The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Lose Game 1 vs Mariners, Can Imai Turn it Around?

Episode Date: May 12, 2026

Astros Lose Game 1 vs Mariners, Can Imai Turn it Around? 

This is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. 101 in H-Town. Good morning and welcome to a Tuesday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. Talking about the local 9's offense and just said, hey, if the pitching can come through, and this team can gel as one. But not the case. Two runs in the last three days.

The baseball gods always have a sense of humor, Matthew. I'm not laughing. I love this song. I think of you appreciate this. Again, I'm having to go to a little bit of a deeper cut because I don't want to be repetitive with our songs. Oh, this is great. I love me a little Harold Melvin in the blue notes. I was surprised, man.

I love this. Isn't a good song? This is an eight-minute version. What are you about Harold Melvin in the Blue Notes? I know nothing. Young Jonathan? What? Come on now.

This is my ballpark right now. Oh, okay. We're at Hognutsfield. I got you. Exactly. Do you all score at Hognutsfield? Not more than an Astros. God, I'm mighty.

Let's go Astros. I had somebody, I was tweeting about the Astros. and somebody was like, let's move on. Football season is around the corner. Man, shut your bum ass up. Just shut your bum ass up. I'm going to watch baseball games. I'm a sports fan.

I'm going to watch sports. There's no football games happening right now. You won't curse. You won't discuss them. Texan deal. Dollar 50. Go ahead. No, the $50.

You got it backwards. Let's make it 100. What? Seriously. This is, this jar runs off. Chewy. Let's get into it. The Texans put the Jaguars a week.

9 or week 14. I don't care. Just wake me up when the schedule is released. Wake me up when the schedule is available. Yes. And also before you go-go. Don't leave me hanging on like a yo-yo. Do you see the latest most ridiculous scheduling release? No. So they

had Joe Buck on Good Morning America today, which is the ABC morning show. It's like that, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-dun. You know, Monday night football, yeah. Love it. Denver's playing, I think, Kansas City. Okay. Well, they play them twice. And they're divisional opponents.

That is correct. They told us the game. They didn't tell us where it was going to be played. Or what week? Well, they said a week at least, right? Week one, yeah. Okay. That's right. Oh, week one. Yeah. They didn't say it was in Denver or Kansas City. Correct. Why not? They want you to wait for the schedule release. Because you're a dork. Let me tell you, if you're a scheduled dork, come on. Well, I was going to say we could talk to you, but we can't right now. but that's fine.

We got to, we got to, we got to diversify our sports world. We got to do something. We cannot let the schedule stands win this war. There's no war, Matt. It's a war. No, there's no war. ABC said, hey, let's put a game on. Let's give you a game and not tell you where it's being played.

No, man, I need you to relax. There's no war. You can pay attention or you can't. Nobody's telling, nobody's saying, nobody's trying to push you. What it's on my TV? I mean, I guess I could flip it. Yeah, you can flip it. Yeah.

Put it on the A team. Our A team or just like the A team? Yeah, the A team on Space City Home Network. Speaking of which, I'm coming after DirecTV tomorrow. Are you really? What's going down? I got being switched. Uh-oh.

That isn't makes sports RV too, Fubo. I'm sick of all y'all. All right. Exfinity. Done. Tomorrow. You can do it today. Because here's the thing.

We have four hours to fill. We got to peel the curtain back. I mean. So, apparently. since about 8.30 last sign, our phones have not worked, and we have multiple requests to our IT department. Not here in Houston. We don't have IT in Houston. Yeah, we laid them all off. We don't know if they're like, I mean, if they're looking at the email going, ooh, we got to take care of Houston 790 or ooh, we got to take a nap or ooh.

Yeah. Ryan C. Chris has got some of the rest of us. Starbucks or something. I don't know. They're working on that. So this will be the last time I'm bringing up. Okay, good. I'm so proud of you, Matt. We'll get that up, okay. Wow. I want to start calling you Mr. Improvement. No, you can't. I've already discussed twice already today.

That's true, actually. Well, you know what? The final step to change, Matt, is relapse. So it's going to happen. Okay. All I'm going to say is, in order to have a successful sports talk station, I do believe it is imperative that you have a chance to talk to your listeners,

which we do. I agree. And we want you to talk to us. A lot of shows in this marketplace don't like you. They pretend they like you. That's true. But we actually let... I mean, you've heard some of the lunatics we let on this radio show.

Oh, it's great. It's not great. It's a unique experience. But we do it because we like you. And we think it's interactive. So we can't be very interactive with you when our phones don't work. And if our parent company doesn't care, We're going to keep doing the show, but it's just, it's disheartening because I love working for this company.

I do love working for this station. I love working with you. I love working with Jonathan. I love people work with here. But we're part of a corporate infrastructure that just doesn't, everything takes time. And look, phones do go down, internet goes down. That's life. But we have, it's just one problem after the other.

And it's, and it's a little disheartening. That's all I'm going to say. And then I am at 1009 done talking about it. Okay. Good. I mean, we've been gone. I mean, we've been here for a couple of years now. This is the worst.

This is the longest the phone's ever been down. So hopefully it gets fixed at some point. If not, we'll figure it out. We would love some interaction for you guys. What don't we do it this way? You can tweet us and Instagram us. Yeah, let's tweet at SportsMT at Sports RV. Yes.

Some of you're like, I'm not doing the Twitter thing anymore. I get it. Send us messages on Twitter sucks. Twitter sucks. It's the worst. Somebody called me a, a gay, a racist word yesterday. Gay and racist. Gay racist homophobic slur yesterday.

Okay, we'll just mute them. What'd you do? It was off of my Texan star schedule thing. Oh, see, yeah, you hold on. Hold on now. You can't stir up trouble and then be upset. It comes your way. But you think a homophobic slur is okay?

I don't think, no, I don't think what you did warranted it. Yeah. Yeah, just mute that person. Move on. But yeah, follow me on Instagram at Sports RV. So if you want to get a hold of us today on Instagram, at Sports RV, at SportsRV, on Twitter, same exact, SportsRV and SportsMT. And we'll try to communicate through you that way now. Where it does get in the way, is it 1230, we're supposed to have Joe Espada on via the phone.

Yeah. Well, we'll have to tell them our phones are down. I mean, it happens. We can also come to stage if you want. I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think so either. Maybe the Astro Gremlins are like, you know what, let's give a Joe a day off. Yeah, maybe we should give them a day off.

off. Tatsu you and I can have a quality start light tonight and then we can move on. By the way, yesterday, Peter Lambert had a quality start. You need to make some cockamamie thing up. He had a quality start. Three runs over six is quality. Yes. Well, seven.

That's right. So it's a plus. No, they if there was such thing as a plus, they would have added pluses a long time ago. Oh, okay. Okay. So, so, well, let's try it. Sure, why not? We have a guy on line two that's going to try to call the show. you try to pot it up because I'm not even sure we could.

I think you did it. All right. David, are you there? Okay. There we go. Yeah. You can call in and we can't get you want. Yeah, you can call on all you want to. I can't give the screen.

I'm going to just got to put them on air. Oh, really? You can't screen the call either. Interesting. Okay. All right. Back to it. No, it is bottom line a quality start.

Anything six or higher is a quality start. So in your mind, the exact same, a perfect game and giving a six innings. and giving up three runs, the same thing. Quality start. Same quality. That's how baseball has done it for, I don't know, 100 years. I'm asking you a question. You can answer it.

I'm saying that if you went eight innings give up one run, quality start. Right. If you give up two runs over six, quality start. Six innings and three earn runs or a perfect game. Both quality starts. Don't you think there should be a little line?

You might be right. Yeah, I know. But they haven't changed it. I know. I don't care. I listen to you. Because baseball was invented 150 years ago, okay? They got to get with the times, Matt.

You got to progress. Okay? This is from a man who says medium rare plus. Yes. No, I say rare plus. Rare plus and medium well light. Yeah. And rare.

Mine. Okay. Matt Thomas says a perfect game in six innings and three runs are the same thing. I say I'm going to put a little extra flare on there. Quality Start Plus You know what? You think I'm an argument here today? Yes, you are.

You've already done it. You've been doing it for 13 minutes. I'm done. Oh, Gambor Jim can't call a gamble talk today. Dang, that's a shame. Okay. Shout out Steve, Aaron. They're tweeting in.

Okay. Can we discuss the Astros hitting? You know, just say hi to us. They're hitting coaches? No, and just in hitting in general. It's been a bad few days for the hitting coaches. I mean, I got to be honest. Are we looking to fire them too again?

Maybe. 10.13, it's a Matt Thomas show at Ross. Do not call us. It will not work. But please tweet at us at SportsMT at SportsRV. Let us know that you're out there. And then you can also do it on Instagram too, at SportsMT, at SportsRV

as we make a slow, steady climb towards a magical 3350 number. Mm-hmm. And maybe Joe Espada will join us. And maybe we'll take your gut feelings, You have to do gut feelings through Twitter this week. You never know. You know, y'all going to send emails, too.

If y'all do not do the Instagram or the Twitter or the TikTok thing, I don't do TikTok, send us an email. MT at Sports790.com. MT at Sports790.com. 1014. This is Matt and Ross. We're on thanking you for being a part of our show today. You 10 o'clockers on Sports Talk 790.

Last night was kind of aggravating, just kind of just sitting and trying to. Watch Peter Lambert say competitive, which he did. Yes. Give you seven. Yes. And the Astrobatts just were nowhere to be found. It just was so frustrating. Yeah.

Yes. I mean, yeah, three hits for Altuvae. Three hits for Isaac Paredes. Yes. Christian Walker, 04. Zach Cole. I mean, God love him. I mean, literally God loves him.

like God, Love All. Yes. Three more strikeouts for him. Three more strikeouts for Yorna Alvarez, who has had a maid to forget. The Astros try to get something going with a base on balls. Cole, Smith, Matthew, Shoemake. This is not a major league lineup. It's just not.

It's a lineup void of, it's, It's guys filling in for lengthy periods of time that just are not going to be able to lengthen your lineup and be able to go top to bottom and constantly keep people threatened. Yeah. Predictably, you've been getting more Christian people. Where's Christian Vasquez needs to catch every day guy?

He is, his numbers are going way down, unfortunately. Yeah, Braden Shoemake, I mean, he's been hitting. Nice. But he's not a long-term major league of. Matthews will see he's just learning got some pop as has shown some power but strikes out a bunch yeah cam smith is really one that kind of hurts although you're two walks yesterday yes he did which is very rare especially off of george kirby yeah um i would really like i'm not saying like he's the catalyst for the ashore's offense or anything but something out of cam smith would be really awesome to see

just for the construction of the team and just for long term, just because of the implications of what you got back from the Kyle Tucker trade. Yeah. I mean, that's his spot. Yes. You know, people like, hey, send him down to the miners. It's like for who? Yeah.

Who do you want out there? You want Zazazzo. He's a gold glove caliber right field. Yeah. So at the very least, and people are scared to run on him. The book is out. People are scared to run on him. So he saves you runs just from him being out there.

He saves you second and third and third to home. So he's going to be out there. He's got to figure it out of the plate. He's had a lot of wear and tear from last year that he, you know, he'd only played like 30 college games. He got the full off season, talked about he was healthy. And we were hopeful for not a bounce back. I mean, a bounce back relative to what he did early in the season,

but just a leap forward. And we saw it briefly. But now he's come back crashing down to Earth to where, I mean, his OPS now is like 642. Yeah, it's hard to watch a player. Forget about whether you like the player or not that is playing six days a week with an OPS 642. And he, I mean, he's got tools, and he's got, it seems like he's got a good head on his shoulders.

Maybe he's just too much in his head, I don't know. But this is going back to the back half of last year, too. Yeah, absolutely. And last year, I felt like we could be like, ah, you know, it's fatigue. He's played a hundred and however many games. He's only played 30-something in his career, fresh out of Florida State.

Man, it would be nice. And he's still young, obviously. He's 23 years old. Freshly 23. You turn 23 in February. So there's still time. It's 23, though, Ross. But it's also a time to say, because let's face it, when the Astros do spend money,

they usually spend it on players in that age group that will buy out arbitration years. Because you don't want for this guy to be two or three years down the road, this awesome player. and then you're worried about whether or not the Astros can keep him. Yeah. Well, it's funny because like first couple weeks of the season when he was hitting like crazy, buy him out, buy him out now, sign him up, long term. And literally like four weeks later, it's like, let's keep an eye on this situation. That's why the human element and why being a good general manager

and being a good evaluator of a player is so important because you can go all in on a player and he lets you down and you're stuck. I mean, stuck contracts kill general managers. For instance, Tatsu Emi goes out tonight and struggles again for the next month or so. That's a stuck contract. We'll see. Dorian Finney Smith for the Rockets. Stuck contract, at least for at least four more there.

Offseason of health, DFS is going to be okay. That's good. I can't wait for that. That happens with quarterbacks all the time. You can pay quarterbacks $40, $45, $55 million. If they're just mid, that's a stuck contract. contract. Stuck, I mean, Tana Bay wish is one thing. Sage trades or another, but stuck contracts kill you.

Christian Javier, a stuck contract right now. Not even paying him really good money. Not super crazy money. Not super crazy, but it's, but you're, Lance McCuller is the epitome of a stuck contract. They lost on that deal bad. It was a gamble. And they crapped out on that. that deal.

You got a good 21 and then he got hurt in those playoffs and then he hasn't been done anything since. So, except for rack up an ERA over seven. And fingernails come off. The key is sometimes you get sneaking, lucky with a minor league player. Yeah. Because really when you draft a player

you just hope and if that player goes down the minor league system and learns the business and comes up the major league level and is a star, they mean, man, this is so good. Now this is he good? It's like when CJ Stride and I'm trying, I don't mean to cross sports on you here, but when CJ Stry was a rookie awesome quarterback. You're like, oh, my God.

We have this amazing quarterback who not only is good, but he's on the cheap, which means we don't have to spend crazy amounts of money to put pieces around him to get even better. When you get stuck contracts, enough of them and you put yourself on some sort of budget, it does hurt you. I mean, the money that has been spent on Javier hurt, the money that was spent on Brian O'Bray, you hurt. The money that was spent on Lance McCullough,

has hurt. Emi, I'm not ready to write that story just yet, but boy, he needs a month. Yeah. It's tough because you're throwing them right back into the hot grease because you're out of necessity. Like the transition period and all that type of stuff, I mean, it's May.

And we're like, we've had enough. We've had enough. It's May. It can take, you know, somebody a year or more to acclimate and get ready to pitch at the major league level. And but we need you now, Tudson. Yeah, and really honestly, Ross, when you think about this, you don't even really particularly care how much he makes because you just need him to be on the mound of a fifth day. It's Jim Crane's money. It's not mine.

Well, but it is, it is sort of our money because that money is put towards a budget to fill a 26-man roster. And if they made a mistake with a stuck contract, that $18 million could have gone somewhere else. There's no salary cap. Jimmy C can pay. Well, there is... He doesn't want to. But he's not by himself. That's why Nick Allen's here.

Yeah. It's why Joey Lou Pofito's here. See, when Nick Allen gets hurt, you go, okay. When Joy Lopo's like, okay, it's not great that he's hurt because it takes away from your depth, but you don't feel the pinch of it. It's, yeah, it's the accrual or whatever you would call it. An aggregate. Yeah. When you add it all up, first of all, you start with.

your ace hunter brown is out and then yeah is jake meyers an allsart no but he plays steady-handed center field and he was really good at the plate last year and you're hoping to see if he can keep that going you got no idea on that joey low perfido hot hitting when he first came back does play very good defense in the outfield as well and he's gone and then jeremy jeremy's an all-star jeremy pain is one of your if not your best player last year

i mean how many teams in baseball survive losing the left side of their infield. One will be for the rest of the season. One has been gone for a month. I'm sad. Yeah, I was seeing, you know, the 4 U-Tab. I think the A, yeah, the Astros have, like, the most players lost in terms of, like, expected war of any team in baseball. By the way, Ken Rosenthal jumped in on the Astros.

We'll play that coming back. Oh, no. He was on the game, you know, the yesterday's game was on FS1 nationally. Yes. Now, I didn't know who the guys were, so I listened to a little bit just to get their perspective, and it sounded like there were a couple of guys that just dipped in and didn't have a real good feel for the team. No, they were saying, you know when I, I'll tell you the second I changed it back to Space City Home Network.

They were like, uh, Isaac Paredes. No, no, I did not. Really? Yeah. Somebody said that on the broadcast. I was like, all right, I'm changing this. Not only does FS1 dip their toes in, which is fair because they're doing different games every week, but they also don't usually travel their announcers.

Oh, okay. So they really don't get a feel to get to talk to the manager or the coaches or a player or two. before the game. Well, there you go. That's why they're saying Isaac Peridus. So Ken Rosenthal spoke about the Astros situation and what could possibly happen. And he's just one opinion, but I would say Ken Rosenthal

has his boots on the ground, right? He has a pretty good feel where things are. He's broken a lot of stuff and Astro stuff along, of course, with Chandler Rome, of the athletic. Yep. So we'll hear what Ken had to say about the Astro situation coming back. Matt and Ross with you on Sports Talk 790. We thank all of you for listening to the

program. Today, it means a lot to us. If you'd like to talk to us, you can't on the phone just yet. We're working on those. But you can reach out to us through Twitter at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and certainly on Instagram as well, at SportsMT and at SportsRV. Yes, thanks to RH. He says he's a Dorkasaurus because he is excited about the schedule. So he's a Dorkasaurus. You know what? To each his own. But I just thought it was very disingenuous for Joe Buck to go on today. We're playing Denver, Kansas. We're not telling you where. Ooh, you're going to put a little nibble of that there for us. Our friend Javier says say hello to his daughter, Jolietta.

That's the singer in Laredo. Oh, Julietta. Good morning to you. He's taking her to work. Maybe we should do a duet with those two sometimes. Yeah, I guess. The phone's working again. You guys can call with a duet.

I like that. Yeah. Like a little father daughter, Natalie King Cole, Nat King Cole, Unforgetable or something? I'm trying to think. Is there any father-daughter combos that have worked out well? Did Johnny Cash and

Rosanne, not Rosanne, June, no, it would be Rosanna Cash. I don't know the daughter. June was the wife. June was the wife. Rose Anna, I think, was the daughter. Did they do any combinations like that? I know that Elvis did a, when he was deceased, they mixed him, her and

his daughter with him. Yeah. On the bio. Yeah. Which was a good song. Okay. In the ghetto, not in the bio, on the ghetto. On the bio.

In the ghetto. In the ghetto. Kind of the same thing. Who else would be a father-daughter? Did Billy Joel... Nancy Sinatra and Frank? Yeah, Alexa Ray with Billy Joel? Frank Jr. was terrible.

I mean, I mean, I wish him to the best, yeah. What about Miley Cyrus's dad? I forgot. Oh, Billy Ray. They did a song, didn't they? Or, no, they hate each other, don't they? Isn't they have a contentious relationship or something? Past father.

It's got to be Natalie and Nat King, right? Yeah, but he... Well, they're both dead now. But did they ever do a song together, though? They did unforgettable, but I believe that was a mix. Yeah. just like in the ghetto with Elvas and his daughter. Right.

I'm trying to think. See, when you have the phones are down, you think about things like this. Tony Bennett's daughter is a toy. She opened for him, and I was like, man, she's terrible. Oh, that's not so, I'm sorry. All right, Ken Rosenthal. I was like, I've got to go to the bathroom, get a drink. Here's Ken Rosenthal from FS1 yesterday on their pregame show,

talking about what the Astros could or could not do. before the trade deadline. The Astros might be tied for the worst record in the A.L. But there's still only three and a half games back in the wildcard race. So their owner, Jim Crane, we've seen this before. Even with all the injuries, he's not the type to concede. But you want names, so here's some names. He's out parades.

He would be the most obvious if they are out of contention. Josh Hater and Christian Walker, they would be two others who would draw interests, but both have really high salaries. So that would limit the returns. and Hader also has a full no trade clause. And then this is the one to keep in mind, maybe not so much for the deadline, but the offseason. Jeremy Pena.

Jeremy Pena is an eligible free agent after next season, after 2027. So come this off season, he'll be in the same position Kyle Tucker was a few years back. And remember what they did with Kyle Tucker? They traded him. What about your Don Alvarez, Ken? You left that rather large name out of that.

Just your thoughts there. I'd be shocked. And again, Jim Crane is not one to concede. He's not going to concede the future as well as the present. Me and Jim Crane on the same page. Sometimes it's funny that would you all think and what we think and what Ken Rosenthal thinks are sometimes very much, very similar aligned. I think even bringing up Yordon is silly. Everybody else, not silly.

Give him a 10-year deal. he's having a bad may he wasn't going to hit 400 all year long i believe he was supposed to he's not coming for teddy ball game yeah um Jeremy is in play he absolutely is it's it's the exact same situation as Kyle Tucker as is Rosenthal brought up I wish we weren't here I wish we weren't here talking about this behind on that either. You got, can they keep one?

Are you asking or are you telling? Yeah, I'm asking. But what is Jeremy Payne? 27, 28. Oh gosh, we've got to look at this now. 28. Hmm. And honestly, I think just as philosophical,

we've been talking about this, this past week, like, I would rather pay $35 million a year for a position player than a pitcher. As the pitchers, it's not a matter of, if they break down its win. Because here's the biggest problem. And this is no great announcement from me. When you lose your ace, it was like the walls came of crumbling down.

What was it? You went from, you went from, oh, this team has such a tremendous depth on its pitching staff. Oh, yeah. To, oh, my God.

Colton Gordon's getting a spot start. Yeah, it's Tito and Germain. We're missing Michael. Or it's, it's Kai Wei Ting going to have to try to go three innings today. It's not good. It literally is like going to see

The Jackson's without Michael Yeah A announcement folks Michael Jackson has the flu He's going to be out for the show tonight Everybody would leave Everybody like all right well Oh no no no

But Germain's like I'm here I'm here Tito's like what about me We're good You know what we'll do We'll bring in Latoya Yeah here comes Latoya And Jackie Jackson

No we're good we're good. That's what's happening right now. Yeah. Now, Peter Lambert's been good. Mike Burroughs could be something. I mean, Jermaine had a couple hits, but we're missing Michael.

We're going to bring you no Natalie Merchant, but the other 99-99 maniacs. All of them. That's what's happening right now. It's a massive drop-off. Look, I know we hate Frommber and he's the worst thing ever, but last year, if you lost Hunter Brown for a couple months, like, okay, Frommber can kind of hold things down, hopefully. There's nobody like that.

And see, here's the crazy part of it, too, is that you're not even spending crazy money in a Hunter Brown. Imagine if you were spending crazy money in a hundred brown, it would probably mean your depth and your starting rotation would be less because you're not spending as much money and you're starting pitching. It's like, that's why you need Ryan Weiss to kind of at 2.6 milly to come in and take the ball every fifth day. I think we talked about this in the beginning of the year. I made the Spades analogy. You had your ace of spades. And then you got, you know, you can win a book with a two of spades. You could.

But maybe you don't. Yeah. You can win a book with a jack of hearts, but maybe you don't. And that's what you got. Tatsu you and I, he's like a what? Speaking of Spades, I hate doing this. So my daughter, we play Spades a case in the house. And we decide our books.

Yeah. And she never heard of two and a possible. Yeah. So if you said two and a possible, you and I are partners. Yeah, but I don't say that. And I said two and impossible. We'd probably go five. Okay, like two and a half.

Yeah. Yeah, possibly a half. She was like, Dad, what are you doing? You can't say possible. It depends on house rules at that point. I don't disagree. Hmm. But she was flabbergasted when I said, she was, Dad, what is this possible stuff?

Either you got the book or you don't got the book. Yeah. So, you don't have a whole lot of spades in this rotation. So right now, Lambert is a book. He's good? Yeah, he's like King Hearts. Okay. Well, how many hearts does your opponent have?

You've got two hearts. You're a little nervous. All right, so let's do this in spades. I like this. Hold on. Oh, no. Peter Lambert, you said it's a king of hearts? Sure, why not? Okay. Tatsu E. Mai is a six of clubs.

Oh, come on, no. He's not that bad. At least make him like a, oh, jack. No, we can't be a jack. No, it can't be Jack. Okay, Mike Burroughs. Queen of Diamonds. He's kind of fair on these. I'm not going to lie. Lance McEller Jr.?

Ten? Ten? Of your student choice? Ten of clubs. It's not good. We got a crappy, we got a crappy spades hit. We got four in a possible. All right. I got one in a possible.

with Hunter Brown. And our ace of Spades is out. So yeah. We want to send this hand back. All right. Spades talk seven and out of continues. If I'm holding the Astero's rotation, man. I'm looking at you and we're on the same team.

I'm like, problem is there's 13 books out there, are there not? Yeah. Somebody's got to grab them. Well. And right now the A's are grabbing those books. Yeah, the A's are grabbing them. The Astros aren't grabbing Jack.

There is not another radio show the marketplace. They can compare the Asteroist pitching staff. to a deck of spades, a game of spades. I challenge you to find another radio station of the marketplace I could do that. 713, 212570. We have gut feelings today at 1130. You're going to probably need to send them to us

through email, mt and sports7.com. Yes. Oh, I got a sports take from somebody via Instagram. Oh, did you? Okay. You'll save it? Whenever you want. Okay. Where you wanted to get to something? Yeah, non-sports. Just real quick.

All right. as many of you know I love watching roast Yes comedy central roast Where in my mind This is just me speaking There are no off limits I'm with you

Okay They roasted Kevin What's his face yesterday? Heart Heart Yes And it was charged

to the very least one of the roasters up there was Pete Davidson who used to be on Saturday Night Live he's done a few things theatrically but he's really known

for the women he's dead in his life and being just not overly he's had his own issues well one of the issues in his life unfortunately is his father passed during 9-11

in one of the world trade centers yes he was part of that and it has been made a joke about, I mean, just anything you want to talk about 9-11 and crashing and burning, I mean, Pete Davidson has had to wear it. And Pete is just like, okay, it's comedy.

He makes jokes about it. He makes jokes about it. Well, he made a joke about Charlie Kirk a couple days ago that has gotten a lot of people unraveled. Now, obviously, I personally, forgetting about political stance on this to have someone brutally murdered in a public form like Charlie Kirk was

when he was just speaking in a college, it goes to how truly sad our society is. So I'm not trying to preface anything on this because it's obviously, it was a devastating situation. But in the Roast format, it feels like, and this is the question I have for y'all, and it's to each his own on this. Uh-huh.

is it anything goes in a roast? Is there anything boys that is absolutely, I would say really the only thing that I could think of that would be totally, totally off the books in terms of, I don't want to hear that again. It would be something involving children, sexual abuse, molestation, that kind of.

I was thinking, I was thinking children to death. Like if Kevin Hart had a baby who, like, drowned in a pool or something like that. That feels like to me. Other than that, I was also thinking mothers too. Like, that's kind of like. No, even moms, I feel like your mom. You're a mama. Yo mama jokes.

Oh, I love your mama era. A little different. I'm just saying, like, you personally come up. Yeah, no, I feel like in a roast because like Matt said, Pete Davidson's dad died in 9-11. They make jokes about it every roast. Every roast that he's involved in. They're jokes about it. There were Epstein jokes in there.

I feel like children off limits maybe. There were racial jokes in there. Lots and lots of racial jokes in there. Oh, yeah, of course. There's a lot of low-hanging fruit in the... There was also George Floyd. George Floyd joke was in there. Yeah, if George Floyd...

I mean, yeah. I'd say any of it's fine with me. Yeah, I mean... I thought we were, you know, not being snowflakes. So I'm going to probably go with the stance of, and I'm talking about no matter what the topic is, with the exception of probably... children's death,

molestation, that feels like to be the only thing I could possibly think of that would be like, man, you just can't go there. I'd say even then, it's just words. Yeah. I mean, they know what they're getting into.

Just word. Exactly. When you sign up for a roast. And you're like, you're signed a contract and everything. like this is going to be on TV said and if you talk about politics i mean if it's not comedy if it can't be on both sides of each spectrum that's what i'm saying is that i i don't want to be that person because i have a really dark sense of humor we know i don't want to be that one to say

oh my god that was the funniest joke i've ever heard two weeks ago and then if something hit to me and said oh i believe i i don't want to be the hypocrite i would say just open your eyes and i'm going to say this about any a side of politics that you're on if you need to open your eyes to your hypocrisy. So if you're okay with joking about one thing but not joking about the other, you're okay with a politician doing one

thing and then not the other. But do you guys get the sense that this rose really struck people because George Floyd was brought up, Charlie Kirk was brought up. I mean those two as lightning broad conversation pieces out there. Well, one was a political

commentator and never mind but it doesn't matter it doesn't matter it jokes about either I'm okay with I watched it I'm not happy about either situation obviously and I didn't come away going my god how dare they do it go that

I mean I feel like you know Dave Shepel like he does all these jokes that hit those like hard topics and it's still comedy like I feel like we're losing the sense of when someone's on stage and trying to make people laugh and you joke about everything right you still have to be fun The joke still has to be funny.

You also have to land the joke. The joke's not going to be as good. If it's, one of those are going to go like, uh, ha, ha, ha, then you clap, you know,

like, how about this as a judge? How about this is a barometer? You walk into a theater and you hear something. You know it's comedy. You don't, you would hope that those people wouldn't have those terrible, terrible thoughts in their heart.

That this is, this is a bit. This is, these are lines. This is not how a particular, comedic thinks about things, right? I mean, right. I mean, you would, I don't think any human being would want to go up to Pete Davidson

and crack a joke right in the front of the street saying, hey, I'll hope your dad's doing okay on the bottom of the... No, that wouldn't be good. But if you're in a roast, that's fine. But if you're in the venue, in the, in the aura, in the building of it, in the situation of, you have to know that probably everything is off. It's like stepping in an octagon. Matt, if I choke you out right now, that's assault.

If we're in an octagon and we know the rules and we've agreed to a fight, that's different. That's a really good analogy. You step inside the ring. You're in the octagon when you go on the dais and you're going to the roast. Basically just know where you know your venue. Yeah. Like you said, if I'm at a meeting green, like, hey, how about your dead dad, Pete? Yeah, that's out of bounds.

Yeah. And you would never say that. Yeah. But if you were at a comedy club and had forging and tonics, and he was up there roast and you by a variety of what you were. You could go back at him. And I mean, I'll give Davidson credit. I don't know what his relationship was with his father,

but that's not an easy conversation to have. You wouldn't have it normally outside of a comedy stage. But yeah, it was something out. And again, in highly racial, I mean, who, I have not watched the whole thing, but I don't know if you guys get on your Twitter account and you go through the real reals and stuff. Yeah, I've seen a couple of the... Even Cheryl Underwood was like, I mean, and they were making fun of Lizzo back.

I mean, nobody was a single. Lizzo was there? Lizzo was there. Like half of her there was there. I don't know. I feel like we're losing that, like you said, if you're in that stage and you're in that, you know, comedy club. You're a target. Back off on that. You know what I'm saying?

Because if you're going to a small comedy club, that dude might pick on you and say like, oh, you know, whatever case might be or, you know, doing crowd work. comedy at the end of the day. It's not supposed to be. So I don't know. I agree with you, man. I just, you know, and I guess the number one question to wrap up the hour is, do you, is it, are you really funny if you using people's personal tragedies

to make jokes of them? You can make it funny. If you're only doing that, like, you have to make it funny. The joke has to be funny. Yeah. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. A lot of people who are sending me

notes on email. Thank you very much for that. MT at Sports790.com. Don Rickles passed away about three or four years ago, I think, maybe a little bit longer. He offended everybody too, and people just said that's just Don Rickles being Don Rickles. The, I would say, sharpest, quickest comedic minds I could think of ever seeing. Don Rickles and then maybe like Robin Williams? Yeah. Because I got in a

Don Rickles, like, YouTube. Yeah, I watch a lot of those old roast. He, even in his, like, his, like, his 90s or 8 like he's so destroy you whip smart yeah so quick great stuff from from yeah don Rickles I got like in a hole

and I watch a bunch of those old roasts and stuff like that Don Rickles legendary I mean 2017 and I'll say this it takes something to be able to be the recipient of a roast like if they said Matt here's a charity roast for you oh oh oh that's why I've said no I've been

praying for the day. Can we do guests? You want to be on there too? I just want to be in the crowd. Can I have a lot? Give me one in there. Now remember, when you do the rose at the very end, you get the last chance. Yeah, of course.

But I am obsessed with them. I can watch Don Rickles. I could watch the Comedy Central roast. That's why Nikki Glezer to me is so funny. The roast master himself, Jeff Ross. It's all good stuff. All right. 1105.

By the way, that was the form again. The form used to be the home with the Lakers and the kings and sexy big concerts now. It just has roast every two to three years. Oh, yeah, because they're out of there, the Clippers. Yeah. So they didn't refurbish it. They made a whole new building? I don't know what they've done.

I've not been inside in years. The Intuit dome or whatever they call it? No, that's a different location. That's across from Hollywood Park. I got you. Okay. Okay. All right.

So last night, I'm going to assume, and I hate to assume things. but unfortunately you sometimes have to not a lot of you stayed up for the Oklahoma City Los Angeles Liker game and watched Oklahoma City won I watched until halftime yeah I went to I fell asleep and then woke up I tipped it like 940 yeah it's go ahead yeah so uh is when I had my phone

on my ear I could hear Harlan oh okay STA I'm like oh something's going on I turned on it was I think I had it tied and then I think the clipper and that clippers the Thunderscore like the last five six points, 1, 115 to 110, something like that. So the easy,

low-hanging question on a day after that LeBron at 41 years of age, do you think he's done? There are three options. One, he can run it back with the Lakers. Two, he can run it back

with somebody else, or three, he can call it quits. I don't know LeBron. I've watched LeBron as much as you have. I've called a lot of his games. Not a lot, but you know what I'm saying. Fair amount. More than most?

If I was two, and we have gut feelings coming up in 25 minutes. Oh, okay. I'll write this down, actually. I will do a half tease like they did on Monday night football for the Denver, Kansas City game. I don't think he's retiring.

I'll give you more explanation in about 20 minutes. Okay. But that would be my early gut feeling on that would be that he's not retiring. Okay. I'm with you on that. I, well, I guess should I save it? Save it.

Save it. Okay. No, I'll reiterate it. Yeah, go ahead. It's fine. I think he's going to, he's going to ring chase. For a long time? No, for a year at least. Okay. I don't know where that means he lands. Like, he's not going to join the thunder.

But. How about this one? I'll throw one at you. Do you see him in a uniform that he has never worn before? I think it's very possible. I don't know what everybody's cap situation is. Yeah. But he's got a, I mean, he obviously he ain't getting a six. Well, here's what I think about LeBron.

No matter what. What you want to say. First of all, he's still a brilliant competitor. He still has got enough in the tank to be an NBA player. He's not what he was, at 21 or 31. No one's saying that. But at 41, there's still something in him. He still has something that the tank is not empty.

But what is also not empty is I don't think he wants to go bargain binge and shopping. He's not going to the dollar store of NBA teams. Exactly. He's not going to the wizards. I would think, Ross, he would go somewhere where he would get paid and have a lesser chance to win than win and get lesser money. I think LeBron still is driven by finances. I think he'd be more wanting to win at this point. Nobody's going to give him $50 million.

I don't think it would be a balance. he's not going to go take the league minimum no but but it's it's going to be a balance I mean he took less money when when those guys came over to the heat how about this I'll say this if when LeBron signs it will not be for

seven eight nine million dollars no it'll be the 30 million dollar category it won't be for 50 no but still 30 million dollars for I mean how many 41 year olds make 30 million dollars in the NBA zero 41 years or a year old 41 year olds are as effective as

he is okay but I'm still saying again too I still think he's chasing cash. Because I think he's got bigger, he's got bigger, I think he's got bigger things he wants to do in his life. I think he wants to be, frankly, and I don't know if he's brought this up ever publicly, but I think he wants to be the most successful business person that's ever played sports. Right now, that list is very short. It's Shaquille, it's Magic Johnson. I think Michael Jordan. It's a small, small, I think he wants to jump past all those three guys.

And I think the easiest way to do that is not try to. to play 60 games at $7 million. It's to play 60 games at $19, $20, $21, $22, $2 million. And some team in the NBA should offer him that because when you put LeBron in your gear, you're going to sell that gear and you're going to sell out your arena

every single night. So I will just say that it's not going to be, there will be no bargain basement deals ever for LeBron Jims. I think LeBron, if LeBron found out the most he could make on the open market Rossi would be $7 or $8 million. I'm not thinking that's the case.

Not true. He would retire before taking that. I think he thinks he's got a certain value to him that says I'm more than that. Why wouldn't he, if he's won some money, then why wouldn't he take it? Because I think that there's ego involved in that. Okay. There have been a lot of guys in the NBA that are like, oh, I'm only, you're all going to offer me $5 million? I'm good.

I don't think that's going to be a problem for him. No. He's averaged 20 points, seven rebounds. I'm sorry, seven assists. And by the way, if you're 27 and 6 for like a regular person, for anybody. Yeah. Yeah, by the way, Rocket fans do not go out like your fans saying, no, no, no, no, no. Don't do it.

Well, it doesn't, it's not a good look for you. It played four more games. I know. They did. Yeah. Did a men Thompson even hit 27 and 6? No, nobody for the Rockets did. Alpi, maybe? In the series?

You know, I mean, a 20.7 assists and six rebounds. rounds for the season. Oh, Alpi did for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Alpy was that way, I think, the entire way. Meanwhile, Cleveland and Detroit are now tied to two apiece. Now, I don't know if Eastern Conference basketball is going to warm the cockles of the Houston sports hard, but it does give us more basketball. San Antonio, Minnesota is a good series of two games. It is. It is something to... Wimby's back. His elbows are sharpened up. He's, I don't want to say he's lucky. but if you continue to watch that replay of him throwing that elbow at Nasreed, there was 100% intent on that.

And it was frankly, should not even have taken as long for them to decide to make it a Flager 1. That was a flagrant 2 all the way. That was a rare back cock and hit. Right to the kisser. But yeah, game 5 of that series is tonight. It should be very exciting. I hope we can talk about it tomorrow.

We'll be people calling in about it. Honestly, I'm happy that San Antonio is still around because it's easy to hate San Antonio, right? I mean, put it this way, Ross. If it was Minnesota versus Denver, we would be like, who cares? I mean, how much, I guess it depends on the line between hate and jealousy. It may make me jealous. Yeah, but that's part of sports.

You're always jealous of the great teams. Because they got Wimby! The Rockets don't! And Stefan Castle. And Devin Vassell. We love you, Reed Shepard. And, well, that was the Rishar one. Which one was the Wembe one?

Was that the Amin? We love you, Amin, Thompson. We love them. We love them. We love them. Wimby's better. Oh, I got a great conversation for you coming back here. You do.

And I was listening to Lakers Radio, and they brought this up yesterday. Okay, Lakers Radio conversation. I'm going to bring up the question, let you all think about it. And if you want to send us a tweet at SportsMT or Instagram at SportsRV or SportsMT or our email, mtie at Sports790.com. This is Lakers Radio Talking. Is there any player in the end? that the Spurs would trade when before straight up. And part two of this conversation.

This is everybody John Ironlin was doing the call yesterday. It was brought this up on his broadcast. He even thinks it'd be hard pressure for you to find a team in the NBA that would trade, that the Spurs would trade when before two players on the same team. Ooh, okay. So think about that. Is there a single player? No, I don't want to talk about this actually.

Or a duo. And this is what we're scared of. When's shut your bum ass? Adam Clanton. When's shut you bum ass up? Adam Clanton. He's a bum. Says Adam Clinton.

Weekdays two to six, as long as he's healthy. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. All right, we are checking our phone lines. We've done about every half hour, and we are unsuccessful on those. I don't know why. Cole Thompson's kind of been like our de facto call helper. trying to help.

He's like that, was it Verizon? And then he went to Sprint. Can you hear me now, guy? Yeah. Can you hear me now? Unfortunately, we cannot hear you now. No, we cannot.

So unless we get things fixed in the next hour or so, we will not have Joe Espada today, which is fun. We'll hopefully reschedule for Wednesday, provided the phone lines work, but they have not worked since late yesterday, but that's fine. All right, 713-212. No, I can get in the number. braves. It's a reflex.

All right, so, I will be, you'll be the Spurs, Ross, and I'll be the other team. Okay. I'm going to give you Luca Donchitz straight up for Wembe. Wow. No. I'm going... I don't like this. It's going to make me angry.

I will give you Nicola Yokic for Wembe straight up. Okay, that didn't take long. I would say, the American Radio Contingent would say there wasn't a single player, mono-a-mano that the Spurs would say yes to. I could, okay, if you're, now are we doing this? This is almost like if we're, the Spurs wouldn't say yes. We're just trying to dumb it down with Lewis,

I would say yes, but the Spurs would not, I think. Okay, so that makes sense? No, but you're the Spurs. So you have a fact that this Spurs. I don't think the Spurs would, but I would. Okay. I would say yes. Just because of injury concerns.

The only reason, okay, if you tell me, how about this? In this scenario, if you tell me he's going to be healthy, I'm saying no. If you're telling me Wimby's going to, oh, no, I'm saying yes. It's hard. It's hard. I still think I still take, how old is Yokic? 31. Ooh.

Your buddy, Yonazant de Kumpo for women. He's 31. Right now. No, he's 31, no. Okay. is a no. I wouldn't, honestly, because of age, I probably would say no to Yokic as well. Jason, if you're guaranteeing me health, which you can't. Jason Tatum for Victor Wemagnano. No.

Jalen Brunson, friends and no as well. All right. So now we're going to start adding players to it. Because the radio contention on the Laker Network yesterday was contending that you could. It'd be hard to find even two people that would say it. Jamal Murray and Yokic for Wimbenyama. Yes. Ooh, you're wiggling. I like it. I like it. Yes. Okay. Dantage and Reeves for Wemby.

I can't play defense. No. No, I don't know. This is insane. I'll say yes. I'll say yes. I'll give you one more. I don't know. I don't know. Jaylon Brown and Jason Tatum for Wemby. Yes. I would do that. Okay. So I think the problem is this and you've had to wiggle and move around a little bit here. It's difficult.

That kid is in his, what is it in his second year of the NBA? Third. Wemby, yeah, I think. He doesn't even have a great three-point shot. It's just a three-point shot. But everything else is, now he had the thrombosis last year. He got the deep vein thrombosis. Yes.

And he got concussed earlier this year, but he only missed one game because of that. Yeah. He was knocked out cold. this year he averaged 25 points 11 and a half rebounds, 3 assists. His turnovers went way down as the season went along and down to 2.4 and he won defensive player of the year. He won defensive player of the year and it got 25 and 11.5.

It's hard. That's what we're afraid of. That's why Tillman Fertito was praying for Victor. Games played in his first three years. 71, 464. He's 22 years old. I think it's a matter of

when he breaks down, not if. Can he make it to 30 before he really starts breaking down? I don't know. But, you know, there's sports science, they're cognizant of it, they're watching his minutes, they're treating him with kid gloves, they're doing everything in their power, they're limiting his minutes. He was only 29 minutes a game.

I don't even want to look at his per third. per 36 31 points 14 rebounds and defensive player of the year and I mean for example I'm in and Kevin Durant

played their their per 36 and doesn't get into foul trouble either honestly for a shot blocker and they're blowing out a lot of guys like a lot of times they were trying to they were trying to limit his minutes but a lot of times he just didn't have to play the four quarter they won 60 plus games

do you think this kind of conversation makes the rockets want to think about doing something crazy. Like switching conferences? No. Oh, I mean, that'd be nice. It would be real nice. Because not only is Victor in the West, but he's in your division. You're going to play him four times a year.

You're going to have, and he's three hours to the west of you. He's going to be on your highlights. He might be the face of the NBA if he wants to be. when they brought that up last night on the broadcasts I was trying to fall asleep that concerned the hell out of me that even another team would have said

uh-uh we are not whatever you offer me mono-o we ain't tankin no because he's young as well he's 22 now as I said before the only thing that he does that makes you think that this is going to be a guy that will not be able to give you 70 games a year that he does take a lot of hard falls.

He doesn't position himself. He does get, he does throw his body around, which means he's going to hit the floor. He's going to hit a knee. He's going to bang an elbow. He's going to hit the back of his head. He's a little reckless on the court. Yeah.

And if that ever becomes a part of it, if he eliminates that where he knows how to take a fall and not take silly risk about trying to get hurt, then he becomes a 70 game guy. I mean, we said the same thing. That's why we didn't want Chet Holmgren. He played six. 69 games and he's healthy for the playoffs right now.

Yeah. For back to back years. And that's part of the growing up process of a young guy that is as lean as those two guys are. I would say Chet's even a little leaner than Wemby. What do you think? Yeah. And I think Wemby still has to work on a three-point shot. What is this three-point shot?

34.9. Yeah. Either that or just take fewer shots. A man's at like 20%. Hey. That's fine. He's there for his brother or Sarr. Comparison is a thief of joy.

You write that on a t-shirt? That's a good one. That's not. Everybody knows that one. Yeah. I haven't heard it before, but yeah, it isn't. You know what?

It is stealing my joy, comparing a man and wimby. I love a man. Who doesn't? Defensive player of the year and the per 36 of 31 points of 14 rebounds. That's not right.

How can he be 7-4 and he's shooting 35% from 3? So, seriously, don't say he sucks. Because if you say he sucks, then I question your basketball argument. Who said he sucks? Well, I'm just saying you just What you have to pray for you honestly

To be rude? Victor has hurt Is he going to get hurt? He's going to get hurt at some point. The bodies of players like that don't stand up We're going to be sitting there praying for him to hurt get hurt And well I don't know how many championships is going to rack up Because Thunder are better but

But we'll see this year it's going to be a clash of Titans And he's only 22 Like if he can stay healthy They're going to have some knock down dragouts And then eventually within four or five years They could be the class of the West I mean, they could prove it this year. It's not crazy.

Ultimately, we have to hope that he gets very unhappy in San Antonio. He loves it there. I know. The French scene apparently is very good in San Antonio. He loves it there, and they're going to give him the mega max every step of the way. They absolutely should. But let me say this, because I feel like Houston, say we've got all this tight ends. You know, you got Spurs, OKC.

And then on the east, you have the Knicks and what in the case be. But the Knicks have been in that spot trying to beat these Titans for how many years? now they're finally off the curve. Well, they haven't won a championship since 1972 or something. I'm just saying, though, because they very well could this year. You didn't get the ping pong balls.

You didn't get the ping pong balls for Wimby. You didn't get the ping pong balls for Cade Cunningham. I mean, I guess did we really want the ping pong balls or Zachary Rishache? I don't know. No, I think Atlanta wants wants to move from Zachary Lichase. All right, time now for gut feelings.

Cool. Now, my gut feeling is I'm pissed. Gut feeling is that made me an angry conversation. My gut feeling is the spurs are going to be better than the rockets for the foreseeable future. What I sound like a brady kid when you say that? Well, I don't know. It's going to be nice. 713-212-5.7.7.1.3-212.5.

Why am I doing the numbers? Hit me next time. Oh, it's not your fault. Listen up, thousand boys. They've been so appealing. Because Ross and Matt Thomas. Yo, they got a good feeling. This is their gut feeling on the Matt Thomas show. All right, ladies and gentlemen, time for us to see how we did last week at our gut feelings.

Ross, you had a well-deserved last Tuesday off. So did you even put anything down? We've got nothing on the record for anything of his gut feelings, correct? He said Lambert Quality Plus. Oh, he's going quality plus with Peter Lambert. Okay. You know what? Give him credit for that.

You're welcome, even though it didn't really help out. No, the Astros offense didn't help out. I mean, I can't do it all for them. That's true. I mean. All right. Jonathan, how did you and I do last week? All right, Matt, you said you took your son's gut feeling that the Knicks will sweep the 70s.

Yes, give me credit. You also said the Pelicans will hire Rajam Rondo for the coaching. I still feel good about that. Okay. Okay. So I got one correct one? Well, he's one of the finalists, so it's not a lot of the left field. Go ahead.

I was going to say. I must have heard something from somebody or something. You've been talking to Zion? No. Zion's eating right. I have the ones from two weeks ago as well, by the way. Let's see. You said Kai Wei Ting pitches at least 60 pitches.

I don't think he did. It was two spot starts ago. Correct. You said the Rockets were coming back home for game six. That's a hit. Thank you. And then they got their... They struggled.

Yeah. I'm going to stop my sentence the way I was going to say. it. I know. And then you said Austin Reeves would play, which I believe he did. Yes. You said he would score less than 12 points. He would have like 18 or something. Yeah. But you said Kevin Durant wouldn't play game five. He did not. You had Tatsuya Imai. You're such a Yemi hater. You had him under two in Corpus Christi. We're going to do our EMI predictions today. Don't worry about that. I think he threw three. Let's see. I said, Kevin,

DeRant wouldn't play five. I said the Astros will win the series versus the Orioles. That's an L? Tell it one more time. The Orioles series for the Astros? They lost that series, right? They lost two out of three. And I said they would win the series against the Red Sox, which they did win that one. Yes, two out of three there. It was a three and three

road trip. Oh, Jonathan had game five going to overtime with Amin Thompson winning the game winning bucket. That didn't happen, but I mean, it was a nice thought. And there we go. What I just got from Gat? What did you do? How did you do last week, by the way? I said wolves beat spurs and six.

That's all I had. It's still a possibility. Wolves over spurs and six. Wow. I'm feeling that. Okay. And what was yours, Matt? Let me just write this down for archival purposes.

Nix will sweep the Sixers. And then Raj and Rondo coaching the pelicans. Yeah. Rondo coaches pelicans. Okay. I always thought Roger and Rondo was going to be an NBA coach even when he was playing. So that's why I feel it may not be no norms, but he's going to be a head. coach the NBA. A lot of point guards coach.

We also have Chris Gordy's. He was there too. Lance McCullors will hold the Dodgers team and get a W for the Astros. What's the left for? Gordy. I can't. He's out of town. I can't. I can't tease him. And also he said

when B. will set a post-NBA blocking record 13 or more. Post-season. He had 12, did he not? And that first game against Minnesota? So he was close. And then Rockets will sign free agent Jose Alvarado as an unrestricted. I'm team Avarado. Can't shoot, but he can do a lot of things.

How many damn predictions did Gordy make? Jeez. You know what? He contributed the show. I'm not going to, I'm not going to blast him for that. I'm surprised there wasn't any rundown of SEC cross-country results. Yeah. Or the Lane Kiffin talk, you know.

Oh, God. We got to talk about that. Yeah, we needed to get into that. I kind of saw what happened. We'll do it about 1220. Goodness gracious. All right. So if you've got any got feelings, let us know, email mt at Sports 790.

or Twitter at SportsMT at SportsRV or Instagram for that matter at SportsMT. Okay. All right, I will go first. Tatsuui Emi non-quality start today. Oh, okay.

Non-quality start rare plus. What is that? What is the rare plus? I don't know. It doesn't matter. Matt's making things up. Quality start rare plus. He's trying to hate.

I'm revolutionizing things. He's mad because he's not really Mr. Texas. That's not catching on. And my Quality Start Plus is. More people call me Mr. Texas than they acknowledge your ridiculous Quality Star Plus. Yeah, that's because they're making fun of you. No, they're not. Yeah.

If people could call the show, they'd be saying, good morning, Mr. Texas. No. They're just doing it as a joke because you're obviously not Mr. Texas. I don't believe it to be the case at all. It's like when there's the 6'4-300-pound guy and you call them small fry. It's basically like that. want it down to a T, I'll give it to you to a T. Okay.

Under four innings. Okay. How many runs? Does it matter if you're going under four innings? It means you're probably not doing great. Four innings a shutout, it's not that bad. What is that? A rare, rare quality plus, minus plus extra?

It's like a... Go ahead. Zero sugar. I like that one. Zero sugar start. Nah, if you only go four, that's not quality at all. It's like an appetizer. It's like a good appetizer.

A good outfiser? Four innings, three runs. All earned. Does it matter? Yes. Okay. I'm going four and two thirds. Two earned runs.

So what does that discuss then? What do you call on that? It's a bad start. I mean, not great start. Okay. So a not great start quality plus minus zero sugar. You don't have to overcomplicate things. It's either lighter plus or regular.

Or just right. I know it confused you. Yeah, I know. I know. I know. All right. Jonathan, how's he, how's he am I going to do tonight? You know what?

I want six innings. What? From how many pitchers? Yeah. Tatsu E. My, that would be awesome. Yeah. Go ahead.

Be optimistic. Say it with your chest. Every time I do. You know what? All right. We're going to do. All right. Six innings.

How many runs? We're just going to do quality. What is this normal quality? Three, at least three. Okay, all right. Quality start. Let's go. I feel it.

I hope so. I hope you're right. All right. I'm next. Spurs. Okay, I got another one. Tatsu Yemi does not get visited by the trainers. Hopefully.

Wait a minute. You are gut-filling whether or not he's going to be hurt during the game? He does not get visited by the trainers at any point. Okay, if we're going to claim that one, I got one for you. The roof at Diken Park will be close tonight. Oh, stop. All right, I'm going to... Oh, so they're going to play a baseball game.

I'm going to the NBA. Spurs beat the wolves by at least 11. Okay. So it's a spurs cover tonight against the wolves in San Antonio. Okay. Say it again? Spurs cover. Beat the wolves by 11.

By 11. 11. Yeah, the line's a 10 and a half right now. What? Who's out? Nobody. No, it's the San Antonio's at home and Anthony Edwards is running to the exercise bike every five seconds. Vegas is trying to rob y'all.

Go ahead and pet the other side, man. Very easy. Very easy. If they don't know what they're doing, it's super simple. There you go. Okay. I'm going to go with Yonis will be moved in the offseason. Not to the Rockets.

Can I step one above that? Sure. He's going east. Okay. I will say just not to the Rockets. I can't say anything after that. By the way, on the Dan Patrick show today, guests include Nick Wright and Reggie Miller.

That's a hard pass. Jesus. Are we just regarding the same crappy guest over and over again? Their phone lines works. So that's been finished. Go ahead. Okay. I will go with

a LeBron I got my gut feeling at this moment is he's back with the Lakers Damn it I don't think he runs around the league chasing championships I think he's thinking that Dant just comes back

Reeves is back the Lakers will do something else I think he's a Laker too I'm sorry don't have to be sorry now I did say a long time ago that I think he ultimately he ends up in Cleveland

the coach closed out his career but that also means he's going to have to probably acquies and take a lesser dollar amount because they're going to know that and he's not going to do that either. So I don't know what their cat's is, but I may have to back off on that a little bit.

But I mean, Jared Allen Mobley and Mitchell and, well, they might be moving Mitchell. Hardin. Oh, I don't think LeBron was to play with James Hardin. No, I don't think I either want to play with each other if I had to guess. Yep. All right, how many primetime games for the, how many standalone games for the Houston, Texas?

Standalone Texans games will be the number five. I was literally typing that in. in for myself. Liar. Where's your camera? Literally typing it in my column. Cameras work today, too. All right.

Dang. All right, I agree. I think it's going to be five. John, then what do you think? What do I think for what? How many stand-alone games for the Texans with the schedule announced on Thursday? Two?

Two. No, two. Are you sure you want to say two? Let them, just let him, just let him go. You know, stand alone. Stanilla, meaning like ESPN, Amazon, Thursday night, Thursday night, you're guaranteed at least a Thursday.

Okay, so I, okay. Okay, so, so three. Okay, you're still wrong on that. You think so? I don't think there's no national cash. They don't have a lot of national cachet. I'll give you that. Yeah, but there's a prime.

There's Netflix, there's so many games now. There's Tuesday night football, Wednesday night football. Okay, all right, let me get a good guess. Three is not bad. Let's do four. Okay, there you go. That's a lot's a little better. Maybe.

Watch if we're going to bully him and it's going to be two. That's what I'm saying. I'm going to just do for it. Hey, you're staying on your business. No, no, no, no, no, no. Let's get the 10 toes down, Jonathan. I take criticism. Stay with two.

It really makes a lot of sense. Stay with two. You know what I'm hoping for, honestly? Everybody in their mother is predicting the Texans are playing the Jaguars in London. I hope they don't play there. Because I will annihilate all you dorks that send those tweets out that talk about how the Texans are playing international game. That's not you like the audience dorks.

I'm talking about the national people. Because there's somebody that's close to the team that believes that they're not playing any international games. Now, the NFL can change his mind on a lot of that stuff. Okay. I got one more. Please. Lance McCullors Jr. hits the aisle.

With a thumbnail. I thought it was his pointer finger. Whatever. There's a nail gone, right? Yeah, I mean, how long has he got? John. I don't know. How do you pitch like that? That's what I'm saying. You just wrap it up.

He's supposed to pitch tomorrow, right? Yeah. And the Astros have said nothing about it? I don't know. Well, we were going to have Joe a spot up, but our phones don't work, so I just got a text. Joe's all set for 1230. We're not going to be said for him, unfortunately. Maybe you can call him on a cell phone, put it in the mic.

Yeah, let's do that. Put him on a Zoom call? I don't know. Maybe we could try that. Hey, Joe. All right. So if you are ready to send us your tweets at SportsMT, at SportsRV, I'm going to check Instagram here. Let's take a look here.

And let us know if you have any possible gut feeling, 713-212-5-790, 7-1-3-212-5-790. 11-40. 11-40 on Sports Talk, 7-90. More gut feelings are coming in. You're going to help me out with this one, Rossi. One of our Twitter followers says that Kyle the Walsh says gut feeling I'm opting in. I'm opting in. That's such a good song.

I can't throw at Dike and Park, but I'm mopping in. I'm going to make 18 mil. I can throw only three innings till I can go home and eat. because I can't eat at the park because the mound's too hard because the pitch clock gets me I hope I'm wrong about all this six innings six innings

three runs quality start tasuiimi let's go I'll write that down for your gut feeling you want to amend it nope I'm trying to work it into it I said four and two thirds gets into a little trouble

a couple of base runners and then he's got to get pulled but only two earned runs Aaron says, Emai tells us all to shut our bum blanks up as he goes seven innings, quality plus start tonight. Also, Ant goes for 40 and the wolves come home to close it out. Now, Aaron lives in Minnesota, so this is a little bias here. Quality start plus, it's catching on. I got like five, six people tweeting about me yesterday, Matt. That's because they feel sorry for you, just like with Mr. Texas.

Let me tell you something. Mr. Texas is a brand. You are not Mr. Texas. It is a legacy. It is a spirit of life. It's a joke. And not a funny one. You don't even own a cowboy hat.

Boots? Because my head's too big. Wouldn't that mean you need... That's when you would get a hat. You got to protect a dome. No, not everybody looks good to hats. I haven't ever seen you wear a hat. That's because I got long hair.

Well, I don't... Why would I wear a hat up here? What would I wear a hat? When do I see? Why would I go spend, Jonathan, wait, we're a smart spend money here. Why would I spend $500 on a hat that I might wear once a year? $500. Yeah, if you're going to the roadie, you can't go in a cowboy hat.

You buy it Ruckies. It's like $120 to get made for you, like maybe a little more than that, but it's not too bad. Yeah, we're trying to get a custom-made stetson. And you keep it for life. Mr. Texas has a lifestyle to live and an apparel to live for. Yeah, okay. You're not Mr. Texas. What lifestyle?

There's nothing Mr. Texas about the lifestyle you do. I eat chicken fried steak. I travel the streets throughout the state. Oh. I like brisket.

You don't like tamales? I don't even like briskets. You don't even like brisket. You're such a fraud. I like brisket. Yeah, I love how the people have called you out for that so much. You're like, yeah, I like it.

Sure. I like brisket. I prefer ribs and sausage. Sue me. Yeah. You're the sausage man. That's what we're going to call you. The sausage man.

You call me how like. You're not Mr. Texas. I'm calling jalapino Chedner's what you're Mr. Sausage. I'm opting in. You know what? You know what you should get Scott? We should like sweet tea.

We're going to get excommunicated. Sorry, I don't want real sugar in my tea. Oh, well. Gross. My tea fall. He doesn't like sweet tea. Look at Jonathan. If it seems to the 1800, you'll get put on that stand in the Fartown Hall.

He is drawn and quartered. So you're saying that adding gluten. coast to my tea makes me more of a state uh yes sweet tea in texas come on now you cannot be mr texas and not like sweet tea or dr pepper but i like rcola you're out you're out of here get him out it's unbelievable

every time we talk about this i'm surprised every time i like i like lemonade on a hot summer day yeah well my girl we'll send you to miss you'll be mr georgia i watch texas cooking shows. Stop. Your qualifications. You're hurting yourself. No, I'm not. I'm just trying to add to the resume. I watch a show on TV. I'm Mr. Texas now. All right. I like Gavison. You don't. I like Gavison. No, you don't. But I know what it is. All right? It's like, you know what it is, all right? It's so much, you need to go back. It's so much nicer than what it is. It's like the

girl you don't tell your bro's about, all right? You like her. You just, you know what it is, though. Explain. Get the job done. You're calling Galveston the slump busting of women, of cities. It's convenient. It's close. Gets the job done. Not the prettiest.

Kind of sloppy. You're telling me the... Oh my God. You're saying that you are going out with women that are the likes of Galveston? You hear that Galveston? I love you because your beaches are nice It's convenient People are very pleasant

It's an easy drive The hotel accommodations are good The shopping is good The restaurants are amazing She's down the street Doors are open Gets the job done So get your fix

You need to get to the beach Get your fix So you would not She cooks good seafood You would not want to marry a Galveston Right You want to marry a what Who gets married in Galveston?

A lot of people do People that live there? A lot of weddings in Galveston. Oh, really? Yeah, call the Galvez. I'm sure they're full of people getting married there. Okay. You wouldn't get married.

If I gave you an all-expense-paid wedding to the gap. Yeah, but I'm not getting married anyways. I mean, you get married. The pictures look like the beach. You're not going to get... Who gets married on the beach? At Galveston. You're in the Galvez?

In the ballroom? Yeah. That's the only place you go where there's a beach and people like, now, people get married on the beach in Cancun. People get married on the beach in Panama City. People get married on the beach in, I don't know. no, Huntington. Nobody's getting married on the beach in Galveston. Unless you want to trip over seaweed and syringes.

See, Mr. Texas would not ever... But I go to Galveston. See, but I recognize what it is. I go to Galveston. I like Galveston. I'll go get some guydos. I'll go get some seafood. I'll get some shrimp and stuff. And I'm going to have a good time on the beach. And go to the pleasure pier. Yes.

Mr. Texas has been to pleasure pier many times. But I'm not going to sell you. You know what I'm saying? I'm not going to be like, hey, hey, this girl's a 10. Nah. Let me tell about Galison. Galveston is a quality start plus. It's more of a spot start.

It's more of a Kiway Ting spot start. Oh, that's, that's, that's, that's, you're so wrong for this. Am I wrong, though? You say I'm wrong, but am I wrong? Kenny says, and I got love, when you love something, you can be honest about it. I love Texas. we all have warts. We have Baytown.

Okay. Everything else is fine. Don't you shame Galveston. I'm not shaming them. Put your hate towards life. Nobody in Columbus, Ohio is like, man, I can't wait this summer to get down to Galveston. Nobody sells it that way. No, yeah, exactly, exactly.

It's because it's close. It's our little creature comfort. It's our old thing. That's okay. That's okay. Why can't we be honest about things? I'm honest. I love Galveston.

Yeah. I'm not being dishonest about Galveston. But if you lived in California, you would never go to Galveston ever. There's not a single person in California. It's like, I can't wait to get to Galveston, Texas. Not a single Nario 1. There's nobody in Florida.

That's why it's special. We don't need on California. Yeah, it's special because it's ours. Yeah, she's my girl. She gets a job done. Yeah, she's my little secret. Kenny says, I don't think the Astros reach 500 this season. Season over.

Horrible gut feeling. Write it down. You want to do that right now? Do you want, are the Astros ever going to get to 500? Do you want to refrain? Don't ask me. I am abstaining. You want to, all right.

I'm recusing myself from that question right now. We got to sing some blues. We'll have the low lights of an Astros game against the Mariners next part of the news at noon 1159 on Sports Talk 790. 713212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790 alongside Mr. Galveston-Lite. I am Mr. Texas. 713-212-5-7-90.

This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Delivers at 01. And that's hit the other way, and in the left field for a base hit. On his way around third is a Rosarena. Here comes a photo to play by Cole. It's cut off by Paredes. A Rosarena scores. An RBI single for Dominic Zan, Panzone, and it's 1-0, Seattle.

Yeah, quick bobble there in left field. They have cost Zach Cole. opportunity to get that throw to the plate in time to beat Randy a Rosarena there. But the ball came up on him a little bit, he popped it up in the air and then had to catch it with the rear hand. I have about two main in the right field. Getting the wave around third is Reilly. Here's a throw to the plate by Smith on a hop the slide. Raleigh beats it.

Head first slide for Luke Raleigh and the Mariners have a two-nothing league. Boy, just got that left hand in, just ahead of the tag. drinking each and every time he didn't pull that one foul pulled it out of the ballpark and it's three nothing Seattle

yeah the top slider smack the other way fielded on a low hop by Paredes and he throws the first in time and it's a one two three inning for Stephen Oaker pitches over and that inning were slider and we head to the bottom of the exchange up off the plate away

and that is the ball game Seattle Mariners meet the Astros for an eighth consecutive meeting Astros have lost the rain. Successful surgery yesterday for the tendon, and he would rejoin the team when he's off his crudgeon.

I miss the Astros offense. Honestly, Ross, we miss the Astros offense the first month of year because so far in the month of May, it has been non-existent. Two runs in the last three games. Obviously, credit to the other guys. They get paid too. Chase Burns has been very good. George Kirby, we know, is given the Astros fits.

Basically. Wasn't even real George Kirby. yesterday, though. Since he was a rookie. Mm-hmm. Why wasn't it real George Kirby? Because he didn't go deep in the game. We didn't go deep in the counts, pitched a bunch of pitches. Seven hits, seven strikeouts.

But I don't think, did the Astros even have an extra base hit? No. All singles. Yeah. Seven all singles. And what was it the eighth inning? Help me out? I was going to say y'all can call him, but you can't.

Yeah. I want to say Smith led off the inning with a walk, strikeout. No, it was three straight strikeouts. It had to have been, I don't know what it was, but there was a leadoff walk or a base hit followed by strikeout, strikeout, strikeout, strikeout. Christian Walker led off the eighth

with a walk and then it was three straight strikesouts. Cole Smith, Matthews, all struck out. It's good stuff. It's great. It's a lovely baseball. Look, Zach Cole, friend of the show, super guy. Yes. Super, super guy. limited sample size but is it really 19 at bats

9 strikeouts that's who he is could you mean he is a he is a young man Rossi who dreams of being a major leaguer putting the uniform on slaying his position

best he could though he fumbled a ball left field yesterday Yeah, I think the run was scored anyways Yeah, probably so, because the throw is offline Let's go with that He bobbled and threw it offline So needless to say he could run on it Fantastic play

So He eats his vitamins And he says his prayers He loves his mom and he loves Dad and loves Apple Pines He loves the red, white and blue Yes, and chasing Breaking stuff

He loves that too And all he could do to get to the big leagues Last year was just not chase and he chased and he worked in scratch and clawed as everything he humanly could to make the Major League roster coming out of spring training but the problem was

he chased and because of all the injuries Zach Cole finally getting an opportunity to play every day in the god loving amazing position of playing a major league outfield whether it's left field or center field

19 at bats and 9.000 at bats and 9. strikeouts. I mean, that doesn't advance a runner. That doesn't score a run. That doesn't give a guy. It just, it cuts the game off

at its core. Doesn't hit into a double play at least. Positive. Nine strikeouts and it's not just him. Is the OPS is 789? He's got a couple home runs. At least there's that. Two home runs, five ribbies, no walk, nine strikeouts and no

Walk strong. Let's get to the news. At noon! Let's get off of this. Well, the news at noon is that, well, the Astros did lose, as we mentioned. The news, I think the big news is Tatsuya I,

making his return to the hill for the Houston Astros. Last start was a disaster. He only went a third of an inning against these very same Seattle Mariners, gave up three earned runs. Before that, he was pretty good against the athletics in Sacramento, even where the ball flies out,

five and two thirds of shut out ball. So hopefully he can give you a little something. We made our gut feelings previously on this, Matthew, but it's obviously not a must-win game, but as big as, like, May 12th games go, feels like a lot of pressure on the shoulders of Tatsuya I. You can't say any better than that, Because here's a reality.

Lance McCullors had a lot of those moments of, come on, come through for us and he didn't. And people checked out. People are going to check out on Tatsui, Imi, and I'm telling you, there is one person in the building that needs this start to be as good as Emi, and that is Dana Brown. He needs this to be good.

How much do we think that was Dana Brown and or Jim Crane involved as well with Dykin and stuff like that? I mean, that's been hinted at. I just don't. I'm saying I don't know. First of all, Jim's got to say yes to the money. Obviously, you can't be naive to think the Deikin's relationship with the team is not a factor in that. But number three, even if it was all Jim Crane and no Dana Brown,

the signing goes on Dana Brown's organizational chart. It doesn't go on Jim Crane's chart. So I think if I went and found five people in the organization, deep in the weeds of the organization, they'd give me five different answers. Okay. Just question. Just thinking out loud. My guess is, can I give you as a random guess on this? Sure.

That the deal with Dykin was signed a couple of years ago. And Jim said, hey, Dana, we're going to be able to get some players internationally that we've never gotten before. Go find me somebody. And I bet you, Dana said, through my. scouting eyes, my 36 years of scouting eyes. This Tatsu Aeimi is a guy that not only other teams are interested in, but he wants to go somewhere that is not a normal spot for Asian players to go play baseball. Yeah, he wanted to face the Dodgers.

He didn't want to join the Death Star. Well, he's here, and he needs to perform. We'll see how he does tonight. All right, Lakers eliminated last night by the Oklahoma City Thunder and a 115 to 110 loss. LeBron James swept in his 20s, swept in his 30s, swept now in his 40s. That's got to be some kind of record. Congratulations to him. But of course, as...

By the way, Luca Donch is available for game five tomorrow night. Okay, that's good. If necessary, it is not necessary. LeBron James last night on his retirement or if he will continue playing in L.A. or elsewhere. I've answered questions. I don't think I've come out and been like, oh, retirement is coming. With my future, I don't know, honestly. It's obviously still fresh from losing the series.

I don't know. I don't know what the future holds for me. You and I both got feeling he'll be back with the Lakers. Oh, number one reason why I do believe, I do believe LeBron wants a farewell tour. I can announce it. The greats of the greats always did. Chris Paul wanted his farewell tour.

Yeah, he got one all right. It was a very abrupt one. Farewell from the Clippers organization, unfortunately. So LeBron James, I don't think he's going to retire, but we'll see. interesting story here Matt that we can actually I don't know how much time we want to spend on it but maybe it's good for the news at noon the NFL players

are taking notice something that's happening this summer for the World Cup do you know what that is or can you guess players are noticing turf insulation in stadiums grass fields installed for the FIFA World Cup and the NFL players are like oh hold on now

you guys can install grass for all these World Cup games what about for us for player safety, something that they've been advocating for for years. And the owner's, oh, cost it too high. Oh, we can't do it. Turf is safe. World Cup comes along. All of a sudden, there's grass everywhere.

Funny how that works. Man, FIFA is the Olympic committees are the two strongest committees out there, right? Basically. Power they wield. If you don't do what we want you to do. I mean, they're taking stadium sponsorship names off of facilities. When the World Cup comes to play at Reliant, it's not Reliant. It's Houston Stadium.

They're doing the same thing in Kansas City. Not only Rossi, are they not naming the names of those stadiums? They're taking the letters off of the sponsorship names of it. So when they play in New Jersey, and they're not playing at MetLife, they're playing at New Jersey Stadium. Yes. That's how much power FIFA has over this. You play by our rules or you don't get games. It's crazy.

NFLPA executive director J.C. Tredder saying we want grass fields. Good, solid fields. Don't just pull out the municipal golf course grass. High quality surfaces. That's what our players care about. Every player they pulled, 1,700 players. 92% of the NFL players said they prefer grass over turf. There is something about feeling being on grass and the body field's different.

Even if you ask the coaches, just standing on grass versus turf for three hours, different. There's something that impacts the body. The NFL PA, taking notice, they want grass fields everywhere. I think in 2026 you could put pallets in every stadium even when they're in the true enclosed dome stadiums.

Then I have an issue. That includes here in this building too. Although every time the Texans would try to do it when it was it like rough grass or something or something. Then they had the hit man Hartman sued them. And you had the pallets that were not even

and then some parts of the stadium looked watered on some end. They weren't doing it well. I don't know what was going on there. Get some arborists over there. Who are arborist grasskeepers? Did we get the groundskeeper on a mobile, I think, one time back in the day? We might have.

We did. Well, we can't get them today because our phones don't work. No, believe it or not today, unfortunately. No Joe Espada? No Joe Espada. It's fine. It's not fine. It's fine.

1218, Sports Talk, 790. Let's take a short time out. We'll come back. We can play guess what Joe Espada would say. No, we can't do that. You want to ask me? No. We like Joe too much.

Love Joe. Feel bad for Joe. I would like them to get more hits for Joe. Joe Espada calling the don't score runs play is not working. He needs to change it up. Yeah. Playing good, having quality starts and no runs doesn't save Joe's job. 1218 on Sports Talk 7.

with the one. All right. We're going to normally have Joe's spot in here in about 10 minutes, but that's not happening, so that's okay. Not Joe's fault. Ours. 713-212. Hit myself. Let me stay with baseball here for just a second. Lips service or a little bit of optimism? I'll let you decide sports RV on this. By the way, if you want to send us a tweet, comment, thought, suggestion. Yes. We've kind of done enough of the astro lack of hitting conversation. I'm behind on reading a couple of messages.

Okay. If you want to get to some. Send those two at Sports Army. Geo gave us a gut feeling too. What do you say? LeBron to the Warriors, Yonis to the Lakers. I can't have that. Okay.

Well, that's, I don't think it's up to you. Jeff Passon, 34 minutes ago, MLB and the Players Association, are currently holding the first official collective bargaining talks before the expiration of their CBA in December the 1st. The opening presentations are basic overviews of each side's position and set up the long bargaining road ahead. Formatics to you or, hey, I kind of like that they're at least sitting down already talking. I like that they, yeah, I like that they are at least conversing

and haven't shut down anything because there's going to be a go. We're going to have baseball. Baseball is not going away forever. At some point, somebody's going to make a concession somewhere. So get the ball rolling now. Maybe you get ahead. At the end of the day, I don't think it's going to hurt. I'll put it that way.

You let them clear the air, let them make their intentions known. This is what we're going to do. Go ahead and draw your lines in the sand now. Because of anything, Matt, with your lady or with whoever, you draw your lines in the sand and then eventually time somebody. he's going to have to buckle and concede. Because baseball's not going away. Baseball's not going away, but

I... Can I give you a terrible example? Yes, Mr. Analogy? Terrible, terrible analogy. Yes? This is the first test grade of the semester. Okay. And if I fail it, okay, who cares?

I'm only really worried about my grade until it's really the last test grade of the semester? They can sit in front of them all they want to and say, here's what we want. And they're going to look at that screen and they're going to go, You want what? And the side's going to say, you want what? Yeah.

And we'll see you in December. That's okay. At least that's better than just seeing them in December. Having a few months to mull and discuss and say how you can formulate your plan, How long are you willing to dig in? How long are we willing to this go? Because it's going to be a war of attrition. Players are ready.

They're going to know too. I mean, the baseball unions has gotten a lot of resounding victories over the owners over the years. The only thing gives me a little bit pause, and trust me, I'm willing to change my opinion on this. The only thing that gives me pause for optimism is I know that both sides are building up their war chest. But it's never going to be the same as. really making the real money. You know what I mean? You can build a war chest all you want to.

But you can't, you still can't drop, you can't put in the piggy bank 40,000 in the stadium in April if you don't play baseball. All right. Again, our apologies to Joe Espada and I just text it back with him. Hopefully we'll get him on the show tomorrow at 1230.

Our phone lines are working. We're unable to get him today. It is what it is. glitches happen just happens to hear more than other places but that's a different issue for a different time Rossi how are you? I'm great Matt

let's complain about it some more no nobody cares clearly our central operating up center system does not care but oh man because I do want to get the perspective of what he's thinking

what is he going to tell Tatsui Imi what is he going to say to him you know we've given you space, we're going to continue to give it. I mean, it's not in the Astro's best interest to give up on him.

I know Astro fans want to do so. Yeah, they need the pitching help. They need him to be good. They need to see, as I said, one of the three starts was good. First one was not. You want to chalk it up to nerves. How did he have his best start in Sacramento? where the ball flies out like crazy.

I would say limited sample size. I mean, at least it's something. He hasn't pitched since what? Early April. Is that right? It's been a month. Yeah, he pitched in Sugar Land. We don't have to talk about how it went.

Oh, man, please. Hopefully we're just overthinking this and putting more pressure on it than there is, and he's going to go out there and, you know, five, winning is a two-run ball, be all right. That would be a small step. Yeah, I think expectations are very minimal. I just think how about this? Can you

leave the mound feeling better than he walked onto it? Is that too much to ask for it? It can happen. It can happen. It is in the range of outcomes. By the way, we've talked about this before. This is an important week. You know the Astros of now our own five against the Mariners this year? Think about

that's the four-game sweep in Seattle. And then dropping the opener yesterday. Oh, tiebreaker purposes. Well, I don't even think you're even thinking about that right now. It's not good. You know, you don't have to put necessarily anything on it, but it could end up mattering. We ended up talking about every rocket's tiebreaker this year. And look, we're going to spend a lot of time because we're not talking to y'all.

You and I are talking. Yes. We're going to spend some time overthinking this EMI situation. where was the lost in translation? Did somebody promise him something about the environment that he did not get? Did he say, oh, I'm not worried about the mound. I'm not worried about the pitch clock. I mean, he did sign $18 million.

Go on this? Let me finish. Let me finish. My thought is, you can say all the things. you want to a prospective boss. I'll give you, I'll give you a very small example. I can travel four days a week

for three weeks a month. My family won't mind it. I can work on occasional every other Saturday. I can do this because you want to appeal to the boss, boss being any free agent team. Do you think maybe he knew about all these things and just kind of said the right things just to get to the dollar amount?

No, no, I don't think so. I think he's being asked questions because you're also with your boss and whatever you're doing in your own life, You're not doing a press conference after every time you work. Like, hey, what went wrong today? Well, you know, the mound's a little different, pitch clock. Everything he said is true. Hey, these are things, they're asking.

He was asked questions. What are things you're having to adjust to? And he's listing them. So, hey, weather's different. Mounds different. Pitch clock is different. Ball is different. Those things are all true.

And so I don't know, you know, I don't know much about Japanese culture or what's happening with loss in translation or whatever. It is our, we are used to our athletes here, born, bread raised in America, to say, to not make excuses, to not talk about things. So, but if he's being asked via translator, what's, what's the difference or what's happening? Yeah. Those are all valid things that he is having to adjust to. Now, does that mean he's whining and pouting and saying, I can't do any of this? Or is it just asked and answered?

And we're making too much of it because we're used to everybody else having the stiff upper lip saying it's okay. it's not an excuse. We don't let him learn about injuries until after like somebody's, the season is over. Like Jose Al Tuvei battling a foot injury, we didn't hear really about how bad it was until the end of the season. Or this guy, I remember what was in 2022, Martin Maldonado had a ripped groin and he had a sports hernia

or whatever it was in a broken hand. You don't hear until after because everybody just doesn't want to make an excuse. And he's just actually honestly answering a question he's getting asked and then we're running with it. Maybe there's an element of that. But Yamamoto is pitching with the Dodgers. She'll pay with the Dodgers. Yeah.

There is U. Darvers with the Padres, Shota Imainga from the Cubs. Kodei Senga with the Mets. I'm looking through. Roki Sasaki has been bad with the Dodgers. I think he was getting lit up a lot. I mean, recently. We have to understand it. And to piggyback off Ross's point, the American sports culture is completely different.

And I think the MLB has to understand. You can't expect everybody to be a Yomanii. a lot of to be a otani like that's a whole different type of change you even see it in college sports or even people that go overseas from NBA to overseas that it's a it's a hard to just you know go back to that life or to adjust how you used to be doing things and it just might be he's a late bloomer it's it's it's america is a really different than all these other countries and how they treat their athletes it was uh what was it brian bogus he told us when he went to japan and they were asking about his conditioning yeah he's like my conditioning's perfect but he was like

completely lost in translation right He wasn't even answering it correctly. And then, yeah, Roki Sasaki, I think last year was supposed to be the number one pitcher, number one prospect in baseball. And he's not been good for the Dodgers at all. And then they've been trying to use him out of the pin, and it's been a horrible adjustment for Roki Sasaki. He was now here his second year over from Japan, and he was supposed to be the all-world, can't miss everything Japanese pitcher.

So the question is going to be ultimately, did the Astros get a pitcher that just is never going to adapt to it? and hopefully the answer to that is no. Because if this continues this year, my guess is they're going to be very leery, whoever the ownership may be in, but presumably it's going to be Jim Cream for the foreseeable future, is going to want no part of this.

Because this has been, it's almost, here comes another bad analogy. Royce White with the rockets. Royce White didn't want to travel. He didn't want to fly on airplanes. And they kept saying, okay, well, we'll bus you from here, this place to this place.

We will keep your flights limited. We will give you proper medication. We'll do everything we can to make sure that you do not have it until it just became one excuse after the other. And the Aster of the Rockets eventually said, eh, this isn't worth it. See, yeah, I think that's us running away with a couple of comments a little too much. We're definitely not in a, it doesn't feel like we're in a Royce White type of situation at all.

I hope not. Yeah. He's made three starts. And then was it? feeling good, so he took some time off and now he's back. But it wasn't tired of arm, though. Yeah, arm fatigued. It wasn't. It was mind fatigue.

We don't know that. If an arm could have been tired. No, no, no, no. Structurally, he said the arm was, good. They said structurally there was nothing in there. Yeah. Yeah, I know. He didn't have any structural problems.

Just sore. I think there's a lot of things that were sore. So, Matt, where do you stand? Are you at the spot right now where you're like, he's getting paid all his money, he needs to perform, No, I am, it's not that black and white. My philosophy is there, he is an investment. He is at least a one year investment, probably going to be two or three, that it's in the Astro's best interest to acquit, to do things to make him as comfortable as possible.

But you are in a very public job. you are in a job that makes a tremendous amount of money. You were paid money that could have gone elsewhere to other pitchers if indeed you just never thought that being a majorly pitcher was going to be

something that you thought you could be comfortable with. So, I am rooting for him. I need him to be good. It doesn't make me any of a doesn't make me a good astro fan if I want him to go out and do this again because to embarrass himself to say,

oh, that's more money misspent. But if it's a lost cause, then that's going to really hurt this organization. It hurts when you make bad signings, when you have sunken costs into contracts. Abreu, never, you sent him down to Florida to get his swing back. He never got it back. You gave Lance McCullors lots of time to rehabilitate. And he's never come all the way back. He's shown glimpses.

Good teams I talked about in the 10 o'clock hour of the show, you have to avoid the sucky contracts. Yeah, also nobody held a gun to the Astros head, though. They're part of this as well, and we don't know how they've never brought a, brought a player over from Japan, and he's having trouble acclimating. Can't we make them culpable in this as well? Not culpable.

My feeling is they didn't do anything wrong. They're giving them a lot of money. But if I'm the boss, if I bring you in from a different city and you miss your family so much, I'm going to pretty much say, Ross, you sign my deal. I mean, come work. Yeah, but I think we could also put some of this on the Astros. If they're bringing him over from Japan and they're supposed to have him ready for the season and he's not ready.

If it is these things that he's talking about. He threw his inches up. Yeah. Well, maybe he shouldn't have been throwing his inches up. Maybe he should have been hardening up the mound and getting ready used to the baseball. He was getting integrated. He was down in Florida for two months. It wasn't like they sent him there two weeks ahead of time.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm saying, how, we're assuming. We're assuming, we're putting it all on him. It's all his fault. And I will say, what about the Astros? And I'll say to just being around foreign athletes, I think it's a lot deeper, like you said, Matt, but I just think it's so much more complex than we could ever even imagine. Okay.

So if we want to blame the Astros, where do you think the Astros could not, not what she did go wrong, could have gone wrong. Yeah, maybe they could have done a better job of getting him acclimated to whatever it was with the mound and the ball and all these other things that he's talking about. We're just finding about when he wants to eat and where does he want to eat and can he eat whenever he wants and having those conversations with him. And we don't know if, again, we don't know if these are things he's complaining about or things where he's just getting asked a direct question and giving a direct answer. I don't know. But if a player, the first time you bring a player over from Japan and he's having trouble adjusting, then I can say maybe it's the assholes as well. But also, Tatsu Yamai is an individual.

He is not Yoshinobu Yamamoto. He is not Roki Sasaki. He is not Shohei Otani. He is Tatsuya Imi. And so he is having his own issues right now, obviously, and he's his own individual person. He's on his own journey. He's having his own, whether it be mental or physical or whatever. Yeah, man.

Again, there's so many things we don't know. So it's hard for us to say with absolute certainty that somebody bumbled this up. But from just a strict works, again, trying to put into real life. situation. You bring a guy in that lived in Kansas City all his life and you brought him to Texas and he misses Kansas City so much and he has made no friends and he

doesn't know how to do this and doesn't know how to eat, doesn't ought to get around town. No one's, no one forced Tatsui Emai to sign with the Houston Astros. He made the decision. And no one forced the Astros to sign him. No, they were generous. They said, here's $18 million. We're

taking, we're going to give you all this money. We don't even know if you can do it or not. Yeah. And he and Scott Borris said yes, and they might end up being wrong. Maybe he walks off the mound tonight after the first inning and he never throws a baseball again. We don't know. He's his own human being. Royce White is his own human being.

Tatsu-Umi is his own human being. He can make his own decisions. And yeah, we'll see what happens. I want him to go out there and I want him to be successful. All I can say is this, if the Astros made a misstep, which they very well could have. As of right now, it is. I'm talking about getting him ready like you're talking about. they've had a month to fix us.

They have, they probably know every bit of the inner workings of who he is right now. I hope so. Sending him to Corpus. It gets everybody right. 7-1, 3, 2. We gotta check out if the Asian food is good down there. Is that what we're talking about?

No, that's not what we're talking about. Get him and get him whatever he needs. And you say no sex, even though he's married 27 years old. Do you want him to cheat on his pregnant wife with a hook? and I'm saying I don't. But if you want to say that, that's fine. Same on you save. No, I didn't say that.

You said you wanted to cheat on his pregnant wife with a hooker. I backed off on that. So that's what you want. That's Matt Thomas, by the way. Hi, my name's Ross. It's not me. That's Matt Thomas. I'm saying, no, let's get him acclimated some other way.

713, 212-790. I just wanted to pitch well. I don't want to keep going to a deep dive of how Tatsu I'm feeling today or how the amount is or what time dinner is. 1248 sports talk 790. Jonathan, you wanted to bring this up, and we can do it here too. We'll go back to the Astero struggles because... Got a lot of angles on that.

We got time for that, unfortunately. And again, our apologies, we're going to try to get Joe a spotter with us tomorrow at 1230, if the phones work. Wonderful. Okay. Vanity Fair had an article about Lane Kiffin. And he said part of the reason why he wanted to leave Ole Miss was because Old Miss's struggles to distance itself from... symbols let the Confederate flag, Colonel Rebel, and the nickname

Ole Miss itself. Quoting the Vanity Fair article, when he was coaching there, Kiffin said, Top Procrups would tell him, hey, coach, we really like you, but my grandparents aren't letting me move to Oxford, Mississippi. That doesn't come up when you say Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Parents were sitting here

this weekend saying the campus diversity feels so great, it feels like there's no segregation. Before y'all jump in, I have not done a deep dive on this, but I think it's frankly very, very hypocritical for Lane Kiffin to be starting to talk about the segregation issues in Ole Miss when he was wearing the hat a year ago or two years ago or three years ago trying to get the recruits to come win a national championship at Ole Miss. I think it's an opportunity to take a little shot at a team that you used to play for, used to coach for that told you to get out of town when you were thinking about going somewhere else. I think it's

not revisionist history because that's not fair. I just think it's revisionist opinion. It's opinion swapping based off of the hat that you're wearing now. LSU probably has had Baton Rouge has certainly had its issues too.

And that's not even the big point of it. This is more of a point of, hey, I got a chance to slam my old school because they hated me. I'm going to take my chance at it. Three years ago, Lane Kiffin loved everything about Ole Miss, talked about it, sold his kids,

sold African-American kids to go there, sold every kid, every origin and creed and color. This to me is just him being spiteful. That's all I see out of it. Again, not doing a deep dive on it, but I just wanted to say that that's how I see it from a very far distance. Any thoughts, boys? So you're talking about the original Vanity Fair quotes. I'm just trying to read up on this because honestly I didn't know much about it. So originally he spoke about it in Vanity Fair and then he has since apologized.

in an interview with On 3, I guess is what I'm seeing. I'm seeing the Vanity Fair tweet from May 11th. That's what I'm seeing. Okay. Yeah. Apparently he's apologized as well in an interview with On 3, which is the recruiting website. It's basically the big on the recruiting website at this point. He said, I really apologize if anybody at Ole Miss or in Mississippi was offended by that.

In a four hour interview, I was asked a lot of questions on a lot of things. and Ole Miss has been wonderful to me and my family. That's a narrative that coaches have been fighting forever. It wasn't calculated by bringing it up. This is a joke if you ask me. Why? For whom? Yeah, in what way explain?

Because the thing is, like Matt said, it just seems it's more so to attack the organization. If he really was saying that that was a big deal and he actually meant it, and why wasn't he addressing that and talking about that while I was there. Thank you. Like, why is he not saying that while I train recruits? Like, we need to do this.

You know, these kids or, you know, I want football players, yes, but it's better safety for our kids, our diversity, our school. Why is he not being that outreach and talking about it? But he's doing it now since he left. It just makes it a weird, like, I'm saying. Yeah. First of all, I don't think there's a genuine bone in Lane Kiffin's body. So he doesn't get to benefit of that with me with ever.

And if he apologized, that's, I mean, I'm glad they apologize. But he said what he said. and he never would have said those things if you're still wearing the Ole Miss cap because that would have absolutely affected his recruiting. But apologizing? I mean, that's the weird part about it. That's why I said that's a joke because I mean

you, if that's how you were to say you said other coaches are doing it, why are you now coming out and apologizing for it? That doesn't make any sense. Like you said, it doesn't seem genuine. It just seems Because he got backlash. That's what we do is society. If we say something and it gets printed or reported or broadcasted and we get the backlash.

I'm okay with apologizing. If sometimes you say stupid things, if you're on the air for 20 hours a week or you are a high-profile person, you wish you could bat a thousand. I wish I could bat a thousand with everything I say. But sometimes you can't. So I'm okay with apologies.

If you can't accept people's apologies for sometimes saying stupid stuff, then you're a hypocrite. Nobody lives a life full of saying everything that's just right that just settles in properly. All I'm saying is he doesn't get the benefit of doubt for me. He is using this not to try to, I think, stir up ratio stereotypes because if you look to the Ole Miss Football Ross and the Ole Miss basketball roster, there are loads and loads

and hundreds and hundreds of African-American athletes there. It has done a school that is known for being predominantly white. Now, the school, the campus might be, but the athletic department is not. It seems like he's just telling an anecdote of something that happened in recruiting that he doesn't think would happen at LSU. And that's very well that could not be. You don't tell me there's racism in Louisiana too. I'm sure there is. Of course.

So I don't know. I mean, I just think he used it as a small little window to take a jab at some. I mean, think about it. His departure from Old Miss could not have been any worse. Remember he was on the airplane and people were booing him and it's a runway at the airport and he had some coaches that were trying to coach for Ole Miss and you had some coaches that were trying to coach for both. I'm just going to give you the essence of my experiences and being in sports media for 35 years. These coaches don't care about anything except winning. They don't care about being decent human beings.

They try to be father figures only to the other. They only want to be fathered figures of the players. So they can play hard. They're only going to make sure they're going to take care of the babies. I just find hypocrisy. You can swim in it in college athletics, especially at the football level, especially for a guy that carries as much cloud as he does. You know, and this is the last thing I want to say about it,

because we can go to break, but like you said, there's a lot of African-American athletes already at Ole Miss, and it's been a ton since then. So what is he implying about those athletes that did go? Like they don't care about that. No, no, I think he's saying that a mom and a son. There's so much levels to go. There's a mom and a dad that probably went to him and said, grandparents.

Grandparents said, I'm not letting my boy compete in athletics and I'm not from shipping. Top recruits would come there. So you know what I mean? So it's just. Yeah, it's, it's, um, yeah, the story apparently, he's bringing up an anecdote about grandparents who told him I'm not sending my child or our grandkids. child to Oxford, Mississippi because of the history. And so, I mean, I don't think he would make that up.

I don't think he'd make it up, but he certainly wouldn't be talking about it if he was a coach at Ole Miss. Yeah, if his experience, of course. So his experiences that happen at Mississippi and then his experiences that's not happening at Louisiana and he's in an interview and I don't know how it came up or if he was asked about it or what. I think the overall topic was the ceiling he feels is higher at LSU than Ole Miss and that was one of the reasons he brought up. The ceiling of LSU is higher than it is an Ole Miss, not because of that.

And I don't think that's one of the five or six of them. Right. Maybe it's not even in the top ten reasons. But in his experience, it is a reason. And he was able to, in this anecdotal story, take a jab at somebody he's going to be competing against recruiting-wise. And that's what high school, and that's what college coaches do. Whatever you can subtly jab at your competitor, you're going to do it. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Thanks, everybody, for being a part of our show today.

We wish we could have a little more interaction with you. But that's okay. We'll get them fixed up and ready to go and hopefully talk to a lot of you tomorrow for four hours here on Sports Talk, 790. Astros of Fall to the Seattle Mariners. Oh, Rossi, Rossi, Rossi, Rossi. One run and two runs in three games. Is that bad? I don't think it's great.

We're going to score some runs tonight. Tatsui Imi. Yes. Now, if y'all go to the game, then I'd be nice to him. Why wouldn't I be? Well, I mean, because if you met Astros, what are? They're a grumpy bunch. Yeah, but that's not real life.

I hope you're right. It's a bunch of miserable SOBs that are terminally online. Yeah. Fire spot up, fire brown. Why do I sound like John McLean? I don't know. I shouldn't sound like John McLean. I like I've ever done John McLean.

McLean. Until now, how'd you think it went? Great. Texans go and play six international games. Six games. Six international games. Wow. They're going to be out of, they're going to give up four home games. They're going to be Germany. London. Because Hannah wants to go out

and do a lot of extra shopping. Mexico City. Iceland. You're going to see, and this is the God's honest truth, you're going to see a lot of strange international places. We were seeing Australia this year. They're doing a game in Australia for real? Yeah, first game of the year.

Oh, I knew that. What time are they playing it? Two days in the future? Well, I think it's Wednesday there, Thursday here, or vice versa. One of the two, I don't know what it is. Okay. They should be careful out there in Australia, man. You got like giant scorpions and all kinds of stuff.

I've always, that was one of the spots I always wanted to go to until I realize how far along the trip is. Yeah. I still want to go though The outback Be nice See the stars And the weather is opposite here If it's hot here

It's cold there Is that how well? Southern hemisphere Yeah Ooh so you can go in the winter Take a couple weeks Go to Australia You talk about me

Checking out for a few weeks That would be the exact case of that Check in out You can do the shows from there And It's like you know The Rockets are going to go To play in

I think they're playing in China This October Yeah it's 409 a.m. In Melbourne right now Yeah, you can do the show. See, the Rockets play... You do it from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m.

They play a pair of preseason games. Let me take a look here real quick. They play World Clock. They play in Macau. You've been to Macau? I have not. I heard it's a nice gambling metropolis. 13 hours in advance.

Okay. So right now it's 209 a.m. That's not too far from Melbourne. Apparently. Okay. That's funny. That's funny. Yeah, you can do the show from So I have a feeling I'm going to be doing the game.

I think we're not going. I'm not, at least I'm not going. China. I'll do the broadcast over the television, watch it. Okay. And then I'll come in and do the show with you. It'll be a double dip. Okay, I can't wait.

It'll be weird. Can I get on the color? If it's in our time slot, you absolutely are. Yes. France hurlined did it with me one time. That's what I'm saying. I would love to. But he was making a bunch of Pablo Brigioni Italian references.

Yes, he was. Hey, Pablo. You're going to have to get that cleared through members of the Adams. One won't be an issue. I know one's not going to show up four hours early. So I'm not worried about that guy. The other one might. We'll see.

That's funny. They can keep the game check. I just want to do the game. You don't have to pay. You don't have to 1099 me. It's all good. Keep the money. I just want to do it.

Like analyze? Yeah. See, I don't know, though. I'm scared. I don't want to mess it up. I don't want to step over your calls. I don't be that guy. No, no, no, because you and I can just stare at each other the whole time.

Okay. That's weird. I mean, like, I can call the play, look at you, and then if you don't say anything, I go right back to the game. Okay. I like this. All right, we're going to get Ross to do a game. Yes. Maybe at 4 o'clock in the morning, but you're going to definitely go to a game.

Let's go, baby. Oh, I'll just stay up. To get my coffee. That is going to be weird. Seven, what? Forget. Sorry, I keep doing the numbers. Every time I do the numbers.

I, give me this. All right. What's better than you cussing and disgusting. so we're good there. Well, probably, I was organizing our show for Friday. I will have our scheduled prediction contest ready to go for Friday in that contest, but I will tell you two different times how the Texans will do all for their schedule in 2026. Really?

Yeah. Okay. Let's see what else. What else headline-wise going on here? Let's see. Prosecutors given access to Tiger's drug records? That's not going to go well. LeBron, I don't know what the future holds.

holds for me. That means I'm going to wait to get a new contract. Make me an offer I can't refuse. Rory, amid LIV crisis, Live, glad I was wrong on deal. Boy, is there, that that tour ended in a thud, did it not? Remember it was going to grab all the rich players and pay them crazy money and only make them pay, play 54 holes? Yeah, Liv is already done. It's on, it's on life support. The Saudis. Do you know why it's on?

live support for variety of reasons. One, the money pit. The money was just too much to ask for. Too good to be true. Number two, you're playing in not U.S. friendly places, generally speaking. And number three, the most important thing, Ross, you didn't have a good television deal.

And that's why you see all these games that are broadcast on Thursday nights and Sunday nights and Saturday afternoons and Prime and on Netflix and on Hulu and on YouTube. television executives wielding so much power on how leagues survive.

What would the NFL be? Now, the NFL is very profitable, but the NFL is so profitable, so much more Rossi than the other sports because of what? Their television deals are sick. Because you can put a rando game on between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Jacksonville Jaguars and America will watch. Yes, we will. You put a random...

We'll bet on it. You get our fantasy teams going. That's right. You put a rando baseball game on between the Royals and the Tigers, and guess what? The Tigers and the Royals fans might care, but we're not going to care. Unless it's two major powerhouse teams full of stars. The NFL carries that weight over the other sports, and that's why television knows it. Television will give you whatever amount of money you want, Roger Goodell, but television is also going to tell you.

You're going to play on Christmas Day. You're going to do it. You're going to play on Christmas Eve. You're going to do it. You're going to play on a Wednesday before Thanksgiving. We're going to make you do it. When we were growing up, I can throw you in the mix. It was 17 Sundays.

Yeah. 17 Sunday nights. It was 17 Thursday nights and there were a handful of Thursday nights games. It's usually just for Christmas. Yeah, Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. Now you're going to, when the NFL schedule comes out on Thursday, you're going to have to, if you really are a schedule freak,

you're going to be looking at every single day going my God there's going to be only four days between games Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Mondays, Thursdays, Friday night, what day of the week is Christmas on this year? It was Wednesday night football the other, was that last year? And it probably makes it. It probably makes them a little more difficult for them to Christmas on Friday this year.

Oh, that's a little easier. That's very easy. Very easy. Put a double-headed on there. Put a triple header on. Yeah. All right. 114. Sports Talk 790, 713. The Matt Thomas Show at Ross. Hey. At SportsMT, at SportsRV, what can we do to see the Astros beat the Mariners? Oh, and five against them so far this year, Sports RV.

It ain't pretty. It ain't pretty at all. 7-1. How about at SportsMT at SportsMT? We'll answer your Twitter questions next. Send us a tweet. We'll answer whatever it is you want to discuss. I love it.

At SportsMT, at SportsRVy. I don't even care if you follow us. You should follow us because we're a very good follows. Instagram same way. 115 on Sports Talk 790. 121 on Sports Talk 790. Matt and Ross with you for another 40 minutes. We will attempt to do all of our favorites tomorrow.

Shut your bum ass up. And believe it or not. And Joe Espada and Brian Bogusevich. Can't wait. If not, four more hours of me and you. Hey! Some shows do it like that. It's boring.

All right. This is from Aaron. What are your chances? chances in your opinion, Houston will be granted NHL franchise. The a arrows do well with the tenant, so I think Houston is a viable expansion relocation candidate. I wouldn't hold my breath.

I thought you put your name. You put your name on it if they are expanding that Houston would be involved. Did I realize? I don't remember that. Okay. I can delete it. No, I mean, if I did, I did. I think there are two groups that would like to see hockey in this town. One probably is a little more

has a little more zest for it than the other. But how do you think of course, I mean, I know one of the groups you're talking about is the Fertitas. Yeah. How do you think that changes the calculus, if at all, with trying to add the comments? Well, whatever they're going to be called. Yeah. Zero impact. Zero impact.

Okay. You know, the reality is I don't even know if the Toyota Center would be ready in a short period of time to be a great place to watch. Is it this summer they're updating the Toyota Center? Or is over the next couple of years, yeah. Okay. They're going to do this while they're playing games. Yeah. I know they've been changing out a lot of the chairs.

Yeah. It's a small piece of it. I know. They're going to do a bunch of whole refurbishment. Updating. Gary Bettman's a commissioner of the NHL, Ross. I think he's asking for crazy expansion for you money. Oh.

I think it's probably turning some people off. I said, we're good. Don't worry about it. And as I've said, 500 times, and I'll say it for 500 more times. It's not about putting 17,000 people in. the arena, although that's certainly a part of it. It's about how many millions of dollars can you draw up by selling sweets and the corporate sponsorships? Is there enough corporate sponsorship that you're not taking away Peter to pay pay pay, pay, pay, Paul? Like if you were to get

Budweiser to say, okay, Budweiser, yeah, I'll chip in $5 million in advertising for the Houston NHL team. Is that $5 million that the rockets would lose because of that? No, but Nobody knows the answer to that. I wonder, I guess we can look it up. Now, what's the smallest market with all four? Smallest market with all four probably would be. Minneapolis, St. Paul. Minneapolis, St. Paul.

Maybe Denver. Denver popped into my head as well. Miami, Fort Lauderdale. Yeah, that's so count. I would probably, you'd have to do, it'd be really bizarre, different to have four different ownership groups fighting for four different corporate dollars.

You could bundle, but does bundling really pay off in the long term? All right, there are 12 markets with all four. I'm going to give them to you? Why not? Boston, Chicago, D.F.W., Denver, Detroit, L.A., Miami, Minneapolis, St. Paul, New York, Philly, San Francisco, and D.C.

And the smallest would be what Minneapolis? I'm assuming? I would say so. Yeah. Small, well, actually, yes. And they're owned by four different owners there, too. No, actually, Miami, sorry. Miami's 18th.

Okay. Minneapolis, St. Paul, 14, Detroit 15, Denver 16. Okay. So they're all about the same in the same area. I'm just going to say, more passionate sports cities, I would say, maybe not Miami. No. But Minneapolis, St. Paul?

But I'll say this, you do have a team in that Florida Panthers team that has nestled north of Fort Lauderdale. It's like its own little community. Does that make sense to y'all? It's like Fort Lauderdale North's team. We're between Fort Lauderdale, Miami is about 30 miles. Okay. So it doesn't really nestle into the Miami corporate dollar mode. Again, I'm talking on my ass.

I'm sorry. I'm just telling you if it was a no-brainer, it would have happened by now. It's 2026. We're seeing expansion. We're seeing relocation of franchises. If Gary Bettman thought it was a no-brainer and he could get the amount of money he's asking for to be split up among the other 30 NHL teams, he would throw it out there for conjecture and he would get somebody to buy it by it. into it. The Freaking Group has been trying to buy sports franchises here for a decade now.

I know they're involved in some soccer, but they were also they were trying to buy the Red Sox or the Pirates. They were also involved in trying to buy, I think they put a bit in on the Blazers. They're kind of striking out here. I don't know them at all. I just know that that family has been very interested in sports ownership. But even if that's the case, if you've got the Freaking Group, which is that's Gulf State's Toyota, that's the largest distributor. Toyota's in our state in the southeast for that matter. If they've got money hand over fist, why wouldn't Gary Benman say, yeah, let's get you in. They've got, they, they're involved, yeah, with some, I think, you mentioned soccer. I think like European, like aren't they?

Yeah, yeah. Like Everton or someone like that? Okay, here we go. AS Roma, that's in Italy and Everton FC. That's in the Premier League in England. Not one of the big heritage brands. I don't know exactly where I would... You and I have been doing this show for 16 plus years,

and we continue to have people that NHL the Houston Twitter account running at us. It's only a matter of if not when. Well, no, it's not. Mm-mm. We've been talking about this for 16 years, even when the arrows left. Oh, wow, they also... Freaking Group also does movies. 30 West.

they were involved on Killers of the Flower Moon? The Martin Scorsese flick? And they'll sell a lot of Toyota's. They do well for themselves. They sell a lot of Toyotas. So I would say, for those of you that are hockey fans, and this is a question that was asked through Twitter, thank you very much at SportsMT for that one,

that I don't hear enough buzz about it. I just don't. And look, the WMBA has been trying to expand, but that's a separate animal. I mean, bringing in a full-fledged, 82 game full season, full operations as compared to bringing in WMBA, those are just apples and oranges right now.

Right. So, you know, I don't... We'll see. It feels like it has been talked about. Too long. Adnosium. And the last great opportunity, probably, was Phoenix when the Cowdies left there.

And now they went to Salt Lake on a, you know, they, the Salt Lake folks had the ducks in a row. They had their arena. They were like, we're going to rebuild the Delta Sala. which we're still doing to this day. We've got local ownership. We're going to mess, mess them with the Utah Jazz. We have a sports audience that's craving it.

We like it here. Cole Thompson, I'll love you like a stepbrother. But you were like, oh, it's this hockey, this world, this Olympics. It was a two-day thing. We liked it for two days. We moved on. I don't even remember it. Sorry.

You know. Did they win? Uh. Don't throw questions at me like that. I don't know the answers to. People are, Cole, do they win? Cole is yelling at his radio right now.

Cole's like, you guys do not know was the greatest spectacular on sports. Yeah, yeah, they win in overtime. I remember now. Oh, I'm sorry, the gold medals. They went to, the president's, had them come to the state of the union address. Wonderful.

I remember everything. All right, 129 on Sports Talk 790. Was there anything else we've not gotten today? When you don't take calls and you don't have interaction through that, you kind of think about... Well, there is some unfortunate news. Go ahead, please. You see, Grizzlies 4 Brandon Clark has died at the age of 29. No reason to give him, right?

Not yet. So that means probably not good. Only played a couple of games. It sure has hurt all the season long. That's sad. Announced Tuesday by the Grizzlies and his agency priority sports. Cause of death not announced. 29 years old, seven years in the NBA.

Good player. Just hurt all the time. Terrible. I can't pick you back off of that. Let's not. Can't make a joke gross about that. No, we're not in the ring. But we love Gordy.

Gordy can't call the show today because our phones aren't working. But he's just going to shock everyone. He's wearing us out on text. He's defending Lane Kiffin. I'm stunned. Yeah. I am floored. Lane Kiffin is the greatest coach of all time.

Except when he gets fired. He's going to take over LSU and never go anywhere else again because why would you want to leave you anywhere else but Baton Rouge it is the LSU? Horrible scumbag. I mean, sorry, why is that Ole Miss? Horrible scumbag? But why is you with Alabama? Horrible scumbag? LSU? Good dude. We do that with a lot of the sports, right? I think so. I want you thinking about some... Dylan Brooks?

I want you thinking of some other people. Okay. We come back. Give me a list of the people that you were douche or scumbag and we're like, he's a swell fellow now. There's a very, very, very easy, big name. I believe he's wearing a Houston Rocket uniform right now. Am I right about that? 131 on. It's called Tees, man. Oh, dang it.

Is it a Houston rocket? Watching the NBA draft combine in our office here, and the general manager of the Washington Wizards, who I didn't even know what his name was until 30 seconds ago, Will Dawkins. He's smiling, feeling good, he's happy. He won the damn draft lottery, Ross. Yeah, great.

Happy for you. He was the number six pick. He'd be like, oh, here we are. I'll bring the Wizards again. Couldn't be happier for you. Winning the draft lottery. What's that like? You know who represented the Wizards?

Did you see who represented them? It was Javars Crittenden. No, being correct. Oh. Former rocket great John Wall. Oh, really? He's like, do I really got to go up here and do this? So when the Rock is...

He's wearing his bucket hat? No, he was wearing a regular suit. Was he doing his I-Heart podcast? It's funny. We didn't promote him. All right. You know what? I'm sorry.

That was me. did that. You provoke. You stop me, though. I'm an instigator. I'm sorry. Have you all listened to our podcast really? I mean, gee, many Christmas.

I'm sorry. That's on me. That is on you. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, well, what's it like to win a lottery? As soon as I get back to 100%, which I'm going to the doctor on Friday, I'm going to be indifferent to being.

I'm not going to cuss and disgust anymore. Okay, good. I'm not going to break down. name Texas Taddy. Dang it. Come on now. You know what? I'm going to get a sounder.

You need to just sting it. Don't you got the taser back there? I need something worse than that. Yeah. It needs to get like bombed or something. You know what? I'm not worried about you and the sound effects because every time I bring up Joe Mixing you don't have the gumfire ready to go on that.

I get so lost. I'm like, when are you going to bring it up? Well, I just did. You could have got it done it there. It's harder in this system we have now. It's going to shock you, Matt. It used to be better back in the. Imagine that.

Yeah, it used to be easier with the button bars. Tom and downtown says, here are some scumbags until they came here. Charles Barkley. We hated Charles Barkley. Did we really? We hated it. I didn't really. I'd honestly... Oh, for sure. Okay. Yeah. Especially as a Phoenix Sun. Russell Westbrook?

I don't think we hated him. Oh, well, I had a plan hated him. Well, he stole James Hardin's MVP because he got a triple double. Remember that? So people did hate him in Houston for sure. It wasn't just Adam. Adam. I hate to everyone. Eddie Johnson, when he was a Sonic. That's a deep cut

I was going to go Patrick Beverly We loved him here in Houston Yeah And then we was everywhere else He was in Houston We despised Dylan Brooks Until they wore a rocket gear And we loved him

We still love him actually You know he showed up to the Lakers funeral last night He was court side for their last game And apparently he bought I gotta look up the story on this The tickets he bought were really really expensive Yeah court side at the Lakers It's going to cost you

That's going to cost you when the Wizards are in town It's going to cost you the playoffs Yeah he in fact He didn't do it because he wanted a great bird's eye view of things. He wanted to do it to make sure that he saw LeBron. I didn't like Chris Paul. Always winding the officials, always flopping around like a salmon out of water. I didn't like Chris Paul when he was here.

Oh, hey, it's all good. I think James Hardin has won, although a lot of people didn't like it when he was here. He got hate. He's like the most hated superstar in Houston history. Like he's winning an MVP and people are talking about how much he sucks. Because it's about the playoffs. Well, and the defense. Yeah.

I think Dylan paid 10 Gs yesterday. Oh, that seems like light. That's nothing. That seems light for a court side. Can I peel the curtain for a second back? Yes. So I'm on these NBA streets. Oh, what does that mean? Just, you know, traveling.

No. Okay. You're on the team bus. Team bus, plane, yeah. Hotel. I have to kind of budget what I spend about whether it's the per diem or whether it's just my own money. that I want to spend.

Yeah, it's $40 pancakes can rack up on you. Yeah, you get those four or five days in a row. It does add up. They don't think about that stuff. Players? The players. Like, if they want to go have dinner, let's say they want to go have dinner. We're in, um, we're in Denver.

Okay. And they want to go to Castle Rock. There's a really high-end sushi place they want to go to. Okay. What are those, they don't call them spinners? What are the black vehicles call, not the SUVs, but the sprinter? Sprinter. Sprinters.

You know those are not. cheap. No. Several hundred dollars. That's nothing to those guys. No. Or meanwhile, I'm trying to get the Uber X and I'm waiting for 20 minutes for the wait and save. Wait a save, baby.

That wait and save is your friend. Yeah. Or like, you know, they're like $3 extra for X. And then if sometimes, X, L, if you wait, you'll still get the X. Or it's like you're in downtown Philadelphia. But let's go get Jake's Philly steak. It's about a 20-minute Uber right. Yeah.

You split a four ways. We'll get something downtown to be just fine. We'll split it four ways. It's fine. But it's... Well, yeah, because they make millions and millions of dollars. They make millions and millions of dollars. That's why when I say Dylan Brooks spends $10,000 on a...

He's not thinking about it. He's not thinking about it. He's not thinking about how the money he saved. Yeah. He's thinking this is $10,000 for me to be on in front of everybody, me making fun of LeBron James losing in four straight games. It's pretty funny. Dylan the villain.

And really... lives the role, but is not a horrible human being. No, he was super nice to us. He's almost like, it's like he's a, you know, like Eme Adoka is a different character on the floor. People are like that. Between the lines, they're a little different. Yeah. Do we see that as much in other sports as we see that in basketball? Like guys, I mean, JJ Watts, super nice.

And then he got in between the lines, he's ready to take him by his head off. Yeah. Baseball, we don't see that very much. Or like, I mean, there's definitely some players like that. Jalen Petrie? See him like a swell fellow? Yeah. You get him on the floor?

He's ready to crush him by his head. But the basketball difference is that not only do we see your face, we can read your lips and the amount of blank talking. Like every, I mean, there are some gibronies in the NBA that will make three-point shots and talk blank going back to the direction. Like, bro, you're down 25 points. I think especially pitchers are like that. Eric Getty, we interview him? Super nice guy. You get him on the hill?

He's case-strutting your ass. Matt, when you playing... He's getting mad. When you're playing a recreational, you're not talking mess? Silence is everything sometimes. I didn't start it. I finished it. What's up?

I'd be talking mess, man. That wasn't much of a trash talker. I wasn't that good. Well, that's because you're fast, Jonathan. You know what they're going? I'd be talking mass and finish in 15. It doesn't feel right. Do you know where they know and talk mess?

They don't talk too much mess in the golf course. Really? I don't because I'm too in the woods. I can't talk to me when I'm by myself in the woods. there's nobody to talk mess to. The only thing I would say is, come on, Snowman, let's go. Put that in the scorecard, let's go. Yeah.

When I'm unfolding my inflatable canoe to get my ball, I'm not really talking a lot of mess. But Jonathan, watch a golf event for like an hour or two. It really is a gentleman's sport. There's no blank talking out. No, they're blank talking. Come on. Tiger Woods wasn't blank talking.

But I mean, okay, so Tiger and Timmy. Phil Mickelson's not blank talking. Is Rory Maca a blank talker? Oh, yeah, I think he is. I don't know. I feel like... I don't think I see YouTube video going. Oh, it's a horrible shot from you on the tee.

You're not going to make that five foot put. My grandmother can swing a harder iron. Watch me get this 90-inch, or 60-90-degree wedge of a two-feet from the cup, Bia. Matt, if you played slow-pitched softball right now, you're telling me you get a bum, you're not talking mess around the bases. No, because it's slow-pitched. I'm whom.

I don't believe that one-pitch softball. I used to be softball. umpire by the way. I was a great umpire. And that's not what I heard. No, I was umpire there in the city of St. Paul. That ex-felon said you weren't that good. Well, that's when I got out. Jonathan, I was doing St. Paul City games until the start guy, one team had like five guys wearing ankle prices. I'm like, this is not my thing. They were $31 a game, not worth it. They're just trying to rehabilitate their lives through the majesty of sport. What's wrong with you?

Just don't piss them off of them. Yeah. Yeah, but I can probably find a better, a heartier, more pleasant league to go to the St. Paul City League. It's fine. $30 a game ain't bad. Strike three are out. Did you say what? I mean, ball? Final segment of the Matt Tava show with Ross straight ahead.

We went, we got through this, big boy. Four hours, no phone calls. I'm worried about it. We like talking to y'all. We swear to God, we're going to be with you. Well, we can't swear it's not a real job. It's fine. It's not a real job.

You're right. All right. So a Tuesday edition of the show. We'll do a shut your bum ass up tomorrow, and I'm going to, hopefully, not have to tell our parent company to shut their bum asses up. Great people. I will not be telling them regardless of what's happening.

They know. Well, they don't know, but they understand. If we were in the same spot, they're the same spot. Well, we like to take calls and the phones. We as a station love to take calls, and the phones have been down for 18 hours. 18 hours? With no signs of life?

They're working on it. Around the clock. I like it. I like your optimism. I mean, it's out of my control, so I choose to be optimistic. Same thing about Tatsu Yemi, I'm not going to be making pitches. I'm not going to be throwing strikes or balls or walking five guys or getting six innings, two-run ball.

I would suggest, Ross, that we don't spend much time commenting on Twitter tonight if things don't go well. Okay. Are you going to do the Tatsu E. Mai starting tonight, how we feel in. I'll do it right now. Let me make sure. We should have done this in half an hour ago. We'll see what kind of response we could have God.

I know. Sorry. Tatsuui Emai. You're in the typing of how we feeling? Yes. There we go. Tatsu you, I'm on the, Emai on the Hill for the Auschw's tonight. How we feel?

Now, I don't want you, E-My, W-D. We don't need that. We might. That's your second most classic line. He's like throwing a ball in a center field or something like Trevor Bauer. That's, to me, look, you need to be. to win in the worst way because you've lost five straight of the Mariners, including the game last night in the four in Seattle. You also need to get your bats going.

The problem is you don't... It's not like Joe's like, hey, I'm saving our bats for the second game or the third or the fourth game of the series. That's how baseball goes. You actually got some decent pitching. You got good pitching on Friday in Cincinnati. You won 10 to nothing. It hadn't been bad starts since then. And I know that some people are going to say, why is Yorra so batting second?

I don't think there's a necessity. Is somebody saying that? Who's saying that? Tell me who they are. Probably renegade Astro plus one or something. Shut your bum ass up. He's batting second. He's doing great.

Nobody complained in April. Player of the month batting second. American League player of the month. And the bigger question I would have is who would supplant him as a third spot? I mean, would you bump everybody up of one if you really wanted to do that? What would be the advantage? Who are you putting in ahead of him? look things are going to when jeremy pain you comes back things will start to regulate a little bit you'll put jeremy back in the leadoff spot

yes you'll have yorda um batting second let's go i like that and then who's bat's third uh walker yeah he's been slumping hard though maybe a ltuvei clean up walker has been dive bombing but we we knew he wasn't he wasn't going to hit 300 with a thousand ops all year jordan's not going to hit 400 all year these are these are things we should see coming you just you want more than two runs in three games. 222 OPS down to 689 in the month of May for our friend Christian War. But we do have to celebrate

Peter Lambert. Quality Start Extra. Whatever you want to call it. Plus. And we'll see him in five days. Now I feel like if it's like a perfect game, that's a premium plus, man. By the way, you said you're putting McCullors on the injured list. Is that what you're

your guy doing was? It was a gut feeling. Hopefully I'm wrong. We're going to find out about two hours from now. We haven't heard anything about them. It's supposed to still schedule If his fingernail is off his hand, like, what are we doing here? Pitchers use their fingernails like to grip and spin the ball. Yeah. All right. You know, you need fingernails too to paint.

Okay. I mean, it's not necessity. You paint your nails? Like Jalen Green? No, I'm going to have Sertor Pro paint my walls. Oh, okay. C-E-R-T-A-P-R-O. That'd be cool.

Tomorrow? You'll paint your nails. My niece has painted my nails once. I bet your toenails. No, it's my fingernails. Okay. be weird if they were on my toes. Sert-O-O-A-C. Get a free ass to-in right now. It's Sertr-R-P-P-R-R-O-S-R-O-S-A-P-R-A-S-E-R-A-P-R-A-S-A-S-E-R-A-S-A-S-E-R-A-S-E-R-E-R-S-E-E-R-E-S-E-E-E-R-E-E-S-E-E-E-E-E-S-E-E-