The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Fall 0-1 Last Night vs Rangers, Can They Figure Out These Bats Before Its Too Late?

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

Astros Fall 0-1 Last Night vs Rangers, Can They Figure Out These Bats Before Its Too Late?

10-1 in H-Town. Good morning, and welcome to a Friday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. If that doesn't get you ready for the weekend, what possibly could. Some dude named Vegas is leading the PGA championship. I swear. I'm rooting for this guy. I swear, you hear this material of this show.

We should be beating Sunny. We should be number one in the market. Let me ask you all a question. Why do we have no listeners? That's what I want to know. That's not true. We appreciate all of our many listeners. Actually, it is so nice. We have me of amazing listeners.

Very rarely do I go, do I not go somewhere? And we're not on television. I mean, Adam and Adam should be much more well known. I mean, they have the damn TV network. We don't have a TV network. That's true. I don't even do the television for the rockets. I do the radio for the rocket.

So I'm a face for radio. Since when? It's been nine years. Thanks for asking. But I was at my daughter's volleyball event this past weekend in George R. Brian. Some great listeners came up and said hello. Yeah, they stomped your feet and spin in your face, I thought was very rude. It was not great.

No, I'm just kidding. Was it Draymond Green? He could have been. He got kicked in the nads? He could have been. But yeah, please never be afraid to come say hi to us. Because for the most part, I'm very friendly. Ross, not so much.

I am very approachable. Matt will big time you. No, it's not true. That is far from the truth. Matter of fact, I might even buy you a beer someday. you never know. Oh, all right. At the volleyball game?

Well, no, I can't do it there. I brought my own cooler. I'm good. You cannot bring coolers. I've told you that before. It's just a little igloo playmate. Can I give you a little advice? A little sixer.

A little sixer. Now, last week of June, I'm going to be up in Dallas, the national championships. National Championship. Oh, does that mean national championship moms? That's going to be, that's about five to six downtown hotels. Ross, you could rotate. Okay. And we're talking high-in hotels.

All right money here. I'll start stretching out my hamstrings now. Good for you. it isn't anything goes Friday what for all the walking Jonathan what are you white don't shake your head he said I'm walking to all the hotel

what were you thinking about Jonathan you know I didn't know what miles we were running I don't know what's going on can I tell you that would be a fantastic movie a couple of single you know like wedding crashers like wedding crashers but but older volleyball dadders crashers what can we name the movie

two bros Milt Money going to volleyball football events, looking for single ma or divorcees, at volleyball events or at the bar at the hotel. Because that's what it's going to be for a week in Dallas, Rossi. Yeah. They're trying to secure N.I.L. deals with the moms, and you call it Melf Money. You know, you could pretend you're an NIL agent.

You know, I saw your daughter play and she's really good and we'd like to. But there has to be a redemption art because it's obviously very bad behavior. You know, I get the end of a wedding crash. I'll get married. Y'all become a coach and then win a championship. That's the, you know. Oh, wait a second. I'm liking this idea.

Yeah, Matt, you get us a treatment within the next two weeks. And then we'll get the writing on the script. What about just true love? What if Monday you go to the Baladay bin and go find a girl there? The what? The Baladay bin. Is that in Bali? No, it's the, it's a hotel chain.

And then you go to the Rariot on Tuesday. And then you go to the Riltern on Wednesday. And then Thursday, you go to the Bembessie Meets. you meet that girl. That is the one with the free happy hour, right? And the breakfast, too. Don't sit on that breakfast. I'll see you at the movie. You cannot, I mean, you're going to probably find like some Baytown love there if you want that.

Hey, Baytown girls need love too. But they have teeth. Some of them. I don't have teeth necessary. I guess they are. Yeah, for a first date, you can bring them some crest. You're bringing toothpaste to a date? Okay.

That feels. Not the sexiest thing you can do, but it would still work. Anything goes Friday. You know what? It's not like we can do a full and a little go breakdown of what happened to the Astros last night. How in the hell are we going to talk four hours about a one-nothing game that lasted two hours? You cannot talk about a sporting event that lasted longer than a show. It was two hours and one minute.

Great post-game show. How were your calls on the old 10th inning? Well, I pulled it old Matt Thomas. trick. Eric in Bay City was the only one on hold and I didn't want to talk to him so I just said anybody who calls in can get ahead of him. And for those of you who don't know, Eric in Bay City is a top five worst caller because all he calls about is Zach Grinky.

Now, he may have a screw loose and that's fine. We can all have screw loose. Screws loose. But it's just, it was funny once and then it's just stupid now. Yeah. But at least he's somewhat nice. Like, for example, Alex and Garden Oaks calls Joe a spotting an idiot.

And he's very rude and arrogant about it. Alex and Garc, at least Eric knows he's a psychopath. We believe that 90% of you are amazing human people. 90%, yes. 90%. But there's 10% of you that are, percent of you that are whack jobs. Yes.

Terrible calls, terrible takes. You're not watching the same game or watching, and you bring up stupid stuff that is not relevant, and you bring the show down. Yeah. It's our job to love on the 90% of you that do a great job and add things to the show and rip the crap out of the 10% that bring the show down.

Yeah. Like a guy was, I put a post when I went to the Negro League Museum in Kansas City and this guy found my Instagram and started post What's this woke the ass stuff Over here with the Negro League Museum? Like brother That's how he sounded? Yeah, that's how it sounded. That's how

I read it. Okay. It's like this guy's a jackass. Shut your bum ass up. Stop ruining it for everyone. I don't want to block them because they're trying to build the followers up. How is that list going by the way? We're approaching 700. 700? Trying to get over a thousand.

Why don't you just, except every bot. You'll be at the 3,000 for you know it. I'm trying. At Sports RV on Instagram. I mean, I think the proofs in the pudding. What does that mean? I've hardly posted on there. Well, then, then why would we want to go look at your stuff? I'm trying to post more. I don't like social media

I'm trying. All right. Because then you get, you know why I don't like social media? Because of that guy. Look it in. Woke D.A. stuff. Why would you go there? I don't know to educate myself. Why don't you learn a little something? Jackass Do that voice one more time.

Hey, why are you posting this on your Instagram? Who is? Who is? You know who that is? That's the character in Ozark. I can't do it anymore, though, because my throat is already ruined. We got four more hours of the show. Yeah.

I'm going to cough. That guy right there, whatever, I forgot a thing. That's the guy in Ozark that was raising the heroin farms who got killed by his wife. Sorry to be spoiled her, but it's been three or four years in the... Come on, man. Oh, stop. I'm on episode three. You are not.

That's a lie. I am. I haven't picked up an episode like four years. Yeah, you've been on episode three for like five years. Yeah, I liked it. I thought it was good, but I don't know. I just watched you too much sports. Yeah, I told you, I picked up on the final.

I'm not going to do this. This is literally, I'm sorry. I don't know. Here this, real quick. I have one episode in on the final season of you, and I'm going to do the second episode tonight. Okay. Don't do it. I'm not.

I'm not. I'm not going avid and. Castello on you. It makes me laugh. I don't care if it makes anyone else laugh. It makes me laugh. I have firm feelings that there is no one else laughing about it. That's not true. There's got to be one person. It's fine. All right. So here's the radio show today. We're going to have to manufacture some Astros conversation because yesterday the Astros didn't manufacture any runs. No. Well, that's true. But we can talk about that. We can talk about the fact that they didn't get any hits. They're 043 with runners in scoring position. Jake DeGrom is a dude and Hunter Brown recording his first out in an

eighth inning in his career which is the final step to him becoming a full-fledged ace. And he will be your opening day starter for the Astros in 2006? That's a given unless he gets elbow discomfort or something. No, but I mean, the Fromber I even though Fromber was

two starts ago was good, he's great now. He will be somebody else's great next year. Yeah, he's gone. He's got as much chance of staying with the Astros as Kyle Tucker did. He's got as much as chance as you do having me in the 26 man of me next year yeah that's nice you to say that here's the question knowing what you know about dana moving Kyle Tucker year before it was time do the astros kick the tires on moving from her at the deadline I don't think you do it because you do want

to win it is an utterly winnable division I don't think there's going to be much separation between the top three teams whether it's Seattle Houston Texas or whatever combination it is So I would be more than okay with keeping Fromber the rest the way to giving this current collection of guys one more chance. So I would be against moving Framber. But if things get a little surly, five, six, seven games back knowing it's only going to be a one team, one playoff team in the division, maybe you then would explore maybe moving Framber for the deadline to get something back in return. Because I guarantee you, Fromber Valdez at the deadline would get you a pretty significant halt, even though. it's a two-month thing. Okay.

We will mull that over on the show. Not necessarily today, but just think, just thinking about that down the road. Something to monitor. Keep an eye on. You're monitoring the situation. Yeah. 1130 today, we're going to ask you to say you're sorry. Okay.

I'm mulling over whether I should. Are you to actually apologize for something you actually did? I'm mulling. You're not apologies. I'm mulling over something I did in the parking lot here at the office yesterday. Oh, whether I should say, I'm sorry. You need to apologize. We got a memo about that.

Security Gird had to come knock on your door. You can't do that in the parking lot. Okay. Do that at home. We will wake the strippers up at 12 noon today. And today's edition of Hellyer or Not, we got non-Floristories at 130, by the way. Today's edition of Hellier or Not, all things about Jaws. 50 years ago today, Jaws, one came out.

Okay. I will... You're going to need a bigger boat. I will credit Jaws. for the reason why I don't like scary movies. Really? Because I saw my pants at the age of three multiple times watching Jaws. I didn't see it when it was in the movies.

I obviously saw it on minedisc or whatever the laser disc, whatever it was. But man, scare the crap out of me. Jaws 3D scrapped the crap out of me. Yeah, it was terrifying. So thank you, Jaws for allowing me to be scared of movies 45, 50 years later. Well, for me, it and clowns. You're really afraid of clowns? I'm not terrified of clowns.

I just don't like it. It's not that bad though. It's not really that scary. Oh, I didn't even watch it because see, when I was a kid, the original it was like a miniseries on TV and it scared the crap out of me. See, that was creepy. I looked that up. I was, yeah, I was probably like eight years old and it was terrified.

Real fast, we got one second here. Oh, wait. My scariest movies of all time. The reason why I don't like scary movies, I've got just very few of them I've seen. So the reason why I don't like them is I'll give you the list that would come back. Okay. I have a very brief list. It's two.

It's it and one more. But you like, you like, movies in general. From the 90s. I think most of them aren't good. Like Jump Scare, the Ring, the Grudge type of movies. I don't like those. Fair enough. But like real true horror films? Like, I don't know. They're shining. It's good stuff. Never saw. The scene I've seen. With Shelley Duvall and with Jet Nicholson. Here's Johnny. 713-212-790. 7-1-2-1-0. Your Astros drop a 1-0 game with the Rangers. Rangers have a 1-0-0 lead in the potential tiebreaker if the Astros and Rangers.

All right, real quick, it's anything goes Friday. And by the way, we didn't explain the essence of anything goes Friday, Ross? 713212-5-790. 7-1-3-1-2-5-790? Sorry, say that again. What were you doing? You really want me to tell you? I was responding to this guy on Instagram, but I'm writing a dissertation at this point.

Oh, okay. I asked if you could explain what the essence of anything goes Friday is all. Zoning out. on Matt is the essence of an anything goes Friday. Anything you want to talk about 713 2125759. Phone lines are wide open. If you want to talk about

the PGA Championship at Quill Hollow, Matt Thomas is all in. He wants to hear about it. We got Columbia versus Wake Forest Tennis. That's actually happening. Anything you want, well, you want to break down Columbia versus Wake Forest Tennis. Matt Thomas is ready and available. Put screens on this.

Yeah, they're not messing around, huh? Matt Thomas is ready and available. to take your phone calls about that. If you want to ask, when will Christian Walker get another hit? Oh, geez. He's on quite the poor run. Has he had a hit since I talked to him Monday?

I'm not going to answer that. But McTaggart went first and then I waited. By the way, this is a little etiquette. If you see a print reporter talking, for that matter, anybody reporter talking to an athlete, you have to wait your turn. Some people don't do that. You were taking all this credit like you were chasing down Christian Walker.

I didn't know you just piggybacked off of Brian McTaggart. Christian Walker's only guy in the clubhouse. What was supposed to do? I didn't know you were just basking in his wake. Excuse me? By the way, real fast before I go to my movies that scared me that made me not want to watch scary movies. Anything goes Friday, clearly. Jonathan, people are asking why the little D did not make the opening sound, but you're going to submit for a future week, I guess?

Or maybe he didn't get it. I don't know. It's at the end of the day yesterday. That little D clip? Yeah. I got to save it, man. Oh, he saved it. I had, to be exact, I had 20 clips to...

Oh, good. Keep him going, just in case. give you some off time. O for 16, Christian Walker is. Batting average? 203. Slugging? 274.

OPS altogether. What is it? 0.725 is elite. OPS of 610. 610 is a horrible number. 610 sucks as a number. It's not good. 790 is a little better.

I would take a 790 at this point. I would take a 740. Yeah. I'd take a 99.1. Miles per hour off the bat. Average exit Velo, that would be excellent. Oh, by the way, Ross, what's his XBA? You want to give us that to make us feel better about ourselves?

Yeah, absolutely. Just like I told you, some people were saying that, I'm making a judgment that Jeremy Pena was just mid, but if you looked at his XBAs, you could tell that he was going to have a good season, and so far as XBA has done that. So I think it can be a helpful tool for something. Good.

But as far as Christian Walker, I'll have to pull up his... Don't do it. My Wi-Fi's. That's fine. All right. Struggling. So movies that scared me. All the Jaws has scared me.

Oh, is XBA's 221. That means he's not like he's just having bad luck. This is not good. He's just hitting it out. Strang out a lot too, but I don't. Let's see. What's worse from last year? XBA, worse.

Launch angle, worse. Average exit velocity, worse. Barrel percentage, way worse. don't why are the astros having a difficult time filling first base let's look at the old bad speed oh it's down like down considerably or down a tinge so 75 miles an hour is considered a fast swing that's been his average the last two years this year it's 73.8 so down a mile 1.2 miles per hour that doesn't feel significant does that it kind of is

is it over on an average it's not good yeah i mean it doesn't mean he should be this bad And you have to ask yourself about the oblique injury. Is he 100%? Does he need some time off? What's going on with that? He does like to play every day. He's the first one to tell you that. He does. But that time he got the day off, he came back and he was getting hits.

Yeah. Okay, back to my scary movies really quick. All the Jaws movies scared the crap out of me. Uh-huh. Halloween? Oh, my God. Silence of the Lambs. Terrifying.

Hello, Clarice. Weren't you like 20 when that came out? Wait, Halloween. Fun fact, Western Kentucky on Bowling Green is where they felt. numbed it. Oh, really? Those neighborhoods are like eerily creepy. Like, they're, Matt, you'd be scared like to death.

Thank you. And are you ready for this in a non-scary movie, but a scary scene when I was a super young child when the, uh, in the Wizard of Oz, when Margaret Hamilton got on the bike and turned into a witch, I was scared so much. I would run into my bedroom or my bathroom and shut the door and scream because I hated when the witch turned into the witch. Hmm. Why do you think you felt that?

way, Matt? Because Margaret Hamilton was the wicked witch of the West, East, or whatever she was? How does that make you feel now when you think about it? I'm scared of her right now. I don't, there's part of me that doesn't watch the Wizard of Oz the first 15 minutes because of that. I think you need to address and confront some of these feelings. You've been harboring for all these

years. I'm okay with that. Yeah, sure. What we're going? What about the flying monkeys? They didn't bother me. Oh, really? I don't feel like a lot of people got scared by the flying monkeys. I don't disagree. And then what happened? How do you get rid of the witch? You pour water on it? Is that what it was? Yeah, it seemed pretty simple.

It's like War of the Worlds. You're telling me a bottle of Ozarkin can fix all that? That's what I'm saying. War of the Worlds, the aliens came from like, they can time travel and manipulate space time, and they came from billions of miles away, and then you get them a little aquafina, and they start freaking out.

I get another one. King Kong scared me. When King Kong would take people and grab them and then throw them? Uh-huh. That was scary. So it made you scare of giant gorillas. Correct. Okay.

Basically, I'm a wuss. That's fine. Okay. I don't like violence. Yeah. I love love and tenderness and comedy. You love drama. And I do like drama.

I live in drama. 713-212-570.7-90. On to the Astros. Do we need a lineup change? I think it's... I think we're the last one to bring this up. Line-up change talk is next. I mean, it's not that big of a deal.

Wherever you put people that got a hit. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm spoiling it. You tried to set things up and I'm just... peeing all over it. Hmm. Okay. 1028 on Anything Goes Friday. 713.3212-5-790.

Is it Anything Goes Friday here on the radio program we call the Matt Thomas Show Ross. A reminder in one hour from now, you are to call and apologize for the things you've done and said, and they were wrong. The question is, do I bring up what happened in the office garage yesterday? Yeah, you should apologize. Okay, I'll do it. Everybody's heard about that. We're all disappointed. All right.

What did I do then? you know. You're saving it for 1130. It's a forward tease. That's why I love you. So you're such a professional. There's many words I would use to describe myself. I'm not sure if that's one.

Yes. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Do we change the Astros lineup? And at what point, who goes where and who's in the top? That's the thing. Look, hey, yeah, get Christian Walker out of the cleanup spot. He's terrible.

All right, for who? Yiner Diaz can't hit. Karatini's not a lineup every day. Sack DeZenzo is okay, I guess. You want to do that? Jake Myers. Sure, why not? Maris Suu, Dubon.

This is everybody after Christian Walker. Yiner Diaz, Victor Karatini, DeZenzo, Jake Myers, Marisou Dubon. Sometimes it's Brendan Rogers or Cam Smith in there. What are we doing? Who are we putting in there? You tell me. I got a revelation for you about the Astros in 2025. I'll tell you after we talked to Roger.

Because I just feel like we're going to say something that we're all afraid to say. Roger on 790, good morning. Yeah, I think you're on the something there, Matt. I don't want to believe my dashers are just not good enough. Their pitching is definitely good enough. I just don't think they put enough pieces on the field this year. And, you know, Walker hits the ball hard.

I just think he's batting in the wrong spot. That's too much of a strikeout rate to be in a four-hole, I think. I don't know if you flip people around. I mean, you know, Pini is driving in the leadoff spot. Al-T-Rae's hasn't thrived in the second spot. I don't even know how to fix this thing. It's just so cranky. I don't know what's going on with these guys.

I just feel maybe, I mean, I don't want to get to desperation, but we're not even close to that yet. Maybe he can just also line up with you guys. I'm not sure who and how. I didn't know it's not working now. Yeah. Thank you for the phone call, Rob. I appreciate it. Thank you.

To balance your point, Ross, and to basically back it up, this is the Astros' offense this year. It's just going to be, I mean, when you have 30 teams, you've got 10 that can really hit. You got 10 that are mid, and you got 10 that are lousy. And the Astros are going to have a lousy offense this year, unless they make a significant trade at the deadline, which I don't know if they're going to do. This team, the sample size, is big enough for me to say they just can't hit. I all of a sudden Don't believe that Dubon's going to get a slugging of OPS of 800 Janair Diaz can get in some hot spells

Christian Walker can get in some hot spells But man we're talking about reaching up How many games are we at now close to 50? 45 I think or 43 Yeah they're 22 and 21 I mean we got a pretty decent sample size Not a complete sample size not a halfway but we have a good enough, this is worth the quarter pull of the season.

This is who they are. We're going to be watching a team that's going to have to rely on really good relief core, hopefully good enough starting pitching with enough candidates out there, and somebody to maybe, you know, these games, like the Astros won the game 2-1 a couple nights back with Jeremy Pena and Yitzhak Paredes hitting the home runs. Now you can win some 2-1 games. You'd like to be able to go to the Arsenal and go to a number. nine three game once in a while, but that may not just be the

2,025 Astros. They just can't hit collectively. Do you see the team OPS going up 40 points in the next 50 games? I don't see it. I think Yoron can come back and be healthy and be good. I think, I still believe Christian Walker is not going to hit like this, DeRetz's season. I would hope not. The counter argument to this is that Jeremy Panyu will cool off at some point. Dude's hitting 400 for like 30 games. That's... And Jake Myers, unfortunately, will cool off as well. I'm sorry.

All right. I know. I know. You both know that. but we don't have to say it out loud. That's rude. That's true. Yeah, exactly. And I was going to bring him up. Jake Myers isn't always going to hit like this. And Jeremy Penae, but those are the two guys that are really hitting over their head relative to their careers.

Everybody else is basically under. Well, Isaac Paredes, I should say, is probably ahead. But I think he can still OPS 800. Jose Al-Tuvius got to wake up at some point. Christian Walker will wake up at some point. Yordon's going to come back and be healthy once he can finally swing a bat. I think Yanir-Jar-Diaz isn't going to improve. I think they are going to be.

a team. And with all that that I just said, by the way, they are 16th in Team OPS. They are below, of course, below average right now in terms of OPS plus averages 100. They're at 98. They can get above average, I believe. But see, I think that's where the numbers just don't match the storyline. I think if they, yeah, because we're also, there's so many bad teams and our expectation level is so high. They're way better offensively than the Rockies, Pirates, White Sox Angels, those types of teams. We want them to be dodged, because that's

what we're used to. We're used to the company that they keep being the Dodgers and the Yankees and the Cubs or whoever, Red Sox. And right now the company that they're keeping is like the Guardians and Rays. So it does feel like a, it feels like an even bigger drop-off because of relative

to what we're used to where they're contending for basically top five offense every single year. And meanwhile, as I say these things, I'm telling you that even with this team being a bottom third offensive team, you can still win the division. You should win the division. Again, I'm not trying to say that this is going to be

a tough summer to watch. It's going to be a different summer to watch. It might be significantly more frustrating than years past. Clearly, when you don't feel like you can, you can, when you, when you have the heart of the order, going back even three years or two years with Alvarez, the good Jose Altuve in terms of his OPS being in the 900s, having Kyle Tucker, having Alex Bregman. I mean, you walked into five runs a game. It felt like a lot of nights.

That won't be the case in 2025 unless something is done via trade and acquisition. Or, as you mentioned earlier, somebody starts to get super hot. I keep waiting for that. I think the Astros are waiting for it. And the Astros, I think, are blessed that the starting pitching, has been good. I think they have been blessed that the relief pitching has been amazing. Bullpen has been incredible. I think the

defense has helped this team out significantly. Jake says hello. So he made a great grab last night as a matter of fact. Pena with a grab out in short, shallow center field yesterday was amazing. So as I say, this astro offense is who they are and they're going to be that way. My prediction, hope

I'm wrong. It doesn't mean you can't win 86 games and it doesn't mean you can't be up a rather pedestrian in America League West and that's what we're finding ourselves in right now. Yeah, the Astros in 17, 19, 18, around then, you know, they won with one of the best offenses in baseball, but in 2022, they won the World Series on the backs of their pitching. Now, they also had a really good lineup and performing better than they are now, but there is a formula, especially just to win the division and then get into the playoffs and have

Hunter Brown, Framberra is a one, two. We'll see what happens with Spencer Arrogetti. when he comes back. Ronell Blanco's been pretty good. I think Ronell is a three right now. He's been stabilizing. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, if you get into the playoffs and the rotation shortens and you get enough

from your guys offensively and you're pitching as dominant, that would be the formula to make another world series. It can happen, but you can't, they have to hit better than they are now. And I still do believe that they will. It's getting harder and harder to say it's early. We're into, what, May 16th now? Today, yesterday for me, was the end of it's early.

I think it's who they are. And like I said, this take of mind could be changed in seven to ten days if they start getting six runs per game. But they had to come back twice against a Kansas State team that struggled offensively. Thank God they did it. You mentioned the Rangers yesterday

aren't stroking it like they have in years past. It was a one-nothing game yesterday. I mean, poor Hunter Brown, I mean, just dealing all night long. Again, granted, the defense. And DeGrom was good too with a little D. And he was fantastic. Yes. Team OPS right now they are 16th out of 30. It doesn't feel that way, does it? Not to me, it doesn't.

No, I understand. And like I said, I think a lot of that has been because some of the run production has been hidden by the bad starts from Ryan Gusto and Lance McCullers Jr. They scored nine and five runs in those games, but they lost early and so we kind of forget and erase that. I mean, the counter argument could be that, oh, the other pitchers weren't trying because they had such a big lead. But I will see. Right. Lance McCuller's Jr. will start tonight. It is a non-televised game. Go at the radio. You know where to find us. Sports Talk 790 free on the I-Hard radio app. Make us your number one preset, please. You sound like a terrible pitch man. Thank you, Matt. Do I do that? Do I all of a sudden just go into this game show voice when I'm promoting a non-televised game? No, I'm here I am. I'm just matter-of-fact, Thomas.

I'm not like you, Matt. Matter-of-fact, Thomas. You're American. pitch man, all right? I mean, I pitch like a mud up, but yeah, just again, there's no TV of the game. Yeah, you're a whore. I'll take that personally. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. Did you see the story, the podcast that showed up about an astro legend, the greatest of them all,

that may not have never been, the greatest of them all for the Astros? We'll discuss that. They were going to trade away Jeff Bagwell? Nope. We could have traded away the world's worst base runner. How about that? But everything else awesome. It's a gordon Friday.

Drop-in. You could, we used to say drive-by, but I think drive-by has a negative connotation to it. It does? Don't you think? When you hear drive-by, what's the next word that typically comes out of your mouth? Sonic? No, I think shooting. Oh.

Oh, drive-in? drive by. Oh. So it's a drop by. When you say drive by, I think of the movie Menace to Society. Good movie?

Or boys in the hood? Yeah. I think of the movie Mrs. Doubtfire. It was a run, drive by fruiting. A run by fruiting. Good movie.

Pierce Brosnan. How's he doing these days? He's in some new series. Some new, um, okay. Is he like a mob boss or something, right? Yeah, he's like an Irish mob boss.

Good for him. Does he have an I-heart media podcast yet? Probably soon enough. Did you see who's got one now for us? Who? Sarah Jessica Parker. Oh, gosh. Oh, that's great.

Do we get her on? Horse face? Hey. Oh, hey, hey, hey, hey, get out of here, Gordy. It's a pretty horse face, but what is that? All the pretty horses. All right, Cormack McCarthy. She, does the little horse.

Okay. Jonathan, get out. We didn't ask your opinion. Yeah, what's her name, Kristen Stewart? Is that the one on, uh... Oh, I don't know. She's the pretty, she has an I-Hart podcast, too. You mean the one from...

Samantha? No, no, no, no. I don't know the character. Is money well-spit by our benevolent corporate masters? Samantha was Kim Cottrell. Yeah, it's the dark-haired one. No, that was the mannequin. Kristen Davis.

Davis, yeah. All right, can we talk baseball? Yeah, here's the highlight. Let's play all the Astros highlights from last night. We actually have a lot of them, but continue on. Yeah, Jeremy Pena and Jake Myers making plays in the field. Are you doing pre-gamerers, Dan? And I'm off today.

That Astros Rewind segment It'll be very quick. Very quick game rewind. No, no, no, no. Behind the scenes, our highlight man, Joshi gives us 24 highlights of every game. And then in the third, Isok Paredes made this defensive ground. Yeah, but you get 10 minutes with Brian McTaggart. It's a breeze.

And by the way, they start at 705, so you knock off five minutes. Dan's going to be fine. And in the six, Jake Myers worked this walk. Yeah. Jake Myers got robbed of a hit by Evan Cata. He did. So, Gordon, a lot of the talk has been. Christian Walker, batting forth,

move him down. But then if you move him down, it's for who? I said that last segment you were busy doing. I said this is the Astros offense in 2025. I don't think we're all of a sudden going to change this. I believe. When Yoron gets back and hopefully gets back this fall. But Yodon guys wasn't great when he was here.

Because his hands hurting. You get the hurting hand. Now he's going to be fine. That high age just kind of just ruined its ugly head again. Oh, he just missed 10, 12 games. He's fine. But Senator Walker out there every day in the four hole. He needs time off. That's like the Abrae thing.

When they put him in the four or five. It's like, no, stop. Like, it's not doing anything. Oh, people were like, oh, yeah, you had 90 RBIs. Yeah, he bet fourth for 162 games. He better have that many. And Walker continues to come up. Like, how many times you guys do we watch a game?

And there's two men all with one out and Christian Walker's up. And you just know, nothing's going to happen productive. Your old drive-bys are supposed to be light and air. You'd make us to further depressed. This is a stat given to me by producer Josh C last night. 41 A.Bs for Christian Walker with runners in scoring position, 20 strikeouts. So he doesn't even move the runners over? Oh, Lord.

How's your bunting? Let's work on some bunting. No, let's get him hitting. Swing the bat. Or maybe his oblique is still not. I don't know. If they keep hitting like this, though... You can't go to the oblique car when the previous three or four games for that.

He was crushing the ball. That's true. Well, maybe it's a fluid situation, Matt. You know, sometimes you wake up your back hurts and sometimes it's feeling good. If they continue to not hit, though, I'm going to go. I'm going team bunt. Let's bunt some guys over. Oh, shut up. No, that's going to get even worse.

Base hit, bun them over. There's a reason bunting has gotten a race out of the game is because we have the numbers. It doesn't work. Because we don't, we lack the fundamentals. All right. That's why college baseball sucks. When you see the cleanup header with runners in second and third and nobody out bunting people, nobody does that.

They don't do it as much anymore. That's like UCLA. David Pierce was doing it. Wow. Now he's gone. Is it rice? Cal State Fullerton. Those are the teams that do it.

How about speaking of which? SEC champion. You know, SEC baseball, toughest in the land. Oh, nobody can beat SEC baseball. SEC champion Texas Longhorns. Well, yeah, because you all stole an SEC coach from the Aggies who were kicking ass. Very nice. You go and steal.

He got called up to the big leagues, maybe. Most college world series appearances, six championships looking good. And a world-class dude. according to some. According to probably most of America. I don't know. Seems like a nice guy to me. I will say, though, Texas, their toughest road trip.

They finally got a tough road trip in baseball. They went to Arkansas two weeks ago and got swept. Well, that's all right. They took care of LSU sorry, yes. Well, they played him in Austin. I would have liked to have seen that game in Bad Rouge. Oh, I'm sorry. The bats don't work.

It's depending on what air code you're in. It's so funny how the SEC offices count out to Texas in baseball with a nice schedule and football with a side. off schedule. Yeah, they said let the big dogs eat, baby. They go. They'll teach you how to run a college program. Let's go. Let's go. Can we up the rowing team out with a busy schedule? Let's help

them out. Nobody wants to see these backwoods, Louisiana people on fan boats. They want some real sports. You know, it's all cyclical, though. One day, Texas will have to play a tough schedule on a sport, and they're going to get their ass beat. And we'll see. SEC champs are getting this year. Is your football schedule to have this year? No, because they kept the same

opponents. What do you mean? The same schedule you played last year. You play those same opponents. They played Georgia. Okay, one. They play, LSU is probably a gimmie. I can't remember. You don't play LSU. I think of Ohio State.

I'm sorry, you've got to go out of the conference to actually find a good opponent. Texas avoids. Alabama. LSU, Tennessee. LSU is light work.

When's the last time they were relevant? It's like they said, let's give Oklahoma all the tough teams in the conference. LSU needs to focus on beating the Aggies first. They can't even do that. Aggies are good. No, they're not.

Where's SEC Media Day this year? Atlanta. Are you going? Yeah. go over here. You're going for yourself or are you going for the station? We do a little bit of both. Yeah, they ask you when you're flying up, business or pleasure, he says both.

We are the flagship for the Longhorn. Yes, we are. Maybe I'll go with you. You know what, how about all three of us go? All right. And we need to Crawford box guys, by the way. We will. Just clip this.

How about you want to get you some like a South Carolina wide receiver? You want to hear you to know? Big 12 means it's going to be in Frisco this year. They're not going to Vegas. and I was looking like the first day, you know, they split the league in half. Half the coach is one day, half the next. And I was like, the first day there isn't a single coach

or a player that our station would be anywhere close of being interested in. It's like Arizona, Arizona, Arizona, Utah and Kansas. It's not going to work. Kenny Dillingham, a good interview. And him on at the Bear Bryant Awards. Okay. A little name drop there.

That's fine. Thank you. All right. Let's see what else we got. We're going to talk about this podcast. because Gordy's a big podcast guy. Huge. Eric Hosmer, former Kansas City Royal.

Yes. Apparently, Dayton Moore, the general manager, got a phone call. This when he was a general manager of the Kansas City Royals, got a phone call from Jeff Linone and said, hey, would you like to trade, would you like Eric Hosman to be a Houston Astro? And would you like Jose Al Tuvae would be a Kansas City Royal? Dayton Moore said no. That's not the craziest thing, though. In 2013, we didn't know Altuvae was.

First of all. When you have, I, I, I, I. The story is goofy that is so far away. Second of all, you didn't know who Jose Al-Tuva was in 2013. 2013, a nice player. Yeah. But remember 2013 Joseo Tubei? Never drew walks.

Swung at everything. Swung at everything. Yeah. The hits were good, but he wasn't the prolific that he was saying that he was in the heart of the championship. Everybody was for sale in 2013. Yeah, I just, I find it to be frankly a non-story. It's just kind of a goofy anecdotal thing. But to say that Jeff Leno didn't have a keen eye for the Astros in 2013, he was trying to figure out what the hell he had.

I think it does highlight how just in an exact science being a general manager is to where you never know what's going to happen and how players are going to grow and get better. And we can see it year by year with Altuvae. I mean, if Jeremy Pena's, his breakout is real. You know, he felt very tradable of this offseason into last year as well. If he continues this up and players continue and grow and blossom? Flip it. What if we, what if this trade never happens? And we hear Jeff Lino on a podcast going, you know, years ago the Dodgers called me and they wanted Josh Fields.

and they were going to give us this guy named Yoran Alvarez. And I said, no, what do we want that Cuban outfielder for? You know, and now he's won multiple World Series for the Dodgers, and we could have had him. I think every general manager could go on a podcast or radio show and go over 20 trades that are made or not made. You just don't want the ugly ones that come out publicly. Darryor Mory could do two hours on the trades that never were for the Rockets. Chris Bosch, the Rockets, going to have its own series.

Got him an iPad. All right. So what are you doing this weekend? We're going to a comedy show tonight, and then I'll be watching the Asteros and join some ice cold Crawford-Boff. What do they have in the Globe Life Field Park, Cordy? They actually have Carbott beers over there. And I don't think they have the Crawford-Bock there because that's, you know, the Astros beer. They can't serve that at Mimic. Oh, they just rip it off like they do, yeah.

Mimick-made Park over there in Arlington. But no. And then this Sunday we'll be doing a watch party over at Carbock brewing out there in the Beer Garden. official Astros watch party with plenty of fun, family fun out there. We're going to have beer specials. I believe we're doing the $5. Crawford Box again. And it's an early game. It's a noon

game on Sunday. It's a Roku game. So I'll be out there to 11 doing the pregame show, getting you guys set. Come on out there. They get the new pizza and pints out there at Carbox. So you can get a pizza. You can get a brew and enjoy watching the Houston Astros with your family and have a little bit of fun. By the way, tonight, Apple TV game.

So not on... No local television. That's right. Sunday. Sunday. Koku game. No local television. Space City. So I know the one place you can get all the games right here in Sports Talks. Yeah, we don't like. We're here every day. And I'll be doing the on deck show and 10th inning show tomorrow night. So Saturday night with me.

I mean, what else could you want to possibly do on a Saturday night? Movies, now. Show? No. Jazz, no. Listen to me to a pre-and-post game shows, of course. That's how you spend your weekends. Sounds great. I like to usually go to the club and dance to some BG's music on a Saturday. I would be there too. In fact, the game starts at 6. I could be there by 10.30. All right. Thank you.

of Gordy. That is Chris Gordy, of course, locked on whatever it is these days. And, of course, our man who comes in and hangs out with us Mondays and Fridays for a few minutes here on Sports Talk 790. Speaking of trades, the rumor mill is out about the Rockets. Did you see this? Now, I want to talk about why names get brought up. And if they really are just somebody just throwing stuff against the board or if it's legit. We'll discuss that next starting second hour, the Matt Thomas show with Ross. I'm sorry. It's coming up in 30 minutes. here on 790. Talk 790. We're here every day, Monday through Friday, 10 o'clock until 2. Ross did the

on deck in 10th inning last night. I'll handle duties on Sunday. We all do this collectively, except Adam and Adam. They don't think they need to do it. And that's fine. 713-212-5-790 is how you reach a show Rossi. 7-1-3-2-1-7-90. We had the Astros with a 1-0 setback last night to the Royals in a game that took how long? Two hours and what? One minute! It was nice. 201.

It was nice. Let me ask you this. Would the automatic strike after every pitch, how much do you think that would delay things? Have they timed it out that way? Have they done anything to say this could add? Automatic balls and strikes? Yeah, what do you have? I think it adds seconds.

And you save time. Guys don't have the hymn and haw and all that stuff or a challenge system as well. And nobody's arguing and you don't have managers and you don't have pitchers huffing and puffing and taking an extra timeout to stare down the umpires. So it's probably about a wash. Yeah. You're going to, you know what, I could buy your argument. I have bought your argument before, but it's... But then you sell it back.

Well, you're going to fall on your sword on it. I'm going to go, I don't have to fall on anything. You're falling on it because it's never going to happen. No, it's never going to happen. Maybe. When you're visiting me in the home... How stupid does this sound? Go ahead. Sorry.

They're not going to eliminate the complete human element of the sport. I think the challenge system is coming in. I think the challenge system... I don't want to say it's a happy medium because the perfect... The perfect medium is... The perfect answer is to have an automatic ball strike. I just don't think it's going to get past

because I don't even think all the players want the automatic ball strength. The challenge system says we have the ability to get every single call right, but we're not going to. How stupid is that? Think about this on the other side of it. There are some pitchers that are getting strike calls. I understand why the pitchers don't want. We sat in front of Spencer Erigetti.

He talked about it. And I even said to him, so you're telling me we can get every call right and you don't want to do it? He's like, I know it sounds dumb. Because I think perhaps a slight expansion, a very slight expansion of the strike zone would be in order because the pitchers do get the benefit of more calls. And maybe it would be just a little bit of a modification of where the strike zone is. But also, if you do, also, if you go with automatic ball strikes and then the pitchers aren't getting more calls, that means more walks. That means more offense. That means they got to throw more strikes.

that would be good for the game as well. I don't even think, though, that Major League Baseball is complaining about offense at this point. Now, if you're an Astros fan, you are, but generally speaking, you put a game on, you get a 93 game with the best of them. You watch the Dodgers. You watch the Dodgers. If you're a Mets fan, if you're a Yankees fan, you're getting plenty of offense. You love the sport.

I like a good pitcher's duel, for sure. And I'm not saying it's bad, and I'm not saying the sport is horrible. But it just makes zero sense to say, we have the technology to get every single call right, and we're not going to do it. Well, I don't want to be hypocritical. I do believe in your argument. I just don't think it's going to happen. I do believe that we need more instant replay.

I do believe in the NBA especially, because that's the sport I call. I do believe you should be deserving of more replay options. If television replay and video replay can help you get calls right, why would I even be against it? And then one thing I hear about is time. I hear about time to a lesser extent in major league baseball. I hear the term human element a lot. problem is sometimes we just don't trust our humans. Yeah, and then these guys, like we had Alex Bregman with spring training again,

he's like, oh, I like the human element. You guys don't? And then it's like, no. But that's the guy. He was like the first one arguing with umpires all season long. And see, that's why I've been resolved because I've talked to enough players we have. And I also believe they do want to value. And by both, and it's also going to be very difficult to get it passed by the umpires union and whatnot.

Yeah, you're going to fight the union. The challenge system is going to be closer to what you want. Better than what we have. And I know that's not the answer you want, but that's just the reality of it. I wonder, I would like somebody to speak on this because I just don't know. If you say we're going to do balls and strikes automatically, and baseball is instituting this, why does the umpires union have a say? Because they're not modifying their pay.

No, but they are modifying their, like for instance, when you had to add the clock to the sport, when you had to add. Did they have to talk to the timeout area? Everything is collectively bargained. Responsibilities of the game would be collectively bargained. That would be with the players and the owners, but what do the, well, the umpires have to do with the rules of the game. They don't set the rules of the game.

But I absolutely 100% feel like they have a, there's some sort of say. I think everything when it comes to rule changes has to run by the umpires union. Because frankly, if I would like to know more about that. Yeah. I don't know. You'd have to ask, I guess you'd have to ask an umpire. I have a friend. I don't have a friend.

I know someone that is an umpire in a major. baseball. Okay. When he comes around next time, I'll ask. Don't you text him? I don't have his number. Oh, so you're not real friends then. No, but I bought a lunch with him in a very expensive Mexican restaurant downtown Houston.

Shoot him a DM. I don't, we're not Instagram. Slide up in there. I'm not sliding into a man's DMs. Why not? Yeah. All right, 713212-5-790. 713-212-5-790.

And anything goes Friday we've got. I'm sorry, it's coming up at the bottom of the hour where you need to apologize for things that you've done this week. Okay. I always look at you and I'm like, man, your list has got to be long. Why? Because I just know you. I'm a saint. You're a scoundrel.

I'm a saint. You're not a saint at all. You're far from it. All right. So the rumor, here's where I don't buy rumors. The number one, would you say more so than Durant is Janus's future in Milwaukee, right? That'd be the number one, especially because of the fact that Damien Lillard is going to be out probably all in next season. Milwaukee's way over the cap.

They don't have their draft picks, blah, blah, blah, blah. They are in a reorganization. And when you have Janus and two years left of a contract, it makes it a fairly good acquisition to make because he won't threaten to go somewhere else or stop playing. I mean, two years is two years. And he wants to win a championship. And the relationship between the Milwaukee Bucks and Janus is very, very good.

So they'll cooperate with each other, right? If he finds a deal that makes sense, Yonos, I'll go, yeah, I'll go play there. So yesterday on the Twitter streets, Kurt Heelan, H-E-L-I-N, basketball hoops is his, I believe, is his moniker on Twitter? Basketball talk. Who's basketball hoops? There is a talk hoops.

Okay. Zach Harper, that do stop responding to our texts and stop coming on when he got big time, but that's okay. Yeah. It's like the Sam Vassisi guy. He never responds to my tweets for tech. Vasini. Yeah, he's on my list, too, but that's a different issue. He's a Biggam-Thompson fan, though, so appreciate him for that.

I can drop that in there. help me out last time. I don't know. Okay, so Kurt Heelan, is that how you pronounce it? I don't know. This is Curry H. Suggested that the Milwaukee Bucks and the rockets would be ultimately talking about a trade and that his sources say the rockets would be willing to part with Alperin Shangoon

and Jabari Smith as part of the package. From his article, Houston would be open to trading Alperin Shungoon, League sources told NBC Sports, but the bucks may be higher on a Jalen Green-based trade, depending on how they rate green. Jabari Smith Jr., likely to be part of any deal, Rockets have a lot of first picks, first-round picks. So let me ask you this. We are so early in the trade game, right? We have all summer, frankly. Mm-hmm.

If you're the Rockets, why would you get that, why would you let that out? No, this is, he's got to be getting that from the buck side. Why? Okay, so that's question number two. If you're trying to consummate a deal with one of the most important players in Milwaukee Buck's history, probably more so than Louell Sender, frankly. Because Kareem is more known as a Laker than he is a buck. We only know one thing of Yannis, and he's a Milwaukee Buck,

brought him a championship. Top 75 player. Why would you, if you're the, just shut your mouth. Two things here. Three things here. Again, so let me ask you this. Do you believe what Curtis saying? And if you do, why would the bucks want to put that out there?

That's the third thing I was going to add, is that he could be making this up. Number one, I don't know this guy. I'm not saying he is. I'm saying he could be. Number one. Number two, it could be to drum up interest in market from other teams, other teams who are possibly interested in the honest and say, wow, okay, rockets are willing to give up a 22-year old All-Star, we got to up our ante. It could be for, not just between the Rockets and the Bucks, but to make a bigger market elsewhere. So then if you're the Rockets, do you call the Bucks and say,

what are you doing? That's correct. That's another thing. And then that's my third point is that we don't know who Kurt. If Kurt did talk to somebody, we don't know who he talked to. Probably could have been a lower level official. It could have been an equipment manager. Something that leaked something they shouldn't have. Right. Right. Right. Right. I just believe when you are trying to acquire things, whether it's a trade, whether it's free agency, whether it's at your workplace, if you're trying to get an employee to come over from another company.

Shut up. Don't, first of all, know who your inner group is. Tell them to keep their mouths shut and don't get it out there because I would hate if the rockets really were going to go after Janus to all of a sudden have to deal with interference from either Jabari's, side or Alperinsch side? What if the deal doesn't come into play? What is Alperin and Jabari going to think about coming to the season?

If they don't make the move for Alperin-Chanku, or for Janus. I just, and too doubt, the only thing I give credit for the Dallas and the Lakers deal was, Ross, is that no one knew this was coming. Sometimes you just keep your mouth shut. Yeah, but also, Nico Harrison, if he would have leaked out that they were looking for Luca, they would have got probably something better in return. That is true. So maybe that's what they're going with, is that if you only deal with one team,

team, you're not getting a great return. I'm going to tell you right now, Janus for Alperin Shengun, Jabari Smith, and maybe two to three first round picks, and maybe Cam Whitmore as part of it, I mean, if you're Milwaukee, you've got to think about it. Alperin's an All-Star, whatever you want to describe, the All-Star is, but he's a 2010 guy.

My guess is Jabari Smith becomes an automatic starting member of the starting five. He's probably a 15-and-8 guy. Cam Whitmore might be just your explosive off-the-bench guy's just, volume shooting, you're going to get probably at least two round first round picks. I mean, again, I'm not a great surveyor of what a fair trade is or what not a fair trade is, but that sounds like it's a pretty good starting point, does it not? Mm-hmm. I think so, and just on improving the team, I've kind of been watching these playoffs and thinking,

I don't know if the rockets are close to the nuggets and thunder. They will, by the way, go to a game seven. I will disagree because maybe I had the Homer glasses on I think they're closer than you think because I think they both have shown warts Denver looks fatigued Denver has zero bench when Yonogic is on and Jamal Murray is on

they're awesome but they don't have much of their match I mean they went to Strother last time he helped out a little bit for that Julian Strouderle so yeah he's from from a French can of John

He's from Leon. I don't know where he's from. All right. You know what? I'm sorry. That's fine. I'm going to save that for, in 15 minutes, I'm going to apologize for that again. For horrific impersonations?

Yes. Okay. Do that about every day. 713, 212-790. Matthew wants to talk about Alex Bregman. We'll get to that and some Astros. And of course, bottom of the hour, what do you need to apologize for? You know, you've done.

And I'm going to apologize for something I did in the parking lot at the office yesterday. Good. But I think since you work in this building, you'll kind of understand why I did it. Okay. 713212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. 1120, Sports Talk 790. It is the Matt Tomlin show with Ross.

You know, we were talking about Instagram minute ago. We have a poll question on our Instagram account, the Sports Talk 790, and said, would you want Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame? 89% of the people that punched said yes. I'm stunned the number is so high. Hmm. And a lot of it is because of his dad. Well, no, there was it.

It was either yes or no. Okay. You didn't get that. That was not an option. Where's the he's dead? It doesn't matter to me, budd. Well, maybe that's what the Rose family might be thinking. You never know.

No, the Rose family, I'm sure, would want it. I mean, wouldn't you want your dad in the Hall of Fame if he was blackballed for 50 years? It's been that long? What was it? I mean, yeah, it's been 40. 40. Oof. Why bother at this point?

I mean, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, he's the all-time hit king. As people have been mentioning, he's in the Hall of Fame. They mention him and his story and him being the hit king. Right. I believe there's plenty of artifacts. He just doesn't have a plaque. Yeah.

And didn't have a ceremony. So put a plaque in a ceremony and that's... See, I don't need the National Baseball Hall of Fame telling me that Pete Rose won the rest of all time. He won the rest of all the time. Great. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go to Matthew at 1121 on the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

Matthew. Thanks for holding. And good morning to you. Good morning, sir. First off, Charlie Hustles, the first ballot. hands down. But about Breggman. So I read like a little,

I guess it was a post from Houston Astros Nation on Facebook that said as soon as Breggman agreed to that contract with Boston, that the coaches immediately contacted him and said they saw a bunch of flaws in his swing. He was loading his hands too late. And now all of a sudden, he's raking at Boston.

So I just wanted to hear, if y'all feel like that was a valid the post I saw on Facebook or was it from the yeah this is the problem the Facebook has a was it from the Jeff Passon article so I didn't see that in the Jeff Patterson article that they were immediately contacted but yeah he's he's

working with a couple of things here he's working with the Red Sox guys and changed his hand load but Alex Breggman over the years here in Houston he would go on a hot streak and then talk about all these 30 different things that he was doing we had Brian McTaggart on you and he mentioned it that Alex Breggman talked about, yeah, I'm getting the knob of the bat in front of the ball.

And he said that literally last year when he went on a hot streak here. So I guess you're asking if this is an indictment of the Astros hitting coaches here, Matthew? The answer is it's not. All Alex Breggman does, all he does is change a swing. Now, sometimes if you have a different set of eyes on them, I can understand that. But to say that the Astros as a organization with hitting coaches and Breggman and video coordinators completely missed something that the Red Sox did see, I don't buy that.

And also Alex Bruegman, while he was here, he had his own personal hitting coach. He didn't work with Troy Snicker. He also said that it also said that Breggman was making tweaks with his swing constantly, which sometimes would work and sometimes it wouldn't. So yeah, it's not necessarily an indictment on our hitting coaches, but I mean, I feel like it's a decent question to ask. Yeah. It's a decent question. Thank you, Matthew, for the phone call. I appreciate it listening. It was

a pass an attempt to go a little gotcha. It just was. I probably. And you know, when, that's what he is. He's a, some reporters want to say, oh, I've uncovered this great story. Goes to Boston. New people

watching him. Found out they were doing something. The asteros couldn't, I mean, it couldn't see. Yeah. And it's funny. You know, when Alex Breggman had his best career of his year offensively. You know who the hitting coaches were? Troy Snicker and Alexandron. And you know, people are like, Oh, Jose Al Tuve, he can't hit, firing the hitting coaches.

Jose Altuve has been one of the best hitters on the planet under the tutelage of Troy Snicker and Alexintron. Same thing with Yordon Alvarez. Oh, he can't hit. It's the hitting coaches. When he's been one of the most devastating hitters on the planet, it's been these guys here. Well, can we have some logic, folks? I'll have another example. Several examples. I mean, Charlie Martin reinvented his career here.

You say Kikuchi reinvented. Gary Cole found some things. You do gain some knowledge from different people. But it doesn't mean that you say Kikuchi was this got garbage instruction when he was pitching elsewhere. I don't tend to believe that. Unless the player says, I can't believe I was with this organization for this many years and they found a blemish in my game. And the way I throw the base through the baseball gripped it.

And I can't believe nobody figured that. out while I was there. And another thing. Nobody's mentioned Kyle Tucker in a couple weeks. You know why? He's been slumping mightily. They haven't all our hitting coaches are idiots. Look at Kyle Tucker. Dude is under 900 OPS. He was OPSing over a thousand. He's under where he was last year

for the Astros when he was almost at a thousand. Nobody's mentioning that now. And another thing. Alex Breggman's numbers are going to go down. There's a man, I don't want to get too deep in the analytic weeds with you. Here we go. But batting average balls in play,

can highlight if you're having a lot of luck. His career number there is 282, like batting average, balls in play. He's at 344. Generally, he's going to stay around his career unless he just up and became the fastest player on the planet. So his numbers are going to come down. You have my personal guarantee. He's not going to OPS over 950 this year. He's not.

And then we can revisit of this topic again. Yeah, I just, to me, neglecting or taking shots at the form of, team for something. We never did it here. Do we ever go, man, those pitching coaches in Toronto, they were got garbage. They didn't see what you say Kukuchi was doing here. They're doing there. Again, I will chalk it up to different set of eyes.

See some different things. But Alex Bregman would say numerous times, I've tried this. I'm going to do this. He's a tinker. He is a, yeah, he's a tinker. Tinkerer? And is that a word? I think we're going to make his tinkering. He's a video guy.

Yeah, he's always in the, he's a He lives and breathes baseball. He had his own personal hitting coach when he was here anyways, and Troy Snicker would help, according to Chandler-Rome, who is extremely reliable on these things. Yeah. So, yeah.

I mean, it's low-hanging fruit. It's Passon. It's fan fodder. Well, Jeff Passon didn't mention anything about Astros hitting coaches in the article. Well, but there was an insinuation that all of a sudden, thankfully that he got with the coaches the Boston Red Sox and things changed. I didn't feel that.

that way, but that's how a lot of Astros fans took it reading the article. I took it in some respects of that because I don't give Jeff Passing to Benin for the doubt. Okay. And you know, that may be short-sighted on my part, but that's just who I am. All right, I have to apologize for something. Oh, I bet.

1202 in H-town. And welcome to the third hour of the Matt Thomas Thomas Show at Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. call you that call the show. Sometimes you get inspired different reactions

after calls. What's that guy's name that called the show? What's his name? Bob. Oh, no. It was a regular name. Gary? No, I think it's Greg. By the way, everybody, that's that clip was 20 more seconds longer than it was. Oh, you could have played it.

You could have played all of it. I think I insulted his heritage and everything. Oh, do you have the full one somewhere? I can get it real quick. Yeah, fine. Yeah, well, this is what happens. We have four hours to fill, so. Yeah, remember, length is our specialty.

Go in the distance. Full four-hour radio show today. You can't help yourself, can you? What are you talking about? Jeez, well, we can hear that one next week. You're still looking for more material. Goodness gracious. Well, I'm banking this stuff for when I go to that volleyball event.

I think you should... Maybe we should do the show from Dallas. You want to for a week? Yeah, you got my hotel? You can stay with us. Where else's day in? It's downtown Dallas. That's wherever you're getting point.

I understand. Well, earning them, you can't get points unless you pay for them. Yeah, and then expense it. To who? Is it the same family of properties we went to for spring training? Yes. Did you pay for that hotel room? Nope.

Did you get points off that hotel room? Maybe. All right. Did you sleep well? I slept great. Breakfast was good, too. Yeah, so shut up. 1205, it's time for us to give you the big headlines the day while I had a,

partaking maybe a bite or two of my lunch. Oh my God. Take your time, Ross, because it's your time to give us the news at noon. Yes, Matthew, a number of things to get to here on the news at noon. Sports Talk 7-90 of the bat-tobby show with Ross. Let's go ahead and start with your Houston Astros dropping the series opener to the Texas Rangers. First pitch. And that's popped up. Third Bayside toward the line in the foul territory parade as makes the kids.

catch between the bag and the coach's box and the side is retired. Eight innings of one-run ball for Hunter Brown, his longest outing as a professional. Best start of his career, just three hits allowed. Eight innings, a complete game because of the loss. One earned run. Jake Burger! Jake Burger! Yeah.

Astros had five hits to just the Rangers three, but Jake DeGrom was great as well. Eight innings of four. five-hit shutout ball for him. He also had seven strikeouts. Interesting factoid from this one, Matthew, from our friends over at Opta Stats. Since pitches first began tracked in 1988, is the first

major league game where both starters pitched eight innings, allowed one or fewer runs and struck out seven or more batters on fewer than 100 pitches. That was an all-time pitcher, Jules, what I'm saying. It's the reason why the game went two hours and one minute. It was nice. You had

plenty of action. Well, you didn't have enough action. You were done two hours and one minute. Oh, for three with runners in scoring position, but so were the Texas Rangers. How much do we say, hey, these bats need to work this out, or Jake de Grom? We'll give you a pass. No, the Astro bats are what the Astro bats are. They're going to largely struggle, and they're going to have to win a lot of 4-3-3-1 type ball games this year. So prayers to all the members of the Astros pitching staff, including the bullpen,

which probably will be quite a bit worked, if indeed. Lance McCullors does not go deep in the game again tonight. Well, I was going to ask you that. We can get to it later on the show, but yeah, what are we feeling? Just got feeling for Lance McCullors, Jr. and his start tonight against Nate Evaldi. Why are you clinching your teeth? I'm nervous.

I'm scared. Okay, let's do this. Because he's 0.1 with a 15.75 ERA. That's why. So let's go to the positives. If he gives you five innings tonight, that's a super big win. I'll go under. and you get the Lance McCullors you thought you were getting back.

Now, I think tonight the hook will be very quick on him because the bullpen is rested. Everybody get the day off yesterday. How much of a leash do you give him? We'll see. I mean, just hopefully, hopefully, we don't have to worry about it. If he struggles again tonight, we're going to have a lot of conversation next week about it. I'm going to be freaking out, quite frankly. Remember we time on Monday to tell the truth

So we're going to have an uncomfortable conversation I hope we don't But a sluggish performance today Against a what would you call a Underperforming Ranger offense They're okay Yeah I don't know where they are as far as team ranks

But I don't think of them You know they're not as fearsome as they were a couple of years ago Marcus Simeon's having a down year A number of those guys are having some down years I don't know what was their secret sauce in 2023 They're all having careers at the same time That's quite suspicious. But anyways, Matt, let's keep it with the Astros.

Please. We're talking about some Astros past history. All right. As apparently, in 2013, Jeff Luno considering trading away a future Hall of Famer. This is former Royals General Manager Dayton Moore on the Diggin' Deep podcast. We're in Houston in 13. and I got a call from Jeff Luh now. I was sitting at the Starbucks coffee.

And he said, I got a deal for you. I said, okay. He said, I'll trade you Al Tuve for Eric Hosmer. That's one, yeah. Is that real? Yeah, it's real. Oh. You're a man.

He said, nope. Oh, man. I didn't like trading. I didn't like trading major league players. Oh. That's Eric Hosmer on the podcast, by the way. But both of them were in the major leagues at the time. Yes, saying, you're an idiot.

Eric Cosmer's saying that for him not trading him for. I have traded him too. Yeah, I think it's a funny anecdotal story, but I think there are 5 million similar stories about really nice young players trying to be superstars that wind up not getting traded or getting traded for that matter. I mean, I'm not going to crush Leno for that, because some of the work was outstanding from trades to drafts to acquisitions. I mean, the greatest general manager in Houston sports history.

I don't think I can argue with that. No, I don't think you can. Unless you're a Carol Dalson guy? I don't know. Eh, you signed Calvin Cato. That was not a great deal. Well, nobody's perfect, Matt. Right. Yeah, Jeff Luno traded away Josh Hater. He also got Yorna Alvarez for, what's his face, Josh,

Josh Fields. He also traded for Mike Fires. And he also got Zach Granky. He also traded away to Oscar Hernandez for Francisco Luriano. Ooh. Liriano? We all going to bat Luriano. He's great. Obviously, obviously.

Yeah. Anyways, Matt, let's move it along in the news at noon. We'll keep it with the sports, but kind of off the beaten path. Are you familiar with the Magic Johnson Award given out by the Pro Basketball Writers Association, man? I am not. The Magic Johnson Award honors the NBA player who best combines excellence on the court with cooperation and grace in dealing with the media and fans. Well, this week, that award was given to Kevin Durant. They might want it back.

Because? He came at Emmanuel Acho, who did have a hot take on some FS1 show I don't watch, talking about how the Celtics are better without All-Star Jason Tatum. Who's dropping 40 points. First of all, Manuel Ocho has no business talking about the NBA. Sorry. Longhorn legend. Well, I'm glad you brought that up.

Kevin Durant's response to a tweet with that video, Hot take artists have ruined the sport. Football guys, no disrespect, but y'all boys need to stay in your lanes. You don't know what it's like between these lines, man. Give it a break. Dude who quit football earlier to pursue media talking toughness. Cut it out.

I will say this. and I don't want to stereotype a particular group of media people because there have been some that have been able to do it very effectively. But generally speaking, especially in the national side of things, if you step out of your sport, you don't know your sport. Does that make sense to you? When you have football people doing a general talk show, them talking about baseball and basketball is painful.

Just like if I heard a basketball person, like Charles Barkley trying to break down the MLB or the NHL. It's painful. I would say not in every case, the really good ones can do it in all the sports, but it takes work. And most times when I hear a football guy try to talk about the NBA,

I laugh at it's just rather off-putting takes. I think that's not even it. I think it's not, Emmanuel Ocho knows that's a hot take. Emmanuel Ocho knows what he's doing. and, you know, Longhorn legend, played briefly in the NFL. Smart guy, I believe. But I also believe he knows what he's doing, and he is being a hot take artist. Well, that's embarrassing for him then, because he doesn't need to do that.

I mean, had Joy Taylor splayed on on his couch, nice guy, I'm sure, great, wonderful. Does he, as he seen George Taylor naked? Absolutely. Yeah, I appreciate Emmanuel Hacho. Respect the game. Does she, the peanut butter and chocolate thing? But he knows what he's doing when he says this stuff. Well, that's embarrassing for him, then.

He knows the reaction he's going to get, but this is the media. And guess who's not going to watch a shake, right? No, no, it's what he's doing. doing skip bailist stephen a smith all these guys they know what they're doing i i truly believe emmanuel atcho is a smart guy who knows he's making hot takes and is going to make waves and he should call next friday 1130 and say you sorry okay and good for kevin d'ran for calling him out

that's what i'm talking about matt and that's your news and noon nicely done thank you very much uh all right astros uh fall one nothing we'll get to that we will get to a very interesting tweet i saw of players in the NBA that have never won a championship. I'm going to give you nine players. You're going to tell me the best three of the nine that have never won a championship. We talked about this as a fantasy five.

I believe we have, yes. Non-championship winning players starting five, yours versus mine. Yeah, but I think it's such, it's, there's so little argument to it. I know, you don't want to get crushed. Whatever. And then I also want to tell you that Dove Club. who's an aggregator who you don't like. Mute him, please. Mute him, please.

Had a chat GPT out of future Super Bowls. Like, you know, because Chad GPT is the thing. Can I read you who the Super Bowls are going to be? Sure. We've got those two things coming up. Now in Florida stories at 130. Believe it or not, all things about the Jaws series

on hell yeah or not. And your phone calls. That's a radio program for the next hour of 45. Why would you go anywhere else? What do you want to go? You want to curse and discuss a text and schedule? again? Is that what you want, Ross? You want four hours more of Texan schedule breakdown? No, I'm good. Are you sure?

You don't want a win forecast off of the Texans yet? Not having seen a complete draft pick go yet? Are you sure? We could do that. Back up linebacker talk. Third string tied in. Go to break. 713-212-790. We have a game six. Matt Thomas, you know, you are the clown that said Archmanning was going to be

leaving after you. year one he was going to play him. Shut your bum ass up. You are the dumbest rocket fan I've never heard in my life. You ought to be embarrassed. Never call my radio show.

You are embarrassing Houston sports. You know nothing about sports. Periding the story, you ought to be embarrassed. Matter of fact, why don't you go to Bravo and start watching a real housewife

series? Because you don't know squat about sports. I know more than you. No more than you. No, the hell you do. You are old. You are seen out. You are no squat.

about sports. You don't know the hell you're talking about. You're one of the five debbest callers I've ever had in my 30-year broadcast career. So you can suck it. Another great listener to Sports Talk 790 chiming in. 1222 is our time.

Thanks, Bob, for calling. Always for you to call the show. This is what you're missing out on Space City Home Network. Yeah, Space City. Do you want Adam and Adam being nice No, I want Matt Thomas Scraining people. Or do you want to keep it reels? Oh man, that

is, that is old and senile. Pure 100% I call him that, yeah. Gold. Yeah. Sometimes you get us tell it the way it is. That's what we do here every Monday through Friday. I know we're going to do this. Is this bad radio? I want to hear that again. Can I hear that one more time? Go ahead. That's fine.

One more time, please. And, you know, Matt Thomas, You know, you are the clown that said Arch Manning was going to be leaving after year one. He was going to transfer. Shut your bum ass up. You are the dumbest rocket man I've never heard in my life. You ought to be embarrassed. Never call my radio show.

You are embarrassing Houston sports. You know nothing about sports. Perting in the story, you ought to be embarrassed. Matter of fact, why don't you go to Bravo and start watching a real housewife series? Because you don't know a little squad about sports. I know more than you. No, the hell you do. You know what?

You are old. You are single. You don't know what you're talking about? You don't know what the hell you're talking about. You're one of the five dumbest callers I've ever had in my 30-year broadcast career. So you can suck it. So you can suck it. That is just perfect.

Okay. Let's play the second time. You're all right? No. Oh, it just gets better. It's aging like wine. It's just getting better and better. We don't do a best of it during the year.

do we? No, we don't. I'm going to say we've got 40 seconds in. We've got three hours and 59 minutes and 20 seconds left to go. We're getting there. All right, real quick, not that NBA playoff chatter, it's going to be a huge conversation piece around here. But if you would like to go to game six of tonight's game between the Knicks and the Celtics. No, I'm good. Well, if you were thinking about it. Okay, get in price. Can I guess?

Please. $500. $572. Yes. That's close. Now, if you would like to go to tomorrow. Is it tomorrow or Sunday for game seven of the Thunder and Nuggets? I think it's tomorrow. Whenever that is.

Would you like to get in for that game? Oklahoma City. Nothing else to do. That's Sunday, by the way. Okay, Sunday. So there's some time left. The next game is tonight. The Thunder Nuggets game is on Sunday.

So there is a little bit of room. I'll stick around. I'll say $600. Try again. It's way more. I'm going to just say try again because you're way off. A thousand?

$173. Oh, okay. It's game seven. It's also Friday. I understand. It's Oklahoma City. They will, I bet you can get in. The next tonight are right now at 572 to walk in.

I bet you it doesn't get to 400. Okay. I don't think it's going to go up another 100 and 25%. I should have went lower for a count. town like Oklahoma City you're right I do I do like

don't sit there like Alex Trebek all smug because you got the answers in front of you sorry my favorite one was he's loser in other words losers he's some woman's talking about

some nerd rap they do yeah that's true that's true he did make you feel bad I don't think Ken Jennings does that and again I don't watch Jeopardy with Ken Jenning I don't watch Jeopardy all

because I always feel so dumb because I never know any of the answers? Why don't you watch and learn something, Matt? But learning or is it retention? Yeah. Yeah, it's true. You got issues. Okay. Your brain's all packed up with

trivia from game shows. That is actually accurate. But it is a game show. It is true. But it's just too smart for me. Like Will of Fortune, I don't think Ryan, what's his face? Doing a very good job, Ryan Seacrest. He's just there. I'm not watching it. I don't know.

and by way Martin Short hosting match game is just pissing me off too because I should be hosting match game I get so mad about it who's more famous you or Martin short I get so mad about it that I went on the match game fan page on Facebook and put on there I should be the host of the show you did absolutely how many likes did you get they're like one person said who are you

they said a hidden replies they put you in hidden I said I am a radio professional I have been a game show conno I absolutely did. I said I would do a much better job. When was this? I want to find this. I'll find it for you. It was probably probably two or three weeks ago when it was first announced. Okay. Okay. Let's go back to sports here because we are in anything goes Friday at 713212-5-790. I want to give you nine players, okay? Okay. This will be good for this. This is historical NBA when people in our audience actually like the NBA except for the rockets, obviously.

Can I try to name them off? I don't have anything pulled up. Okay, there are others that have not won a title before, but there are nine. There are actually eight on this list that I've been given, but there's one grand omission, so I'm going to add a ninth myself. Okay. Can you name, in my opinion, these eight are obviously, I think my top eight plus one more. Can you name the nine greatest players that have never won an NBA championship? All right, we'll start with Stockton and Malone.

That's two. Barclay. Three, that's the one I added, by the way. They didn't I put on the list? No, which is really strange. Let's go with Chris Paul Not on there Alan Iverson

On there CP would make it 10 Okay let's make it CP for 10 Patrick Ewing Not on there What Let me give you the list Okay I just do

Reggie Miller Steve Nash Oh please James Harden Stockton AI Damian Lillard Carl Malone

Russell Westbrook This is a very recently biased to recent times. No Chris Paul. No Chris Paul. Did you say Chris Weber's on there? No Chris Weber. No Chris Weber.

No Patrick Ewing. Ewing would have to be on the list for me too. And Paul, I don't know if I could put Chris Weber as a... What about T-Mack? He was on that championship team, but he didn't play. The Spurs won and they won in 14, I guess. Or was he on that team? I don't think he's got a ring. Does he have a ring?

I think he might have been like all the... the roster for the 14 spurs. Okay, so let's just take the 10 guys we thought about. Let's add Chris Paul to our list. Let's add Patrick Ewing to our list and let's add Charles Barkley makes it 11. No, he was not. So no championships for McGarity. So of the 11 players that we just listed, give me the top three that absolutely you think if you could give them a body of work, you're so awesome. You deserve a championship ring or deserve to be on an NBA championship team. Who would you have given? Who are the three best of that 11? go Stockton Malone

Chris Paul or Charles Berkeley I don't know It's a good list I can knock off Steve Nash I can knock off A2 time MVP I can knock off AI

I can name off knock off Damilard I can certainly knock off James Hardin One time MVP To me it's Stockton Malone and then the third one is up for grabs I'd have to look at Ewing's career How many time out of an All-Star was he? I'm just throwing it out there.

We're talking about, I mean, Orlando Magic Legend, Patrick Ewing. Former Rocket Assistant Coach, Patrick Ewing. That's true. 11-time All-Star! Yeah. We can take Ross off this list, correct? Russ's career is interesting in the scope of history. I would never shoot.

I would take Chris Paul's career over Russell Westbrook's career. I agree. I agree. So I'm going to go with... Russ or Dame? Russ. by a smidge. Both of them. Why are we not going to, why are we not including Reggie Miller in our group?

One of the, I mean, was the all-time three-point shot leader until Steph took over? He was a great player. Never averaged 25 points per game in a season. And he didn't create his own shots. He had to come around like 76 curls. But he was a great shooter. Yeah. Okay.

But. All right. So I got to give you definitive answer because we're late for a break. I'm going to go. Ewing, and I'm going to go Malone, Stockton. Stockton, and I'm probably going to go Chris Paul.

Was Dominique, did we say Dominique Wilson? No, Dominique on this list either. New Nick was great. Did Nick one with the Spurs? I don't think. I don't think so. I think so. I can go look it up. It just shows you there's still so many great players, but this was the list of this hoops makes only put together. I'm guessing that hoops makes only...

He was on 97. They won in 99. He was on Orlando. Okay. All right, 1232, Sports Talk, 790. Are we seeing the Astro bats for what they really are? That's an open-ended question. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. I think we are seeing what we think they're going to be the rest of the year. 1232, Sports Talk, 790.

Ross, are we ready to announce the Astro's offense of what we're seeing, and it's not going to change? I choose to be positive. They will get better. Yordon will come back. First of all, Yoron's out of the lineup. He's one of the best hitters on the planet. He's going to be healthy, ready to go, hands all healed up. He's going to be mashing. Okay. Christian Walker's not going to hit 203 the whole season.

Now, I also said the same thing with Jose Abraeu, and we even got into a bat. We even got a bet on it, and I lost. Yeah, that was one of my great, great victories. I mean, you were a dog in that bet, quite frankly. He's a 290 career hitter, and he couldn't get to 250. Jerk. Thanks for nothing, Jose. But anyways, yeah, I believed that Jose Reu would work out to an extent and he did not. He got to 247.

He got real close. So in a Brayu's case, to me, he looked like it was slow, looked like he couldn't recognize the ball coming out of the hand. It looked like when you'd rapidly decline, there's nothing you can do to stop the downfall. Are you seeing the same? sort of downfall. I mean, Christian Walker just this Monday before the start of the series for Kansas City had a huge weekend against Cincinnati, Ross. So I choose not to send that Christian Walker down the same plight because at least there have been some moments. But man, when Christian Walker slumps,

he really does slump. Oh for 16 right now. A lot of strikeouts. And a lot of men left on base in scoring position. And if that's what Christian Walker's going to do this year, and he is trying to help you supplant what Kyle Tucker and Alex Spragman to a lesser extent did last year, your offense can't be. Even with Alvarez coming back, it's not going to be as good as it was last year

and it may not even be close to as good as it was last year. There are going to be very few nights where the Astros are going to outslug somebody 7 to 6. That's what I'm saying. They can still win the division. They can still make a deep playoff run, because all it takes a special series. It doesn't take a special 50.

You don't have to win 50 games to win a World Series. But I am of the belief that who the Astros are offensively isn't going to dramatically change 30 days from now. They're going to be a bottom third OPS team. They're going to be a bottom third. I mean, there are like bottom seven in home runs. That's a huge indicator. A lot of teams hit a lot of home runs to lose.

At least going into last night, they were tied with the Rockies. Pitching's been really good, relief pitching especially. starting pitching has been good. The defense has been phenomenal. Two cases in point last night with one with Pena and one with Myers. So you need the intangibles. So you need the intangibles and the Astros are winning in the intangible category. The most painful and obvious thing is seeing runners, not advance, guys striking out, lazy pop flies,

and unfortunately way too many one-nothing two-one ball games. I do think Christian Walker is going to hit better. Yordon's going to get back in the lineup. He's going to be fine. Yonner Diaz is going to turn around to an extent. And the interesting one we haven't really talked about, Matt. And sometimes in life and in sports, we have to have uncomfortable conversations. Now, remember, I'm prepared to have an uncomfortable conversation about Lance that things don't go well tonight, which hopefully they do. Where's Jose Al-Tuvay at in his career?

Downside. 35 years old. Yes. Started the season hot. He's hitting like 350 first couple of weeks. OPS was 900 for a lot of the season. month at least. He's at 6.55. I feel like he's still getting you one hit a game.

But one for four is still 250. He's been 0 for four in the last two games. I said I feel like it. That means guaranteed. His last home run was April 28th. Before that, April 7th. So two home runs since April 7th. Okay. So I'm going to ask you an even more uncomfortable question beyond that. We saw him drop from one to two.

Hmm. Where is he? Stay with my question here. In 2025, he is where he's going to stay. If you were to look in your deep crystal ball right now, sports RV, for an astro team to be successful and to win, where's Jose Al-Tubing in your batting lineup? The book is not written on this year.

Let's say that. He can improve. Baseball players. If there's anybody that's on a team that can absolutely get into a six-hit series or a 12-and-29 kind of thing, it's Jose L-Tube. He's been an outlier his entire career. He's been beating projections and blah, blah, blah, anything as far as like analytics and stuff. He's been toasting those his whole career. Yes.

He's made a Hall of Fame career out of it. Yep. Yeah, you're going to have to move like six or seven next year, if this continues the way it is. The Astros will not be built for a conclusion. continued run back half of this decade, if Jose Al-Tube, on this current pace, remains the top three in the lineup. And that's very hard for me to say because he is the greatest astral of them all. It doesn't mean that Jose Al-Tube can't change things around the rest of this year. So he comfortably can be a part of the top three.

It doesn't mean that he can't continue to pursue a thought of getting to 3,000 hits. It doesn't mean that he necessarily has to have a steep. progression downwards but the last two years have taken its toll clearly at second base it did because the decision to put him out in left field and here's the one thing we still don't have second base resolved but yeah if if if on pace guy in terms of what hose al tuvae has done offensively continues with his on with his current pace he needs to be nothing more than any higher than a sixth place hitter in the lineup next year. That's going to be hard to watch.

Because Jose Al-Tube has lived in the top three for 99% of his Astros career. Not ready to close. I'm not ready to say that just yet because we're not, look, we are not even at the halfway mark of the 2025, but just thinking ahead a little bit. He's never been a super high exit velo guy, so, but he is worse than where he was. He's in the bottom 1% of average exit velocity. That's not good. At bat speed, everything's down across the board.

And it's concerning. Two years ago, he was still one of the best hitters on the planet. Last year, there was a decline. This year, he is well below average. It needs to thick up. It needs to. He knows it. The Astros know it.

But right now, with second base not being a huge hitting spot, Roger's done okay for himself. Dubon is Dubon. from an offensive standpoint, is he your best second baseman? Al Tuve? Yeah. No.

He's not hitting and he's not good there defensively. But if you continue to put him out in left field. He's not good out there. You're paying him $30 million a year. He's an all-time team legend, organizational legend. He's got to play somewhere. Yeah.

And left field is probably the best way to hide them. But does that curtailed Zach DeSenzel playing more, Cam Smith playing more, and Yorn and Alvarez? getting some spots in left field. Honestly, to me, he's playing more second base than I even thought I was going to at this point. Altuve?

Yeah. I would agree with that. It's been a smattering. I don't know what you would call it. Occasional. Occasional. That works. 1244.

We've got non-flora stories coming up in 45 minutes. Charles Willie, Dan, hang tight. We'll get to all of you. Next is the Matt Thomas showed Ross continues. If you want to jump a board, get behind those nice folks. 713-212-5-7-9. Non-Florist stories are coming up in 40, minutes from now. This is where we peruse the World Wide Web to find most interesting stories that pass along to use long as long as they're not from the state of Florida.

1250, 790 is the station. The program is the Matt Thomas Hill Ross and let's talk to Charles at 1250. Hi, Charles, thanks for holding. Hey, how are y'all doing? Good. I agree with Al-Tuby. I think they ought to move him in the lineup now. And if I was a hitting coach for the Astros, I'd start getting a little worried. But here's, here's, Here's my biggest issue. The, how many times do you see a pitcher come out who's an opposing pitcher come out who's obviously doing a great job and having a great night? Get through a six and seven pitch inning. Yeah, these guys never take a pitch and try to do anything to add,

to get these guys out of game earlier. They used to be known for, you know, during the fifth. the pitchers already got 60 or 70 pitches, you don't see that anymore. I mean, I don't think drawing out, if they're throwing strikes, it doesn't matter how many pitches you throw.

Don't you believe that? I do believe, but if you swing at the first strike, you know, then you know, just when, you know, sometimes you've got to change your game plan a little bit and honestly it kind of feels like the Astros don't have a plan.

They have a lineup with a lot of, look, they did have a lot better walk rates. They had guys like Michael Brantley, Alex Bregman, those types of guys who are known for drawing walks and not striking out. But right now you look at this lineup, it's a lot of aggressive guys. Jose Altuve's always been aggressive. Jose has never been a guy that drawn a lot of walks.

Yonard Diaz swings at everything. I mean, Jake Myers is trying to get his walk rate up to like league average, but he's never been a guy who draws a bunch of walks. Yordaun's pretty good at it, but he's been out of the lineup right now. Jeremy Payne doesn't take a lot of walks. Yeah, he doesn't, but he's been doing better this year.

So there has been some improvement in an uptick there. I think it's just a lot of the guys of the lineup. You know, we talk about, oh, the lineup back in the day used to do this, this, and this. Well, yeah, you had Kyle Tucker, you had Alex Breggman, you had Michael Brannley, you had George Springer, you had Carlos Correa. I mean, Charles, I just think it's just, no. I just think that these are human beings that just aren't as good as their previous human beings that were here. I don't necessarily think extending.

It was in a philosophical change. Yeah, there wasn't everybody. It wasn't like the hitting coaches all of a said, yeah, guys, go ahead and swing in everything. It also has to do with the individuals who are on the. this team. Well, let's talk about Bregman. Okay, Bregman here is a 260, 270 hit, or look what he's doing in Boston. Yes, that's right.

I'm going to bet you his numbers come down, Charles. Number one. I've been thinking that all year, but he's having the best start to a season he's ever had. Yeah. And the only thing that he's got a different hitting coach this year. He's, yeah, we addressed this earlier. When he was here, he had his own personal hitting coach. And I don't know if that guy is still with him or what.

They've changed the way that he's loaded his hands. And when he had his career years that he had were in 18 and 19. He was here with Troy Snickers, has been here since then. I know, I think one of them started in 19. I think it was maybe Centron. Yeah, Centron's the older. Both of them have been here since 19. And that's when Alex Breggman had his best career of his year of his career.

I agree. I mean, just just, but at some point you got to start looking around and saying, where's the problem? And it can't be totally that you've got nine free swingers on the team. Well, I mean, let's put in perspective here. Would you rather have had, you rather have Kyle Tucker and Alex Breggman in your line up every day or Cam Smith and Sack Desenzo? Well, there's no question about that. That's just, you know, that's, it doesn't matter because that's not going to happen. but at the same time

I don't know I just think if they take a pitch here and there you get to the fifth inning you put 10 or 12 extra pitches on the guy he's going to get out of the game a little bit earlier and right now the Astros pitch the hitters

there's no nice way to say this they're just being outclassed that's that's been the way since the beginning of the season specifically last night Jacob de Grom is thrown strikes everywhere. And the a show's

were swinging early in counts. What was his pitch count last night? 96 and 8 innings. Okay, so to the previous call, 96 and 8 innings, I mean, pretty efficient. That's, but it's not overwhelming.

It's not like, it's not like you, like, for instance, the previous night, Fraber throws less than 90 over 8, 96 over 8 innings. If he was to pitch a, if the gram had to throw 9, he would have been in the 110, 115 range to get outs. that's not overly efficient.

Yeah, generally I think of like 10 to 15 pitches per inning is fairly efficient for a pitcher. 50. So that would be an 8. No, 15 would not be efficient because that'd be... Not efficient, but around average. No, because that's 120 over 8. I wouldn't do that.

Yeah, so most guys aren't going 8. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't think yesterday's example would be one that I'd use. I get concerned with the four pitch at bats, the five pitch at But Altube is going to free swing Parenthood is going to free swing. Paredes loves first pitch as well.

I mean, you have a built team that way. A Maddox is known as a complete game, nine innings, under 100 pitches. That's 11 per inning. And that's thought of as hyper-efficient. Yes. So, yeah, he was very efficient last night was Jake DeGron.

How many strikes did he throw of those of those pitches? I'll pull it back up, but it was not, I think it was 69. Yeah, he's out there. If you can spit on as many pitches as you want, but you do it twice and you're down 02, you're in a bad spot against Jake DeGron. But I think he's talking about the season as a whole. Right, right, right. I agree the walk rate hasn't been there.

And also, you need guys who judge the strike zone better. Jake Myers has been judging the strike zone better. Jeremy Pena, man, he got, he got squeezed on a, it was a down and in on the, corner slider from Jake de Grom that was not a strike. I was so happy. It's like Jeremy Payne, there was a low and outside slider on the corner and he didn't flinch. He didn't, he didn't swing at it.

Unfortunately, he got called a strike and he struck out. Because remember this, but Payne's getting better. For years, you could throw a slider in Jeremy and he wasn't hitting it. I was very impressed with him laying off of that specific pitch in that moment. So he has been getting his walk rate up. Isok Paredes has been walking like crazy.

I don't know where the Astros and what their walk rate is relative to the major leagues. But yeah, and then you got to get to, yeah, these guys aren't turning Zach to Zinzo and Maricio Dubon into Hall of Famers. Oh, no. I mean, it's also what's in the lineup. We used to talk about how the length of the lineup going seven, eight deep. Right now it's Pena and Paredes and a lot of question. I mean, you throw Jake Myers in there. That's three.

Everybody else has been bad. It's worse. And to go back. to the Bregman example, which the previous caller did, and this is just, again, this is what cyclical baseball is. In the month of April, Alex Bregman batted 350 with an OPS of 1,100. Okay. In the month of May, granted, it's half as long. OPS is still really good, but it's down 968, and his batting average is down to 280. Still again, outstanding numbers. Yeah. But there is a slight regression

to closer to the norm. His career average of balls in play is 282. Right now it's 344. That's going to go down. His numbers are going to go down. I feel very confident. I don't want him to have all the success in the world. I don't want them to have. And Kyle Tucker's numbers you brought up earlier in the show. They have been cratering, huge, hugely.

So, you know, the storyline didn't fit well. Bregman crushing, Tucker crushing, Astroostortle out of the gate offensively. I'm just telling you. it sometimes comes down to the talent in what you have. You put a brand new right fielder out there with limited, not limited, no major league experience.

Zach DeSenzo, very limited major league experience. You moved, you don't have a real second baseman offensively, right? No. Rogers, Dubon, do not carry the load for second base offensive numbers. They just don't. Rogers is, he's got some percentage, like hard hit percentages and stuff that hopefully there can be some hope there. But, yeah, second base has been a sinkhole.

I think the Astros' offense improves if they go get a legitimate second baser. And maybe a left-handed bat. I think Dana Brown hasn't hidden the fact he'd like to get one. All right, final hour of the Matt Thomas showed Ross. We'll start things off with Willie. We'll get to the rest of you at 713-213-5-790. 7-1-0. 2-7-9-E. Astros fall 1-0.

Game 2 with Lance McCullors. how confident, Ross, are you in Lance McCuller is getting you four innings tonight? Don't answer that question just yet. 713-212-5-799. Florida stories coming up as well, plus hell yeah or not, all things about the Jaws movie series. 50 years ago this week, Jaws hits the movie theaters. All right, here we go. It is the final hour of the week.

Ross, you ready? We have done 19 hours. of amazing major market radio. We've down to 55 minutes. Can we make this the most special hour of the week right here on Sports Talks, 70? I hope you'll join me for it. I'm mailing it. I don't think so. I think you don't need a mail to it.

Come on now, Rossi, we're down the home stretch, baby. Down the stretch we go. Got non-flora stories coming up. Where's your non-flora story from? From Thailand. It's always from Thailand. I just made it up. Yeah, I'm trying to look, I'm trying to find these.

My little bank of stories is good this week. It's not great. I'm trying to find the definitive great one. Okay. All right. So we got non-Florida stories. Hell yeah or not. And your phone call, 713, 212, 570.

I threw a question at you. We're going to get to Willie in just one second. So, Rossi, um, Lance McCullors. Lance McCullors, if there was a bet, which you obviously could make on four innings. Oh, come on. Four innings. Now, you're Mr. Glass-Haffold guy, and I appreciate that. I am.

Over. Over. Okay, if I'm at the actual betting window, it's a stay away. No, no, no, no, no. I've given you $25. Oh, $25? It's a gift. It's a gift.

If you give you $2,500, then we might have to do this. Okay, fun. Here's a problem. If he doesn't give you four, which is, again, that's not good. It's not even close to quality, and it's not even good.

Now, granted, the bullpins rested, so that's a big help. But my confidence is low. The confidence would really start to win. How can my confidence be high? He was okay against the White Sox, who are one of the worst offensive teams in baseball. He was wild, and then he couldn't throw strikes the second time he went out there. It was a disaster, and he got completely shelled by the Cincinnati Reds. Yeah.

And he only threw an inning. I mean, got one out, not even an inning. In 36 pitches. His arm should be fresh. I will say this. I'm not going to be shocked if he bounces back. I'm completely shocked. I'll be surprised.

But confidence, there's no way to have a high level of confidence in him right now. Yeah. I don't think, I mean, I don't think people are getting ready to run home and listen to the game. Obviously,

there's no local TV on set. Well, you should be. I'm curious. I'll be in my seat watching or listening. Because I'm curious. I'm very curious to see what happens. I would love.

I want to be wrong. There's a difference between curious and excited. Five innings of two-run ball. I think people are curious, borderline nervous. He's not going to go throw seven shutout, but if he can give you like five innings a two-run ball, that would be such a stride in the right direction for not only him personally,

but for this team who needs starting pitching right now. Gusto was bad the last time out. Was Neski, we haven't heard the word yet, but we think it's going to be rhyme with Rami Ron. And you need starting pitching. And you need some offense. And I just think the body of work, the 40, what, 43 games

we've seen so far? That's the thing too. That's going to make his leash longer. If you can go out there and score some runs on Nativaldi, who is very good. Confidence is low. If you had me at the betting window, I'd go under. Willie on 790, Willie, thanks for holding. What's up?

My husband's turning the radio down. Listen, I have this rubbed me the wrong way from the very beginning. And I don't want to be sour grades. I mean, a lot of this is sour, but What was wrong with Singleton at first base? We didn't have to pay him a lot of money to keep him,

and he was a decent replacement when Rayu went out on the I-O. I felt bad for him, cut him right before the first game, and I know he's with the mess in the minor leagues, I think. Number two, why is Mack always being benched? They bring him in a nice night pitch runner. Why is he on the bench? Who? Who?

Who? Who's Mac? Mac. Carmeck. Oh. Oh, okay, Chas McCormick, I got you. Okay. Yeah, Chaz.

And then when Diaz is not catching to have him out as a D.H and when Peritini is catching, I mean, when Diaz is catching a Peritini D and H, Diaz is not a D.H batter. Why? Why have him back in again batting? I don't understand. Who do you want there? Who does a better D.H candidate? it. Well, you can put Chas in there and try him out and give him some batting time. What's wrong with

that when Diaz is really, you're saying, you know, he's not really seeing the ball. He can't count on him to hit it. Over their major league careers, he's been the superior hitter. They're both struggling right now. I don't even know. Is Chas McCormick even hitting at all? I mean, when's the last time, Chad said three at bats in a game? I don't know. He's been buried on the bench, unfortunately, because, well, he just hasn't been good. Yeah, thanks, Willie. To the second point, you knew who John Singleton was. John Singleton was a four-e player. Who's to answer your question? He's on the...

Matt Smoddley. Has he played on the Major League team? No. Okay, so was he some hot commodity that... I can't believe the Astros got rid of John Singleton. In this particular... I know where Willie's coming from this. I think she's going hindsight of this a little bit.

She's going... You're spending all this money on Christian Walker. He's not doing anything. Yeah, but it was a great deal on a sign. But everybody wanted improvement at first base. Everybody. Nobody was like, I think John Singleton can carry the

load at first base. He just couldn't. And he can't because he's not doing, he, nobody picked him up on a major league roster, he's on a minor league team, and look, he did provide some pop and his glove work was a little bit better last year, but John Singleton's about a 220 hitter. Now granted, he's been a lot cheaper if he'd have kept him around, you didn't, but you thought

Christian Walker coming off of three straight gold gloves, great defense, and a guy that walked into 25 home runs every year was going to come in here and do a nice job. Yeah, you don't have a crystal ball. You had to replace the production of Tucker and Bregman somewhere. They did that with Christian Walker at first, rather than replace one for one in where they were. Yeah, it wasn't supposed to be like this. Same thing with the Jose Abraeo deal.

It wasn't supposed to be like that. Now, there are two different animals. Christian Walker is younger than Jose Abraeo was when he was signed here, and I have more optimism that he's going to be able to turn this thing around. Christian Walker has just tremendous morbidity. He's struggling mightily. But remember, four days ago, we just talked to Christian Walker about how he had had a great series against Cincinnati. And, oh, by the way, he's a gold glover.

He's already made, he's saved multiple runs at first base. And John Singleton was just a guy defensively. Yeah, I'm just, I, there's never an argument in my world. Not that John was on a nice young man, but there's never an argument I ever thought to myself, man, John Singleton would have been a better alternative. And Chaz is the last guy on the roster. Last position player on the roster. Well, maybe not.

Cesar or Salazar is. Oh, yeah. And then Cesar will go back to the minor leagues once Alvarez gets cleared off the injured list. What? Or? Oh, what? Or a young player out of Florida State who hasn't been playing? I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

The only reason why you would do that is because you do like D.Hing Diaz and putting carotini behind the dish. But when Yordon's back, you're trying to D.H.M. 5 times a week. So that's why you probably wouldn't do that. My guess is that you would send Salazar back. Yeah, I think so. But I think they are mulling over Camstim,

especially if DeSenzzo's starting to play all the time. You've already got one after he already plays. DeZenzo's out playing him right now. Cam Smith has been great defensively. But it's not like Desinzo's doing enough to necessarily win the job six days a week. Correct. We need the Astros offense get going, gang. We just do.

It would really help me out mentally. I'm not asking for like Aaron Judge numbers. No. Or pre- or Yankee Juan Soto numbers. But give me something here? I thought Juan Soto's getting a little better with the Mets. And he had a couple of home runs recently? By the way, they'll be playing at Yankee Stadium tonight.

How do you think the applause will be for Juan Soto? Juan Soso has a OPS, a, OPS, 845. Are you kidding me? That's so, so for him. We retire his jersey after that. 713-212-5-7-90. 7-1-2-1-2-5-7-90.

Non-4-storries, bottom of the hour. More of you on the Astros is they play game two. What is going to be, I think, a fairly important series, because, again, if the Astros and Rangers are back and forth, first place, second place, hopefully that's the case in the second half of the year, these individual games could be a huge different, makers when it comes to the wildcard.

713-212-5-7-90. Non-Flority stories are coming up in 10 minutes. Ross, mine is coming to you from Virginia. Where is yours from today? I told you, Thailand. All right. I always feel like Thailand's a kind of money. I might have to do a late swap, though.

We'll see. Yeah. We're nine minutes away from this segment. We prep like a mudda, and you don't have it ready to go. I've been very busy. Doing what? Believe it or not. Okay, well, that's right.

It is. And yelling at people on Instagram. Are you still fighting with that guy? No, I'm not fine. Can I go look? If you want. Is it worthy of a sports empty theater? No, I don't think so.

Okay. I'm going to go look while we talk to this great call. Go look. At Sports RV on Instagram. George and Cyprus on 790. Hello, George. George. Hey.

George and Porgy. Hey, how's it going? Yes, sir. How are you doing? I'm good. How are you? Oh, not too bad. I already talked to Jonathan, so we're good to go.

All right, very good. We'll talk to you later. Hey, I want to bring something up, man. Please. Why is Lance McCuller being a starter? He should be like middle reliever, maybe before eighth inning guy, seventh inning. He shouldn't be starting, man, because then you got to, you have to like, now Joe Spada is forced to use his bow pen. and go deep.

Like, why? I don't understand why. Well, the plan normally isn't for him to just get one out. He's making $18 million a year. They need starting pitching help. But he's not a starter anymore. He's been a starter his whole career. I understand, but, I mean, he doesn't look like that anymore.

Well, we know that. I mean, we're watching the same games you are. Well, he can come out of the bullpen and give up one run in seven innings. I mean, excuse me, seven runs in a third of an inning. He can do that in the bullpen, too. I mean, I'm not going to argue with you that I think his future still is in the bullpen is perhaps a one-in-a-old-game guy. But they're trying to do everything they can to bring him back to what he was and the starting pitcher. And I don't think when he first came back two starts ago, we were thinking he was going to be an eight-in-a-old guy to begin with.

I think he was going to be in a pitch count. I think getting to five innings at this point would be a nice part of his resurrection and coming back from injury. But yeah, he's not done so far. It had been two, first of all, one off-performance and one below-average performance. That's right. I mean, I can't argue that. well it's like uh it's like the rocket's bringing in jeff green as a starter it doesn't make sense that's not an example at all no he's not 40 years old and he's not one of the highest paid players on the team well i don't know we need to do something about that because all right thank you george i've been a long run Yeah, appreciate you, George.

Look, I understand, and Matt, you and I have talked about this, him being in relief. First of all, he has always walked too many guys to really come in and be like a leverage guy. He's never been asked to do it. He wants to be a starter. Your best return on investment, you've, look, it's been a sunk cost the last two years. It just has. He's made $18 and $16 million to do nothing.

So your best return to, a way to get a return on that investment is to give him every shot to be a good starting pitcher. and as you mentioned Matt's hard conversations may have to be had and a move to the bullpen could be on the horizon but I don't even know if that's a lot I mean either you get out so you don't and he's having a difficult time getting out and would they even trade him away paying the vast majority of his salary

to try to get further under the tax and possibly make some moves at the deadline that could happen the scenario I'm thinking about I want to mention on there what DFA You're going to talk about execution or something, right? No, no, no. Okay.

713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-0. No, execution, though. It sounded like something sinister. No, I wasn't sinister. I just don't want to put something in the conversation that I hopefully doesn't come to that. Put it in the ether. Yeah, because people won't misunderstand it.

I just want to say that he's been given a leash. It's possible. It's just going to be, you can't continue to do this for another month or so. Well, the Astros' hand could be forced. If he goes out there and gets shelled three more to two, three more. times or something, you don't have a choice. You don't have a choice. Because you've given him every opportunity. Like I said,

nothing's going to be determined after tonight. Just give us five innings a two-run ball. I think we can put this off. I think July 1st will be an important kind of a check the results card. June 1st. James on 790.

Hello, James. Hey, what's going on? You tell us. Hey, well, I got a little confession to make to you, Matt. Please do. Okay, well, I called a few days ago, and James is my middle name. My first name is Paul. Hi, Paul.

Hello, Paul, James. Yeah, I called you the other day, man. I got a little out of line. I get a little animated sometimes when I talk about sports. Oh, wait a minute. I thought your name is Paul. We kept calling you something else. Yeah, well, Paul is my first name.

James is my second name. So you were the one screaming at Matt saying he didn't know what he's talking about. You called me an idiot. I think I called you an idiot. No, I'm not. A clown. A clown. Oh, yeah.

I'm a clown. You know, you know what? He is a clown. You know, maybe PJ. I'm going to call you PJ by the way. This is great. You guys are making it. You guys are kissing him.

Yeah, because this is, we talk about sports. We're not talking about reinventing the wheel here. We're not talking about microbiotics. No, none of that stuff. That's right. Well, obviously, obviously the rockets do need to do need to do. do a little something, you know, and I'm sure they're going to make a play for Yonis. Matter of fact, my son heard that there was something out there that was

Singoon and Aiman Thompson for Yon, the number 10 pick for Yonis. I mean, they're going to have to make, you know, some kind of change. But I want to just say this about U of H. I may have a little something on you on U of H. Do you remember who the original Twin Towers were? The original Twin Towers were? In college. Can you give me the year?

73. It was either before, if it was before New Year's it was 73. If it was after it was 74. They played, U of H played Jacksonville State at home. And it was artist Gilmore and Pembroos. that played at the university they played at jacksonville university yes and they played at u of h well i was only year and i was only year and a half old so i was not there

i was i was i was i was i'm 69 so i was i was but the story is you'll never guess who i went to that game with so you're saying i will never guess linden b johnson i'm going to say you went with uh 60 i want to say you went with Marvin Zindler? I went with Tilman Fertita. Oh, wow. Really, Paul James? Huh. Now, how old

was he? We're one year apart. And what y'all... Joggle the school? Yes, we went to high school together. We're family friends. Matter of fact, in 1961, when Hurricane Carly hit Galveston, I spent four days with the

Partitas and several other families in Houston. So did you realize back then he'd be worth $10 billion? If I did, I would not probably be talking to you on the phone right now. That's true. That's true. Hey, we got a roll to a break. Paul, you're not an idiot. We love you like a stepbrother or maybe an older grandfather, but we are out of time in

this segment. By the way, microbiotics is a company that supplements vitamins and other types of things. So, microbiotics indeed is eternal. Oh, you're trying to give yourself credit. I did give myself credit. You're going to go with antibiotics or microbiology? No, Google Microbiics. You can find it right now.

It's a firm that creates. The bacteria that live in the intestinal tract. Got that right. Thank you very much, Paul, for joining the show. No. Blind squirrel found a nut on this one. I feel good. Nod Florida stories and, oh, here's Joe.

It says idiot caller. Is he the idiot caller or is... No, he was going to talk about that. Oh, he wants some of the idiot caller. Well, we'll knock him out real quick here. What's going on, Joe? Hey, Matt, I think I'm both. But I wanted to talk about

Paul, man, that's to give up, amen and say you. It's not happening. A man's untouchable. I mean, I'm telling you right now. It's not happening. Yeah, I mean, we've got a young court in a second in the conference. I mean, let's keep it together, man. That's what I say.

And Paul is a fool. That's okay. I'll say later. Okay, thanks, Joe. Ross, I think it's going to be 50-50. I don't think they're going to They're aspiring to make a deal But they're going to get a deal

That they're going to go Oh, okay, we need to think about it I don't think they're going to rock the boat I'll stick with that I would lean towards the same thing I think they're going to I think a lot of this is just It's just good off-season

Stargazing, right? Yeah, you know Matt, when you rock the boat You could tip the boat over And I think they don't want to do that Can you go on with your bad self still? I think so Oh, yay Oh yay? Oh, yay

Oh, yay? You know what? I want to apologize on a Friday. I don't. Non-Florida stories. Come on up next. Non-Floristories. Six, believe it or not, questions. And we'll get to Michael in the Woodlands.

Oh, great. So that's a great and excitement. Coming up here. Here we go. Boys and girls, I got two stories for you this week. Ross, may I do two stories this week? It'll help you kill some time. You cover me.

All right. I'm ducking out of this one. Are you out this week? If you're out, you're out. No, I go. Okay, okay, here we go. I want to introduce you to Carlotta Andrew's boys and girls. She was about to take a sip from her margarita at Petron, Mexican restaurant and canteena in Sanston, Virginia.

Oh, I heard the margaritas are the best over there. Something struck her on the forehead, reported WRIC Channel 8 News. Oh, no. I looked at my husband like, what was that, Ms. Andrews said. When I turned around, I saw a snake in my margarita. What? The baby snake, which had fallen from the ceiling, which had fallen from the ceiling. Wiggled in the glass and wrapped itself around the straw as restaurant workers attempted to remove it with a stick.

This is sick. Another customer was able to grab the snake and set it free outside. The staff offered to move Andrews to a booth, but the shaken patron chose to leave instead. The owner of the restaurant suspects the snake entered to the AC unit, but Andrews was left to wonder, quote, if that was the baby is the mom there. So getting a snake in your margarita, not preferred. No word is whether or not she took home nachos for dinner or enchiladas. That would kill your entire buzz.

I would think so. Disgusting. You know, Jonathan Averisnake and your margarita? God forbid. Had a worm in the tequila. All right. And that's my first non-Florida story. Okay, thank you.

Let me get one out of the way. Yeah, please do. Matt, let me take you to a place that I know you love. Sladelle, Louisiana. Louisville. Oh, Sladelladale. Oh, down, no, no, no, Sladell. Around 5 p.m on.

May 11th, the police were called to a Lowe's parking lot. Of course, we crack ourselves up, I know. I'm personally very happy with my snake and my margarita store. Officers arrived at the scene after reports of a trespasser in one of the sheds on display outside of the Lowe's. Witnesses reported a naked mail inside of one of the stores. outdoor tool sheds, which are typically used to show customers options for purchase. Oh, you've purchased that all right. Around shed four or five, as the officers were going door to door, they located the suspect,

lying on his back, pants around his ankles, and using a container of Vaseline. You can probably figure out what he was doing. Fast forward, fast forward, fast forward. The police ordered the man to pull up his pants and to roll onto his stomach as is key, although that might have been painful at the moment and to be handcuffed.

The man thankfully complied without resistance. So he went to a Home Depot to you know what a what? What was a Lowe's? A low, well, sorry. He went to a Lowe's shed with Vaseline and an electronic device as well. I'm not made any stories.

And the police did not release his name but said he was not a Slydel Louisiana native. Because that would not make it, oh, okay, I was going to say. The man admitted to his actions telling the officers he was watching YouTube. He was arrested on account of obscenity and booked into jail.

You can get aroused off of YouTube? Oh, he wasn't YouTube, wasn't it? You work hard enough. What did you just say? If you lock in. All right, Jonathan, you're next. I got one more. All right.

So, I'm reporting, the Guardian reported that Lorona Rook out here in London, England was with her co-workers on May 7th, 2021. Her and her co-workers were asked to participate in a team-building exercise featuring a Star Wars theme questionnaire that will reveal which character from the sci-fi franchise

their personality most resembled. Lorona didn't want to participate in it, but later found out her coworkers put it in anyway. No big deal, right? The results come up as a Sith Lord. Due to quiz described that her as Bader as a very focused individual, Rook called the comparison highly unflattering

and said it made her super unpopular where she had to quit a month later. So, we fast forward to 2025. She sued them and a judge rewarded the award of the case, and she won $40,000 from the company because of this. $40,000 would be calling a SIF Lord? Because she got called Dark Vader at work

and her feelings were her. Oh. All right, real quick. Who's the Darth Vader's 790? Wex. Weck. Where? Oh, off the top rope.

Off the top rope, Jonathan. Oh, my God. I can't believe you just said it so fast. Oh, please me. That's a big one, honey. I'm coming to join you, honey. Woo! Right off the top rope.

Wow. Ow. Two to six weekdays. The Dawth Vita of 790, Adam Wexler. So what would that make Clanton? Obie one canoby? Are you sure? I mean, come on.

Where's your head? Ball sack sports? Are you sure? I mean, come on. Where's your head? I believe nuts will be getting cracked this weekend. I do not shoot the video from in front of me and nothing on my chest do jiggles in that manner. So it's not a proprietary issue.

I don't think your views are as high. I believe nuts will be getting cracked this weekend. The Darth Vader of 790. That may stick. I don't know if he's going to get that because he may not be listening right now. All right. My last story, you guys ready? Last one.

I don't know what this is. I'm just looking for a clean, germ-free studio for a few hours. Well, guess what? Poor Wexler. There's been sucking on that microphone forever. I've been wiping it down every day. A recent Southwest Airlines flight was met by law enforcement after landing in Chicago, Ross. And Jonathan?

You say, but why? Police removed a passenger who had stripped naked on the plane and defecate in her seat. Matt, where did you get these ones today? What's wrong with you? How come every other story of yours involves defecation? You're sick. When asked about why the woman did it, she said it was a blankie flight. I made that part up.

Southwest issued a statement saying, quote, nothing is more important to Southwest than the safety of our customers and employees, and we appreciate the professionalism of our flight crew. What would professionalism? Could you imagine you're on your plane going to Kansas City on dark breast airlines

and somebody gets naked and then drops trial right next to you? I mean, do friends then fly free on this thing? I mean, how many rapid reward points do you get off of that? hopefully unlimited God yeah she got arrested you can't drop a deuce on a plane and not get arrested

Lizards in the bathroom so to recap we have a Darth Vader in person characterization and a workplace that costs the company $40,000 I got a Southwest Airlines

drop in trial on a seat we got a snake and a margarine and Ross what was yours about again the Slidedell Louisiana Slidell going to a Lowe's and Vaseline and letting you figure out what they did the rest of them. 144 Sports Talk 790.

I would ask my friend here, Michael in the Woodlands, to top all those stories. Michael, good afternoon. Oh, I don't think I have any nasty stories like that to top that one. All right. I was actually going to talk about the Astros, man. I'm actually on my way to Arlington right now. Are you driving this exact second? I actually pulled in the driveway, picking up the wife,

and then we're hitting the 45 right after that. I should be hitting the Sanat Airbnb, but I should get there probably around five-ish. Okay, now is she a baseball fan like yourself, or she just being a good wife? I've actually made her one, man. We've been together for about six years. Oh, congratulations.

I think she kind of liked the Dodgers a little bit. What? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, man. I had to convert her quick, man. She's a big out. Is she a California girl? She lived there for a little bit grown up, so that was her whole ties. No one ever took her to her game, so I started taking her. And she doesn't believe in

violence because she's a Dodger fan, correct? No, she's not one of those LA girls. Okay, good, good, good. Well, hey, be careful. I want you to call us back on Monday, Michael, and give us the most interesting thing in the, hauling you there for the entire weekend or just for tonight? Yeah, I'm going to the weekend.

I'm going to that Texas Live. Y'all were asking about that a couple days ago. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I went to a Cowboys game in October, and I went to the live right after it, man. That place is pretty cool, man. All right, so Michael, you got to call us back on Monday. I don't know if you're a crazy person or not,

but would you please call us back Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday if sometime next week and give us the craziest thing that happened over this weekend. You do that for us? I can do it. I can do it. Because we do want to live vicariously through you. Maybe I'll see some rowdy ranger fans. They were booing Altube last night when I was watching.

Imagine that. Ranger fans booing Al-Tuba. That's stunning. Well, you know, I thought we'd get a little courtesy, man. I expected in New York or L.A. or somewhere, but, you know, in Texas, man. No, they're just anchor people. people up there. Hey, Michael, thanks for the phone call, save travels and tell you, not your Dodger wife, we sent

our very best. All right, let's play Hell, yeah, or not. All things about the Jaws movie series. That is coming up next. Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We should play America's fastest growing sports radio game show Monday through Thursday.

We called it, believe it or not, but on Fridays we call it a hell yeah or not. And here's how it works. You call 713 21, 2, 2, 570. 713-212-5-790. Today's edition of Hellyer and Out is all things about the Jaws movie series. I'll read your statement about the Jaws series. Statements completely utterly accurate.

You'll say this. Believe it. No, you won't. You'll say something else. Hell yeah! There you go. In the statement's the erroneous photo bunk and made up, you'll say this. Two Hellyer knots in a row win your prize.

What are we playing for today, Jonathan? A pair of tickets to see Chris Isaac live on July 29th House of Blues. Man, we're trying to give these Chris Isaac tickets like a man. motor. 713212.5.790. Oh, is my phone system not working here? Let's take a look. Yeah, I got a... This is terrible. Let's go to line number two. Roger on 790. Roger, you ready to play. Hell yeah or not.

Hell yeah. Despite all of the blood and violence in the film, Jaws was given a PG rating from the MPAA. Hell yeah, or not? Not Bally a bit Are you sure about that? All right, see you, Roger. Go look it up.

PG for all of them? Go look it up, Maddie. I never would have gone. I think in those days they did not have PG-13. Okay, that is accurate. 7-13-212-5-790. You guys don't want these Chris Isaac tickets. Come on, let's go.

I mean, I get it. Greg and Laporte on 790. Greg, you're ready to play, hell yeah or not? Yeah, yeah. Roy Schneider was cast in the film. after eavesdropping on a Stephen Spilberg at a Hollywood party. Schneider heard about the shark and walked over

and asked Spielberg to be cast. Hell yeah or not. That is correct. Statement number eight. Shater. Yeah, you misspelled it, but that's fine. No, it's Shider. No, it's S-C-H.

Yeah, Shider, not Schneider. Is it really? I thought it was Rob Schneider. No, the Rob Schneider was in S&L. Oh, okay, whatever. Roy Shider. I did not misspell it. After Jaws was released, the family estate of Herman Melville criticized the film for stealing from Moby Dick, but no legal action was filed. Hell yeah or not?

That is correct. Not. Moby Dick. Yeah, it's, yeah, there are parallels between Jaws and Moby Dick. Are you sure it's spelled that way, though? Matthew on 790. Is this like a Mandela effect? Yes, Roy Scheider.

Matthew on 790, ready to play, believe it or not. Hell yeah or not. Hell yeah. Here we go. Let's see. When the shark isn't known for over, when the shark isn't shown for over an hour and 20 minutes, this was not to build suspense.

It was because of technical issues with the anatronic shark. Hell yeah or not. Hell yeah. Animatronic shark. Hell yeah. These questions blow. Second.

Question number two. You're reading blows. You're reading comprehension blows. The famous line from you're going to need. need a bigger boat was not in the script. It was an improbivization by Roy Schneider. Shider! You see, you misspelled it here. Oh, did I? Yeah.

You got two of his mouth. Shut your bum ass up. You got two of them. You got two of us. And you're wrong. You're wrong. The second one is Yeah, I made a typo. This is actually correct. Roy Shider is correct. But you spelled earlier. Okay, but Roy Shider is correct. You got the same. Shut your

mess up. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. That's right. You win. Joseph on 790. Ready to play? Hell yeah or not? Yes, sir. During production, the shark was jokingly named Harvey after the young and contentious producer

Harvey Weinstein. Hell yeah or not? Before I answer that question, Roth is embarrassing himself right now, all these questions. Yeah, that's a hell yeah. That's a knot, and you lost. Shut your bum ass up. You're embarrassing yourself with that answer. We're done. So look, the second spelling was right. that sometimes I typo, but Roy Scheider

is correct. That does not change. But you forgot to C.H. Okay, that's fine. You're still wrong. Have a great weekend, everybody. Up next, two guys that won't do the Astros on deck and 10th on a regular basis. It's the A team on Sports Talks of it, out of.