The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros LF Taylor Trammell Joins the Show

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

Astros LF Taylor Trammell Joins the Show 

Matt Thomas, with you here on Sports Talk 790. Very pleased to be joined by Astros left fielder, Taylor-Tremel, with us here for a few minutes on the show. Getting ready for game two of a three-game series of Pirates. Taylor, it's Matt. Thank you for joining us. I got to ask you a question, open things up. I think it was a second pitch of yesterday's game.

You're having to fight a foul ball to the wall over there in left field. That's kind of scary territory, right? I mean, you can be honest with me, right? Absolutely. You know, like, yeah, the wall's undefeated. The wall's never been beat. beaten you're never going to win the battle against the wall you can put up a good fight every single day you're still going to come out on bottom so uh yeah um yeah it's not fun going into the wall and

it hurts hey let me tell you tell you i seriously feel bad for you i don't care how much territory jake meyers can cover he ain't worried about o damn walls except the center of field walls so i don't want to hear about how great he is but i appreciate you coming out of the show are there certain ballparks now you've been around enough to know you've been i think i'm presuming you've been closer for all 30 ballparks. Do you do a little bit of site surveying, especially when you haven't been to a ballpark in a while? Oh, at the time.

If I haven't been to a place, there's a few places where you have to kind of like, you know, you got to rethink everything that you thought there. Like some days in Fenway, I've been to Fenway a lot. So, like, every time I go there, like, there's something a little bit different sometimes.

Sometimes it may be a different padding on the wall or something like a new paint. I don't know anything. They can make the ball jump off the wall differently or anything like that. And then kind of like here, I know everything around in Houston, obviously. But, yeah, every time I go to a new park or some park that I'm not familiar with, I'm always studying the layout of the field in all three positions. Taylor Tremel joining us here on the Matt Thomas Show with Ross.

Let me ask you, any pass with Paul Skeens over your major league career? Never. No, I've just only. talked to a whole bunch of people. And they basically just said, you know, really got to get them like shrink your zone and take your knocks off of them. With power guys like him, power pitchers like him,

you can't get too big. So, you know, pretty much just put together good at bats and take our hits. Look, you are a major league baseball player. You face major league pitching. You respect everybody. I mean, you guys have worked your tails off to get to where you are. But are there some pitchers that you kind of go,

man, I can't wait to see what I can do. My athletic ability versus his. And look, the dominant starting pitcher has kind of been a lost art because guys aren't going as deep as they are. But do you still kind of get the juices flowing with some guys over others? Or are they all kind of created equal in your mind? They're all equal, but, you know, I would, I'd be lying if I didn't say there were some guys where I'm like, okay, like, this guy got me last time.

Like, let me make sure I get them this time. That's Zach Lewis for me. I think exactly it was a great pitcher. He's one of the first guys where his fastball actually surprised me. And I said, okay, this is a little bit different. You know, it was my first game coming off of my rehab assignment in Lawa last year. And I saw the first pitch and I said, oh, I got to reevaluate a lot. That kind of got on me a little quick.

So my game plan completely changed after I saw that first pitch. I was like, okay, next time I see, I'm going to be a lot. a little bit more. I'm going to expect a little bit more from him. I love that there's a human side of this because, again, I would be excited too. I've been, again, I would probably ask for days off against great pitchers, but you're ready to take the challenge, so we appreciate that. You mentioned rehab appearances, and unfortunately, this organization in the last couple of years has been just been terribly hit by injuries, but a thought or two about how long it took for you to get down the minor leagues, get that

swing going after injury and then the confidence of getting back into a major league uniform and going, I can go full throttle again? It's all about confidence. You know, you have to trust everything that you do each in this game. And that comes from my prep work. It comes from what I eat on a daily basis. That comes from, you know, just waking up in the morning getting sunlight, making sure that everything in my day is built around like my recovery and everything of that,

that nature and then taking time off and getting away from the game of baseball and everything like that, I spend time with my family, my wife, whether it be my dog. But making sure that I have a balance in life and then at the end of the day, I'm looking at myself in the mirror and understanding, hey, I'm confident, I'm terrible, I know I'm ready for this, I know I'm ready and prepared to go out here and face whoever and feel just as confident as, you know, anybody in the in the game. Is this right?

Now, this is AI, so this could be wrong, but AI is never wrong, right? You rush for 2,500 yards and 38 touchdowns in football. Is this accurate? Yeah, that's accurate. Yeah, yeah, it was dogs. Well, at least you're modest. I appreciate that, that's cool. Hey, what made you go to, what was the wide-the-route baseball over football?

And I'm curious about that. And, by the way, did you know there was another great Atlanta break? because you're from Georgia, named Dion Sanders that did the route like that. Absolutely. Yeah, for me, I say it all the time. I can joke about it and talk about it because I'm not playing anymore. But, yeah, I felt like I was pretty good in football.

But for me, it was just the practice. I can go out here and play 162 games a year, including spring training and playoffs. And I can't get tired of it. But a few days of practice for football, I just didn't have the love for it. And, you know, my parents always said, you know, whatever you do in life, make sure you love what you do.

And I love baseball a lot more. Found out that I really enjoy watching football. I love watching football. And yeah, so that's kind of like where I kind of stand on those, you know, that side of the fence. Is there much football smack talk like around September for fantasy football this time in an major league clubhouse or is that pretty much? not a conversation piece.

So I'm not much of a fantasy guy. I just am a Falcons fanatic. I got season tickets. You know, I enjoy going to all their games. I don't talk smack about players or anything like that. I'm more so to talk smack about the team. And I just make sure,

like I just kind of get my friends going, whoever, Cowboys fans, Texans fans, or anything like that. Like, I like to stir the pot a little bit. You know, just we have a good. team. I can talk about this. Don't give me started on football. I can start I can start talking about that. Too late. Too late. It's a radio show. You're my host. You're my co-host. Drake London gets a new deal. What do you think about Drake London, four years, $141 million? That's good money spent.

You love to see it. You love to see it. I was a big fan of that draft. I was a big fan of us. Well, yeah, I was a big fan of us picking him up. Big fan of just kind of like who he is as a person. You know, I think that's the cool part about me being in the professional side of baseball and then I understand the football side. Like, yeah, you could go out and play, you know, play well and everything like that. But he's a good person, you know, seeing him how he interacts with kids, seeing him how he's just around in, you know, the city of Atlanta and everything like that. You know, he's just a great person, great dude.

Somebody who you really want to invest in. And, you know, as a fan, you're looking at you're like, hey, this guy is going to bring a lot of cool culture, bringing the team and everybody together. So that's what I love to see. All right. Before I let you go, Taylor, again, I went to AI and hit me next time you see me. I'll be at the ballpark tonight, so don't hit me when I get there. But point being is this, you had a gender reveal before the baby was born, correct?

Not really a gender reveal. We had more so like a pregnancy reveal. All right, go ahead, explain. Go ahead and knock that out for us. Yeah, so we just had to have, so we call it. everybody and recorded every single reaction. I ended up being a very cool video. I just really enjoyed the people that, you know,

we got to share that special moment with. And then at the end, I thought I made it kind of obvious, but a lot of people didn't see it in the post, I put a little blue heart. So it'll be a little baby boy. All right. So has he been born yet or no?

No, no, no, no, no. He's, I think we're 24 weeks. right now. Okay. So I think somewhere in the September range, maybe. All right. Well, you better make sure, like, guys like Christian Walker and some other guys buy you some cigars when the baby comes, you know, you know that, right?

Yeah. I'll have a talk with those guys. I know they just recently had kids as well. Yeah. Yeah, we got to get some. Cigars. And then tell me about this coffee thing that some of the guys did. Were you a part of that at Wrigley Field where you had to go get coffee or does somebody

go get coffee for you? No, no, no. I wasn't in there. I wasn't there for that. I did hear about it. And I think good. You know, I think good. You know, they need to be put to work a little bit.

You know, sometimes in the game, you kind of get a little spoiled, you know, just, you know, the food that we eat, you know, the travel that we have and everything like that. It's good. It's good. They're living good as rookies. You know, we're not hazing guys or anything like that. Right. You know, just, you know, one time out of year, you know, just have them go get some coffee or anything like that. like that. I think it's good for the team morale. I think I know the vets respected it.

The rookies handled it well. So, you know, good, good team camaraderie. It's always good to get the vibes up. For those that don't know, the rookies had to go across the street from Wrigley Field and bring the vets coffee. So I just, it's a very funny video the Astros did and they should be applauded. Hey, please Taylor stay healthy. Please make some great grabs of the next handful of days. Have fun against the pirates and this weekend against the A's. And stay away from that left field wall because I'm scared to death for anybody playing over there these days. Yeah, we're going to stay away from that. I promise you that.

Yeah, so I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. I look forward to having these conversations with you. All right, Taylor, take care of yourself. We really appreciate it.