The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Fall vs Twins In Game 1, Did You Watch Spurs vs OKC?

Episode Date: May 19, 2026

Astros Fall vs Twins In Game 1, Did You Watch Spurs vs OKC?

This is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. NHtown, good morning, and welcome to a Tuesday edition of the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. It was cold. It was rainy. There was no one there. Kind of felt like an Astros twins Monday night. Did it not, friends?

Ross went to go get his headphones downstairs. So he'll be back with us in about 60 seconds. I'm going to give you a strange statement, Jonathan. And we'll get Ross in on this in a second. All right. I think I've gained more appreciation for Prince after his death than I did when he was a live performing artist. Is that weird? No, because you know it sucks because I'm young too.

But after he died, I went on a binge. I'm like, dude. Yeah, I know. I should have been on that. Yeah. And I don't know if Ross and I ever talked about Prince what he was alive about. how much he loved him. And I, wait, we didn't hear, but it's like, this is such a good song.

He has so many good songs. And I also thought about this with Michael Jackson, especially with the movie. If they had another decade of hits probably in their brain. Well, you know, Michael Jackson had that, they released another album in 2014 with all his, like, backup catalog. Did you listen to it? Those songs are amazing. You got to listen to them. They're amazing.

I got in the car yesterday after the show, and black and white was on by Michael Jackson. That was one of his later hits. Still a jam. Ross, I was just telling Jonathan that I think I've got more appreciation for Prince after his death than he was when he was a live living artist. And I don't know if other people do that with other things, whether it's a movie actor. Yeah, absolutely. But it was just, I mean, Purple Rain, it was a good song when I was growing up. It's a great song.

It's an adult. I love that song. It's a great song. and you got the solo at the end. And I think that's a Jerry Seinfeld quote. It's like the best PR move you can make is death. Maybe people think when I die that I'm like this accomplished radio host. You are an accomplished radio host, man.

I just teased it. But they'll love you even more after you pass. We'll all talk about it when we play, believe it or not, at your funeral. I almost insist that you do it. Now, here's how it's going to work. When I die, hopefully in 30 years, Ross will be, well, you'll be in your 70s, right? Hopefully. Yeah, hopefully.

You're going to walk in and say, hey, my name is Ross and Matt and I worked at a show together for a long period of time. And he actually told me back in 2006, we have to stop this funeral. Yes. And say, five minutes, let the go of the funeral. What should we do? And we'll be giving away tickets to the Doobie Brothers. I think he's still in a bit of point? Yeah, exactly.

My God. Yeah, there will not be good prizes. It'll be nothing but like, act. No, it'll be old. No, there's this old guy named Bruno Amars doing a casino circuit. I don't know if we can get those. No, no. You think Bruno's going to run in 30 years doing this?

You think he's not? He's probably still got to work all those gambling debts. Oh, that's tough. All right. As I said when you were going to get your headphones, everything about last night was Astros twins personified. Cold weather, rain, nobody there.

Put a damn roof on your stadium, Minnesota. Do you know, because I always, was in Minneapolis when they were building it. And it was a, you know, there's some talk show A-list slow part of the year topics. Yes. That was a doozy for me. What in the hell are you going to do? Why are you doing this?

So the poll ads who still own the team, and they tried to sell them like the last two years, but nobody would buy them. So they're like, we're going to keep them after all. And that literally is the case. I didn't realize that. I know that's why they unloaded Correa. They were trying to unload all their payroll. Yeah.

So when this statement is, being built. Everybody's saying, you need to make this at worst case retractable. Because in the summertime in Minneapolis, I mean, 78 degrees at first pitch, you want that bad boy open. It's downtown Minneapolis. The poll ads, who are the owners, they're basically considered cheapskates, said, not only are we not going to do a retractable, we're not going to do anything. You were, Minnesotans grew up watching baseball outside at Metropolitan Stadium back in the 60s and 70s. That's how baseball was supposed to be played. No, it was like, y'all are cheap skates.

So they were going to have, they have cold outs, they have snowouts, they have rain. Yes. And they probably, again, I can speak to this. I lived there for three years. Great metropolitan area. I loved it, but it's always going to haunt them. They're going to be back-timed with double-headers and altered times. I mean, hell, that's why they stuck around last night.

They didn't want to have to play a double-header today. They were like, we're going to wait this thing out, although the Astros, they got to me, an official game before they finally called it. But point being is that... They prevented Tatsu Yemi from his quality start. He was in a route to. Okay.

You knew the twins were doomed when the owner's like, we're not putting, giving you another dime. We're not putting another cent into this stadium. And now they play at Dollar Tree Field.

What kind of feels like it does it? They play a Market Field. Yeah. I was a kid I used to go to Market. Get my... close. Okay. Get a pretzel.

Sure, why not? Icy. Mm-hmm. From the Rick Ronalds? No. The people still love the market. We like the market. It's good.

That's good. We don't like what we saw at Market Field yesterday. Jesus. A lot of opportunities. Yeah, we could have played some missed opportunities, but we got to play Prince. We've got to play Prince. We've got to play Prince. Okay.

Reality is this, Emae was not terrible yesterday. Wasn't great. Josh Bell liked him a lot. Yeah. I mean, if it weren't for Josh Bell, now I was kind of saying a tongue and cheek about the start before where it's like if he didn't give up that grand slam, that two-run homework, because he was giving up rockets all over the field in that game. At least yesterday, he was getting a lot of swings and misses. He was getting the whiffs.

He didn't walk anybody. He was thrown a lot more strikes as well. And now he was getting a lot of outside the zone swings. And it's not like it's a murderer's row over there with the Minnesota Twins. Right, right. But at least it was a stepper in the right direction. I felt like. and I would have liked to see him at least get to five.

And then, I mean, even potentially, how many, what was he at, like 90 pitches or somewhere around that? No, not even, no, no, 74 pitches. The other didn't help. So that was probably, he could have potentially literally got to six innings. And to get him, see him get an actual quality start would have been really nice, but the rain poured in. And it was, it was really light. And they're like, oh, tarp, here we go. And it was like the folks on Space City were like, I had like an ISO on the tarp guy.

And he's like, oh, should I do it here? he's like, psych! And then he's like, get out here. And then he's like telling all of his little bros, get out there as fast as humanly possible. Like, wait a minute, it's like a light sprinkle out there. Yeah, they could have let EMI try to get five. He wouldn't have got the win, but no.

So I would say this, even though Emi got the loss yesterday, even though he did surrender the two home runs of Josh Bell, who I didn't even think it was still in the major leagues. It's funny. Kobe Clemens is still playing. 30 years old. Yeah. He's the youngest of the Clemens boys.

Mm-hmm. The twins are stocked with a bunch of veterans that would, be like, you know, at the end of your lineup for a championship team. But that's the heart of their lineup. Yeah. They're best guys. So the storyline was the bell home runs, two of them, a big day for him. Emi, almost getting you a quality start.

I don't know if I would say positive, but I would certainly not say regression. I'd say positive. 19 swings and misses. I think I saw a lot of good from Tatsu Emi. You know what? Let me, let me rephrase. I feel Can I say I just feel better?

You feel encouraged. Yeah, I'm encouraged. There's a corner to turn. Because last start, he threw some changeups in this in this In this star. There was some pitch diversity. Yeah, exactly.

Last start was a disaster. He only threw two pitches and they were getting rocketed all over the field. So this is a step in the right direction. For sure. And then the rain delay came in and then you had Murray go in there and just be the sacrificial lamb to give a bunch more runs up. And then Blue Ball came in. did okay.

Again, the Astros had a lot of traffic on the bases. They were, they had 10 men left on base. They were two for 11 in runners in scoring position. And how do you, you got the bases juiced in the first inning and get nothing out of it. I mean, what a

With no one out, yeah. Yeah. That's what really hurt. Was it the Senzo's DP that was the one that kind of crushed everything? You get a couple of them. I can't no, I don't think, I think it was all in a row in the first. Okay. Well, there's, I No, Desciso had one ground and double play. Oh, no, you're right. It was the down.

It was the lined double play. Yeah. So the Astros fall to 19 and 30. They dropped their second straight. They're six three of the final score. But, you know me, your favorite midday radio host. Oh, you're standing watching. I'm standing.

They're only six back now? Or no, the A's lost. Who's in first now? The A's are still in first place. At 23 and 24. Thank God you're in this dog water division. They're only five back. That's it.

Nobody in the division is above 500. Nope. What a blessing. What a blessing. The best record in the American League, by far, the Tampa Bay raise at 31 and 15. Yankees are three back in that division. You'd be a good 13 and a half back of the raise. But you know what?

We live in southeast Texas, baby. So we're all good. You'd be 13 and a half back of the race? Yeah. Oh, I got a gut feeling for you at 1130, baby. I got you a good 1130 gut feeling on the American League West. Yikes. Okay.

So we'll have it for you today. Brian Boga Civic normally with us on Wednesdays. Tomorrow, Ross and I only have a hour and a half show before we get into Astros. No, what are we? How does it? It's 1240. So yeah, an hour and a half show. show. I'll do the on-deck show at 1130.

Love it. So we're going to move Brian to today at 11 o'clock. Okay. I got that. 1130, we got gut fillings. 12 o'clock. We've got the news at noon. 1230. Joe Spottable will join us from Minneapolis. And the rest of the way, it's you and me. 7-1-3-213-2-5-7-90.

10-21 here on Sports Talk 7-90. It'd be awful cool if I did the show with the microphone on. Honestly, your best segment lead-in I've ever heard, Matt. That's ridiculous. That's incredible. Michael Jordan joining us on the show today Karin Doge Bar or they didn't get on here either Okay

All right 713212-5-7-9 if you want to come in and say hello Hi How you doing Maddie? You know what? I had a relatively Stress-free day going in I left a little early because of the rain

Yeah I paid the tolls and took the HOV lane into the city Went all the way to downtown and turned right headed this way. Now 610 still sucks. And it always does. So that's kind of not fun. But I got here in about an hour or four,

which I thought for a rainy day was not terrible. I got here about five and a half minutes. Sometimes I can get here in four. Okay. So last night we did not do a tentany show because the rain delay was two hours and the asteros are getting there. I was getting there.

I was thankful because I got to lock in on the thunder and spurs. So I, want to be a good person and say, Ross, I'll do the 10 thing for you tonight. Oh, okay. I'm rescinding that I'll offer now. Oh, you are? Yeah. Oh, why? Because you're talking about your five and a minute drive. You were telling you your drive? I don't want to hear about your drive. I'm sorry. I'll show you.

You know what? That's on me. I apologize. I apologize. That, you know what you just did? That's like going to a person saying, hey, you know, I'm trying to lose some weight. I had celery last night and some salmon. And you walked in and said, I had a chicken fried steak with brown gravy and mashed potatoes. Come on now. Yeah, mashed potatoes And then I had a peach cobbler

With ice cream on top Yeah I'm gonna have I mean can you eat a cobbler Without it being alimode It's got to be alimode Because it comes across kind of dry Not dry

It gets dry in your mouth If you're not eating the right one If you're having the right one It's moist I don't know if I'd ever want to have A Cobbler without an ice cream I get you

unless unless like the the crumbly is just so like okay i got a question for you yeah because anything goes tuesday wow the a asteros are 11 games under 500 what are not what we can do what's your second favorite cobbler besides peach or is peach not your favorite um i'm going to legitimately give you one and one a it's apple or peach and either one's fine

i don't like cherries what about oh so i don't like cherry i like cherry i like blueberry too blackberry also underrated Blackberry cobbler delicious. No, I would say... I'd say blackberries in general underrated. I would say in the world of cobbler, it's a... A, uh, peach.

Fantasy 5 top cobbler. B, uh, apple. I, I see apple. Or C, I don't want any of it. Okay. Now, I can eat around the edges of it, but I don't like the texture of blackberries or blueberries. But if it's like, if there's the crumble next to a flavor, I can eat it. You got to get some delicious.

Let me taste that, folks. It's raining outside. Our team is 11 games under 500. And I'm not talking about Texas. OTAs. I mean, it's not going to do it. We can do that. We can talk about Tatsu Yi-My, baby. 19 whiffs. Feeling good. He threw like four or five change-ups.

We'll put it this way. There is something, at least we're not coming here clinically depressed after a start. Yes. I think the low point was the last start before this one. When it was only no, the low point to me was I have arm fatigue. What does that mean? I miss home.

No, I can't even, I can wrap my head around that. I can't wrap my head around like, I'm going to get majorly hitters out with only two pitches and then I'm going to get chased after like three innings or whatever it was. And you know the worst part of it was, and I'm not going to put Joe on the spot on this. But even Joe was talking before the game last week before that start. Like we're telling them just to throw pitches. Yeah.

When you're in the major leagues, you have to do some recon. You have to do research. You have to know what pitches work well against your hitters. And if he could not put that into his brain, that meant he is so far behind. Now, hopefully there was some talk about yesterday. Yeah, no, I think also, but I kind of get it. It's not an I just don't get it. I get it. He's not getting out. He's in his head. He's swimming in scouting reports. I don't know what kind of scouting reports they have in Japan relative to here in America. But at the very least, there's probably some stuff lost in translation. So it's a little bit difficult to find all the right words and try to figure everything out. So simplify things. Just throw strikes. I can get it. I just didn't think it had a very high chance of success, and then it didn't.

If this team is going to stay relevant, and I'm telling you, Ross, and I may be a glass half full of this, I think being five out for as long as humanly possible makes you relevant. Yeah, but you have, EMI's got to be a part of it. So that yesterday was encouraging. If there is going to be a turnaround, he's got to be a part of it. Peter Lambert and Mike Burroughs weren't great their last times out, but at least you saw some Burroughs less so but Peter Lambert

he was no hitting the Rangers for four innings so I mean Peter Lambert to me is a bonus I have zero expectations Mike Burrow was traded here you kind of need them though but I mean of course you do but Mike Burroughs was traded Mike Burroughs you gave up

you made player trade you went and go you went and got him yeah but Peter Lambert is certainly you weren't he wasn't on anybody's radar but because McCullors has been so bad because Javier got hurt you need somebody to step up and he's your prime candidate right now. He is. He certainly is.

All right, 713-212-579 if you want to jump into the conversation. Steve and East Houston wants to talk some cowboys. We can do that for sure. Yeah. I think we need to talk about what we saw last night on the floor in Oklahoma City and how it relates to us here in Houston. I think we're going to have to do that. It's going to be some uncomfortable convos. Uncomfortable. I was squeamish.

Literally all I could think about was the Rockets watching that. game not good. Because that's what we're doing. We're trying to think about and we're going to do what we're going to have this conversation and we're not going to talk about injuries because injuries can happen. If injuries play both of those teams, another team steps up. But in the real world, we have to assume that 90% of those two teams will have 90% of their players. Hell last night, Deeran Fox did not play. DeAren Fox has been a huge addition to the San Antonio Spurries. He didn't play and they still won. So we'll get to more to that.

Plus, Steve wants to talk some Dallas Cowboy Football. We'll do that next on your unofficial home of Dallas Cowboys Football Sports Talk 790. 1032. It's Madden Ross with you today until 2 o'clock. 713, 212-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Astros fall to the Twins, game two of the three-game series tonight. Adams will have the on deck show.

I'll have the 10th inning show. a day game tomorrow. Astros of a day off on Thursday in a weekend series Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in Chicago against the North Siders, the Chicago Cubs. Game one of the Western Conference finals went to double overtime last night. We'll get to that. And there is somebody on the, I guess what you would call it the podcast streets that thinks, and I saw this on the 4U tab. I don't know who this person is. The tennis podcast? Or the Filipino basketball.

basketball podcast. No, no, this is, uh, well, we, we promote both. Is it dudes on dudes? We promote that too. That says the floor for the Texans is the AFC championship game. Oh, okay. This is the podcast where they do drugs in the middle of it. A little bit. Okay. I mean, I don't know. Just saying.

It's called crack, crack on crack, I believe is what it's called. And it's, it's ex-athletes. And the crazy part is ex-athletes. You know, athletes like, You never play the game. You don't talk about. A lot of athletes who played the game don't know what they're talking about. A lot of athletes who play the game. I mean, Kendrick Perkins and probably the entire, you know. What did he say about the Lakers?

Was it game four was a must win? Game five was a must win game, and they lost it, then they won game six. I mean, Kendra doesn't bother me, but just because you athlete does not make you qualify to host a show. There's lines between everything. There are people who are athletes who are very smart. know what they're talking about and there's some who aren't who didn't. There are lay persons who like us who didn't play the game

who know what we're talking about more than others. Yeah, I think for instance, and I brought this up at the show yesterday, Shil Neal, I think is one of the most gregarious people in the world. I think he's got a good heart, good soul, good in business, entertaining, funny. He doesn't prepare for his inside the NBA.

There are players that are constantly doing things on the court that he doesn't even know how to pronounce their name. Yeah. Okay. I mean, famously the Christian Wood quote. I was not familiar with your game. Yeah. And Christian Wood had been in the league for like three years.

Like he didn't know who Peyton Pritchard was of the Celtics. He doesn't, there's a lot of guys. Baylor Shulamon, he didn't know who that was. Baylor Shiaman? Shulaman. Yeah, all of it. That's fine. Depends on what part of the day it is.

But, yeah, there's just, I mean, they still, Alpey Shungoon's been the league five years and they still can't pronounce his name. Yeah. Steve, on Sepanati at 1035, Steve Good. morning to you. Hey, good morning. And it was a cobbler talk, not cowboy. Oh, good. Oh, wait. What time out? I'm ready to talk to Cobbler. Jonathan. What is it say on the screen line one, Jonathan? Please explain to the audience. What the line was? You know, I'm not going to do this. Everybody that does this does not speak up until they go on air. He said, I heard you said it back to him. Oh, so Steve, Jonathan says you said cowboy talk.

Well, no, it was just a miscommunication. All right, Steve, what do you got to do? In Jonathan's defense, he's got to listen on this little baby speaker. That's true. That sounds like it's your ham radio from 1976. We've got this brand new equipment, and they have to listen on a little baby speaker, like a walkie-talkie. But anyways, go ahead, Steve. Yeah.

And in Jonathan's defense, I know he's got a lot of balls in the air, lots of irons in the fire. He does. He does. He's got a lot of hog-sized. A lot of hog-sized. balls. Go ahead. And, okay, so blackberry cobbler, but you got to put a teaspoon of lemon zest in the crust. It's not an option. You have to have it. Okay. And then you use Adam's best vanilla extract because it's made in Gonzales, Texas. And then frozen blackberries, because

frozen blackberries are available year-round, whereas Pete's cobbler, pizzas are only available, well, you know, just a month or so during the summer. So blackberry cobbler is the way to go. Buy frozen blackberries and dump them in your pants, but you've got to have lemon zest in the crust. And that's all I got because I don't want you guys to lose lists here, so I'll hang up. Well, I mean, I don't, we don't know how many we have at this point anyway.

But thank you very much. Yeah, I, again, for me, here's what I would do. If I was in a social setting, if the dessert tray came out, we have apple cobblower, we had a peach cobblower. I will take those two comfortably. Okay. If Blackberry and Blueberry were left, I probably would politely say, yeah, I'm trying to watch my waist. Your food opinions are valid and your own, Matt. I mean, you can't like everything.

No. I just saying, I just said your food. opinions are valid on your own. Thank you very much. You did go, you did him in Hall. No. So people hear it. No, I stub my toe. Is that what it is? Okay. Let's, uh, let's go to, now I do love queso. I love queso anytime. Not like, I mean, I like you, caseo. Now you go to the Casablanco or you like the yellow? Either one. Okay. Probably, probably the blanco. I like them both. Do you like, you like meat in your, in your, in your queso? I know. Like, I don't, I don't need to have fajita meat in it.

No. Don't put fahoe. meat a meeting there. What people do that? That's the Koso, what your chili can comment? That's your people. Us whites, is that what you're saying? Okay, that's fair. Kingwood people. That's what I was saying. Oh, I don't think so. I bet we go to Mexican restaurant within two miles of here and get feed of me put in our Koso. Hi, Koso. I'm telling you who's order in it. All right,

anyways. Guys, guys, it's flattering. Do not argue over me. I appreciate it. I know. I know. I know you do appreciate all this love. What's on your mind today? In short, yeah, we're screwed. The NBA is screwed, man. After last night, I didn't even know what I was watching last night. What do you guys think? I watched incredible play calls. I watched incredible athletic feats.

I watched Chad Holmgren have a terrible lousy first half and a much better second half. I watched Janlon Williams, both of them have nights. I watched Saffan Castle play out of his mind. I watched Wemby shoot a 30-foot-3-pointer on the run, stop on a dime and nail it. A must-make. I watch him block shots. I watch him go left, spin right, and jamming. And I also, by the way, I don't know why.

And looks, Alex Caruso gives 100% defensive effort all the time. Yeah. I don't know why the hell the Thunder kept putting him on Wemby one-on-on-one. It was terrible. And Shand Hongren, too, for that matter. He was constantly undersized. I know that's finicky, but sometimes size matters, and in that particular case, those two guys, they matter.

It's not looking good. The only thing I can think for a saving grace for literally 28 other teams out there is that Wendy's body, I mean, it can't do this for 10 years, right? I mean, he can't play like this. His body, it has to break down at some point. Yes, it does. He will. He will.

He will. He will. two or three. Yeah. But I, it's just, he can win three championships before that happens. Yeah. Okay.

So I'm not anticipating because the, the body and this, and the sports science tells us seven, north of seven feet guys, especially slender ones. Yeah. Run into injury issues. I'm not worried about the NBA in 2034.

I'm honestly not. I'm worried about 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30 and 31. And if Wembe gets to play 65, five games a year or 70 or thereabouts and he's healthy for a playoff run and that san antonio team can stay together and not outbid itself that's that's a potential dynasty in play it really is and i'm and i'm speaking about oklahoma city who by the way went to double overtime with the fact that the vending nbp had a lousy night shake gilders alexander except for the second overtime was

first overtime was lousy last night for them lousy correct and it's um I don't want to pour salt in the wound. I'll let you guys get to it. But just to think that Dallas in San Antonio both landed the number one pick in Houston did not. After all those years of trying. Yeah, thanks. We do have a good squad, but I just, it doesn't look good, guys. No, no, the rest of your day.

Cooper flags looking like the real deal. Wimby is the real deal. Kade Cunningham is the real deal. And you passed up on Stefan Castle and got to read Shepard. cool it's great it's real happy not that reed can't be good

we're we're but Stefan's there better right now Stefan's there he that's the thing too I mean

Deer and Fox did not play that game and I will say this as well it was not only impressive the shot making and all that stuff it's also impressive because of this

is the two best defenses in basketball to where the you know the court is 50 by 94 it looked like a you know a third of that They are so much sideline to sideline, like the half court coverage, there's no space in the half court on either side and those guys are still scoring. It's crazy how good they are.

And it just makes me sad and makes me think about how far away the Houston Rockets are from that. To where you have Victor Wimbunyama, the devastating defensive weapon that he is. And oh, by the way, he scored 41 points and all the things you mentioned scoring in so many different ways and knocking down. 30-foot-3s. Stefan Castle as good as he is. Dylan Harper was bawling and Dearen Fox was on the sidelines and they look like the better team. I literally said yesterday

Oklahoma City and 5, I'm looking like an idiot. I feel like an idiot right now because they were looking really good. Now they can bounce back, Thunder aren't out of this. Oh yeah, I'm not taking this one game as I still think Oklahoma City wins this year. The Spurs shot 30% from 3 and look like the better team. And Alex

Caruso went off. Now, okay, Shea Gilges is going to be a little bit better, but also he was he was hampered by the spurs defense victor wimbunyama's not going anywhere in the second half mark dagonel did a good job they were they were having uh victor wimbunyama uh get they were doing they were getting the switches and having more space in the middle for shay and they're going to try to do that in game two but these two teams are light years ahead of the rockets fully healthy rockets and i don't know that that's going to change i don't care you change general manager coaches that's what everybody wants you change whatever you want i don't

know that that's what my statement is going to change fully healthy rockets yes for those of you they were praying for victor we didn't get him because san antonio did 14 of 25 41 points played 49 minutes by the way he went to the free throw line 13 times and made 12 how many seven foot two or how was he seven he's seven four right he's a leicely i listed at seven four how many seven four guys are making 95 percent of their free throws Now, that's just a one game. He just, he's like the dad in the driveway when he gets these putbacks and these offensive rebounds. It's so easy.

He also, by the way, I can't forget the rebounds, 24 of them. And oh, by the way, he's going to get better. He can get a better handle. He can get better dribbling to his left. He can get more polished. Like he looks, he looks a little clunky. He looks like a, like a baby horse learning how to walk, and he's dropping 40 and 24. It's scary.

And if he could, which I don't think the answer is yes, but if he could gain 10 pounds to give him a little bit. He could still kind of a wiry. I heard a term this morning, gangly. Gangly, wiry, all that stuff. Yeah. Because he still falls too hard. He still feels like to me he's going to be potentially IP because let's face it, the issue is guys that are seven feet tall north of seven are typically IP guys. because they can't handle the

of the physicalness of playing a full 82 game schedule of deep playoff run. But Victor did it and has done it. It was the youngest starting lineup in NBA conference finals history and they went on the road and beat a 64 win team that itself we all

thought was a budding dynasty. And never lost who had not lost a game in the postseason this year. Folks, do you understand not only are they good? they're young, they're relatively cheap, and the worst part is they're

three hours west of us. And in your division and in your conference. Other than that, skies are blue. Yeah. Other than that. That's why

if you're a general manager of any of the other teams that are in contention, the Denver's, the Minnesotas, the Houston's, the wannabes like Golden State in Dallas, the Phoenixes. Does that one game in itself make you just want to reevaluate how you want to address your offseason? So here's what we gave you in the first 50 minutes to the show this morning. The bright spot has been Caldward conversation. Then the Emi was encouraging.

Then followed by the Astros losing with all the different guys on a base pass. Then followed by the fact that San Antonio, Oklahoma City are super, super elite. Here's the question that you guys as Rocket fans can compartmentalize and tell us. There's opinions that I could have. There's opinions that Ross could have. But the ultimate is, what does Refel the Fortita family in E.M.M.A. Do they think, healthy Fred, like they dreamt it up to be when they went the KD route? additional year of growth because Reed Shepherd grew, a man Thompson grew,

Jabari grew a little bit too. I'm just giving you the core five, right? Can that group of core five with whatever you do in the off season, maybe you make a little bit of a minor trade? Or I could say Al-Pi Shangoon too. If you really, if you're not going to go all in, I'm going to try to go get a yon or something like that, does that six,

how close is that put you to where San Antonio is, where Oklahoma City is, provided that San Antonio and Oklahoma City are healthy. The Rockets were not healthy this year. Maybe it's San Antonio's turn to get serious injuries. Maybe it's Oklahoma City's turn. You shouldn't think that way. But it is reality.

30 NBA teams play 23 of 3.3. of them go through some pretty serious injuries. The seven healthiest ones are the ones usually stick around. It's your best. I think internal growth plus health is your best hope. Because you could trade for Janus.

It's going to cost you, though. It's going to cost you a lot of your future. And there's no guarantee that you could trade for, what would be the honest deal? Alper and Shingoon and Jabari Smith Jr. In Picks? There's no guarantee you're better. You're better than Oklahoma City in San Antonio with that move being made.

That's something. That's why it's not as cut and dry as, oh, we got to go do this, got to do that. If they're so elite, the only thing that slows them down, this is a terrible thing to say is for some Achilles' tears. It's just a reality. Guys, but honestly, I'm sitting here to listen to you guys, and I'm going to have to disagree with all this. Good. I'm okay with that. But it's just because we've seen Rockets healthy compete with.

these teams when they're just as healthy. Yes, it's discouraging to see how good they've gotten this whole year because they were healthy. They had all this time to work together. Rockets haven't had that. You can compete. I just don't think they're a 60-win team. Their preseason win totals like 52 and a half. Now, of course, the Spurs outperformed theirs in 162 games, but they won 62 games.

The Thunder won 64 games. I think fully healthy the Rockets at 52 wins where they were. I don't think they get to 60. I don't think they're the three-seat, and then they probably lose a seven-game series to the San Antonio Spurs. I think. Now, we don't know.

You could be right. Let me tell you. If you're telling me that what you just described gets to seven games, I'm in for that because... No, I mean, the game is seven game. I didn't say go seven. I'm sorry, I mean, no. Let's make it the conversation with the wolves right now.

The wolves actually definitely could have won that series. They just choked. Denver could have won their series. The West is so much, I feel like... The Wolves could have won the Spurs series? Yes. I feel like if any team is not getting swept and they're at least taking these games to six,

there's room for talking about they can compete and yes, there's a better team at the end of the day. You have to get there at the end of the season. I mean, with a 38-year-old now, Kevin Durant, with a 33-year-old Fred Van Vleet, and you can be there. I mean, you can be there and you can push him to six or maybe even seven. I just don't feel like you're the best.

better team and then you have to, not only do you have to hop the spurs, you have to hop the thunder in all likelihood, because they're going to be one, too, if they're all healthy. You can't try to get into that mix, and you have to try, right? You can't just say,

oh, well, we're going to throw our hands up and not be there. And that's what I'm saying. But, I mean, this team, these spurs and Augusta, are obviously the better teams,

but we're talking about next season, I don't think it, I really believe that it just takes that time for rockets to get together. They can compete back. All right, I'm going to give you, this will be a surprise on the rocket. I'm going to give you that hat glass,

have full notion of this. Okay. I do want to see Fred with a fuller compliment of players, okay, Ross? Mm-hmm. And I do, and I don't want to be terrible or wishing injury to anybody. But there's no way, here's the problem with Oklahoma City was missing. Jaylon Williams, 6% of the season. They went eight.

They missed him all play. This is his first playoff game was yesterday, right? And they win eight, no. Can I assume San Antonio and or Oklahoma City will not have good health for next year? Absolutely. You can. It happens. So I'm going to go with that right now because I think I like that better than mortgaging going to get Janus overpaying for Janus, still having to fill out some holes.

And then if the Janus experiment doesn't work and I'm sitting here at 500 or less than 500 or not competing in the playoffs, I've given up all my future draft picks. Yeah, I think that's your best option is to hope that Alpi somehow makes a leap in that, I mean, in Thompson, I don't know, can shoot more, or Reed Shepard can continue to grow. The internal growth plus the veteran guys you have, plus the all-time great that is Kevin Durant, continuing to drink from the fountain of youth. That's probably your best option. All right, let's get to Brian Bogus Civic on some Astros chatter. That's coming up in about three minutes here on Sports Talk 7.

This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. With the Astros playing an early day game tomorrow, we're going to spend our 10 minutes this week with our good friend Brian Bogussevik of Space City Home Network right now here on a Tuesday. Bogey, I'm going to ask you this. Do you have a funny or interesting or clever or strange rain delay story during your career, whether it be in the minor leagues, college, or the big leagues? No, I mean, I've got a lot of experience with rain delays. I don't think anything interesting ever happened.

Outside of, so Nashville, Nashville's AAA team, they have a new stadium. now they used to have this old stadium that they, you know, who knows how old it was. The clubhouse used to flood. So you'd have to move everything from the clubhouse out into the dugout as the water just started rising from underneath the stadium. That wasn't really interesting. It just kind of sucked. So you were basically afraid for your life for a while then is what you're telling us. Yeah, it was a stadium that should have been condemned decades before that, yeah.

All right. I just wanted to, because, I mean, do you eat? Do you sit at your, in your chair? I mean, how do you kill tank? Because if you have a big meal and you're going to go about and play 45 minutes later, or an hour later, I mean, you don't want to carry that extra weight out there, right? No, there's a lot of eating. I would always eat.

It was a lot of eating and just kind of sitting around. Yeah. So I really hoped that EMI could have gotten to the five innings, because look, it wasn't a technical quality start, but it was a, and Ross and I've been kind of discussing this, a more encouraging start. What did you see from EMI yesterday that maybe we have not seen in the previous starts? Yeah, I definitely thought that it was a positive start.

I think that he, first of all, looked more confident in himself, looked more confident in his stuff. There was some real swing and miss aspect to it, especially with the slider. Some of that had to do with just the general shape and break of the pitch. A lot of it had to do with the fact that he was in the, the strike zone more and in, you know, I had an account and in positive situations where he could entice hitters to chase a little bit. I think that just his overall, you know, competitiveness

in terms of looked like he was there to get hitters out and not trying to solve some puzzle that he was fighting with himself mechanically or otherwise. I think those are all huge positives. And I think really what I thought was a little bit kind of an under the radar positive is he gave up the two home runs, but it never really scared him off of what he was doing. He went right back into the zone. He went right back to those pitches and those locations, which is what he's going to have to do. I think, you know, something that he is really trying to understand and work through is, yes, you're facing major league hitters. Yes, it is a step up in competition, but no, they're not perfect. and you still have to go after them and you still have to throw what are maybe hitable pitches

that maybe they're going to get you every once in a while. But that's just kind of the way it is. And on the whole, you'll be better if you continue throwing strikes and attacking. And I think he did all of those things. So, yeah, certainly a lot more than his last start. This is definitely something to build off of, and there's a lot of good stuff to take away from it. Last thing about him, and we don't want a soft pedalist because this is grown-ass 18.

million dollar major league baseball pitcher. But if the Astros are going to hang around with this, and clearly the division is going to let them do this for the short term, maybe even for the entire season, he's got to be a part of this. So I'm going to assume we'll talk to Joe later on on on the show today, that he's got to be feeling better. And he probably has had very few smiles since Donning a Houston Astros uniform.

So whatever it was, whatever the philosophy was, whether it was not looking at intelligent reports, maybe staying with two primary pitches, which I thought he got a 31 in yesterday. It was at least assigned to say, you know what, go back out there in five days and build off of that. Absolutely. And there's no workaround to him not being a part of it.

You know, if this team is going to get on the right track, if this team is going to try to get back into a playoff picture, it's going to be involved him in a big way. It just has to. I think that's a lot of the reason why with the way his minor league starts were going on his rehab stint, they just brought him back anyways because it's kind of like we just got to figure it out and there's no way around it. I do think he was smiling and in good spirits postgame talking to the media,

which he hasn't been, you know, all season. And another thing, I think maybe the emergence of Spencer Arigetti, who looks like he's a real number two option once you get your number one option back in Hunter Brown, maybe it eases some of the pressure on himai to go out there and say, okay, I don't have to be a co-ace type of pitcher. I just have to be a better version of myself and contribute and do what he did yesterday, which is just give the team a chance to win. Brian Bogusovic with us here on Sports Talk 790. Brian, did you have an oblique injury ever in your career?

No, you've got to have oblique muscles to have oblique injuries. Okay. Now I'm good. Yeah, so, I mean, now we have Altuve went down with one. Jake Myers, Yiner Diaz. Is this, can you explain? Is this a function? of emphasis on bat speed or the changing of approaches?

Is there a rhyme or reason to this? How much of this is bad luck or how much of this is something that's maybe kind of part of the game today? Because not only here, the Astros, there's oblique injuries all over. Christian Walker's had issues with them as well. Yeah, I think it's just a part of the game. Guys are bigger, stronger, faster than they've ever been. They're more explosive.

And to be more explosive, you've got to be a little. bit more tightly wound. And, you know, similar to pitchers are always going to have arm injuries. Hitters are always going to have muscular injuries, especially rotational. You're just doing it over and over and over and over. At some point, there's going to be some weakness that's going to turn into an imbalance that's going to get exposed. And there's no, you know, you try to do little check-ins with yourself and figure out how you're feeling and stay on top of work. And there's prehab routines and everything, but sometimes stuff just pops up with no warning and it just is what it is. You do your best to mitigate it, but just the way it's trending in terms of building these

players as athletes physically, these injuries are going to be around. Yeah, and of course we've talked for years about the pitcher injuries as well. I mean, is this just kind of the new normal? It feels like there is aware. How do you turn back from this? Guys are going to emphasize bat speed. pitchers are going to be emphasizing spin rate and velocity and all those types of stuff. And I guess it's just going to be the new normal that everybody's going to go out there

and they're going to push themselves as hard as possible and then probably get hurt. Yeah, I don't think there's going to be, I don't think you can walk it back, right? Once you see what the results on the field are of, you know, chasing velocity and chasing spin, pitchers are going to continue to do that. Once you see what the results are of getting. bigger and stronger and creating more bat speed and how it translates to the field, you're going to keep doing it. I think, you know, this is years, decades, who knows, down the road as the game evolves, the strength and conditioning aspect and the biomechanical aspect has evolved really

quickly over, you know, 10, maybe 15 years that the way the game has played, the structure of the season, the roster construction, that stuff hasn't caught up yet. So possibly, the way to, you know, work with this down the road is to start maybe having more players available on the roster or changing the structure of the season with more often. I don't know that's something that they're going to have to do a whole lot of research on and have a whole lot of people smarter than me try to figure out. But it's certainly not going to be convincing pitchers to not throw as hard because that ain't happening. A couple more minutes of Brian Bogusevic here on Sports Talk 790. All right. So now that Jeremy Pena is back in the lineup, we know he's your leadoff.

guy for the foreseeable future. I kind of like Cam Smith in that 7-8-9 range. I don't feel dropped in 9, bad at 8th yesterday. That feels like until Jake Myers is ready to put the uniform on, and there are some tough decisions to be made about where Cam spends the next few weeks, whether it's staying with the Big League team or going back to get his mojo down at the minor leagues. That low-leverage spot in the line up may be best for him.

Well, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you don't want to keep any more pressure. on to him that he's already feeling and putting on himself because nobody wants to to break out more than he does. But if you can get, you know, the top half of the lineup working as it should and Jeremy really settles things in the lead off spot and slot guys in behind that. And then, you know, we see what Joe Spot has been doing in trying to play hot hands in the middle of the line of the, and if that continues, then you just go with Cam down

and the bottom third, do what you can to contribute. If it's one for three with a walk and a blooper, great. If you can work a walk and get on base and steal a base and make a play in the outfield, as much as working through mechanics gets you out of slumps, as much as getting your confidence back works you out of slumps, feeling like you're contributing. There's nothing worse than walking off a baseball field after an 0 for 4. You haven't been on base.

Your uniform's still clean and you just feel like you didn't even play. So just finding ways to contribute, finding ways to feel like it was a productive day, that can lead to more confidence, that can lead to better swings, that can lead to working your way out of a slump as well. And they've just got to continue to try to put him in situations to where he feels like he can contribute and be part of the team. Last question, this is a captain obvious. You know, Lance has gone up, down, up down.

It feels like, and he'll start tonight, that if there's anything that's going to get his mojo going, it's probably two or three consecutive starts where you go out there and go, all right, it's his turn in rotation, I know what I'm getting. It still feels like that fans feel this way, and I don't know how you feel. You don't know what you're going to get when Lance takes them out on every fifth day at this point. No, it's been very up and down. I thought he was good in his last outing, the outing before that where he had the fingernail thing. I thought he was pretty good before the fingernail and then it was bad after the fingernail. there's just not a ton of margin for error.

You know, he's basically using all five or six of his pitches from the first inning on. It's a lot of movement-based, which he's got to be able to command pitches going in every direction and up and down. So there's a lot going on. But when it's right, it works. I think going into this start today, if you look back on what happened yesterday, in my, it was ahead in the count and then sliders below. That's what really works for. And if Lance can use, you know, the sinker, the change up, the cutter, the stuff that stays in the zone to work ahead, his curveball will work against this lineup.

It should be a pretty straightforward approach that does play to his strength. Spin ahead in the count, we'll get a lot of swings and misses. But, yeah, a couple good ones in a row for him to settle in and feel like he's really, you know, executing his plan will be good. I like to see him be more aggressive. It feels like sometimes he tries to be perfect from the very beginning. and then he'll work his way back in the middle of the zone. I like to see him to the opposite where I'm just going to fill up the zone to begin with, and then as I start feeling good, I'll work my way out.

So a little bit more aggressive at the beginning is what I'd like to see. Great, Sip is always, friend. Thanks for the time. We look forward to watching you this week on Space City. Appreciate the visit. We'll do this again back in our normal spot next Wednesday. All right, thanks, guys. You got it.

That's Brian Bogos Civic, always bringing us the great insight here on Sports Talk, 790. All right, we got gut feelings coming up at 11, And we're watching MLB Network. The Phillies since making the managerial change are 16 and 4. Now, that's a one-off. How are the Red Sox doing since their change? Not great. Not great.

Yeah, how much causation, how much correlation? They were of their very talented team that they made a change. Mm-hmm. But things have turned around. I'm sure they're feeling validated. Yep. I don't know. They had some injuries early on in the season.

They still have a really hard-hitting line of middle of the way. So, again, they've been beaten up on the, let's see, the A's, the Red Sox, the Rockies, and the Pirates. Mm. Well, not be four teams you'll be thinking about as a potential World Series contenders. But you know what? A's are in first place. Also under 500. God bless the AOL West.

It's a godsend. It's been a godsend for a couple years. I wonder how the folks in Sacramento film are by this. actually start going to games now? Probably not. No, they're still below 500. And there's still the bat. Well, but they're and they're still the bastard Shep Child. I mean, they're literally holding a

but the only, and those that don't know this, and it's kind of a under the inside baseball, the only reason why the ace chose to stay in Northern California is because they're a TV contract. If they would have left to go to say play three years in Salt Lake City

or in Portland or other cities in the West that have stadiums, probably better stadiums are where the Sacramento team plays, they would have lost their TV deal. They're still what they call NBC Sports, California, which is Northern California, where the Kings play. So they're on the Kings Channel. So they were able to still get their television revenue.

I'm telling you, Ross, if you went and talked to kids about the business of baseball, 90% of it would be about how the TV deals work, right? Because as the TV deals flow, so do the sports teams. So Sacramento is like the summer girlfriend before you go off to college. It's a summer fling. Short term. You know it's not going to last.

It's eventful. I'm going up to school and wherever. And you do like her. You do like her. You do like her. She likes you back. Kind of. But you guys know that when August comes rolling around that it's time.

Yeah. But see, Sacramento doesn't really embrace the, he's, she's, Sacramento has 12,000. in the last game, allegedly. That's about full for them, isn't it? I guess maybe they are. Maybe they are starting to embrace one a little bit. Let's see, 12,541.

Okay, that sounds legit. It's got to be close to capacity there. Yeah, yeah. What would sound legit? What would sound made up? 12,001? Well, like, yeah, 12666. Have you ever seen an attendance number

right on the number of any thousand? I don't feel like I have. Like, you would think if you're creating an arena, it would be cool if you just gave it, literally 18,000 seats. Yeah. Like the Rockets used to be at the summit used to be 16, 266, something crazy like that. Uh-huh.

But yeah, wouldn't be fun if it was just literally there are 17,500 seats. Even the announced attendance is never like that. It's no, that's not. It's not. Plus you get the walk-in, you get the staying room onlys. Like, do we really know what the real attendance is at Dikken Park? No. I think it's 42?

Yeah, but their record capacity is like 43 something. Oh, yeah. That's because they're standing rooms. Good for them. Go hang out, hang off the gas pump. Yeah, I don't. Well, I remember when the gas pump was like at 120, 530. I remember when it was at zero.

The good old days. Should we know who hit the first Astro home run at, we should? We should. We don't know. It was, didn't a, wait, a Yankee did it in the Astrodome, right? Yeah, Mickey Man. That was an exhibition game. I thought a Yankee did it in Enron, too.

But I want to do shit. Who hit the very, Google it here. And now we're going to feel stupid. Who at the first Astros home run at Enron fields? Oh, Ricky LaDay, duh. I'm talking about Astros. Oh. Yeah, it was a Yankee, see?

Ricky LaDay in the exhibition with Daryl Ward. First regular season home run was Scott Rowland. First regular season, Astro home run was Richard Hidalgo. That doesn't ring a bell now that I hear it. Yeah, he had some good times there. Richard Hidalgo, they chose him over Bobby Abrae. I was trying to explain to Carly what Tals Hill was. She's like, what?

Oh, I love Tows Hill. I don't care what you said. I don't care what you said. I thought you were one of the haters. Because it was so stupid. That's why I loved it. There's a hill in the middle of a center field? What the hell is this?

And sneaky known thing about the Tows Hill, the flagpole was in play. Yes. I think Richie Sexton was the one that hit it. You could doink and go to all different types of directions. Yeah. Craig Bizio had some adventures going up the hill. Lance Berkman had some adventures going up the hill. Everybody did.

Yeah, it was fun. The number one thing I remember being a young sports host going, this is going to be very dangerous. Somebody's going to hurt their knees. And I don't think anybody ever got hurt. No, nobody ever got hurt. I didn't remember. But there were some adventures out there. It'd have been nice of Jim Emmons when I got hurt.

He hit the ball 435 feet to center and you don't get a home run. You get nothing except the tall out. Yeah. Let's talk to Stephen in Los Angeles. Hi, Stephen. Good morning to you. Hey, guys. I hope you're having a good day.

Just wanted to kind of like weigh in on this, you know, the Western Conference Finals and the Rockets discourse that you were talking about a little earlier. So obviously, you know, once the Astros rain delay came on, I switched over to the Western Conference finals and I just immediately was just depressed. Not just because, you know, obviously those two teams are so much better than the rockets are this year and the majority of the Western Conference. But I think what was depressing the most is that both have, it just looks like their window is exponentially larger to win than the rockets are. And I say that because obviously you have Katie,

who is by far your best player, but he's 37 years old. And it just feels like the window is so much shorter to win with the rockets than it is with those teams that have, arguably, it just looks like they have generational scores with Wimby and, and um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um and um obviously what they have a much better group surrounding them and um you're just hoping that next year somebody can make the leap because

i mean kb's not obviously getting any going to get any younger and at some point there's going to be diminishing returns on the amount of minutes that he's paying and his age and things like that. So that's what I think to me was the most frustrating part was that their core groups feel like their windows are much longer than the rockets are. And I just wanted to hear what you guys kind of like thought about all of that. I will say this. And thank you, Stephen, for the phone call. We as sports fans get really nervous about the quote unquote the window. We also get very nervous about are competitors and how long they're going to be great. So the question is,

did Ross, did you and I 15 years ago think that Golden State was going to go on this magical It's hard to predict these types of things. I don't have, Stephen, I don't have an answer for you about what the, the window you can probably give a good estimate to how long somebody's going to be good. That remains in question. How is Oklahoma City's salary cap situation? Are they worried about first aprons? They worry about second aprons.

Can a team stay healthy start to finish? Do the diminishing skills of other players? They paid Jaylon Williams. They paid Chet, right? I think. They definitely paid Cheggildes. I'd have to pull up their cap. When they paid SGA,

they knew they were going to have to make some changes down the road. I mean, he's getting obscene. I need you getting it 70 million bucks, something crazy like that? Yeah, Chet is paid. they're all going to be making like $40 million. Hardinstein's making $30. He's going to have to be gone.

I've heard his name being brought up in conversations. Dord is making big money. Hmm. Don't you think, though? Come on, apron. Yeah, the salary cap is the great equalizer. That's what it is. Yeah.

Shade Gill just goes to $60 million in 27, 28. 70 million and $20 million. Yeah, I knew there's a $70 million somewhere in there. Ooh. Yeah, their payroll makes a massive jump next year. They're going to have to shed some, whether it be Hardinstein or who, whoever. All right, it is 1130 on Sports Talk 790. We are asking you now to give us your gut feelings.

Gil, by the way, says he was at the first Astros game. We'll see what he had to say about that. 713-212-5-7-90. If you have a gut feeling, I have a gut feeling about the American League West I'll be leading off with. Oh, great. I think it'd be okay with it. Okay. Honestly.

Listen up. Go uphealing. Go Ross and Matt Thomas. Yo, they got a gut feeling. This is their gut feeling on the Matt Thomas show. Time for you to make some predictions. Gil, we'll get to your phone call as well. 713-212-5-7-90.

James and Klein, it's on the line. I have a gut feeling. His call's going to suck. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Do I get the hit on that one? That's a hit on that one, all right? We'll see. TBD.

He's just a terrible. terrible caller. I hope you're having a great day, James. James, I hope you're great. Go gamblers. Jesus, your calls suck. All right, 713, 212.1, 790. 7.1, 2.5.790 before we make our predictions about this week's.

It's not rude. It's when it's the truth. The truth can be rude. That's true. Ross, how we do last week? All right, last week. You said non-quality start for Tatu Yi Mai under four innings pitch. how many

how many pitches did he did he get to four I don't think he did in his last but we called it high cholesterol high fat high caloric

no nobody called it that no he did get to four against Seattle when he gave it the six earned runs so you'll lose good day sir all right you said he would give up

three earned runs he gave up six said spurs beat the wolves in game five in cover I believe they did said Janus Janus will be

moved and stays east. Yes. You have LeBron back with the Lakers. Yep. In play. Five a standalone game with the Texans. Now they have four prime times and the London one, so I don't know if you win or not.

That's a standalone. By itself. Nobody else playing against. Called standalone. That's a win. Okay. Good job. Very happy of my work.

I said Yannis move, but now with the Rockets, I also have Lakers. LeBron, you piggybacked off of me, actually. I said LeBron would be back with the Lakers. I said four and two thirds, two on runs were Tatsu you and I. It did not warm. Oh, this was a good one.

I think it was correct. I said, Tachi EMI does not get visited by the trainers. I mean, that's encouraging. That's actually very accurate and very correct. So you get a hit on that way. All right. And I also said five stand-alone games for the Texans, and I said Lance McCuller Jr. will hit the I.L.

I might not be wrong. I just might be early on that. We'll see. He's throwing for the Astros tonight. Oh, Jonathan Allen. Went optimistic for Tatsu Yemai. He said six innings three earned runs for over two. Over two starts at work that way.

For a quality start. He said four stand-alone games to the Texans. He really said two. I said, why is it written down as four then? Exactly. Y'all hear this? They don't want a brother to win back here. That was a pity prediction for you.

That was a pity. We could have let you sit there by yourself. We bullied you. You know what this is, guys? You know, you win. boy tells you to go for this parlay and I'm like I don't know no you should do it you should do it and they don't take the parlay and you hit and they don't and they're upset no that's not what happened that's not exactly that's not what happened at all we should

have let you just sit out there by yourself on the oh two prime time games next time we're leaving you on the vine if you're going to be preening like this all by yourself y'all just won't give me credit that's just crazy good job jonathan great job thank you nice hit all right what's going on this week oh I got one for you boys the winner of the American League West will fall short of 85 wins. It will take 84 or less to win the American League West.

I think these teams are who they are. Even if they get on hot streaks, hot's going to be relative. They're not going to go 16 and 4 to get to 12, 14, 15 games about 500. I think it's an 84 wins win the American League West. I think the Mariners, I don't know about the Rangers. I could see the Mariners doing it. So I'm going to stay away from that.

Okay. But, okay. Astros could get to 84 wins, I hope. They've got to get to 500 first. Everybody in this station had him at least winning 84 wins, right? No, they're 19 and 30. They've lost two in a row. Yeah.

And last of college, cheers on the hill tonight. How are we feeling? Minnesota's only a minus 136. That's winnable. Sounds good. It could work. Hey, it can happen. Eh, we'll see.

The problem is Lance is not like pitching outside. No, he doesn't. Burroughs tomorrow. Off Thursday. All right, I will say this. Astros lose miniseries, but win the Cubs series. Going to the north side, huh? Mm-hmm.

All right, I'm going to give you a projection of the 10 game road trip It's a meaty one Three in Minnesota I'm already down once I got a little I already know what one 10th of it is

Okay Jonathan write this down Ross write this down Astros will go Six and four In this 10 game road trip So we're going six and three The rest of the way

I don't need you laughing No I didn't laugh I just got excuse me You get over clumped over there Yeah okay That has some potato salt. I got a chive suck in my throat.

You know what Matt? You should go 7 and 7 to. No, no, no, no. We're not going nuts. The triple finish. The triple go 6 and 4. Okay. Sure.

What about 5 and 4? Nah, I'm not changing. I'm not you. I don't need help from other people. Thunder still win the Western Conference finals. Thunder still win the West. That was from a few weeks ago, right? Do we have that one?

Oh, we didn't make a prediction. I mean, they're down in an 01 hole now. Yeah, Thunder still win the series. Thunder still win the Western Conference. Not going to be in five. like a thought. Well, that'd be pretty crazy. Rockets do do not win the West for the next

10 years. All right. That's enough for me. Such a hater. Sorry, next seven years. I got one for you. Nix beat the cabs in five. Ooh, Nicks in five. Yes. Okay, I'll go

with New York in six. Okay. They can win games. Have you noticed the amount of teams this postseason in the NBA that are winning on the road. Cleveland destroyed. New York destroyed. Hell, San Antonio's always beating Oklahoma City, whatever venue they're in. Yeah, it's crazy. Yep. All right.

Let's see. Jake Myers' home run in the next week. What's up? Wait a minute. Let's get his oblique fine. Let's not worry about how hard he's three. He's ready to let it rip. You're going to lose on that one. You're going to lose on that one. That's my gut feeling. Okay?

It's a feeling of my gift. You heard him, Jonathan. Gripping and rip it. What do you mean? What? We're talking about bats? Yeah. What are you talking about?

I don't know. I just put that way. I don't know what you're into. Whatever you're doing in your free time, that's fine. Man, him out here. Was that a not a weird statement? You've never heard. No, you've never heard that, John, that you're too young.

For what? The phrase, grip it and ripet. It's like a golf phrase. Oh, yeah. Grip and ripet is usually a golf phrase. All right. All right, you want to sound cool. No, you're not going to sound cool.

You want to sound old. Grip it and ripet and ripet. young fellow. Don't say you to man either. Don't do that either. You're all the mind now, dog. Anything else from you, Jonathan? I...

Wait, what did you have... What have you said at all? I was going to say, I hadn't read anything down. I've been thinking, but I'm going to play it safe. Oh, okay. Cavs win game one. Ooh. And then San Antonio goes 2-0.

Oh, that's not safe. 2-0 heading home. I'm not going to say anything about a series, though. Oh, I see. I see. You know what I mean? Interesting. Okay. Yeah, you got time. All right, so you got both road teams, one of the next NBA games. Okay.

Yeah, I'm a Mitchell believer. Believe it or not. Oh, I'm a Mitchell believer. Okay. Let's go to Gilles with us on 70. Gil, why, you were at the first game. So what is so special about you being at the first game except you were there? Well, me and my cousins took all our dads for the first game there because they're all baseball fans. Nice. And also, do you remember correctly, New York at the time? the first home run.

And the person who caught the ball was Ron Stone Jr. And he threw it back on the field, which to all of us thought that might have cost some 50 to 100,000 for the first home run hit it in and on field. Ron Stone Jr. caught the first home run ball. I was, yeah, I'm going to get a bunch of nods here in the studio. And they had them on, uh, they had them on the news. They just, hold on a homesick. You want us to hold a second?

Everybody hang out. Hang on. Wait, you know, y'all hear that? He wants us to hold. Anyway, they had them on the news on the street, and he was so plastered. They said, why did you throw the first home run back in-run that could have, you know, that you could have made some money. And he said his, not his, he was drunk.

He said his testosterone, not even his testosterone, something else was so high. He just threw it back on the field. Adrenaline? A libido? Maybe one to have sex after the game. I don't know. You never know. It was something stupid.

It's been so long ago. I know. He was drunk. And they interviewed him. And he just said something was so high that he just threw the ball back without taking. Adrenaline, maybe. Anyway. No, it was supposed to be adrenaline.

But he said something else. It's testosterone. I think he probably said alcohol level, maybe. That's good of it. A.B. It might have been. Thank you, Gil. Thanks, Gil.

Yeah. Where is Ron? Stone Jr. He was on... I don't know who that is. That's... Well, Ron Stone was a legendary... I don't know Roy... Ronstone was a legendary anchor in the 60s and 70s here in Houston. Oh, okay.

And his son was a reporter for Channel 2 and then I think he just like went away. Hmm. To rehab? I don't know where he is. Okay. Maybe he's chasing that first home run ball. You never know. Maybe he is.

All right, we have an all for... All right. You know what? Kyle, we need to put this guy in time out. He says gut feeling Christian Walker oblique hurt by Matt Thomas's birthday. What? By the way, I need a ruling. Should I take my birthday off my Facebook page?

Sure, if you want nobody to mention you. You asked this last time. Yeah, we said, go do it and do it. I'm going to do it and nobody knows it's your birthday. Yeah, and then you didn't do it and you got upset that people are doing the fake, happy birthday to you. So Jonathan, I need an ultimate ruling. Keep it on there or take it off.

I'm going to let you get so mad for people. You know what? Why are you mad people are telling you happy birthday? No, take it off. You need to know who the real ones are. That's what I want. I want to, I want to know who the real ones are. ones are. You're going to be so really disappointed. I don't even know when your birthday is.

June 5th? Believe it or not? I'm going to say stick with 5th. It's the 5th. Hey God. Yeah, see, I knew it. I have no idea when your birthday is. See? You were telling us during the rocket season that you had random people that you didn't know are like hitting you up for Rockets tickets. See, those are fake people. You don't need them. No. All right, I got you. There are people being fake on Facebook? Never seen that. All right. Up next. It's 745 in the PM here. James incline with a horrible phone call.

The rest of you come on in. 713-212. Oh, please. We have to give them the Brad treatment. If you want to get ahead of James. Seriously, get ahead of James because James's call is going to be terrible. It just is. I know this from great...

7-13-212-5-7-9. We will take you before Jim. I swear to God we will. 7-13-212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-5-7-90. Here's the question about the birthday thing. What if I, you know, when you're on Facebook and everybody wishes you happy birthday and you say, thanks everybody for the great birthday wishes.

But if I take the address, if I take the date off, Jonathan, and I know like 11 people that do it, does that make it? It's going to be like two. Does it make the 350 people feel like super guilty? They should. If they really liked you, they shouldn't know your birthday. No, they're going to go on their lives and look at a bunch of more fake news on Facebook. They don't care. All right, we only have one person in front of James and Klein.

So that's on y'all, folks. Let's go. 713, 212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Matt and Ross, we do with Joe Espada, joining us in about 37 minutes. Jimmy and Tom Ball. Jimmy, what's in your gut this week? Hi, man.

I'm kind of feeling down this week, so this isn't going to be probably my greatest work. Hopefully it's better than James. and Brad and all. But my gut feeling is that hopefully it's a, it's kind of a mixed thing. I hope you have your job as the Rockets announcer for years and decades to come. But my gut feeling is that you retire, that you retire without ever calling Rockets in the final.

Oh, that hurt. Hey, Jimmy, come on, man. Jimmy. I just, I can't lie to y'all. I can't. And by the way, take your birthday off. Find out who your real friends are. Yeah, I took it off on Twitter.

I took it off on Facebook during the break. I'm going to find out who y'all the reels are. The R-E-A-L-Zs are. I will be calling it. I do it fit to wish you a happy birthday. Yeah, Ross is off that day too. You took off my birthday. Yeah.

See you later. I'm the one working. How about that? Hey, Ross. Aren't you in December close to Christmas or something? That is correct. Jimmy knows my birthday better than you. December 8th?

12th? 19. It's pre-Christmas. Jimmy is correct. December 19th. Thank you, Jimmy. You're in December, late December? That's terrible.

Yeah, only for the last 40 years. Oops. Thanks for... I didn't know your name the first six months we worked with each of yours. No, I know. Because, yeah. That's, hey, you. I'm not going to say the nickname, but that's all right.

That's why they call you what they call you. What did I call you for those six months? Oh, nothing? Jackass? No. Front of the show? You there? Like, I'll give you an example right now.

I'll like why that's one second. We had two engineers in here. Mm-hmm. One, I know their name, one I do not. Okay. See, I mean, that's not terrible. It's with a G. I think it's Glenn. Are you sure?

I know it's with the G, yeah. Well, how many options are there? Glenn, Gary. Glenn Ross. Giovanni. Giovanni. All right, here we go. Last but least. Let's talk to James.

James, what's in your gut this week? I don't care what they may say. The Houston Camlers are here to stay. I don't know. would you've been told, but they'll be here when you grow old. Gambley's patient, baby, spring football forever. Are you going to call and apologize when they fold? Do you hear that, folks?

I all, let me, let me peel. All I ask y'all to do is call so that didn't get on the air until the very last second. So that's really on you, Houston. There are a lot of people driving around town. Hey, I listen to you, Matt and Ross, every day. You guys are great, funny. we are the most approachable radio show for listeners to call the show we actually give a damn about you

98% of the people that do radio shows in this town could give two craps about you okay we want you to call so when i ask you to call it's kind of not it's it's almost like a responsibility that you have instead you gave us that yeah there should be silence there should be a lot of awkward silence this show with Ross. Minnesota Twins and the Astros are second straight loss as they take the first game of this three game series.

In front of a crowd of about, what, 60 or so by the time that game resumed after the two-hour weather delay, that wasn't a great crowd to begin with. I was impressed that people even stayed. They're in their twins, ponchos. Yeah. I mean, what do you do in the middle of the concourse just hang out? Get drunk.

Yeah, you can call your boss. I got the brew flu. I got food poisoning. Wink, wink, wink. Minnesota, actually, underrated food town. I know they got the juicy loosies. Juicy loosies are good. The walleye is delicious.

A lot of great things. I thought you said it was bad. Or no, that was ludicist. That's disgusting. My house almost burned down to Lutifisk, but that's a different issue for a different time. All right, 12.07. We got Joe Spada coming up in about

eight minutes or now. We've got other things besides the Astros set back to the Mariners. We'll get you that as part of the news. It's at noon. Yes, Matthew. Thank you. Lose at noon with some big news. Okay, there's no big news, really. You have the Astros losing yesterday. Tatsui Mai. Are we feeling encouraged? Encouraged. I bet you Joe Espada will echo our sentiments. Not excited, but encouraged. 19 swings and misses. That's good for any start.

like a for a full game to get those in four and two thirds and also unfortunately get spoiled to where you were hoping to get he was only at 74 pitches didn't walk anybody got five strikeouts maybe hopefully some semblance of turning the corner for tatsu yemi but also a big story matthew the runs given up by jaden murray and the missed opportunities by the houston astros bases loaded in the first inning with no one out and they're unable to capitalize. Two for 11 with runners in scoring position.

Ten runners left on base. Not the night you wanted to see from the hitting coaches last night in Minnesota. No, and will there be changes? No. That was a stupid thing to say. Well, there will be changed? No, there will not be changes.

No, there will not. Okay, they're back at it today. Lance McCullors Jr. on the Hill. He is taking on Zebby Matthews, Matt. Who? Zebby. Can I spell it? Sure.

Z.E.B.B.Y. Yeah. Zabby Matthews from Kulaweed on Carolina. By the way, how do you feel about vinegar-flavored barbecue sauce? That was available at the graduation party. Yeah, it's like more Carolina style. I like them both. I like more Texas style.

You know what? Oh, here we go. No, I'm just saying that if you have barbecue sauce, generally speaking, is about the same. Especially when you're wrong. I'm going to make you some handcrafted barbecue sauce to charge you $19. Shut you up all mess up. I'm going to get the White Label of Brandon Kroger. Continue on.

You are wrong. You are dead wrong on this. And it's further disqualification for Mr. Texas to try to act like all barbecue sauce is the same. So I don't care what the barbecue sauce. It's about the same. And then if I try to use it, I get shamed. Jonathan and people listen. I try to save him.

John, you hear me, right? I try to save the man from himself. When he hits this barbecue spot, I'd just be quiet. There's no way. I'm trying to help you out. I got to let him sink on that. Oh, I can't have my pork tenderloin to have anything but a list barbecue sauce. You know what it is?

It's ketchup, a little bit of pepper and vinegar, and you're trying to sell it for $40 a bottle. Shame on you. Continue on. What else the news at noon? Deep breaths. The thunder and the spurs of the class of the Western Conference, it's not going to change anytime soon, barring injury. Spurs, Thunder, knock, down, drag out, classic Western finals, game number one.

I hate all this, by the way. Spurs win 122 to 115. I mean, just the amount of talent on the floor, even with Deerrin Fox out with a hurt ankle. Spurs look like the better team. Victor Wimbunyama, 41 points, 24 rebounds, three assists, three blocks, nine offensive. rebounds. A massive, massive 30-foot clutch three-point must make with 30 seconds to go. Down 105, 108 to 105 in the game. Then he cinched the game with a lob and then a blocked shot on Jalen Williams. Thunder were not good enough despite Alex Caruso shooting 8 of 14

from 3. Game 1 goes to the Spurs. Game number two tomorrow on end. NBC and Peacock. Tonight it is the Cavaliers versus the Knicks. Knicks holding as seven and a half point favorites. Can I also complain about NBC for a second? Stop sending the damn drone to watch the game. Put the camera where it's supposed to be and let it go back and forth. I have a, I think I'm in the minority because I'm 99% of the time I'm with you.

I thought it was kind of cool for a few seconds last night. It was annoying. Because when they show the above the basket, when they do the cable cam like they do with the rockets, Normally I'm like, shut you all bumasses up. This is terrible. But I don't know if I'm coming around or if it was just the action that was happening. I kind of didn't mind it last night. I know.

And I know it's unpopular. So what I did before, I actually didn't even put anything on my social media. I went to other people and they're like, stop. Yeah. And apparently there were some audio problems with the broadcasters and the crowd noise are getting. Yeah. And then the rim had, I mean, at a level 15 on it, every time the ball hit the ring. Yeah, I didn't notice that at least at first.

maybe they fixed it because I started off. I had the Astros on and then, of course, TV2 was on the playoffs. So I didn't catch it. So I don't know. I'll be listening closely. Anything else going on? Yes, Matt. A Pep Guardiola. Who? Arguably the greatest football manager of all time

is reportedly stepping down from Manchester City after a historic 10-year run. Six Premier League championships. Many other championships, including a 23 UEFA Champions League Championship.

Some say the greatest manager in the history of football stepping down from my beloved Manchester City. You should do a podcast on that

right after what what was useless podcasts we're voting right now? They're probably going to finish second in the league as they take on

AFC Bournemouth today at 1.30 p.m. Okay. And that should take care of our rest of our audience and the news

at noon in the same breath. Over under three and a half in that game, Matt. Under, of course.

Wouldn't that. out it's under. Every game, just bet every game under. And you'll never lose. That's not true. No, you think you'll never lose. But I will win more than I will lose. Okay, yuck.

Well, then do it. It's free money. It is free money, but I can't gamble here. No, I was starting Monday. Starting Monday. We're giving you an opportunity to do that, though. Be listening. No, not gamble.

Predict. You know what? Watch a legal team. Predict. Predict Talk 790. Start on Monday. Just let y'all know. Just let y'all know.

All right. That's the news. Adam's got a gut feeling. Where was Adam 20 minutes ago when we were looking for... Clint? No, this Adam. Online 1. Wexler?

No. There's other people named Adam. It's an exclusive to that show. I know. Sometimes we have a producer up here, Adam, and I love when he has to fill in and produce for Adam and Adam. There's three Adams. It's a triple barrel Adam.

All right. Back at a Joe is spotting 15 here on 790. You only need to check out that tennis podcast. Let us know how it is. Good God. What are we? doing. All right, Matt and Ross, 1221, Joe Espada in 10 minutes here on Sports Talk, 7.

I know. Let's talk to the great people of Houston, Texas, because we are a radio show that likes to talk to you, actually. Adam, a little late gut feeling. Hi, Adam. Hey, I wanted to call you guys out because, like about a half hour ago, I just tuned in for a few minutes, and you guys are saying you're the most approachable, likeable, sports guys in Houston.

Correct. But the last time I called you guys, you told me to get my ass out of Houston. Yeah, there's no chance of that. Please explain yourself. Sounds like a lie, Adam. No, I'm not lying. Last time I called,

I guess you get her mad at me for some reason, you told me to get my ass out of Houston because... What did you say? What did you say? I can't remember what I said, but it wasn't anything controversial. So why would we tell you to leave town if you didn't have a controversial, ridiculous quote? Call, phone call.

I'm just here in Houston visiting for a few months. And then you got, I think, I was talking about the cougars or something. And you guys got upset and you told me to get my ass out. Yeah, that must have been Matt, Adam, because I don't care about the cougars. That's probably me. But I vaguely remember what you did. So let's start a fresh year. Let's figure out a way for you to stay here in Houston, so go ahead.

Okay, so two quick points. I think as far as the Spurs and Thunder go, I like the Spurs, even though the Thunder have the best record and are repeating champs. I think for some reason the Spurs have their number. And the second thing I wanted to talk about was the World Cup. I really wanted to go to the World Cup, but the ticket prices are just crazy. And I don't, is it going to be empty stadiums all around the United States for this World Cup?

Because the cheapest tickets I found were like about $8 or $900 and they just go up from there. And he's, like what normal person in Houston is going to be able to afford that? A couple things, Adam. First of all, the prices apparently are dive bombing so you can wait. Or you can go to Road to 26.com and see Argentina and Honduras. Kyle Field. Adam just wait it out my brother if you're going to go just wait it out. Okay.

To the last minute. Yeah. Yeah. If you're not going to if you don't want to spend that much anyways, you lose nothing in waiting for the last minute. As long as you're available, of course. Okay. But I think you know what? I think that was the complaint that

you guys got mad at me about. That what? About the World Cup? Yeah, I think so. Because I think I was talking about ticket prices or the stadium or something and then you guys got mad at me. Oh, well, you know what? There's nothing we get more fired up about

than World Cup ticket prices. I'm calling BS on you, Adam. Adam, we are now best friends, okay? I don't want you to worry about our, don't worry about our relationship. We're doing just great together. Okay, take it easy. See you later. All right. Let's see, we got Germany versus Curacao.

Portugal versus Congo, Kinshasha. This is all in Houston, correct? Netherlands versus Sweden. So here's what I am reading. You want to be there with the Dutch and the Swedish ladies? Here's what I am seeing. I am seeing the hotels are having a little bit of an issue.

Airbnbs are having a little bit of an issue. Not selling. Apparently there's been, the reports are that the hotels are seeing no World Cup pop. Or at least not anywhere near expected. You know what they were expecting, John. They were expecting spring break 2026 crowds. They weren't and they're not getting them. That's the reason why.

All that means is you are admitting that KPRC2 was correct on them. people. I mean nothing. What? Yeah. You want to be in the nose nosebleeds, $600 a ticket. That's like top level, top row, top corner. 600 bucks to get in Netherlands versus Sweden. Now here's a crazy thing.

My son, my oldest, who's a huge soccer fan, I didn't I don't even know he was my son early at this point. He loves soccer. He loves Premier League. He wants to go. He's like breaking down the Italian League when I talked to him. He's super mega fan. He's like, Dad, and he's got a full-time job now. So he could, I mean, I look to his bank county. He can afford it.

He's not, he's like, I don't, I love soccer. I don't love soccer prices. And I'm not going. Yeah, you could, you should just wait. You lose nothing in waiting. If you're not, as long as you're, you know, obviously around in town or whatever. But it's layered though, Rossi, you got, if you don't ride the, the bus thing or the tram thing, if you're, if you're trying to Uber down there or you want to. Yeah, it's a mess. It's going to add more, more. more to it. It's not just about the ticket prices. I know. You've got to smug where your smoke bombs in

and your Vuvazelas. I wonder if they can, who's charging what the food charges are as compared to maybe a Texan's game. Yeah, does FIFA take over that and get some money off of that? They change the name of the stadium to Houston Stadium. Isn't that weird too? Another weird old thing. Yeah, they're like, you ain't

making money off us. It's Houston Stadium, pal. That's crazy. That's everywhere. Every stadium literally has that name to it. The city name, and that's it. I'm like, we're not giving you any opportunity to promote any corporate sponsor. Damn, man, these tickets are, like a lot of these are minimum $700 to get in. Road to 26.com.

Is there part of you that would like to see cement these seats to prove that FIFA's out of their mind? Or is that a blow in the United States? I think the tickets are sold. I think it's mostly, well, I don't know if you can go direct. No, I don't care. I don't care either way. Okay. because I mean look you want to get it again how often do countries get it

it's very rare this is the first one when do they have it in 94 yeah so to 30 years oh I don't care at this point you can go if you go I don't care it's already done honestly I'd rather you not go so you don't line the pockets of a politically corrupt FIFA well here you're lining the pockets of corrupt people just about no matter what you do in this country that's right all right Joe Spott is going to join us next after We're expected to be joined shortly by the manager of the Houston Astros, Joe Espada, from Minneapolis. What's a forecast for today? It's supposed to be like 54 degrees, I think.

Oh, God almighty. Those poor people in Minnesota. First of all, they get terrible ownership. Second of all, they get a stadium that doesn't have a roof on it. I have 53 today. Damn, first, for a game time temperature is supposed to be. to be 53 degrees with winds at 14 miles an hour. Good God.

Uh-uh. Thanks. That's why I moved. You don't... Please let me have 30 seconds to say... Go ahead. Look, the heat sucks. I know it sucks.

Bad. Humidity is terrible. It's not good. You don't know what it's like at minus six for like 14 days in a a row. I would never live there. But, you know, as I said, the number one thing is that if you go to live there, let's say that you, Ross, you got the job of your dreams. I have the job of my dreams. To me? Okay. Listen to the tennis podcast. I appreciate that. We appreciate that.

But if you were to get the job of your dreams of Minneapolis, St. Paul. Let's say, let's say that you, a family, you had a distant relative that said, hey, we've got this 14-bedroom house, 31,000 square feet for you to have. When you move up there, do not complain about the weather. They will eat you alive. What are they going to say? They're going to punch me in the throat. They're going to say, if you don't like it, the hell out.

Because people that go to Minnesota are from Minnesota. They've lived in Minnesota. They know what it's like at the age of six to wear four jackets. Yeah, nobody says, I want to go raise my family in Minnesota. Well, you don't intentionally. You don't intentionally move there unless it's a job. Or you're born there? I moved there because of a job.

Right. But nobody would just randomly say, you know, where's a nice, cooler place to hang out? You know what I want to retire? And negative 34 degree Minneapolis. Yeah. No thanks. But it's a really nice city. As a matter of fact, the NFL draft's going to be there in a couple of years.

Which they're going to probably do that indoors because the draft's in April and you can't, you're not going to be out there in 21 degrees. I don't think. No, they're going to have the draft pick skate up to Roger Clinton. That's Roger Goodell. Is that right? Yeah. It's not bad I mean you're risking injury

Yeah Maybe a lot of the guys don't know how to skate I don't know how to skate Oh right now it's a cool 52 up there That actually doesn't sound that bad That sounds good It's a little much for baseball 52 with 15 mile an hour wins

What's the feels like temperature Jonathan Uh feels like 41 Okay my point 13 mile per hour wins 23 mile per hour gusts Like you can't even snowbird there because what a snowbird mean It means you live in the warm during the winter time

You're summer there You can summer there You can summer that's three months But I mean That's what I would do I would winter here in Houston I would summer in Montana That's not a bad idea

Not a bad idea no All right I'm checking my phone At the same time while talking to you Just okay that's fine I'm waiting on Joe Spada He is supposed to be calling us right now Talk all things Astros They lost yesterday

Tatu I with the encouraging start We also haven't talked about to him since the Jose Altuve injury. We know how he's the heart and soul, the Astros. So we're hoping to hear from Joe Espada very soon here. So we can talk about your Stroes, hoping to bounce back with Lance McCullors Jr. On the Hill tonight. Yeah.

And what, let me look it up. It feels like to me that that McCullors have been yo-yoing this year, right? Is that right now? Yeah, last time out was solid, five and two-thirds, two-winning, two-erun runs. That's a quality start light. Last time before that, it was a disaster. two and two-thirds his fingernail fell off and he gave up six earned runs yeah the game log is like this let me write that down ask joe about his nail is a nail growing

back or what's going on that okay so yeah uh got the wind well they didn't get the wind he it was in extra innings five and a third before that two and two-thirds before that six where he gave up three runs before that he gave up five runs over five bad bad before that four runs over five i mean he's he's not giving you a lot of length his ZRA is 6.86. So you should add it all up. It's not good. Whip of 153. Also not good.

So who signed the McCuller's deal? Was that Luano? That was Linot. That was Jim Crane deal, but I want to say it was Luano. It was on Leno's technical watch. But I mean, Jim Crane had to sign off on that. I remember the day that he signed. I remember you and I doing a show going, if he's healthy. Which is healthy as 8-10th

of the deal. that this is a very good valued contract. Yeah, it was a roll of the dice. Because if you got basically front line top three guy, which is what he is at his best, I mean, he was basically an ace in 2021. Then $18 million would have been a steal. But unfortunately, he's been hurt for most of it,

and it's been a sunk cost. So it went about as bad as you could, as it could have gone. early gut does Lance McCullors if there is baseball in 2027 does he pitch no you think he's done finito I've made all my money

I mean if you want a gut feeling I don't think he makes it out of this season you mean like released mm-hmm see that's not what oh you're just saying because he's not pitched well you can't afford to put him out there every fifth day right or an I else

then I don't think he finishes the season that's my gut feeling unfortunately I was somewhere else after that first start where he had seven innings, a one-run ball, and he looked great. See, I think what I said last time on the gut feeling was he could move to the bullpen. Problem is there just has been enough starting pitching to force him to make such a decision. 32 years old. Love the guy.

I will always, I mean, you can put him in the Astros Hall of Fame just for what he did with the 24 straight curve balls. That's not going to happen. Oh, you want to bet? I'll make you a bet. That Lance McCullochers Jr. doesn't make the Astros Hall of Fame? Yes. Oh yeah. Let's do it. Jonathan, you set the premise. Have you seen the people they've been putting in there? I think Bill Spires just made it. But Bill's... No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just kidding. You're kidding about the bat or kidding about...

No, kidding about the class. All about Bill Spires. Yeah, let me look at the recent classes. The Astros Hall of Fame. Terry Poole got in there recently. Billy Doran got in there recently. I mean, you got to wait for... You got to wait for Bigio. You got to wait. I mean, I mean, I have... You got to wait for too of a bit of retire. You're going to wait for Carl's Corre to retire.

You're saying there's no chance he's in there? I'm saying no chance. Alan Ashby, Phil Garner last year,

year before nobody. Yeah. King Caminetti made it. All right. Renee Cardinas. Chicken fried steak meal,

mashed potatoes, green beans, gravy of choice. Terry Poole. Bill Doran. Yeah. No, I'm okay.

I'm all right. I'm ready to make this. Make the bet with me right now. Chicken fried steak dinner or a comfort food dinner of your choice. Well, I thought he was more than a one-time All-Star. No, no, no. When you sign a contract and you can only, you only can pitch to 10% of that contract, there's no way he's getting in. They're not going to care about the contract. They just got to put people in the classes. Okay, so let's do this. Let's you and I bump around town and just bring up the name Lance McCullors. A lot of people hate him, yeah. It's not about what the people say. say. Everybody say

I can't wait till Bill Doran's in the Astros Hall of Fame. Yeah, but Bill Doran didn't have that terrible stigma that Lance has had to go through. So you're saying Lance McClellan is going to make the Hall of Fame? Astros Hall of Fame. I say he could. Well, first of all, I didn't realize he was a one-time All-Star. So yeah, looking at his

resume, it's more spotty than I thought. He only had one really good year. I thought he made like two, three All-Star teams. There's only one. So, yeah, I could be wrong. I can back off my initial statement. after looking in further research. You know what?

I'll not to dig myself in a hole. I'll let you retract your statement. Yeah, I can. Okay, good. Okay. Yeah. Look, nothing against Lance, but... Yeah.

I don't think that's going to happen. Because I don't want... First of all, I don't want him to get booed. Nobody should be... I'll still put it this way. I wouldn't be shocked if you got inducted in a few years. Not in a few years. Like in five, ten years.

All right. So, right now we have Correa getting in. Oh, yeah. We have Altuba getting in. Of course. Regman's in. Bregman is in. Hell, Marwin Gonzalez might make it.

I got one for you. Go ahead. Mariso Dubon might make it. See? I mean, Shane Reynolds is in there. Come on, guys. Hey, Shane Reynolds started for like, open day started for like five or six different teams.

Okay. All right. Getting worried something just came up, so he will let us know if it calls in later. Oh, he's okay. God, if it's injury front. It better not be. Victor in League City at 1241.

Hi, Victor. Thanks. Listen, I'm glad you guys are talking about the After Hall of Fame. I've been waiting for someone to talk about this, but I wonder maybe you can feel in the blank. Why is Doug Rader in the After Hall of Fame? I mean, he was a good third baseman, had a little power, and he won five straight Hall, gold gloves at 3rd,

and I don't understand why he's not in the hall. Maybe you guys can explain. Who's that? Doug Raider. It was a... Doug Raider. Early 70s. Yeah, the Red Rooster.

He was crazy. Most of his career as an astro. But he played in the late 60s, early 70s. I'm trying to look at his numbers. First time gold Glover. In his nine years in Houston, he batted 250. I mean, OPS 720, OPS Plus 103. I never heard of the brother.

Well, but you're not going to go No 1971 Astros. Well, I feel like if you deserve, I've heard of Jimmy Wend. I've heard of Joe Morgan. Mm-hmm. I heard, at least heard of Bill Doran. I mean, God, it's almost like the Houston Sports Hall of Fame.

If you're running out of people, maybe, but not top of mind. Five gold gloves pretty stout. I'm not going to argue with that. I would say this, Victor, Victor. I will, Victor Doug Raiders got a better shot of getting into Lance McCuller's. Does it make you feel better? I guess not.

He's silent on the issue. Thank you for the phone call, Victor. It would be sentimental if Lance McCuller's Jr. got it. Okay, so let's do this then. If you are writing for what Bob Ford's to read, go ahead. Do it, right? Young Astro Phenom,

unfortunately befallen by injuries, but before that, one of the greatest pictures the Astros have ever seen, first round pick was part of the renaissance of 2016, was huge out of the bullpen in 2017 on a World Series team, and he was good in 21 before his arm fell off. See, I don't want you writing any of that.

See, you just proved that you can't... He had one time all stuff. He was at one moment in time, 2017 filthy curb ball changing up, throwing fool, and then his arm fell off. I wish him the best. Made a lot of money. Well, that doesn't even help.

All right. Doug Rader gets in before Lance McConnor's does. Okay. I don't think I'd ever think I'd put those two guys in the same sentence, but I just did it. 1244, Matt and Ross, with you here. If we get Joe Espada, we will love to have him. If not, we'll maybe push to another day. Who knows?

713-2-1-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. Omar wants to talk soccer with Ross. Okay. Maybe I get a little segment off here. Oh, nice. Give me a cup of coffee or something like that. What are you talking about the city

Bournemouth game? I don't know. It's a must-win game for Manchester City. Who? What? I don't like Manchester City. We gotta get some. Oh, I forget.

Who is your squad? I didn't even know you had a squad. Did you pick one? I'm keeping it in a secret. Oh, you were talking of, weren't you asking me about picking a team? Yes, I'm getting into it. Because I feel like we've got to get more,

we can't get some more sports. We got the gambler talk. We got to lose something. You know what I mean? By the way, we're doing a gambler giveaway. First prize is four tickets. Second prize is eight. Why is Gambler Jim calling back in?

Because he's got nothing else to do. His call was horrible. He wants to double down on it. Go walk your dog, Jim. Jim, go get a nap in. We can check a cup of coffee. Come on, man. Come on now.

Take a gardening class. You know what, Jim? What? That you got a apologize on Friday. For what? I'm off on Friday. I can't do it. My daughter's graduating from high school.

Are you off on Friday? Yes. I'm going to write this down. No, he's off on Friday. Do I not put the schedule out? I have the, oh, no. John, then I put the schedule out. I agree, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know. My bad, Ross. All right, what is today? Ross, what is, what is, what is, what is, what is, what is, what is, what is what's the word or not today? There was two, it was two different people that celebrated this big birthdays yesterday. George Strait and somebody else turned, was a big birthday. We're doing, Lance McCullors is UCL.

Justin Verlander's in there. Well, by the way, we didn't mention him. Oh, Verlander gets in. That's his Hall of Fame. Verlinder gets in. Garrick Cole, for Pete's sake, I was only here for three years. Or two years. Was it three?

Garic Cole. Does he get it? Nah. Burlander's getting, oh, for sure. As long as Jim Cran's on the team, Jim. Well, Verlander deserves to be the National Fame. All right, today is Tuesday. Work on, believe it or not.

1251 here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Coming up in about 10 minutes from now, we're going to play this cut of the table. Texans' floor is could be you know what I can't John I'm going to send you the tweet because I want to make sure because it's off it's off an athlete podcast and they usually swear and have horrible things on there that's a thing that's thing about these podcasts all these athletes want a podcast and they just want to swear and yell for extra I mean come come do it the right way come do it without having to drop an F bomb or a racist slur can't do it hmm imagine if you and I could I'd rather curse you're not you and I Carson all the time? Why can I say truck and buck and luck? But if I put an F in front of it, it's a bad word. Stupid. Doesn't make any sense.

You're in big trouble. Big trouble. Yeah, exactly. So, we're going to make sure it's clean before we play it. But yeah. Okay. There is a, I don't even know who the dude is, but apparently it's getting a lot of run and a lot of the reads. Got lots of lots of people's in the Texans

floor is the AMC championship. First of all, you need to get to the, you need to get to a championship before you start calling anything a floor, right? There's no team in football where their floor is the AFC is their championship game. That's right.

It's unfortunately... I wouldn't say that about Seattle. I wouldn't say that about anybody. Yeah, it's not... It's too high. I mean, you have injuries, you have... It's big parody. There's a ton of parody and it's a one any given Sunday.

Like, if we were doing shows in Baltimore, Cincinnati, Kansas City. Do we, are we afraid of New England right now? I don't think generally speaking the NFL is. I don't think so. Texans shouldn't be either. They are dogs week one against the bills at home. At the moment.

Just saying. That is nuts. Week one offenses and D'Amico Ryan's defense? Give me the Texans plus the point to have. I got them on the money line. Josh Allen, Hold C.J. Stroud's job. I didn't say that.

Well, he hasn't. The defense needs as many touchdowns as Stroud, but I'm feeling good about that. Dave Montgomery? David Montgomery. The Houston Texans, taking on the Buffalo Bills, week one. Can we find a, we'll hopefully be finding a lot more things coming up in the next few weeks, for sure. But I wonder what the over-under on David Montgomery rushing guards will be in 2026. You can find it.

You already got feeling. I think you said he's going to have 105. I didn't say that at all. It's always your Texans hater, Matt. I am Texans realist. You know, that's what separates me from other people is that I'm a realist. No, you're a Texan hater.

I keep it reals. R-E-A-L-Z. Nobody says that. A lot of people do. No, just you. You're literally the only person I've ever heard say that. Here we go. Dave Montgomery not going to reach 800 yards.

Yeah, I'm okay with that. That's okay. We'll see. Do the Texans do enough in the running back game? I mean, is Woody Mark's really going to be RB2 for this team? It's fine. Jawar, Jordan. I'm fine with Woody Marks as a third down back.

He's good in pass pro. He can catch the ball. But what if... Dave Montgomery's your bell cow, and then Woody Marks comes on in a third now. What's wrong with that? What if Montgomery hurts himself or it gets nicked up in a game? Well, then you've got issues.

Mm-hmm. Then it's Woody Mark's RB one time, and we saw what that look like last year. He can do it. I've got some great feelings on 2026 Texas. I'm going to say for a while, but I'll just give you one right here, a little early preview. Sure, why not? I don't think we're going to spend too much time talking about the offense of the line. What do you mean?

I think we're going to be, I think the Texas are going to be better. I have a feeling that it's going to be, if there's issues in 2026, the O line will not be one of them. Okay. I like that. I thought about what I did to tell the truth, putting something in there about the Texans' offensive line. Like top 15 PFF or something like that. But I think it's better. You got options.

As we saw, as we saw, pro football focus, they went from 31st to like 19th in like three weeks. Yeah. they can improve and hopefully they keep it up. This is about kind of and I don't want to speak too much

on a macro scale here but this is for CJ this is everything right? We know the defense is even if it's not to the levels that it was last year it's still going to be

operational it's not like guys got long in the tooth right? It's not like guys are going to lose a step all of a sudden from playing a game in January to playing a game in September.

This is what we also have to remember he had a terrible offensive line, no run game, and Nico Collins was hurt. Yeah, that's right. And you had a first year play caller. Was getting his feet wet for the first time in the playoffs. So

could CAJ have played better? Absolutely. Did he also have everything working against him? Yes. And also Dalton Schultz got hurt in that game. Mm-hmm. And Cade Stover was already this is so bad it is. We're like, man, you really missed Cade Stover. I'll tell you

I think we're going to spend more time talking about the second round receiver picks of a year ago. Then we will spend talking about the Texans offensive line. Jayden Higgins. Or Noel, whatever those good news are. Right. Time to make year to leap. Let's go. Yeah, I feel like, I put it this way, if we are spending a lot of time talking about the Texan's offensive line, then everybody's in trouble.

Christian Kurt. Christian Kurt wasn't healthy a lot, but he had a couple of big games. Yeah. Losing him does hurt some. I think we're going to be, I think they'll be fine. I'm not saying it's like a giant hole in their offense, but I think he's a plus player when he was on the field, but he just wasn't always on the field.

Yeah, I wouldn't I expect much from Tankdale. I think we need to look at the two receivers from last year's draft. Oh, I forgot about that. Tankdale's going to come back and have a 1,500 yard season. Can't wait? Tankdale number one. You can write that down? Cougars for life.

Oh, shut up. Yeah. Also, yes, and he's going to save a school bus. full of children with his bare hands out of a lake. That can happen. And he's going to pick up that bus and put it over his shoulders. Yes. That's why they call him tank. They do?

Sure, why not? All right. Our prediction, he will not get shot this off-season. I got one for you. Joe Mixing will not get shot this off-season. Nor has he ever been. Tankdale got shot. We all heard about it.

Why doesn't Joe Mixing have a job, by the way? Why is Joe to stop? Because NFL teams do not want to have to have a running back on their team with a bullet in the foot. He says it hurts when I run. Got a bullet shrapnel. Y'all got a apologize. You know what? No, Matt needs to apologize to the entire mixing family.

And hold on, Mr. playing the gunshots. I'm innocent over there. Come on now. I'm doing a job here. Come on now. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do what?

I'm just doing a job here. Terrible. That scares me. I hope he's not getting shot down by other team offers. But don't... I can go for some more if you want me to. No, we're good. Please move on. All right.

Let's find the Vegas. I need to find the Vegas, David Montgomery. Why, seriously, why does Joe Mix have a job? He hasn't played all year. He should be healthy. He missed an entire year because his foot is mangled. No, I'm with Matt here because there's no way. Yeah, he probably had a botch surgery.

What? but we haven't heard a thing. Nick Casario said nothing, what did he say? Nothing nefarious or nothing weird or nothing. So he's not going to be. He's never lied to us. Why would he come out and say that part? Because that's what general managers do. You're just wrong. You're just wrong. I want my coffee and I want my pastry. He wants a high-end pastry, by the way. You got to pay up. That's why he's so adamant. I want my cold brew and my Koonamon.

Let's go. I forgot you out put a bet on this. Yeah. Get my potassium. Give my potassium persona or shut your bum ass up. You know, Joe Mixon would be a bang for any team. See, come on, man. He took two minutes to do that. That was all you got. Let's regroup. Okay.

Storm season in Houston. He'd be a high caliber signing for anybody. It'd be a real shot to a team's offense. You know, he's in a real catch-22 situation. All right. That's it. We're done. We're done on that, Joe makes some puns.

This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. All right, so I found the clip of this NFL analyst. L-E-G-E-R-L-G-E-R-Lager-Dusible Jr. Have you ever heard of him? L-E-G-E-R-Lager-Dusible Jr. He started, he was a play for the Giants in 2008-2009. Okay. And the Rams in 2009.

The name sounds, dozable sounds vaguely. vaguely, vaguely familiar. His NFL career started as on the practice squad in 2008, didn't make the team. Giants 0809, Rams in 9, practice squad in 10 with the Lions, but didn't make it. Jaguars for part of the 10 and part of the 11th season. Play for the Titans in 2012.

Play for the Jets in 2013, 14, and 15. Play for the Bills in 2016. And in the Niners in 2017. My God. That's, I mean, there's perseverance. I gave him that. He bounced around. Somebody wanted him.

That's good. Undrafted out of the University of Central Florida. I washed out in 10th grade. So, congratulations to him. 178 total tackles, 8.5 sacks. One, fumble recovery, two pass deflections. Ooh, long career. So this guy is on CBS Sports.

It may be a website. I don't know. I think it is just the website. Wikipedia says, yeah, he's been on CBS Sports, Sirius XM. Okay. Sportsnet, New York. He has gone and give him a guess credit. He has gone viral for being so bullish on the local football team. Here's the little minute and a half rundown. The floor for the Houston Texans should be the AFC championship game. And that's saying a lot because they've never been into an AFC championship. Yeah, which is crazy. But they've been to three consecutive divisional rounds, to your point.

This is probably the best defensive football. I will say it's the best secondary. in football, them and Denver are neck and neck for the best defensive football. They were so dominant. Two edge rushers that are all pro, a corner that's an all pro, a linebacker that is a pro bowler, and then so many front line starters that are really good. So the big question mark was

the offense and the offensive line is CJ Stroud. Well, I thought Nick Casario, the GM, did a masterful job this offseason, re-fortifying that offensive line, and they have something that they haven't had, Jacqueline, in the last couple years. Dep on the offensive line. And for a quarterback, that gives you so much confidence,

Because I felt like C.J. Stroud, the last couple of years, has been playing sped up. When you don't have good protection up front, it speeds you up in progressions. Now that C.J. Stroud knows that he has a subsequent talent up front on the offensive line. And they've also put pieces in front of them to protect them. He'll be able to take his time to go through those progressions and find some of those young receivers on the outside. Also getting David Montgomery was massive. When they lost Joe Mixing, he was the guy that kind of steered them the ship right when it was going off course. And they didn't have that last year.

So now they have a guy that's a bull in a china shop that is going to run downhill and be physical. So to me, for the Houston Texans, the floor should be the AFC championship game. And I have them going 13 and 4 this. 13 and 4. Sounds like YouTube. We ready, baby. Sounds like YouTube radio host in this town. No, I like that.

What's wrong? You disagree with any of his points? Upgraded running game. Upgraded offensive line. weapons should be healthier and better and improved. Second year of Nick Cayley, D'emico Ryan's, and the Swarm Defense. Cade McDonald, draft pick.

Never mentioned C.J. Stroud's ability. Now, he said he sped him up. I'm ready. Fired up. Thank you. Leggerle. Doosable. Yeah, Lesge. I need to figure out his real name. What do you mean?

I mean, his name is his real name, but I mean, you know how to pronounce it properly. Okay. Well, I'll say this. if you're a Texas fan, you're fired up for that for sure. Sounds great to me as Battle Red Ross. You can't be made a lot of good points. But your floor can't be what you've never had before. Well, I disagree with this premise that the floor is the AFC championship game.

That's not, that's ridiculous. I'm sure Hannah likes this. But I agree with all his points. But he stole something for me. Offensive line. Not going to be a big of an issue. He stole it from you. Yeah.

You said it like an hour ago. He said that like 10 hours ago. Mm-mm. He went to listen. Maybe you stole it from him because you were talking about. about his quotes earlier in the show. You know what? I think you stole his quotes. I was, you need to apologize to him. I was, and the doosable family. I was floored by the doosable floor. The floor, yeah, to say the floor is the AFC championship game, that's not true for anybody.

No. But 13 and 4? I want to say, the number was 9 and 1 half. 10 and a half. I bet it's gone up a little bit. I want to say it's 9.5 or 10, 10 and a half. Hey, let me tell you, the NFL thinks, are going to be good. Five stand-alone games. Jonathan only had him at two. Five is good. Four. Get him, Jonathan. You did not have a John. Four. No, he didn't. Four is what I wrote down. Johnson's right.

Blame Ross, not me. I had the air check. I know, I know what you want. Did we bully him to get to four? Yes. We bullied him to four. We bullied you to four. Nine and a half. It's easy, baby. That's easy dubs. So let me take this. If I was a bet man on the NFL, which I'd only do it once or twice a year, I probably would fire on the over on that. You have to lay a little extra deuce.

Minus 125. I don't want to get too much. I know. That's fine. I can do that. Plus 105 for folks that don't know. That means you get, you bet 100,

you get 105. You have to lay 125 to get 100. So it's a little bit of juice. So in reality, 9 and a half is really 10 wins. Nobody has half games. So let's figure out how Vegas thinks here for a second.

Okay. Where do the Texan, if the Texans are to lose seven games, what are the most realistic seven they would lose. I'm going to pull up their schedule right now. Go ahead. All right. Well, they're favored, I believe, in 13 of the games.

Okay, so let's just do this. Because, again, if I was to fire off this, I would probably bet the over on this. Me too. You know what I'm writing it down on my gut feelings. Over nine and a half wins for the Texans. What's up? Okay.

Do you assume the bills went here in week one after all the years are coming here and losing? Their favorite, one and a half. It's a coin flip game. I mean, it's the NFL. It's going to be one score coin flip games. And the Texans have had really good luck in one score games, at least last year. Let's have them lose in London.

Okay, that's a second loss. I don't know, maybe Jaguars are more acclimated to playing in London. They'll be there for an extra week. Let's have them lose in L.A. to the charges, three. They could lose DeBorrow in the Bengals. in week two. They could start 02. Let's have them lose at Pittsburgh on Monday night. That's four.

Right? My right about that? Let's have them... They're not losing at the old man Aaron Rogers. He's going to get ran by the defense. At the Eagles 5, at the Packer's 6, and maybe the last week of the season doesn't make anything for 7. Yeah, I could... Yeah. It can happen. So I will say this. If you

don't believe in Las Vegas, believe in Matt and Ross, and we both are at this point firing on the over... Over night. A lot of the week. over nine and a half, Houston, Texans. Okay. You're already here first. Yeah. And we're not employed, so we're good. No. Yeah. Can you imagine if you're actually, you get our unbiased opinion.

Yeah. We can be biased opinions on other things, but this would be an unbiased one. All right. 113 on Sports Talk, 790. 713212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. I guess we're not going to get Joe today. I would have known by now. I'm still staring at my phone for that. So unfortunately, we will try to reschedule that. For my guess would be Thursday, since they're out. There's a day game on tomorrow.

713-212-5-790. Do you find encouragement, or something encouraging, and Tatsui Emi's performance yesterday? We'll get to that. We'll get to some more baseball in general. And how many of you watch the game between the Spurs and the Thunder last night,

thinking, ooh, the Rockets have got a lot of work ahead of them, as do other teams in the NBA. 113 on Sports Talk 790. All right, 119. We're going to get a little more baseball chatter going here. In fact, if you miss our conversation with Brian Bogus, I think we're going to have it for you at the bottom of the hour here on Sports Talk 7. and at least a chunk of it. I say encouraging on EMI. Do you want to go further than that or you want to keep it right there at EMI's performance?

Less than five. could have gone for the fifth inning, if not for other weather weather issues. Josh Bell got him twice, but there was a lockdown. Brilliant stuff from Tatsu Yemi. No, we'll just say, yeah, it was a step in the right direction. Yeah, yeah.

Didn't get chased from the game except by rain. Didn't walk anybody, very important. 19 swings and misses. I'm feeling a lot better. If he could be turning a corner, we'll see. I mean, we thought Mike Burroughs was turning a corner. He regressed. Peter Lambert, we were encouraging.

by and he threw four no hit innings but then he gave a bunch of runs. Because Peter Lambert can't be perfect, nor can anybody. I mean, you want these guys to get healthy and then you want them to keep pitching the good ones that are able to go to pitch six innings every single time. Not going to have. Not realistic. What if we

went to March and just were replaying this segment? Peter Lambert can't be perfect. Who? What? Tatsu Maia got arm fatigue out of nowhere and then he came back and he threw two pitches in one of his starts. I bet you the one guy that we were very bullish on in March is living up to that.

And that's Spencer Arrogatti. I bet we were very concerned about that. We liked Argetti. Yeah, we did. But he didn't even make the team out of the, out of camp. And Mike Burroughs, we were feeling good about because he was striking out everybody in spring

training. We're never going to believe March numbers again, aren't we, Ross? No, I'm all into Mike Burroughs, baby. He's ready. Well, he's been already. Before his last seven innings a shout-out ball against the Reds, which is a quality start plus.

Yeah, it is a quality start. Let's get them back on track. Back on track. Baseball's hard. You just can't expect 25 performances of six innings and two runs. It's not realistic. All right. By the way, the athletic hires Jim Bowden.

We've had on the show before to write up trade teams if your buyers or sellers. And obviously, it's a fluid situation. He speaks at 122 here on this Tuesday saying the Astros have had a nightmare season. There's no surprise there. Three best starters. impact closer all went down. Position side, Carlos Curry is out,

Jeremy Payne's missed a bunch of time. Jose Al-Tuvius on the IEL. Yonair Diaz is hurt. Two of their best young hitters, Cam Smith and Bryce Matthews have struggled. Boy, I'll tell you what, Jim Bowser watching his team. He knows. Jordan Alvarez has been the one bright spot

and is in the MVP conversation. Christian Walker has rebounded as well. Question was asked to Jim, whether the Astros would be Stellaries or buyers by the trade deadline. And at this point, again, it's no surprise. The athletic reporter says, Sellers, the Astros have overcome slow starts in the past,

but won't be able to this time around. I'll say this, Athletic, do you know how the American League West is going? I guess everybody's assuming that somebody's going to come out and win 8 to 10 to take over this division. Do you want me to look at our friends at the playoff odds for our friends at Fangraphs? How about this one? I'm like, I'll throw one at you, you throw one at me. Okay.

What's the one name that Jim Bowen and his article for the athletic believes will be the number one potential trade chip for the Astros to use if they indeed fall on a contention? Isak Paredes. Christian Walker. Oh, dang it. I tried to curve because I said Christian Walker on Monday. Christian Walker will be discussed. Esac Paredes will be discussed. I don't think Jeremy Pena and.

or Hunter Bryan will be discussed. Oh, they'll listen. It'll be discussed, but you're going to need a big hole. I don't think Yardon Averas will be discussed. Maybe thrown out, but that's a quick conversation. I got one for you. Josh Hader. Why do you need a closer when you are in potential rebuild mode?

I guess it's possible. How many more years is he is his third year? He's got two more? Not a lot of wear and tear, but there's injury. I wouldn't be, I guess I wouldn't be shocked. but I would be a little surprised. Just because generally you're not trading for guys who are already making the big money

and coming off of injury, multiple injuries. But I'll say this. If he gets back, say, by... What is the timeline on Josh? Got to be about June 1st? I thought. Well, he's got to build up. He's got laughing.

Oh, they said five more, I think, the other day. So I don't know how many more he's done. So let's assume it's every three days. That's 15 days. That puts it around June 1st. Let's say by June 5th. my birthday. Your birthday is June 5?

I know. June 5th. You're trying to get people to say happy birthday on Facebook by keep name dropping your No, I'm done. They'll be like, I won't bring it up again. Does June 5th to July 25th give you six weeks of sample size and say,

hey, what do you want? You would be getting rid of some serious contract because you are paying, he's one of the highest paid closers. The presumption would be That's a real white flag I mean I guess we'll see where they are Who's your closer If Josh haters out of gone

Do you is it if you're out of the playoffs It doesn't matter Guess it doesn't but you gotta try You would try you'd have a brave You completely giving up Why is anybody going to pay attention to this team Well where they sell I don't want them to sell

That's why they gotta stay just five out Just five out Okay Is that you're gonna get the T-shirts That's the new No Not chase the fight No, you don't...

Just five out. You don't build t-shirts like that. It's like nobody walks around and says, hey, I lost three pounds. You lose 40 pounds. You brag about it. You lose three. You're like, okay, would you go to the bathroom?

Thank you. I lost 40 in the last year. Have you really? Mm-hmm. You look good. Thank you. 10.1% to make the playoffs. You're San Astros.

What does that compare to everybody else in America League West? 71% for the Mariners? 71. Wow. They think they're going to rebound. 47% for the rain. Rangers, 38% for the A's, 10% for the Astros. Poor Angels.

1.3%. Let me tell you about the Angels. First of all, you're the bitch to one of the most incredible sports franchises out there. Yes. And you had two generational talents on your team at the same time. Yes. And you did nothing. You had, I'm going to hit my grave.

I'm going to be lowered at my casket saying show I Otani's on the short list of like five greatest athletes I've ever seen. How did Shohayotani and Mike Trot not make one playoff team? And oh, by the way, you spent crazy money in Anthony Rendon, which is part of your problem. Oh, poor guy. And he's like, I'm good. Baseball? So I take it or leave it. They had to make the playoffs once with Shohayor, right? Let me go look this up. At least once, hopefully. I don't remember any

Angel playoff run. You might be right. Because the Astros when, no, you're right. Yeah, his first action was with the Dodgers. Oh. Now he's been in 33 playoff games. Okay, first of all, okay, as I said, You are behind the Dodgers, you've had two generational players, no playoff appearances, you're in last place,

and all your top-end prospects, this may sound familiar, folks, are at the A level. So if you think it's bad being Astro fan, go be an angel fan. No, I'm good. And it's not like there's not people down in Orange County that would support the team.

A lot of people that live in Orange County, Ross, you know this with your buddies in California. They never go into L.A. There's no reason to. No, they live out there. Yeah. It's a different country than inside L.A. too. But it's like once you leave, like if you get south of like L.A.X, you're in a different world.

But in, oh, God, yeah. I mean, yeah, you got all, between there and like almost San Diego, you could be Angels territory. But you don't win. And you have Mike Trout burning away years and big money and big success. and not a playoff appearance to show for it. Brian Bogus-Sevick, we're not about Angel Talk. Let's get to the Astros. 133 on Sports Talk 790.

Astros game two of their three-game series will have the game for you right here. Adam and Adam will have the On-Dick show. I'll have the 10th inning show as the Astros remain Ross. Just five out. And I got feeling they... I really got feeling a six and four? Oh, I did. How are you feeling?

Let's go throws. You really did a six and three, though. Well, yeah, let's go strode. Please. They're going to meatloaf it, Maddie. Two out of three. Let's meet loaf this trip. All right.

I like that. I never thought I'd ever say that, but I just did. Hey, we had Brian Bogosiv with us earlier today on the program, and we got into a variety of things about, really a lot about the pitcher that we saw last night, Tatsui. I almost gave you a question. quality start. What did you characterize last night? Didn't go five, so that's not a quality start light. It's just a start. Just a regular, good old fashion start. I would say encouraging start.

I think Brian Bogusiv backed us up on that. Yeah, I definitely thought that it was a positive start. I think that he, first of all, looked more confident in himself, looked more confident in his stuff. there was some real, you know, swing and miss aspect to it, especially with the slider. Some of that had to do with just the general shape and break of the pitch. A lot of it had to do with the fact that he was in the strike zone more and in, you know, I had an account and in positive situations where he could entice hitters to chase a little bit. I think that just his overall, you know, competitiveness in terms of looked like he was there to get hitters out and not trying to solve some puzzle that he was fighting with himself

mechanically or otherwise. I think those are all huge positives. And I think really what I thought was a little bit kind of an under the radar positive is he gave up the two home runs, but it never really scared him off of what he was doing. He went right back into the zone. He went right back to those pitches and those locations, which is what he's going to have to do. I think, you know, something that he is really trying to understand and work through is, yes, you're facing major league hitters. Yes, it is a step up in competition.

But no, they're not perfect. And you still have to go after them and you still have to throw what are maybe hitable pitches that maybe they're going to get you every once in a while. But that's just kind of the way it is. And on the whole, you'll be better if you continue throwing strikes and attacking. And I think he did all of those things. So, yeah, certainly a lot more than his. last start, this is definitely something to build off of, and there's a lot of good stuff to take away from it. Last thing about him, and we don't want a soft peddle this because this has grown-ass $18 million major league baseball pitcher.

But if the Astros are going to hang around with this, and clearly the division is going to let them do this for the short term, maybe even for the entire season. He's got to be a part of this. So I'm going to assume we'll talk to Joe later on on the show today that, he's got to be feeling better and he probably has had very few smiles since donning a Houston Astros uniform. So whatever it was, whatever the philosophy was, whether it was not looking at intelligent reports, maybe staying with two primary pitches, which I thought he got a 31 in yesterday. It was at least assigned to say, you know what, go back out there in five days and build off of that. Absolutely.

And there's no workaround to him not being a part of it. You know, if this team is going to get on the right track, if this team is going to try to get back in, to a playoff picture. It's going to be involved him in a big way. It just has to. I think that's a lot of the reason why with the way his minor league starts were going on his rehab stint. They just brought him back anyways because it's kind of like we just got to figure it out and there's no way around it. I do think he was smiling and in good spirits postgame talking to the media, which he hasn't been, you know, all season. And another thing, I think maybe the emergence of Spencer Arrigetti, who looks like he's a real number two option once you get your number one

option back in Hunter Brown. Maybe it eases some of the pressure on Emi to go out there and say, okay, I don't have to be a co-ace type of pitcher. I just have to be a better version of myself and contribute and do what he did yesterday, which is just give the team a chance to win. Brian Bogussevick with us here on Sports Talk 790. Brian, did you have an oblique injury ever in your career? No, you've got to have oblique muscles to have oblique injuries.

now I'm good. Yeah, so I mean, now we have Altuve went down with one, Jake Myers, Yiner Diaz. Can you explain? Is this a function of emphasis on bat speed or the changing of approaches?

Is there a rhyme or reason to this? How much of this is bad luck or how much of this is something that's maybe kind of part of the game today because not only here of the Astros is there's oblique injuries all over. Christian Walker's had issues with them as well. Yeah, I think it's just a part of the game.

Guys are bigger, stronger, faster than they've ever been. They're more explosives. And to be more explosive, you've got to be a little bit more tightly wound. And, you know, similar to pitchers are always going to have arm injuries. Hitters are always going to have muscular injuries, especially rotational. You're just doing it over and over and over and over. At some point, there's going to be some weakness that's going to turn into an embassionable. balance that's going to get exposed and there's no, you know, you try to do little check-ins with

yourself and figure out how you're feeling and stay on top of work and there's prehab routines and everything. But sometimes stuff just pops up with no warning and it just, it just is what it is. You do your best to mitigate it, but, you know, just the way it's trending in terms of building these players as athletes physically, these injuries are going to be around. Yeah, and of course we've talked for years about the pitcher injuries as well. I mean, is this just kind of the new normal? It feels like there is aware. How do you turn back from this?

Guys are going to emphasize bat speed. Pitchers are going to be emphasizing spin rate and velocity and all those types of stuff. And I guess it's just going to be the new normal that everybody's going to go out there and they're going to push themselves as hard as possible and then probably get hurt. Yeah, I don't think there's going to be, I don't think you can walk it back. right once you see that the once you see what the results on the field are of you know chasing

velocity and chasing spin pitchers are going to continue to do that once you see what the results are of getting bigger and stronger and creating more bat speed and how it translates to the field you're going to keep doing it I think you know this is years decades who knows down the road

as the game evolves the strength and conditioning aspect and the biomechanical aspect has evolved really quickly over you know, 10, maybe 15 years, that the way the game has played, the structure of the season, the roster construction, that stuff hasn't caught up yet. So possibly the way to, you know, work with this down the road is to start maybe having more players available on the roster or changing the structure of the season with more often. I don't know that's something that

they're going to have to do a whole lot of research on and have a whole lot of people smarter than me try to figure out, but it's certainly not going to be convincing pitchers to not throw his heart because that ain't happening. Couple more minutes of Brian Bogusevic here on Sports Talk 790. All right, so now that Jeremy Pena is back in the lineup, we know he's your leadoff guy for the foreseeable future. I kind of like Cam Smith in that 7-8-9 range. I don't feel dropped to 9, bad at 8th, yesterday.

That feels like until Jake Myers is ready to put the uniform on and there are some tough decisions to be made about where Cam spends the next few weeks, whether it's a lot of staying with the big league team or going back to get his mojo down at the monol leagues, that low-leverage spot in the lot of that may be best for him. Well, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you don't want to keep any more pressure onto him than he's already feeling and putting on himself because nobody wants to break out more than he does. But if you can get, you know, the top half of the lineup working as it should,

and Jeremy really settles things in the lead-off spot and slot guys in behind that, And then, you know, we see what Joe Spott has been doing in trying to play hot hands in the middle of the line of the, and if that continues, then you just go with Cam down and the bottom third, do what you can to contribute. If it's, if it's one for three with a walk and a blooper, great. If you can work a walk and get on base and steal a base and make a play in the outfield, that, you know, as much as working through mechanics gets you out of slumps, as much as getting your confidence back. works you out of slumps, feeling like you're contributing. There's nothing worse than walking off a baseball field after an 0 for four. You haven't been on base. Your uniform is still clean and you just feel like you didn't even play.

So just finding ways to contribute, finding ways to feel like it was a productive day, that can lead to more confidence. That can lead to better swings. That can lead to working your way out of a slump as well. And they've just got to, you know, continue to try to put him in situations to where he feels like he can contribute and be part of the team. Last question. This is a captain obvious. You know, Lance has gone up, down, up down.

It feels like, and he'll start tonight, that if there's anything that's going to get his mojo going, it's probably two or three consecutive starts where you go out there and go, all right, it's his turn in the rotation, I know what I'm getting. It still feels like that fans feel this way. I don't know how you feel. You don't know what you're going to get when Lance takes them out every fifth day at this point. No, it's been very up and down. I thought he was good in his last outing.

The outing before that where he had the fingernail thing, I thought he was pretty good before the fingernail, and then it was bad after the fingernail. There's just not a ton of margin for error. You know, he's basically using all five or six of his pitches from the first inning on. It's a lot of movement-based, which he's got to be able to command pitches going in every direction and up and down.

So there's a lot going on. But when it's right, it works. I think going into this start today, if you look back on what happened yesterday, in my, it was ahead in the count and then sliders below. That's what really works for him. And if Lance can use, you know, the sinker, the change up, the cutter, the stuff that stays in the zone to work ahead. His curveball will work against this lineup.

It should be a pretty straightforward approach that does play to his strength. Spin ahead in the count. We'll get a lot of swings and misses. But, yeah, a couple good ones in a row for him to settle in and feel like he's really, you know, executing his plan will be good. I like to see him be more aggressive. It feels like sometimes he tries to be perfect from the very beginning and then he'll work his way back in the middle of the zone. I like to see him do the opposite where, you know, I'm just going to fill up the zone to begin with. And then as I start feeling good, I'll work my way out.

So a little bit more aggressive at the beginning is what I'd like to see. And again, Brian Bogus, Nevick, with us normally on Wednesdays, but because, of the day game tomorrow. He joined us today. We did not get Joe today, and we're hoping to get Joe a spot of the Astor's manager, hopefully some time on Thursday before they start their series with the Cubs, because tomorrow again is a day game.

Believe it or not, it's up next. In the history, believe it or not, we're looking at what, 16 years is Ross? Pep Guardiola makes his debut. We're going to really find out how many people know about some serious Pep Guardiola. Gariola. Guadio. Gwadaola.

Pep Guadiolea. Believe it or not, next, 146 on 790. Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We should play America's fastest-growing sports radio game. Shall we simply call it B, believe it or not, and here's how it works. You call 7-1-3-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

Today's edition of, believe it or not, is all things about PEP. Guadiola. Guadiola. Guadiola. I'll read your statement about Pep, Guadiola. statement is completely notarily accurate. You'll say this. Believe it. The statement's erroneous Philibon can made up. You will say this. Not. Believe it or not, well, when you apprised, two of them will get you a pair of tickets to see Godsmack on the rise of the rock world tour 20.

They'll be joined by Stone Temple Pilots and Dorothy on May the 30th at Woodlands Pavilion. Tickets are on sale now at Ticketmaster.com. Ross is watching a soccer game. If you hear some random sounds, it's of anger or elation, one of the two there. 713-212-5-790. Gill on 790 Gil. You're ready to play, believe it or not? Yep, I'll be guessing my butt off because I don't know anything about soccer. Me either, Gil.

I wish you nothing but the best. Pep Guadiola, first love was tennis. He wanted to be like his childhood idol, Carlos Moya. Believe it or not? Not. Okay, you're one guest down. One to go. Pep Guadiola comes from a footballing family.

His father was a midfielder for sporting de Guillion and other Spanish teams. His brother played professionally in Europe as well. Believe it or not. Not. Yes, father was a bricklayer. Gil, you won. So happy for you, Gil.

713-212-5-790 Neidiel on 790 Neidiel. What was your favorite part of today's 10-2 radio show? Every time Mr. Texas talks. You hear that? Mr. Texas talks. So he didn't listen. Oh.

Pep Gagnola holds the highest all-time win percentage for a manager in the English Premier League, the Spanish Aliga, and the German Bundesliga. Believe it or not? Is it ridiculous? Not.

That's a belief. Believe it. How do you not know that? The goat. He spent too much time listening to the show. That's why he didn't do any. research. This is like Bill Belichick retiring. This is bad. I'm sad. Are you really? That's

yeah? I'm sad. All right. By the way, nobody calling in here. What's going on? Y'all don't want these amazing tickets to see Godsmack? Some good stuff. Name your favorite Godsmack song. Voodoo. Is that really a song? Is it? Scott on 790, Sky, you're ready to play, believe it or not? I am. 1995, Pep Guardiola was pursued by

Spanish authorities for tax evasion and had to pay a sum of $500,000 Spanish Pissas plus interest. Believe it. Believe it. Pesatas. Sounds like a placenta. What? There's no L in there.

He didn't pay 500,000 Spanish placentas. Is that a believe it or not, sir, Scott? I say believe it. No, Ross made that out. Okay, here's the reality. The prize isn't great and the questions are just, people don't know who this is. People don't care about the questions. We did believe it or not.

not with no category of people called in. We didn't do that again. That was pretty fun. All right. We're going to sit here. A Godsmack, I feel like is a pretty big band. Jonathan's a big fan. Jonathan, you big fan of Godsmack?

I have no idea who these are. I don't either. I mean, I've heard of the name, but I couldn't name one song. Why do we get the Buzz tickets over here? Do you think Buzz gets... What are the 790 tickets? Do you think Buzz gives away Rockets tickets and Astros tickets? Should we be able to that?

Probably they get the better ones than we do. Yeah. All right. I'm not the one who's so far away. 7132125, 790 if you want to get tickets to this. I told you. It's a song. And I don't remember why I came.

You've probably heard this in a arena or something. Keep going. I'm trying to think if I've heard it anywhere. I mean, it sounds okay so far. Oh, there they are. They're the prize horse coming through. That's what I'm talking about. Terry on 790, ready to play, believe it or not?

Believe it, I guess. Let's try it. Yeah, see, I... The SDP guy, that's fine. Yeah, you're an SDP guy. That's fine. Here we go. Pep Godiola is an avid golfer. He has played in several charity events and has a handicap of about 10.

Believe it or not. Not. Well, you have to go and now see SEP and pay for him. This is almost satanic, isn't it? This song is called Voodoo. Do people get really crazy excited about this song? Oh, yeah. Our wild time.

Screw it. You've got a bunch of people. Yeah, but we can't scream fast enough. We're done. We're out of here. All right. We're done. We'll try to give these amazing tickets away on Thursday.

Up next, Clinton and Wexler for the A-Team. I'll talk to you for 10th inning show. Astros and Twins on 7 out of you.