The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Losing Streak Hits Eight... Rockets Opinions On National Streets, Caserio Spoke to Media

Episode Date: April 14, 2026

Astros Losing Streak Hits Eight... Rockets Opinions On National Streets, Caserio Spoke to Media

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 10-1 and 8th, Good morning. Tuesday edition. Matt Thomas Show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. Good morning, Ross. How are you? Doing great, Matthew.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. It is beautiful. Why can I not? I can barely hear myself, but yet the headphones, I cannot turn up. I don't know. Might be your headphones.

Sounds good to me. Oh, these are... Those could be fried. Yeah. All right. Hey, look, I go first thing without him. Okay. I'll buy you some headphones.

Your birthday's coming up, right? In June. I'll buy you some. These are usually lasting about a year. I would take those. Okay. Thank you. Good morning, everybody.

A lot of wear and tear in this business on headphones, folks. Yeah, we don't, yeah. If you're ever going to buy me a gift, do not spend big money on headphones. No. Because it'll be destroyed fairly quickly. That was a mistake I made. When I first got this job, my dad, we went to Circuit City. Oh, good for you.

I'm so proud of you, son. I'm going to buy you these nice headphones. Thank you, Dad. I love you so much. You know, I really appreciate. I know you like Charlie more than us, but that's fine. Like, in three months, they were afraid. Like, just because of the wear and tear. I know. You're right. That's exactly right.

All right. That's enough on Headphone Talk. Although, really, frankly, headphone talk might be more relevant than Astros talk today. Dad was a big Charlie fan. It's okay. He had a lot of fans. Not enough, but that's a different issue at a different time. All right, so. Yeah, other issues. Rossi, what did you say about Mike Burroughs yesterday?

Mike Burroughs. I said he was going to hopefully have a quality start. Hey, first of all, I said they needed some length out of Mike Burroughs. He did get late. He pitched six innings. They did get length. He did get beat up pretty badly though, unfortunately. All right, would you like...

No. Okay, go ahead. We get a glass half full? Well, I mentioned this to you briefly before we got on the year. By the way, those of you that are already calling in. Is Jonathan in there? Our camera's broken. He might be in there. All right, so John, we got people already dialing in. So come on in Hello.

I've stepped out. I don't know. It's empty in there. See? 713, 212.1.2.5. It's broken. I told you. We were a broken video monitor.

Imagine something in this company but not working properly. We had our phone system crash before the start of the 10th inning yesterday. Oh, really? How was that? We actually got it fixed. Okay.

That's good. So we got the calls in. The 10th and call in shows. Yes. It's not the 10th inning monologue show. Yeah, well, sometimes on the rack is rapid. We will hopefully will not be. I've been calls lately.

That's good. I'm very happy about that. All right. So where's I going with this? Oh, yeah, length. Mike Burroughs, Joe's spot, I said, look, you're going six. I don't care what you give up. And that was indeed the case yesterday, as he even surrendered 11 hits.

Not great. He didn't give up a run in the six, though. He had problems early on. Yes, he did. Five runs in the first three. So if I heard this properly from Robert Ford, Josh Naylor had five hits going into the game yesterday. Okay. All of them were singles.

Yes. He didn't hit one home run yesterday, Sports RV. He had two of them. Yes. The Seattle Mariners offense apparently super sucked before this four-game series of the Astros. Yes. Astros pitching fixed them. The immovable, what is it? The immovable object, the unstoppable force and the immovable object is the opposite. Feels about right. Headline MLB.com. Naler ends drought with first two blasts of 20. to lead Mariners to sweep. The Astros have lost eight

games in a row. Correct. Zero extra base hits, by the way, for Nailer in his first 66 plate appearances. Well, he's a good hitter. He's got to wake up sometime. His batting average was equal to his slugging percentage before the game at 102. Okay, that's still going to happen when you're not getting extra base hits. No, you're not.

Well, it looks like Altuvae is not going to hit 400. Neither is Jordon. No. Paratus had a couple of hits. Yes. Another RBI for Yain D.S. Yes. So that's starting to warm up a little bit. He had that solo shot

a couple games ago. So I do want to make a small apology to the show yesterday. You don't even know this. I just love this five seconds ago. I want to make sure y'all are abundantly clear everybody, including

myself, my partner, my producer. I really desperately want the Astros to bounce out of this. I mean, if I could will them to health. Because let me tell you something. I like the guys.

I like Joe Espada a lot. I like Dana. I don't have a relationship with Dana like I have with Joe. But Dana's always been very pleasant. So I don't like people losing their jobs. But

the reality is we're on a path towards this being the worst season the Astros have had since 2014. Now, could things be fixed. Look, they are 6 and 11. By no means is it 2 and 13. But you can get into these butts in these. It's 8 straight losses. The issues that have caused Rossi, the 8 straight losses, aren't going to be turned around. It's not like you've got Yordon, Correa, Diaz, Altuvae, Smith in these horrific batting slumps where they've got to turn it around.

You know, these are significant injuries that are hurting your rotation, that are taxing your bullpen and all by the way you've now sent two position players in the last week to the injured list on top of the pitching issues yeah i mean this is the thing because you don't want to make any crazy declarative statements because it's baseball and anytime you can have turnarounds in baseball but what we are seeing right now and what it looks like is what you mentioned yesterday is it looks like this is just a team that is past its prime that is you had this dynastic run. You won two World Series championships. And despite what Jim Crane may say, the window doesn't stay open forever. So this looks like a team that had this awesome run and great run that will be

forever thankful for, eight straight ALCS appearances, two world series, four world series appearances, and they're just on the back end of it. Everybody goes through it. The Atlanta Braves will go through it. Everybody. The dominant Yankees teams of the 70s, the Oakland A's of the late 80s, early 90s with the Bash brothers. Everybody goes through it. You just want to, you watch other cities do it and you go, oh, that was nice and fun for them. Right.

You don't want to be your squad. When you're sitting in it, you kind of lose a little bit of perspective. Because we are homers, we love the Astros. We're rooting for the Astros. We want to be optimistic. We're like Tatu Amai is going to come over here, and he's going to throw a bunch of backwards sliders, and he's going to strike everybody out.

Mike Burroughs is having a great spring, and he's about to be a Syong Award winner, and here comes Hunter Brown. Not necessarily Ha-Young, but just sneaky Dana Brown. Wow, what a great pickup. And none of those things are working out. Everything we were optimistic about in spring training with merit. Oh, by the way, fix the training staff. Team will be healthier.

Yeah, not happening. Yeah, new training staff, all this stuff. And then now it's just been a disaster. And it has been a lot of bad luck as well. But even if this team were fully healthy, it doesn't feel like they would just be World Series contenders. But it wouldn't be nearly, I mean, look, you can effectively talk. you can effectively talk about a team when the team is four or five games above 500.

Oh my God, Tom Klein. Tom Klein's our engineer. He's the best. Let me tell you something. He is the hardest working guy that I've ever seen in my life for a guy that has all the issues we have at our radio. He comes in and brings us. It's not his fault.

He probably needs new headphones. I've got this back, though, right? Yeah. He said, make me an offer. So I have headphones. This is nice. This is nice. Look at this.

See, I get some cans as the old school engineers, like I would say. All right. Thank you, Tommy. I appreciate. Tom Clown, our great engineer here. So my point is that if this team was above 500, like, you know, 8 and 6, I can live with that. I would be pleased, but, look, you go on 10-game road trips, you can lose 6 out of 10. You can lose three series in a row.

That's not out of the ordinary, but to get shut out in Colorado and shut out in Seattle and to lose two or three to an ace team that's, I mean, probably better this advertised, but we'll be no need to be talked about as a potential contender. And for this to happen right now, Rossi, so early, and God love Carlos Crea. We're going to play the soundbite here in a little while. He's deflecting off of the injuries, and that's what veterans are supposed to do, but we're smarter than that.

We're a good baseball community, but the most part. Yeah. We know. It's, like many things in life, it's about your perspective. look at it in many different ways. We can look at the injuries, we can look at the underperformance, we can also look, before this eight game losing streak started, we were

feeling really good about this team. We were like, hitting wise, especially. Okay, we were feeling like, okay, pitching hasn't been great, but look at this, they're gangbusters, Jordon's back. Altuvae's drinking from the fountain of youth. Christian Walker is mashing. Literally eight days ago, we were in a completely

different space, but what has happened in those eight days is not only the loss, it's losses, it's been the injuries and we don't know when they're going to get back and how much time we're already in April we're saying how much time is left because if you get Hunter Brown back you get Emai back you get Javier back they have to work in a form and then in two of those guys we're not even sure how good they are because here's what I'm not prepared for and I have not been prepared for this since 11 12 13 14 and that is what are we going to do to kill the summer because you guys are

going to check out. We're not Boston, we're not New York, or not Chicago. When the Cubs suck, people still talk Cubs baseball. When the Red Sox suck this talk, you will find something else to talk about. You know what it kind of feels like? I was thinking of parallels of, now the Astros didn't win a World Series in 04 and 05, but remember like a couple years after that and it was like busy on the decline, Lance Berkman, some guys that weren't working out. You went to go get Carlos Lee. Carlos Lee is maybe. be like your Christian Walker move. You still had Roy Oswald, but then

the rest of the rotation was a bunch of your Rodriguez. Yeah, Wondie was bad and then he turned out to be kind of decent, but it was like, you know, you're waiting for Wade Miller to turn the corner and all this other stuff. Who was the shortstop that was the, Miguel Tadhaada, right? Was it Miguel? They got Mikkel Tadada like a 2009

inch. A little bit, I mean a couple of years later. You were kind of just like you were trying to prop up a golden era. Yeah. You were trying, you know what? You had a leaky roof. and you just threw a tarp on top of it. That's what it kind of feels like right now. And I'm sick to my stomach, honestly.

Yeah, I don't want to say it, but it just, it feels like you're just, you're past a golden era. And I didn't think we would be discussing it. I mean, there would have been a time in our lives as broadcasters this year, or maybe next year that we would have discussed this. We had this in the drafts of our email, right? How to get through the downtime. time. I did not anticipate it happening April the 14th, especially when the Astros won

five of their first seven games. Remember, they had just finished off a sweep of the Boston Red Sox. Yeah. And Joe and I knew we were, that Tuesday visit was the best thing ever, and then you get on the road. If it was only the losses, we could be having a different discussion, but it's losses paired with the injuries. And having a... Who's the Astros' number one starter right now?

You don't have one. No, just play us. We're waving a magic wand. You say that. Playoff series. Game one. McCullors. Oh, Lord.

Game two. Spencer Arredetti. I'm not kidding. Call him and Q. He's available. We laughed at the guy last week talking about Charlie Morton. Bring on Charlie Morton. So I don't want to be that guy.

but we have to be those guys. Colton Gordon on the Hill tonight. Astros bounce back. 6 o'clock on deck show. With you. Hey, if you're looking to get right, coming home for the Rockies isn't the worst thing in the world, looking for revenge.

Is that what it is? It's a revenge series. Yes. All right. 713-212-5-790. I hope I'm wrong. I hope collectively I come back and go, what was I thinking?

because I am usually, having done this for a long time, I'm usually the one that says, hey, why are you giving up so quick? I'm not getting, and I should say, I'm not giving up, but I, there is nothing in terms of a vibe that makes me think they're going to overcome this.

And like I said, I hope I'm wrong. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. It's Matt, it's Ross. We're with you today until 2 o'clock. At 11.30, we'll have got feelings. and at 1230 we'll visit with Joe Espada.

Do you think why make me we need to be the cathartic voice to Joe Espada? Because let me tell you, not only Rossi, did you lose that four-game series? You had a four-hour flight home yesterday. I mean, my goodness, that is not fun to sit there and stude over a one-and-nine road trip with a long flight back from Seattle.

I like the new music you're putting in, and it kind of gets a new vibe to the show. Tall shots like a boss. We need something. We've got to carry this summer. And by the way, for the summer, we need them to win because it's better. Because the Astros? People are going to be cranky for a while and then they're going to check out.

And that's what I don't want. I'm going to tell you a little secret, folks. We are the Astros station. We like when the Astros do well. Because I want to cuss and disgust and backup linebacker talk. Shoo! We! Oh, look, that's $2.

Somebody said, we just started charging you 50 for that. That's fine. What do you think about whether or not the Nick Casario did or doffy in the draft? Okay. Could trade up. What's wrong? He's going down. Could trade up?

Could trade down. I put 1130. Oh, really? Put my name on some. All right. 1130. Got feelings. I mean, I could see him trading up, trading down, or staying.

Because Nick Casario is fluid. There's three possibilities. Yeah. It's all about the board. The board. Nick Cassery is about the board. By the way, we were going to play some sound bites, and then the transcript came through yesterday about what Nick said.

It was word salad at its finest. I mean, yeah, that's what he does. George, I think, you know what? Do you even bother doing those press conferences if you're not going to say anything? Raphael Stone doesn't normally say a bunch of everything. Dana Brown's not giving you a bunch of great stuff. General managers, I think when you become a general manager, you have to like have, you have to have at least a bachelor's degree in word salad, if not a master's.

Yeah. They're all very smart And they know not to They keep things close to the best For the most part Yeah Unlike us We usually

We have a diary of the mouth at times Yeah, we've got four hours to fill Yeah If our roles are reversed You think I'd be giving you information About the team? No hell no And we're just a couple

Bros talking sports Yeah We're sitting to the bar Having a couple A glass of water Okay A cup of coffee You have a cocktail

I get an espresso martini Wow I used to drink During the 10th inning shows 15 years ago So no reason why I can't do it again. I mean, you probably shouldn't.

I didn't drink yesterday. That's good. I'm proud of you. That's fine. I mean, even with an eight game, why? It's like retro times. It should feel like the good old days with eight losses in a row. Let's talk to the great people.

Let's go to line five first, if you don't mind. Let's talk to, it says push back a little on Matt. Houston won't check out. I didn't think the aster's, oh, oh, you're talking about the city. Let's find out. Philip, good morning to you at 1025. Philip, good morning. Hey.

Yes, sir. I, um, yeah, I wanted to pushback, Madam Pete, on, on fans checking out. And, um, you know, about 24 hours ago, I didn't know what the record was for the Astros, but then I found out this morning, you know, and it's bleak. And then you'd rattle off, you know, E. May and Hunter Browner on the, uh, injured, they're injured in, and Javier as well. Uh, I didn't know that, but. Well, that's, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Before you fill this, and we'll let you finish. If you didn't know those guys were hurt, you checked out. I did. Well, then what the hell was your phone call about that? Checking back in. Oh, okay, I got you. I think to me, to me, it's like a, it's a memorial season for Carlos and Jose Al-Tuve.

I mean, how many more years will they play together, probably? I can't predict that, but I can tell you that, you know, look, Carlos has been up and down with this. Come on, Matt. You always know these things, man. Well, they haven't told me. I'll make sure to ask him. How much more are you going to play? Hotel Tumey's having a really good season, very good season offensively.

So, I mean, I think he's not leaving until he gets a 3,000 hits. I can do that for sure. Oh, that's good. What about Carlos, you think? Carlos is under contract for what? Two more years after this. So, yeah, I mean, I don't think they're going, I mean, they like, they like paychecks. I miss what Ross. I miss what, hi, Philip. What's, what's your problem? Or what's, what's, I'm sorry, I said two more years.

What did you just, I don't have a problem. I just didn't hear. Yeah, I do. I didn't hear what you said. I mean, what did it? No. Go ahead. No, what did you say, Rush? Two more years. Hey, yay, no, it's okay. Two more years. Oh, well, that's good. You know, to me, I don't know, they get, you know, I want to go on the road and just cheer for them every time they're back because they get just horribly booed. You know, to have Carlos come back and hear the road games where, you know, I don't know who gets it worse. And, you know, just to support the team and, you know, we're infamous. You know, I think there'll always be an interest in our team. and especially as we go down.

And sadly, you pointed out how the dynasties have all failed, Atlanta, the New York Yankees. You know, and, you know, it is sad. And, you know, I love it when the Yankees are horrible. But, you know, the shining light for me is that Carlos and Jose are playing together. You know, that's a wonderful thing for me. I still, you know, look up Springer and Bregman and Tucker. and probably always will, even Frumber, you know. But, yeah, I don't, you know what, yeah, we'll go down.

I don't know what it'll happen next, though. I can tell you that you've checked out. That's pretty funny. People don't check out. So I just found out they lost this many games in a row and they have these injuries. I mean, maybe he's checking in. We welcome him back in. The city of Houston will check out when you don't win.

That's just how we are. You know, the easiest indication is, go watch a, go look at a rando July 9th, middle of the week game against the A's seven years ago in the crowd. And go look at a random A's game in mid-July, this coming up, July. You know what's also like an early recession indicator to me here? You know, they call them recession indicators. We have tickets available here at work. And when they start getting peddled around and they start trickling down to like little people like me and Jonathan, I'm like, oh, interest is down. somebody just texted or

tweeted and said, I can't wait for the $5 tickets to return. No, it's not. I don't want the $5 tickets back. No. That means the team's down. The ball yard. Yeah, that one's got a dollar dogs on Tuesdays with the bad times.

Those are there when the good times. And the good times and bad times a few. Okay, I was thinking that. Please stop. All right. Sorry. In the shallow, shallow. in the shallow astro standings

in the shadow I said to stop and I kept going you kept going yeah that's three and a half hours left I don't think it's a bad thing by the way

if a team is losing and you check out I mean yeah I mean nobody it's not required by state law I'm just saying that that's you know there are a few cities that don't check out we're in the majority we're the ones are going to check out

if you have a friend who keeps flaking on you and never response to your text and, like, just stop hanging out with them. Things are going well. True words never spoken, sports RV. I don't flake out on you. No, you just don't return text. You flake.

You're king flake. Okay, we're going to OU Texas this year? Yes. Yes, we are. For the 16th consecutive year. Yes, we are. We're going to OU, Texas. And I'm sitting the 50-yard line

in a second half experience of being an OU fan and half of being a Texas fan. Why would you want to be a sooner fan? You have your teeth. Oh. Get them, oh, you fan, if there's any in this town. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-5-7-90.

Ryan, Roger, Gary, we'll get to the three of you and the rest of you. We've got gut feelings coming up today at 1130. 12-30 Joe is spotted. Believe it or not today, our friend Kenneth, Kenny, says we should go with eights. Things about eight. Octagons. You're shaking your head. No, it's not happening.

Kenny, I tried. The man who creates the magic. magical wonderment that is that, believe it or not, it's not a great category. Questions yesterday were bad. Rory McElroy. Are you going to do with Roy McElroy today? Sure, why not?

Okay, sure. WMBA draft. Your thoughts, Matt? I need to reflect a little bit more before I give you my thoughts. Oh, really? I like that. It is weird. The number one pick of the Dallas,

whatever they're called, her girlfriend is on the team. Oh, that's cute. How many times in sports does that happen? What if they break up? That's a great. If they're both on like five-year deals and they break up. That'd be a better.

That'd be better for like a reality show. Hmm. Two relationships on the same team and then they break up. Yeah, what would you call it? 1036, Sports Talk 790. A reminder again, Joe Espana will be with us at 1230, a couple hours from now. Here's your apartment setting for the day, so go get you some lunch and make a few calls, drop to do a few deliveries, and then come back for Joe Espod at 1230 today here on Sports Talk 790.

Wonderful. should be a great conversation with Joe. Well, I mean, we're going to be, first of all, respectful. Be understanding. It's not like we're going, man, Joe, what the hell were you thinking? The six of him doing this guy or putting this guy on. I mean, I don't know how many missteps he's made this season,

but it's been very few offending. You just hasn't been an opportunity to. You keep going with Brian Abray because he's your high-leverage guy. That's probably the biggest complaint people have, but, I mean, you've got to have him out there. He's got to figure this out. And he got a scoreless inning the last time went out and hopefully he can build on that.

And then other than that, everybody's just beginning to getting hurt and then the offense is the offense. So the reality is this. That's the only thing that he probably, now he can just, he can move the lineup around a little bit if that's so if it's choosing. That's not going to make the big difference. But the reality is he can go to

somebody in the ninth inning if he continues to lose faith in Brian and Brayor. Let's go to Ryan on 7-9 at 1037. Ryan, good morning. Morning, guys. This morning, the Asher. had me wanting to mix my coffee with bleach. It's been wonderful.

I don't understand. I get where you all are saying people are going to start to check out. I do remember the $5 tickets. I remember all those things, and we just couldn't figure it out. And I'm not looking forward to that. But I don't think people are going to check out. I think you're just going to keep getting calls like this all season long. Yeah.

And I think, Matt, you were right. We're cooked, we're washed, or whatever the kids are saying nowadays, dog water. It's just awful. Well, the reality is this. Yeah, we'll have some calls on it, but calls do not indicate overall interest. I could have 15 people calling every day about the Astros, Ryan, but I might have 5,000 people that care about the team right now that are listening. And I may have 3,500 in a month, and I might have 2,000 in a month after that. So they'll be boisterous because, let's face it, there's going to be a certain level at this,

this trend continues. And Ryan, I'm going to let you finish your point. That it goes from, this is bad. It could go to worse. Then you have a decision about whether you are buying or selling at the trade downline. And my guess is if this team is where it's pacing, they will be complete utter sellers. Then you'll have a conversation, guys about who gets sold, who gets kept. And then you think about, well, then what is Jim Cring going to do about his front office and his managerial and all the other things? So there is going to be enough to talk about, Ryan, and I'll let you go on this one, it's not going to be fun.

It won't be enjoyable. It won't be exciting. It'll be just kind of frankly depressing baseball talk for about four months. I'm not looking forward to it, but I will say this. If it keeps up the pace that it's at at the all-star break, we wish we'll wish we had Martin de Rosa that way when we don't make the playoffs. It's because he didn't realize where we were in the standing. And then that'll make it all better.

But in the meantime, I'm going to go try to feel better. And I'll talk to you guys later. Thank you very much. Yeah, don't mix your bleach with coffee. I don't think it first of all tastes good. Second of all, it's dangerous. Don't put bleach in anything you're going to consume. Yeah, I don't think.

No one's ever said, man, that bleach tastes good. It's today's health tip on Sports Talk 780. Yeah, we spare no expense here giving you the sound medical advice from two people that have never been in a medical classroom in a day in their life. Yeah. Did I not give you the progression of how it's going to go? Bad to worse. To selling at the deadline.

Who gets sold? People are going to be like, what prospects are out there? We don't know because we don't watch 29. other baseball teams. But the reality is it's if they have to sell, and I'm not ready to get into that conversation just yet, but you've got to replenish the, when is the farm system going to really bring up

a bunch of awesomeness? I mean, they have the young Cuban, Kevin Alvarez is probably their top prospect. Hit a home run his first professional home run, right? I think so. Outside of that, I don't know, Walker Yonick is struggling mightily. in double A. He is

Xavier Nions is a puppy. That's probably their top That's probably at least three of their top five guys. I don't have the list in front of me. I can pull it up. All right. I'm going to go to the Walter Yonick batting average. Oh, you do that and I'll pull up the top 30 prospects. They didn't have a single guy in the top 100, I don't believe. Walterionic 511 190, proud grad of Sam Houston.

I don't think he graduated, but he was Sam Houston State. He is playing for Corpus Christi this year. He's 23 years old. Six games. 25 plate appearances, 23 of those are at bats. One hit. He's off to a slow start. It'll be fine.

Two walks. That's good. The two walks. I was hoping it wasn't sacrifices. Sacrifice flies. At AA, he's betting 043 in six games. Small sample size. Very small. Last year at high A, 263.

You want to know if there's no greater difference between a sport collegiantly and professionally. Sam Houston State, 364 batting average, 476 is on base, slugging at over 700. Wow. You take the aluminum bat out of his hands and you put a wooden bat in his hands. He's learning. 63 at Asheville, 043 at Corpus Christi. Yeah, your top two prospects are Alvarez and Nions. They're 18 and 19.

That is not... That's nothing close. Immediate help. No. No. Roger on 790. Roger, good morning. Good morning, man.

I was trying to get into your championing program yesterday, but that guy, he had to watch Phil, my friend. For good reason. So I want to have a conversation about, you know, Astros being cheap. I don't think that they're cheap. There are seven and the majors and payrolls. So, you know, we can have a conversation about this. You know, I'm sure we had a Nick Allen move for moving for issues of a bomb.

I don't think those. I don't know what that did. It was a money-saving move. Are you in a hurricane? Yeah, seriously, we didn't have a conversation about where you're calling us from. What the hell is that? going on? I don't know.

Are you okay? Let's irritate every member of our audience. What the hell is happening? No, we can't hear you. This is an audio medium, Roger, and we cannot hear you. And we're done. Is he in the middle of a blowtorch? What are the winds right now?

Let me look at the weather forecast. Sounds like he's moving the boulder back in front of Jesus' tomb. What a pull you pulled there. Right now, winds are, let's see, current temperature. Winds are, I don't know, I can't tell. They used to have it on the front page of the... He's in the middle of a typhoon. It sounded like he's coming back from Artemis, landing in the ocean.

It's not good. Winds are south-southeast at 11. All right, we need to regroup like the Ashroves need to regroup after that. Yeah, Roger, you don't... Go listen to the... podcast, Roger. We could not hear you. Yeah, Roger, we expect your Pryshorre calls. That's fine at $2.50. If you're going to call them before

the prize opportunity at $150, you got a decent phone line. Appreciate you listening and supporting. Thank you, Roger. And calling. But you's got a call from a better line. We couldn't he. I don't know what was going on. I have a headache. Me too. Speaking of a headache, I got one from yesterday from some

so-called NBA pundance. All right. Well, can we address and we come back? If you want. I'm just really irritated. Good. I want to reach out of them directly. They just want attention, Matt. I know.

So I'm not going to mention their names. Oh, really? It'll be a nameless segment in following two people, actually three, that don't know their head from their ass when it comes to NBA basketball. This is absolutely unconscionable. The Houston Rockets against the Los Angeles Lakers in round number one. Am I on the right track? Not sort of, but there's two worst guys.

Okay. Did one of them go to Beaumont-Ozen? No. Really? No, these are the two guys I want to point out. See, that's the thing is people are going to be like, who's, who's man talking about? I'll rhyme their names. Is that fair?

No, you can say it. It's fine. Whatever. It's just really, really dumb basketball analysis. Not from me and Ross, but from the people I'll describe next. 713-212-5-79. Okay, real quick, we'll go back on the Astros conversation. I don't usually say ass hats.

That's actually one of my favorite saints. I mean, I maybe have said it five times in my life. Well, if I'm road raging, look at this ass hat. Oh, no, no. I swear I use MF, S-S. I use them all. If you're getting somebody's stung, gets struck out three times in a row,

come on, you ass hat. That feels good. You can actually say ass hat, and I want them to say to a bunch, but it fits here. Bill Simmons saying that he, would not be surprised if IMA Adoka does not return next year. One of the dumbest things I've, and I feel like I say this about 10 times a year, so it feels like this list is growing. You know how we always have to try to figure out who the 10 greatest players are in the NBA history?

It's always hard for us to figure out who the 10 dumbest statements are in the history. And that's one of them. The Rockets would go off on EMA Adoka who just got a contract extension last year. It's for a team that won 52 games without its starting point guard, the all 82 of them. Stop it. Bill Simmons, you're an asshat. Chris Broussard, a complete asshat, blaming the rockets for getting quote-unquote worse since the Kevin Durant trade. He was on Colin Coward.

And truth be known, there's a lot of things about Colin's show. I do like. I don't like it. But he's so ill-informed. That's why I don't like it. But I mean the formatics of it, the texture to it, the presentation, to not be afraid to go on a limb. But when you want to go on a limb, this I tell young people all the time that want to get into our business, don't go on on a limb to make an ass to yourself. Then you're Nick Wright.

Well, Nick Wright, highly successful and been on Fox for like, I don't know, seven, eight years now at this point. That's what works. It works. Nick Wright, Colin Coward, always guys we're talking about. They're on a million-dollar contracts. They make seven to eight times what, no, excuse me, 12 to 13. Now, maybe Nick Wright doesn't, but Colin Cowher makes 14 to 15 times what I make. Yeah, double that for me.

Triple that for me. Okay. But Colin, but, and so Bruce Arr was on with Colin yesterday, and I'm not going to play because I don't want to give them their shine. Thank you. But bottom line, it was, you know, that Kevin Durant is a, problem for the rockets. He isn't good. He threw his team ins into the bus with the burners. He is who he is. He's got the ball in his hand too much. And look, as I put on Twitter yesterday,

the rockets have their warts, okay? They have their issues. They turn the ball over way too much. They are in need of a true point guard, which hopefully Fred is that next year. And if it's not Fred, somebody else, whatever the case would be. They do have a, they're very poor in clutch time performances. Those are facts. So that's not an opinion. That is facts. And that's what I think you come to this show for are facts. But to place any blame on Kevin Durant for who this team is, a 52-win team for the second consecutive year with two ginormous injuries, you're not watching basketball. You're not certainly not watching the Houston Rockets. And I don't expect Cruz Broussard or any national pundant to watch 82 games of

a particular team. But if you're going to comment about them, say, based up of what you've seen. And it looks like to me, Chris Brousard has watched a game and a half maybe. Asshat. And that's what puzzles me. It makes me frankly mad.

National guys that get away with this crap that make 15 times what I make. I mean, it's just the way, it's unfortunate a way of the world. We've been talking about this for a year. So what I'm going to do, what I'm going to probably not work here anymore and try to go get a national show.

and just say flipping half-cocked ridiculous statements about generic teams that I don't watch. Like, you know what I can do? I can go on it. Matt, let's do a 10-minute segment on the New York Jets. Eric Glenn is the worst coach ever. They can't draft anybody and got no talent. Matt, do 12 minutes on the Minnesota Timberwolves. Anthony Edwards is a bad guy.

Chris Fitch is over his head. It's frankly easier. The producer brings you in a sheet of top. you're going to get to. You do a quick Google search and you kill 11 minutes and you make 15 times it'll make it now. Why am I not doing this? You decide with your co-host. You pick a side.

Yeah. And then you dig into that side in perpetuity. It's great. LeBron James is not the greatest player of all time. LeBron James is the greatest player. I mean, you... I didn't take my blood pressure medicine today. But I saw those two quotes.

Bill Simmons, I would not not... He did double negative. I would not not be surprised if E. Medoca's not back next year for the Rockets. That is patently absurd. It's, I mean, honestly, and I say this to you all the time, but it just falls on deaf ears. It's a fireball offense.

Yeah, they're just not paying attention. It's like going in your office and screaming fire. It's hard to cover everything. It's impossible to. It's impossible. But speaking on things like you're an authority, that's just where we are right now, especially when you're national guys.

It'd be like you guys call up to me and me having to give you four or five hot takes about a potential defensive end the Texans taking the first round, if they do that. I can't speak to that. I don't know it. I don't particularly care. If you all super cared about it, I would probably spend more time in it, but I don't think, generally speaking, you overly care. You care somewhat.

You want to see that the Texans get a first round pick that's successful, but you want to see them play on the field and then you can judge it at this point. Because all we do during draft time, I mean, I'm not trying to point the Texans or the draft on in particular race. You're just going off of what somebody else is reading. Oh, the Texans screwed up in the first round. How dare they do this? No, it's, let's watch what they do.

Let's see how they do. Now, if you're talking about high-end players like quarterbacks or running backs or receivers that are very well known, like you can have a take on Fernando Mendoza. We've seen it. We saw him play in the month of December in January. He's good. I would take him number one overall. There you go.

You should be making 20 times what you make. right now. Thank you, Matt. Javier, Doug, we'll get to you guys to start the second hour of the show. We've got gut feelings at 1130, 1230. Joe Espada. We do talk to Astros baseball because we do watch the teams. I do talk Rockets because I call the games and I do watch them. Even when I wouldn't call them the games as I're watching them. Asshats. 1058, Sports Talk, 790.

This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 1102 on Sports Talk 790. It is Matt and Ross with you until 2 o'clock this afternoon. Astros back home after a, hmm, less spectacular road trip. Horrible. Yeah, I won't enough. Amishmal. Shambolic. Awful.

Disgusting. Yeah. Got to get home. Put the white uniform is back on. Feel better about ourselves. Yes. Colton Gordon, good luck tonight. Colton Gordon, is ready to rock, baby.

He's ready to get the revenge on the Rockies. Over under is eight and a half. That's interesting. Wow, that's kind of low. I could see a 7-72 game, right? Couldn't you? Go up to the window, baby. I didn't know a window in this town.

You could drive to Orange, come right back. No, not Orange. What's the first city in Louisiana? Right after Orange. What is the very first city? Vinton? Vinton's where Reltarounds is. That's true.

Maybe it is Vinton. I don't know. I go all the way to Lake Charles. Are we ever going to ever have gambling in our state? I talk to your local congressman. It doesn't work because I've been talking in for 25 years. We're in their pockets lined by other interests. Like Louisiana and Oklahoma, basically.

Correct. I think Oklahoma is the big one controlling Texas, honestly. Damn. You hear that? Controlling us in football and controlling us in the gambling world. Hopefully not in the NBA world. I'm just holding my tongue. It's good.

We'll be holding. Someday we'll get gambling. We'll get the freedom. But honestly, it's too much. At this point, I was always been an advocate. sports betting and being just like allowing us to go to the casino every now and then getting it thrown in our faces where there are like major sports entities streaming videos of guys on like online casinos that's bad and that's predatory i i i don't care for that give me a little bit too i mean

i'm giving me an example without calling them out oh okay because i uh like watching people gamble yes huh people do that on street people like these these gambling websites they will pay people like prominent streamers on Twitch and other stuff, they'll pay them, they'll give them free money to gamble on their site, on their online casinos. And then all these kids are like, oh my God, I can win playing slots. And then they all get addicted to gambling. Yeah, that's terrible. I've seen it first

hand, like, dudes in West Kentucky having $3,000 worth of debt. Oh, no. They're spending it that day to try to get it back. I've seen it's so bad. It's bad. Got a lot of predators in life. Taking advantage of our youth. I matter. Taking advantage of

adults. Taking all of the money. For a spam caller, I did an article show up on my timeline or maybe on the web or something. Why do spam calls exist? Well, for every 99 of us that tell those spam callers to do things, stuff for themselves, there's one person that buys into what they said. Yeah, there's a reason. One out of 100, and they win. Yeah.

Solar panels, investments, buying funeral plots. I just got a new warranty on my car, so I'm feeling good about that. That wasn't a scam with it. Ooh, I'm sorry to hear about that. Let's go to the phones. Talk to Javier on 790-11.06. Javier, good morning. Good morning, guys.

Morning, Matt. Morning, Ross. How are you guys doing? Good, thank you. I just wanted to call you. I'm a very long-time listener. I hardly ever call because I rather just listen to you guys. You guys great.

Thank you. Yeah, I'm a professional musician here in the Rital, Texas. I've been here, I've been playing for about 28 years. I'm from born and raising Houston, though. And I was playing, I think this was the day the season started. And I was playing, I play on Wednesday nights here at a hotel. and the local team here, Los Deco Lottes from No, Laredo, and Laredo, Texas.

They have a professional Mexican league team. And a Brandon B-Lack plays for them. And I ran into me there. I was playing. He was, you know, having dinner and having a steak. You know, I had a couple drinks. It was really cool, really cool guy. I went to go to Seattle to him, and he took a picture with me and everything.

He was really cool. And I asked him about the upcoming season. So it was the first day of season, though. So he was like, man, you know, Seattle looks really tough. you know, the pitching is very tough. I don't think the Astros can take the, he actually said, I mean, I think they're done. That's what you said. I think they're done.

And I felt bad. I was like, hey, hey, wait a minute. I told him, you know, hey, man, we got Hunter Brown, you know, we got, we got, we got, burrows are good, and strength training. And we got the, the, the, the, the sensation, you know, Japanese sensation. And, you know, so let's see what Lance gives us. And I'll give my opinion, too. He was like, well, those are pretty valid.

And he said, no, you're right, you know, took a picture. It was really cool, you know, and then he took off. but then now I just saw the you know what happened with the transcript this weekend man I feel really down man I need you guys to cheer me up man you guys cheer me up you guys cheer me up you guys I don't want to think you guys he's right you think I think he's right Javier maybe Brandon Bileck was right uh Javier do you play a guitar you said you said you play a guitar yes sir yes sir I'm a professional musician awesome next time you come on the show have your guitar ready play a little riff for us will you do that for us well I have it right now with me

Well, let's go. You know what you'll do? Javier? I want you to play some music that's going to get the people in a better mood. Or something really sad. No, no, no, no. Don't listen to him. Javier, don't listen.

Javier, you know, what kind of music do you play, Mazz? Do you play rock and roll? I play all kinds of music. 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. Let's go. This is it. Now, what you play here right now, live on the radio at 11.08 will determine whether or not the Astros are going to be a better week.

Jonathan has no faith in you. He's got his hands. on his head already. Here we go. All right, I just want to tell you all the actual fans, we got to stand by him, man. With the night and the legend and the moon is he only, Lot will see. I will cry. I will cry.

No, I won't shed a tear just as long as you stand. Stand by the Astros And stand By the Astros Oh, stand By the Astros Oh, stand Oh, stand by

Oh, stand by me Stand by You kicked ass God bless you, Javier You guys shoot me up, man All right, there it is, Javier, a good sport Javier, you ever called again You must bring a guitar every single time

He killed that, man. He killed it. Wow. We got a talented audience. It makes me feel better. Now, are you in a better mood now, sports Army? I am in a better mood. The Astros are still in A-Kame.

Losing Street. All right, that's enough. I'm in a better mood. Javier. I knew we had talent in our audience. I knew you all in a little now. Let's see if Aggie Doug can back that up. There's no way, AD.

You can back that up, A.D. Good morning. I do not have a guitar. I'm currently driving to Dallas. So I apologize for not bringing any type of instrument today. Well, then your material better be better than the music. Go ahead. Okay, guys, so before we get to the Astros, because let's just say that we do have to break it up.

But before we get to the Astros, the Rockets, evidently, everybody in Houston just needs to put all of their eggs into the Rockets Basket right now, and let's figure out the Astros when the Rockets are done. But when they are done, we do have major problems that the Astros are going to have to address, and I'm not sure they're going to have to address it this year or next year. But okay, let's just say that we get to, you want to call it 10 and 20? Are you done then? 15 and 45? Like, when are we done?

Well, some people are done now. I mean, there's quite a few of us that think it's not going to be. Okay, so let's say that we get to 10 and 20, you know, and it doesn't look good. You don't have any prognosis on Hunter Brown at that point. no really word on Javier or even EMI at that point. Who do you start shipping off? Who do you start chipping off at this point? Because I think literally there's only two untouchables that the Astros currently have

with Hunter Brown and Yordaun Alvarez. Probably Jose Al-Tube just because the fact that he gave us a sweetheart deal, you're not going to deal him. But I think everybody else, you start looking at it and you're saying, sorry, Carlos, I know you came back, you know, to try to help us out. but I think it may be time. If not, it's definitely going to be time next year, but it might be time to start trading off some of these pieces

to restock the form system because we don't have any. Like you said, the two best prospects that we have are 18 to 19 years old. You're going to have to find some gap guys that you don't basically have to completely scuttle the ship before you kind of start to rebound. So who are your first two to three guys that you, off the top of your head, say, here, trade them tomorrow? Okay, well, I mean, the problem is you don't have a lot of value. I would, if you were to put together a list, now again, let's assume everyone is healthy, right, Ross?

Mm-hmm. You know who the list starts with. Probably Jeremy Payne. Yes. Jake Myers. Okay. Brian and Brady. You're trying to get prospects, good ones.

Brian Abrae is, I believe, a free agent after this year. Okay, two-month rental. Two-month rental for a bad, who has been bad right now? Two-month rentals constantly in baseball. Yeah, but you need him to improve. He's got no value to anywhere right now. He's got zero value. Myers has to be healthy in order to have value.

Correct. You would kick the tires on moving Christian Walker. Again, he's got $20 million headed his way next year for a salary, so somebody has to take on that. It's not crazy if he continues to play well. Isak Paredes you could trade? I mean, it would be, again, this is way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way too early to discuss this.

But the untouchables would be Yordon in my mind unless you just wanted to say, let's go get a massive haul and start from scratch. Yorna get you the biggest hall. And you're not training L'Urond. Yordon, yeah. Your biggest values are Yoron and then Hunter Brown. Yes. Then Peno's would be a drop down to third. You're not training Altuvei.

Then another drop down to Myers, Walker, a Brayu. Hunter Brown shouldn't be untouchable. No, not with the way he's Who his boss is or his agent boss Right? He's a boris guy, right? He's, yes. Now he's got two more years.

You get a massive ball. And it's one more for Pena, right? You can't, I don't think you'd be able to trade Carlos Corridor. I don't think there's value in that. No. Unless, well, Minnesota sent money, right? Yeah.

How does that payment work? I don't know. Wait a man. I imagine Javier just got us fired up And now we're training people off What the Aggie Doug asked a question You know Aggie Doug? Because you did things get bad

You took the vibe from Javier and you ruined it You played stand by me A fantastic We're standing by the Astros We are standing by the Astros We are standing by for a trade yet It is a fantastic song 1114 Sports Talk 790

713212 5790 719 coming up Bottom of the hour Got feelings here on 790 All right I got to have a heart to heart with Astros Twitter. Not all of you that are

Astros Twitter people. The Astros Twitter account. Okay. Did you see what they just put out a few minutes ago? And a lot of you have retweeted back to me, so I saw a thank you for pointing it out. Go on. Their poll question for today.

Will the wave happen more or less than three times at tonight's game? Are you that tone deaf? What do you mean? Why would you? ask that question? So normally, I mean, this is a sponsored tweet. Okay, but there's plenty of sponsored tweets.

So they have to put over under something. All right. I mean, are they going to, it's probably a bad idea to put over under anything about the team. So at John underscore Garan 9, how many injuries tonight fixed it administration over three under three? Dyslexia says this has to be rage bait. Our buddy at Ramshirt says, not now. Astros, not now. Alex says probably going to have less waves happen than runs allowed

followed by over under two and a third innings pitched by the starter tonight. Why are you A-holes promoting this outdated Bushling activity that makes Houston sports fans look like clowns? You should be ashamed of this partnership. The wave is better coordinated than the asteros. Remember, as I've told you before, sometimes the best tweets in your life will be the ones you will never hit send on. Number hits today for XYZ. And then you're going to get under on all that too. It doesn't matter.

You can't win right now. You're trying to avoid collateral damage when possible. You're going to get, they're not going to win. They can't win right now. If you are the assures admin. And what any one of the player leave the game with quote unquote discomfort. See, yeah. You're going to get that no matter what you put.

Deanna says, you can't do the wave when you only have 73 fans in attendance. Ouch. Yeah, the wave was a bad choice. F the wave. You all going to need a fan to pitch. See? the wave will happen when we stop being DS I'll let you all figure out the missing letters on that

F the wave ban this S plays Nothing good ever comes of it How about we try to give up three runs or less Poor guys Man this is absolutely tone deaf Let's start with not walking every batterer Then we can talk about a wave FFS

Who cares to get a when you bums Over under 11 and a half walks They're going to get this no matter what. You know what? I would lob and look, price picks has been sponsor bars here on the station, so it can give price picks a run. I'd call price picks, say, bra,

we need to take a day off. Trust me, when things are going better, we'll give you like double price pick questions, but we need to take a break. Will fans boo more or less than three times to tonight's game? Over under six and a half pitchers for Houston? How about you guys just win

an effing game. This is everything you currently worry about, seriously? Someone's getting fired over this post, right? Nobody's getting fired. There's no way this is the question of the day. They were looking for something safe and not baseball related. Well, it did backfire. It backfired.

Poor guys. This is what happens. This is 2013 all over again. No, it's a stop. This is not 2013. over again. Promise? Yeah, they're not losing

111 games or whatever. No, they're not. So, relax. Shut your bum ass up. Oh, that's tomorrow. They're going to win tonight. You're going to be feeling different. I need them to win.

Oh, it's a must-win game tonight? No, it's just a, what can I do to possibly will them to win? Colton Gordon's carving them up. Let me tell you all something. Rossfield O'Rowell is doing the on-deck and 10th inning today. He will be at the ballpark. He will see it

firsthand. He will be down in the clubhouse, in the trenches. He is our Astros insider. No, I'm not. But thank you. That's Chris Gordy. He will find Chandler Roman, see what kind of snickering comments Chandler has before tonight's game. Good old Chandler.

I will find Chandler. We have the perfect set of beatwriters. Brian McTaggart and Chandler are sneaky, hilarious. They're sneaky about it. They're great. And they do a great job, government the team. They break the news. I'm saying. They break news. They're funny. They ask good questions. Yes. They're not afraid to go against the norm.

We're very lucky here. Astros won tonight, right? Yeah. It's over. Eight games? You got it. Streaks end. Yeah, dollar dogs. Rockies in town. Colton Gordon on the mound. Rockies are six and ten. Now granted, three of those came at the expense of the Astros, but there's a three or two. It's three. They got swept in Colorado. So half their wins against the Astros? Huh. Okay.

On to other news. Did you catch the WMBA draft last night? No. Well, apparently we must have missed it because the top one, two, three headlines on ESPN are WMBA related. Really? Mm-hmm.

All right, let me go start prepping the news at noon. You have to. I have to go into the vault. like making up headlines yeah why not Astros in on this Texans in on this

to start making up player names and no trades are being made in April folks by the way you'd also turn the national narrative that Kevin Durant sucks and he's hurt the Rockets this year be nice way to be not paying attention people are not paying attention at all

to them to the Rockets I mean they won nine of their last 10 games yeah look again issues are there clearly but Kevin Durant any one of them. Let's

do some gut feelings. This is how it works. You call 713-212-5-7-90. You conjugate your verbs properly and then you come in with sports predictions. You know what I want you all to do? I'm going to put you out of the test a little bit. How's the end of the house? We got how many days in April? 30? 31. April 31? Yeah. Are you absolutely sure? Right? Let's take it. Oh, it's 30.

That was only 30. Yeah, whatever. You know what you can add a day in the world. I don't care. 16 days left. in the month of April. How are we going to feel? This is what your gut feeling needs to be today, Astro fan. You guys can call on this. 713212-570.

How are you feeling about the Astros at the end of the month? Make a gut feeling. I will present to you the games ahead of them and we'll have our gut feelings. They're going to do better. I would certainly hope so. They're not going to lose forever. No, they're not. There's no possible way.

Not that bad. Things are the darkest before the dawn. even though there's no scientific basis for that. Hello, darkness, my old friend. No, no, no, things get darkest before the dawn. Really? It's a phrase. You never heard that? I have.

Okay. I don't know where it's come from, but I've heard it. Okay. I'm going to give you credit for it. Seventh-one, three. Socrates. Socrates. 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. You got any gut feelings about Astros?

You got a gut-filling on the Rockets playoff series? Let's hear it from you. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Ross is here for Synergenics. girls and boys. They've been so appealing. Because Ross and Matt Thomas. This is their gut feeling on the Matt Thomas show.

713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Before we get into how we feel about what's going on this week and get you in on the reaction as well at 7-13-1-2-5-7-90, time for Ross to run through how we did just one week ago. Well, I'm glad you asked Matthew.

Yes, last Tuesday, day on gut feelings. You had the rockets facing the Lakers in the first round series. Correct.

The rockets on the road for game number one. All right. I had the flip side of that. I had the rockets hosting. I was hopeful and then they lost to the Timberwolves, but that's okay.

Anywho, you had the Astros winning the next two games in Colorado after dropping the first one. Oh. You said Hunter Brown out six to eight weeks? In play.

I don't even want to say out loud. But anyhow, and that's what I have written down for you. I had the Rockets finishing fourth, as I said, in hosting the Lakers. That didn't work out. I also had the Astros winning the next two in Colorado. No Hunter Brown at all in April. That's an easy win. Yep.

Astros win the series in Seattle. You got close. How close? Four. And I said the word would be, Hunter Brown re-evaluated in four weeks. I think they said Hunter Brown re-evaluated in two weeks or something like that. Or it was three and back down to two.

It doesn't matter. It can re-evaluate all you want. We're not going to see him for a while. Jonathan had the Astros three and three in their next six games. How did that work out? They didn't win any of them. And he said Lance McCuller Jr. Quality Start Plus in Seattle. He was good for four innings.

He can get you four. See, when you start going to the Ross metrics, it hurts you every single time. Quality Star Plus. You like it. Whatever, medium, well, plus. You're just jealous you didn't come up with it. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's a rare plus, sir.

Okay, go ahead. And only at fancy steakhouses. Fancy or fantasy? I've had a steak at a fantasy place. I bet you have. All right, continue on. And that's all I got. Okay.

So we're going to go first on where this, team is in 16 days. I thought you were bringing up the schedule. Oh, yeah, that's right. I could do that. All right, here we go. You ready, ladies and gentlemen? Before we make this prediction, all three of us have to do it. Whether you want to or not, we get paid for the high compensation. The Astros play the Rockies for three.

Sweep. Three with St. Louis at home. That's six. They then go to Cleveland, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Sweep. Off Thursday, the 23rd. home for the Yankees 24, 25, 26. Another sweep.

27th they're off, 28, 29, 30 at Baltimore. How we feel in. Can they play 500 baseball during that time? Can they play above 500 baseball that time? Will they play significantly below 500 baseball this time? 500 feels optimistic, honestly. I mean, you got Cody Bolton is still up, I guess. Colton Gordon, McCullors, Burroughs.

Who are your other starters? Eric Getty at some point, I guess. Jason Alexander at some point? My guess is they're trying to build them up to get him to go up here because they don't want to bring them up here to pitch four innings and it attacks the bullpen. I'm actually trying not to cry right now. A 500 ball feels optimistic. Okay, let's do this.

Because, I mean, look, they can be... They're five under right now. Will they... So I will say... Oh, they'll be... Yeah, I know. Here it is. Here it is.

Bouting my tongue. Oh, that hurts. They'll be under 500, under five, how do I say this right? Worse than five under 500. By the end of the month. It's a question of pitching. It's not a question of want to. It's not a question of desire.

They don't have enough pitching. You don't have enough major league pitching to get enough major league outs to win more games than you lose. I say they play 500 ball. Okay. You know what? I would take that, honestly. you're going to tell me how about this?

You want a glass half-full philosophy on that? You're going to tell me that you've lost two position players, three starters, I forgot about that. In your ace, really, you're in your closer, and you're only under 500, I would take that as a win. Now, I just gave it to you.

You're saying that is what you're going to see over the next two weeks. Yes. Big part of that's going to be the early part. Colorado and... Cleveland's in first place in their division. The Yankees are in first place. St. Louis is terrible.

St. Louis is not very good. And you're playing Colorado. You're going to have to get fat and happy on them. Okay. As Matt Thomas would say. That is a Matt Thomas phrase. Jonathan, what do you think? End of the month.

How do we feel about the local nine? End of the month? 16 days? Yeah. Will they be at 500? Meaning there will be five under 500? Will they be above that or below that? They're going to be a solid 400.

So they're going to win 40% of their games. Oh, you're saying even worse. Okay. I hate you guys. Okay. Next, quickly. Rockets in five. Damn it.

I'll change it. I hate you. I just say it. Rockets and five feels about right. I think they split the first two, win the next three. Yep. Win game five on the Lakers home floor. That'd be nice.

It's crazy. LeBron James or Kevin Durant will be out on the first round. One of those two. Out. They're 37 and 41. Yeah, but still two of the all-time goats. Yeah. Two of the top 12-ish players.

of all time. Yeah, Kendrick Perkins does not believe it. Katie's in the top ten, but... Hey, he's French. Yeah, he's French, for sure. All right. That's the craziest thing. Anything else, guys?

Guaranteed win Tuesday. By what team? Astros. Oh, you're saying they're going to win tonight. They win tonight. Okay. I like how you think. 7-1-3? You know what?

By more than... By multiple runs. They had the plus one and a half line in baseball? Astros win by at least three. Wow. That is saying something. By at least three runs?

Yes. In baseball terminology, that's like, that's dominating. Yeah. Six three's in dominating win. I'm ready. You heard you here first. And you'll be there for it. I will be there.

I'm happy for you on that. Are you? Yeah. Me too. I'm staying away from that one. Come on, man. It's my gut feeling. That's all.

Jonathan, anything for you before I go on the phones. Houston, 117 and 115 Saturday. Just two points, huh? I like that. Close barn burner. Wow. And a Rockets win. Then you can belt out a big Rockets win on the road.

Game one. Here in Los Angeles, it's a Rockets win. Am I saying that? Yeah. I like it. You know what? I'm going to say, what is it? I think the spread is five.

I'm just saying Rockets cover. I'm actually going to go with Ross on this. I don't think it's going to be, I think it's going to be, I think it's going to be more. more than two points. So I'll go, I'll take, I'll take Lakers give the five and take the rockets. Give them, give up those points.

You can't say that, Matt? Oh, I can't. That's right. I'm sorry. Ross is shaking his head. He's an NBA employee. I'm sorry, cannot say that.

I would like for them to win by at least five. How about that? That's better. That's a better line. I would like for them to win by more than five points. Not that I have a betting edge on that at all. No. In fact,

skins can't bet it and stay in them really smooth at this point. Yeah. All right. Easy. 1141 on 7 on a easy. What is your gut this week? My gut is, we talked about this yesterday. By the end of the month, the Astros are going to be over 500.

By May 13th, they're going to get first place. What? You heard it here for, that's a hot take right now. Astros, well, actually, first place is not that crazy. That's three and a half games now. Second thing. Rossi. Yes.

Matt is Mr. Texas, right? Yes. So can we get Javier to come up to Houston and sing before the game? Can Mr. Texas get that done? He has zero political or pull in any kind of way. That's fine. Rockets and five, gentlemen. I'll hang up a listen.

Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90 let's go to Scott and River Oak. Scott, you're on 790. What's in your gut this week? Scott. Scott?

That's our phones. It's always around this time of day. We're having phone issues. Go ahead. Try it one more time. Hello? Go ahead. Jesus Christ.

See? No, it's... try to call back. The web phones. Web phones are sounding great. I think it's everybody's Googling places to go for lunch around now or something. It always happens around 1145 to 1150. Folks, you cannot use your phones between 10 and 2 unless you're calling the show.

Then you have carte blanche. Use your phone. Scott will put you on hold. We'll try to get you again. We got our friend in from Jamie. Let's take a break. Let's give us a minute. Yeah, we'll give it a minute to reset.

Yes. If that's how it works. Maybe our Wi-Fi can get better. Yeah. Back on the phones, we go. 713-212-5-7-90. Let's go. We're going to pray the phones are working okay today.

David, line 2. David on 7-90. What's in your gut, David? Yes. I wanted to comment in on the Astros, God Bill. I can't comment on the Rockets, but I wanted to ask, what's the longest losing record for the Astros?

in their history, I thought it went back into 2013. That's the longest. 15 games, was it 15 or 13 to end the season? Something like that. It was something out of that length. I think that record is maybe tied, given the way their pitching is. I really don't think, given the, when they're losing early in the game, it changes the whole perplexion of, you know, when you're the opposing team and how you pitch

or pass. I don't think it's going to be the ones that causes us to not win any games, basically. Well, David, thank you for the phone call. Baseball doesn't work that way. You don't go, I can see this thing. I mean, I could certainly send a trend that the Astros would not be playing winning baseball, but again, the worst teams in baseball still win 60 games a year.

So to say that this is going to be an extension, extended a long losing streak, that's not a predictive kind of conversation. You have my personal guarantee. not lose 15 games in a row. There you go. When Ross speaks to that, you cannot argue. Now, could they lose 13 of 18? Yeah, that happens all the time. Something like that. But epically double-digit losing streaks don't typically happen in baseball. And remember, they were up 7-2 Saturday in Seattle. So it's not like they didn't have a chance to win. The

pitching let them down. Nobody could have predicted a 7-2 setback. So, I mean, a lead in it to give it up. But pitching has been, I mean, pitching is 99. percent of the issues. Maybe not 99, but most of it, for sure. Part of it. I mean, yeah, they... I don't know. This is so sad. Look who's on line one. I wonder if he'll give a thought or two about the current set of things. I was going to hear about the Yankees. Here we go, line one. Let's go to James on the God, nox. You're on the fan. James. Go ahead, please.

Call, fellas. And thank you, especially to Governor Thomas. Thank you. Look, I'm going to give it to you straight. First of all, I got the Knicks beating the Hawks in five. The Rockets taking down the phony Lakers in five. And listen, if you are true rockets, if you're a true Astro fan, man, these two opponents, man, did AAA batteries, man. The Astros should take five out of six, sweep the Rockies and take two out of three from the cards.

But they've got to be careful with that new kid on the block over there playing for the cards because that guy, Walker looks like he, he, uh, he's a good prospect. He's going to be a special player. And also, I'm also predicting by the time the Yankees meet up with the Astros that judge should be the leader in home run because he's on, he's on a tear right now. And he means business because people were talking about him and he wasn't going to take no more. I appreciate you taking my call because you have a great week, okay? Thank you.

Aaron Judge is on fire right now. Wait, that was a little more Boston. Sorry. It's hard. Juan Soto couldn't carry my jock. Where's Joe Tori? How would he manage this team over Aaron Boone? At least Joe Girardi.

You know, the Mets team ain't the same since Davey Johnson. Where's Timmy Tuffle? Stale, Strawberry, Lenny, a Dykstra. You don't stare. stereotype on his show. We don't need a kid. We need kids. That is at first base. Houston Ashrose are going to shell Michael Lorenzen tonight. His payback time. The Rockies have six wins, three against the local nine.

That's true. Ashros win the series, by the way. They do? Yeah. I love it. Let's keep hope alive. I know. And by the way, if you... You know what's sad? It's almost feel like a bold prediction to predict they're going to win a series. against the Rockies. I hope you're wrong. It's not good.

Yeah, this should be this should be once they finish off a sweep of the Yankees or the Rockies. Jesus. Gary on 790, Gary, what's in your gut this week? Well, first of all,

David, get your sequences straight. This is not asking a question. This is gut feeling. Second, can't wait for the Astros. They get to go primetime on the Lakers coattails. And then my gut tells me

that the Astros are going to win this series against the Rockies, and by Cinco de Mayo, the Astros will be in first place. If you don't believe, we just watch. I'm out. First place. We got two predictions of first place. Do you notice that Gary's calls now always involves some sort of song from the 90s?

I guess. Well, that's 2000s. Okay, I'm staying corrected. It's a big Bruno Mars guy. Apparently. Didn't he get him beat? Wasn't he beefing with Drake? Cole Thompson

Gary No, it was James and God Nokes I think it was both of them actually I think everybody's been beefing and Cole Why are you beefing with everyone Cole? Relax buddy

Yeah, Cole are the people Are nice people Although they had The lunatic on this morning Who? Arthur, they had put Arthur on And he was actually I told him

I said this guy is he said He's calling our phone now endlessly It's great. Arthur was clinically ill. Yes. And they were trying to have a conversation with it. It was like, I couldn't turn my radio station fast enough.

I love you guys, but it was terrible. So I put on Sirius XM, listen to Beatles on Channel 18. Oh, really? They felt better. You got a new album now? No. Oh. But they're so legendary.

They get to continue to play all their hits. We can get you into some new music, Maddie. I'm very happy. I got zero problem with what I listened to. How do you like that new Sabrina Carpenter album? It's great. Give me $1,000 a song on it. You ready?

No. All right. She did a remix of Strawberry Fields Forever, which is just fantastic. Oh, really? Yes, she did. Oh, my God. All right. That's gut feelings for today.

Thank you. Anything else? Oh, do we want to predict any sort of, well, we can, we kind of, is there any upsets you want to predict in the NBA playoffs? Because we won't have Tant Sue before next Tuesday. I don't. think so? So we're saying all the

chalk picks over the Knicks. I'm just kidding. Oh, James and God Nooks. That's why he's not the governor like I am. All right, Governor Thomas. Terrible. Yeah, rockets over the Lakers. Upset. Five over four.

What are the rest of the brackets? Let's take a look here. Anybody else? I want to try to give you one. Nuggets beat the wolves, spurs over the suns or blazers depending on who they play. Pistons over doesn't really matter. Thunder over Celtics. Finals prediction. Is that what you're going with?

Okay. No, I think all the chalk picks are going to win except for the Rockets over the Lakers. Thunder over the Celtics, lock it in, lock it a week. So you get the Celtics win the East? Damn. Two seed. For Jason Tanim being gone 85% of the season and they're going to win the East,

that's a damn good basketball team. I hate saying that. I, Rossi, I I grew up hating the Celtics. I understand. I understand. I mean, I understand. I don't like Adam Clinton's sports hate because he hates everything.

That's true. I'm talking about just general legitimate hate. Really? Kevin McHale. Larry Bird. Whispy mustache. Dennis Johnson. Tiny Archibald for a short period of time.

Rick Carlisle. Rick Carlisle. M.L. Car. Cedric Maxwell. Bill Walton. You didn't mention the big, Big Chief.

Robert Parrish. Danny Aange God, I hated you. Kyle, before the top of the hour. Kyle, what's in your gut? I have a... So I think the Rockets, like y'all are going to, you know, beat the Lakers in five.

But I also... I don't think we're going to, you know, get to the conference finals, maybe. But I think we will be the toughest test for the Thunder for their whole playoff series. I think we'll take them the set. a couple overtimes and we'll be the toughest

test for them this playoffs. I hope you're right. Hope they give them the toughest test that you can possibly stand. It will be at the expense of Reed Shepard. Kevin Durant. I'll be Shangoon.

I'm Ann Thompson. Go Rockin. Let's go. All right. The Astros don't bring me down again. Or will they? We'll tell you about two minutes. The news at noon is next.

This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is a bang. No, no, no, no, no. By way, Lauren Shihadi is dark. Her hair is too dark. You want some I guess it's not that interesting, but Matt Thomas show

lore? Please. With Ross now, of course. Yes. Don't forget that part. This is the first song. I played a bunch of songs. Now, when we first met, And you're coming from Minneapolis. January 2010. And you were like, I have a terrible, terrible taste in music.

Correct. I fully admit it. You were very upfront about it. Yes. And so I was trying to play songs. I like 80s, but kind of 70s and like this and that, but not that. And every song I played you didn't like. And this is the first song you're like, you know what?

Yeah, I like, yeah, I like this one, Ross. This is the first, I played like, I don't know. You were polite to me during that time. Yeah. Because I told you, I said, I'm always polite. The one thing you cannot be, to me, is polite. if you hear something Acidine, you need to call me on it.

I told you that. Peter Gabriel big time was the intro song. Which is a quasi version of that now. And I even played Peter Gabriel Sledgehammer and you're like, I don't like this song. And then finally I played this and you liked it. This was like the first song I played that you gave the okay.

You gave a thumbs up. Yeah. And you've done it and to this day. We've done what? You can, yeah, you you know my music style now. Yeah, for the most part. You tease me about. Neil Sedaka.

He passed away recently, but that's not, I don't have a lot of Neil Sadaka on my phone. I've got two songs. Okay. It's just a funny one to say. It's funny sounding word,

Neil Sedaka. Yeah. There are two names that you continue to bring up over 16 years that just annoy me to no end and it's one is Neil Sadaka and one's chicken knolls.

Really? Yes. And you know you do that. Well, yeah. I know. Sometimes, you know, that's how we work. You do things that are

annoying me. Calling yourself Mr. Texas. That annoys you? You, oh, shut up. The worst candidate in history. Okay.

His Aaron Judge is heating up, huh? Sadly. And we're watching Angel Yankee highlights. There's a drive. I don't like watching baseball highlights when the Astros are losing and you're watching other teams drive-in runs or get big out. Yeah. It's like they're,

There's two on in the ninth and it's a one-run game and they're getting outs. When they're not walking six guys in a row. Jesus, Mike Trout. Mike Trout is on one. He is a Hall of Famer. Yes. Dude. He just smacked a ball.

I mean, it went so far. It went over the outfield wall at City Field, the other stadium in town. He's going to be true. Oh, and here comes an Aaron Judge highlight. Watch this. Three, two, one, gone. I wish there's something. in the ball or something. It changed this. I don't

like watching highlights when the Astros are playing poorly. This really makes me sad. Plus, Shihadi's hair's too dark. Is there you got like some tennis on or something? No, no Maccalfee. We don't want the Colin Coward show. Dan Lebertard. None of these jerks business. No, we're good.

We just put the weather on. Okay. Modern Marbles is on. Is there a match game or something we can watch? All right, let's get to the news at noon here at 1209. Fine. The news is it the Astros did bring you down and they are bringing us down. They lost the Mariners yesterday, 6 to 2.

George Kirby was excellent against the Astros. Stop me if you've heard that before. An efficient 7 and 2 thirds innings, 99 pitches, 2 earn runs, 6 strikeouts, one walk. Mike Burroughs gave up 11 hits and 6 earned runs, but at least you got you 6 innings. The good news is, Matt, when you lose on the road, you only have to pitch 8 innings.

So two innings of juneings, JP France and six innings of Mike Burroughs. You only needed two pitchers yesterday. So the bullpen is fresh and ready to go for today. Bullpin fresh, ready to go. Brian Abray, who gets the save tonight. His second of the year. You ready for that? Will they give up a run?

Brian Abray, you gets his second save tonight. You're not ready to answer that question. For the Houston Astros. Okay, that's fine. Eight in a row, they have lost. We've got Joe Spott coming up in 20 minutes. The conversation not going to be as good as maybe it was last week. No, let me tell you something.

We're going to be professional. because we have a rooting interest in them. It's not like we're going to, like if we didn't like Joe Espada, this would be, this would be easy peasy. But we'd like him and we want them to be successful. It's easy, peasy too, because I mean, Joe's a good guy. This is not his first rodeo off to a slow start. This is not his first rodeo dealing with a lot of injuries.

It's just unfortunate it keeps happening to him. It feels like he's snake bit. But we got Joe Spada coming up at 1230 here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross, Matt. Yep, 20 minutes from now. So we've got that. What else you got going on? All right. So the Rockets are going to be getting ready for their weekend series,

but the play and action is happening two nights on Prime Video Heat and Hornets Trailblazers and suns and then tomorrow it will be the magic and the 76ers and then the Warriors and the Clippers. I kind of like this playing buffer that you get

Matt if you finish in the top six we talked about it last week of Rocket's head coach Emuio Doca you get the time to rest reset, refresh and be ready to go come Saturday as the Rockets will be taking on the Los Angeles Lakers at 7.30 p.m. And if you don't, you've got to play an extra game, which means you've got to spend extra energy.

You've got to fly somewhere. You've got to prepare for something. It's a considerable, I would say the same thing about the inside-billy tournament, but those, I mean, hell, the Texas long orange went to Dayton and went on to the, what, Sweet 16? Yeah. So it's not the end all, but yeah, I would say one less game for veteran teams is a disadvantage. Didn't the heat playing a couple years ago? They were at eight-seat. Was that in the bubble, though?

They were in a plane, and then they made the game. the finals. Something like that, yeah. It's not impossible for seven, eights to do it. Well, did you see also the news

with that with the playing games coming up in, out of Golden State? They're putting minutes restrictions on the guys? Stefan Curry, Christops, Porzingis,

and Al Horford all on minutes restrictions in a must win game. Aren't they the 10thead anyway? What do you think about that, Matt? Don't they want their ping pong balls? No. You don't get them?

You don't get as many. I mean, outside of the top four, you get minimum ping pong balls. Okay. I'm trying to think. Outside of the top four, you don't get many. I said ping pong balls. I'm okay. Yeah.

You're fine. If I want to said ping pong, I've been an issue. So minutes restrictions for those players. Don't care. Goodbye Warriors. Hate you. We almost lost them in Golden State on the last second curry shot. That had been the worst.

But they didn't. He missed it. Yeah, he missed it. All right. Lakers getting updates on Luca Donchich and Austin Reeves ahead of the playoffs. Luca Donchitz still having a chance to play in the first round, according to Sham Sharania on the Pat McAfee show. Luca Donchin spent the last week in Spain and underwent multiple injection treatments

and his hamstring. Understanding is that he will be back in the States on Tuesday and they're going to reevaluate him. Austin Reeves, he's out for the majority of the first. round series. So Rockets need to jump on the Lakers early in the series because Luca Donchich and Austin Reeves could be coming back at some point in the series, Matthew. Remember when Isok Paredes was going to

come back from the hamstring when he came back? What did you do? He did. He came at 40%. Oh, he's hitting. He couldn't feel and he couldn't run beyond first base. He was deaching. I'm sorry. You're trying to play a 45 minute game or 35 minute game going back and forth hamstring? No way.

I mean, he may come back and for that I'll give him credit for, but he'll be 40% of what he is. Okay. You do tell me. You run up and on a court like that. He's going to be ready to go. Oh, stop. He didn't play defense as it is.

One more quick news, please. Patriots squad scheduled to hold their pre-draft news conference on Monday. You know who will not be taking part? Mike Rusini. Mike Rabel. Yeah, depending on what happens with this vacation, I know I pushed back on her careers being over, and that was if they were just going to be a denial.

were going to move on. Apparently the athletic is launching an investigation. Yes, they are. If they're launching an investigation and they uncover certain stones. She's done. Yeah, she could be very well be done. There are, how do I put this very delicately,

lots and lots of rumors about Diana Rossini. That I think, frankly, is probably just, hey, do you hear about this? Somebody's starting something up and just creating kind of a firestorm? this story says Rossini is still being probed by her employer Mark Bing is that there are stories about Rossini outside

of Mike Vrable I'll just leave it that If they're doing an investigation This is very bad for her And I guess maybe for Mike Vrable No He has no ethics in this Except ethics of marriage

Yeah ethics of marriage But no She's using Oh how do I put this delicately All right just move on All right we'll skip it Mike Floreo has been arguing that, hey, people use unethical means to get information. What's the difference?

I don't know. Unethical is unethical? Do you think, Mike, do you think Adam Schechter, Ian Rappaport, and all these other top reporters have never done anything unethical? They've all done. But women have to fight that stereotype all the time. And it just doesn't lend to the credibility of women as reporters by doing this. I understand. You hurt an entire sector of...

Sportsman. There are two women outside of the marketplace that I know very well that are like... Lauren Shahati? I don't know Lauren Shahati yet. That hate Rusini because they're making the entire industry. Yeah. I've talked to personally that just are really resentful of what this is going on. 1222 is to be a short segment here because we do have the manager of the Astros joining us in less than 10 here on 790.

Astro is home for 6. 3 with the Colorado Rockies, 3 with the St. Louis Cardinals. I do love this schedule now where you get to play everybody once a year. Remember there was years where you skip a couple of years between opponents? I love it. You get to see the Cubs every year. You get to see the Dodgers every year. You get to see, you know, everybody.

They're supposed to get easy wins against the Rockies every year. Yeah, you're supposed to have a regional national league component. Oh, yeah. They're the rival with the diamondbacks. They alternate between the diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies. They're huge rivalries. Yeah, I mean, you can't do it every time. You want to, but by the way we are, I mean, when it was the Astros and the Rangers in different leagues, it was easy to do it that way.

And I guess it's the Cubs and White Sox. I'm trying to think of like who, it would be like an old NL Central foe, like the Cardinals or the Cubs. It's just geographic. I know. So the Astros get left out in the lurch. But if you were picking a National League rival, won, who would it be? Cardinals?

You mean a team that you'd want to see every year regardless for the extra series? Probably the Cardinals. But the Cardinals haven't won with the Royals. I mean, they're in state. They have that, so. So we're left out. It's like LSU getting left out of every rivalry. Everybody their

rivals with has bigger rivals. I used to love, look, A&M was a Thanksgiving day or a fixture. They used to play LSU sometimes. They play Texas sometimes. Bigger rivalries, OU. Texas. Oh, yeah, for sure.

For sure. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. I don't know. As much as we get to, you know, it's funny we're talking about television because a lot of this is obviously dictated by television. And I don't think, I think there are some here in Houston

that care because Mike, Mike, Craig and Ryan and Vanessa, to do a great job on Space City. And back in the day for the last 10 years or so, you were able to see the first round of the playoffs with your hometown announcers. And before that, you got to see it all the way up until the early rounds portions of the Western Conference Finals. Like when the Rockets were playing for the championships, Bill and Calvin would do up to like game two of the Western finals on local television. Wow.

So that was a long time before, you know, before you had to go to the national folks. Well, this new television deal that kicked in. That was, what, $11 billion all said and done between all the networks that went right into the NBA coffers? They have eliminated that, meaning that you cannot do a space city broadcast alongside of another team's, the network's broadcast. So there are going to be playoff games on prime, which is a streaming service. So you essentially are going to box out a segment of the population that does not. not subscribe to Prime. Now, I wonder

what percentage of America has Netflix. I can look. Because Netflix doesn't, now Netflix does some sporting events, but not very many. 90 million paid subscribers. And what's the population of America? 380 million or something?

So you're looking at about 25%. U.S. population? Oh, 350. Okay, so now, now do Prime. Yes, sir. I mean, I'm just, I'm trying to put it in context here. Okay.

Ask me how high you want me to jump. Well, you got, you got good, you got good leaving ability. I'd put you on my team. 180 million? That are Amazon Prime members, I'm assuming now on that, not Prime TV viewers. Amazon Prime Memberships, 180. Does that get you automatically the TV free? And 130 million people watching Prime Video.

Okay. I mean, I think a lot of the. the millions of viewers they're getting on some of these streaming services are comparable to the millions that are watching over TV. It has been lately. I think the NBC, weren't the NFL playoffs? Like, they had some close numbers, I think? The prime, the Green Bay Chicago game was on it. I thought that there was a Netflix game that had comparable numbers to how many on a regular.

And they actually had a better guesstimation because they could actually say the number of people that actually hit the button. So I don't know. My point was, I'm sorry to move on this, was that you're not going to be able to see Craig and Ryan and Vanessa. People are going to want to go to Space City to watch the Houston version of the Rockets Lakers, and those days are gone. The local TVs are done. And I think some people are upset about it. Some are. I know Craig and Ryan are upset.

What? Yeah. We are uncomfortable conversation Tuesday. It is what it is. I'm sorry. I love you, Craig. I love you, Ryan. I love you, Vanessa. I watch you all year long.

Do you know there are 30 people in this world that don't care about it? It's the 30 owners that said, let's go for it. They want the check. I get it. I like to watch. I understand, but I generally do watch when I have the choice. Because I watch, I think they do a great job. As I said, Craig Ryan and Vanessa, I watch them for 75 games a year.

When they are on national, I want to hear the national broadcast, even though sometimes it just pisses me off. Like Reggie. But they, and like I said, no disrespect to anyone here in Houston. but when Mike Breen or Ryan Eagles on the call, it feels like a big game. And it's the presentation and the national prestige. And I like watching it on the national TV. So as much as people may bemoan it, missing their favorite people because they know the team better. Yes.

They do know the team better. That is definitely. Yeah. The NBA doesn't care. The NBA's taking the check. Joe Espada next here on Sports Talk 790. 1230. Matt and Ross with you here on Sports Talk 790.

Let's take 10 minutes to talk to a man. that West Coast road trip What a difference of week makes. I know. Well, if anybody that's got his glass half old, it's a manager Joe's spot him. Skip, good morning, good afternoon to you.

How are things? I'm doing well, guys. Good afternoon to you. Hey, man, this is an easy conversation, so we'll just paint with a broad brush on this. It's just right now, and I'm not giving you any news, you don't know. It's a perfect storm of, injuries, having a lot of guys coming up that have maybe not ready for the rotation and or bullpen.

You've had some everyday players go down. No one can predict this, but how are you weathering this storm? Do you literally feel like you're staring at your roster every single day looking for the next possible change? You know, Matt, and this is the way I look at it. You know, from 2020 to 2025, we have start with a losing record, the first 7.5. games. So we found ourselves same spot for the last three seasons, right? So, and we have weather the storm when we have come out of this. Do we want to, do we want to be in this position? No, but this is the position that we are in. So we, you know, choose to run away from it or we embrace

the challenges and we go and when we fight through this. And that's what we're going to choose that. That's what we always choose to do. We fight through this. Is our roster being changed every day because of injuries and some guys in experience in certain spots. Yes, but that's part of it. You know, we home. We're

playing really well at home the beginning of the season, so we flush it and we get ready for a homestown. That's certainly a very positive attitude, and I'm sure a lot of Astro fans appreciate that. Let me get to the thought about

when do you start trying, I mean, look, your roster in terms of pitching is one thing. Do you start making subtle changes with the way you're playing in terms of guys in the lineup where they're positioned, giving off days when you can to guys that are healthy? Are you not necessarily trying to reinvent the wheel, but do

you feel like there's something you could be doing to subtly change things or are you just saying, hey, we need to stay the course, we are who we are and we're going out of this as soon as humanly possible? You know when he comes to our position player side of things, you know,

we have the best offense. in the game. You know, I've been able to get some guys off their feet, you know, even though we're going through a really tough stretch. We choose to show up a limit later so we could kind of rest and recover, kind of cut down in some of the early work just to make sure that the guy stay fresh and they're ready to go at 7 o'clock. And, you know, on our pitching side, we're trying to help this pitchers,

our pitchers, just to make adjustments, right? right, where to go in the zone early in the county, get strikes, when to expand, you know, with their weapons. And it's been challenging, you know, and no doubt about it. But we have to continue to stay positive and encourage this guys to stay in the course and remind him that he's, you know, there's 144 games left. It's a very long season. and we as coaches, we need to make adjustments. We need to help our players and navigate the stuff, tough waters.

And hopefully this turns today. You know, like I said earlier, I'm excited to be home. The guys are excited to be back home. And, you know, we could get in a hot streak here starting today against Iraqi. I don't think you asked Carlos Correa to give his analysis after the game, but I thought he was pretty blunt the way he said. And what was that like hearing that in terms of, hey, it's not about the injuries. We're going to stop talking about that.

It's about us not performing. What has Carlos's influence been for you as a manager, have a guy like that in your clubhouse, even with it being late last year when he rejoined the team? Yeah, you know, he has a point. You know, it's easy to point out on the injuries, but the injuries are the injuries. You know, we still have a job to do. We still have to perform. And we still have to execute.

We still have to play our game. And we got to find ways to win. If we just go by excuses of injuries, then we're going to find ourselves back against the wall. No, you know, what Carlos is trying to say is that we have to play better. And we are going to play better. And that's always been Carlos Smith since I first met him when I first got here in 18. It's about winning.

It's about being prepared. It's about consistency, it's about discipline, it's about work ethic, and that's who we, that's who we are. And we'll get, we'll get back to that here starting tonight. Astros manager, Joe Espada, with us here on Sports Talk 790. Arm fatigue was the designation for Tatuya EMI, and that's not necessarily something we normally hear about. Can you just shed any more light on that, and how hopeful are you for a quick return? You know, so we are, we're doing more tests because like you said, it's not very often you hear that. So we want to make sure that we do some tests and check EMI's arm in general, see how we feel this later, just to see if the strength is coming back.

So as we go and to find out the answers of why his arm feels the way he feels. We'll see him today. We'll see how he feels, and I'll have more information at some point today when I talk to the rest of the media. All right. Let's go with something positive. Obviously, the hitting has been very good. You mentioned best offense and baseball. Cam Smith has been a big part of that.

What have you seen as far as his growth from first year on to now and the things you're seeing that are working for him at the plate? You know, consistency with his approach. I think you see him more. He knows who he is. You know, he's not trying to change. You know, if there's an O4-Day, you don't see him trying something different the next day. No consistency with his approach. He's worked in the cage, you know, driving the ball the other way, getting his walks,

starting to show some of that dynamic offensive attributes that we know they're in there on the basis, being aggressive, taking extra basis, stealing some bases. Right now, he's one of the best defensive right fielders in the game. So he is coming home his own. But for me, it's just to watch him, you know, be the same guy every day, right? How he's listening to the coaches, how he's listening to the veteran players, so he could stay consistent for all seven, eight months of this season, not for one half. and then having to adjust because the league is adjusting to him so far.

I really like where he's at right now, both mentally and physically. Joe, Espada with a few more minutes here on sports talks. Joe, you've got Jeremy on the injured list, which means Carlos moves to that shortstop position, didn't play him yesterday at that position. How much have you and Carlos talked about how much he wants to play shortstop? Does he want to go back and forth? Does he need a day off in between?

And what will be the routine until Jeremy comes back? And, you know, Carlos will be playing some short, but he will not be playing shortstop every day. You know, he is, he's our starting third base, and he can go and pick us up there, you know, doing this, doing this stretch while Jeremy is out. And because, you know, I got to make sure that he's physically able to stay in the lineup and be a force for us for our entire season. So I got to be mindful how often he plays there and be able to. able to get him off his feet every time I can't. You've got Colton going tonight for you and the opener against the Rockies. And then, you know, there's a lot of folks who are asking about when Spencer Arrogati's coming back

and when you'll get an opportunity. I'm sure all these guys, these reinforcements that you guys have built up will be eventually here. What is it like to see these young men get this opportunity? And I'm sure you're probably keeping aware of you need length. You don't want that bullpen to be overtax. But you're also worried about guys that are not normally starting for you, getting into that pitch count, say 75 or 80. What's the balance between that, especially with young guys that are getting maybe their first

or second start to the season? Yeah, you know, I think that's the, you know, when they go that second time through the lineup, right? That's when they haven't experienced that so far this season. Colin Gordon did get some experience last year, so I expect them to be more familiar ways environment. You know, you mentioned Spencer at some point. Spencer. And then also, you know, we do have some guys in our bullpen that we might ask them

to start a few games here and there just so we can keep everyone fresh. You know, but it's going to be, you know, it's something new for all these guys. And we just got to help them navigate and don't try to do more. Just stay with it yourself. Do what you do best. These are your weapons. This is how you could deploy your weapons when you navigate some of these lineups. For I let you run, how bad as Brian and Bray you need a clean one, two, three, nine pitch type of inning? I know that he's been there, done that for you for many, many years, but it feels like this year he could use one of those in the not too distant future here. Yeah, he can. And I know he will here pretty soon.

You know, he didn't get a zero at the other night against the Mariners. So that's a step in the right direction. But we got to get him in the zone. We got to build his confidence. We're going to slowly do that because we need Brian. You guys know very well that without him we can't get too far. But he's close. There's some mechanical issues that he's usage to can be better.

And so we're adjusting some things and we're walking him through some of these issues. Skip, thank you for the time. Best luck tonight and get those Rockies. We appreciate the visit as always. All right, fellas. Thank you. Joe Spada with us here on Sports Talk Seminani. And that is the balance.

to the question I put up about the starting pitching, you want Colin Gordon to be successful, you want them to go deep, but there's not a tremendous amount of experience with any of these guys. And the second time, and especially the third time for the lineups, sometimes for younger pitchers that have not been there and done that, is quite

a challenge. And Mike Burroughs still, for that matter, honestly, is going through that right now. And Mike Burroughs doesn't have a tremendous amount experience of the starter. No. And you're hoping for better from him. You're hoping for better than everyone. Who won the pitching side? is even

well you got to get Kai Wei Tang I mean Burroughs gave you six yesterday but it was six runs he was getting hit and never want to have

as many innings pitched as runs given up well you also 11 hits there was lots of hard contact and and you know I think Mike owned it Mike said look they

they need to me to be I mean there were people that were including myself did I not say maybe second third best star of the Astros would have this year I think you said he was going to win the Sion

I believe I think he also said he was going to throw multiple no-hitter's in one year, which is really cool. He's going to win 30 games. Yes, he was going to win 15 games with each one of his arms for a total of 30. I like that. I thought that was pretty bold. I thought it was, too.

Yeah, you know, Joe's got to walk a line. He's like, guys, I love you, but we got to get going here. And they knows it. They know it. Everybody knows it. Because Mike Burroughs, I mean, I'm not trying to use the one example, but Mike Burroughs was the classic case of don't trust March numbers. Yeah.

Because he was, remember, this guy, I mean, I listen to radio broadcast. Oh, this guy's got, oh, I was ready. We're excited. Lightning, you know, lightning arm and good control and giving up three runs over 30 innings or whatever it was. Yeah. Game one of the playoffs starts now. Tonight. Playoffs.

Lance McCullors on the hill for game one. Right? Wait, you told me not to do this. Game two, who's the starter? That's the better one. Mike Burroughs. Mike Burroughs. Game three.

Clincher. Game 3 Clincher. They won those first two. No, that's right. Forget it. Cody Bolton. I'm having to learn about a lot of pitchers that I didn't think I have to learn much about this year. I think the Astros fans are the exact same way, right? All right. If you want to comment on anything that Joe had to say, 713-212-5-790, if you want to join our conversation. 7-13-212-5-7-90. We are with you today until 2 p.m.

Ross, what is today's edition of Believe it or not? We're going with Roy McElroy? Yeah. Well, I mean, I gave the idea for eights and you didn't like that, so. Okay. For eight game losing shrieks? Well, there's eight is enough, the TV show, eight days a week, the Great Beatles song. They say things happen in eights.

That's a subtle dig at me, and that's fine. I can live with that. That's fair. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212. 2.5.790, 1245 here on 790. Thanks again to Manager Joe is spotted for joining us here on the show.

We got, believe it or not, coming up in an hour from now. It's tough. Tough to address the media when you're underperforming. You just finished a 1-9 road trip. The old, it's good to be home card is in play. Yeah. And teams typically better play better at home than you on the road, so you've got that going for you.

The friendly confines. And a 4-2 homestand will make you feel better. Remember, as bad as things have gone and their 6 and 11 in last place, worst record in baseball. A winning homestand fixes that immediately. And you're not super far behind in the American League West. I mean, if you're going to suck over this run here,

this was the time to do it. Well, like the Rangers or the Angels or the Mariners, it was the perfect time to not be good. Right. Now, you did lose four to the Rower to the Mariners, so they got four games better than you. You lost within your own division, so that wasn't great. It's not good for tiebreaker purposes.

No. Let's get to 500 first. We don't worry about tiebreakers. Hey, I'm just saying. By the way, oh four start, the tiebreakers, not good. Sergio Garcia, an issued apology, by the way. Did you catch this from an ass? He was causing a ruckus or something?

He acts an ass in general, right? Yes, he does. He hit his second shot, his T-shot at the number two at Augusta, in the bunker, two swipes at the grass before breaking the driver on a cooler. He was issued a code of conduct warning. Not allowed to replace the club in his bag. He issued an apology.

Now, apparently he's got... He could replace his driver? No, once you break the club, you can't replace it. I didn't know that. On the second hole? Yeah. He couldn't drive the rest of the day? Yep. That's awesome, actually. Last year's final round of the Open Championships in Ireland, Garcia slammed his driver into the ground

frustration in the second hole and broke it in half. He played the final 16 holes without a driver and got a $3.68, so apparently it worked. He's making huge divvets in the grass. I'm watching the video. He's got a screws. Oh, come on. This is jackass behavior. Coral up. Garcia disqualified in

2019 at the Saudi Invitational for damaging greens and frustration. He's also in the past, angrily kicked off his shoe when he slipped during a T-shot the World Match Play Championship. Jesus. The shoe nearly struck an official. He also spit into a cup during a World Cup championship. after three putting.

Come on, Sergio. This is horrible. I don't have a great recollection or historical perspective, but haven't we waited for like 25 years for Sergio to be relevant and he just can't?

I mean, he was good back in the day. Golf is hard. Golf is super hard. Dominating like Tiger Woods did when he did? Or any of the guys. It's that much more impressive. Remember Rory was supposed to be

the next big thing? George Spieth. Yeah. me the next big thing. This guy's going to, this guy's coming for Tiger. Coming for Jack Nicholas. No. How many majors does Jack have again?

18. That's the number one record. Tiger is second, right? With 15, yes. Who's behind him, do you know? I can look it up. Arnold Palmer. Put it this way.

You get four shots a year. You got to be really good at the toughest courses against the toughest competition to even get one per year. Of course, it's Walter Hagen. with 11. Okay. You know we always talking about records that are never going to be broken? Ben Hogan with nine

and Gary Player with nine. There you go. Does Jack and I have 18 for the rest of his life? Oh, he's not at the record? Yeah. I think so.

I mean, I guess never say never. Because we certainly thought the Tiger was going to get to it when he was on his run. Yeah, he broke down physically and then he was driving erratically

and helping everything that moved. Yeah. Yeah, he didn't have a lot of discretion or, for that matter, selection. Oh, we'll always have that 2019 Masters come back. It was pretty good. So I think it was the last full Masters I watched. Not full, but mostly, yeah. So we hear about, okay, Nolan Ryan's strikeout records, points scored in the NBA,

hitting streaks, 400 batting average. Yeah, maybe we don't talk enough about Jack's 18 majors being an all-time record. 18 is going to be safe. I think especially as sports get popular, dynasties are more difficult to come by or just guys that are that much leaps and bounds above everyone else because of how good the training is, how good the equipment is. And father time doesn't lose.

Because if you're winning 18, if you are lucky to win one per year, that's still talking about basically a 20 year tenure on a particular tour. Guys maybe even half your age. 47 year old X, Y. I mean, Rory might get there, but he's going to have to go against 23-year-olds that can hit the ball farther. And that's the number one thing

is that as you get older, you're just not going to be able to have the distance on shots. You may have been able to finesse the game well. Yeah. I wonder long-term what they're going to be doing about it. Because, I mean, a lot of these, it's like a carnival game out there

with these greens. Yeah. Because you hit, you, if you barely tap it, it goes 100 miles an hour. You know, you can't say bikini wax because you'll get barred from covering the tournament again. Is that like a golf term, bikini wax?

No, it was a, no, it was a non-golfing term. Has somebody used it? The Gary McCord used it at the Masters and they kicked him off the broadcast. Hmm. And now he's no longer, well, I don't think he's involved in golf broadcasts anymore, but he got kicked off of CBS. Because he said the grades were like bikini wax. When was this? Oh, this got to be 15 or 20 years ago.

Oh, okay. I didn't know that. Yeah. I guess it feels like pretty, I guess he should say that. Oh, you know the Masters. That's the most up-a-titty tournament in sports today. You know, you can't call them fans? Yeah, you can't, you can't estimate the gallery number. There's all these rules.

You have to call them patrons, not fans. You can't call it over yourself in Masters. Okay, here I got one. Let's see if you can figure this one out. So you play 18 holes. What do you call the first nine holes you play? The front nine? That's correct.

What do you call the second nine holes? The back nine? You cannot call it the back nine. Why not? They call it the second nine. Why? That's just what the term they want. This is stupid.

Get over yourself. The Masters does a one-year contract with CBS every single year. Oh, really? Yes. So they keep them on their P's and Q's. So the Masters went to CBS and say, if you want us to let you carry the tournament again, you've got to get rid of Gary McCourt.

And they did. So Gary McCourt was a longtime CBS analyst. Still did a bunch of events. I don't be still doing or not, but he would be able to be. He wasn't on the Masters. He got literally kicked off the Masters for that one statement. I don't if he was saying on a regular or not, but yeah, Bikiniwax got him.

That's a shame. It's still a great tournament. I love the, I love that there's somethings at a particular course every single year. It's gorgeous. Like Wimbledon, Wimbledon, the clay courts at the French Open. Watch it on TV, and now you have 4K? Like, oh, it's gorgeous. The course is gorgeous.

Yeah, and now you're watching, like, you could never see, like, if you had a favorite golfer who kind of fell out of favor because he's like five or six shots back, there's like nine different channels to watch the Masters. If you were a fan of Jordan Speeth and wanted to watch him do his thing, you could watch literally every shot he made, or attempted at least. So yeah, Sergio, you got some anger issues. My grandfather, who taught me the sport of golf, I must have been 13 years old. I threw a club one time.

And my grandfather, this is my mother's side, was never a yeller, never a screamer at me. So I threw the club, I went and got it, and got the golf cart. He says, Matt, if you ever threw it. throw a club again, you'll never play golf with me. So I never did. Good.

Because really throwing golf clubs and snapping them. And then he punched you in the throat. No. Okay. Did your grandfather ever hit you in the throat? No. Not in the throat. Oh, he would hit you though. Okay. Sorry? I needed some discipline. Graham, peppy bill,

I got you. Poor you. It's fine. You got choking. up by your grandfather. He didn't choke me out. He whipped you. He didn't have me of an arm bar.

He didn't put you in a full nose for 20 minutes. All right. Final hour of the show, which will feature, we're going to play the Carlos Korea soundbite. See what... Sure. We need to. There's a rally of the troops.

He's trying to. Yeah, guess. Carlos did have an explanation for what's going down. We'll let you hear from that next. It's a little before. Actually, right at 1 o'clock. on sports talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

We've got 55 minutes left of this radio program for today. Please, we'd love for you to be a part of the show. 713, 212, 570. Matt and Ross with you here until 2 p.m. Headlines of the day. Astros are back home for a six-game homestine three with the now-hated Colorado Rockies. Colton Gordon will take it to the hill today for the local 9.

Ross will have the on-deck show at 6 o'clock. Yes, I will. 7-10 first pitch. Can't wait. Then 10th inning show. I did the 10th inning show yesterday. Went for about an hour. Oh, wow. Yeah.

I'm sure there was a lot of really happy people. I would say people were not pleased, generally speaking. Okay. I mean, there may have been one or two. Who's the worst call? Oh. Brad called in. Okay.

He wasn't happy with Mike Burroughs. He's like, man, who's that Pittsburgh pitcher? Mike Burroughs. He's not as good as Brandon. McCurry. Yeah. Yeah, he was not happy. I don't say most people were not pleased.

How can you be pleased when you go one and nine on a road trip? Rockets off until Saturday, but this is kind of weird. It's kind of a lull before... The calm before the storm. I like it. Everybody rest up. Yeah. Playing games are tonight, two today, two tomorrow.

And two more Thursday, two more Friday? Or is it, how does that work out? I don't remember. Don't they have to play it back to back at some point or something on the plans or no? Mm-mm. Okay, good. Yeah, oh, I think it's Tuesday, Wednesday, and then Friday. And then playoffs will start Saturday, Sunday for the Mainsday playoffs. So if you're playing the playing game on Friday, you will not play until Sunday.

So nobody's playing back-to-backs at any point the rest of the year. Good. So Rockets will have a full lineup ready to go. Really comes down to about six players and who's the seventh. Is Tauriessen play like he did in the first two months of the year, or is he played like he played in the last two months of the year? Tar Easton's going to be ready to go. Rested, refreshed.

As should all the rocket players. I'm excited about, yeah, Kevin Durant getting some rest. Alper and Shungoon, we know he had some back issues at some point. He had tweaked his back at some point on the town of the stretch, the season as well. Yeah. He's going to be ready to go. Clint Capella versus DeAndre Aiton. It's like Godzilla versus Mothra.

It's a big battle. Hey, one is a three-pointer this year. The other one doesn't. I assume. I don't know if DeAndre does. Probably not. As a whole before, go back to the phone, 713, 2,1, 2, 1, 5, 790. Let me give you storylines of the NBA.

Talked about too little, too much, or just right. The 65 game rule for all NBA players. Talked about a ton, I think. Overblown. Because you had all these people on the cusp. Like, Wembe just barely made it. Yokic just barely made it. Right.

I don't think that. That feels like an outlier year. People are really incensed about it. I'll be honest with you. I see fans all the time in the arena. I talk to quite a few. No one's ever called, again, maybe it's because we don't have players

that are in that group, but nobody's ever going, for the love of God, we've got to get to that 65 number so my favorite player can get all conference honors or all NBA honors. I'll go this way too. I think it's only the media members

who are like, this rule is too hard. harsh, these players put their bodies through the ringer. Fans don't care about that. They want to see Nicola Yolkits playing. They want to see Victor Wimbunyama playing. They want to hear about how this guy has to maintain his legs for a playoff push. They pay big money for the games and they want to watch them on the floor.

I'm going to throw a question to you right now. Okay. And I didn't give you a chance to prepare for this. Maybe I should have. If I gave you five minutes with Commissioner Adams over and you and I just said, just spill your beans. Okay. can you give me

what you would talk about in those five minutes tanking would be the first thing I think and explain to me how taking these short-term big checks from the the streaming services is not hurting your product long-term okay so let me write those down because I want to see if you and I will kind of match you

because I'll do is kind of the same thing you say the number one thing if you had and I don't necessarily mean five minutes but just a limited time you said would say tanking would be the very first thing Okay? TV would be next. Yes. Okay.

What else do you want to get into? I don't know that. I like where the game is. Do you think this is something I was thinking about. Now a few years ago, or maybe even like last year, it felt like there was too many fouls being called. Now I feel like almost as like everybody's mugging everybody. Sometimes, but I don't know what the happy meeting is.

If you feel like that's going to happen, get ready for the playoffs. That's what I'm saying, because the product can get bar. down when everybody's like pushing and shoving and holding and clutching and grabbing and the referees I don't know what the happy medium is I don't know what the solution is I think if everybody would stop you don't want too many fouls so you don't want calls for all this clutching and grabbing and stuff like

that you want a more free-flowing game so I don't certainly foul baiting is an issue nobody ever gets called for flopping I'll put that down refs do a better job of mitigating foul baiting Okay. That's fair. You know how they did it with the, you know how they did with the, the rip through move where they got rid of the, you don't adjust it. Yeah. Maybe do something like that. Yeah.

But that's very hard to legislate, especially in game. These, these reps, it's a very hard job. We criticize them and criticize them. Hard as efficient sport, period. Yeah. But other than that, I think I'm pretty good. Let me give you, let me give you my four and maybe I'm forgetting a five. Tanking to me to number one. you have had tanking for two months. Yeah. And that's really ugly. It's really ugly to put a product out there. And I'm not necessarily talking about the teams itself, because the teams already know they're not going to win.

But let's say you went and spent $175 to watch the Rockets play, the Utah Jazz, and there's nine Utah Jazz players. You're going to give those people that are going to Rockets games are going to teams that actually care, let's say the Celtics or let's say the Detroit Pistons. You're giving a bad taste in their mouth. Everything to me is about impressions and

experiences. And when you have one team that is not giving full throttle effort against a team that's not, it's very, very alarming. All right, that's number one. Number two, scheduling. Rockets had 14 back-to-backs this year. They've got

a space to schedule. I don't know how they're going to do it, whether it's adding a week on both ends, or reducing the all-star break or reducing the in-season tournament, they've got to shave. They've got to shave down back to back. Is the in-season tournament staying? I know, but I'm just saying there's a long time in between. You do play two games, but there's also a lot of time in between it as well.

Officiating, you may never get that resolved because they do have very difficult support. But, Ross, I know how a game is going to be officiated based on who the guys are coming in, and they should all be equal. I know the human body and their elements and the way they conduct themselves and how would they let it go. But there is inconsistencies one night to the next. And there are guys that are in ladies, for that matter, frankly, both that are getting good assignments that should not be getting them. Number four, I do believe the television network merry-go-round hurts. I know we're a streaming society now, but not everybody can stream.

Not everybody has the disposable income to buy multiple networks. and I think it hurts. Yeah. How much it hurts? I can't put a number on it, but I can tell you that and I'd say if I had younger kids, it would be different, but I have older kids that do know how to get that. But does this is a 17-year-old,

there's a 14-year-old go to their son and say, hey, dad, let's watch the Oklahoma City Thunder Detroit game. It's on Peacock. Yeah, he can figure it out. 14-year-old. A three-year-old can figure it out. Well, he may be able to afford it, but does Daddy pay for Peacock?

I don't know. So, Daddy needs a pony up for the peacock. And number five, the 65 game rule to me is so media driven. I like it. I like it too. You miss 17 games. I wouldn't put that in front of sober as worried about. 17, that 82 is not that difficult. I would say at the very least, maybe you want to move it to 62 and make it, you can miss 20 games. That's still, I mean, that's a quarter of the season. Yeah, I do believe 65 is, I mean, again, I know some parts, some guys get torn hamstrings, cost them 20 games. We went through that.

Man, that sucks. I'm sorry for that. We went to the list. One guy is won an MVP playing under 65 games in a full season. It's Bill Walton in like 77 or 78. Yeah. I think I can be done with those four topics in the five minutes. You got to give Bill Walton some grace because he got hurt all the time.

Yeah, he's getting terrible feat. All right. We'll talk to Matt about the Masters and AI video of Tiger. By speaking of AI, you should say the Kassarie yesterday mentioned the Texans are using AI. He said they're exploring using it. I don't know that they're doing much.

What is AI? No. Probably not. I like AI videos. I like watching these videos of these guys are talking to chat GPT and they can't like, one guy was like, hey, chat GPT, which month has the letter X in it? And the guys in chat GPD is like December.

You know who gets in fights with chat GPT is Ryan Hollins? Hmm. Very disrespectful to chat GPT. Just takes it. GPT is, is, also there's studies that chat GPT is always tells you you're right. And they're always very nice.

Like, they're just, they're just placating you. Stop talking to chat GPT. Talk to human beings, people. Yeah, talk to me. Call us. Yeah. We're not AI.

Yes. You heard the ads. Uh-huh. Matt GPT. No, I'm Matt. Matt T. I'm legit. I'm here.

I'm live. Yeah. 713212. 5.790. 122 on Sports 790. Hopefully you guys will not check out on the Astra. That's why we need a four and two homestand the worst way. Guaranteed win Tuesday.

God, I love when you speak like that. Let's go, baby. I almost texted you after the Mike Burroughs performance, but I thought, yeah, I got to do it. Because you were pretty hopeful that Mike Burroughs. Yeah, he went six innings. Yes, he did. That's true. They weren't strong innings. I mean, except for the whole.

home runs, he wasn't that bad. But there were two of them. Yeah, except for the home runs. He wasn't that bad. So the other nine hits were acceptable. I didn't say they were acceptable. He worked around them. It was a three run shot and a two run shot or something, right? Yes. And again, Josh Naylor had had no extra base hits until yesterday.

Well, he's a professional hitter. Josh Naylor's good. The Astros took a woeful Seattle offense. Yes. And made them like mid in one series. Oh, goodness. You were talking about television minigote, so the prime video folks have the

playing games. I don't know if Heat Hornets and Blazers Sun is going to move the needle for a generator How about this? Does it hurt the sports bars? I think they all have them now. I think you're probably right, but it's not, it takes a concerted effort as compared to just flicking 206 on or

674 or whatever. I mean, they all have to go hit the button, move around, and I tell you, Remote for you, Biz has really improved its profitability since the old streaming services have kicked there. Really? Yeah. How's it going? How many employees are you guys up to?

We have them in quads. What does that mean? Four different parts of towns. We have different people. Oh, really? They're like each independently owned and operated. Oh, okay. Gas is going up, driving around town.

Oh, we're just keeping like, Cyprus takes care of. You guys are taking the bus? We're Ubering everywhere. We'll be there. We'll be there in a couple hours. I will say, and thank you for those to do it, every time you all go to a bar or restaurant, which happens all the time.

You explain where a channel is on? Like, where was I last? Oh, I was on the road. Oh, I was in San Francisco. This is the, what, the last road trip. And I was in the media dining at the Chase Center where the Warriors play. So we're eating dinner. And I said, hey, can you put on?

on, and we were on NBC that night, a Sunday night game. And I said, can you put on the NBC game before ours so we can see how it's timing out? It was the Lakers and the Mavericks, as a matter of fact. And the woman had no earthly idea what the hell I was talking about. I said NBC. NBC? So their cable channel where the Warriors put their games on is on called NBC Sports Bay Area. Okay.

So she thought you meant that. So then she said, well, it's not on that. I said, no, it's on NBC. So then she goes to NBC Sports California where the Azer on. It took me 10 minutes to get the damn NBC, the generic NBC on. Oh, wow. Do you tell her not to have a nice day? No, I did passive aggressive.

I said, ma'am, hope you have a great day. Which you taught me. And it is what it is. Okay. You said, Matt, in your life, honesty is not the best policy. Passive aggressiveness is better. I didn't teach you that. Yes, you did.

What are you talking about? Because I was honest and said, don't have a nice day. I didn't teach you that. And it sparked outrage. Well, no, I didn't teach you that. I didn't say that at all. You said I said the wrong thing. Yeah, you did.

You shouldn't have been so angry with the guy. He was a nice guy. He was not nice. He was nice to me. Not nice to me. And I'm generally one of the nicest people you ever meet. I don't get fights with anybody. Are you kidding me?

I'm a lover and on a fighter. period. Oh, you're road raging every single day. That's because of Houston streets. I don't road rage and I'm in the hotel room. I do a lot of better things in that room.

Let's go to Keith on 7.9.8-126. Keith, good afternoon to you. Ross, how are y'all doing? Good. First round was the best three out of five, but now that I know that it's four out of seven. Oh, my God. If I know that it's four out of seven,

I'll say this. If we lose to the lake, I think we should sweep out. they can beat us any game without uh without uh with luca and uh that other dude there's no way we should lose to them period well they might lose a game or two i think they'll win the series though no i think they're gonna need to sweep them

and if we get up there they got get upset i'm sorry but he may's gonna be gone no he's not i believe it no you shouldn't believe it because that's not the truth you also said kevin duran was going to get hurt and be on the uh ir and the rockets weren't going to make the playoffs I'm very happy that was wrong about that Keith you're wrong about things I'm very excited about our chances right now and I can't see them

the Lakers beating us not one game with the team as constructed as they are no way that's all I got Thank you I would love a sweep but I'm not counting on a sweep it's playoffs

yeah I got news for you folks LeBron can get a triple double and help them win Rui Acha Muran can go five of seven from downtown. Yeah. I think Marcus Smart. Marcus Smart's an excellent defensive player. Luke Kinnard could get hot from three.

I mean, they're not void of talent. They're not as good, obviously. And defensively, they're not very good. But they can get into a high-scoring affair. Rockets, you know, Rockets would give up 140 to Minnesota last week, right? Rockets should win. They are five and a half-point favorites. Five and a half-point underdogs win in the NBA.

every night. Yeah, I ain't worried about Vegas. I'm just worried about what's in front of me. And the Rockets are a better basketball team. I would liken them to finish in five. Because I don't know if Golden State's could have much of an issue playing whoever they're going to play. That would be what?

How does that play out? Who is it? I should have the NBA playoffs in front of me. Who are they playing? They would play the 7-8 winner, right? No. Who does Oklahoma City playing the playoffs? Yeah.

Well, the Sun's Blazers They would play anybody. Yeah, so they don't know. It could be any of the four teams remaining, right? That is correct. So it could be, yeah, Golden State, they're not losing a game too. I don't think Golden State wins a game in the series. So Spurs are playing Suns or Blazers.

I'll tell you what. The team they're probably given the biggest trouble would be probably the L.A. Clippers, right? If you were to predict a team that would give Oklahoma City the biggest run for their money? I guess so. they played a lot better than the second half of the season but they traded away James Harden

who's playing well on that team besides Kauai is Chris Dunstall on that team I guess I should know these things yeah Thunder and 4 John Collins the former Atlanta Hawk is good He is good Hitting a lot of threes for Big Man Thunder and 4

All right 5 max Oh Derek Jones Jr. is not bad that's true yeah christ i forgot i mean chrisons on that team still that's good he plays a floydie too they do have coby uh sanders uh let's see what else

benny matherin's been good since coming over from indiana benedict matherin that's a good name of you used an alias in a hotel right hello nobody would call me in at my l a hotel asking for benedict matherin benedict matherin indubitably they just call him ben by the service Esquile. You think he sounds like that? Yes.

I don't think... Hello, I'm Benedict Matherin. I think he's Canadian. Don't hold me to that. Yes, so the Hampton's Matherins, yes. One thing about our show, I appreciate it is the fact that we don't... Stereotype. Not at all.

God, almighty. Ben, I bet Ben is the coolest guy on Earth. Come in here, sit down, talk shop with us, talk about life. Do you think he likes eggs? Benedict. How this show's gone 16 years, I don't know at times. Me either.

713, 212, 5, 790. What? Does he even like his eggs poach with little holidays? Doesn't that sound good? Jonathan, is there anything you can add

in the next segment because my partner's on fumes over here? I can think of something, anything. I mean, hell, I'll talk track and feel with you. I don't give a damn. Talk about the freeze. Get a Hilltopper's track talk. No, I'd rather talk about Jonathan

versus the freeze. Jonathan said he's smoking him. He got very mad at you when you said he couldn't beat the freeze. I thought you got bad quads. I just have a busted knee. That don't mean that... Oh, wait a minute.

You're losing the freeze then. I'm recovering. You know how many pro-ass professional trackwebler... You can't have a bad knee against a freeze. What? I thought there was a new frie.

I thought there was a new frie. Yeah, now it's probably a younger, faster freeze. That doesn't mean... Track speed. It's different than every speed. I want you guys understand that. But you're going to hobbling away. The freeze is a track runner.

Yeah, he's a collegiate track runner. Okay, then tell me where his times were. I don't know. They don't have freeze times. Yeah, no, you could have found him. He wasn't anybody that was that big. Oh, are you asking to freeze? I'm not asking you.

You brought this up. I'm just telling you, like, if I don't really know him, if he wasn't any- Nigel Tolton? And you just look up his times. Is he on T-Fers or whatnot? Oh, I'm on T-Fers right now. All right.

Update on the freeze speed numbers. 10-47, 100. That's okay, that's decent 2194, 200 What you got in those numbers? 24? Yeah. Oh my God, I would smoke him in every

Oh, God. You said 21-9? See, that's what I'm saying, no. So we put you in costume against the freeze. Why does he have to be in costume? Because the freeze is in costume. Okay. They're like superheroes.

133 on Sports Talk 790. 713-212-5-790. 138 on Sports Talks. 790. Ross is working on, believe it or not, right now. Tomorrow on the radio program, we will have shut your bum ass up at 1130. Maybe a player guest. Those are the 18, one of the two. And Astros, plenty.

We need a good song for tomorrow's highlights. So when they win, Jonathan, do we go over the top with Celebration Kuhnla Gang? Do we go, ain't no stopping us now? We are the champions? We are the champions. Oh, that's, yeah. Okay, actually that's really good one.

Don't stop me now, Queen. Oh, don't stop me now is not bad. Over the top is the move. So we're going to do whatever song tomorrow is going to be way, way higher than just a normal regular Tuesday victory. Because breaking an eight-game lucet tree, that's a big deal in the self. How about Starship? Ain't no, and we... Ain't no stop.

No, it's, what does that sing? Nothing is going to stop us now. Nothing stops. That's terrible. That's terrible. That song sucks. I thought you're talking about Starship. The lady. And it reminds me a mannequin.

Nicky Minage one. Yeah, play the Nicki Minaj one. The same version or just a... I don't know. I don't know any Nicky Minaj songs. No, Starship is the band. They were Jefferson Airplane, then it became Starship. Yeah, I think they're talking about this song.

Yeah, turn this off immediately. Jesus. What? You don't feel like, Nikki? Oh, this is great. This is Matt Thomas' jam. She's a kindergarten. of R&B.

Okay. You just keep showing your ignorance. Now play Starship. Oh, here we go. Yeah, this is worse. This has a build-up. This has a jam to it. No, it's not a jam.

It is. This song blows. This song is Starship. It's called Starship is the band. It's got to be in the system. Nothing's going to stop us now. Yeah, this is horrible. You grab your friends, arm in arm.

This is horrible. We'll play some highlights. of a big hit for Carlos Correa. This is... This does remind you a head in with a hammer. This does remind me a mannequin. Kim Cotrell back in the day. Meow.

Woo! Are you a kitten? She was. Why are you meowing? She was a sex kitten. You heard the song, Jonathan, before? I kind of know the cadence. The preamble is kind of...

It's the chorus. It's the jam. It takes a while. It does. Takes actually too long. Terrible. You like this voice? No, I like the chorus. No, Nicky, and a different.

Nicky Minaj. Trade a tomato. You like Minnie Riverton, but you like this guy's most. Oh, no, Minnie Riverton's awful. I think it's a woman. Here we go. This is why you listen to this song. This gets you fired up right now on 790.

I hate it. You turn his song down? Wow. All right. That's fine. So we will not play this. People are crashing into the media around Houston right now. I'm sorry, folks.

God, that's so bad. That song is off the list for tomorrow. That song sucks. That's definitely one of your worst ones, Matt. I mean, it's not one of my all-time favorite. I just, the chorus is a jam, and it fits. It doesn't stop us now. I mean, that's fit.

Thank you. That's all I'm saying. We didn't give the vibe, though. That song sucks. You know what I mean? All right. We'll have something. Now, real quick before we go to Jerry,

if they lose, what's the song next? We can't go overly sad, right? I mean, I would think we go overly sad. I've lost 10 of 11. I can think we can go 9. Yeah. You know, I use Google AI for help on this. So I always put songs about something,

and then it helps me give me a list of songs. Just sitting on the dock of the bay? Wasting time? Just hoping they win? I don't know. Sitting on dock on the bay, what do you think? Sure, why not? Ben hit does it?

I don't know. They're not going to lose. Well, a happy song tomorrow. Oh, happy. Farrow, happy. Farrow? Farrell, whatever. Jerry, Gulfgate on 790 at 142.

Hello, Jerry. Hello to you again. I've got the rockets in five, maybe six. Okay. Coming up. You know, I think he's going to depend on kind of an intangible. And that is LeBron's ability to empower him. other people. You know, we saw it

with Jordan, you know, the member of the Kerr and the other gentleman hitting that last moment shot, man, Jordan passed that ball to you, you know, it's such a sweet pass, or you feel obligated, you know, to make that shot. So, you know, LeBron is one of the better passes in the

history of the league. It goes unnoticed. I'm not a, you know, big, more of a Laker fan than I am, the Rockets, that's for sure. But watch that ability of LeBron, to empower other people. And it may be a different person for each game, because that's the difference between these other guys and Luca

and the other guy that's out. They aren't as consistent, you know. But I've got the Rockets with that limp and that's physical ability. You know, I think the other thing is I like Reecher's ability to slip and slide underneath and in the lanes, you know, because everybody's thinking so tall and so long, and here he comes. He's quicker than people giving credit for. But again, I think it'll boil down to the Rockets,

establishing the ability to close the game. It's not as powerful, not as as as as powerful with Luca out. And the other gentleman, I apologize, whose name I can't think of. Austin Reeves. Both of those guys. Yeah, yes, that, man, those guys, in my opinion, they're better closer than LeBron. these days.

But LeBron's ability to score and empower other people to score, man, that's something to watch Rockets in five or six. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Jerry, very much for the phone call. Let's play, believe it or not next. Jari, we don't have time for your call. We'd love to get to you, but we are on a little bit of a clock,

so we've got to keep it as is. Believe it or not, Ross, the category today is? Rory McElroy. Rory McElroy. He's from Holyfield, Ireland, and County Down. not a swell fellow seems like a swell fellow I don't know he's a fine young lad

doesn't like Houston apparently I'm outside Bellfast 713 2125771 he said it was too crowded from the spring breakers it's true they're all waiting to see Starship in concert 713 212 57790 to play believe it or not next all things

Rory Macaroy here on 790 sorry for Bronny James he's having to redesign his shoe logo because it is not passed. Let me give you the official rule here. Nike's trademark application for Brony James B9 logo has been refused because of quote, a likeness of confusion with an already registered mark according to the United States patent and trademark office documents.

Who the hell's buying brawny shoes? I mean, I understand LeBron shoes. I don't get brawny shoes. Nike stock has been tanking recently too. because of just the industry or what do you think it is? People say they went all in on retro stuff and didn't do a good job of innovating and but I don't know the real reasons. I guess I'd have to.

The B9 logo is a comp. Somebody knows more than me. You can figure that out. The B9 logo is a comp to the Back 9 Gulf Apparel, which is a company out of Austin. Oh, wow. In 2022, the stock was at 165. Today it's at 43. I mean, there's a variety of reasons.

Economy's tough. maybe they've outpriced themselves I mean the shoes are way too expensive yeah $200 shoes I don't know I'm not as such I'm just curious that Nike said yeah

there's a faction of America that wants Barney James shoes there's no way there's no way it's probably get some I bet you it's like some there shake a shake deal for it's just like how the Lakers

drafted Bronny because he's such a great player the Nike's are making Bronny a shoe because he's such a great player It's for LeBron. I would imagine. Because LeBron's value will carry post-MBA life. He just will. He's been in the league so long and been so popular that he's going to carry it beyond his playing days.

Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We shall play America's fastest growing sports radio game show. We simply call it B. Leave it or not. And here's how it works. You call 713-212-5-797. 13-1-2-5-7-90.

Today's edition, believe or not, it's all things about Rory McElroy. I'll reach your statement about Roy's statement's completely underling accurate. You'll say this. Believe it. The same is erroneous photo bunk and made up. You'll say this. Two pair, you get two questions right about Rory McElroy. You'll win a pair of tickets to see Rod Stewart on his one last time tour, April 19th,

or a pair of tickets to see the psychedelic furs at the House of Blues on May 23rd. Tickets are on sale now at Ticketmaster.com. Oh, look you here. Roger on 790. to play believe it or not believe it can you hear me yes roy mackeroys catty is harry diamond who has been his friend since childhood believe it or not believe it believe it statement number two for the win when he was nine years old rory appears a guest in an irish talk show and perform golf trick shots for the audience believe it or not not he did i yeah yeah paul on seven on he ready to play believe it or not

Believe it. Rory McElroy has only made the cut four out of nine times at the Open Championship, but all four times he finished in the top five. Believe it or not? Not. That is correct. Statement number two for the win. Despite all of his accomplishments, Rory McElroy still has never carded a whole-in-one

in an official professional event. Believe it or not. Not. That is right. He's got several. Congratulations. Let's go to Dan. Danny on 790. Danny, what was your favorite part of today's radio show?

All of it. Rory McElroy is a big supporter of the English Premier League team Arsenal. Believe it or not? Believe it. No, Manchester United. Five times we're in the show today. At least. John on 790, ready to play, believe it or not?

But believe it. Rory McElroy missed the 2015 open championship due to injuring ligaments in his ankle while playing soccer. Believe it or not. Not. That's a believe it. Thank you for playing. Believe it. The mayor of Cyprus.

Mayor, what was your favorite part of today's 10-2 radio show? All right. You sound young there, mayor. Roy McElroy's bag at the 2026 Masters was all tailor-made. Driver, woods, irons, wedges, and even as putter. Believe it or not? Believe it. Believe it. Statement number two for the win. Rory Macaroy has won six major championships tied for 12th all time with Lee Trevino, Phil Mickelson, and Nick Faldo. Believe it or not?

Not. Hmm. Believe it. Sorry, Mayor. Life is hard, kid. You know what we're going to do now? I think one day next week we're going to do, believe it or not, with a speakeasy way to get in. You can't get in until you know the Pascoe. Okay. So we'll give the pass code like every 30 minutes. Okay. So we'll see when the prize horse try to click in it 145.

Okay. We'll say, what's the speak easy word? What would you call it? Password, yes. Password. Then be like, oh, out, not click out. We gave away nothing. Really?

No, we had a winner. Okay, so we got to give away starting the rest of the week. We've got to give away for one correct answer. We know these prizes are going to give away. Okay. Up next, Wexler, Clinton. The A team. Talk with Ross at six.

For Astros on deck, you're on 790. Sports Talk 790 weather.