown apparently looked up another time Michael Jordan passed to a wide open Luke Longley in game four of the 1995 Eastern Conference finals. So I mean yeah, we have examples of Michael Jordan passing the ball. I have a crazy idea. Please. Or a crazy thought.

It's good to pass the ball. It's good to make the right play. It's good to make the right decision. It's good to make the right basketball play. Oh, I love the great assist because it puts you having the court vision to find the pass and the trust in the person that you're passing into to make the shot.

Magic Johnson. Absolutely. Made a living out doing that. All right. Let's get the rest of folks involved. So gut feelings will push to 2.1 o'clock. Before that, Joe Espada. After that, Hunter Brown.

We've got the news and noon coming up in a few minutes as well. J.B. in the Heights. 1153. J.B., good morning. Hey, guys. I listen to Ross's argument about LeBron's longevity, and it kind of makes me smile. Because if you want to talk longevity, then LeBron and Kareem are better. They're the leading point scores.

They've got all kind of accolade. They have long, long careers. But in those long careers, they've got fewer championships. So in Jordan's- Kareem has six. What's that? Kareem won six. I thought

Kreme only had five. He got six. He also has six MVP's, which is more than Michael Jordan. Does Kareem have, did Kareem, I know six championships, was he the, was he the finals MVP every time? No, I think he might have, I don't know that number. I think it's like three, maybe, J.B. Because worthy one, one of those, Magic one or two of those. Right.

Here's my point. a longer career is admirable. But if it doesn't translate to more championships, then that doesn't sound like an accolade. That sounds like you had more opportunity, and it didn't happen. Jordan, by the way, I'm a Hakeem guy. I'm not a Jordan guy, I'm a Hakeem guy. But Jordan, when the chips were down, you know,

to go to six finals and win the NBA finals every freaking time he went, and to be the finals MVP every time, That's the reason people think he's the greatest. Not because he's a scoring champion. Not because he was an MVP. It's the fact that he went six finals, one of them all, MVP of all six. You know, how many finals, MBPs did Bill Russell get? I don't think they had the award back then.

So, J.B, you're Hakeem guy. Like, for example, you're a Hakeem over Shat guy? As a player, yes. He doesn't have as many championships. Or as many NBA finals, right? Or finals MVP's. Okay, but here's a thing. Akeem played in Houston,

and Shaq played with Kobe and Dwayne Wade. And I wonder what Shaq, I wonder what Akeem could have done with Kobe and Dwayne Wade. And see, that's the argument, J.B., thank you for. It's about what you're surrounded with. There's nuance to the argument. Yeah, I will say this. If I'm going to put a feather in the cap of Michael over something,

again, it's not, it's about who's around you. It's about who you played. It's a team game. But I will say, He's never left the floor in an NBA finals while of championship. I think that counts for something. I don't know what that means.

In the big picture, it could be an anecdotal thing. It could be a huge part. Again, everybody has their own rules, Rossi, about what defines the greatest of all time. I would just say feather in the cap to a man who's never stepped on an NBA floor and didn't leave without a trophy.

I think that's also a bogus argument overall. So Victor Wimbunyama this year, if they'd have lost game seven to the Oklahoma City Thunder and not made the finals. I'm not saying it's a detriment. I'm saying that it's a kudos. History remembers that better

than he didn't lose the finals at all. He's 0 and 1 in the finals right now. If he didn't play well in that seven-game series against the 60-plus win thunder and help carry them to the NBA finals and they would have lost, history remembers him better somehow if they'd have lost that series

instead of losing to the New York Knicks. And I think that's bogus. LeBron James at age 22, Michael Jordan didn't make a final seal. He's 29. At age 22, LeBron James dragged Junis Olgousis and Eric Snow and Ina Jones and Ira Neubel to the NBA finals. And history remembers a lot of people want to remember him as worse of a player because he lost the finals to an all-time great San Antonio team that he dragged to the, he dragged the cabs to the finals and had no business being there. But see, I'm not... No business being there. I'm not punishing LeBron for not winning every championship. I'm just giving accolades to Michael for winning them all.

I think there's a difference. Well, he couldn't make the finals. So what? He didn't try until he made the finals? The only time I would ever downgrade a great is how they would do in said series. Like, for instance, we talk about in baseball, to flip this over the baseball side. Jeff Bagwell, to me, is not the greatest of all time because of you, if you, if you, if you, you were to compare Jose Al-Tube

post-season to Jeff Bagwell's postseason. I know they're two different sports. Jose-L-Tube is five times a player that Jeff Bagwell was a post-season player. That's a tipping point to me. LeBron is a great post-season player. That's right. That's why I don't crush him for not winning every one of them.

I'm just saying, Michael, that is saying something that you didn't take always the best team, but you were the best player on the floor and your best playerism, you who you were, were able to win, get on the floor, times for a championship and you never lost. I guess. I get it, but

the finals they should have won for sure is the Madd's final. LeBron was bad. He was terrible in those finals, especially the last couple of games. And the Mavericks have talked about it. Like their whole game plan was to take LeBron James out of the game and he allowed them to do that. They lost because Nosa Thomas predicted the Mavericks to win a long time ago. Let's go with that. But also, he lost the finals to the all-time great Warriors team where they got swept. He lost another final to an all-time great Warriors team

with both Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving Hurt, where he was going 40 points per game. And it's like, oh, see, he's, look at his final records. Well, yeah, look at the finals. The Mavs one was for sure a black eye on his entire career and legacy. I can withstand that argument. And my argument,

why I put LeBron super, super close to Michael, it's because he's gone to so many finals appearances. You know how that is? Yeah, they went to, he went to 10-files. he was the best out of a 15-team league dumped more than 10 times. That's why to me, if I am putting somebody who is going to lift above,

if I put Michael Jordan on that 2003 Cavaliers team, they're not making the finals. But a 22-year-old LeBron James is, he uplifts the entire team better with the playmaking, with the guarding one through five, and with the scoring. I,

short of him not winning probably another championship or two, I don't think you're going to get the 49.9 to come over. That's okay. And I don't think you need to worry about it. I ain't worried about it because I'm right. You ever notice about Jonathan is that Ross still he's willing to accept other opinions? Yeah, I am as long as he's right.

I think I'm right. You think you're right. But I'm not calling you crazy. If you want to tell me, I don't know, Robert Orie's the greatest of all time because he's got seven rings. I'm going to call you crazy. Well, Matt doesn't think Tiger Woods is at all the all time either. Yeah, that's also a, oh no,

Jack Nicholas is the greatest of all time. I'm not going to say you're insane. This is, you know. Hmm. Couldn't we have it all? Couldn't we have it all? We almost did. Did we almost have it all yesterday at Diken Park?

We'll explain next at noon on 790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. The Houston Astros rally for three runs in the ninth inning. But end up falling tonight in game one of their series against the Minnesota Twins by a final score of five to four. The Dike and Park among 20,000 of your closest friends, sports, Harvey. We almost had it until we didn't. Until Christian Walker decided to stare down the third base line or the first base line

where his dugout was and the umpire said you can't challenge. He checked his watch, tied his shoe and then he tapped his head. Called his wife, asked how the baby was doing. Yes. Got a popped heart in them toaster and lost the opportunity to challenge. He did the wave. Oh, by the way. Kids were getting the wave started last night.

The wave was at a hockey, was that a soccer game over the weekend and somebody lost her phone? Oh, I saw that. You were happy. Oh, I was pleased. A dumb bitch got what she deserved. What? Am I wrong? I'm not wrong.

Yes, you were wrong. No, I'm not wrong. You were very wrong. You do the wave. You lose your phone. What doesn't make her a dumb bitch? Doesn't make it a smart one. Jeez, there's thousands and thousands of people doing the wave.

Every single one of them is dumb. Put the phone in your ass cheek and let's go. If you want to the way of that damn bad. Put the phone in your ass cheek. Yeah, you put it in your back pocket. Left or right. It's up to you. Let's get to the do.

What is wrong with this human being? By the way, speaking of what's wrong in America, it's 12.19 on sports talk seminar. During the break, I went to go heat up my spaghetti. You should save this for tomorrow, but yeah, use it today too. No, I'm going to do it tomorrow too. Good. Good, because it's bad.

It's egregious. There is a nasty ass fist. smell in our kitchen. You do not under any circumstance to two things. One, the wave, and number two, you do not cook fish in an office microwave. It smells like they put

like two-day-old crawfish in there. Somebody put a bag of crawfish in there, I swear. It's nasty. So, you know what? And it probably got on your spaghetti. And God lover, Missy, the Ultimate Spurs fan, was walking around the offices of I heart trying to figure out who it was. Oh, she was trying to snuff him out?

I love that. She was trying to snitch. Call him out. baby. Let's go. You do not reheat shrimp or fish or crawfish. So now instead of having shellfish. Spaghetti with meat sauce, I got spaghetti with meat sauce and crawfish flavor. Yeah, it's nasty. Oh, all right, news at new time.

Yeah, now the US have are the news. That dude here are all sports ducks. Seven-nighty. You had the Astros yesterday. Falling to the Minnesota Twins 5 to 4, they almost came back. He had a two-run shot from Taylor Tremelt after the Christian Walker

snafu. Then he had a solo shot from Cam Smith, Maddie. He could be waking up. That'd be nice. A couple of home runs for him yesterday. Two for four. You'd need something because the rest of the start, at least the top of the lineup. Altuve, Alvarez, Paredes, Warker, all Ofer. A combined Ofer 14 with two walks and three strikeouts at the top of the lineup. You scored four runs, but got nothing from the top of the lineup. You lost 5 to 4. Peter Lambo, well, they put him in the garage because he gave up four earned runs

with three walks and three home runs given up. ERA creeping up a little bit to 351. Average, what did we say, 417-ish? Electively round baseball, yes. Yes. So still better than average. But also, Eragetti's ERA at 4, the Lambo Getty is sputtering the last couple times out.

Lambo Getty and the Aragetty Burroughs Getty Mike Burroughs, you know what? We need to lock it in and gut feelings. What time's the feeling? 49 minutes from now. 1 o'clock, I need your Mike Burroughs

pitching line tonight. Okay. Now remember, who is bullish on Mike Burroughs? This guy. This guy right here. And by the way, do you know who the Astros are facing? Joe Ryan. Oh, Astro Killer Joe Ryan.

Last time out. against the Astros on May 20th, six innings of one run ball with nine strikeouts. Different ballpark. Got the win. It's indoors. Hopefully, the Astros can turn things around with Mike Burroughs facing off against Joe Ryan.

And then tomorrow the series will finish up with Tatsui Emai, taking on Taj Bradley. Also, Matt, also we have Joe Spada in 18 minutes, by the way. Yeah, Joe Spada coming up at 1230. Also talk about this news item I'm bringing up, Jeremy Pena to the IL. He was taken off the lineup yesterday as he had leg discomfort.

Turns out it is a calf strain, a mild calf strain, the words of Joe Espada. He expects a minimum IEL stint. Not great news. Next man up, the Astros have been doing it all year long. But Jeremy Payne going to miss some time as he has hit the injured list. Not ideal. And NBA news. Yeah, we got some NBA news.

but of course, Matt, we got to talk about the World Cup going on right now. Coulton de Vois, also known as the Ivory Coast, taking on Norway. They are in the 12th hitting the 13th minute. It is nil-nil in that match-up. You had three great games yesterday. Oh, Dirknavinsky's there? Well, because Germany's out. He's got to root for somebody.

And he's sitting next to Freddie, ironically enough. He is not sitting next to Freddie. Is this a game in Dallas or something? Is this game at Dallas Stadium? I can't. Yeah, so it is in Dallas Stadium. There you go. So the game's in Dallas Stadium.

Dirk Novitsky's hanging out watching Norway because he's not going to be watching Germany anymore. They were eliminated yesterday. Germany and Japan go down. World War II jokes abound yesterday on social media. Brazil with the 95th minute winner in a thriller against Japan. Paraguay and Germany went to PKK after that game was tied after extra time. and then Morocco with a 91st minute equalizer to send their game to extra time and then PKs where Morocco beat the Netherlands in extra time. So those countries all moving on.

Today you have Norway versus Iroo Coast. They are in action right now. France is supposed to beat down Sweden coming up at 4 o'clock. And then the big 50-50 toss-up. Mexico versus Ecuador. Mexico actually slight favorites in that one. but that is the game tonight at 8 p.m. As those are the World Cup matchups, Matt,

as teams are looking on to move on to the round of 16. Of course, you have the United States taking on Bosnia and Erto Govina. 7 o'clock on Wednesday. That's your World Cup update. And as you mentioned, some NBA news. LeBron James is not going to play with the Los Angeles Lakers. He has informed the team, according to CEO of Clutch Sports, Rich Paul. He told Shams Sharani and today

LeBron James will not be a Los Angeles Laker ending his run. The longest stint he has had anywhere in his career continuously. Eight years in Los Angeles with the Lakers, an era is over in the NBA. Three teams that are being talked about most for a landing spot, Golden State, Cleveland

and Miami. Two he's played for. One, he has not. But he'd be getting the old band back together. I guess the Olympic band back together with Dream on Green, Steph Curry, and well, Christop's Porzengos is like Latvian, so I don't think that counts. All right, really quick trivia, I'm going to break here. You average 10.5 points a game and 5.5 rebounds last season.

What does that get you financially, you think? 15 million. Not bad. Jack Landell is signing with the Hawks again. One year deal, $14 million. $14 million. Ooh. Jacques Landale. He was splashing some threes, too, Matt. Good dude, by the way.

Yeah. As we said, Giac was connecting from distance. Yes, he was. Didn't do it so much as a rocket, but did it as a hawk. And that is your news at noon. All right. Thank you, Matt. Joe Spotted, in 15 minutes, do not go anywhere.

Okay. Don't argue with us? No, you can argue with us. I want you to do. I love arguments. I'd rather not. That's fine. You can't play nice all the time.

Okay. 713-212-5-7-9. If you want to chime in, we were talking about, you know, Does Ivory Coast 424 formation play a factor in today's? No, we're not doing that. 713-212-5-790. There are so many wannabe reporters out there. And again, if you've got to get the hustle, that's good.

But in basketball, like in all the supports, you have the go-toes. When Shams put something out, it's pretty much gospel. Mark Stein's pretty good about it. Tim McMahon is good. who's the bigger guy? Brian Winhorse. Yeah, he's good too. But there are so many others

that are just trying to get into the hustle game. Okay. Well, there's one report on something called Dallas Hoops Journal. He's got a fair number of Twitter followers. It says that Marcus Marte's going to sign a three-year deal with the Rockets for about $21 million. Okay. That feels about right.

He turned down a player option of 5.6. So he's going to get a bump in salary. That's what he's obviously looking for. and I think that's been widely discussed that Marcus Mark may be indeed getting his way to Houston. So just throw that out there. Freed and she starts, I think, at 5 or 6 o'clock our time tonight. So tomorrow show could be a lot of this.

Could be a lot of not only movement with LeBron, but also what the Rockets may be doing. It could have stuff breaking this afternoon. On the A-Team with Adam Clinton, I'll be with him from 4 to 6. Well, you're going to get a little break. Yeah, I'm going to take a little lunch break, rest, relax, stretch out.

So you're doing six hours of radio today. Yes. And the on deck show. Yes. And the 10th inning show. Yes. It's Ross Talk 790. Today here on 790.

Man, that'd be a great raining day, but the Hapry is still in there. Hey. Hey, that was unnecessary. CJ, good afternoon. How you doing, Matt? Good. What's up?

I'm going to really try to keep my composure. Uh-oh. What's the matter? Now, we had the conversation about Jaylin last week, and I told you pitch me off because they weren't interested in him, but I have got some more information, and I see that it could be because Boston is asking for too much, which I can obviously see.

And I think we had a conversation. If somebody mentioned Amen Thompson, and I'm pretty sure they're probably asking for him to in any deal, so I can get why that might be out of question. Cool, I'm on it. But can you tell me, Matt, what was the main problem with this team last year, if you don't mind? The main problem is they had too many sprats.

of ineffective offensive running. They couldn't get... Point card. They're missing a point card. Yeah, knock down shots. Yeah, knock down shots. Yeah, to me, I mean, you're missing a true knockdown Luke Kinnard-esque type shooter on this basketball team.

That was a random pull. Correct. Right. Yeah, that was crazy. Yeah, I'm not going to lie. That was kind of crazy. Luke Kinnar was wild after what he did to us. But, yeah, anyways, I digress.

But we know this. So for me, as a podcast fan, to hear that the first, thing that we actually get news about a player that we're going to possibly sign is a guy that can't shoot that's literally one of the worst shooters in the league what are we doing i don't know if rachel stone is trying to lose his job or if you know you know better than that hey i don't know because right now you you the first thing you guys are your first priority is signing one of the worst shooters you can find to this team well the reality is this ocj i mean think about this you're paying $7 million.

This is such a ridiculous statement I'm about to make. That ain't a lot of money in the NBA world. You know that, right, CJ? I mean, so if you're going to improve the point guard position and have a backup at $7 million a year, that's not horrible money. It's just not. But you don't have a lot of money. You mean, if you're going to save money for a man and you're going to, you're going to pay James, what you're paying James. Not James.

Durant. You're paying Alper and Shingu, which you're paying. You're kind of limited by the amount of flexibility you can. do unless you make a major trade and it takes two to tango on these trades it just does so so okay so with all this being said is it is it not fair to say wouldn't you try to go get a guy like james hardon oh wait for what if that's what if that's what for pay him five or so whoa whoa whoa whoa to pay him five or six times that amount for a guy who's going to have a terrible postseason i'm good I like teams.

No, no, no, no. Is that guy going to elevate your team? Can he elevate this team? Marcus Mark can elevate your team from a defensive standpoint. Absolutely can. No, he cannot. Don't we have defensive players? I think we have enough defensive players.

Who's a better defender? Marcus Smart or Reed Shepherd? That's the only guy he defends better than. Thank you. Who else is he better than? What other players is he defending? Well, I mean, is Marcus Mark? Mark is still a great defender?

Yeah, you're selling him, you're putting him out to the pack. I got a role in this. I got Joe Espada coming up. Good conversation. It's a fair debate. It is. You are, if you, in your mind, you said, I've got to go, the rockets have got to go get a perimeter guy.

You're not going to be satisfied with Marcus Mark. You'd watch shooting. Marcus Smart fits better when there is a Luke Kinnard and Austin Reeves and other shooters and Ruby Hachamura, who's a 40% shooter around him. You don't have that here. So I'm not going to call the fit curious. It's a perfect fit for

Udoca culture. We're going to bully people around. We're going to be smart. We're going to play smart basketball. We're going to be physical. That's EMA Adoka. That's Mark is smart. And to CJ, to your point, I'll give you some props on this. I can't imagine this is the only thing the Asterer, the Rockets do this off season.

It would feel kind of like, all right, you're solidifying one thing, but still causing problems on two other ends of the floor. But again, if you are hampered by the amount of money that is in your salary cap situation, and these perimeter 43 percent three point guys, Ross, last time I'm going to take, don't grow on trees. They just don't. So you just got to, it's a running back with smart, and maybe if you sign Tar Heason

or you sign and trade Tar Heson, if you move Dorian Finney Smith, if you, I don't know. I mean, again, they're not giving me information. I kind of don't want it. I kind of like to be in the mystery on this as well. Joe Espada joins us next here on Sports Talk 790. We will be joined shortly by the manager

of your Houston Astros. His name is Joe Espada. He'll be joining us. Oh, there. He's calling right now. Very good. 713-212-5-7-9. If you want to get in, we'll talk about anything you want to, whether it be about free agency,

which begins in the NBA tonight. Astros' performance against Twins, and we'll look forward to in the next couple days. But right now, let's give the man who will be a part of those next couple of days. And it is the manager of your Houston Astros, Joe Espada, with Matt and Ross. Skip, good afternoon to you. Boy, your squad in the last couple of weeks during these win. winning ways have put together some pretty incredible offensive performances ending seven through nine, including last night, obviously coming up a little bit short.

What do you attribute that to? Yes, they are. They're swinging the bat is a lot better. Actually, getting good pitches to hit. Their swing decisions has been great. They've been driving the ball, big homers, but also there's some walking there that I'm really pleased with. Getting production from some of those guys in the bottom of our order has been awesome to watch.

and we need to keep that going. We need our offense all the love to spread down the one through nine. And again, the late innings have been part of the big run through. A other Detroit series had so many good elements to it because you were getting home runs, you were getting late game work. And I will say this, is your outfield starting to settle in a little bit in terms of maybe not so much consistency, but at least maybe some guys like Tramel, maybe taking the lead in order to maybe say,

hey, I'm worthy of some more playing time. Yeah, and that's the whole idea of, you know, getting these guys in games against certain matchups that we know that they can have some success

and hopefully they could take that, that step forward. And their bats have been great. You know, even yesterday, down 5-1, Matthews for them just looked like he was dealing. He threw the ball extremely well, but our guys, they never gave up. We were, you know, one base runner away from bringing the winning run to the plate.

And that's exactly what we need from our offense, from our team, and the fight. And, you know, that level of intensity and urgency has been fun of watch for the last month. I'm curious about a question, not in particularly one game skip, but I'm always curious your thoughts about when you make lineup changes in the middle of the game when you move a guy from the left side, the right side of the plate. Is that discussed even before the game if a certain reliever comes in, I'm going to flip the guy and make a pinch hitting change? Or is that a little bit of feel?

And is it a little bit of sometimes if a guy has a three-hit day, but he only hits certain left-handers or well and other left-handers not, do you sometimes want to change your mind during that? What's a philosophy around the switching guys around latent games and pinch hitting roles? No, those are talked. We talk about those prior to the series with the players and coaches too. They are not necessarily righty, lefty, but also the score of the game. We are ahead.

We're down. Do I want to keep my best defense on the game? Um, you know, do if, if they bring a lefty in the sixth inning and that's their only lefty, um, do I want to use my pinch it righty in the six when I know I might, I might, I might run into, uh, the high leverage relievers in the eight and nine, which are right hand or pitcher. So do I want to make the move and use my right hand or bullet then or do I want to wait for it later? Um, and there's all those elements that go into the decisions. Um, um, So it's not necessarily, you know, automatic. Here comes to lefty. Here comes to right. You know, there's a lot of things that goes into it, too. You know, there's some lefties that, you know, do a good job getting righties out.

Or there's a change-up that not necessarily my right-hander hitter can handle. So there's a lot of elements that go into it. And, you know, it's discussed prior to the game and it's discussed with the players. They know exactly when they need to go in and get ready for. And our hitting coaches do a really good job on anticipating some of those moves. So we have all those guys ready to go. And more decisions and mixing and matching when an everyday player goes down. Jeremy Pena with the CAF issue as he hits the aisle.

Can you just tell us how that came about and your conversations with him? And I know you said last night you're hoping it's a minimum stint. Yeah, and I feel like it's going to be the minimum. I think that, you know, it's mild. I think if we would have waited three or four days, potentially, we could have gotten on the field. But, but we can't risk this. You know, it's we, we have an offday Thursday. We have another off, another off day the next Thursday.

So we do have a little bit of a time here to get it right and not have this linger and become any worse. we'll have him running here over the weekend, springing and see how he feels next week, maybe see if he needs an bat or two with our AAA team just to see how it feels and we could test the cap. But I think we are in a good place. You know, when it comes to his injury, I don't think it's severe.

You know, he mentioned it to us yesterday that he was just sore like the right leg in general was sore. So we went and saw the doctor and we saw that there was kind of that calf area. So we should be able to take care of it. And he should be back here pretty soon. Astros manager Joe Espato with us here on a sports talk 790. Well, on the pitching side, you're planning to get healthier.

What is that like trying to figure out? I mean, it feels like every time somebody goes out there, it's a big start to try to stay in the rotation, whether it be tongue who got sit down, you got burrows tonight, Javier, McCullors, Blanco, all on the cusp. What are those conversations like? and you personally try to weigh the performances versus the best fit and guys with options and all that kind of stuff.

All those things play a role. And I love competition. I think when you know that someone has come in, it creates a level of competition and intensity that you want your players to have, right? like they they embrace those they know that some some movement I'd be coming I need to perform I need to continue to pitch well and make it tough on us you know you could never have enough pitching because of all the decisions that we'll make here in the next in the upcoming weeks

but we need all the pitching that we can that we can that we can that we can that we can have just to keep everyone healthy just to continue to win games just to continue to make a push we need all these all these guys ready to go and you know, once the All-Star break comes and we get, go in the second half, you know, I could see us, you know, making some moves where some of those guys might have to go in the pan. We got, you know, some tough decisions are going to, we're going to have to make some really tough decisions. I think it's very tough, skip, because here's the thing. You're going to have a bunch of off days. So in theory, you don't need a six-man rotation because you normally, you knew that when you're playing 13 or 14 in a row.

but you're also about to enter after the All-Star break the quote-unquote dog days of the season where guys may be hitting inning threshold and maybe that's the reason why tongue got sent down. So you're having to balance that plus you're going to be sending somebody, I don't know who it's going to be, but somebody that's been a part of your rotation to the bullpen at some point. Plus your bullpen's been used a lot. Man, tough is an understatement, I think, Joe. Honestly, I don't know where.

People are asking us what to do and I have no idea what you're going to do. No, they're tough decisions and you start those conversations. You start making those plans right now. You start playing, you know, putting on paper, you know, different scenarios or what might look like. Things change daily, you know, because you just don't know, right, injuries can happen. So you always have a plan A, there's a plan B. And you start having some discussions, you know, with this. staff and and you know there's some of these guys have um there's there's any thresholds to some of them

um so a blow can help um july and august um but they're they're very difficult decisions that we have to make but we you know we think about our team and the health of our players that's for most of the most important thing uh a thought about mike burroughs came back for you and really did a really nice job against toronto and gave up the home on early and people like oh here we go again but is there anything we can get away from the short stint down on the bullpen or, you know, or you just come to him and pull him aside and say, hey, we think you're a starting pitcher. We brought you here your starting pitcher. Let's see what you got for us right now.

No, yeah, and, you know, we got him here to be a starting pitcher. And we lost his arsenal and, you know, how he goes about things and how he competes. We all love that, but I think he needed a little big. So that was that short stint to the pen, just put one inning, getting ready for Toronto. He threw the ball extremely well in Toronto. He's got another start today. You know, take this game today, so we have an opportunity to win another series tomorrow. But we, you know, we monitoring this guy's volume and the pitch quality and how they're bouncing back.

You know, all of these guys, they haven't thrown these many innings, these many starts in their career. are keeping a really close eye on how they, their performance, but also how they come in the next day and how they feel and how they're able to bounce back. Because like you mentioned, we're not going to need a six-man rotation until I think we've got an all-a-long stretch of games in August. But right now, you know, we should be good with five-man rotation. We'll get you out on this. You mentioned Jeremy Payne to the IL. Have you guys, A, made a roster spot, and B, how do you envision the next week and a half, two weeks, if it's that long? And who will be your shortstop for the foreseeable future?

Yeah, so we, yeah, we did make a move. And, you know, right now, I do have Nick Allen. We have, I'm not going to announce who we bring him up, but we do have the guys that can hold that position for the next week. I'm really, really feel, you know, strong about, you know, Jeremy spending the minimal stint on the IL. So, you know, for now, we'll have, you know, for me, it's always the defense first. And if our offense continues to swing the bats really well, I feel really good about, you know, who's going to defend that position for now. But we will be, we'll be in a good spot for the next 10-day-ail while we will.

where for Jeremy. And lastly, you've used Altuve as a five-hole hitter, I think at times in the last few weeks since Jeremy's been back. Now you use him as a lead-off. What do you say, is Jose your lead-off guy for a while, or is that still kind of up for grabs? You want to maybe try a couple of

different combinations? Yeah, you know, I'm going to try this for the next couple of days and hopefully you know, hitting in front of Yordan. He's got some, you know, pitches early in the zone and Jose, he's able to put some good swings on them and get him going here a little bit.

So I think this could be a good opportunity to get Altova hot once again. So the plan is for that to be like that for the next day or two. And then, and there we go from there. Very good. Skip, thanks for the time. We'll see you tomorrow night at the ballpark. Good luck against the Twins this evening.

We appreciate the visit as always. All right, fellas. Thank you. Joe Espato with us here on Sports Talk 790 with Matt and Ross. We appreciate that. You want to chew anything that he had to say. You're more than welcome to do so. It's 713-212-2-790.

1 3212-5-790. We did not do gut feelings at 1130 today because we got into Ross's completely irrational argument about Michael Jordan versus LeBron James. Oh, no. Did I go to summer trope on you? I didn't mean to do that. It just was organic.

I got news for you. It's summertime. You can trope all you want. Coming up next. Zuzlebron, James, better than Michael Jordan. We don't have that next to the Bordex of the Bordexu. We are Trope Talk 790. 713, 21, 2,1. to 5-7-90.

That's okay. It was natural. I didn't. It just came. Because I have a topic for you for Thursday show. I think tomorrow we could have a lot of NBA stuff going on. So I'm going to say for Thursday. And I'll give you a little tease of what it is for Thursday really quick.

I mentioned the show Life Larry in the Pursuit of Unhappiness. Yes. I watched the show yesterday. Uh-oh. You guys don't hold it. There was a funny segment about things in life that he wanted to put. into Constitution. And I want to see if it was worthy.

Excuse me, the Declaration of Independence. Okay. And I want to see if they translate to now and whether or not Larry should have been able to put it in the Declaration of Independence. That's it. As far as the show quality is concerned, if curb is a 10 and Seinfeld's a 9,

this was a 6.5. Hmm. Okay. Still funny, but... It's one episode. It's one episode. We got time. 1245 on Sports Talk 790.

Thank you again. joining us. Honour Brown in 40 minutes here on the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. He's a busy show. What's believe or not today coming up at $150? What? Yeah. We're doing that today? Yes, we are.

We got to give away. Do we give away anything yesterday? You know what? Let's cancel it just in case Hunter's a couple minutes late. He's mad is shaking his head. You didn't even do it yesterday. I did it. Yeah, I did tell the truth.

And I tricked Jonathan. You got it. Correct. God, Jonathan, you suck at that. You really do. Hey. He's going on. in vacation. You better be nice. You better

be nice. I want him to come back. Yeah, get it. We're going to get a text. Jonathan's in vacay mode. Jonathan, he's going to make Matt and Ross be a great working with you. See you later. Yeah. How do we feel about these fast food places putting pimento cheese on their sandwiches? I'm glad you brought that up. We got two different places.

Rick Rorreigh and Nutterbergrigger are putting Pimento spread on their sandwiches. Now, thumbs down. I generally speaking despise Pimento, but I once went to a restaurant where they basically put it in a skillet and heat it up to like really, really hot temperature. And it wasn't half bad. Yeah, but see, I just see Pimento cheese. It's like a struggle meal. Like if I said, if I said, hey, Matt, I brought a Piminto cheese sandwich to work, you'd be like, is everything okay?

Do you need help with anything? Well, in fairness, what's going on at your house? In both those restaurants, they are putting a pimento spread underneath or on top of a chicken breast. Right. And then Rutter Ruger is putting hot honey on the top of it. I just think of it like a craft sandwich spread. Like it's a struggle meal time. No, no, see, I don't think pimento is struggle.

Oh. Hold on. If you would have gone and said, hey, did you see what Rutter Ruger is making a bologna melt? That would have been a struggle meal for me. I put it in kind of similar category. You're not at Mastros. They're putting on pimento cheese sandwich. It's a struggle.

There's nothing struggling at Master's. Nothing is cheap or my struggling. There is no pimento cheese within a three mile radius of Mastros or Dortons. It's a struggle. I will never eat straight pimento on bread. That's just not going to happen.

But, and I'm probably not bad news, McMillay or Cotter Ruger, that I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. not going to be getting your chicken. Yeah. If I'm going to go get chicken from those places, I don't need the extra layer.

Just give me mayonnaise or lettuce or tomato. That's fine. Why do I have to put some kind of weird, probably high-caloric and fat cheese spray? Because they're trying to reinvent stuff. Yeah, you got to, I understand. They have to keep on churning out ideas. It's like, uh, Rackana rocks. They never keep the same menu for more than 30 days in a row.

That's why I respect in and out. We're just giving you burgers and fries. Now, of course, they got animal style. That's all off menu. Yeah, but man, they know what they're doing. They don't have, they have not changed their. menu since the 10th that franchise is born. I'm giving you the new tip I learned.

They're not adding fish. They're not well done on the fries. Light well done. And they don't give you mad. They don't get mad at you for saying that? No, they like it. They're like, oh, this guy's in the nose. Light well done.

You're going to get a little wink and a smile. We got a rent and a route coming to the humble area coming up. What? Yes. Where? Over by Baybrook. I'm pissed. Why can't we get one of these in the city limits?

Deerbrook. Deerbrook. Deerbrook. Oh, yeah. Deerbrook? Oh, hell. Then you've got to pack your piece. Now, you're going to make sure you look all around your vehicle, for sure.

Yeah. Sorry, Dearbrook, but it's terrible crime. Yeah, Deerbrook Auto Glass is doing quite well. Umba Police Department, very busy over there. We lost any Deerbrook business. We may have picked up. That's a good. But they're not buying in sports radio.

I love Deerbrook. I don't. I'd never go there. I would say the mall I spent most two in my life would be Greens Point number one, Deerbrook number two. In my life. In your life? Yeah.

I'm probably going Ooh, Northwest might be there. What am I going with? It's my grandma should take us there. Gallery 1. Oh, damn, you fancy? Gallery 1.

Speaking of shots fired. Two would be Deerbrook as of my... I guess there's no safe mall in America. The only mall I go to really now, I don't even go to malls is probably Woodlands is the only one I ever go to. And that's very, very rarely. Yeah.

That's if you're a scramble on Christmas Eve. How do you know my life? Honey, where you going? I've got to go around a couple of areas. way right back. I'm going to be gone. Four to five hours. My rule, the wife's philosophy is if you don't have your Christmas

gifts purchased by Thanksgiving, you're doing it wrong. What? Oh my God, she's obsessed. That's not kicking it in our family. I'm wrapping the present all the way to Christmas. And I told her, I said, you know, I said, you're in the minority on this. She goes,

yeah, I know, but I just, that's the way she is. No, you know what, she's right. I mean, not right in that it should be done by Thanksgiving's much. No, I'm embellishing a little bit, but there's no way in the world my wife is buying any Christmas gift past December 15th. That's good. Not happen. No, I'm proud of her. Because I'm the worst.

Oh, no, no. You are in the majority for sure, and I join you in that group. I would not purchase my gifts early unless it was for her. She does all the last, we're last second. All right, we have gut feelings coming up now. Are you breaking remotes over there? What's going on with you? I didn't break the remote. You switch it. You know the batteries are dead? You just switch them to the other side and then they'll work.

Can I, you mean even buy you some batteries or what? We have them up here. You steal some if you want. Well, it's not helping you out right now. No, it's really not. All right. Gut feelings. We normally do this on Tuesdays at 1130.

We're going to do it today at 1 o'clock because we got into a, what did you call it a summer what? Summer sports talk trope. Yeah, summer swim. Summer swoon. Swoon. Yeah. All right. Make some predictions about the world of sports.

whether it be World Cup, whether it be the Rockets, whether it be the Astros, you want to make predictions and you get them right, we'll let you brag on it. If you get it wrong, we won't make fun of you unless they're completely preposterous. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Your gut feelings open up the second hour, the last hour of the show with Hunter Brown

in 35 minutes right here on Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Sports Talk 790. It is Matt. It is Ross. It's time for a little gut feelings. What do you say? Listen up.

This is their gut feeling on the Matt Thomas show. So, Rossi. With Ross. We'll get that change. We'll get a lot of things coming up here. Don't worry. Hopefully. We'll get you taken care of.

Thank you. So, Rossi, let's, first of all, we welcome you to join us at 713-212-5-790. If you have any sports predictions, 7-1-2-5-7-90. Ross, how did we do last week? Well, Matthew, you said the Astros. would go three and four on their road trip. And I was wrong, and I'm happy to say I was wrong. You were wrong? They went five and two on the road trip.

They did lose yesterday at home. You said the Rockets would not pick in the first round. You were correct. They did pick 31st, though. Right? Bruce Thornton. No, second round pick, yeah, that's right. Yeah, it wasn't in the first round, but there was.

There's only 30 teams, yeah. So you were correct on that? You said a, well, who was pitching that night? That's last Tuesday. Was it, I just wrote down Quality Start Light. I don't know who was pitching that night. And now my internet's going down. All right, you continue to work on that,

and I'll figure out who last Tuesday was. Okay, you do that. I can still read these. And then you say, Jalen Brown stays in Boston. That is TBD on that, but it looks like that's probably not going to happen. No, I think he's getting moved. No, are you sure I said that? I thought that that was...

Okay, I guess I did. I don't know. That's what the archives say. The archives never lose. I also said Jalen Brown stays with the Celtics. I mean, I make mistakes. Peter Lambert, quality of cert light, four and two-thirds, six hits, two runs, three walks.

That's quality start light. No, it's not. He needs to get five innings. It's close, though. Man, you are redefining these rules. That's okay. I said USA makes the round of 16 and they win. So that was my gut feeling last week.

I said Peter Lambo Quality Start Whoops I said the Astros would win the game They did I said four and three road trip Mm-hmm And we're still waiting on this one

Uh-oh, you're clenching your teeth What's the matter? Jake Myers hot streak Within the next 30 days Jonathan Do you want to give him the bad news Right now Or should we wait till the end of the 30 days

What? Let's wait What? I believe baby You got to believe Jake. Well, let's do this and let's see how the last seven days have gone because we do missing you with all our

other rocket era players. Let's go. We're missing. We're missing his bat. Well, we've missed his bat a lot this year, frankly. In the last seven days, go ahead. Doesn't include your last Tuesday. He is two for

13 with a 154 batting average slugging 231. His OPS in the last seven games, he's played, last seven games, he's played four. 445. Okay. Is he better than a 440 OPS hitter? Yes, we haven't seen it lately.

So the hot streak's coming, baby. That even emboldens me. Hot streak is on the way, baby. Let's go. And I also had Jaylen Brown staying with the Celtics, and the Astros are not making the playoffs. Which, as of this moment, Matthew, Fangraphs has the Astros at 32.6%.

Can I... And you're going to get mad at, me. You know, you always say you're getting mad at me. That's okay. FanGraves ain't giving us anything out of the ordinary here. They're going off of the direct result. If FangGraphs really wanted to be cool, fan graphs would say we have done a deep dive into what we think the Astros are going to the rest of the year. And Fangraph says,

I got a 74% because we've got inside intelligence. They're strictly taking the numbers and where everybody else is standing wise. It ain't some mark of genius that they're saying it's a 33% chance. there are still teams in front of them in the Walcott. There are still teams in front of them in the American League West. So Fangraf should give me no breaking news on that. Just saying.

It's like when Fangrav says, well, a team is up 99 to 73 with four minutes left to go, there's a 99% chance a team's going to win. There's a course of 1% chance, but you're more likely going to be able to say that. Well, you're wrong. Those win probabilities are based on the history. So a team is up certain amount of runs with certain meanings. They go out. that win probability is based off the history.

The Fangraph's projections are based on future standings and their opponents, what the future strength of the schedule is, and what the projected performance of their players is. You know what? I'm just going to say it, and you get mad at me again. Fan graphs suck it. You give me nothing, you give me no good information. FanGraph's playoff odds are generated by taking current standings,

the remaining schedule, team performance projections, and simulating the remainder of the season 20,000 times. Okay, well, they're all their bunch of dorks. Astros are a game and a half out of the wall card, and two out of the American League West. That is your... What are the metallitics have them at playoff odds? I had a 50-50, I guess.

I don't know. Just throwing it up against the wall. Seem something sticks. Okay. Probably doesn't stick very often. Okay. Moving along, Jonathan Allen's gut feeling has the Miami Heat

regretting the trade for Yana Cezza de Gumpo, and he also has Genelein-Brown staying in Boston. I think I made us all make that prediction and have me write it down. It was the last one I wrote for all three of us. So I think I put us all on the spot and we all said he's staying in Boston. So we'll see what happens.

So now it looks like he's moving, right? The latest projections. Yes. All right, there you go. Because again, the reality is the Boston Southics keep throwing him out in trade names. Also, by the way, we didn't get to play our goal sounder because we were on with Joe Espada when Norway won't know. It's 1-0. Norway over Cote d'Ivoire.

also known as the Ivory Coast. Okay. All right, what's your gut feeling this week, Matthew? Um, okay. I do believe Marcus Maris can be a rocket. Okay. Are you going to get, we're going to get credit for that?

Probably not. It feels like a chalk pick. Okay. What about this, Fred? Do you want to make a Fred Van Vleet? Who does he play for? Because there's a lot of speculation with him opting in. That means no, no trick.

Clause, which he can wave or he doesn't have to wave and also means... No, he doesn't have it anymore. He can't wait. So he has no, no trade clause. He is Sands No Trade Clause. And he wiped all his Rockets posts from his Instagram. Okay, this is... You want to make a gut feeling about that.

Okay, I want to make sure I'm very close telling you this. This is a complete guess. Okay. 100% zero inside information, zero nibble nobody nibbling on my ear What? Who's nibbling on your ear? Whispering sweet nothings to me? Okay I think Fred gets traded.

Just again, very clear when I say this. I almost feel like I shouldn't say it because people are like, oh man, run, man, no, this is just a pure gut. Pure, pure, pure, pure, pure. No, I haven't talked to anybody at the aggregator sites. Rockets, voice. Don't even start that. I'm sorry.

Matter of fact, don't even ask me more rockets like because I don't want to get just pure, pure gut. Pure gut. Man. Now, yesterday. Part of me wants you to be right, just for the fun of it. Yesterday, Clant was throwing on Kyrie Irving.

I don't see Kyrie Irving as a Houston rocket. I don't see that at all. Did he work with Emuadoka in Brooklyn? I think they did cross paths. I think so, yeah. I'm not a Kyrie. I like Kyrie. The only reason why I'm saying this is a pure gut

to me is that I don't know if Marcus Smart's going to come here and be a backup. That would be the thing that would just... And you do have two other ball handlers. You know what I mean? You do have Fred. You do have Fred. They're not elite, but they're... You're not running an offense through

Marcus Smart, though. I like Fred a lot. I frankly don't want him moved. It's just a pure gut. Pure, pure, pure, pure gut. Okay. Yeah, me too. We'll see. All right. Astros have two more with Minnesota.

people are photoshopping LeBron James with a Texas Tech jersey Feels about right Cody Campbell gonna go for it make him an offer Is he mean eligibility? Oh he's got lots of eligibility left He's got all his eligibility guy technically He does he does Okay anything else Astros I got Tampa Bay

Do you want to say anything about Mike Burroughs and Tatsu You know what I'm gonna say it I ain't scared Tatsu E my quality start next time out What's up? I got one Mike Mike Burroughs straight up up quality start. Not quality start, medium rare, quality start plus. You know what? No quality start extra. No quality. I'm with you. Just straight up. Quality burrows, baby. Straight up. Tonight. And they get to Joe Ryan. Wait, there's no pain you.

John, what's in your gut this week? I'm going to stick away from that. I'm going to stay away from that one, but I'm going to say quality burrows. You got a quality burrows? How's your burrow? Excuse me? Don't ask another man how his burrow is. Just asking if you got a quality boroughs. No, but real talk, I believe Brony is going to either get cut or traded off the Lakers since LeBron. He's gone. Oh, let's do this. The deal's guaranteed now. Last one, let's do this one. Write this down.

Let's make our prediction about where LeBron James goes. Okay. Gosh. I guess the Warriors are the Chalk, so I'll go with that. I will go off the chalk and I will go, he goes to Miami. Ooh. Pure gut. Yonet, if he wants the ring chase.

That's not a bad spot with Yonis and out of bio. I'm going to go that he wants to finish his career all legacy back with the calves. I think that's the perfect fit. Okay. All right. A quick break here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Your gut feeling, 713, 212, 5, 790. Couple of all in hole, we'll get to you next with your gut feelings.

It's 713-212-5-790. Not 790. Matt and Ross with you, and we go to the phones. Our buddy Stunham. on 790 at 121. Sonny, what's in your gut this week? What's up, Matt and Ross? Hey, my prediction is,

I think the Astroa win 10 games against the AL West. Not 10 straight games, but 10 straight games against the AL West, though. Well, that would include a series sweep in Arlington against Rangers. You're calling your shot on that, huh? Let's go. I like how you think.

other thing. Hey, can we open the roof on some of the hot days for these teams can sweat out? We don't need them being comfortable in here because, hey, if we go anywhere else and they cold, they probably wouldn't put the heat on for us, you know? Zero percent chance. Zero.

Some of the elements, man. Hey, Ross, I know you go out and do all that camp and you talk them into it. Talk, yeah, talk, I'll see what I can do. They can set up a tent in center field. You can be out there with a Taylor Tremel can be out there with a sun hat.

Thanks, stunning for the phone call. By the way, you're ready for a gut feeling that you'll never be able to cash in on? Okay. The roof will never be open again for an Astros game. Ever? I disagree with that. Okay. I would, I'll bet the over on point five.

All right, put it this way. Ever, ever, ever, ever. Let's dumb it down a little bit. Okay. By the end of 20 The end of this season And all of the next season When there is a full season

Well obviously the best shot is going to be March in October Mm-hmm I think it was open once last year How many times this year? Zero So I will say over Point five all time As ridiculous as that sounds

How about this? By Oh, we're making another bet No, no, no, no. I like these bets when you say all time and never ever. I don't know. Let's go. Let's have done this down. By the time, the end of the calendar year, 2027. Could be a partial season, could be a full season, could be in that.

The answer is 0.5 a little tip the under. So you're saying they're not going to the playoffs this year? I'm saying that we're not seeing the damn roof opened. Okay. I haven't one for another good feeling. We ain't getting road grass at Houston Stadium, no matter what cow is saying. You need to. Need to.

Would Cal say something about it? No. No, Cal wouldn't say anything about without Hannah being there. Are you kidding me? Stop. Oh. Oh. Let's go to Brian on 7-90. Brian, what's in your gut?

All right, I'm going to give him my burrows real quick. I'm thinking he's going to go seven-nings, seven strikeouts of two-hit baseball. Astros win the night, 9 to 2. Plain LeBron James is going home to Cleveland. He said he was going to end his career. there, man, a long time ago. I think he goes home to Cleveland, Harden stays, and that could be a good little threesome right

there, man. I don't know. That needs some defense on that side, but I think the Astros are going to go five and oh, and that's five games. It's going to be a big 4th July for us down there at late Conroe. We're going to watch on the big screen outside. And then that's about it from my gut feelings, guys. That feels fair.

I'm glad to get in front of Brad. Oh, yeah. By way, Brad came to our Big City Wings performance. Yes, he did. He normally dresses like Santa Claus, but he looked like a member of ZZ Top this past Friday. Yes, he did. I didn't talk to him, so. I said hello.

Yeah, I said hi. No, you did. You said, I think you said, go away. I didn't say that. Okay, I didn't make sure. I said, oh, Brad. I shook his hand kind of half-heartedly. Oh, are you a wimpy hand-shake guy?

Yeah, I never kept him. Like, you know, when someone puts their hand out and gives him a half-hearted? Yeah, but who cares? You know what? Who are you weirdo? Narcissuses, holy than now, narcissists, like, I'm going to crush your hand. Who cares? No, just give a firm and heart.

I don't care. Yeah, I give a nice handshake. But I'm not trying to crush anybody's hand. I don't want to limp, clammy one. Who care? Why? I don't care. Oh, I do.

Gross about it. It just makes you. So you're as gross to you to touch another man's hand. No, I'm not a problem of that at all. Yeah, what's the problem? I don't care. Look, I don't come in there with a weak handshake, but I just I don't care. I'm dumbing it down for you.

I don't want a weak handshake. No weak, no weakness. A good firm, how are you? Good to see you, sir, handshake. No, because you know what? I hate the dude bros who are like, yeah, man. Yeah, I'm going to show you up. I'm going to crush your hand. Yeah, I'm cool. I'm not asking you to do that. You set your bum asses up, okay? Why are you? Who are you? Yeah, I'm alpha male. I'm an alpha male. Look at me shaking your hand so hard.

Look how alpha I am. I'm just saying. You know what? Be secure. Don't be so insecure, people. I think it's just a very, very bad mark to have a wimpy handshake. That's all I'm saying? And I don't care. Jonathan, have you and I ever shaking hands before? We will today at 2 o'clock. I'm going to give him a good firm, hearty handshake saying job well done today.

Give a nice firm hands shake, but don't be the dude, bro, that's trying to crush people's hands to show how strong you are. Do you see any muscles in his body of mine? No, I don't. That's why I'm so confused why you think you're the bastion of manliness. No, I'm saying, just don't be a wimpy one. Don't be like a gross fish, a clammy fish. We don't want that. Okay.

We need your limp fish handshake walking around these treats. I don't care. Just give it a regular old, first. firm good one. Nice to see you, sir. That's all you got to do. No limpness on the Matt Thomas show of Ross, especially when it comes to handshakes. Any other good feelings, boys, before we get to a hundred round. No, I got a gut feeling we need to break. You know what, Jonathan, not even saying anything about it. He knows.

As promised this morning, all throughout the show, we are very happy to be joined now by the ace of the Astros rotation, a man who is one of the greats of Wayne State University Athletics history. I say that because my mother went there. And Hunter Brown now joins us here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Hunter, it's Matt and Ross. Thanks for joining us today. How are you feeling? And thank for being a part of our program this afternoon.

Yeah, I'm feeling good. And thanks for having me, guys. How about you guys? I'm a little crabby. I don't know that I'm doing fine, Hunter, but thank you anyway. Hey, is the bit about you going to Detroit and getting tickets for friends and family? Is that kind of over with or is that kind of still a pain in the ass for you? No, I mean, definitely friends and families show up and show out every time.

but, you know, my dad does a good job getting tickets for his buddies and stuff like that. And then I kind of took my friends and family out, but it's nothing too crazy. You know, it's not a pain at all. I'm just going to say, if it ever becomes a pain hunter, it's okay to lie. We lie as athletes and celebrities and people all the time. Here's what you do. You say, look, I wasn't supposed to pitch this weekend, and Joe put me in at the very last seconds. I'm sorry, I couldn't get your tickets.

I didn't think I was going to go. So remember, small little lies will not kill you. Hey, in all honesty, though, you were gone for a while. We missed you terribly. What was it like? Give me the down grumpiest part of the rehab, and then the moment you said, I'm ready to get my back uniform in a Houston uniform

and get going here. Yeah, I mean, I think the worst part is completely shutting down from throwing. You know, it's the first time I've ever had to do that. So just like you guys, and I'm sure anybody else out there are the downsides to your job. And, you know, my favorite part about my job, which is throwing the ball, I couldn't do that. So I had all the other stuff that, you know, helps you be able to do that on a consistent basis that I had to do for, you know, roughly five weeks there. And then, you know, then you've got to build back up. And then that's the thing is you try to get your feel back.

you know, once you get to a point where you're healthy and, you know, the velocity's there and you know you're not going to, what's the word I'm looking for, like be timid to throw the ball as hard as you can or, you know, make a big pitch or something like that. Then you've got to try and get your feel back. And, you know, that's something that I'm still still doing right now. You know, I have a couple rehab starts and I've been back for a couple games, but, you know, things like that take some time. And it's one thing where, you know, the team and the league.

is mid-season, but really it's still pretty early for me. So trying to kind of navigate that and feel good about doing that. Yeah, take us through that. You mentioned not wanting to be tentative or tentative and wanting to battle out there and be your full 100% self, kind of the mental battle it is for you to kind of rehab from this and come back. Yeah, I mean, you know, our training staff did a great job, and they got so many different.

you know, strength test and mobility tests and things like that to know, you know, how close you are to where you used to be and they got so much data when you're pitching the games and stuff like that. So then, you know, you can kind of look at all that and see, okay, well, my release points the same, like drive length, this and this, blah, blah, blah, so on and so forth. And then you can, you know, kind of check the boxes of like, all right, well, I feel pretty good doing it. I'm in the same position, so I can trust it, you know, And then the strength there and the mobility's there. And then you just kind of just go from there.

But, you know, pitching the big league is different. So when you go, you're out of minor league start. It's one thing. Then you get back into the big league. And I got three of those. So trying to keep the ball rolling forward here. Hunter Brown with us here on a Sports Talk 790. And take us through that.

Obviously, season not going the way you guys wanted, especially while you're out, as you were just like a champion at the bit to come back. but also you don't want to rush, and then now that you're here, you don't want to put too much pressure on yourself to perform. Yeah, I mean, I think there's always going to be pressure to perform. You know, just individually, you know, the standard that you hold to yourself

and then obviously being an atro, you know, we have very high aspirations as a club and, you know, the fan base and the city and how they view our team and, you know, what we want to provide on that end. And, you know, we're still, yeah, would we love to be 10, 15 games above? 500 and absolutely rolling, of course.

You know, who wouldn't. But we're in a good spot. You know, we're a couple weeks away from the break here. We're right in the mix, and that's all you want. It's down the stretch. You want to have an opportunity to, you know, make that push and get in the playoffs. And once you've got a ticket to the dance, you know, anything can happen. So that's where our minds are and that's where our goals are.

Hunter, I'm a low-key obsessed about looking at the standings in the West and in the wild card. Am I the only person in Houston doing that? or is there guys in the clubhouse going, all right, man, we're not at 500 yet, but look at how close we are to being on top of this division. I mean, it's not necessarily where you're keeping track every single game. You know, we have big goals of trying to, you want to win every series, you know, if you lose the game, you want to come back and win the next one, you know,

void streets and once you're winning and keep winning and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean, we know that we know we're right in the mix, and that, you know, that's what you want, whether, and even if you are, you know, you've seen teams have huge leads and collapse, right? So that doesn't necessarily, you know, it's June. They're about to be July. So there's still a lot of baseball to be played and a lot of ground to make up and a lot of time to, you know, put whoever it is, you know,

in your rearview mirror pretty good too. So, you know, a lot can happen down the stretch here, and there's a lot of baseball to be played. A couple more minutes here with Hunter Brown of your Houston Astros here on Sports Talk, 790 with Matt and Ross. how much do you want to challenge a pitch? Tell the truth. I mean, I wouldn't say I actually want to challenge.

There's just certain times where you throw a pitch and you're like, man, that's like you almost feel like it's right down the middle. Obviously, it's not, you know, when you get to look at the ABS. But, you know, I think it's just like top rail strikes that on pitches that used to be strikes that are just auto balls now. You know, those are the ones that you kind of, that you would want to challenge, but, you know, you come to learn that they're just balls now.

So I actually want to challenge, no. Let the catchers do that, let the hitters in the box do that. But, yeah, there are certain times out there you're like, man, that's got to be a strike, but it just isn't. So you're telling me you've not given a death stare at either one of your catchers yet about them not challenging. Is that correct? Is that accurate?

Yeah, that's accurate. No, not at all. They got the best view. I mean, shoot, half the time I release the ball by the time he gets the club, I might be looking at the dirt still. I don't know. So they got the better view than I do and trust them with that, for sure. Hey, I got to tell you this.

I was doing the post-game show the night that you pitched, I think it was against Toronto with three innings, 85 pitches. And I found you were not obviously pleased with your performance, but you were so refreshing in the clubhouse, kind of just saying what you really felt like. Was that one of those nights you're like, good God, can I get out of an inning with like seven or eight pitches? Why is everything so laborsome? And frankly, for your career that hasn't happened very much.

So that was kind of like uncharted territory for you having to just get so many pitches to get a single out in a particular game. Yeah, I mean, I feel like I got the two strikes pretty quickly on most guys. And then I just didn't really have anything to put them away that day. You know, even some pitches that I made that were quality two strike pitches, you know, they get a piece of, it's just off and then you mix in a couple not-so quality pitches and the next thing you know you're 3-2 on everybody so yeah I mean sure you're out on the mound

and you're thinking about you know how to invite some weaker contact but you know you're not trying to get in at the same time and then you know you're dealing with a lot of traffic on the basis and you know as a starting pitcher you really just want to not blow the game for the team whether you know it's obviously you don't want to chalk up a start and say you're, you know, three innings.

That's not anything what you're trying to do. You know, you don't want to hurt the guys in the pen and for the next couple days. But at the end of the day, you just, you know, you try your best to not let it get out of hand. So, yeah, like I said, after that night, I mean, I didn't have really any of my pitches going, any of the five. But if I look back, you know, I think,

obviously I had the start in Kansas City where I gave up about 50s. 50 runs in the first inning there. You know, that's also part of my growth as a player where I feel like, you know, that could have got away, but at least I was able to grind through it and, you know, it could have been a lot worse. So you've got to take the good with the bad. But for me, even in Detroit, too, it's just two-strike execution right now.

I've got to do a little bit better job picking that up. And I think that just comes with feel and time, you know, being on the mount. Hunter Brown will get you out on this. So we do a trivia game on the show every day called Believe it or not, and you're the subject today. So I wanted to ask, is there any particular reason you wear jersey number 58? Well, I guess you could say. So when I first got called up, Carl, the clubhouse manager here,

he let me choose between 58 and 68. And my, so yeah, those are my two numbers. So my dad worked for local 58, which is the union in Detroit. So we had that ties, and I used to be a little bit of a fan of Doug Fister. He wore number 58 for the Tigers back in the day. I said, you know what? We'll take 58. I couldn't think of anything good to do with 68.

So 58 it was. Was it like an electrician junior or what the? Yep, yep, exactly. Okay. Done deal. And last and very most important question from one Detroit guy to the next, are you a Lafayette-Coning Island guy or American Coney Island? Oh, man.

You know, I'm a Lafayette guy. I am. My uncle used to take me there after the Red Wing game. So I think inherently, I think American might be a little bit better vibe, but there's something about Lafayette that draws me in. All right, very good on that. Thank you, friend.

We really appreciate it. Awesome commentary from you. Good luck. The rest of the way, and we thank you for joining us on our show today. All right, thank you. All right, thank you. Hunter Brown with us here. saying, why would you ask about the hot dogs?

They are the two most popular hot dog companies in Detroit. They share a same wall. Yeah, I think you brought that. I think you go to spring training. You asked them that. They are spite hot dog stands. Literally two families that hate each other. They're both excellent.

By the way, both goals scored during an interview today. We won with Joe Spada and one with Hunter Brown. So it's one to one. All right, we'll tell you what happened here in a moment. How about that? Is that fair to do that? Sure, why not? All right, Hunter Brown, believe it or not,

today, look at you, Ross. Right at the gun. I'm stopping talking, I got a right. All right, believe it or not next, if you want to play all things Hunter Brown, and he just gave you a freebie now. Are you going to put that towards the start? Yeah, we'll see.

And if this person gets it wrong, you get the shocker. What? The shocker. You don't get this right. 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-7-90 John, then we just added some new prizes to today's edition of Believe it or not. We have your choice of a $100 gift card to the Hat Store,

gift certificate. We can give that away. Or you can win a pair of tickets to see the Outlaw Musical Festival coming up on July the 5th at the Woodlands Pavilion. So either July 5th Outlaw Music Festival or $100 gift certificate to the hat store. That's believe it or not. Next 713, 212 5790. 149 on Sports Talk 790.

Tomorrow on the show, it is a Wednesday. We're going to shut your bum ass up. Now, I don't, we've got, Bogie was not on the Astros broadcast. I don't know if he got sick or it, but it was him and Julie on the post game show. And then I don't know if McTaggart is going to be back in town or not what the hell's going on with him.

He went to Paris. It's like 155 degrees. Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to do that to you. Back and forth we go. at Dallas Stadium. Norway had taken the one-nothing lead.

Goals. Then Colton de Beau, tied it up in the 74th minute and now Erling Holland has scored in the 86-minute Norway leading to 1 into the 90th minute we go

at Dallas Stadium as the drama continues. All these World Cup games have been crazy good. So, there we go. I think we should hear on the back and forth. We go.

Unless these people want to spend money with us, we should name these stadiums. Yeah, Dallas Stadium. Like, where the Texans play, they play at Houston Stadium. Yeah, they're not cutting the check for FIFA. They ain't cutting the check for us. There you go, Matt. Love it. We will not cuss and discuss their name.

Oh, okay. We'll discuss their team, but not their name. Five minutes left to go on the show. I've lost Ross. 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, believe it or not, and here's how it works.

You'll call 713212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Today's edition of Believe or not is All Things About Hunter Brown. I'll read your statement about Hunter. Statements completely utterly accurate. You'll say this. Believe it. This statement's erroneous full of Uncomend up.

You will say this. Two, believe or not, on all things about Hunter Brown will win you a $100 gift card to the hat store or a pair of tickets to see the outlaw music. festival this July 5th at the Woodlands Pavilion featuring Cheryl Crowe, Willie Nelson, and Wilco. How old is Willie Nelson? Do we want Willie Nelson in this heat, by the way? He's got to be like 95.

Good Lord. I don't think it's very safe, but he'll be out there anyway. He's a problem. He's 93 for real. I'm a little worried. Maybe all that medicinal herb has been paying off for him. Maybe we should all do smoking some more pot. Maybe everybody should be smoking all day, every day.

It's work for Willie. Jesse on 7.90. Jesse, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. In 2018, Hunter Brown was drafted in the 21st round by the Detroit Tigers but elected to play in college. Believe it or not? Believe it. No.

Why would you give up Kyle for Wednesday? I mean, it's my mom's school, but who cares. Let's go to Mack on 790. Mac, you ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Mac, Hunter Brown was drafted 166 overall by the Astros in a fifth round of the 2019 MLB draft. Believe it or not. Believe it.

That's right. Believe it. Remember, fifth rounders got to do it, Rossi. We can't always rely on the first and second rounds. Statement number two for the win. Hunter Brown's major while at Wayne State was public relations. Believe it or not. Ooh. Believe it.

Yes. Believe it. John on 790. John, what was your favorite part of today's 10 to 2 radio show? All right. Listen to Hunter Brown. Hunter Brown, where he's number 58 and on of Doug Fister and his father's electricians union, local number 58.

Believe it or not. Believe it. That is correct. Statement number two for the win. Hunter Brown was also a football star at Lakeview High School in Sterling Heights, Michigan. Believe it or not? No, I'm sorry. Ross, who's the most famous person of Sterling Heights, Michigan?

Matt Thomas? That's accurate. Jimmy and the Woodlands on 790. Jimmy, you ready to play, believe it or not? believe it. Hunter Brown has only been elected to the All-Star team just one time in his career. Believe it or not? Believe it. There you go. Believe it. Statement number two for the way. When Hunter Brown was first called up in 2022, it was the corresponding move to his idol, Justin Verlainter going on the injured list. Believe it or not? Not. Oh, if I've said it one set a thousand times, you've got to know when guys get called up and for what reason. Last one belongs to Jason on 790.

Jason, which is a favorite part of today's 10-2 radio show. Oh, yeah, it was a Hunter Brown. Hunter Brown was promoted from the Corpus Christi Hooks, and besides rehab starts, never pitch to the AAA level. Believe it or not. Believe it. No, it's false. He was a triple air.

We've got a lot of prizes give away the next two days. Oh, you want to peel behind the curtain? Please. I wrote six of those in the break. I love when you peel. Speaking of peeling, you want them on your walls? No, you don't.

No? You want Serta Pro painters to come through for your sports RV, and that's exactly what they're going to do as we celebrate the 250th birthday of our country. I want you right now to go to SertaPro.com. That's C-E-R-T-A-P-R-O, Serta with a C. And right now, with any project of $2,500 and more, you're going to receive a $250 discount, $250 off of any project at $2500 or more as we celebrate America's 250th anniversary.

You must schedule by July the 10th and let freedom and fresh painting ring. Each Serta Pros Painter's business is independently owned and operated right here in the Houston area. And remember, again, for that free estimate, go online to SERDA with a C-C-E-R-T-A-P-R-O.com. Scheduled by July 10th and get $2.50. off a project of $2,500 or more. Choose happy, choose Sertor Pro Painters Online at Surturpro.com. Tomorrow, Brian Bogussevich,

shut your bum ass up. Ain't nobody got time for that. And maybe a segment about Larry David's new TV show. Or maybe a heavy day of rockets and other major free agent. We know about tomorrow

where LeBron James is playing. Yes. You think so? Yes. That's a gut feeling. Up next, LeBron's biggest fan, Adam Clanton. The A team with just a single A. It'd be like a little A team next on 790.