The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Lose The Series vs Rangers, What Is Going On? Is It Just The Injuries? Rockets Summer League, Wimbledon Finals, SEC Media Days

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

Astros Lose The Series vs Rangers, What Is Going On? Is It Just The Injuries? Rockets Summer League, Wimbledon Finals, SEC Media Days

Ross Villarreal. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 10-01 in H-Town. Good morning. And welcome to a Monday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. There is not another radio show in the marketplace that will give you some yacht rock out of Monday.

Chris Cross, one of the all-time goats, right, sports army? This sucks. It does not suck. How are you, friend? Doing great, Matt. The very first word. There's two words out of my mouth this week. This sucks.

I just thought I was just being funny. It's not my jam. It doesn't suck. I mean, there are people that have said that Chris Cross sucks. I mean, I'm going to be honest with you. I happen to think he's fantastic. I've seen him in concert before. It's not my jam, but that's fine.

Yeah. I mean, he had a run from, what, 80, 83? No idea. He had four or five hits. He definitely meant enough to go. hit the casino route and the HBO concert hall market. That's what we saw him. Yeah, he's doing great, I'm sure.

Well, you know, he had COVID and he was parents. Oh, that's right. So he wasn't doing great for a while, but now he's rebounded nicely. I'm glad every day he's breathing. He's doing better than enough. Yeah, just like the Astros are going to rebound sportservy. Well, they're breathing too, I guess. Much, much needed All-Star break.

even though it's only four days. You know, we had Brian Bogussevig on, and I asked him that because I was like, man, you only get four days off. He's like, ah, that's plenty. So I guess probably the players and the managers and everybody else agrees. But I guess just for me,

because half the 40 man is on the IL, I want a little bit more time. It's almost like the Astros should not play until August 1st. They need an extended break. I like that a lot, actually. Yeah, it's crazy. Let me ask you this.

Do you think Hunter Brown is suffering from a tired arm. I don't know. I speculated on that, Matt, on KPRC Local 2 Sports Sunday last night. No, I didn't see it because I'm actually joining you today from Kingston, Rhode Island. The most beautiful place on. Kingston, man. I knew you were going to do that.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm like a puppet. You pull the string. I can't help it. What if I'd have said Newport, Newport, Rhode Island? Hmm, Foncy. I said they're going to kick you out of there. This place is, it's a little bit of heaven on earth.

I don't know if not a lot of people run between Houston and Rhode Island. We will doing a lot of that in the next five years. Yeah, it'll be just you. Yeah. But it's, it's, I don't get enamored with a lot of places. It's got to travel so much. This place is just unbelievable. So, point being is this, I watch the game on my phone,

and then I put on the I heart radio app as all I do when I travel. Yes. You should. And I listen to the 10th day. show where you will be hearing two great moments in the 10th inning show coming up today at 1030. Wonderful. And then I saw your tweet. You were on Channel 2 last night.

I didn't get to see it. Did you look okay? Did you comb your hair? Did you put a nice suit on or some sort of a sports coat or something? I'm going to be honest. I didn't. It was late notice. I'm going to imagine somebody canceled on Randy.

And he texted me late. And I didn't really have time to fully like get my beard trimmed. I kind of wet my hair. The shirt I'm wearing is like my third choice shirt because I didn't want to wear the same shirt I wore the first time and then the other one I just didn't think it looked right. So, you know, I slap myself together as best I could with like an hour notice.

Okay, so more importantly, their content was amazing because you brought the term tired arm. So what was your take on the tired arm? The location has been of a bit of an issue. And I'm not a pitching coach, so that, that was, would be something somebody else could answer. Does that mean that's a little bit of fatigue? The velocity has been pretty decent. I think his last fastball, he threw like 98 miles an hour, but also he was kind of unloading the tank. So I am a slightly concerned, but I would say my concern level

isn't super high and a little bit of time off. I don't know if they're going to keep him on regular rest or whatever when they're going to put him back in the rotation or give him an extra couple of days. We'll see. I hope it's closer to the latter just because the last two starts have been a bit of concern. Yeah, this is a very subtle gut feeling. It wouldn't be even worthy of talking about tomorrow, but I would guess that even though it would be on regular rest, that he will not start the second half on a Friday. He will start his second half, maybe the Saturday or Sunday, just give him an extra day. Because let's face it, the Astros, if they're going to win this division, and I believe they're sure going to do it, they're going to have to rely on Hoss 1 and Hoss 2 because 3, 4 and 5 are either

hurt or a very much a mixed bag. Watching Lance McCuller's throw on Friday hurt me. It wasn't great, especially for those of us on a McCuller's Island. Yeah, home is horrible. Home is like you never want them to pitch at home. Road is okay and get them out there every fifth day. Yes.

Life doesn't work that way. No, it doesn't. So we got issues. We, of course, because we're stockholder. in the Astros LLC. We are here at Sports Talk 790. You're home for the Astros. Well, I mean, even if we weren't carrying the games,

I mean, you know, as a former Astro buddy, I invested in the team. And it was only a matter of time. And that's why I played Chris Crosses all right because it was only a matter of time before this makeshift lineup that the Astros were putting out there was going to regress a little bit. They weren't going to play as well as they did in Los Angeles.

and I always hate to do this but I'm going to do it like everybody else does certainly no disrespect to Taylor Tremel and Cooper Hummel yes and Zach Short and Zach was obviously a hero of Saturday's game but if those three guys are playing on the race and Bryce Matthews will throw in the mix too if you're throwing those guys out and you're in the same lineup or 75% of that lineup is and they're playing multiple games in a row you're going to hurt they're just either they're not good enough to be major league hitters on an everyday basis, or they're not ready. My feeling is when we talked about Bryce Matthews on the show Friday is they're calling him up because of necessity not because they think he's ready to go. In fact, even Joe is spot at Rossi on the week before the first game said he's still a work in progress. You don't typically bring up your highest prospect when he's still a work in progress. And we knew about his strikeout numbers being astronomically high at Sugarland,

and I believe four or five of his first at-bats resulted of strikeouts so far. Yeah, it's, I kind of just feel bad for him. It's not only that he got called up to the majors, like you mentioned. He's got five strikeouts and seven plate appearances. Five, okay, yeah, I know. Five strikeouts and seven plate appearances. He looks overmatched, but it's also, I mean, your first day you get called up,

you have to see Jack Lider, who's just piping 100, mile an hour fastballs against you and then you go up against Jake DeGrom one of the, I mean, I don't know if he's going to be in the Hall of Fame because of health, but at the end of the day, win healthy, one of the all-time great pitchers. And frankly, watching the Rangers this weekend,

they're massively underperforming. And I don't know if it's because of injuries, which I'm sure it probably is just like everybody else, but they should be a lot better than where they are. They have 100% underachieve so far this year. Because that three-man pitching rotation that the Astros saw this weekend was

dominating. And the Astros are lucky. Frankly, Ross, they're lucky to win that game on Saturday. And by the way, we've got to get the Saturday's take on the pulling Altuve and the night ending. Oh, my God. You know what? I'm going to scream about this, I think. Well, I would scream too, but I'm in a hotel.

Okay. And I don't know if I can scream. I'll scream for you. You do it for the both of us. Do it, please. I never said I was going to scream for another man. This is weird. Okay, there you go. Clip that at 10-11, please. Thank you.

I'm going to scream for you, Matt. Wait, what? Yeah, exactly. Excuse me? We'll say, you know what, we'll save it. Because if you're going to really bellow with your lungs, you've got to really do it. Okay. Because it was sound, I'll just put it very politely.

And then you'll scream. It was sound baseball decision. Period. End of story. And it didn't cause them. Well, no, because after us Twitter. So I don't know. You can't do it yet.

You can't do it. Okay. All right. 10.30 this morning coming up in 20 minutes from now, we have two great moments on the 10th inning show. One is just a stupid caller, and he knows who he is. The other one I think might be a bit. I need you to judge whether it's a bit or not.

But I was listening to the 10th inning show here in Rhode Island. It was great. I was in my room. My wife and my daughter were shopping, so while they were spending money, I was listening, learning, and feeling I was appreciated. because I was able just to focus on the baseball side of things.

But I think the second caller was an absolute bit. And I want to get your judge on thought on that. We've got other things to get to on the radio show today, which will include SEC Media Days. I don't know if Gordy's calling in. Usually he'll be too busy for us when it's important. And he's hanging out with his SEC Bros. The All-Star game is coming up tomorrow in Atlanta.

It is the, I guess, the epicenter of sports between the SEC Media Days and the All-Star game. we have the Summer League Ross did you catch any reed Shepard yesterday a little bit that's probably all you needed to see what you said about him I didn't say hold on now I asked the question

I asked the question you were thinking you were trying to get me in trouble now I wouldn't be I would do that to you 1130 we have to tell the truth we have the news at noon and Ross do we want to go with Love Island believe it or not today at 150 because everybody in their mother is watching the show except you and me

Yeah, I'm not, seriously, it's all over, I don't even watch the show, I don't click on those tweets, and it's all over my 4U tab. I try to tell you all. I try to tell you all to get on it. Excuse me? Get on the wave, get on the wave. 1013, write it down. We're up to a strong start already for Friday's open. Yes, sir.

We probably got left over some last week, too. Yes, 1013. It is the bad topic show on sports at Talk 790 with Ross. 713-1-2-5-790. 713-212-5-790. I ask you Astro fans, are you all right? Do you think we're going to make it? It is Sports Talk 790.

Matt Ross, with you here on Sports Talk 790. Our time is 1018. The Astros did win one game over the weekend and losing the series to the Texas Rangers. Meanwhile, the Seattle Mariners swept the Detroit Tigers, so the Astros lost two games in the standings. So, Rossi, let's go back to Saturday night. You were a host of the 10th. show. Is that correct? That was not me.

No. Oh, well, okay, who did it then? Saturday night would have been the wait, did I do Saturday night? No, I didn't do Saturday night. It was Dan Matthews. Okay. No, because, I mean, because Dan did it yesterday. I did it Friday. Did you not do it Saturday? Okay. Well, that's fine. Whatever. You didn't do it. You didn't do it.

So let's go to the ninth inning. Give me second guess. No, I was, no. I was home watching boxing and UFC in the Astros. Nice. It was a nice Saturday. All right. So, uh, you have, uh, Jose Altuvei strike out to end the eighth inning, correct?

Correct. Correct. Yes, that's correct. Ninth inning. You're up one run on the Boston, excuse him on the, uh, Texas Rangers. Yes. It's three to two. Mm-hmm.

And then, uh, you bring in your closer who was last time I checked in that position, uh, position, uh, position, 25 for 25 on saves. Is that correct? And what you would like to do is if you know that Jose Al-Tuvae is not going to bat in the next inning or maybe even the inning after that, you'd like to have your best defense out there. And we love Jose Al-Tuven and he certainly works very hard to be a decent left-fielder. But he's not a great left-fielder.

So you'd like to ultimately work on having a better defense as possible. Yes. You want the best defensive outfield possible out there, especially with the guy who is prone to giving up fly balls like Josh Hader. And Kennedy Corona was brought out there to work in left field. Well, Josh had to be placed in center, but yeah, I can't. Yeah, there are people moving around. That's right.

So the home run was given up, and that meant you had to go to extra innings, and you did lose Jose Lube as a hitter. Yes. But you were able to still. Go win the game because Zach Smith was your hero. Short, yes. Jack's short. Sex Smith, short, same difference.

And all the four-you Astro Twitter fans were like is Joe Espada's got to lose his job. How in the world do you possibly replace Jose Altuve in left field? What a mind-blowing, dumb decision it was made. Now, this is the thing that always highlights a separation between watching a sport, and paying attention to a sport. Now, everybody who is on Astros' Twitter, I imagine, look, a lot of you I know major accounts in 2017, but even at a minimum, if you did that.

Let's say you even did it in 2022 when they won their second World Series championship, and you're like, all right, I'm going to start watching Astros baseball. That's three years of watching baseball. You have seen dozens of time, Matthew, where there's been a late defensive replacement where one of the power hitters, sometimes it's been Yorda and Alvarez,

it's been Jose Al Tuve. It's been whoever. It happens all the time. This is not the most common thing in baseball, but is it extremely common. Are you watching the games or are you paying attention to the games? This is what I just don't get. And oh, by the way, it didn't affect them at all.

Kennedy Corona came up in his place. He tried to bunt and then he got a walk. He got on base. It didn't affect the outcome of the game. It took Josh Hanks. had to blow the save, number one, then they didn't walk it off in the ninth, then they didn't walk it off in the 10th. It took till the 11th inning where there was any impact on the outcome of the game and Kennedy Corona got on base and then they won the game anyways.

What are we doing? So we're going to have to have a very hard conversation here, okay? Are we just never going to have a great baseball acumen in this town? or is it just a very few amount of people that are speaking for what we think is a larger segment of the audience? Because it feels like we've had so much winning baseball here and so many more people that you would think with watching all the number of games,

this team, I mean, when you became an Astro fan, when things started to turn around in 2015, you weren't watching 10-15 games a year, Ross. You were watching 100 games a year. And then when the Astros won the World Series in 2020, 2017. You started watching 125 games a year and you started going to 25 games year or you got a mini-season package or you got a full season and you had watch parties and you went to your friend's house. I'm very concerned that our baseball IQ is not growing or can we just say that hey, maybe we're speaking for a few. But I don't know who did the show on Saturday, but I'm going to presume that many people were

just losing their mind over pulling Jose Al Tuve when you put your closer in who was 25 for 25 and you got him a better defense because the new outfield was better than the old outfield, at least for one inning. Yeah, and Altuue didn't come up to the 11th. You needed, as I said, you need a blown save. You needed to not walk out from the 9th, not walk out on the 10th with an extra runner, and then it took to the 11th. I mean, what are the odds of that?

They're pretty low. And so Joe Espada weighed the odds and said, I need, it's more likely that there's going to be a, either, you know, a liner to the gap or whatever or fly ball, that I need a great defense to track down, and that Josh Hader, who's 25 for 25, can get this going, and get the save. Maybe I don't even do it anymore.

And then it's a zero-sum game. If you replace them and no ball goes to Jose Altovae at left field, which is probably the most likely outcome, it doesn't even matter. It didn't cost you anything and the game's over. I mean, can help me come up with the names, Matt? I mean, we've seen throughout the years, throughout the years. Late defensive replacements, we've had Jake Mariznick.

I mean, it was Cameron Mabon. Yon Javarez has been replaced defensively. Yeah, exactly. Guys who've been replaced and guys who come in for them. The Jake Moriznick, Chas McCormick's done it. Jake Myers has done it. I mean, there's been late inning defensive replacement. That's a baseball term.

Pay attention to the games. You know what? It's the guy who's just doing the wave. not even paying attention. That's the guy complaining that Joe Espott. Oh, they're not. You're going to fire Joe Spada. You're 100% right.

And I'm worried because I love talking Astros baseball. I love watching the team. I like talking about the team. And in good times and sometimes and in bad times. But it bothers me so that we have the wave as often as we do. And we have people that just can't put a pretty logical thinking decision in front of the manager. He makes the logically thinking decision

and it didn't turn out according to plan but it was the right decision and ultimately it did not cost the team. Because I can tell you this, Ross, if there was a play in left field where it wasn't made properly because Jose did not make the right read or runner was trying to score from second base and one of the tests Jose L. Tube's arm

you would then be having people call and saying why do we put a better arm in saying, why do we put a better arm in the left field to try to throw that run around from second base? Exactly. Yeah, that's another thing. It's not even about tracking the fly balls. It's a great point by you, Matthew.

You've been watching baseball. Yeah, the arm. Look, we love Hellsale-A-L-Tuve. The fact is he's got a very, very well-belo-average arm in outfield. He just does. There it is. So I'm just hoping that it's the for-you tab. I'm hoping it's Astros' Twitter.

but I'm a little afraid it's not. It might have been 10th inning calls after yesterday's game, and we'll hear a couple of those next. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Why aren't we getting... I don't want to say better. 1034, it is the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

We've got great moments in the 10th inning show coming up here in a matter of moments. Let's talk to the great people of Houston first. Jason and Katie is with us on 790. Jason, good morning. Guys, to piggyback, good morning. To piggyback off of y'all's last conversation, for starters. So anything I ask those, Twitter's, and I say I'm going to take it with 10 grains of salt.

I don't listen to those guys. I don't pay attention to those guys. The only thing that I would maybe, and let me start off by saying, too, about Joe Espada, hell of a job. You know, second best record in the AL. You would have told me we had a five-game league on the whoever going to the break. With all the injuries we had on top of that, you would take it 10 days at a 10. You know, there's no denying that. The only thing maybe I would have done differently in that game is Slide Jose from left field to second base

and come up with maybe a Cooper Hummel or somebody else to the left field, only because of the lack of major league bats we have in our lineup right now. But other than that, like you said, we won the game. It's a butts of nothing. You know, Joe's a top, what, two or three candidate from Andrew of the year right now. So let's take a break. Let's reset, guys, it's recess. And let's go have the hell of the second half of the first.

guys, enjoy the show. Keep it up. Thank you. Thank you, Jason, for the phone call. I mean, you're going to realize, and look, no manager is perfect. There are going to be some decisions that are made that you're going to be head scratching. Let's be brutally honest with this team. He's got about 40% of the Space Cowboys

on his roster right now, Ross. He just does. Space Cowboys North. That's what's happening right now. And to Jason's point, I understand where he's coming from, but we also have to be brutally honest. Jose L. Tuves, not a good second basement anymore. Yeah, the decision was made

not to, and again, if you want to keep him in the bat, you were thinking literally just went to bat. He just went to bat. You were thinking, even if the game goes to the 10th with a runner at second, you're talking about eight people hitting in front of him.

You in theory wouldn't need that unless you're down three or four runs in the 10th inning. You know what I'm saying? I mean, Yes. Put the puzzle pieces together a little bit here. Now, speaking of that, Rossi, we do this every once in a while here on the radio program. Whether you're hosting it, I'm hosting it, or others are hosting it.

And yesterday I happened to listen to Sunday, Dan hosting the Tentanning Show. We present some great moments, and we simply call them that. First one is a friend of the show. Eric in Bay City, we love him a lot. He loves a relative term. His act is wearing thin on me, but Leo, sure we love him. Yeah, I mean, he seems like an affable guy, and I'm sure if we ever man, we'd like him and whatnot. He always listens.

And he has been a regular listener, and for that, Eric, we thank you very much. But he did not have a great 10th moment, a great moment in the 10th inning call. And here is the call he had yesterday with Dan Matthews. So then go with Eric in Bay City. Eric, what's going on? Yeah, you know, Dan. just said we could have very well lost all six of those games. And if our manager had had his way, we would have lost it last time.

He needed that stupid defensive sub for Jose Al-Tubei out in left field. I told Ross two and a half months ago, get Jose Al-Tube out of the lead off spot. We're going to win games. And guess what we've done since then? We've won games. Now if we just get Joe's spot out of this town, we would win a lot more games. I'll hang out of him. All right.

Well, he told you two and a half months ago, Ross, about Jose too, babe, getting out of second base. You know what's funny, Matt. I was listening to this 10th inning show, and I was driving home, I believe, from my mop, mouse of manmates. And I heard Dan go to Eric in Bay City and I turned the radio off.

I swear to you. My brother was in the car with me, he can verify this. I turned the radio off because I didn't want to get mad. And I can't escape it, Matt. And you bring it up on air? Turn the radio off? If you enjoyed that, if you enjoyed that, Ross, and the rest of you listening to us,

you're going to enjoy our next great moment. It comes from Caleb in San Antonio. Let's head out to the 210, San Antonio. Caleb, what's going on? Hey, I just want to let you know. I actually went to a Houston Dash game and weren't a lot of people there. It was really kind of a horrible setting as far as fan base. And I just kept thinking this is how it's going to be watching the Astros.

Joe Espada continues to be the coach. I mean, it's getting bad. And, you know, 16 games about 500 is that the bar now? Is that where we're at? This is Houston Astros. Now, as soon as I heard that, I told our network producer Josh C. Record that for me too and send it to me. Now, that actually sounded like Michael Connor for a little bit there.

There wasn't enough twang to make it, Michael, and all of a sudden he just got some sort of deeper voice so. I don't think it was him. Okay, I don't think so either. But was that a bit when you drop Houston Dash references into your Astros 10th inning call? I think it was a hybrid. I think it was a dumb call and doing a bit. I think that guy's called

multiple times. A producer Josh C, I think, has kind of gate kept that guy. He calls in all the time with these ridiculous and stupid bits. I would have cut the call off probably once I heard Houston Dash. But letting it run, it's fine. I mean, it's funny. And it's making a segment on the Matt

Thomas show. But I mean... With Ross. With Ross. That's right. He is a manager, not a coach, number one, dumbass. And then number two, 16 games above 500, considering everything that has happened is quite remarkable. I mean, can we pay attention, folks? Can we not just read the standings? This is the thing, again, I will come back to. Don't just watch the games. Let's try to pay attention a little bit. If we're going to call in with strong opinions on something. So let's do this. We have to tell people, there are,

are open mic nights at a variety of comedy clubs. Oh, dozens. And they are horrible. I've been. And we know our foreign producers I would not consider him a full time with us, but part-time film Trey has been able to take advantage of using his one

or two jokes and using him at 15 a variety of clubs. Mostly Bavada Inns and Rumpford Reitz and occasionally a bed booth in.

So, I mean, there's all sorts of places he's taking his comedy act. I don't want to use 790 as a comedy platform. First of all, Trey was definitely one of the funnier ones I've ever seen on the open mics. And there was one time I saw him at a hotel. I can't remember what hotel that was. It was the prickly pear lounge, I believe. It was literally the manager wanted to host a comedy night because the manager went up in there and did like 15 minutes. And we were like, oh, really?

That's fine. So it was fun. Here's the thing. If it was a bit, it was, it's, it would, you would have been zonked or gonged on the go gonged show. You know, if you were on night, showtime on the apottle, the stick would, the cane would have come out and pull you off. Mm-hmm. But there's a part of me that maybe thought this guy was somewhat serious? I think his take was serious at the end, but he opened with a dash joke to try to be funny.

And remember, leave the comedy to us. We can do it. You cannot. Hmm. 1042 on Sports Talk 790. Charles, good morning to you. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, I'm going to talk about my struggles.

We're going to be all right. We'll be all right. We will win the division, and we will take the next one. And then, like they said, in my neighborhood, when you get to the World Series, this is when you go to work. This is when you go to work

When you take the division I'm just Too pretty much gone anyway Seattle ain't doing nothing The Rangers ain't doing nothing Okay they got us When October get here They won't be there

When October get here Seattle won't be there The Rangers won't be there None of the else Astros will be there After that Then we go to work work.

Playoffs, cool. Playoff's cool. World series, wooey. Going to work. I just got chills. That was inspirational. Is that what they say in your neighborhood, Maddie?

Go to work? This is where we work. What did you say? We'll be fine. This is where we go to work. We're going to be good. Then we're going to get at work to go work. And we're going to do this.

That we're going to be fine. Fine. Don't hurt yourself, Matt. I'm okay. 1043. That was a great moment of the Matt Thomas show at Ross right there. Gotta go to work. That's a new phrase of the show.

Days 10 to 2. You've got to go to work. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. To tell the truth at 1130, your phone calls as we go to work here on Sports Talk 790. Matt Ross with you on Sports Talk 790. 7-1-3-212. 579 if you want to chime in in our

conversation 713-212-5-790 we'll have to tell the truth coming up at 1130 now Ross do you want to do Love Island or do you want to honor 7-13 today which was yesterday 7-14 now Matt we could do area codes that'd be highly Googledable we have done that before actually we could do it again

7-14 I'm usually pretty good with area codes can I take a wild guess where we go back to the phone sure I'm going to say Orange County. Oh, look at this guy. Am I right? Yeah, you Googled it.

No, I did. I swear to God. I swear to God. 714 and 657 are in Orange County, yes. Okay. I'm your area code and airport code God. You are the airport code for whatever reason. I don't even know why.

Yeah, there's like this puzzle that shows up on Facebook. Like, hey, puzzle of airport goes, I can finish that in like 30 seconds. You go set the record. But I'm a dork that way, so it is what it is. All right. 713-212-5-7-90. By the way, my flight to Boston on Saturday, Ross. Boston?

Boston. I would say there were probably at least six people taking their shoes off on the flight. This is an epidemic. It's becoming... My buddy Ted Party, who I work with on the U.Broadcast, always shoots of pictures of people doing it, puts on social medias. And I thought maybe it's just a one-off. It's becoming a problem, ladies and gentlemen.

Oh, man. I'm curious, what was the demographic? Was it scattered? Was it old people, young people? Well, the guy next to, okay, first of the guy next to me had crocs on, and he took his crocs off, and he wore socks. And he had the most, he had the most hellacious B-O I've ever. smell to my life.

Oh, man. Can you call the flight attendant? Can you hit the button? Hi, somebody's got stinky crocs. So here's what this guy had to do. I'll go to the phone. So my wife and my daughter were one row in front of me. My daughter was on the window.

My wife was on the aisle. I was on the aisle on the row right behind them. Smelly guy was next to me in the middle seat with his crocs and his socks. his weird old girlfriend who had multiple colors of hair was in the middle between Kim and Carly and the wrong front and he happened to notice that I was talking to my wife and my daughter he was talking to his girlfriend and he drops the hey do you want to switch seats so you can sit next to your wife I'm like

I want to sit in the middle for four hours oh hell no I sleep with this woman I see my children yeah I need I need four hours of at least somewhat relaxation of a plight Fancy Matt. And I shot him down in 0.1 off the clock. You can never. If you're going to ask someone to move a seat, you have to give them the upgraded seat. You cannot ask for a downgraded seat.

Yeah, but well, I will say this. I probably would have moved because the middle is less, the whole problem with the middle is you don't want to touch anybody and you feel like you're just like in a cave by yourself. But when it's people you know, you can lean on over your wife or you could ask her to move the middle. No, I'm good. Okay. All right.

So you're about to take the stinky guy over his thing. Let me give you his smell a combination. He smelled like head and showered, foot odor, and chicken swarma. Chicken swarma is delicious. What does it smell like, though? Yeah, but the scent on someone's body is not great. I'm going to disagree on chicken swarma. Would you wear chicken shforma cologne?

I have some. That's a lie. Yes, it is. J.L. at 1054 on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. J.L., good morning. Good morning. I know this is a little early, but Eric in Bay City, such a little bum ass up. Okay. Strow's are 16 games over 500. Stros are five games ahead of the Seattle Mariners. And you need to chill the heck out, man. We're doing fine. We got what?

40% AAA guys on the team, Sugar Land, give me a break. Shut your bum ass up and relax. Let's go. Stroves. You jail. I just threw 40% out, Ross. Would we want to really break the 26-man roster down right now and say what they really are? I'd rather not, actually.

I don't think I want to even want to do it. I think 40 feels just about right. If you're asking me. Matt, a quick question, though, Matt. if your team has the best record and best winning percentage in baseball in one-run games, would you maybe think that maybe your manager isn't horrible? Well, a certain segment of Astros Twitter would say the Astros are winning games despite the manager. Okay, so they're 19 and 8 in one-run games, which is, again, the best win percentage in baseball.

Right. So without him, they'd be much better than the... best win percentage in baseball. They're also 6 and 2 and extra inning games. Now, there's some luck involved in that. I do believe those numbers will come down, but I'm just trying to come from the argument of people who are saying he's costing them games. No, I just think, as I've learned from doing 25 years of Astros and post-game shows, Ross.

You're right. The lowest common denominator is when a team loses, it's the manager's fault. Jackie will start the 11 o'clock hour with us. Is that Jackie Guy or Jackie Girl? Or Gleason. Jackie Guy. Guy's a guy named Jackie? Yeah, what's wrong with that?

I feel like you said this before, Matt. Jackie Robinson? I know. Hello? Okay. Robinson, Gleason, and give me a third. Jackie Bradley. Ooh, you did give me a third. Jackie Chan.

Ooh. Tell Jackie Chan to his face that he can't go by Jackie. All right. And another thing I want to get to on the aster's, we come back. And Astros' legend may not want to look on

social media after what he did this weekend. Oh, no. Do you know where I'm going with this? I think. You should. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. By the way, Gordy did not call in, so that's a win for me on that one.

All right, I forgot one more Jackie. Jackie Burke, The longtime pro over at Champions Golf Club. Thank you, Brian, for dropping that in on us there. Jackie Slater, long-time offensive tackle for the Los Angeles Rams. Ross, I think I'm taking the L on the male jackies. We've done this before, too. I know, I'm sure we have, but it's been five years. Yeah, it's fine.

It's new. Try anything of any other Jackies. I'm sure there's dozens. Okay, so. Jackie Treehorn? Who's that? Now you're just throwing things against a wall. That's not true.

Jackie Trehorn, the environmentalist that, you know, got nobilized? All right, all right, it's fine. He don't know. Nobleized. He won the Nobel Prize. He got nominated. Oh, you know, I thought one. Here's one, Jonathan.

Jackie Cousteau. Jackie, Jackie. Jackie Nicholas? Yeah. No, Jackie Treorn. You've seen the Big Lobowski now, right? Yeah, many years ago. And you didn't like it.

It was okay. It wasn't as good as my uncle thought it with me. My uncle watches it like 10 times a week. Yeah. You have an uncle that... Go ahead. Do you have an uncle that watches movies more than like five times a week, and every time he'll call you or text you said, man, I saw it again,

and I just found another part of the movie. I loved even more before I saw it. No, that seems wildly specific. God, it's just... Oh, it's big Lobosky, big... Every other day. I mean, it is a great movie, but it's not one I would recommend to Matt Thomas. It's okay.

I mean, I went like it was horrific. Yeah. So, all right, let's, speaking of the aforementioned Jackie, Jackie the guy, is whether he's on line number one on 7-90. Hi, Jackie, what's going on? Hey, good morning, guys. And just to let you know, I will keep my shoes on the entirety of the call. Thank you very much. We appreciate that.

Don't forget Jackie Cooper, the actor. Oh, that's right. The former, was a little rascal, correct, for a short time? Yeah, okay, good. So, yeah. So the reason I called is I don't think I have ever seen a year. And we've been a season ticket holder since 2016. I don't think I've ever seen a year.

Well, we've had so little to work with. And we've gotten such incredible results. Now, whether it's a spotta or just the luck of the draw of the people they were calling up, it's been amazing how we keep plugging in the, rookies, minor leakers, and somehow we keep winning, at least on a percentage of, you know, being in first place. So I got to say, I don't see how people can look at it in the aspect of, you know, we have these little losing streets. That's just baseball. So I don't, I don't see why people want to jump off of a cliff for what we've done this year with the Astros.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And that's the thing. You have to think macro on this, and thank you, Jackie, for the phone call. It is a five-game lead. They are 16 games above 500. They are playing, and we're going to do it, Ross, because I think it's our responsibility. We're going to actually go through the 26-man roster and figure out how many are space cowboys. Okay.

I don't know what to do this. We're going to have to do it. Like, within the last year? Well, we're going to say, under normal circumstances, would this be a space cowboy or extra? Yeah, and if you say Christian Walker, that's just rude. It is rude. It's not appropriate, although he's, God, every time we think he's turning the corner, he dips back down. What do you have, 0 for four yesterday with two more strength?

Yeah, he was getting in a rhythm, then he had a baby. Yeah, it's her fault. Well, I think he had a little something to do it. He had some work to do with it as well. That's true. All right, so here we go. Very quickly. Okay, there's 26 men.

You're going through the whole. You're really doing this? All right. This will take this. We're going to do this in like a minute and a half. Here we go. Okay. Abraeu, brown.

Gordon. There's one, right? Okay. Gusto, yes? Two. Yes. Hater. King, I'll say no.

McCullors, no. No. O'Kert, no. No. No? Sousa, no. No. Valdez no.

Walter, yes. Okay. So, that's three guys. Yes. Okay. Catchers, Caratini, no. Diaz, no. Salazar, yes.

Mm-hmm. So that's four, right? Yes. Infielders, Dubon, no. Rice, Matthews, yes. That's five. Yes. Isak Paredes, no.

Zach Short, yes. It makes six. Jesus. Christian Walker. No. You hear me, folks? No. No.

So that's six. Outfielders, Tremel. Yes. Yes. Altuvae, no, Corona, yes. Eight.

Jeez. Humble nine. Geez. Cam, I will say no. Under normal circumstances, what does that mean? Fully healthy. They were fully healthy,

basically, from the position player's standpoint, start of the year. So, yeah, I'm with you. Can you say no? Yeah. Okay, so nine of the 26 players currently on the team. You want the percentage on that, Matt? So that's 34%.

Wow, you're close. Look at this guy. Yeah, that's you of HMathic. I know who that is, but thank you. 34.6%. Okay, we're on at 35%. So there you go. Go tell us to your friends today and say, where did you get that percentage?

You said that Matt Thomas Haud Ross, 10 to 2 sports talks. I like that. 35% of the current team is the Space Cowboys. That's pretty insane. And here's the thought, unfortunately. As much as we love on what the Astros are doing in the first place, I don't think, Ross, they can win the division with 35% space guys. No.

I think this week was a great example of that. You can get, like, for instance, Zach Short, okay? Zach Short plays on the 2012 Houston Astros, right? Yes. And he gets a hit, and he wins a game. Well, Matt Dominguez got some. some hits and won some games. Hey, come on, man.

Zach Short's been playing well for the Astros. You know what I mean? Even the fringe major leagher is going to come through and give you a hit. I'm not anti-Zax. I'm just saying that that's... No, you're more anti-Riongustle than I'm more anti-Zachshund. Oh, I'm sorry. You just said he should be on the Space Cowboys.

But I appreciate what he's doing now for the Houston Astro. Me too. 35. It was an innings eater the other day when McCullors got lit. Yeah, he was giving up some runs too, didn't he? Yeah, he didn't have a couple. It's fine. Boy being, 35% of your first place Astros

should be living in an apartment in Sugar Land. Just think about that. Zach Short hitting 286 with an 872 OPS. He's a keeper then. Career OPS plus 59? Don't. Wow. By the way, we forgot.

one more Jackie. Thank you to Jay. The greatest attorney of all time Ross is Jackie Charles. Jackie Charles. That's exactly right. Let's talk to Jeff and Claire Lake at 1109 on 7 out of. Hello, Jeff.

Hey, good morning, guys. Great show. Hey, you got a couple things on a run by you real quick. I know you're all talking about these Sugar Land guys, and I agree. But if you can remember back when a certain player came up, who was a superstar for the Astros by the name of Kyle Tucker, he got back down.

And if I, frankly, he wasn't brought up in an emergency situation. He was well, like, they thought he was ready. And he played like crap. And he went back down and looked at what he turned out to be. So that's just one opinion. And my second question I had for you guys is, what do you guys feel about giving up a home run every five innings pitched? That's what Josh Hader does.

I'm just curious. Wait a minute. He's 25 for 26. Hey. That terrible taste out of your mouth. It's not that bad. Especially when the literally last two were out of one park. I mean, I know it's that park and all that type of stuff,

but I'm giving him some grace. And yet another Jackie we've forgotten. This one I need to be sloped for. Okay. Who's one of the greatest coaches in Texas A&M football history? I don't know. Dana Bible. Jackie Cheryl.

Yes, of course. I have besmirts the good name. How many sanctions did Jackie Cheryl get? That's besides the point. I believe his middle name was probation. It's middle name was not Jackie probation Cheryl. It wasn't. No.

I think what show had him on radio recently? It might have been, I don't know if it was Greg and Indy had him on or somebody had Jackie on. And he talked for like 20 minutes and they just could. interrupt him. I mean, and you frankly, you don't interrupt Jackie Sheryl. But he was, he made Gerard look like he couldn't put together

a sentence. Oh, you get some old ball coach in his 80s? Yeah. You should be prepared. We've gone through this on radio road and whatnot, Matt. You need about two questions prepped and you're good. Yeah, like when we said the late Bill Walton on that one time until he got every other market

except ours, I asked him one question about Akimelange on, and that was a 20-minute or chat about the history of the NBA. All right. May he rest? May he rest? Any of you that I have besmirched the good name Jackie, I apologize. You should.

Jackie Cheryl, I should have known better. That's terrible on my part. Jackie Childs, I should have remembered. Jackie Child is a fictional character, as is Jackie Treehorn. What is Jackie Treehorn? I don't even know who Jackie Treehorn was the pornography mogul in the Big Lobowski. All right.

713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. William will get to you by... He wants some of a Kevin Durant. I'm ready to talk about that. If you saw in the Rookie League this weekend, Reed Shepard had a pretty good first game, and the second game is not so great.

It is what it is. And a former... I should say a current astral legend just is having a tough time connecting with his fan base long after his playing career. We'll discuss who that is and the examples of it over the weekend. 713-212-5-790. The Astros did make a couple of selections in the position player draft day one yesterday.

Xavier Nayan's Nians from Mount Vernon High School. First round selection pick number 21, Ethan Frye from Ellis. LSU with a 95th overall pick in the third round. I'm really surprised. I'm really surprised we haven't heard from Gordy yet. Yeah, I was going to say, are you sure he didn't have movement after that pick was made by the Astros? Nions, a left-handed hitting shortstop, 456,

eight home runs, 27 RBIs as part of the Mount Vernon Class 3A state championship game this season. Mount Vernon, about an hour north of Seattle. Says he went to a bunch of Seattle Astro games, and remember the Astros beating their ass a bunch of times. He is correct. And also did you see his tweets that's been circulating from 2022? Uh-oh.

What? I have not. So this is, I cannot wait for you to read them for me. Well, it's actually good. He was responding to a Major League baseball tweet, first to 60 wins at Yankees. That was from the MLB main account. I'm sorry, that's actually from MLB on Fox. Xavier Nyhan's response.

just to lose the ALCS. And that was from July 7, 2022. Mm-mm-mm. Well, don't you think you should scrub every one of your tweets before you get drafted? He hasn't put this yet. It's pretty funny. It's great. It's perfect.

Everyone, a bunch of Astros fans found this and have been retweeting and saying, ball knower, this man knows ball, my king, we love you goat. And it'll work perfectly when Jeremy Pena goes to play. somewhere else. That's premature. Scott Boris says, no, it's not. Yeah, he's gone. But that's fine.

Here, I just reached, I retweeted it at SportsRV if you want to find the tweet. You don't have to. I mean, he just told you, so don't need to look at his Twitter account. I mean, it's fine. By the way, I did look at your IG account. Oh, you did? I did see what you look like yesterday on TV. Okay.

I mean, I'd put you third out of a third, but it wasn't embarrassed. That's fine. I mean, Randy McAvoy is a handsome TV guy. I mean, I can't compete with that. No, there's no chance of that. Zero. Nope, nope, nope. By the way, here, you know, we're in the heart of Red Sox country, Ross, here in Rhode Island.

We're maybe that Breggman's going to be looking for $200 million in his next contract. Dang. So I'm going to win the bear to late. You're too late. This is BS. I still got hope on the Kyle. I'm still feeling pretty good about the Kyle Tucker over seven and a half.

Seven and a half. Now, remember, that's got to be the first contract you get. It's not the second one. Yeah, I don't need anybody swooping in with no $50 million a year of AAVs without that. Yeah, three-year options with opt-outs after you're... That's what I'm open for. That's your only shot.

That's right. Let's talk to William on 790 and 1122. William, good morning to you. Can you hear me? Barely. Can I hear you better now? No. Okay, one second.

I'm sorry. All right, how about now? That's better. Much better. Okay, so, I just like that's like that you're at. I noticed a lot of Houston, like, Rockets fans have been kind of like

dissing him being like, he's a team destroyer and stuff like that, and I want to be honest opinion on that. Yeah. Who's dissing him? People who aren't Rockets fans, I feel like. You think Rockets fans are saying that, William? Yeah, I've seen a lot of them on Twitter saying that he's a team destroyer.

Oh, man, he can't listen to Twitter, William. Matt, do you think Kevin Duran is a team destroyer? Yes, he's going to cripple this basketball team, and I don't want him coming here. I'm hoping the NBA will reject the trade. It's like, they're saying when he went to the suns, the sons got worse. When he went to, you know, like the Neds, the Nets lost everything. They didn't really win anything. So that's what they're saying.

Yeah. I understand, William. appreciate you calling in. I mean, Brooklyn, if his foot weren't on the line, what year was that, Matt, where they would have gone to the Eastern Finals or something like that? Well, that his foot was on the line? Was that his first year there, right?

Was that his first year there? Something. I think so, yeah. So, I mean, those Brooklyn teams are decent, number one. Number two, I mean, he obviously uplifted the Golden State Warriors. He was the finals MVP both years there. and Kevin Durant is not going to, there's no way he can destroy this team. Eme Adoka's not going to let him destroy the team.

No, he's going to work with Eme Adoka. He likes Eme Adoka. And you have so much young talent on this team, they're going to be fine. Speaking of that, did you see what Kevin Durant, and you just sent it to me, I'm glad you did because you and I are on the same page on this. Some dude named D'Andre Williams, who's a future NBA general manager, congratulations DeAndre for his, setting up your career ahead of you.

Says watching EMA versus Katie film RN, what is that, rewind, I guess? Right now. Right now. Oh, right now. Excuse me. EMA was kind of locking you up at Katie 3-5. We went right at him. Yes. That's what you do. If you want to get a response

from Kevin Durant, say something negative and tag him, and he will probably respond. So Kevin did. He said, good film study. Ain't going to lie. It was a wrestling match. I looked over to the ref one time and he was like stop all that effing crying. He was an OG

so he sounded like my uncle when he said I had to lock in real quick. So he made so Kevin Durant was I mean Emma Doka was physically defending Kevin Durant. Kevin Durant looks at the referee and is like yeah, hey he's being pretty physical

and hemi O'Doka says that. Stop all that crying. That sounds like EMA docket to a T. E. Mae Adoka was asked about it yesterday, and he's like, I'm 6'5. How can I block him down? There's no chance. But I'm going to tell you something about your Rockets coach, ladies and gentlemen. And I'm not talking on a turn because it was quoted in multiple reports. He may give zero Fs, right, Ross? Have that be a fair assessment there?

Yes. When you call LeBron a soft-ass B, yes. You give zero Fs. correct I don't know if you did you ever grow up with anybody that you played with that was just the 100% S talker among your buddies that was like your your friend's school and y'all went to church together or you were together in the boy scouts or you hung out in the neighborhood because you guys

were bros and you went to dances together and you hung out with the movies and stuff but when you get on an athletic field, whether it was a baseball field, a basketball field, or a football field, basketball court, he wore your ass out. That's who E. Mae Adok is. He is so soft-spoken, at least in my dealings with him. But you get him on a court, and he just has this material that he does not care if he hurts your feelings. He's a menace on the pickleball court is what you're saying. I'm saying I wouldn't go play put-putt golf with him. You're going to let that windmill hit hit your ball, you dumbass. You know what I mean?

He would blind talk you there. He'd blank talk if you guys were going to play bingo. I like that. I respect that. Yeah, he's a trash talker. He was trash talking to young Kevin Durant back of the day. All I could tell you is there are sometimes that you and I will be talking to EMA on a weekly visit with us, and then he will have come from.

fresh off the court and I'll find one of the assistant coaches before the games and their head will be down. I'm like, everything okay you heard and he goes, yeah, he may, it was just very competitive today. Meaning not throwing elbows, but just like insulting your heritage, basically. And everything you stand for. That's why I'm never playing, I'm never playing pickleball with him. I don't, look, look, you got a lot with me, you got a lot of make fun of. My ivory white skin, my lack of hair. Yeah, he'd probably just get angry with you.

you definitely can be on his team my lack of bulk my stamina would be an issue I want no part of if well here's the thing it's if I'm on E-May's team he's going to be just as mean to me as he was on the other side of it yeah

get your pick-a-ball game up Matt before you step on the court you know what I'm going to be like I'm going to go with I got a bad back coach I can't play it's a good idea all right to tell the truth is up next Gentlemen, I have four takes. Three of them, I believe.

One, I do not. So, Ross, how many? One lie. There you go. You figured it out. 713, 212.790. 713, 212.1.790. But actually, in Houston, Texas, I do know how to tell the truth.

And we're going to do it right here on Sports Talk 790. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 713, 212, 579. Every Monday we play the tell the truth, and it's very simple. We ask our friends, Ross, and Jonathan to figure out which of the four takes I don't believe. Three of them, I believe. One I do not. Jonathan, how many lies am I telling you then?

One. There you go. Got it. Gentlemen, take number one. The Astros. I have made my final decision about the July 31st deadline, which is coming up in about two and a half weeks. the Astros are going to have to go good a pitcher at the deadline. I don't know when Erigetti is coming back.

I don't know if and when Luis Garcia and Christian Javier coming back, and I do not trust Lance McCullors all the way through. You're going to have to go get a pitcher. You just cannot exclusively rely on Hunter Brown and Framber Valdez get you the rest of the way. They're going to have to go get a pitcher. They must get a pitcher? They must get a pitch, in my opinion. It's strictly an opinion.

Just like they must win on Friday. Well, that's part of the reason why I think I had my take. Number two, there's going to be so much arguing over the next year. And you're already seeing at the SEC Media Days today about this future 16-teen-team college football playoff determining how many teams from each conference get in, if it's 5 plus 11, if the Big Ten gets four, the SEC gets four, the Big 12 gets two. There's going to be so much wrangling about it. It's going to delay this process.

We're not going to see the 16-team tournament until at least 2030. This is going to cause this much of an up-upor because you're not going to be able to get the haves and the have-nots to agree. All right? That's number two. Take number three. The challenge system is going to work so. well at this All-Star game tomorrow in Atlanta that I believe we're going to have it

ready in time for the 2006 Major League Baseball season. Challenge system will work beautifully tomorrow. People will like it. It's on a grandiose stage. Owners will say, let's make it happen. And number four, Cooper flagged, the number one overall pick

of the Dallas Mavericks of the NBA. He got shut down after two, games of the Summer League. I have no problem with that at all. They play four to five depending on their scheduling and how far they go and how if they win games there, Mavericks over the weekend said two was plenty for us. He done. I'm okay with that.

So the four takes again are the Astros are going to have to go get a pitcher at the deadline. There's going to be so much, take number two is there's so much arguing about the 16-team college football playoff, but it won't see it until at least 2030. The challenge system is going to work so well at the All-Star game that we're going to see it for the 2020-6 season. And number four, I have

zero problem with Cooper flagging shutting it down after two games in Summer League. Which one of those? Am I not telling the truth? How are we feeling, Jonathan? I was feeling good. And then he repeated them, and now I'm not to feel too high. Oh, really?

Huh. Second guessing. Listen to your heart. I think... The Cooper flag is an easy one. We already know he believes that. You think so? I agree with you on that one.

I mean... But you know, you ever know... This is the thing, though. You have to get inside the mind of a madman, Jonathan. It's about what Matt believes. Wait a minute. I'm right here, guys. You can't say that about me.

I know I'm way from you, but... It's not about what he believes. That's about the athlete's health. He wouldn't, you know... What a fool believed. Okay, that was too harsh. I was just quoting the song, Matt. I know.

I'm with you on that one. I think he loves the challenge system. We talked about it being here in 2026. Right? Or you were thinking about that one, Jonathan? Uh-oh, you're pausing. I was thinking about, so I think his lie, if I'm going to say right now, I think his lie is the challenge system,

but the other one that I'm stuck on is the pitcher, that the, I was doing a pitcher, because we wouldn't talk about a bat and left-handed bat, and I guess you can try to get a pitcher with that. They need a pitcher, too. depending on who's coming back. I mean, I guess he could be lying on that one because he thinks Javier, but there's no guarantees

with Javier, Garcia, Erigeti, setbacks and all that type stuff. And Matt's been very adamant with the umpires and umpire union. I'm going to go with number two because, no, the SEC and the Big Ten are, they can argue all they want. They're going to strong arm these people

and they're going to get more money. I think if he can believe number two, but that's way wrong. So I'm going to go with two. I'm going to go with three. I don't think he's going to believe the chances is going to go that way where it's implemented.

All right. So, Ross, you say two. Jonathan, you say three. I'll knock out two right away. The Astro is absolutely sure go good at pitcher at the deadline. So you guys write about that. Because I don't trust anybody from what I'm hearing about anything about these pitchers being close to being ready. Just don't believe it. Number two, I have no problem with Cooper flag shutting it down.

Have you watched Summer League games, boys? They're glorified pickup games. Yeah, yeah. and the last thing you need is somebody getting hurt, especially when you're 1-1, and you are the only thing of the saving grace to keep Maverick fans without jumping off bridges. You pick the two ones that are the most interesting to me. And I hate to say this, but Ross is right. I did not tell the truth on number two.

They are, in fact, they are having a difficult time trying to organize it. But Ross, as we've talked about, there's too much money on the table. to add a layer of games, they'll get it sorted out. Money, money, money, money, money. Give us more money, college football, more money. They will sort it out. There is a standoff right now between the Big Ten and the SEC, but it will not take five years of them to figure it out

because you're not leaving four, three or four more years of additional money on the table. So unfortunately, number two is not the truth. I had to say shame on Jonathan three was an easy one. I felt like. You guys really think that the child system is going to be that. They did it in preseason as well. They did in this. It's all setting up.

This has not been working here. You guys are talking about how it's the human element. They've been testing it in AAA. Now, we've been saying the players don't like it. I'm just telling you the players haven't been all important. I think the players like the challenge system. Yeah. Yeah.

But they do not like the full automatic ball strikes zone. Yeah, that's not coming. So sadly, Jonathan, you're winning percentages at about 0.85. Yeah, it's like a point. It's okay. It's okay. I tried to stare at them. You know, these young.

kids, you try to steer him in the right direction. You're the Bryce Matthews of Art to tell the truth line. I never tell a bad. I'm just kidding, Bryce. I'm just kidding, Bryce. I feel bad. I feel bad. I actually feel bad for him, too. I do. I think he's up too early. But it's because of necessity. I mean, Jake Myers is out.

He's put a couple balls in play. Yeah, I mean, there's been five strikeouts and seven played appearances. Thankfully, he got Sunday off. kind of see the field, if you will? Yes. Slow down. Clear his mind.

He's ready for, he'll be ready Friday. Maybe. Tim and Katie on 7 out of. Hello, Tim. Yes, great to hear from me, Tim. How are things? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, the show is great, isn't it? It's the best show ever. Thank you very much, Tim for that. Tim's gone. All right. I've only teased this twice, Ross. The last time is the charm. There is an Astro great.

One of the all-time greats that... And you know how we talk about Astros' Twitter being a little dangerous occasionally, Rossi? You're a salty bunch. They're a salty bunch when it comes to an all-time Astro great. We'll tell you about that next. 1142 on Sports Talk 790. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90.

All right, I want to make sure I'm very clear when I tell you this. my five favorite astros of all time. And they happen to all be very good, too, in no particular order. I've said that told you that Jose Al Tuvei is the greatest astor of all time, and I will not step away from that. My favorite astro of all time is Nolan Ryan. But on my list, it's Nolan Ryan. It is Jose Al Tuvei.

It's Alan Ashby because I was in his astro buddy in 1980. Okay. I'm going to go with Jose Cruz. I just loved saying Cruz and I was a kid. And probably my fifth favorite astro, it was Jeff Bagwell, because he was spectacular, home runs, rookie of the year, should have been an MVP, played a brilliant first base, ran well, smart, just knew the game.

Now, Jeff did not end his career the way they didn't want it to. His arm obviously gave out on him, and it was disappointing, but he's still, in many respects, some say the greatest astro of all time. I have him at number two. And obviously, he has taken a little bit of a hit, not a little bit, excuse me, a big hit by his general manager skills, i.e. the Jose O'Brien signing. Was he really involved in the Montero stuff? Was it more Aubreyu? I want to think it was more Abraeu, right?

Definitely the Abraeu signing. I mean, he flew to Florida to convince him to sign, apparently. and decided to tell Jim Crane to give him the extra year. Remember that? I know that for sure. I don't know what the role was with the Rafael Montaro signing, but of course at that time, there was no general manager, and Jim Crane was leaning on the advice of a brain trust that included Jeff Pagwell. Yeah.

So he's taken a hit on that, for sure. I like him in the booth. I think he gives you a ridiculously good player experience anecdotal thing, that a lot of guys can't give you. Now, Jeff certainly gives that to you, too. It's just a different, it's a change of pace. What I want to have Jeff Bagwell doing 162 Astros games? No, but I think when he fills in for Blummer, it's fine.

I don't have any issues with Jeff Bagwell doing color analysis on those games. Rossi, Astros, Stoterer, who talked about earlier today, can be a dangerous bunch, and they don't agree with me. He certainly lacks polish, but he's not a bad. broadcaster so I mean that's forgivable to me I will say like he he's kind of a little you know how you know I like analytics and you know all that type of stuff and he he always rails against it so he's a little old school for me but I don't find it offensive or terrible or anything like that and as you said look even if I disagree what Jeff Bagwell says he he's got a

career OPS a 948 and I don't so I mean I just want to run through a few tweets that I've seen Jeff Babwell's performance over the weekend. Are these Bagwell overreactions? B.O's? I had B.O. on my flight on Saturday. It wasn't for me. It was a guy next to me. We lose every game Jeff Bagwell fills into broadcast Astros games. Not like that, but he's awful at it.

I wish he would follow Bizio's lead and remain in the stand, never be heard from again. Next guy. Jeff Bagwell is so boring. His voice is like a really quiet vacuum. Yeah, like I said, lacking, he doesn't, he's not like boisterous or loud. He's lacking some broadcasting pause, but he's not a broadcaster. I mean, we have to remember that. Jeff Bagwell might be the worst color commentator of all time. Okay, that's too much.

Absolutely impossible to listen to Jeff Bagwell commentator on the broadcast. Please no mas. Jeff Bagwell in the booth is the only thing that would make me watch something other than the asteros today. Please make it stop. Oh, my God. It's a pool. He was only on, he wasn't on Friday. It was a Fox broadcast.

Two games. Yeah, it was a Fox broadcast on Saturday. Oh, this is a mean one. Did Jeff Bagwell play his first base at Yappelbees? Ooh. That was kind of funny. So it makes me think, is there anybody that is in our life that we loved as a player? And I'm not talking about you and me because I, look, if Jeff Bagwell was to walk into my room right now,

I'd sit down and have a glass of juice with him or whatever and talk shop with him. I like Jeff. And again, in my mind, Jeff Bagwell is the second greatest astor of all time. Regular season numbers are better than Altuvase, but the post season for me counts. But that's a different argument. I like Jeff Bagwell. I just think the slander's tough. And, you know, he did have a rocky post-baseball career, self-admitted.

and has turned the corner on that, which I'm very happy for. But who have we ever dealt with in our Houston sports fandom Rossi of a guy that we loved as a player, but we don't like him now that he's long from the field of competition? This is tough. Yeah. It's not just a good Astro. It's one of the quote-unquote Mount Rushmore Astros. I think it's also, yeah, a lot of younger people who didn't watch him play,

so they don't even really have the context of how great he was. 30-30 seasons. Great. great base runner great defensive first baseman too yeah you want at least one goal of yeah remember when somebody was going to like lay down a bunt and he would be basically like 10 feet down the line

to try to get that bad boy now now to be to be fair I want him nowhere near the front office yeah that's that's fair as well and I think everybody would probably agree with that even Jeff would agree with that it's like I'm doing that anymore And Jeff did have a cup of coffee as the Astros hitting coach. I want to say 2012, 13, somewhere in that range.

And he's like, yeah, I like being around the guys, but I don't want to put the time in. I mean, at least he acknowledged that he doesn't want to be a 9 to 5 baseball guy. And in many respects is more than that because baseball coaches, in fact, work harder because they're looking at film and they're studying pictures. And he's like, that's not me. I can help out when necessary. I go to spring training once a year, put the uniform on and talk to some guys, hang around the cage. But that's not me. And I respect that he knows what his own limitations are.

I don't think the Astros put Jeff Bagwell on a broadcast booth for him to be the battering ram for 72 hours. And that's exactly what he's being done. And I've kind of feel bad for him. He's the second greatest astro of all time, period. Greatest Astro of all time. And second. He's the greatest. And so is, yeah, I understand.

People, like I said, I think it's young people who don't have the context for what he was. his career, don't have the reverence for him that maybe you or I have. And the only way they know him is, well, making some bad signings. And then, like I said, not the most polished broadcaster ever. So it's not an I just don't get it for me. I mean, I get it. I just disagree. Dad be like, who's the second greatest rocket at all time?

James Hardin. Well, that'd be a lot of signer, too. Are you going, Moses Malone? Did he play long enough to you? Yeah, but he played for so many different teams. I don't even think even the biggest Mo Malone fans recognize him much as far as rocket career. I mean, he really took off from a stardom spot. Was it like six years of the rockets or somewhere around there?

Yeah, but I mean, at that point, the NBA just wasn't on the radar. When he was playing against Showtime and the beat the Lakers in, what, 84 or 83, I mean, that really put him on the map. They went to San Antonio at Milwaukee, Atlanta. He bounced around all over the place. Yeah, it's James Hard. But there's, it's James Hardin. James Hardin gets the same treatment. So let me ask you this as we wrap up this part of the show.

Does Jeff Bagwell deserve the same treatment that James Hart is getting about being post-wrott? No, that's also different because people, well, actually, people didn't like James Hardin in his playoff performances. But it's not like Jeff Bagwell got like 500 played appearances in the playoffs. They were out in three games because they were going against like the greatest. I give a little bit of leeway with the playoffs because they're playing. I mean, how many times they go get? against the Braves with like Maddox,

glavin, and smolts, and yeah, they got carved up. I just, I didn't like it. I just, again,

change your pace to me. Jeff Blum is more polished. Jeff Blum has become a very talented broadcaster. It does a nice job of mixing in the metrics of the sport with anecdotal things. Good storyteller. Yeah, I mean, who,

I mean, I don't know. I thought that was kind of unnerving to see. One of the greatest, Astros of all time, arguably one or two, getting the slander. Now, again, if he was all of a sudden, like, if you saw a photo of him or video of him breaking things down with Dana Brown and his club and his, like, sweet, then I can see, all right, then you go to Twitter and you go run and say, no, get out of there.

You know what I mean? That's one thing. He's just doing a game. Well, people are upset. And as Vero tweeted in, Drexler was horrible on TV. It's true. as his number retired for the Rockets. Yeah, that was more for less, though, I think.

Anything else? All right. Ross, things are going to be all right for the Astros, as long as I go get a pitcher. Such a jam, sports RV. I'm going to go and we'll drive today throughout the beautiful New England area. Chris Cross going.

You know what? I don't trust your music. I trust the opinion of one, Jonathan J.K. Allen. You know what Matt? You know what? It's a certain vibe to it. It's not something you can turn on every day. You know what I mean?

You got to be in a same mood. Yeah. So I can see it. It's a got rock mood. Yeah. And you're over there on Rhode Island, you know, by the drive around. Yes. I can feel.

I get that. I get that. Thank you very much. We got to wake up, Ross. Let me tell you what Ross. Let me tell you what Jonathan and Ross. Chris Cross was the, They'll make you jump.

Yeah, Chris Cross is great. Chris Cross is to Yacht Rock is to what Kendravar is to hip-hop. Well, hip-hop's an actual genre with, like, awards. Nobody's ever won the best Yacht Rock album of the year award. It's not real. They should. It's not a real genre to the day? Or is that just like back in the air.

There's yacht rock radio on my satellite radio. It's just made up. It's just made up, John. They have a documentary made about Yacht Rock. Doesn't make it real. Let me tell you something. They had a documentary made about Bigfoot. It doesn't make them real.

The Yacht Rock Review comes back to Houston at the Rouse of Luz. We're going to go and you're going to love it. You'll be the only one under 70. We're going to dance. We're going to have a couple of pops. We're going to be catching the vibe. We're going to have our shirts on with three buttons down. We're going to have our sailors hat on.

We're going to be good to go. It'll be the life of the party. I wish you could see Ross's face right now that. Oh, I've worked with. with him for a long time. I know what, whatever you like, you like, Matt. Thank you. Ross, it's that bad a vibe. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, Jonathan. Honestly, it's not that good. I mean, it's fine. You know what, Jonathan? I could take you about anywhere, like, to a restaurant and try some stuff, and you're like, this isn't horrible. I mean, you're, you have a great music pal. You're accepting of other people.

Food, not so much, but music, I definitely have been heard. I have a big range. Oh, by the way, did you how many sauerkraut this weekend. No, I did. No, I don't know where to get sourcrow. Where does one acquire sourcrow he's saying? You can go to Rennie and Riggies and get a Rubin. Or you can just go to the grocery store. Just get sourcrout right.

It's next to the pickles. Wouldn't you think, right? Yeah, it's pickled cucumber, right? Yeah, when I try it, I'm going to be on air. I'm going to give it a full rating. And I listen to all kinds of different music. Matt. You just, you don't listen to anything past 1985. You're the one pigeonholing yourself. You're saying, you don't listen to anything new. You listen to the same 105 songs from

1976. So I don't want to hear it. Man, you got to listen to the Martin stuff, man. What's going on? You got to do both. Exactly. All right, send me a playlist. Astros are off today until Friday. And boy, you're going from the, uh, what, to the frying pan? What's the cliche term or I'll see on that? From the what to the frying pan? Excuse me? Whatever. The oil?

Yeah, you're going to play the Mariners in Seattle who've just swept the Detroit Tigers. You're five in front of them. You get swept by them. You're, you're, mm-hmm. Oh. You're going. Just saying. Huh.

From the fish to the frying pan? No. From the aquarium to the frying pan? No, it's some of the frying pan. Now I've got to look it up. I need these things. From the frying pan. I don't know.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire? There you go. I knew it was something like that. Well, you had it backwards. I did it backwards. Let's talk to the great people. Isn't the frying pan bad too, though? I think the other one's good.

No, it's from bad to worst. Yeah, it's not bad. Five games up is fine. Gotta win the series in Seattle. Got to call those Mariners fans down. Oh, the must win series in July. Let's go, baby. I didn't say that.

Here we go. I didn't say it. Well, somehow the season's still going after losing the must win game on Friday. Well, why did I do that? So I never, seriously, the reason why I brought this up is they didn't get into their hotel so 6 o'clock in the morning. It's overrated. I don't want to hear about players being so tired of cute. They crushed Lance McCullors.

Yeah, they skip BP because McCullors is throwing. You hear that Astros? That's Rossville or Al saying that. It's a joke. Where's my rim shot? LMJ, if you're listening, that was Ross, not me. Oh, whatever. I've been on McCullors Island all season long, and I ain't getting off, baby.

He's bouncing back. All right. What's he going to do against the Mariners this weekend? No hitter. It's the road game, so it's going to be good. Exactly. Just throwing that out there. All right, 713-212-5-790.

We'll start talking to you, Will, and to Vince and the rest of you. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Ross, what is today's edition and believe it or not at 150? Hell, I know. Love Island? I'm not doing Love Island. I have no idea what's going on in Love Island. This show sucks.

How do you say it sucks when you've never seen it before? I just know. I've never seen it before, and I believe it does suck. Although the females in my traveling party were both watching it on their phones yesterday. Wow. The ratings for that thing must be huge. It's like the biggest. It is unbelievably.

Remember the phenomenon when American Idol first got going? And this is, and help me out, Jonathan, this, this is Love Island. has been around for a few years, correct? I know. It blew up like a lot last season, but now since that season kind of blew up, everybody came to the next season. Yeah, why has it gone so viral? Why this year, why is this year so much crazier than previous years? Because the contestants on it are like, they're for the money.

They're not for the purpose. So they're like, they're kind of, like, it's like, I can't even describe it. It's a controversy is what's happening. There was two, like, racist people on the show. Oh, my God. They had to get kicked off the show because they had social media. pulled up and they were saying slurs and so like that oh you know what i'm gonna pass on that it's like i'm gonna watch it's just that it's like a bunch of controversy on top of the show i'm okay watching the

wimbledon final instead of love island speaking of wimbledon final really quick what the hell happened on saturday my god six love six love not great 57 minutes yikes yeah that was an american drubbing and by way i kept sitting on the twitter you whatever that woman's name is you go girl and you go girl and you go girl she's like get out i don't want to go anywhere but get out of this stadium yeah Amanda Anna Samova said three times fast no what's the equivalent of losing 6 6 6 6 oh 6 oh yeah 6 would be uh being shut out in an NFL playoff game 35 nothing something like that yeah i mean this is a that was the final finals of the win the last one the two best one yeah it's like going to the

super bowl and losing 35 to nothing yep who Mm-hmm. Breakfast in Wimbledon. You couldn't even get a piece of toast in at Wimbledon after that. That's pretty good, man. Thank you. It's your line of the week so far on Monday. Uh-oh.

We got a tweet in about what Joe Espada did. Oh, geez. Mm-hmm. I didn't see it, so I'll probably get the person muted. Jones says, tell Jonathan to go to the refrigerated section, either dairy or deli area is much better than the candile. Mm-hmm. Some fresh sourcrop.

Just Google Sourcrop recipes. Make your own. Don't do that. Don't listen to him. All right, phones are next. 713212. 570. Oh, what a jam. This is the first song for a yacht rock playlist on YouTube.

Hmm. This is yacht rock? Yeah, absolutely. Really? name of the group. I know that. I know that. Huh.

Let's turn it into sports. Real quick. Keep the song up. What one player that's not wearing an Astro Rocket, Texan uniform you want right back

right now? Prime Hakeem Elijah one. Oh, okay. I think you're going to go the past. Okay. What about current? Oh, you mean current. Mm-hmm.

George Springer's a good season? He is having a good season. George Springs. I think of this is more like soft. I don't know. Yad Rock, to me, has more of a day type. No, I'm not the arbore of made-up genre

anyways. I mean, there's no rules to this stupid made-up genre. But like sailing, it has, you know, it has yacht and boat connotations. Shut up, turn it up. You got to tell me? Yeah, I see it.

Hey, Jonathan, play this for a girl tonight. what happens. I don't know if you know this one. You know what? I will. I don't know. I guess this has more of a nighttime feel to me. Like Breeze, okay, that's amazing. Like, again, it's not a yacht rock song is not real. But I get it. It's breezy.

You would listen to it on a boat. Well, see, that's what I'm saying? You have to open it up. It's not, it's yacht rock, but it doesn't necessarily mean you're kind of boat listening to this. Well, then what does it mean if it's yacht rock? You're not on a yacht? If you're not a yacht, where are you listening to it? It's the Bible a yacht. This is so stupid. This made up John

He's so emotional about it. How does it describe it? Yeah. Who made up the rules? I think it's really, my guess is if you really want to describe what yacht rock is, it's a light rock song produced between, say, 1976 and 1983. So if it's 84 is the cutoff? I would say, yeah, 84 would probably be, you know, maybe 85, but,

No more than that. Once you get to 85, 86, you're too past. The definition is the link between city pop and yacht rock. And it was like in 1980s. Oh, boy. City pop. So it's like, this is just what Wikipedia since this is what we use over here. I'm just like, you know, it's just,

West Coast sound redirects is West Coast pop and rock aesthetic. Seeing for a California sound, you know, like it's, it's just a mixture between the city and you're going to the beach. bay, that type of vibe. You have more of that urban feel to it. Wikipedia also says the genre is soft rock, which I would 100% agree with, and blue-eyed

soul. This is just made up. This is so ridiculous. I love it. Let's go to the phones. People love Yacht Rock. We're going to play Yacht Rock the rest of the day. People love it. Will on 7. This is Michael Jackson's thriller

is Yacht Rock? This is oh my God. It says it's a Wikipedia. This is your definition. It's a wikipedia, though. It's a made-up genre. Sorry, go ahead. Hi, Will. Hey, what's going on, Matt?

Can you hear me? What's got today? Yes, sir. I just wanted to get in on that Jeff Bagwell conversation. Go ahead. When I heard you, when I heard you say that you was going on Twitter for what people were saying about Jeff Bagwell, I already knew what they were going to say. They were going to say the same thing that I've been thinking for the,

all the years that he substitutes and comes on the Astros broadcast. Every time I realize he's going to be on a broadcast I cringe. He's the most boring speaker ever heard in my life. Everything

he's saying can be true, but I still want to hear from him. I'd rather watch paint dry. He's that boy. He's the most boring speaker ever heard in my life. And I just and when you see it had some guys, had some statements from Twitter,

I already knew what they were going to say. Because I've been thinking it for years, and I just had it confirmed by other people. There's a lot of people out there to feel the exact same way. Love him as a player, love it with a baton of his hand, horrible when he's behind the microphone. And that's all I had to say about it.

Okay, well, thank you. I would just respectfully disagree. Again, I don't know if I want Jeff Baggle doing 100 games, but if he wants to do five or six a year, I got no problem with it. I think he gives you, you know, again, he's not a polished broadcaster. He never said he was going to be one. The Astros probably asked him to do it as a favor. And he does give a little bit of, I do like Ross's player inside of here.

Like, he's got a little Tony Romo in him. Like, I'd expect this pitch, I'd expect this placement, I'd expect this defender to play that. I mean, he's got a little bit of him. But again, just, I don't know. I don't know. I think a lot of it, frankly, to me, is the resentment towards what he did with the Jose Ibrayu contract when he was like the assistant, the assistant of the assistant general manager when the team didn't have a general manager is the reason why people get so mad at him. I think you add it all up. I mean, you give people a reason to have a negative view of a person anyways. And then as we said, he's not the most energetic, talkative guy in the first place. He's just not, you know, dude didn't go to broadcasting school. Not that you have to go to broadcasting school. school, but you know what I'm saying.

And he just kind of does his things in his own very casual way. Some are calling it boring. I don't find it boring. I think he does have a lot of good insight. Like you said, Matt, he's also trying to guess, like setting up this pitch. He does a good job, I think, of illuminating the game within the game and guys backing guys off with fastballs.

And then here and here's, I'd like to see another fastball here and stuff like that. And pitch sequencing. Yeah, I just don't think it's as bad as everyone says, but as I said, I understand where people are coming from. It is funny. I don't think has Bichio ever done a game before? I don't think so. I don't think he has.

Now, he's come on in the middle of the game for like an inning, but I think Craig is very comfortable being just good old. I'm going to live in my retirement. I made good money. I'm a special assistant to the GM. If they know, if they want my opinion on something, they'll call me. But he's really not done a lot of being out there, especially in the baseball management side of things.

and each zone. I mean, if I had $50 million sitting in the page, you probably wouldn't see me much either, right? I'd hope we could meet every now and then, Matt, for some barbecue. Ooh, we got barbecue this Thursday, too, looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to you canceling somehow. M.T. Ross Barbecue Tour begins this stop number two this Thursday.

Looking forward to it. We're going to share a beef rib? No, it's only on Saturdays there. Can we stop saying? sharing of beef rib? What's wrong? Beef ribs are delicious. Why can't two grown men share beef rib?

Yeah, it's two and a half pounds. You're going to eat it by yourself, Jonathan? You know what? You need some help with that beef rib. You know, you're right. You're right. Why can't grown people share a beef rib? Okay.

Yeah. It's two and a half pounds. It's as big as your head. We've shared desserts. You need to share it. We've shared all sorts of things. That's true. Moving on.

1230 on Sports Talk 7-9 events. David Bill. Hang tight. We'll get to you next. 1234 sports talk 790 Matt we and Ross with you on this Monday real fast for we go back on the phones we got a lot of folks I want to talk I want to get to you guys Ross some of us unfortunately have had our Twitter accounts hacked I've had mine happen one time it's not fun you got hacked twice paralyzing was it twice that's right once it was a Turkish guy and then once you had to make your other you made your other account sports empty blessing did you see who got his account hacked this weekend yeah yeah You got to stop making Matt is the best your password. It's too easy to guess. That's true.

Actually, my new password is Faddle Sports RV and IG. All right. Instagram at SportsRV. I'm still following back. Let's go. Did you see who got hacked this weekend? Was that be Elmo? That would be Elmo.

Oh, my gosh. I did see that. Yikes. Yikes. Yikes. I'm just leaving at that. I don't know why you're bringing this up. Well, I'm just saying, we're not going to tell you what it said.

Yeah, thank you. Look, you can chuckle, but it's just you could clearly tell he was hacked. Yeah, unless I'm only anti-Semitic on us. I was thinking it was maybe AI genera, but I don't think it was. I think it was honestly somebody tried to hack him. What do you mean AI generated? I mean, you can Photoshop, you can Photoshop a tweet. Oh, yeah.

Back at it. Vince and Katie on the Matt Thomas show with Ross at 1235. Hello, Vince. Hey, guys. How you doing? Good, Vince. What's up with you? Oh, man.

Hey, interesting bit of information. The keyboard player for player was my next door neighbor when I lived in Santa Monica. Shut the front door. Nope. That's the God's honest truth, my friend. Well, let's get them on the show. We can do a whole hour of player cover songs. That would be great, man.

You guys are cracking me up today. So I wanted to talk about Bagwell, and I don't know if you guys have ever noticed this, but everything on the broadcast is sponsored, whether it's a power company or a hospital system chain or an H-BAC company or whatever. Everything is sponsored, and Callis and Blum are really great at always calling out. the broadcaster. Every single thing they do, they make sure that they call out the broadcaster. And I have heard them correct Bagwell because he won't do it. He never, ever calls out the sponsor. And I have heard Bagwell say, I don't care about that. That doesn't matter to me. And he just wants to talk about baseball. And I actually find it kind of refreshing.

I enjoy it when Bagwell's on every now and then. And the whole broadcast. doesn't seem like, you know, a nine-hitting commercial. Well, we here at Sports Talk 790 appreciate our sponsors, Vince. Thank you for the phone call. Sponsorships makes it world go round. So maybe Jeff just says, basically, you know what? I got a partner. He can do all the rut liner reads, basically, right?

Yeah. The drive of the game. The diamond play of the game. Yeah, you go all that stuff. Call out of the bullpen brought to you by certain wireless carrier. Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest, and I've said this before. You know, I think Jeff Blum is an amazing storyteller. I think Jeff Bagwell is a good storyteller.

I, again, to each is on. Everybody has their own preferences. I do believe the Space City TV broadcast is a little too metricy for me, honestly. Hmm. Not like it's something that I can't listen to, because I think Todd and Jeff do a great job. But they do get into the weeds a little bit more than I would. But that's my own personal preference.

And I think when Jeff does come on the broadcast, he doesn't like all that stuff. So he's not going to bring that to the table. Yeah. So I would just say to each his own, right? Yeah. Well, he's come around on exit velocity, Matt. Jeff Bagwell has.

Have you yet? No. Okay. No. He was talking about that on the broadcast. he's like, yeah, you need exit velocity to get some hits. I've come around on OPS Plus. I've come around on.

What else I come around on? Whip. Yeah, whip is not, yeah, I wouldn't call that a. No, it's not new. A Sabre metric. Launch angle does nothing for me. Exit Velo does minimal for me. Whether or not a catch is a four or a five star,

I could give two craps. Oh, the X. SBA is the biggest fraud stat of it all. I'm not saying that the Astros broadcast does it, but that's the one I just go. Either it's a hit or not, period. Okay. And you know what Ross does?

You know what Ross does to fight me back on this, and it does make some sense? 40% chance of rain. Sometimes, well, yeah, that's also because, isn't that 40% of the area, though? I used to think that, but if you said the greater Houston area is a 40% chance of rain,

that would then indeed say that 40% of Houston's guaranteed rain, and that's not necessarily the case all the time. That's what they mean. Well, they're lying to us then. Let's go to David on 790 at 1239. Hi, David. How's it going? Good.

So my whole thing about the whole Bagwell deal is Bagwell is a baseball guy, and the people that don't appreciate it have only been Astros fans since 2017 and probably think LeBron is better than Kobe and Michael. Jordan. Well, he's definitely better than Kobe. Baseball's an old school or bagel was an old school baseball guy that people that are not baseball people just don't appreciate. That's all I'm looking.

Yeah, that's what part of it. We did talk about earlier is that maybe the older, the younger generation doesn't know the value of Jeff Bagel. Like, for instance, thank you for the phone call. Ross, who is running to Twitter in 2025 in complaining about you? Jeff Bagwell on a TV broadcast. I would think a 26-year-old would... There's all the things they're going to complain about,

but to complain about Jeff Bagwell would not be on their topics of a list of topics. Well, I think the kids are complaining. Yeah, if you're 26, well, he retired in, what, 05? Yeah. If you were born in 99, you never saw Jeff Bagwell play? But, I mean, aren't you, if you're 26 running the Twitter looking for the 4U tab to see if that girl's mom is hotter than her, you know, that kind of stuff, or would you hit that kind of thing?

Aren't you running for that? you're not 26 and you're doing that okay what I do in my life is my own business okay I'm sorry what I'm asking for is does a 26 year old watching an Astros game going

God I hate Bagwell does he run into Twitter and saying these things? Yeah why not? I don't know definitely yeah I had people in high school

back when Chris Paul was a rocket going and giving him death threats after like it's just That seems like a little much. That's a ridiculous. That's the type of people that do it. They don't have a lot.

All right. I'm going to go look. By the way, LeBron is better than Kobe all time. I mean, come on. Let's see. I'm trying to find. I want to look to see. I want to look for a Jeff Bagwell slight.

And the problem is that I can't tell like. Well, no. Generally, it's going to be some loser who's being anonymous. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I can't bell to all these people. Oh, this. Oh, sunny days.

hates bagwell and he's a Tottenham Hotspur fan, loves the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Astros, MMA, food, baseball cards, and PC Christian Javier. PC Christian Javier? And then all by 22 hours ago, he said, wow, Cam Smith, you lazy POS. It's funny, you would never,

sunny days, you would never go to Cam Smith and call him a lazy POS. You just wouldn't do it. Cam Smith, lazy POS? Smoot that person. Sos are so freaking wasteful. Next. What the hell happened to Mark Coleman's face?

Hashtag UFC. Do you saw that over the weekend? No. Hunter Brown, that was all on you. You gave Ramirez a giant beach ball to hit. Damn, this guy's tough on the local nine. Followed by the Sean Salisbury show. Really?

Yeah, thanks for pointing this person else. It's mute. Welcome to Mutesville. Mute Town, Population, U. I don't. I didn't realize. I didn't mean to do it. I'm sure. I love this guy. Like when Chandler gets in

Cook, I'm sure he's wonderful. I like when Chandler gets in Twitter fights with people. I'm like, oh, let me go ahead and mute that guy. Oh, the best Twitter fights. Like, he'll get in a fight with somebody and he'll ask me if I know these people. I'm like, I don't know these people are. I'm a Twitter lover, not a Twitter fighter.

1243s. I mean, I've gotten it a few scrapes over the years. Ross, let's believe it or not coming up in an hour from now. I don't know. You tell me. What is it? I've given you two fantastic options. What have you said? 713 days ridiculous.

What are the questions about 713 day? We could do Eric Cubs. It's 713, believe it. Let's do it. Eric Codes terrible. We've done that before. All right. I actually, I was bringing up,

has this song played on a serious X-M yacht rot today. Is this song considered Yacht? See, but I don't know because it's all made up. There's arbitrary rules. Players, baby, come back's on there, and I don't think it should be. There's a special place in hell for you for not liking Yacht Rock. Michael Jackson's thriller, according to Wikipedia, is Yot Rock. Let's get off of Wikipedia first.

No, I'm just, no, you went to Wikipedia now. You're trying to get up Wikipedia. You can't change, Jonathan. You can't change the goalposts when you're like, no, it's Wikipedia, guys. This is the movie. This is the authority. And then all of a sudden, when you disagree, you're off of it. Jonathan, we come back.

We're going to play my favorite yacht rock song. Oh, my God. and it's going to irritate my partner and I'm here for it 1245 on Sports Talk 790 so soulful I see you grooving back there on the special closed circuit camera Ross

you see me sing my H excuse me shaking your head Look at this guy. That's what we call you the Puzzlemaster. Oh, that was coarse, though. Imagine you and Adam Spolane and Randy McElroy dancing this song on set on TV last night over on Channel 2?

Yeah, we're talking sports, Matt. Breaking it down. With Michael McDonnell in the background, you'd love that. Which, by the way, this Wikipedia says that Fleetwood Mac's album, rumors, would not be considered Yacht Rock. Yet it was played on Yacht Rock on Sirius XM today, which is that's going to be a lot. believe it or not. I got the whole, I got every song that has been played in the last 24 hours on Yacht Rock. Oh, that's right. You can go to the app and they can give you a listing, correct? Yeah. That's good. But I'm going to start from midnight because otherwise it's like 500,000 songs.

Although, no, there's a lot of repeats already. All right, sweet freedom. What do you think? Jonathan, you just heard it there? I didn't, I was loving it, the start. Then I heard his voice. I was like, ah. Then we got into the chorus. I was like, okay, okay, okay, okay. There you go. I'm a Michael McDonald guy, but I like the vibe. Shaday, smooth operator is Yot Rock? No.

I wouldn't call that Yon. It's played three times on Series X-M in the last 24 hours. Nobody can be perfect, Ross. Nobody can be perfect. Yeah, it's stupid made-up rules. All right. For $1 million, $1 million, M.T. Bucks, can you name the movie that that song, Sweet Freedom was the lead soundtrack song of?

What movie? Paths of Glory. No, it was. called Running Scared. Oh, that was close. Mid-80s movie. It was about a couple of cops that lived in, I think, either Detroit or New York, and they were sent by their leader to go down to Miami for some rest and relaxation.

They wound up getting involved in a big case down. It was kind of like Beverly Hills cops, if you think about it. Okay. The two cops, Billy Crystal, and Gregory Hines, RIP. Billy Crystal as a cop? Yep. Okay. A very entertaining mid-80s movie,

if you happen to be searching on Netflix for something to watch. I'll take your word for it. Running Scared. It's on Netflix? I don't know if it's on Netflix, but I'm sure you can find it somewhere. All right, if I had to pay $3, Matt, it better be good. I wouldn't do that. Find a bootleg copy of it.

Let's go to EZ at 1254 on 7. 790. Easy. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I wanted to take the heat off a little bit off of baggy. And I was going to ask you guys a couple of questions. The top two most hated players by the Astros fans, Bauer, Arolis Garcia, Joe Kelly, or Houston's finest, Mike Fires. And I'll hang up on this, gentlemen. Mike Fires number one.

I would agree with that. Joe Kelly, too. Oh, a roll this is up there. And who is the only one he said? Why do you, well, you hate him because he hits home runs against the Astros. I don't like he... You still hate him.

How about Pools? I hated him for years. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hated Kevin Brown. I hated every member of that 98 Pottery team. I can tell you that for sure. Sterling Hitchcock and the boys?

Oh, you hated the Hitchcock. Yeah. I thought they were going to win it all that year. Bauer 3 Garcia 4. Of those four guys in that list, that's my own go. Mike Fires goes down as the hateest of all time. Now, again, granted. What about a go-go for a sneaky pick?

Carlos Gomez? Is it because he was so bad when he was here? Is that the reason why? Yeah, and then he got traded away and people still hated him. I'm trying to think who the most hated. Does they have to play for the Astor? I guess not. I mean, you're creating your own parameters here.

It's a good list radio. Remember, this is list? Yeah, you asked for all the lists. Yeah, we're going to go a heavy list tomorrow, that's for sure. We're going to a list of yacht rock songs today. Ooh, seriously. Let me tell you, Ross, let's go. And Yacht Rock Review is not coming to Houston this year for some reason.

But the next time it comes, you and I will get some tickets. And we'll go, and I will change your life of the best. No, it's not going to change my life. I mean, the music's not, it's fine. It's just a ridiculous made-up genre with no rules. Yeah, well, who needs rules in life? I mean, why doesn't it have to be characterized by something? If you can argue a lot of music genres have the blurring of the lines.

We talked about R&B and funk and the Billboard's top 100 R&B artists and Pop, how Whitney Houston and Murray Carey were on there, but I think of them more as popularists. Is smooth jazz created by something, or is, that a real genre? I don't know. I'll take your word, whatever you say. No, I don't know. I don't know everything, Matt. You kind of sound like you do. No, I don't. I don't know anything, actually.

Okay. Smooth jazz, I guess, is a real genre? I mean, it's definitely has, I think it, I will say this. I think you recognize smooth jazz more easily than you would yacht rock. Okay, what is jelly roll? What would you describe him as? Jelly roll? I thought he made like country rock stuff, right?

I don't really listen to him. Okay. So it's a country, it's a, somebody say when they're a kid, I want to grow up to be a country rock singer? I think what music does is you find songs that kind of, and you want to create a genre off. And that's what yacht rock. I don't listen to Jilly Roll. No, nobody grows up and saying, I'm going to, I want to win the Grammy for the best Yacht Rock album.

It doesn't exist. Nobody grows up and says, I want to be a Yacht Rock. No, it's made up. Yacht Rock is not a genre. It's a way of life. Wait, hold on. Oh, my God. Just you just rock the same as like punk rock and like the different versions of that?

No, no, no, no. It could not be any further for the truth. You think we just played Michael McDonald and you would consider that punk rock? No, he's not saying it is punk rock, Matt. He's saying like it's like a subgenre. Punk rock is a way... There are people who grow up and say,

I want to do punk rock. Yeah, that's true. Nobody grows up and says I want to do yacht rock. You know what these songs give me is the Kevin Bacon footloose. That's what... Oh, my God. You're just looking more at the Wikipedia page.

I saw it on there too. Footloose is not Yacht Rock. That's an easy one. I guess the question would be, would you play this song? No, it can't be. Okay, I'm asking you. No chance. No.

Here's what. Can you play a Yacht Rock song on a boat or on the beach as you're laying there relaxing? It can be soft. It can be a little bit of a bangor to it, like obviously Sweet Freedom was. Yeah. Are you on a boat? Are you on a ship? Are you at the beach?

Hold on last segment. You said it didn't have anything to do with the boat. I'm just saying, I'm just trying to help you describe it, help you define it. Like, you're not playing Megadeth at the beach. I could. You're not playing Tesla on your pontoon boat. Who's Tesla? That's a 90s hair band.

Okay. Why can't you play Tesla on the boat? Man, if you can't, I guess. Somebody's feeding your lines. Who are you talking to about all this? No, I'm just, I'm talking organically here. You're not playing Aerosmith on your boat, are you? Why not?

Well, sweet emotion on the boat? Why not? I guess you could play sweet emotion. All right, let's move on. Final hour of the show is coming up. If you miss our great... So Aerosmith is Yon Rock, folks. No, it's not.

Don't listen to him. He didn't know what he's talking about. final hour of the show. We're going to play our great moments of the 10th inning show from yesterday, if you missed that. Plus, Reed Shepard's Mixed Reviews at the Summer League. And what else we got?

SEC Media Day. Why isn't Gordy call with some breaking news on what's going on at the SEC Media Days? You would think he'd hand us over some linemen from South Carolina that we've never heard of before. There is a little bit of news out of the SEC Media's. We'll get to that as well.

Plus, believe it or not, is this song, has this song been played on the Yacht Rock Channel on Sirius XM in the last 24 hours? It is 1259 here on Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. Final hour on Matt Thomas Show at Ross 104 here on Sports Talk 790. We look forward to having you with us today for the next 55 minutes. 713-212-5-790. The Astros limp into the All-Star break, having lost five of their last.

last six, including back-to-back series, including all those being played at Dike and Park. Astro is still 16 games above 500. You know, it's funny, Ross, we get a bunch of soundbite sent to us from Josh C, who's our network producer of

the Astros, and it's of the Dana Brown conversation. And I am, I mean, I am thrilled, by and large, on how this team has performed, despite the insane amount of injuries.

From position players to starting rotation, to bullpen guys, to using guys. We figured out earlier in the show it's 35% of the 26-man roster right now for the Astros probably should be a space cowboy. I mean, that's a pretty seismic number. Yes, significant, for sure. And so Josh D.R. producer sends us these cuts of Dana Brown talking about Jeremy Paineer, Yoron Alvarez, Chance McCormick, Spencer. Araggetti and he's doing his job because that's what you do.

You send the sound bites. But maybe I'm not doing my job properly as part of this show by not playing the sound bites because I'm kind of fatigued about updates. Does that make sense to you? Just let me know when they're a line-ups is what you're saying. And I felt like that, I felt like that for actually quite some time. I don't need any more updates. I don't need any more he's throwing on flat ground,

or he's at the West Palm Beach facility. And again, I applaud the Astros for giving the information out, but it took so long for them to get that information out because I think of a lot of media pressure to be more forthcoming. And on top of that, there's so many of them. Like, Yoron's hand was sore, then fractured, then recovered, and then more inflammation. Erigetti gets hit by a baseball, and that was, what, two months ago?

I mean, did the ball crush his hand into 15 pieces? I don't know on that. Seems like it. We haven't heard word one about Chas McCormick in forever. Jeremy Pena's not doing a whole lot. I'm honestly telling you, friends, if we were really bored and we couldn't conduct a radio show, we maybe would probably play on the solid sound bites, but I think, frankly, all it would do would just get you mad.

And I don't want to do that, and it's not necessarily completely all the Astros' fault, but my mentality is if these guys are not on the cusp of being ready after the all-star, like I'll give you a case and point. Jeremy Pena, the question was asked yesterday of Dana Brown, could Jeremy Pena be back in time for the Seattle series coming up Friday in Seattle? And Dana said, well, I don't know if that's going, I'm paraphrasing here. I don't know if he'll be ready for that, but it could be soon after. Ross is soon after three games, two series, two weeks.

Like when I say, Ross, I'll see you soon. Okay. I'm probably not going to see you for a week, right? See you soon. Three to four days. When you said, let's get together soon. Oh, that's going to be two months. That means I can hear from you ever again.

You know what I'm saying? So it to me, and it's because I've been beaten over the head with the sooner rather than a later card, I don't want to talk about these players until I hear XYZ player is coming off the usual list. So short of that, I'm just not overly interested unless Dana Brown says, yes, Jeremy Payne is going to play. And again, he doesn't know. He's guessing as much as anybody else, but he's also responding to a question that's being asked. So it's not his fault. But I just, I've got fatigue over when guys are coming back questions.

Well, Dana needs to be on top of it because it's about two and a half weeks away from the trade deadline. There are too many people, Ross, in my opinion, that are not close enough to being ready, that even if Spencer Erigetti was to rev up and get going, which sounds like he is, he hasn't thrown on a majorling mound in months. The novice baseball expert in my body says he's going to have to go through a completely new spring training. Right? I think he's ramping up towards rehab. I'd have to look at the latest updates, Matt, to give you more on that.

But I think he is getting close to a rehab assignment. And in rehab, you would hope would just be, I don't know, a week or two. Well, I mean, you tell me, four or five starts, four or five days off in between. He's going to go back to starting, so that's got to be at least 20 more days there, right? Well, you can't rehab more than a month. So if they start him, at least the clock is ticking to it. It's going to be within a month. Yeah.

And maybe I'm not doing my job. And again, I apologize. But it's just, it's like I am at the point now that if these guys are not right around the corner, meaning in the next week or so to revamp for the final two months, that's why I said during to tell the truth earlier today, they need to go get a live arm who's ready to go. They need to do that? But... Uh-oh, here comes the butt.

If you also need a left-handed bat, you also don't have a whole lot of resources to trade away. I think that's a line that Dana Brown's going to have to toe is trying to figure out what you can give away, what you can still keep and try to... I understand that it's a bad strategy to hope, but when you don't have much else, if hope's all we got,

then I would understand him. If he doesn't go crazy at the trade deadline, make him move for a starting pitcher, bullpen arm and a and a bat and everybody's like what's Dana Brown doing is sitting on his hand it's like hey we know what it costs last year to get you say cacucci even though those guys didn't end up panning out at the time it was you know it wasn't nothing given up and you've got even less something your number one prospect is up your other your number two prospect is hurt and it's not like those guys are you know thought of Bryce Matthews is your number one prospect he's not all

world right now. Well, the sample size is incredibly small. And look, yes, but I'm saying that to say this, that it's not like you're fully stocked with a bunch of dudes who are banging down the door and then a bunch of other teams are going to be ringing the phone off the hook to try to get. Right.

Is Bryce Matthews a medium rare steak? Delicious and great? Well, if you like medium, it's probably not cooked all the way for your satisfaction. Oh, okay. Well, no, medium rare is a way to get it, man. medium rare is the maximum i'd let you have to buy my rare before you said you liked it oh i do like medium rar i'm a new i'm a medium rar i'm a medium rar guy now here i'll give you one how about this i like

my chocolate chip cookies a little well done what extra christmas yeah don't we no soft no no so you like it hard i like a hard cookie yes harder than a normal cookie i'll eat the cookie if it's out of the pan if it was in the oven for 13 minutes, but I'd rather have the cookie if it was in there for 16. You've got to have a little cookie dough taste. A little. A smidge. Okay.

I just, I don't think the Astros wanted Bryce up here this early. No. This is out of necessity. Out of necessity. Great moments in the 10th inning show are up next. And then after that, how did Bryce Matthews do yesterday? I'll read the stat line and I want no commentary from Raw. I'll need other people instead.

713-212-5-790. Great moments in the 10th inning show. We're next. So I was busy watching the Astros lose to the Rangers yesterday. Then flip the I-Heart Radio app on here in Rhode Island, Ross, where I got to hear the 10th inning show with Dan Matthews. And that gave us this. Right now go with Eric in Bay City.

Eric, what's going on? Yeah, you know, Dan, you just said we could have very well lost all six of those games. And if our manager had his way, we would have lost him last time. He needed that stupid defensive sub for Jose Al-Tubei out in left field. I told Ross two and a half months ago, get Jose Al-Tube out of the lead off spot, and we're going to win games. And guess what we've done since then? We've won games.

Now, if we just get Joe's spot out of this town, we would win a lot more games. I'll hang out of most. You're trying to get me to yell again. Yeah, I'm going to. So if that doesn't force you to yell, this guy from San Antonio, Will. 210, San Antonio. Caleb wants to weigh in. Caleb, what's going on?

Hey, I just want to let you know. I actually went to a Houston Dash game, and weren't a lot of people there. It was really kind of a horrible setting as far as fan base, and I just kept thinking this is how it's going to be watching the Astros and Joe Espada continues to be the coach. I mean, it's getting bad. And, you know, 16 games about 500, is that the bar now? Is that where we're at?

This is Houston Astros. Is that Michael Connor? No, I don't think so. I don't think it is either. Sounds like it, though. They're similar. Similar, a little bit of cadence, but as you said, there's a little bit more twang and a couple of things he said aren't Conner like in my opinion. But I don't think it's.

Well, maybe that is he's what he's trying to do, is really trying to get us off the scent. I don't think so. Go ahead and do it. This is the last time I'm going to ask you to yell this week. I got to believe you. Folks, Jose Al-Tube was the last person to bat,

meaning he will be ninth next up. And you also get free runners in the 10th, meaning it would really take a lot for him to come up, for it to matter. Josh Hayder would have to blow his first save of the year, which he did, unfortunately. Then you don't walk it off at the 9th. Then you don't walk it off in the 10th. And oh, by the way, that didn't even matter because Kennedy Corona got on base.

He got on base. Jose Al-Tuve doesn't have a thousand on base percentage. So what happened? Corona got on base. That's good. The pitcher I can't even remember his name, Garcia, or whatever. Couldn't throw a strike. He walked Corona.

And then it was walked off. They won the game. You're crying. somebody for some crazy thing. These circumstances, these series of events that had to happen. And even then they still won the game. And you're getting the manager who has this team's 16 games above 500 with basically as we laid out 40% of the roster being from AAA Sugar Land.

35. I'm rounding up. Ridiculous. Ridiculous. You know what? If you want to blame somebody, Josh Hater, give up the save. That was his inning to finish. blame who didn't make it 316 and left instead of 315.

Boy, I feel the Crawford Box did a lot of hate this year. They've coming to play a lot of the last couple of weeks. I mean, I'm trying to think you probably could push it back. It costs probably a couple of milly, right? You're going to have to spend the money doing it, and you're going to lose row of seats. Jim Crean ain't doing that. Oh, you know what? You got pesky pole.

You got a lot of cheapies. I don't mind. I don't mind it. It just feels like it's been a story more lately than it, normally is. Because generally to get it that high, I mean, you've got to hit the laziest of pop flies for it to sneak in the first row, but it feels like it's happened four or

five times the last couple of weeks. Well, the two home runs that Josh Hayter gave up this week would be only given up at Dyken Park. That's the reason why it's the storyline. Yeah. That's fine. And Josh Hayter doesn't give up, yeah, it doesn't give up the fly ball. And

three up, three down, it's a moot conversation. Nobody's talking about. But you know what Joe, you know what Joe Spada did? He gave his reliever the best possible defense he could. And this is what I also have to say. Yeah, it's like, people, is this your first time watching baseball? How many times have we seen defensive replacements over the years? Over and over

and over and over again. Pay attention to the games. Well, we're going to try. We're going to try to get this fan base smarter tomorrow than it was today. Steve on 790 at 124. Hi, Steve.

Yeah, Matt. The call. sir. Yeah, the only time you fire managers is when they don't win games. And Espada is winning games with, you know, a house full of minor leaguers. And, you know, he was a bitch coach for a long time. He learned a lot from doing that. He's doing a great job.

You look around the league. When you lose games, you get fired. When you win games, everybody. likes you. One good thing about this show is I don't quite get it and shut your bum ass up. Both of those apply to the caller from

San Antonio. That's all I got. Thank you very much, Steve. Be careful out there. Go find that person. Tell him to shut us bum ass up. There can be some crossover between shutting your bum ass up and I just don't get you, callers. It's okay. And again, we have to continue to. We tell you this a lot.

Twitter is a small faction. Callers are a small fight. I will tell you this. In the history of me doing sports radio, I've only met what percentage of people that have ever listened to show? I've ever called the show, less than 10%. Yeah, I would say. We had a lot of people who came out to Talyar Brewing saying,

hey, man, I'll listen to you guys all the time. Just never call, but I love listening. Yeah, that's okay. I love it. We want you to call because we do like the interaction, and we do like smart callers. They call in show. Yeah.

Especially in a post game format. And especially if our phone systems are working, which sounds like it is today. Thank you to our great IT department. You need a send him an air check of that, huh? We love you, IT. You're the very best. You're the crem della crem. You're the yacht rock of IT.

You don't want to, no. You don't want to downgrade them like that. They're better than yacht rock. They love yacht rock. You sent me this list of songs. I mean, one jam after the other. I gotta get you to convert you before the end of the year. I like a lot of those songs.

I'm just saying the yacht rock is made up. Okay, so if it is made up, so what? Yeah, it's fine. Be happy. I am happy. I'm great. I'm having a great day. A couple of things we've not really gone over today.

Need to just mention briefly. Reed Shepherd last night, Rossi, had 18 points, and the Rockets' 9883 loss of the Pistons in the Summer League. Baller. I'm not a huge summer league watcher I'd like to go but I don't know if I want to watch I mean I could just go to Vegas and just you know make an appearance

yeah if they had a craft table of the arena you might go imagine calling play by play while playing black check at the same time you should do no because you're going to start yelling at poor old ladies blue hairs that's fine who wouldn't harm a soul she didn't harm a soul she harmed me

that's my she hurt my soul soul hitting on a 14 against a four dumbby she was very sweet darling doris oblivious to my anger you're trying to snatch her brown wig off I should have I should have a heart attack in the way back to your room

Reed Shepard 6 of 19 from the floor one of seven from three six of 19 wait how did he score 18 well it's six throws okay yeah You must have made a lot of free throws. Yeah, if you only made one three-pointer.

Yeah, the summer league's a tough watch. Rockets made 40% from the floor and they were three of 21 from three. Don't you feel like if you end up watching like a few minutes of G-League or Summer League, it really makes you, especially college basketball, you're like, man, the NBA, we take it for granted how good those guys are. All right, put it this way. What's the bigger jump? G-League to the NBA or AAA to the major leagues?

I would say for hitters, AAA to major leagues, for pitchers not? Does that make sense, you think? Yeah, that's fine. But you could close your eyes. I could drop you off at Constellation Field, and you can watch the two teams play,

and I think it's a great quality of ball. Or if you go to a G League, you're not seeing any defense. You're just seeing guys run up and down the floor in 84-15. It's kind of fun. Every game's 145 to 139. You would respect certain teams if they played defense or actually ran a play.

But I look at the scores in the G League and they're astronomically high. I think guys go down there just to go run up and down the floor. Reed Shepin went down there for like a week and scored like 46 points. Crazy. Did Reed have a 50 point game in the G league?

Was that what it was? I don't know, but Kent. Wentmore went down there last year and he was balling. I mean, it's like if you need an ego boost, go to the G league. Oh, yeah, it was 49 he had. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

The Summer League to me is glorified pickup, and that's why when Cooper flag was shut down by the Mavericks up to two games, I was like, I understand. Makes sense. Yeah, they normally do that. I think the Rockets have been doing that with their players, although I think what a men hurt his ankle and then somebody else have an ankle injury. I can't remember, but Jalen Green or somebody didn't play much.

All right. Now, before we get to, believe it or not, which will be coming up at about 15 minutes from now, we have a disagreement between the two power two conferences, Rossi. Oh, oh. Greg Sanky is the SEC commissioner. Tony Petiti is the commissioner of the 10 conference. The Big Ten?

They're beefing? Sanky said today in the state of the Union, state of the SEC press conference, which was in Atlanta where the SEC Media Days are, says that he and Patiti spoke four days out of five last week and acknowledged the SEC has a different view of what they should do for a possible 16-team tournament. Then the Big Ten?

The Big Ten has favored a model that rewards conferences with guaranteed spots in playing games to determine them. The SEC coaches most recently said they would outperform a 16-team format that includes the five high-ranked college champions, conference champions and the 11 at large. So the Big Ten wants the guaranteed four spots. SEC is like, we'll take 5 plus 11. Because, and I thought about this a little bit,

maybe the SEC's ego thinks that maybe we can get eight or nine teams in, and why limit us if I can get half my league into the college football tournament? Well, which doesn't neither format really limited? There's no cap on either format, right? Okay, so the format A is four to the big ten, four to the... Yeah, guaranteed, but that doesn't mean it's not a limit, though, is it? No, no, no, no, because you have at-large spots. You would have, under format, you'd have four at-large.

So you'd get eight in there. Maybe he's thinking you can get nine? Or maybe they're thinking they could pack They would pack the top 16 more than the Big Ten on average So you don't want to guarantee the Big Ten 4 Right That maybe there's a year Or four Big Ten teams don't deserve being in

And the Big Ten's like we gotta take care of Wisconsin once in a while And Iowa once in a while Big Ten and four of the top eight last year Does that happen a lot Again I'm not a great college football historian Yeah, probably not. SEC at 4. It feels like to me.

It's Ohio State, it's Michigan, and everybody else kind of just peters out in early December. Penn State's been involved. Indiana was last year. Oregon is Big Ten now. See, that's what I'm thinking about. Why would Big Ten, Big Ten's got UCLA and USC in Oregon, Washington?

You would think one of those four out of that quadrant would get in, right? It seems like to me they're just arguing over semantics. That neither's conference is going to. the really, really sweat getting in at least six teams here. Because why would the SEC want to be this polite? Well, we've got to get everybody involved. They don't care. They would like to have the 16 team tournament involved the 16 SEC teams.

Yes, they would really prefer that. Yes. Hey, Vanderbilt's the best three and nine team in the country. We should get them in the tournament. Mm-hmm. That's just funny. And that's why I kind of, they'll figure it out. somebody will

will acquiesce and say okay your idea is better but I believe under zero circumstance Ross that anybody from the Big Ten or the SEC is thinking about the good of the game no well no they're thinking they're going to go to their conference

they're looking out for number one and they also happen to be yeah the biggest the conference is going to net the biggest money I mean you tell me will Texas Ohio State be one of the most watched September games maybe in college football history

or at least week one. I mean, that is a chuggernaut of a game. Texas, Michigan already was. Yeah. And now you've got the defending national champion against a team that could win the national championship this year. And the Manning effect.

I mean, honestly, people who are not really that interested in college football are going to watch games that are involving Arch Manning. That's just a fact. Because I think he's going to be the number one picking the draft. I think the Manning family just has a huge following nationwide. People love Eli and Peyton and not as much Cooper, but you know what I'm saying. People love Cooper.

It's very funny. Archie. Yeah, he's got to be the funny one because he didn't have so much of a career. You know, but they're all funny. The story is that he was the most talented of the group, but he had an injury. See, I don't know if I buy that. He's more talented than Peyton Manning, the top five quarterback of all time? We'll never know because apparently he had a neck or back.

I mean, come on. He's Jerry Rice reincarnate. I mean, come on. Who's the third grade? Where do you put Peyton Manning all time? I don't know. I got probably a fifth, fourth, fifth somewhere in that neighborhood. And who's the fifth best wide receiver of all time?

Cooper, no. I'm not buying that most talented thing they're saying. Okay. I'm just throwing it out there because, you know, we have a lot of Manning conversation in the Thomas household. Yeah, I know. When my wife sees she's going to be involved, is she going to be more apt to watch a Texas game because Arch is playing?

No. Texas played Ohio State and there was a quarterback we didn't know, it wouldn't matter. I don't think there's people turning just to tune in for Arch. I think it's Texas versus Ohio City. I think people are tuning in for Arch. Absolutely. People who are not really big sports fans. I would really disagree with that.

I think it's Texas. I think it's the name brand of both of those schools. Yeah, I think that and art people are, yes, I think so. People who are not super invested. I know several people in my personal life who are not that invested in sports, but love the Manning family and want to watch Arch succeed. Okay. I will respectfully disagree.

I don't think anybody is... I can't disagree. I know them. No, I'm talking about it in general. I mean, I don't think Missoula, Montana's going, oh, Arch Manning's playing. I've got to watch. I think there are some. In Missoula?

Yeah. Casper, Wyoming? Perhaps. Fayville, Arkansas? Yes. Well, Fayville's going to watch anyway. I think it's in this particular case. Again, it's semantics here.

I think you have such huge national brands. And again, I applaud both schools for playing somebody. I don't know if they did it because it was going to be a financial windfall for both of them or the conference put pressure on them. But to have this game in week one of the season, and here's the great part, Ross, is this is where this tournament does help them. Yesterday you lost this game? you are chasing after a championship.

You lose this game. It's just one little negative thing. You're going to be one of the best 12 teams in the country when it's all said and done. Unless you lose four games. I would say Bama had three losses and didn't make it last year. So that's kind of, yeah, you get a couple of, what do you call it, Mulligans?

I bet you a two, I'm not saying that Texas is Indoor, well, so one's going to have one loss. but either one of these teams lose two games. They're going on the tournament. As long as three would be, would it get a little dicey. Unless some of their biggest wins were against the top shelf. Like when Texas plays Georgia this year, right? Yes, at Georgia.

So if you're Texas and you win at Georgia, you can lose a third game. You wouldn't want to, but I think you could. All right, believe it or not, is up next. 150 on Sports Talk 790. Tomorrow on the show, we'll have our good feelings. We're going to give Joe a spot of the week off to spend some time with his family. I know he's worried for his job. His squad is only up five in the American League West, and he's 16 games above 500,

but people are calling for him to be fired. Yeah, he's just the absolute worst, costing them the games that he didn't even cost them. My favorite is imagine where they would be without him. Friggin' idiots. What? What do you say? Oh, man. good times

any update on gordy is he just living a world of paradise there in Atlanta right now does is anybody living a world of paradise in Atlanta I think Dan Matthews is that's true I mean that's his hometown he gives you some restaurant recommendations for Atlanta if you'd like Matt no he lives in Houston he just worked in Atlanta oh man he lived there for years I know

Georgia guy and LSU every time the Rockets would come to Atlanta hey buddy got time for breakfast I'm like I got to pay for his breakfast down. Okay. I'll do it. Good guy. You picked up Dan Matthews' his breakfast?

That's very nice of you. Wow. Yeah. You know what? You are a nice guy, Matt. I don't care what Adam Clinton says. Adam Clinton, burning the midnight all, doing some on deck and tent things over the weekend? Maybe he did Saturday.

Who did Saturdays 10th? It was Dan, wasn't it? He was on the schedule. You heard Dan on the interview, or the Cliffs on the last month? That was from yesterday. He did yesterday. Oh. Yeah.

See? Let me come us to it. Yeah. It wasn't Waxler or a client. We know that for sure. It wasn't Sean. So that's one of those three. Very busy.

Very, very busy. Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We should play America's fastest growing sports radio game. Shall we simply call it a B? Believe it or not. And here's how it works.

You call 713-213-2-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Today's edition of Believe it or Not is all things about whether or not this song was played on Sirius XM's Yacht Rock Channel since midnight tonight. If it was, you'll say this. Believe it. If it wasn't, you'll say this. Not. Two believe it or nots in a row in your prize when you're playing for today.

Jonathan. We got a pair of tickets to see Rick Springfield, John Waite, Wang Chung, and Paul Young on the I Want My 80s tour Friday, July 18th at the World. Willis Pavilion. Tickets are on sale now at Ticketmaster.com. And, of course, we've got the Sports Talk 790 t-shirt. Clayton will go to that. That sounds like fun. I want my 80s bands? Are you kidding me?

Everybody Wang Chung tonight. Let's play. Paul. No, shush. Paul, you're on 790. Ready to play, believe it or not? Paul doesn't, boy, they're dropping like flies. Everybody wants to play for the 80s tickets.

You don't want your 80s? 7-13. By the way, apologies to whoever Alexandria Garcia is. I sent her the email instead of Jonathan Allen. Okay. Brandon on 790, ready to play, believe it or not? Yacht Rock.

Superstar by the Carpenters on Sirius Yacht Rock, believe it or not? Believe it. No, it's like 1973. What are you talking about? 713-212-5-790. Roger on 790. Ready to play. Believe it not?

Believe it. How deep is your love by the Bee Gees? Yacht Rock, believe it or not? Believe it. No. Come on, people. This is easy.

These are layups. There's no rules. This isn't that easy. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Lines are open for I-Won 80s tickets. Let's go, people. Matt on 790.

Matt, what was your favorite part of today's radio show smooth operated by shard a believe it or not believe it there you go believe it song number two for the win deacon blues by steely dan

believe it or not believe it no not considered yacht rock seems like it's kind of yacht rocky I don't know it does feel like a yacht rocky song huh Ross House of Family.

Family's doing great. Thank you for asking, Matt. I think we're getting a couple of people calling in now. Oh, there they are. You can talk to Adam Clinton. Do I have to? No. All right.

Let's see here. Brian on 790. Brian, you ready to play? Believe it or not? Believe it. Hold the line by Toto. Believe it or not? Toto Believe it

Believe it Song number two for the win Never Too Much by Luther Van Dross Believe it or not Believe it Believe it That's an easy one

That is not Yacht Rock I agree with doing that Corey on 790 Corey you're ready to play believe it or not Let's do we Baby come back by a play Believe it or not.

We just spent an hour on baby comeback. We literally was the whole impetus of this discussion. You guys disgust me. Justin on 790, ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Kokomo by the Beach Boys. Believe it or not? Believe it not.

Okay, we're done with this. This is embarrassing. This is unbelievably bad. Wait, I have a serious question. Why isn't Kokomo by the Beach Boys? Y'all was about to ask. because it was like 1984, 85, way too late in the

genre. It was 88. It was on the cocktail soundtrack. Up next, it's seals and crops. Shade was 84 smooth operator. Smooth operators aren't you? At Rock. It's ridiculous. Well, it's on the station. That's their fault. Up next,

Loggins and Messina. It's the team. Talk to you guys tomorrow at 12 noon. No one hour. We're talking to you at 10 o'clock. We're going to get up so early for you. Hell, call Raw. at 9 o'clock he'll talk to you for an hour before the show starts a team is next on 7th