The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Split Opening Weekend, Rockets Split Road Trip; Is ABS Exposing Bad Umpiring?

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

Astros Split Opening Weekend, Rockets Split Road Trip; Is ABS Exposing Bad Umpiring?

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. In H-Town, good morning, and welcome to a Monday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. A dominant second, third and fourth quarter to help your rockets win it tonight here in Smoothie King Center. I'll score Houston 134, New Orleans 102. You know what happiness weekend. Mostly. Well, I mean, Thursday and Friday's a little dicey.

You're not a Duke fan. I didn't sleep in the yard last night. You did? Yes. Is that because of you? Or is that because of Yukon? Or both? It was because of Yukon.

Yukon, you go to the U-backyard where you sleep. You come back and hit a crazy three. You choke. Nothing like March. Yeah, that was a collapse. Back-to-back collapse. When I was a young man learning this business and saying, man, how dare you?

You ball, while I wasn't bald at the time, you partially haired fat guy. You cannot be calling people chokers. But we're changing. Not because I lost weight and because I've lost my hair. I'm just saying that we as a society are changing. That's not about the last play. It's a 19 point joke. Choke.

And joke. To me, choke should only be used when somebody completely panic, froze in the moment. And didn't try. Comebacks happen. Like really, the Rockets, well, we can call it a choke, but it just was a comeback. They weren't frozen.

They weren't lost. They just started missing shots, and then the Timberwolves made everything. Okay, so you know what then? You con choked. Then I, I mean, Duke choked. Okay, so you think it was a

Yeah, they're panicking. It was a complete panic. Yes. Then when you're in panic, that to me, that's to me. This is my definition. All right, so let me rephrase. I'm not the authority on anything.

I hate the term choke. I understand. So let me back off. I'm going to back off on the choke. Yukon completely panicked. I'm sticking with choke. I'm sorry, Duke choked. Yeah, Duke, yeah.

And panicked, whatever. Semantics. Right. When you make or miss shots, that's how the cookie crumbles. When you got completely panicked and froze in the moment, that's a choke. And they choked. 19 points, dude. And see, I was getting right.

ready for the game. I had an extra television monitor with me at the smoothie king center last night, so he said, hey, let's put the game on and it kept getting smaller and smaller, and then I didn't see the last few seconds because I was obviously about to call the play by play of a basketball game. I didn't, I can't as much I wanted to focus on the game, I couldn't.

And then the replay showed. And it's funny because Carl's Boozer, that's the dad of the Boozer twins, has not been afraid to talk about how awesome his team is and how awesome awesome his kids are. And there's always video of him waving off goodbye to teams. I mean, that's been put out there quite a bit. And you can get to see, oh, Carl's doing anything last night.

Epically bad, back-to-back. I mean, they gaffed a 15-pointer against the Cougars, too, right? With the 14 or 15 last year? I think, yeah, it wasn't like 10 or something, around a minute and a half or something? I don't remember what it was. That was a bad joke, too. Oh, man, oh, man. Oh, man. Yikes, yikes, yikes. But that's their issues. We got our own here in Houston. Well, hey.

But we're feeling good right now. So I was thinking Saturday, because I did watch the Astros game on Saturday. I had nothing to New Orleans on Saturday, which is actually nice. By the way, kudos to New Orleans. And all of y'all know this or not. It is a different place than it was even when I was there early in the year.

It's cleaner. Now we're going to be. clean. You're talking about the city? Yeah, or the arena? Everything. Primarily the city. I was only arena for a couple of hours.

It was very pleasant. There wasn't nearly, now again, I wasn't there during Marty Graw or during spring break. It was late, you know, late March. New Year's. But everybody was New Year's, Christmas, Thanksgiving, a rando Tuesday. Sure.

Fat Tuesday. Yeah, fat one especially. It was a really pleasant experience. And I love New Orleans. I like New Orleans. I don't love it, but I like it, but I liked it more this time around. Good. I love it.

Yeah. Music, food, history, gambling. Yeah. Pretty much takes care of all of it. Now, the casino got me. The casino got me Friday, but I got it back on Saturday. Okay, good. You're not going to be pleased.

Evenish? No, lost a little bit, but felt better about the situation. Okay. So the mid-shoe change from $15 to $25 a table is fine. I can live with that. Yes. But when you don't change it from 6-5 to 3-2 on the 25, that's where I have the problems.

I got up and left. I'm proud of you. I figured you'd be beat. I'm actually, yeah, I said, look, it's your money. I'm done. I mean, I'm still going to play, but I just like,

if I'm going to spend 25 at a table, which I did ultimately, I went to find a 25 at a 3-2. That's good. All right. I'm going to cry. That's okay. Hey, so Thursday and Friday,

people were losing their minds. Yes. No clutch hitting. Fire the hitting coaches. Joe's spot has lost his team already. Oh my God. There's Dana Brown need to go. No chemistry.

No chemistry. There's a bad ju-ju. And then Saturday and Sunday did not get off to a great start. Look, the pitching, honestly, this weekend was not great. The entire four games was not great. The IRA over seven for the starting pitching staff that we thought was going to be that we thought fan grass was crazy for having them 18th. Athletic, you don't know what you're talking about.

Well, maybe they do for at least a week. Yeah. Well, we're not, we are smarter than that. Yes. We are not going to allow you guys to do what Astro Twitter does. Lose their damn mind after every single game. Okay. So I put the AO out.

The warning, like, should we do AOs? Came back in one Saturday. Sunday gave Tatsui Imi a very nice 4-0 lead. And he didn't want to stick around to see it. He squandered it. And that's okay. The Astro bats came through. You heard some of the highlights there.

Christian Walker, friend of the show, doing a great job. Yes. And the Astros wound up getting a soft. split, which again, not what you ultimately wanted, but it's first week in the series. Of the season, yeah. I ain't scared. Okay. Nobody's ever won a division championship in late

March. I mean, no one. A lot of bullpen usage. A lot of Rotary Munoz and the boys. And Stephen O'Ker. Way too much Rotary. Way too much AJ Blue Ball and Brian O'Brien will get to. Now, I did

ask you via text, which your gut feeling was. You know what? It's funny. I was like, oh, he must be doing bad. Because I know I'm not going to hear from you. If he's going three up, three down, I know I'm not hearing from you. That's true. Now, you said he was not going to blow a save in the month, which he did not. So far, I'm good. But. I said by the time, Hater comes back.

But it's not the start that Mr. O'Brien would like to have seen. And also, and also there's concerns about his velocity. He's normally a guy who is around, you know, 97. and 98 can run it up to 100 and his fastball was around averaging 93 yesterday. So that is certainly something to keep an eye on. Early season, working the kinks out. Yes. We'll see.

We need to, again, nothing is ever going to be determined off of two performances or four baseball games. But I do like the grit the Astor showed. I do love the comeback ability. And it does make me feel, not again, we're only using a ridiculously small sample size of four games. Yeah, and you've got a lot of help from the Angels defense on Saturday, especially. They're butchers.

And look, the Angels are projected to be either fourth or fifth in the American League West. Three errors from the Angels. The baseball was kind of baseballing. Was it Walker or whoever, who went off of two gloves? I mean, they got a little help from their baseball gods and a little help from the Angels too. But hey,

wins or wins or wins. Winns or victory. Winds or wins. Because, again, you're going to win about hopefully 85 more of those. Hopefully. Enough for a wild card spot. Rotation rounds in a form. Is Cat Rolla got a hit yet? I don't know.

Because every time I watch a hotline, he's striking out. I've been kind of more focused on all the things going on in Houston sports. I know. I know. I know. I haven't been paying attention to baseball as at large. All right. So here's the agenda today.

Yes. We have Astros versus Angels. We have the Rockets winning their last two games on road trip. Woo! Beats a crap out of the Pelicans yesterday. I mean, annihilated them. Apra and Shangoon, the three-point bandit. Five of them.

Don't get confident, please. I was like, oh, no. And then he just kept making them last night. Making them over again. I think you finished, what, five or six from three? Something like that. Good to see Kevin Durant now play the fourth quarter. I'm always in a good mood when Kevin Durant doesn't play the fourth quarter.

Yeah, he needs to rest. Yeah, playing a lot of minutes. The basketball game between Duke and Yukon, I don't know. I mean, nationally, it's certainly a huge topic of conversation. I have a really distinct feeling that when the, the Cougars left that collectively Houston sports fans said, yeah, we're good. Now, I'll tell you this, the Iowa

Illinois game on Saturday looked like there was a nice crowd. Now, I don't know if tickets plummeted and price and people scooped up at the last second, but perhaps. The problem is, if you're if you are a fan of either one of those teams, Houston ain't around the corner. I mean, you're not just jump on a plane to run down there.

To come here to play, watch your team for the final four. And I would say, well, maybe Iowa has a big fan base. Probably not Yukon. I don't know how many So let me ask you this. What's the Yukon alum group in Houston looking like. Yeah. If any of you went to the Iowa, Illinois game, just tell us.

Maybe some Houston fans kept their tickets. Couldn't find a price they didn't like and go catch a good game. Or just said, hey, it's an elite eight game. I don't think it doesn't happen a whole lot around here. I mean, I don't think we'll get a call, but it's worthy at least asking. So if you went to the Iowa, Illinois game, we'll get to that. We got the comets are back in town. Yes.

That was announced officially today after the rumored conversation to place over the weekend. Yes. And they're bringing you back as play by play voice. I mean, we haven't talked about it. Make an offer. Tillman. Negotiations can happen. That's true.

$300 million. That, it feels like a ridiculously high price for a team. But people are just like, hey, what do you think of thoughts about it? I'm like, well, you know what? If there is a segment of the population that enjoy. that women's basketball. And again, how was it?

Caitlin Clark turns everything up a notch. Now, you shouldn't build your team around one player, but the NBA built around three in the 80s. Right. You shouldn't build your league around one player,

but sorry, go ahead. Yeah, as I was saying, you know, if Michael Magic and Larry can do it, then maybe Caitlin can do it for a smaller extent. That's the hope.

And here's the reality. It can go two ways, right? It can be, she's the pop and then there's a fizzle, or she's the catalyst. Yeah. So, we'll see. All I will say is this.

Timman doesn't make bad business deals. No, he does not. So I would think he is buying a stock hoping it flourishes. Yes, right. But here's the thing. He didn't buy the stock low. He bought the stock. I mean, $300 million.

That is an effortless high number. That's true. Or are you getting in after the bump? And the crash is coming. I don't know. I don't think so. To me, it's about he must think down the road. 10 years from now, this thing is going to be even 10 times bigger than it is now.

And then ultimately he's looking to fill the Knights in this building too. The very good thing they have is that they're grabbing a lot of young, with Caitlin Clark, a lot of young girls and young people. Right, right. So that's perfect for elite growth. Yeah, yeah. And again, but the thing about that is not necessarily filling the building up, it's about corporate sponsorships and television deals.

And, you know, Adam Sover, to his credit, has been able to grab a lot of money for TV deals. and I'm sure the WMBA to a lesser extent is also gaining some traction off of that. All right, so we got a lot to get to today. We have to tell the truth at 1130 this morning. Okay. I've already got three of the four down. I've got to think of one more thing.

Okay. How many truths? I can't tell you yet. Okay. Interesting. Now, last week, you both got it right, or did you get it right and Jonathan got it wrong? Okay.

Score is 5'3. I'm keeping track. Good track. Who's got five? You. Okay. It feels like it's more like eight to two. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding, Jonathan.

Hope you had a great weekend. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. Are we going to use the term choke? Do we have parameters for it? Because if you go back to the game last night, there were multiple chances just by the lack of time on the clock. if booster Rossi holds on to the ball and just takes a 10 violation.

There's no time for you come to shoot. Crazy. Matt and Ross with you on a Monday. 713-212-5-790. 10-22 on a Monday morning. Thank you for being a part of our show. Astros split the series with the halos. Astros, good news, drew 23 walks.

Unfortunately, surrendered 28 of them. Oh. Is that bad? Is that true? That's a lot of walks. No way. 28 and 4 games? Well, I mean, I'm looking at McTaggart's tweet. Okay.

Oh, Brian McTaggart, he wouldn't lie. Yeah, the Astros have drawn 23 walks, which is second most of MLB behind the Angels who drew 28 walks. Brian McTaggart would not lie. Oh, why? It's early. It is early. Very early.

ABS, Astros, failing grade. so far. Oh my God. What? Yeah, 28 walks. The Dodgers have issued five. I'm not going to allow you to

talking Dodgers baseball this year, except when the Astros play the Dodgers. Okay? Oh, it's just three games. At least, they've only played three. Five walks. Hey, are we going to check on former Astros around big leagues like once a week?

Do you want to do that as a segment? Oh, okay. Like, where are they now? I think it'd be, um, Kyle Tucker. I'm writing these down. Oh, here we go. Tucker. Yes. Frumber. Yes. Bregman. Bregman.

I mean, you want to go care at Cole? Cole. And you're forgetting the greatest utility player in Astros history. Oh, Mauricio DuBahn. Okay. Does anybody else that you would like to really inquire about? No. You know what? I will give you Caleb Ort. No.

Why not? I'll give you those five and we'll do it every Monday from here on the rest of the season. I'll handle that responsible. Okay. Yeah. I love it. And now we need a good... I actually kind of don't love it. We need a good song for it. Like, where... I will remember you. That seems kind of depressing. That's like someone dies.

Missing you at all? Oh, Missed John Wade, right? I am missing you at all? Yeah. John Wade, right? I am missing you at all. Oh, I thought that was... missing you. John Wade, W-A-I-T-E. Look at it up, Jonathan, so you can find that song. I thought that woman who did that song,

uh, bitch. What? You don't remember that song? I'm a bitch, I'm a mother, I'm a sinner, I'm a saint. We're not playing that song during it.

No, I know. Yeah, Meredith Brooks. She didn't do that? This is it, right here. Once every Monday on the, oh, I just came up with a segment idea on the show, organically on the show. It just shows you we don't pre-wrote,

We don't pre-do our show. We think of things organically. Every Monday, right here, sports talk 790. This is a man? Yes. Jonathan, quick thought about this? I'm just asking. Well, let it get in the groove, I guess, because this is terrible right now.

Yeah, give me some. It may be quiet for like 20 seconds. I thought this was a woman my whole life. This isn't bad. It's fine. This is very. very 80s. Let's hurry it up, guys.

Yeah, let's get to the chorus here. Come on now. At SportsMT on Instagram. And yeah, follow him. We have to tell the truth at 1130. It's the longest ramp up ever? Here we go. Here it is. So this is where you'll start the song.

Jonathan, at that point, because we're not letting that whole thing go. That's too long. All right. So I ain't missing you. What if you are? We don't know that yet. Every Monday at 120. Okay.

So, y'all write that down. Tell your friends, tell your enemies. Okay. Every Monday. And if there's somebody else you need to add the list, tell me, you said Garrett Cole, but he hasn't pitched yet, correct? I don't think so. Well, I mean, that's the update.

Oh, yeah, you'll find out at 120. 120. One 20, missing you here on Sports Talks every night. Let's talk to some people. Ryan Gusto we're putting on the list? No. Come on. No.

Charlie Morton to retire. We can't put him on the list. Oh, he did? Yes. Oh, man. Ground Chuck. RIP. All right.

If there's anybody else else you want to know, the missing you update, it's at 120 Monday's here on the Sports Talk 790. Let's talk to Adrian. Adrian, did you go to the game on Saturday between the Illinois and Iowa? I sure did. And you forgot George Springer. Oh, that's a good one. George Springer, good one.

Thank you, Adrian. Honestly, okay, I'm kind of joking, but kind of not. Jesus Sanchez. Sanchez ran into the list. This is a whole segment. You're off this whole segment. Springer. Okay, that's seven deep. How's Yule doing in the Mexican League? No, not counting.

All right. So, Adrienne, how was the crowd on Saturday? It was awesome. So I went to the University of Illinois. Oh, okay. We had over 4,000 alumni here in Houston. Oh, wow. And we had a pregame at Tom's Watchbar. We had about 400 people. and I went around from table to table and talked to quite a few people who flew in on Friday.

Oh, really? Okay. They just dropped everything and said, because nobody expected us to beat the Coots. So they said, hell yeah, we haven't been to the final four in 21 years. We're going to Houston. Outstanding. Okay, so how full was the building? 90%. 90%.

That's really good. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. That's good, because it looked lower problem with like it was completely full. I just didn't know how the upper deck looks. So you said you're an Iowa alum? Illinois.

Illinois. So are you going to go to Indianapolis or you just wanted to see your squad here in town? I haven't decided yet, but probably stay here. Okay. I'll be honest with you, it's very expensive to get up there, and I'm sorry to say that because I was obviously thinking about that for the University of Houston, until your team ruined my memories of that. But yeah, thank you, Adrian, for the update on that.

Good to see there were so many people that fill the building up on site. That's a good site for Houston sports team and doesn't involve a Houston sports team. Right. All right. Thanks, guys. Thank, Adrian. Thanks for the time. We had one, we have another person that went to the game. Let's go. That's how I like this.

Let's go to Tim and Pearland on 790. Hello, Tim. Hell yeah, I went to the game. Hawkeyes always represent. Oh, see, now it's funny because we had two people and Tim, you're the second one that had a dog in the fight. Huckai never die.

How big is the Iowa alumni group of Houston? You know, it's pretty big. I don't know if it's bigger than the Illinois group, but it's big and we represent. In the stadium, what, 90% full, sorry, Illinois people ain't too smart. There's probably about 75%

if that. Okay, so now we're getting conflicting reports. Yeah, well, get the facts from an Iowa person. You know, after all those Illinois people cheer, I-L-L- eel. That says, yeah. They buy

Yeah, I'm just a little pissed, so. Yeah, I can feel the anger in your voice. Yeah, for sure. It was a great run, Tim. Thank you, Tim, for the phone call for you. Iowa people drink more beer, though. And what? I, uh, okay, yeah.

Something to be proud of. I mean, it is, yeah. I don't think so. I think Iowa women are a little more attractive in Illinois women. I can't hold you to that. I have no clue. You have, you have no clue. You mean, you have no idea.

Why don't you Google Images? see what's going on. No, I'm not going to Google image Hot Iowa Hot Guy Women. Jonathan, will you do it? Let us know how it turned out. Do what? Google Hot Iowa Women? You know what? That'd be no. Okay, that's fair. We'll just have to... Oh, what about Verlander the list?

Thank you. Oh, Verlil. Wait a minute. How long is this segment going to be? Okay, you know what? If you weren't an All-Star or didn't... We got to cut off like none. Jesus, Sanchez, you're off. You're off the list. Okay, I'm sorry, but... Jesus Sanchez off the list. And I'm going to take George Springer off the list.

He's been going a while. I think that's fair. And I'm taking Garrett Cole off the list. I think that's fair too. One, two, three, four, five. For Pete's sick. Why are you taking me off for list, Matt? Because Verlander is now a tiger.

I'm a former Astro Great, too. Verlander, Dubon, Breggman, Frumber, Tucker. I'm coming back from Tommy John. why do I want to go see a Muppet movie so bad every time you try to do this? I don't know what you're talking about. Your impersonations. You're Garrett Cole's number one. Your Calming there is like 156.

Oh, okay. Well, that's great, actually. No, it's not. That means I got a strong roster. Yeah, you're... Got a lot of middle ground there. All right, 713-212-5-790. By the way, for those of being worried about me with Lauren Shihadi being in Houston and I...

I was a little worried. I was in New Orleans, I didn't get to see her. Okay. that's more than 500 yards. That's good. Which is what the court says. Do we need to play the audio of the Duke Radio Network? Oh, my God. Do you have it?

We can find it. It won't take us long to find it. You'll hear it next. It could. It's, uh, that's rude. It's, my man. And I know the guy. He's been a guest on the show. That hurts. 1032 on Sports Talk 790. Madden Ross in a Monday. Good. Morning to you. It is the Matt Thomas show at Ross.

We look forward to having you with us today. We do invite you to join us on the phones at 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-1-790. We have to tell the truth coming up today at 1130. And a brand-new segment every Monday we just organically came up with 10 minutes ago called missing you at 120. And we'll keep it to five players, I think. Because if you do something 6-7-8, it loses its zest for the segment. So right now it's Tucker from.

Brighman, Dubon, and Verlander on the Missing You Segment. And that could obviously change as things move. If players get traded, which ultimately could happen. Like, we didn't use You Say Kikuchi as a Missingier segment. We could use a short-timer. Yeah. So it's, it can interchangeable parts. Okay, good.

All right. So play-by-play is something I love doing. And I wish I was, I wish I had a perfect broadcast. I still tell you this after doing it for 30 years. I'm still looking for that first one. That's good, Matt. Striving for perfection. Always striving for perfection.

But I've told this to a lot of people before. The minutia of the game, when you are calling a basketball or baseball or football game, nobody really cares if you make a mistake. In theory, if it's four to two in the top of the fourth. Or if you make a play a misidentify a receiver in the second quarter of a game at 10-7, okay? That's them's the brakes. There is something, especially with the increase in social media, you got to nail the biggest moments.

Whether it's a superlative, whether it's Kevin Durant going for number five, whether it's a made shot, you have to nail it. Because if you don't, then I'm going to say, what the hell's going on? Now, stage two of this,

universally Duke is hated by 95% of sports fans. Yes. There's 5% Self-included There's 5% that loves them My family loves Duke basketball All of them All of them

Really? Every single one of them Wow And I married into that So the Duke mind virus I've born children because of that The Duke Mind virus spread In the Thomas household

My oldest son's name Most of you know His name is Cameron Named after Cameron indoor stadium Yes And your daughter's name Shushesky No that's not true

No that's not true at all point being is this I have to really navigate these murky waters because if I go too much into I get why you hate Duke then I'm going to be in the back in the backyard again for the second straight night

make sure you take your brug spray I'm kidding I need a tent this time are you haven't had a tent this whole time I didn't pitch a tent yesterday now okay so you have to nail the call number one

and number two you can't come across is Uber whiny if you're with a fan base that generally speaking hate you. When the Yankees complain about something, we hate you. When the Knicks complain about something, we hate you. Notre Dame, we hate you. There's a variety of things. Okay. So unfortunately, the Duke Radio Network did not adhere to these things.

I want you to evaluate the call. Okay. And then I want you to evaluate the post call. Here is the last few moments of the Duke Yukon game where the younger, the other younger. The Boozer twin as Caden gives up the ball. Yukon makes a shot to win the game and

here's the call on the Duke Radio Network. Get it in, they do for Boozer. Bobbled it back for Star. Needs to get rid of it does for Caden. Seven seconds. Try to throw it ahead, deflected, stolen by Connecticut. Two seconds. It's Mullen's up top for the win. Oh, we hit it. With three-tenths of a second to go.

Dalai Smith ran off the bench. That should be a technical. but with three-tenths of a second to go, Connecticut has the lead 73 to 72. As Connecticut got the three from Mullins after the turnover from Caden Boozer. I would have probably called him more dramatic on the three-pointer because that ended my season. Yeah. And even though you're the Duke announcer, you can still have the raw emotion. Yeah, like, oh. Yeah, you got to, you got to belt that one out.

Like when the last rocket loss that ended a season was the three-pointer by Damian Lillard. And I think Craig poured a soul into that going, oh, my God, the season's ending on that shot. I can do that, even though I'm obviously pro-rocketing want the rockets to succeed. I'm not going to embellish. Oh, that was a great jam by LeBron James. I mean, you still have to call the shot and your raw motions are going to come into play on that. what made it worse, and this is where, again, you just, you use this an example. And the Duke announcers again, friend of the show had been on with this before, nice guy.

Really, really nice guy, actually. He went to the technical foul card. Not only did he go to it, but he was wrong because the guy he said that was not on the, that was not supposed to be on the floor, was actually checked in. It was legal on the floor, Malachi Smith. So not only did he go to the T, the technical card. he was wrong about who the player he was identifying. So basically social media Ross

destroys him because Duke is A. losing. There's happiness there. And then you have the Duke announcer whining about a technical file that was never going to be called that should never been called to begin with because the player was legally on the floor. It's bad. I do sympathize because not only, it wasn't just that shot.

It wasn't like a back and forth knockdown draft. It was a collapse. Yeah, yeah. It was, you had to watch that house. burned down. I've been there. And then the house collapsed. So I feel bad, but yeah, he

should be better. Well, but at this way. If I'm calling Houston Cougar basketball, the national championship game. Yeah. I'm not going, oh my gosh, Emmanuel Sharp just double dribbled. Or what doesn't want it?

Yeah. Can't grab the ball. I would have lost my mind. Mm-hmm. because that's what people do. Yeah. You're not a play-by-a-a-play guy, but if I say,

you have to be raw in the moment. But if you put the headset on it, and I said, Ross, describe what happened to Manuel Sharp in the last 10 seconds of the game with Florida. You would have described it as, oh my God,

I can't believe that he pumped faked and left his feet and then had to get rid of it. I mean, you would have sold, you would have been like, oh, my, that's what I'm saying you, you have to channel emotion. You have to, yeah, you have,

That was an emotional moment. You have to channel and let it. You have to throttle it. You can't go full all emotion, but it has to be a part of the call. Because that was an emotional part. You can't get any more emotional if you're a Duke fan than watching those last 10 seconds.

So, you know, again, just, you know, look, you don't want to be, you don't want to support the other team when you're working for that one team, but you have to also acknowledge either great, or futility on the most incredible play and then something as, ooh, minute as guys leaving the court and then it was the wrong guy. I just like, oh God, I just, I honestly want to crawl in the hole to die with him because I know he's, he's killing himself. He wants that one back.

Look, there'll be moments in my life that I'll want a call back. There's plenty of calls in my life I want back. Just is. We as play-by-play guys go through that, but just. The past can only haunt you if you let it, Matt. I feel like I do a show with the therapist. I'm trying to help. I mean...

Why don't you... You know what? You have... Why don't you go to night school? I'm thinking about it, actually. I don't think it'd be a terrible idea in your part. Oh, what I got rockets tomorrow? I might be picking up Astros tonight.

I have rockets on Wednesday. And then I have Astros on... Actually, Rockets on Friday. Okay, maybe in the fall. I'm going to do 6 a.m. class. I get up at 6 a.m. every day. That's a lie. 1045 sports.

Sports Talk 790. ABS. Oh, and Dan wants me to pick up Saturday. So I'll have four games this week. ABS. C.B. Buckner. You may want to retire. 1046. Sports Talk, 790.

713.212.5.790. So C.B. Buckner is... Him and Las Diaz are now the two worst umpires in Major League Baseball. You could make it a trio when Angel Hernandez was umpiring. You're saying, Matt, how do you know those guys? names. Everybody that follows baseball knows those cats' names. They've just been the three worst guys for a better part of a decade.

And once you get in the club, you can't get out of it. Sorry, you just can't. It doesn't make any sense. They routinely considered the worst umpires. The players hate them. The managers hate them. The metrics hate them. There's nobody that says, man, I got CB Buckner behind the plate I'm feeling good about today.

Correct. He had six overturned calls in one game. Wow. I wonder what the record's going to end up being. That'll be fun to find out. We got six within the first week. Oh, there'll be somebody charting it. You can't be a major league umpire if you're missing that many calls and having them overturned. And I think about that, that's just the number of overturned calls.

How many times did he miss a call that they just said, well, I just can't, I can't, I can't take that chance. Yeah, I went to Umpscore cars to find the worst from last year. The absolute worst was somebody named Andy Fletcher. Okay. But then it's Las Diaz and C.B. Buckner literally next up. So I'm missing, I guess Andy Fletcher isn't nearly as cocky as those two guys are. Maybe not. Because those two guys are cocky and they're terrible.

Can't be both. Pick a lane. Okay. So I have watched a small sample size of games this year. Okay. I watched just about all of the Astros game yesterday, watched some of the game on Saturday. And Thursday and Friday I was with Rockets and Traveling, so I couldn't get to see much. And I know you've been looking for this ABS thing. And again, granted, we're only talking about four games, an incredibly small sample size.

I don't see how you're going to do it every pitch. I just don't. I really think from a logistical standpoint. Why? I think you're going to get... Because think about it, it's pretty quick, but it needs to get it even faster. It needs to...

No, it's fast. There's a fluid. I don't think it's fast. I'm saying I don't think it's fast enough. No, it's instant. This whole thing that we wait, that's for dramatic. so T-Mobile gets their plug.

Oh, is that the case? Yeah. I don't even know that. Yeah, it's instant. They can have a little buzzer on them that's going to bring an instant. Hmm. Okay. Well, then forget what I just said.

Okay. Because I really didn't know that. Mm-hmm. Okay. You got to get the graphic up there. We're going to make a whole show out of this, and then we're going to make it like it's a cool challenge thing. And then here's T-Mobile's plug.

Maybe that's the reason we're never going to get it. I know. That's true. It's very easily because it's pretty sexy. People enjoy it. Well, if you're forcing everyone to use it on Because no matter what, right? Everybody has every local broadcasts we're watching.

It's brought to you by T-Mobile. You'd have to have the, if they use a strike box, it's brought to you by T-Mobile, I don't know. But yeah, it's- No more plugs for them. It's an avenue for revenue. Yeah. Smart on baseball's part.

I'm not plugging them. I mean, they sponsor the element. I mean, I didn't say they're great and they're the best. You didn't say anything at all about them. Well, in my experience, they're not great. So, there you go. That's a good balance right there, Rossi. Okay, well, then I thought they were looking, they were just, they were not instantly doing it.

So maybe, no, I'm still going to. Okay. Yeah, I got to, I got to stand that. I think it'll be the gateway drug, eventually. Like, how many? I'm not saying, I don't know. So let me put it this way. If it's going, if it's working so beautifully now, then what would hold them back from just saying, all right, if it's working now?

It's out of game. Both teams are out of challenges and horrible calls are getting made. Happen Altuva late in the game. They were out of challenges and horrible calls are getting made. It'll continue to happen in a pile up in big moments. And then the tide will turn eventually. The grains of sand will eventually fall over to my end, but it will take time. I'm really?

I think we need to make a grandiose bet about this. Okay. I bet five years ago you would have said there wouldn't be a challenge system. I mean, it's, it's just, things change and it'll take time. I would like to, uh, make a bet. Let's make the bet on, I mean, you don't get this in perpetuity. Yes, I'm saying. How long are we going to go on this?

I don't know. Because I, I've already, I'm going to pay off on the Joe Mixing gun bet, although I still believe there's Joe Mix and gunfire. Yvonne Alvarez is on pace to pay, play 162 games. Yes, he is. He's doing well. You're, you're one in that pace game. I'm going to pay for, okay, wait, wait, what year are we in 2020.

you're going to need the younger generation younger generation it's going to take time because sometimes things are generational like we talked about with the players the older players are all love the human element because that's what they're used to the younger players are all more more on board with this ABS and stuff

because they dealt with it in AAA now that it's gone away in AAA you're going to have fewer players who have dealt with the full ABS because they're not tinkering with that at all right at AAA? Are they just going full challenge? I think you're going full challenge I'm going to say here's the bet. And you're going to get odds on this.

All expense paid trip. No, stop. To Las Vegas. You're ridiculous. I don't like Las Vegas. Okay. All expense paid trip to Phoenix. I've never been to Phoenix.

Well, that'd be a great trip for you then by 2030. No, no. 2030 is four years. I say, you're saying it's never, ever, ever going to happen in our lives. And I'm saying I don't know when it's going to be, but I think it'll happen eventually. Okay. All right, so there's no bad thing I'll call you

In the home Yeah When I'm retired In the Jupiter retirement castle You go to Florida Where you're retiring? No, I'm retiring That's a great question

Where am I retiring? Probably on the Florida Panhandle Why not? Galveston Eh Oh Matt would

You like Galveston Number one I do I like Galveston a lot I'll do it Beautiful But I think I think we're going to

go to probably the Florida Panhandle, will be my guess. Panhandle? Yeah. Like a rosemary beach, if you will. Okay. Big money. Do you afford that? No. So I got to keep working. My 401K isn't a blanker, by the way. I mean,

I don't even want to look at it anymore. It's fine. No, it's not fine. It'll bounce back. It better bounce back. This is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. 1102 on Sports Talk 790. It is Matt and Ross with you here on this Monday. Hope you are in a good mood today.

We have a lot of sports to get to this morning on the program. We are with you today until 2 p.m. And so please, if you have any thoughts, I can conjugate your verbs properly. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. If you want to follow us through Twitter and Instagram, it's very easy.

It's at SportsRV and at SportsMT. To tell the truth is today at 1130. We have a brand new segment on the show. It's starting today. Excuse me, I to sneeze. It's at 1.20. It's called Missing You. It's five former Astro players and how they're doing.

I've done research on one. I've got four more to go. You'll be pleased with one of the results already for one Astro missing you. Okay. So we can change it around. Are we recording? Yes. Okay.

I'll make sure. So, Rossi, Thursday and Friday were disappointments. Big crowds all weekend, frankly. But, you know, opening day. the bunting and the pomp and circumstance, the American flag, and the Astros didn't score, running only had three hits. More problems Friday with the runners in scoring position, and then Saturday and Sunday, a couple of comeback victories.

Do you know how encouraging it is for me to be an Astros fan to know that my team can get behind in a game significantly? Or can surrender a lead and then get it right back? My glass is more than half-fold, despite the fact it was just the Angels, despite the fact the Astros and not gets great starting pitching. A lot of clutch hitting, and I need a lot of that in 2020. Yeah, I think that's a good way to look at it because of, as you mentioned, the offense is one of our big worries.

It was just the Angels, but they're still a baseball team. You lost the first two. You have a pitching staff right now, the starting pitching staff, where the ERA is over seven, but I expect that to get better. It's the start of the season. If the hitting can sustain, and again, we're just one weekend in, but this is all we have. to go on right now. So if the starting

pitching, Hunter Brown's going to round in a form. I can be more accurate as well. And the other guys who got starts, I feel like that can settle. And if you can still be good, especially right now, the way that the roster is constructed, Yordon Alvarez, staying healthy. We talked about that start of the season.

He was productive this weekend. I'm feeling overall encouraged about where we thought this team was going to be between 85, 88-ish wins and fighting for a wild card spot. This weekend didn't do anything to deter me from that. No, I did not want to go buy playoff tickets after the victory yesterday,

nor did I want to have everybody fired and never go to a game again. Just a couple of randau thoughts from it. First and foremost, Joey Loporffito, nice start. Yes. Number two, Joe Espada, moving the puzzle pieces around every single day. Yeah, you've got a couple of Yorda and Alvarez in left field. is playing second base. Yes.

Which I like. Well, good for him because the thought was, okay, third base you can live with. First base, he's done before. Second base, are you really thinking you're going to put a guy out there and done much of that? And he held his own. Well, he hasn't done much of that,

but again, I know we don't like to say bad things about number 27. Don't you say a word about it. But he can't be worse. That's just the fact of the matter of this stage of his career. he's turning 36 in May. It just is what it is. EZOG Paredes cannot be worse defensively than Jose Al Tuve. Both of them not very rangy, but they get the balls that are hit to them.

So that's fine with me. I'm good with it. I'm actually, we'll see how much long term we get yord on in left field. But the fact that he was out there a couple of times, of course, it's at Dyken Park. So there's the shorter porch. He did have that one ball that he jumped for and hit up against the wall. But he's okay. It's all good.

No, don't worry about. I don't need Gold Glove. I need competent. No. And he's always been competent. Absolutely. Jake Myers, mixing in and out.

Jeremy Payne, not playing consecutive games. And that's probably just to keep an eye on that finger to make sure there's no swelling or anything like that. Yeah, it was almost like a preview weekend. I'll be curious, once Jeremy Payne, we had Brian McTaggart on last week. He said probably about a week or so into the season, it'll be starting to, he needs to be out there every day. He's your best defensive shortstop. and last year he led of your regular hitters,

I believe he led the team in OPS. So he needs to be out there. All right. So what I did like again was clutch hitting. What I did like is that you can score some runs when you're starting pitching need some help. And clearly they need to help, especially on Saturday and Sunday.

That's going to regress back to the norm of what I think this starting rotation is going to be. The bullpen, the asteros are going to flat out miss Josh Hater. They just are. And it sounds like to me that's going to be, later rather than sooner. Remember when it happened originally? I said, wait me up when he plays.

I think they're... I guess we could find that hater update. But I think it was there looking for live batters come mid-month of April. Yeah. I would think at the very early as he's in May 1st start. The Abraeo Velocity, I don't normally worry about that a lot.

But if it's down three miles an hour in just the second performance of his season, my guess is Joe is going to have to probably treat him with King gloves for a while. And Joe talked about it. Brian King, let me tell you something. He may be the saltiest mineral reliever the asteros may have this year. Left-handed and the ability to get people up. I like Brian King, but I don't want to say, hey, ninth-th inning, who's coming in to shut him down?

Brian King, let's go. But you can be better have a plan B though if a brain is going to have to worry about velocity. Yeah, be plan C. At that point. Something to keep an eye on. But overall, again, do you want a winning weekend? Yes. Do you want to beat up on the lowly angels who are probably going to finish fourth or fifth? Reality is, baseball works crazy ways.

You're not going to win every series you're supposed to win and you're going to have to, you know, hold your own. And the reality is, it's four games of a season. And we're not going to, we're not going to make any massive, like if they had gone four and oh, we're not starting a World Series parade. And if they're going on all and four, we're not asking where to be fighting. except Astro should probably would have done that. Yeah, I'm just looking at Brian. Bray was throwing mostly fastballs.

Some as low as 91.7 miles an hour. He didn't even get over 95. And he was hitting around 93, 94 against Mike Trout, who he walked and then was pulled for Brian King. So something to keep it on it. It just is. Yes. Not ideal. No.

And you're just going to have to probably give him some off days. more than you would. I mean, back-to-back probably ain't going to be in the plan for a while. You know what? Great pitching, starting pitching and great offense. That means less Brian to Bray. Well, the reality is this.

You're going to have to get deeper into games who are starting pitching. And I'm going to have to really just kind of soak into everything that he saw yesterday where he never got into good rhythm. And I expect him in five or six days to get back in that rhythm. He talked about being nervous. He talked about mixing more of his secondary pitches rather than just the slider. Yeah.

So we'll see. They're worried about it. fastball. Slider's supposed to be his best pitch. That was the Solair home run was off his slider. Got to throw strikes. That's number one thing. Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. Huge pitch count in the first inning of the game yesterday in fact. I think it was 25? Yeah. Yeah. On pace guy did not like that. Not a good on pace. No. 713-212-5790. 713-212-5-790.

We'll also get into some early thoughts about the EBS. And yes, obviously, there's a mark. marketing tool chip to that. But there was like, if you, if you were to watch the volume meter when a play is challenged, it's like, it rises. The crowd

kind of gets juice for it a little bit. And it's strange because it's just a, it's almost like, do you want the umpire to look bad? Or does the empire want to go, gotcha. Yeah, do we have a percentage from the first weekend? I bet we do. Yes.

and we can find it. But I mean, yeah, let me tell you, there are metrics. Every challenge by a hitter will be discussed. Every challenge by a catcher will be discussed. And every challenge by a pitcher will be discussed. Yeah, I'm trying to find it. Looks like the A's are the best in, I'm sorry, yeah, spring training, 52%. Don't listen to me.

I won't listen to you. Sorry. 713-212-579, if you want to chime in on the conversation. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Other things to get to, the rockets were awesome. Yesterday in New Orleans beat the crap out of the pelicans by 32 points. Rockets have a big week coming up. They are right now

in a mathematical tie with the wolves for the fifth spot in the west. Minnesota has the tiebreaker right now because of conference record, but the rockets and the wolves play one more time in Houston in two weeks to close out the second and last game of the regular season. So that will be a huge game on that. Alprin Shingun was awesome. Kevin Durand did not put a fourth quarter and the rockets blew out the Pels to finish.

up their Midwest road trip at 2-2. College basketball, I have your overall success rate. Please. 53.7% first weekend. Challenge success. As in umpires are losing, the players are winning 53.7% of the time. I think the umpires would take that.

If it gets higher, that's going to make the umpires look really bad. You could, the umpires, let me tell you, if I go to the umpires and send an email out at ump, MLB.com, if they're saying that 54%, they can live with that. And by the way, I want to say one more thing about this challenge thing. Even with CB Buckner, because I watched the video of all the calls that were being overturned,

there's, they're micro inches here. Yes, a lot of them. I mean, it's not professional negligence. It's very, very, very close. So what if we had a machine that could get everyone right? hitters 42.3% correct catchers 64.1% correct pitchers just two for five

If I was a major league manager I would just tell my catchers it's on you And I agree with Joe I would under zero acceptance Allow pitchers to do it Well the catchers go outpacing the hitters Obviously balances the scales

Towards there's more advantage On their side on the pitching side Oh it would be yeah So that's interesting. But the ego, especially because you have, you don't have an ego behind the dish, you have an ego at the plate, you don't want to be called out. You don't want, you know what I'm saying?

You don't want to be strike three calls. Like there were some emphatic strike three calls that were turning the balls. You know what? That is actually a great point from you, Matt. The catcher is invested, but in terms of the hitter and the pitcher, they're way more invested.

Because it's their individual numbers. It's a hit to your own ego if you're wrong. That's right. Hmm. Thank you very much. A stute point, Matthew. That's why you listen to Matt Thomas Show at Ross. Send it to two for these types of astute points.

1114, we've got the Tell the Truth at the bottom of the hour. You may join us right now at 713, 212-5-790. 117 on Sports Talk 790. It is Matt and Ross with you here today until 2 p.m. To tell the truth coming up at the bottom of the hour. 120, missing you, debut segment today. I kind of like this. It puts me to work a little bit, kind of check on things.

It's good for the show. It's like you a morning crossword puzzle for you. Or a Suduko. Yes. Sudoku? Sudoku? Sudoku. Sudoku?

Yeah. Get your cognitive juices flowing. Yeah. Gotta always be thinking one step ahead. Always thinking a little benchmark segment. Say, hey, I wonder how Marisa Dubond does. Oh, Matt and Ross were talking about during missing you. Yes.

Water cooler talk. You know what we are? We're water cooler fuel. Oh, can I tell you a funny? Can I tell you a funny story? Yes. And I don't think I'm going to speak out of turn on this. You better not.

A friend of the show, Pete Mayock. Oh, yeah. Okay. We can talk about Pete. I think so. So Pete is brothers with Mike Mayock, the former Raider General Manager, and he's been on television for a long time. Yes. So he sends me a DM like super late.

Saturday night. Okay. And I was like, what is, I wonder where everything is okay. Well, he says, hey, I just want to let you know, I was at the Space Cowboys game last week. And a couple of fans, or a couple of people, maybe even if it was just one,

came up to me and said, hey, Matt was talking about Jack's Biggers. And how guys that, with the name Jacks, come across as douchebags. Yes. Pete's stepson is Jack's Biggers. Oh, oh. Okay.

So Pete said he's going to kick your ass. No, he was like, Jacks doesn't mind you saying that. We both found it funny. No problem. And I said there, and I sent him a reply back. I said, thanks Pete for listening or telling the story. I said, it's not, I mean, Jacks may be the salt of the earth guy.

Yeah. But reality TV, Jacks is a douchebag. Yeah, reality TV. That's the show. about being on the boat. That's the summer house. That's the real house. Whatever.

Anybody that named Jacks on those reality shows like the Vanderpunt rules, they're douchebags. I'll take your word for it. Like, Jacks, who? I don't know. Stay with me on this. Okay. There are two duchy names in reality television.

Jacks? Jacks Taylor. And Brody. Anybody that's named Brody, douche. I just put in Google Jacks. Oh, wait a minute. There's a Jacks Taylor and the Vanderpump rules. You nailed it.

How much Vanderpump rules are you watching? I don't watch any of it. But I know it's on our DVR, and I'm down like 11% on my DVR at the house. Okay. So shout out Jack's Biggers could not be a nicer guy, apparently. No, he thinks you are a douchebag. But, I mean, Pete didn't have to send that to me, but it was just kind of a funny little story. That is pretty funny.

So, yeah. We are water cooler talk for some people. Yes. Water, cooler, fuel. Yeah, we are. Well, you think it would be water, but. But I think, and I think he understood I wasn't out attacking Jacks.

Because I've never met Jacks, it looks like a great kid. Yeah, he'll break you in half. You don't know that. How big is Jacks? Let's see how big. Doesn't matter. He's a professional athlete. So you're saying every professional athlete, he's 5-9-175.

He's 5-9-175. Yeah, he'll break you in half. I'm 6-1-185. What's his bat speed? Oh, better than mine, for sure. He'll break you. Unless it's like a professional, like, maybe cup stacker.

So let me tell you right now, I'm actually rooting for Jack's Biggers now. Okay. Because we got a friend of a friend of a friend of the show, so good. Okay, good.

All right, just wanted to pass it along, do you? What are we going with us? I don't know. I just forgot to bring to that to you, so. Thank you.

Just again, we don't, there's only a few people we don't like, Jeff Passon being one of them. I don't mind Jeff Passon. Oh, he was all over my for you tab this weekend. You know,

I'm a reporter, and we really respect each other. Who is he talking about? People were asking him about do him and the Rosenthal's and the other beat reporters that are like the big breaker of news stories that they get along with each other. And they're like, we respect each other.

And I just, I don't know. It depends if they're good dudes or not. I mean, nauseating. The other thing on Twitter, by the way. And we always talk about how what a cesspool it is. Yes. But we still use it. So we're, I want to get off.

We're part of the cess. I want off the train. but because I have this job and I need to be on top of sports news, I'm on the train. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would be the same thing. We're seeing a lot of media fighting media. Have you noticed that?

Maybe you have it, but I'm... I would say in general some, yeah. Whitlock. NFL.com, Samantha Merlin. And one of the guys from Fantasy Points was your website I follow, Grant Scott Barrett or something. They were going at it. It was getting vicious.

Like Jason Whitlock and Stephen A. Smith are fighting. Cam Newton's fighting with everybody. Who's the guy? Ryan Clark is fighting. I'm like, do you guys realize in the big picture of life? Like, I could have beef with a lot of media, which I do, but I don't put it on the out there. I don't have a lot of beef. I just have some with some people. But I don't bring it out.

Just you're not going to like everybody. But man, it's gotten so full of timeline. and are you team Whitlock or are you team Stephen A or are you team Ryan Clark? Guys, you analyze professional sports. You ain't reinvent the wheeling. You ain't curing cancer. You're not helping my 401K grow. It's a thing of everyone taking themselves too seriously in general.

God, do you understand that one of the blessings of you and I working together for all these years is we do not under any circumstance take ourselves seriously? That much. I take my profession very seriously. I take the time that it takes to make this, hopefully the show enjoyable seriously. I take my play by play career very seriously. But just general, us just talking here in sports. Yeah. Again, we ain't caring cancer.

I don't even know what the biggest on-air fight we got on to do is about besides Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder still is there. And you're wrong. But anyways, no, I don't know. I mean, we disagree. Have we ever had a beef with anybody at another station here in the marketplace? I've never had. I don't think I have.

I don't even... Now, there's some people I don't respect, but that's a different issue for a different time. I mean, I don't, I don't listen to the other stations. I don't even know who's on. You're probably in a good spot then. But I hate listen, so it is what it is. I have faults. I mean, I have an idea, but I don't really know.

I got you. There's a lot of shifting, especially. Some places. Stay right where we are. We're grounded. Matt Ross in midday. Hold on to this table as long as we can. We've been, yes.

Count your blessings. Okay. I have come up with my four to tell the truth. And count your Roth IRA. I don't want to count that right now. Okay, yeah. Maybe next week. 713, 212-1-790.

7-1-3-212-5-7-90. All right, we have to tell the truth coming up, and I have, let me see what I did. I have three truths and one lie. Do you like that, or do you like the lie? I've always asked you this. Is it easier to tell my truth or is easier to figure out my lie? I think it's more difficult when you do three truths and one lie. Okay.

So I have three truths and one lie. Okay. These are four opinions. Opinion. Hey, you've been in New Orleans. I did. And by way, everybody calls everybody baby there. Yeah, baby.

I love it. I love it. But if you're a single guy and you haven't had loving in a while and a girl calls you baby, you think it's like the next step in your relationship development. them. Okay. Well, what's the problem? Oh, whoa. I got confidence now. This is horrible. Yeah, that's good. If you're 23 years old and the pit boss is calling you baby, and she's 38 and had an 11 while, you're like, do I slip her my number? Why not? What's the worst could happen? You were hooked up with a pit boss?

No. No. You're also not 23. Or a deal. Not anymore. Oof. That's my hamstring. It's not good. You're just stretch those hammies out. I know. Jonathan, how's the prize vault? Are we robust with a prize vault this week? Robust.

Robust. That's a good word. And you like that way? I do. Let me see. Let me see. Because you always use a word that kind of fits, but kind of doesn't. We got outlaw music festival tickets.

Outlaw musical fest. And then we got a pair of tickets for the Dave Matthews band. Just one pair? That's all they gave us? No, no, no. That's fine. Now is that like Tupac and the outlaws, or is that like Willie Nelson and his outlaws? Yeah, Willey Nelson. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wait, Willie Nelson's still doing? He's like 96. That's what it says. Don't hate the messenger. Weed helps. Not that I would know, but it helps Willie. He's 92. All right, we're going to do this week.

We're going to let the contest. We're going to let some audience people play along this week. Okay. So, all you got to do is calling to 713-212-5-790. Because you're believing or not, it's been tough. We haven't been giving away enough prizes. Is that true? You've been, yeah, we're doing like one person. Are you a lay-up? No, I don't want to lay-up, but we're going to go with tickets this way. Believe it or not, 7-13.

I'm not, believe it, I'm not, believe it, we're not. To tell the truth. I have three truths and one lie. If you can figure out the lie, you'll win one of those great sets of tickets. We just gave away a moment ago or offered a few minutes ago. 7-one-2-790. If you want to play the Tell the Truth, it's up next. 7-1-3-2-2-5-7-90. I do know how to tell the truth. Oh, do you? All right, Jonathan. Four sports takes. One of them is lies. How many truce am I telling?

Three. Three. Three truce. Yes. One lie. Jonathan, what could they be playing for? Can Scott, Brian, Kyle, Corey, and Ike be playing for today? All right, today we got the Outlaw Music Festival with Willie Nelson, Willco, Cheryl Crow, Lucas Nelson.

Sorry, I don't know any of these people. Stephen Wilson, Jr. Sammy Davis, Jr. said? Stephen Wilson, Jr. Or on July 5th at the Woodlands Pavilion. And, of course, we got the pair of tickets to see Dave Matthews band live on May 8th at the Woodlands Pavilion as well. Favorite Dave Matthews song, Jonathan? Okay.

Here we go. Gentlemen, three truce, one line. Take number one. Dan Hurley is an outstanding basketball coach. He's just a massive tool. Okay. I cannot root harder against Dan Hurley. What's the take?

That's the take. Okay. I just, I don't like him. I don't like his boorishness. I don't like his attacking of officials. I don't like his being rude to people. Okay. Is the Yukon coach?

Okay. Didn't he go forehead to forehead with a official? That he did. Yes, he did. And he yells at them. all the time. That's take number one. Okay. Number two. So,

the shot was made by Yukon. Yes. And Duke had to go full court to win the game. Okay. In the NBA, when you call a timeout, you can advance to front court. I think college basketball should adapt the NBA rule. You can advance the ball into front court

after a timeout, giving teams one small glimmer a hope for another their buzzer be. Literally the only reason that rule was instituted, right? Correct. I think college should adapt that from the NBA. Okay. All right.

Gentlemen, take number three. NFL is currently hiring replacement officials, and as part of the labor negotiations, they're going to try to make the current NFL officials full-time. In my opinion,

I do not care if they're full-time officials. I think making them full-time is not going to make them better. The best way you can get officials to get better is to grab them at a younger age with not as many years on the business. So you're not grabbing guys at 52 that are fishing their first NFL game. Do whatever you can to get officials at 21, 22, 23 and get them ready by the time they're 28, 29. So they can have a longer, zestier, more successful NFL career. I think making full time is a bargaining chip or a demand is a waste of time.

Because again, what are they going to do with this time of year? Just watch game film over and over and over again? That seems stupid. I don't know, yeah. And number four, I had a really wonderful relaxing weekend in New Orleans. Took naps, went for walks, did a little gambling, ate some good Cajun food. And I actually put some football on this weekend. I cannot believe I'm telling you this.

I watched some of the gamblers running a game game. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. I wouldn't say I was fully vested, but at least there were some offense that made me think, if a game is on, on a Saturday or rando, I'll watch some of it. I actually enjoyed, and I can't believe I'm saying this, I actually enjoyed some of the gamblers versus renegan game, because again, Kevin Sommel was coaching. I wanted to see how he was doing.

Okay. It was Houston's team. Wasn't terrible. Those are my four takes. Which one of the four do I not believe? Number one, Dan Hurley is a great coach, but a complete debag and tool. Number two, I think college hoops should adapt the NBA advance into front court after a timeout. Number three, making NFL officials full time, in my opinion, will not make them better.

And number four, gamblers running game wasn't terrible. Better than I thought it was going to be. I had zero expectations. I now have minimal expectations. Okay, one lie. One of those four is a lie. Which one of the four am I lying about? All right, Jonathan, how we feeling?

Number one's easy to dismiss to me. One of four I'm dismissing. Dan Hurley is a massive tool. And why would Matt ever... Takes himself way too seriously. Why would you make that up? You know what, Dan Hurley, this guy going nose to nose with officials after games, he's a sweet kid. And why would Matt ever come on air and admit that he actually had the gamblers with James and Klein listening if he didn't actually believe it?

Well, that's why I think he doesn't believe it. I don't know. Two, I could see going either way. I could see the argument for both sides. Like, hey, it's college basketball. It should be, it should stay the way it is. Two, I'm honestly on the fence. Three, I agree with Matt.

I think, and I think he believes that because I think he said this in the last couple weeks. That NFL officials full-time, or he was talking about some other officials being full-time and it didn't help. So I'm down to two and four, which I'm on the fence, but I just don't believe he was enjoying because, you know, I'm not going to say why. I'll give my reason afterwards because there's contestants. If there weren't contestants, I would reveal why I believe, but I could be wrong.

I'm going to go with four. I'm going to go with two. Okay. All right, let's see what the audience has to see. All right, you heard the four takes. I, on line one, like, which one of those four was I lying about? Oh, man. I'm going to say

Take number one You think I think You think I think that Dan Hurley is not a douchebag Yes Okay I think you like it I think I like him Okay

So hey's number one Hang up, Mike Just go ahead and go about your day Corey on 790 Which one of those four am I lying about Matt Come on There is zero percent chance

That fancy Matt sitting in a five-star hotel with winches feeding him grapes one at a time, waiting for his duck coli, is sitting and watching some loser byproduct football game. Number four is absolutely a lie. Thank you, Corey. Ike, by the way, hung up. Oh, he legitimately hung up. I was kidding, Ike. Sorry, call back if you're right.

Kyle, which one of those four am I lying about? As soon as I said that, I was like, that was stupid. I'm going to have to go with number two. I think you're knowing you a little bit. I think you're a big fan of the college integrity and keeping the sport different, keeping it the way it is. So I'm going to go to number two. Very logically thought out. Thank you, Kyle, very much.

He has got number two. Let's go two more here. Brian on 790. Brian, which one of those four am I lying about? It's either two or four. I'm on the fence, but I'm going to go with number four. Okay. Number four, you think that I did not enjoy the game.

Sampler's running a game. Remember, I said, zero expectation, now I have minimal. And last one belongs to Scott on 790. Scott, which one of those four am I lying about? I'm also going to go with the college game, number two. Okay, thank you very much. So, so it came down to you guys saying two,

what was yours, Jonathan? Which one do you think? Two, two, two. All right. Number one, Dan Hurley is a complete douchebag. 100%. I totally believe that. Okay, I'm glad I'd like to hang up. Yeah, I was like 99.9% callback. Number two, making NFL officials full-time is not going to make anything as any better. It's just not. Now, they're going to be staring at film 40 hours a week, but it's one day a week job.

Yeah. I'm sorry. That's you go get younger. You go get these college guys out of there faster. To me, making them full-time, it just feels like that's just, I mean, you're telling me they can't be accountants during the week and then still study up? No, no, no, ridiculous. I watched some of the Gamblers versus Renegging game on Saturday afternoon. Yeah?

It absolutely sucked. It was worse than I thought it was going to be. I lied. Okay, this is the piece of information. I looked up the box score. It was 36 to 17. I'm like, there's no way. Matt thought that this was so crazy good dealer.

It was awful. It was terrible. That's what I thought. I completely lied about that. Completely completely. lied. Jonathan, you know how I feel about the UFL. It should no longer exist.

You know, it shocked me. I don't even say anything positive. I'll give you another tip, Jonathan. Watch the way. He couldn't keep a straight face. I couldn't want to say this. I was trying to keep Matt. I'm glad you didn't. I was dual task. I couldn't even look at the camera.

I couldn't keep a straight face saying it. And normally, Matt, your poker face is not, it's decent during the second. But I'm going to start turning away from you from now on because I couldn't keep a straight face during that. tape, you can hear me laughing. I didn't want to blow it because we had

contestants and I want to beat Jonathan. Yeah. But he I have a competitive advantage being in here. I can live with college basketball not giving advance, but I think if you want to add just even one more little piece of drama, it would make it even better. It would make it even better. So I would not be opposed to college basketball

advance of front court. Why not? Rather than asking why, ask why not? Because how many times can you go, think about this, last night, point three, that is a 60 foot pass 45 foot 50 foot pass Then it's a catch and shoot

You just don't There's not enough time Volleyball bump it in Yeah basically Which I've been advocating for The old volleyball bump Yeah and there was a team did it Earlier this year

I can't remember who it was Against the Rockets I think You know what I think you may be right All right So congratulations to Brian and to Corey They know me when I don't tell you The Truth And you

But again I What I should have done is I should have probably I should have turned the lights off in the room because I was like, I was like chuckling as I was saying this. I still wasn't 100% sure, but. I didn't have to be Sherlock Holmes to crack this case. So really quick, they played this, I don't know,

they played in like, I want to say they played in a small, does Nissan Stadium sound like a, no, that's a natural. Nissan is an actual. Where do the renegades play? Can you look at it up really, really quick? It's a small, one half of the stadium, one half, Ross, was completely. No, no, no, no, no.

The Dallas Renegades is different. That's arena. Sorry, hold on. Where are they from? It's the Dallas Renegades, yeah. Oh, Choctaw Stadium. Which is, that's the, isn't that the old ballpark? I thought they were somewhere smaller.

One half of the stadium was completely draped off. And Fox, because I did watch the game, some of it at least. They were never showing crowd shots. There might have been 2,000 people there. I will say one of the all-time amazing, horrible takes in my life, and this is not going back in the last five years. I really thought for a while that we would be able to live with spring football

and enjoy it. We don't like it. It's just the product. And we have so much else going on. We have so much else going on. We have March Madness. We've got golf. We've got the NBA. We've got baseball. And the number one thing Rossi is, the product's terrible. Yes. Receivers can't catch passes. Quarterbacks under three. It's just not good.

Yeah. Think about how bad it is watching Garrett Stidham. The quarterbacks are all worse than him. That's fair. Friend of the show, Bill. Bill's listening. Good morning to you, Bill, in the Woodlands. Women in college basketball get to advance into front court following a timeout. Now, I've not called a women's basketball game in a long time, so I did not know that.

So there you go. So they're doing it. What's good for the ladies? Mine's not good for the fellas. I thought you can go with good for the goose is good for the gander. Yeah, too. Yeah. So women can do it.

So men should do it. All right, news at noon coming up in 10 minutes. What is today's edition of Believe or not? Oh, you know what? Let's do the Hurley family. Roderie Munoz. Of the Hurley family? Yeah.

No, I'm good. He's such a douche. By the way, who the hell are we going to root for in the final four? Are we even going to care? Are we even going to watch? Houston television ratings are going to be epically low for the final four. You know how they do? They monitor the top 40 markets.

Now, my brackets are all, I have no chance to win. I didn't pay them in brackets. So I had Duke and my best ones. By the way, I would like to say I'm not surprised at Calvin Samson's coming back. Kevin still got the fire in the belly. Oh, you announced it? Yeah, basically he had to announce it. I think either late Saturday or early yesterday.

Because all the kids are asking, are you coming back or not? I think even if he'd have won, he would have done me to come. I think he loves coaching. I think he, well, first of he loves coaching. And the money is really good. Money is very good. Really, really, really, really good. He loves coaching.

He got a great. Port staff. I mean, he's got his family around them. I mean, they do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to recruiting. I mean, those young guys want to get on those streets. Transfer portal? It's got to cut the check. Yeah, how we thought Dusty Baker was going to ride off from the sunset in 22. He's like,

well, if I win one, I want to win two. You know what it may be, and this is in life in general, it may just be hard to retire, period. Well, I think if you rise to the heights of what Calvin Samson had, I mean, in the Dusty Baker examples, he lives baseball. Baseball is his life.

Calvin Samson coaching has been his life. He loves it. And he had to get away from it for a little while, at least, you know, as a head coach. And I think that's something that he, I mean, I'm guessing. I don't really know him that well or anything. But he just seems so passionate.

And that's why he's so, a lot of times you're so good at something because you're so passionate about it because it is your life. And that's why he's a great coach. And I also think it keeps you occupied. Yeah, it keeps you young. And I think people when they retire worry about,

you know, I do to stay active. Yeah. My grandma's 83. She still works. She loves going to work. Keeps her young. Keeps her alive. Just think. You and me together another 30 years. All right. It'll put it 46 years together. We're like an old merry couple. Let me look at the job markets. James on 790 and 1154. James, how the hell are you? Yeah, I'm not doing very well. I don't like Charles' comments. There's eight teams in league and he's lucky enough to get We're not lucky enough. Nobody cares.

The football, the product sucks. Nobody's watching. Nobody's going and nobody's watching. It's absolutely horrible. It's nobody's going to the day. You'll be the only one there. No, Ludicrous is going to be there too. Ludicrous is a halftime show. Ludicrous? They're trying to make this thing work. Really? And they're going to fail. What's your favorite ludicrous

song, James? I don't like, I don't know any ludicrous songs. It's okay. I'm going for the game. But nevertheless, if you watch the second half, Decker's wasn't that bad. They were horrible in the first half. I'll give me that, but Declums actually came around and looked pretty good as a backup quarterback.

So you're going to the backup quarterback in week one of the season? How is that going to play off for the rest of the year? He'll be the starting quarterback next week, believe me. He'll play. Yeah, trust me. You know you're going to watch it again. No, I'm not. I will not watch it. I'm out on the gamblers.

Done finito zero. No, I won't. You know what I'll watch? I'll watch the thousand empty seats. I mean, I'll tell you something. I didn't know they were on. I had no clue. They even brought like All in front of the show Joel Clat was doing the color commentary

Oh was he? He's like I gotta get this Fox check Yeah that's fine I mean After the show You need to sit down And figure out when you're gonna have

Gamblers game day That's never gonna happen Zero chance No one cares All right well I tried I tried You did try You are the gamblers

Of sports talk callers Thank you friend for the show I appreciate you Thank you All right Oh wow they had Longhorn legend Kai Loxley on the squad He was not good at UT

He went to UT So you kicked him to the curb, huh? I didn't kick him anywhere. Wish him the best. Now he's on the gamblers. You know what we could do. You know, we'll give you a... Gambler or not?

No, UFL player or not. I like this. There it is. If you want to get working on it right now, it's less than two hours. Okay. So just, we should do, you should get some actually

people that are recognizable names. You sound made up. No, there's nobody that's recognizable. Oh, to his brothers is a gambler. Tua Taka-Belowah's brother? Taualia. Where did he play? Did he, like, moved to a bunch of colleges?

Didn't he moved? He moved around. I was going to say a question. Jonathan, I think you should play for the gamblers. Yeah, I already got a messed-up ACL need. It's going to be over with. They have nothing to lose in that league.

But wouldn't it be fun to have no? As a gambler, you could just put the uniform on. I mean, because they always try, you know, the Carl Lewisian was drafted by the Cowboys. There's a Christopher Allen from Baton Rouge. The only thing I got is putt return, and I'm going to get lit up. That's all I got. What do you got? Putt return.

That's the only thing I can be in the field. Pult return or kick up return. I give you two times. When you get tackled, would your bones crack immediately or would you wait to get the silence before falling over in pain? Oh, no, I'll wait for the sidelines. You know, once I got trucks so bad in middle school,

all I saw was white and I had to walk it off. Yeah, that's called a concussion. You live with it. All right. is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Final score, Houston 134, New Orleans, 102. It is happy. Three and one would be better than two and two, but take what you can get.

For one team or both? Both, both. So I was doing some research on Justin Verlinder. He's yet to throw for the Tigers yet. Okay. So that'll be a very easy part of the. missing you know at 120. Okay. Do you see their uniforms? Those new uniforms they have?

Black uniforms, orange, whether we're Detroit across the front, they are sick. Oh, you like them? I love them. I mean. By the way, I'm a little man at the Astros. They didn't wear the blue uniforms on Sundays like they normally do. I wonder if EMA is against them. Could be. Because usually the pitchers get to choose a uniform for the most part. Fridays are always the orange. They had the city connects on Monday. And then, yeah, and then they didn't wear the blues yesterday.

That blue uniform is my favorite. You know, the spring training tops they wear. But yeah, Frommere used to always wear them. So I'm just about done with missing you at 120 today. Okay. Can't wait. You're not going to be surprised at most of this. It's just one week.

It's one week. But you know what? Again, missing you, Monday's at one. 20 is going to be something you're able to tell your friends when you're set in the baseball game tonight. Okay. I listened to Matt and Ross today and they were talking about blank. Blank. So we're actually providing a service.

We should actually charge for this. We should. But in the meantime, just patronize our sponsors. Yeah, just take care of our sponsors. And listen to us every day and tell at least 14 friends of your show. Yes. Yeah. No, just, you know what?

Tell three friends. This week, tell three friends about the Matt Thomas show with Ross. And then tell three people you have. hate. That's true. Yes. It's something that you know what? It's something if you hate them, you can bond over it. Correct. You can build a bond. We're building bridges. Honestly.

It's what we're doing in this town. We're peacekeepers. Yes. Let's get to the news at noon, please. Sure, why not? And with that. We present to you, Rossville, Real in the newsroom. Yes, Matthew, the news at noon. Well, we'll go ahead and start with the Astros. They get into an O2 hole against the Angels in their

four games set, then they bounce back with a huge comeback victory over the Angels, even though things got a little dicey in the end of that game on Saturday. Brian Abraeu through, I believe, 25, 26 pitches. Then yesterday they got in a hole again, but came back. Actually, I'm sorry, they got a 4-0 lead, and then Tatsuya I, my, unfortunately, not effective. Two-and-thirds innings, four walks, four earned runs, given up as well on 74 pitches.

He was pulled for Roder Munoz. So you got 11 and 9 runs in the last two games of the four games set. But Matt, the starting pitching has not been where you wanted to be for the Houston Astros. And ERA over seven by the starters, a whopping 28 walks issued by the Houston Astros in four games. for those of you playing at home, that's seven walks a game by the Astros pitching staff over the weekend. And ironically, or I should say not ironically enough,

all the games are going like three hours north. Pitch clock be damned. Walks, slow games down. Well, it was a record-setting weekend for the Astros. Do you know what their previous record for walks in four games was? No, I don't, actually. It was in 1976. It was 26.

Kenny Forge, damn you. So they blew that away. A couple of extra walks. My God. 7.64 ERA by the starting pitching of the Astros, it's going to be better. It has to be better, and it will be better. Let's go with that.

By the way, the Mariner's 2 and 2 in their first weekend against the Sucky Guardian. So everybody, it's all good. Relax. R-E-L-A-X. We don't have to have A-O's just yet. I like that. Lauren Shihadi already in mid-season form. Go on, please.

we're going to have to find another channel to watch you literally are turning it right now doing the news and news and 134 to 102 the Houston Rockets defeat the New Orleans Pelicans and I don't want to hear nothing about oh they're the crappy Pelicans

Pelicans have the Rockets problems bad teams have given the Rockets problems Do you know this? Here's a little and a go for you until last night the Rockets Pelicans three games were separated by a total of six points So there you go 134 to 102

Two, I'm feeling good. How about, of course, the headliner, Matthew, 36 points from Alpern Shingoon, five of seven from three point land, also had 13 rebounds, seven assists, and zero turnovers. I don't want him getting very cocky from the three point line. I'm just saying, I don't think he just unlocked this untapped potential last night, but we'll see. But quietly, Matthew, our good friend, Tari Isson has been playing better. Back to back, double digits, back to back.

multiple three-point shots. A horrendous march with an uptick, hopefully towards April. Well, yeah, he made a three, thankfully, in a couple of games recently. One for six against Memphis, not great, but he still had 16 points. Three of five.

That's four of 11. This last couple of games, Tintari Isan be inching back towards effectiveness for the Houston Rockets. If the Rockets are going to win a first-run series, he's got to be the main go-to guy off the bench. Now, will he play well enough to maybe supplant him at the back in the lineup?

I don't know. I think that a man, he'll never publicly tell you this, I think a man having a little more freedom sports RV not to have the ball in his hands as much is invigorating for him. Yeah. Rockets 12 and 4 with Reed Shepard in the starting lineup. Okay, also a huge upset this weekend as the... The final four is set. It is going to be Michigan, Arizona, Illinois, and Yukon on an insane Duke collapse and an insane final moments of the game.

Get it into Boozer. Back for sure. Ahead, Boozer that ball deflected and stolen by Mullins. Caravan two seconds. Mullins tosses it up. And on CBS? Yeah. I'm outstanding job per usual.

Best thing Grant Hill and Bill Rafter he did. is he laid out, let their announcer say it. And then a few seconds later, after Bill got his pacemaker going again, Onyads! Bill Raptory, a national treasure, 82 years old, and still has his fastball. Yeah, the video of him, like, he's in disbelief, as were the rest of America. Crazy, crazy, moment in that game. And that'll wrap up your news at noon.

Matt, who you got winning the national championship? Arizona. Feels about right. Go big 12 No SEC team left So I think my best remaining bracket has Michigan I think I can sneak into like

Winning a couple bucks So I'll go with Michigan And that's the great thing about Is the money that you win We'll be going directly into the Villarreal Family Foundation Yes All right 1213

It's Matt and Ross We have missing you coming up at 120 By the way you'll be doing missing you next Monday So you're doing I am Yeah because I'm going out next Monday Oh, yeah. We'll do it. Jonathan.

Yeah, no, I can't wait to do it. Jonathan, write this down. He's got to do missing you next Monday at 1-20. Oh, man, it's going to be great. I can't get that. Yeah, it's going to be fantastic. He's going to forget, Jonathan. You always forget.

I won't let him forget. You'll tell the truth. Now, Jonathan, next week, you're handling to tell the truth. Oh, I got to get some? I think we'll get you a whole week for takes. Okay, okay. I can do something. These West Coast games, terrible.

We don't play to like tenicles. Oh, it's just, all right. 1214, Sports Talk, 790. Matt and Ross with you, 713, 212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. We'll talk to you on the phones. Let me ask you this, and I brought this up very early in the show today.

I hate the term choke. Yes. Did Duke choke? Yes. Shut! Oh. We'll get Ross's answer. Maybe.

After this. I've said this for 16 years. The best conversations on this show are ones during the break. And when I write a book, just change my name. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah, I will have to... It's going to be called Mr. Texas Bears all.

Oh, please. Boo. That's the Loki, a good title. I'm not going to lie. Oh, stop. Nobody wants to see you. bearing anything. When I write the book, I'll tell you everything.

Okay. Good and bad. Problem is, no one's going to care outside of Houston about Mr. Texas. I may get a few people in like Corpus that may care, but that's about as far as it goes. We got some fans of San Antonio. We do have fans of the ballot. We got our Doug and South Padre listens to show. We'll have to get you a good ghost writer.

I don't think we do very well in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. San Antonio, I guess. We got some Austin folks. Got a few. I just don't want to write a book unless I'm going to make a lot of money on it, I think I can bear a lot of my soul. Yeah. I think, I mean, Brian McTaggart wrote that Astros book, and I think it was doing quite well.

And I don't think he made a ton of money off of it. No, it's just not worth it. So I don't do it. All right. Thank you. 713. I'll write a book. What would your book be called? Mistakes were made.

That's a good one, actually. I like that. I actually am actually happy that you, I did text you yesterday, and you got within the two-hour range. I did? Yeah, I think you're within two hours. I must have got lucky. I was got lucky because you normally know. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was asking about Brian O'Brayu. When was this? Oh, yeah, I was just getting back into town. You know Brian O'Brayu's contract ends at the end of the year, I think? Oh, yeah, he's going to go. They know his arbitration clock. They know there's a reason he's been out there, 70 games over and over. Tomorrow 1130.

Got a feeling. Don't you think? Okay. I think you and I can agree on it? Oh, no. We're going to agree on it. Don't say discomfort. No, no, no, no, no.

Okay, good. I can't predict the injuries. Well, he's gone. I was just talking about the future. You need leverage relief, though. We can go get that. Yeah, we say that. But who's after Brian to bray you?

I'm talking about it in the free agent market. Okay. I can't see the Astro spending big money on him. I just can't. Well, if you're looking for a free agent, if he has a good year, he may think he's a closer service. He's going to rally. It's fine.

Nothing to worry about. Just two games, the velocity down. Yeah, just... He's hitting 91.7. Okay, it wasn't that bad, was it? Yeah. It's for one. This is like its first one.

Easy. 1222 on the Matt Thomas show at Ross. Easy. Good afternoon to you. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I'm all for the ladies to come back for $300 million. That's a lot, man. You didn't pay...

Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, you didn't pay that. What do you or? you care about how much of cost? Because of tickets are going to be 100 dollars. Well, I mean, it's about, it's applied to supply and demand. And if there's demand for it, then $100 will be it. If it's no demand for it,

it'll be $19. Do you remember when the Hilton Furniture guy was trying to buy the team for $11 million? Oh, he bought it all right, and then he sold it really quick or got rid of it because the league's like, you can't own this team anymore. He went broke. I watched

the debacle with the renegades game. The only reason I watch is because we had squares and we're degenerates on that level. You're doing gambler squares? I guess that fits. Yeah, and it does the name. It was $200 square, too. There's $200 a square. Okay, you're a sick human being easy.

I respect it. Easy. Do you work or are you retired? No, I work, sir. Wait a minute. Can I ask what you do for a living? I'm an IT professional. And you got money to spend on $200 squares for a U.S.

NFL game? What is wrong with you? How do you find enough people to fill out the squares? It was 100 on there. I mean, I'm guessing 120 we're watching the game, but I know 100 of them that were on the board, we're watching the game too. But yeah,

that was like pulling T's gentlemen. Would Eastern Michigan versus Akron be a better game on a Tuesday than that game? That's a pretty good comp. Third thing I was going to bring up that was the Brian Brayew thing that you guys just brought up.

What do you think it's going to happen? Who is going to step up in that role? And I'll hang up and listen to him. Well, no, there is no role to step up. That's his role. He's not on the IAL or anything yet. No, no, no. And we're not willing to end into existence.

One of anyone bring that up as a conversation piece. Don't even do it. I'm concerned. Don't be, no, I'm not concerned. I'm saying that maybe the thought of him going back to back probably isn't going to be in the future for him. Yeah, he pitched a lot on Saturday. They didn't want to use the bullpen as much as they did.

I mean, nobody got to the sixth inning. I don't think anybody recorded it out in the fifth inning. No, the starting pitching gets a D for their performance over the week. Actually, maybe even closer to an F. I mean, Hunter Brown doesn't even get you five. Nobody even got five innings. It's an F. Starting pitching was an F in the series.

Doesn't necessarily mean it can't, I mean, it's going to rebound. It is. I'm not worried about it. Yeah. Mike Burroughs co-ace off to a rocky start, but we'll be fine. We're calling him a co-ace. I said it's off to a rocky state. Mike Burroughs co-ace.

Does he know he's the co-ace? Does Hunter Brown know he's the ace? That's what I'm saying. The co-ace campaign is off to a rocky start. Ooh. Oh, no. Yeah, he did get, he went five and two-thirds. I'm sorry, Mike.

Mike's not listening. Oh, okay. But nobody went six innings. Didn't Joe Espott. I call him a little bit of a red ass. Yeah, he is. I like when we get red asses on the show. I like when we get red outs.

Oh, wait. Jose Lube. Okay, at second base over the week. Fine. Sure, why not? Did he embarrass you? No, I wasn't embarrassed. Did he botch a ball?

Not that I know of. I had a couple of double plays he was turning. Yeah. You know why? He's comfortable. He's back in a familiar spot. By the way. Remember when this show was two to four?

We were like, okay, we'll do it, but it's not. It's different. We're not in decline, Matt. We're on the uptick. Yes, we are. Cam Smith, by the way. I think I saw 137 feet he covered on that catch he made in the right foul territory. Oh, his glove's going to give him not complete benefit for the doubt, but a little bit more wiggle room.

That ground he covered was more than any catch of last year. How about that? Any outfielder, the most outfield ground covered was 136 feet last year by 19. Nathan Luke's. On that catch he made, he covered 137 feet. I got news for you and this is nothing that you don't already know. He's an athlete. That's the reason why they made the transition. Five star grab, Matt, of course, as you know.

Plus. Point eight outs above average on a single catch. Amazing. You lost me there. Did he catch it? Yes. Mm-hmm. He catch ball good, play baseball. I'll make it your level for if you want. How about drive to right field,

Camp Smith, running, and he makes the catch. And there's no need to give you some weak-ass stat about it. He baseball-cats. He catch baseball good. He catch baseball good. Okay. I use verbs.

Cam Smith catch baseball good. Cam Smith is an excellent defensive player. Baseball good catch, Cam. Mm-hmm. I use verbs. Ross doesn't. I got one of verb for you. I'll tell you during the break.

1228, Sports Talk, 790. It is the Matt Thomas Show at Ross. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-0.7-7-1-3. 7-9-0. I'm going to ask a question. I'm going to ask it again because we've got no response the first time, Ross.

Then we're moving on. Did you kind of win that game? Or did Duke choke? I have your answer. Don't say it. I'm not allowed to get it. I'm not allowed. I would like a caller to tell me what they saw if you watched it.

I'm afraid the numbers aren't going to be great for Houston. We had some people that went to the Iowa, Illinois game, but they had local ties to it. By way, I brought this up in the first hour of the show. Did you go to the Iowa Illinois game on Saturday? Because maybe you were a Cougar fan. Like, I already bought the tickets. Mousalgoal go. Eh, you're probably too hurt.

Try to dump them for whatever you can get. Did you go to Iowa, Illinois without a dog in the fight? We had two callers in the first half hour of the show today. One was an Iowa fan and one was an Illinois fan. These ticket gougers are nice... Was anybody in the building that just said, you know what? I want to watch high-level

elite eight basketball and that damn scoreboard went off again and just buzzed for like 15 straight minutes apparently gotta use the air horn sometimes 120 today our initial segment of missing you I wrote it on my the notes on my hotel notepad I got four more this weekend in New Orleans I think I got 12 for the trip overall between the four cities I have an addiction year you have a sickness Correct. But I'm using paper and I'm sure it's recyclable. So it's good.

All right. So the question for you is, Okay. Yeah. Did Yukon craft up beautifully executed, made shots? Now I didn't watch the second half because I was busy with the rockets, but I did see obviously the last few seconds. Did Yukon chip away or did Utah? Duke. Duke, excuse me. Sean tweets in. Duke choked the last play, but Yukon fought like hell to get it to that point. That feels fair. It's a choke.

To me, I define a choke as the moment was too big. You panicked. You froze. However you want to put it. That's a choke. People make shots. People miss shots. People make great plays.

Stuff like that. And they don't choke. Duke choked. You got panicked in that last moment, threw the ball away. And also it took an insane shot. What was that? Like a 35-footer? I mean, the logo was huge, but it was still part of the logo.

The logo also carried about 15 yards, but... Yeah. That's not here nor there. The logo is almost in the paint. But it's still a logo three. And again, I've said this a lot of times running the show today. I don't like using the term choke. That's a very abusive verb.

Well, you got a bunch of guys. getting big pay, get big bucks on Duke too. That you do. And they, this is not, this history did repeat itself, but they had a double digiliate against the Cougars last year in the suite, Final Four, semi-final game. Yeah, you know, I'm curious about that one because

they, I mean, that was more also like the Cougars took that one, but they threw the ball away a couple of times at the end of that game too, right? That's the thing that fun, even in the NBA, even when it's a rocket, like inbounding the ball can be so difficult sometimes. It's wild. Yeah.

So, because I don't like to use the term choke, I don't use it. In my mind, as my entire life as a Houston sports fan, even when I was gone to Minneapolis into Salt Lake City. Mm-hmm. Can you name in my mind, there have been chokes in Houston sports, but the greatest choke of them all, and I don't even think... 83? It's even close. Am I correct? Was that your final answer?

83 Houston Cougars. That is not the correct answer. Oh, really? Oh, you're going to know the bills. 353. Yeah. Bills being the owners. I mean, at least they came back and forced overtime.

Is that what you want to go with? I don't know if that's what I want to go with. 4138, overtime, bills. Hmm. I think if you're up 35 to 3. Early third, remember, if I'm correct on this, I think Bubba McDowell took out of pick six early third quarter. See, basketball is different because basketball shots can be missed. You don't, if you shoot 45% from the floor, that's pretty good, right?

If you shoot 38% or 40% as a team from three, that's pretty good. Going to miss shots. But you're going to miss shots. I think it's hard in theory to choke a back. basketball game. That's why I wanted to bring it up to you because you do miss more shots than you make. So if a team gets cold, what I would have to say is if you choke something away, it has to, in basketball, it has to involve multiple turnovers, multiple silly fouls, and then add a sprinkle of you've gone five or six minutes without making a shot. Duk was

Missing free throws would be choking Like the Cougars in 83 Especially if you're like a good shooter Yeah Duke was up 67 to 61 with a minute 14 They're up 6 with a minute 14

And con canipal Missed Concanipal and Cooper flag on that team How do we do it? I don't know how we did it Yeah Then made a three Duke turned the ball Duke was missing free throws.

You have to understand I was really drunk in San Francisco when that game was taking place. Oh, really? Yes. You were having a good time. I was. At that time. And then when they came back and they won, I had everybody in the bar hugging me. Oh, that's beautiful, Matt.

And then I got on a plane to go to San Antonio and then watched that in person for the championship. I'm sorry. It's fine. It happened. They were close. Real close. No cigar. Didn't we lead like 38 plus minutes of the game?

You have to bring it up. Don't worry about it. Florida was a great team. Florida was a great team. Three players in NBA right now. Yeah, they have, uh, what's their, their coach's name? People think he might go to, what's going on with the UNC basketball? Uh, the name that it keeps being brought up is Billy Donovan, who's a coach of the Bulls right now.

Yeah. I guess. And he's been the NBA a long time. He's 60 years old. Yeah. But Rick Patino reinvigorated. of St. John's and he's no spring chicken. That's true. Yeah, Todd Golden.

What are you about Todd Golden? 40. I don't have any thoughts about North Carolina hiring. Now, funny, North Carolina loves hiring their own, but I think they're going to go outside the North Carolina friend zone to hire their coach. Okay. I didn't realize. I didn't realize Todd Golden was coaching in Israel at some point, too. Feels like a very believe-in-or-not category.

I'm sorry, playing in... When he gets the job, if he leaves. Seems like a great candidate. It's been doing very well at Florida, literally a national champion. Thanks. Sorry. Next year.

Coach Samson's back. Yeah. You know what the beautiful thing is? We need four starters, though. You know, it's great. Portal. Let's go Portal. No, that's what I'm saying.

In the old days, you do negative recruiting, like they did when Mac Brown's toward the end of his career, when Nick Sabo was in another career. Hey, man, I don't know if you want to commit there for multiple years because coach might be gone. Well, I might be gone. So guess what? Everybody's on a one-year contract anyways.

You can't negative recruit against Kelvin Samson when the whole team's there for one year too. You know what's awesome about recruiting now? You don't have to go into the school of business and talk about how great the dorm is. You just, you sit in the room with the mom and the dad and you say, what's the budget? Yeah.

It's check. Yeah, it's not even a deep conversation. It does matter some when people are offering similar money. Why would the quality of the school matters? Why would the school of architecture matter to me if I'm a one and done? It wouldn't. No, I'm saying, yeah, if you're a one and done, it doesn't.

It might if you want to come back. Oh, I got something for it. I was listening to a national radio show. I think it was Mad Dog last night coming home from New Orleans. Okay. Not Mad Dog, the Mad Dog Radio. It's called Mad Dog Radio. Which is just sport.

The guy that was on the show brought up a decent point. He says, you know what? Maybe freshmen can't lead to national championships. Cooper Flagg and Con Cineppel last year, two very talented freshmen. This year you had the boozer boys. Can freshmen, 18-year-old men, 19 maybe in some cases, is the pressure too high? That was a lot of the thinking with Kyle Perry's lack of success. You're bringing in four or five guys every year and it doesn't always work out.

I'm trying to think of recent examples because when Calipari won at all I mean Anthony Davis was a freshman and there was a bunch of freshmen on that team and they won in the national championship but I'd have to look at like the list of a lot of national champions and there could be something to that

experience tournament experience but you know what though? Not choking in the big moment. I'm going to take my chances with the All-American freshman over the nice ball player who might be with me for three or four years. Who are the, yeah, the recent

like number one top overall picks I'm trying to think of who come off of teams that won the national championship. It's not a lot. No. You had two guys that were lottery picks that played college basketball at Rutgers. They didn't make the tournament.

It's not indicative. Tournament success is frankly not indicative of your NBA success. I mean, you're going to go to those thoroughbred schools. I mean, obviously with connepple and flag, you went early to those guys. We're also talking about a very volatile tournament where, I mean, if Yukon and Duke play, you know, 10 times,

Yukon probably won six or, I mean, Duke probably won six, seven maybe? I would say at least seven times. So you're also, we're dealing with, I mean, it's tough to get a massive sample size and a one and done tournament, too. It's part of the charm of the tournament, though. Yeah. You have to play excellent 40 minutes every single time. You don't, you can't be a, we're down O2, we'll get this fixed.

Yeah, the best team does not always win the national championship. And I think, I do believe, if you kind of Duke played 10 times, Duke would win seven of those 10 times. Hell, Ross, if Duke and Houston would have played 10 times last year. Duke would have won seven of those games. He's got to win the one that's happening on the floor. Got that right. All right. If you'd like to join us at 713-212-5-790, 7-13-212-5-790.

Astro start a series with the Boston Red Sox tonight. 710 first pitch 6 o'clock on the on deck show it's a Monday Tuesday Wednesday matinee and then the Astros head west for their first road trip of the season 713-212-5-7-9

if you want to talk some Astros baseball some initial impressions of what you saw with the first four games if you want to get into some rockets as Appra and Shingoon had an amazing light last night for the Rockets against the Pels we've got the college basketball anything else that I'm oh the comets are now in town

I don't know if there's much of a buzz for it There's some buzz There's some buzz for sure People around the office are talking about it Oh that they are that they are And I'm sure the Rockets office is like man Our boss has spent $300 million So go out and sell some tickets

Yeah It's gonna weird I wonder what Connecticut's gonna do Being a lame duck up there We've done lame duck in this town before And ain't a pretty sight Yeah Those Houston older games last season

With Steve McNair and Eddie George And Jeff Fisher coaching is you can get a pretty good ticket at the Astrodome. But that's kind of it gets worries. You get a decent section. You get that right. 713-212-5-790. Matt and Ross with U-Till 2.

This is Sports Talk 790. For the A's. Hey, this is Mike Fires. Sometimes. I'm getting fired up for more Houston Sports Talk. Back to Matt Thomas on Sports Talk 790. Astros baseball lives here. I thought we were just to get rid of that liner.

We were done with my fires. It's just a bad part of Houston sports memories. Enough. Yes, it's... He's been... It's probably time. We can delete that one. Oops.

What was that? What's a video? Check out a video of our show. We're going to put up a little clips on occasion. Yeah, we're trying. So you peel the curtain back of the show. On Instagram. Need a ruling from this weekend.

Okay. Got a great friend of mine. I won't say who it is. Hmm. Has a wireless earbuds in his ears 24-7. I know who it is. I know. And I just don't know if he's talking to me or talking to somebody else.

And I'm... I don't know. Do I need to continue to ask? Go ahead. It's not good. We're so... The reason is why I brought him. brought up, I went to the bathroom. We were so overstimulated

as a society. There was a guy walking to our deli, which is next to our office and he had earbones on. I was like, I forgot to ask us about this. Yeah, I understand having the phone with you always available to you. Because we use it for texting or we use it for phone calls.

Some people need it for their jobs. But most of us just are obsessed by. When you're in the elevator, what do you do? You don't look around and say, hello, how's your No, I try to stay off. Even in the elevator, I try to say, I'm trying to be better. That's your better man than I guess. As soon as I got on the elevator today, I went right to the phone.

Look, man, I don't have my Apple watch on. Very happy. So that I can, I'm trying to stay off my phone more. That's great. But the damn earbuds, the wireless ones, you just give off the impression of I may be talking to you, but I might not be talking to you. I'm worried about those people. If you're doing it for work, that's one thing. But if you're doing it all day, every day, it's over stimulation.

You know, I saw a guy with Wilder's AirBuds yesterday at the Astros game on the whole time. Now, I wonder if he was listening to the game. Some people do do that. That I get when you're at the baseball game. Did this person like they were looking to be on the Iheart radio app? Just tell the truth. Dad, was he like watching movies? That's the thing.

He had shades on, glasses, and earbuds. Was he being forced to be there or was he there because he really wanted to be there? Did he have Astros gear on or no? Maybe. Who was he with? I'm trying to stay off my phone. phone as wife and kids you know apparently there was some settlement some people won like a class action lawsuit it was against google and uh somebody else maybe meta for they they you know they built the algorithm

endless scroll remember when we were first on twitter there was no endless scroll it would be whoever you follow and if they weren't tweeting if it was like 2 a m there was no tweets you'd get off the app they said hey we got to stop this we need people on this app we need people addicted to this app that's where they for you tab comes in and that's where they try to go with the following that's why they tried to put in this most popular you're following rather than in recent because if nobody's tweeting you're getting off the app. But now they have endless scroll on all these apps so you

stay addicted. But no one's going to win the court cases because of the terms and conditions we sign on that. But they can still get around that. No, they won the court case. I'll go look it up. So we can blame somebody for our addiction to our phones? These things are engineered. Yeah,

meta and YouTube found negligent and landmark social media. I'm not going to pay New York Times. I'm just really not. I appreciate. That's good enough. We trust you. I mean, we're the headline.

A jury found the company's harmed a young user with design features that were addictive and led to her mental health distress. It's all of us. No matter what age, demographic, color, race. Absolutely. It's all of us. I'm trying to get better. I went out to the woods this weekend. Went out in nature.

Stayed off my phone. caught up on all I watched Rockets game when I got home, watch a lot of Astros and when I got home. The only time I'm on my phone is when I'm at the casino because I can't be on my phone. That's true. So maybe Blackjack is a good cathartic way

to get off your phone. It's bad dopamine. Mm-hmm. We're all chasing. Let's talk to Jay in downtown at 1255. Jay, good afternoon to you. Hello? Hello?

All right. Hey, um, so I was just hoping. different things I'm talking about. I am one of those guys that actually listen to the game on my head while I'm at the game. Nice. The way is it's a little annoying but it's nice

to hear all the stats and oh, this is like the fifth hit or Alte Rebase 2 away from 3,000 or something like that. Excellent. Now, you're talking about UNC coaching the one that really got

my ears perk and I was like, I was not really going to happen with Kenny Smith. I would love to see Kanye Smith if they keep it in-house. That would have been awesome. Now, with the rocket, I saw the report yesterday that

coach was like, hey, we're not focused about this year, we're just going to focus on next year. I am not offended of that. I want, I want this year back then. That's the time I've invested into the V. And that decided

a couple of your co-workers got us really pumped about this year. And then, I mean, it's not our fault that the injuries happen, but it's like, dude, what the heck? Yeah, I think if anything they would have done, Jay, it wouldn't have gotten them better than probably the Thunder or the Spurs. If they had to shuffled a bunch of stuff around and gotten a better point card, I don't think that would have been like,

okay, all of a sudden we are going to win the NBA championship. By the way, that quote largely taken out of context. I did all due diligence on it. Do you really think an NBA head coach, Jay, would go to a member of the media and say we're giving up on this year? When you are Kevin Duran, you're about to win 48 to 50 games. That was poor journalism. So I was on the other side of the bar trying to serve people. So it was a power read.

Sure. I understand that. You're a bartender? Yes, sir. What do you work? Net bar. Okay. Excellent.

I've been, you and Ross, you are invited. Yeah, I've met you, Jay. I've invited you a couple of times. Yeah, yeah, I know we are. You're a good dude. We like you. I kind of wanted to go by Brad's Burner account today on this call in, but I was like not. No, you can't do that.

You can't do that. You're off today, or are you working tonight? I am off today. I'm actually going through the game again today. And this ties into, I tagged you in a post yesterday. I was at the game yesterday, and the bottom of the second, I looked over at section 151, the O'S Cutsch Corner, and what do I see? The wave.

The wave. The wave is already starting. It's ridiculous. In the bottom of the second. Yeah. Jay, thank you. Yep, Jay. Go ahead.

No, I was just going to say, I got to get to a top of the hour break. I appreciate you calling in. Thank you. We're never going to learn. We're just not going to... It's getting better, thanks to Wave Busters, H.O.U. By the way, if you really want to follow a Twitter account, if you don't want to follow me, I get it.

But if you're anti-wave, Wavebusters HOU is your friend. We out people politely, but we out them. And again, 90% of the people, maybe close to 95% of people that like the wave, don't care about baseball. They usually wear jorts. They probably have a mullet. They got a pack of cigarettes, and they're a couple of, upper left shoulder.

And they have no issues with trying to become bigger than the game. Don't let baseball, don't let yourself become bigger than the game. But yeah, that still happens. And it makes me sad. Sorry, Matt. Let me check the old WaveBusters H-O-U account. WaveBusters H-O-U is the Twitter account. Okay.

I think I was close to 1,500. Let me see where I am on the follower count here. It is my burner, by the way. 1,046. Great. All right now, if you're within a sign of my voice, I want you to follow three accounts. At Sports RV.

At SportsMT. At WaveBusters, HOU. Let's get it to a nice, good number so we can spread the word. 1,046 ain't bad. I'm good. You get a little higher. The wave must stop. And the problem is the wave's only going to get one.

worst come summertime was all those kids are going to be out there. All these kids enjoying themselves at the game. It's the worst. It is the worst. All right. One o'clock, Sports Talk, 790. With a reminder, we've got missing you coming up. The debut segment of missing you. Did you cue the song up properly, Jonathan, by the way, and make sure we got it good? We got it good. I like that. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-2-1-790. Missing you in 20 minutes. Believe it or not, highly Googleable today. And it's about the UFL

at 150 here on Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 5 on Sports Talk 790. I was definitely afraid Rossi. We were going to do a AO to open up the show today. We didn't have to do that because the Astros

bounced back with two victories over the weekend. Bounce back twice. Yeah. Come from behind. After, well, first of all, it being down huge on Saturday, then Sunday getting up to a big lead and then giving that up and then eventually coming back to win the contest.

So, yeah, could have been a disaster. Well, I'll put it this way. When the Yankees came in and swept you, it was two or three years ago, that was the Yankees. You can't have the sucky-ass angels doing it. It was a four-game sweep, wouldn't it, too? Yes. Oof. Let's go through OPSs.

Oh, okay, one week in. Yeah. Do we have some music for some OPS music? What kind of music we want to go with? What do you want? Um, we always play center field. You played center field in opening day, right? That's like a staple.

It's like the tradition. Yeah. I mean, trying to cheesy and cliche, but it's tradition. No, it's a great baseball song. It's fine.

I'm going to have you find something and then you tell me. I don't know what. Like, you just want an instrumental or what do you want? So we're going to go over the highs and lows of the first four games. Just something of a little production value. Oh, he already got centerfield. Does that work? Yeah, it's good.

Go to Alvarez. OPS 1141. Excellent. Okay, that's good. Christian Walker, 976. Oh, the hills, yeah. Okay. Joey Loparfito, 833.

I don't even know what these are. I'm just putting stuff in here, Jonathan. Yeah, just fire things off. Change it up if you want to. Change it mids on. I don't care. Jose Altube. 752.

Not bad. I like this. This is actually pretty good. This week used to when we were doing therapy or Google MT, right? I think so. Yeah. Esoc Peretti's small sample size. Oh, I like this.

653. Hey, Matt. We're having a wonderful time here on Sports Talk 790. Carlos Correa's OPS? Yes. 583. That sounds horrible. Remember 750 is good.

800's elite. 900 is awesome. Yeah. Okay. Janier Diaz, 398 OPS. Okay, that's fine. He's going to be just great. Cam Smith's OPS, 371.

Wonderful. That's it. Oh. No, that's not, can't be. There's other guys, right? Did, uh... Yeah, is a, like, just qualify? You're on the qualified guys list or something?

I don't know what I'm. I just happen to go to the Astros website. Okay. What do you want? Oh, non-qualified players are hidden by default. There you go. How about Christian Vasquez? 1100. Excellent.

By the way, poor Cesar Salazar. He cleared waivers and I was like, nobody wants you. I'll go back to triple again. Yeah, exactly. How does space cowboys do this weekend? They don't start. Oh, that's right. They don't start. But when they do, they'll win a hundred games. They'll be locked in.

Now, are we getting a massage? Are we getting a massage going over AstroStats? Hello, Matthew. Now they now do ERA. we're doing what's do base on balls and we'll say positive. Hold on. Jose has drawn five walks in four games.

There is not a better percentage in the history of his major league career than five walks in four games. That sounds great. Yaroni Alvarez, five walks, four games. Awesome. Cam Smith. I'm getting sleepy.

Three walks. Okay, sorry. Yeah, let's go ahead. I'm going to change it up. All right. Now to the negatives. Yonair Diaz. Issoc Predes,

Cam Smith, all with five strikeouts. Altuve Matthew, oh, Bryce Matthews, has 4Ks in two games. Yeesh. It's not good. 3Ks for Alvarez,

3 for Loper Fido, two for Carlos Correa. Are we done with the Astros hitting numbers? I guess so. Let's do pitching numbers. Jonathan, I wish you and I can go back

in the time machine. And we can go in the Soul Train dance line in 1974. Oh my God, Jonathan. We'd have such a good time. All right, here we go.

Now we're going to the pitching. He shut that down. Yeah, he's like, I'm not going to that. He said, see you later. All right. Leading the Astro's ERA with zero. Okay. Is Hunter Brown.

Love it. Next, AJ Blueball, 2.08. Let's go. Next. I like Blue Ball, by the way. Friend of the show. Yes. I bet you we get him tomorrow.

Hopefully. Just a gut on that one. That's a good guess. That's a good guess, right? Well, he might be on the 18. Mike Burroughs, third lowest ERA and the Astros. 7.94. Christian Javier, 11.57.

Oh, God. Is that bad? That hell happened. It's not great. The other guys are not showing up here, so. I don't think you can put an infinite on some of these. There's not an infinity symbol, I don't think. No.

Who am I missing? Who do you want? Brian King? Go. He's listed, by the way, as the closer on baseball reference. That's not nice. Who's the only one of the save? 3.380 RA.

Abreu? 27. It's early. It's early? That guy with a weird first name. Roderie. Roderie Munoz. 675.

And then there's a do with three letters. Kai Wei Ting was great. Yeah. I mean, well, actually, he was shaking. Okay. ERA, this is why ERA is misleading. ERA. But he was shaky when he first came in.

But then he got some outs. Christian Roe, 6.75. By the way, Christian Roe, a moral high school kid. Ryan Weiss, friend of the show. Nine ERA. Yeah, but it's early. He did not start his career. It's early.

He gave up like a home run. Yeah. but then he got three outs. Hey, three out of four ain't bad. Want to go back on the Soul Train, 1974? No, I'm good. All right. Oh, he'd get up another hit, too, I forgot.

And walked a guy. Anybody else? You want the collective ERA? Starters are bullpen of the whole thing. The whole thing is? 6.25. Okay. Well, that's what's my trial.

1.694 whip. For those that are no, that's walks and hits per innings pitch. You want it under one. 1.0 is elite or lower. 1.1's fine. Revere starter like 1.2 is okay. 1.694 is like that's

get ready to learn, get outrided buddy. Yeah, enjoy that 59 drive to sugar land. It's early. It's early. In 2 and 2. Pitching to be fine. Cleveland and Seattle. Split the four games. Pitching, pitching, and more pitching.

Speaking of which, Lance McCullors on the mound tonight. We will predict. How are you feeling? When we come back. back. And we'll talk to Jay. And then after that, we're going to be missing you. Okay. Because I have done the research. You know what? This show preps like a mutter. Even on my little hotel no pads. Thank you, Matt. Thank you. 113. Sports Talk 790. 719.

Just as we thought, congratulations, space Cowboys off to a fast start. Ross, how they doing? 2-1. Opening up the season. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. We're not on pace. 100 games if the space Cowboys are playing 2 and 3. Yeah, no, they are, right? No, they only play 144, don't they? Oh, that's fine. Close enough. No! He gets a 90-plus wins as the Space Cowboys be crazy. They just cannot lose at home this year.

A big 8-1 victory yesterday over the Round Rock Express. Enio de Los Santos earning the win. How about this lineup? Are you ready for this? Go. Taylor Trammell, Shea Whitcomb, Zach Cole. Oh, my gosh. Cardlos Perez

at Catcher Oh no I don't know A lot of these Sezar's no D-H Seazar Zazars in there Jack's Biggers Our friend of the show

Jacks You know I should have known They'd play Because our friend Pete Mayock sent me That text hit her day I know They got some heavy hitters How's their bullpennyer

Jack Winkler Colin Price What about the guy Roday Unru Spencer Aregetti throwing four innings of shutout ball. You know who doesn't like to hear that. Rance, my mullers. Why not?

It's all good. Stay down there. It's all good, baby. Lance McCulles, Jr., pick the line. Okay, I'm going to give you four stats really quick. Okay, let's write these down. And then we're both... I don't want to write one.

I think it's going to be... Here we go, here we go. Over under three and two thirds. Okay, oh, you're doing, you're doing betting lines. Yeah, yeah, betting lines. Over under three and two thirds. Over. I'm going to let you try that again. Over.

Over. Strikeouts. Okay. Three and a half. Over. Over. Walks, two and a half. Over.

Over. Okay. I think we're done. Okay. That's three's plenty. I heard runs. Oh. Three and a half.

Under her. John, you notice when Ross is lying to himself in our audience, he just starts to endlessly laugh. He's not a good poker face. He's not exactly when he's lying. Yeah, no, when I play poker, I just stare at the middle of the felt and I don't talk.

So that's easier. So during actual poker, I can be fine. Just stare at a side. spot in the middle of the felt whether you're strong or weak and don't talk i'll take over j on 790 good afternoon you can hear me yes okay the rockets did they go from a two seed to a number six uh they have in the last uh they were never number two they were number three that dropped to a six number two for a little while here and there i think but that's been a while long time long time okay so now we can't beat the spurs and now we can't beat the lakers and now we can't beat the lakers

so once they get bounced in the first round Emi Odochi or Doca Pratina's going to fire them Not happening Yeah Pratina's going to fire them Oh yeah Jay, listen to me very carefully

There is a 0% chance EMA Oka gets fired this year Zero How did you get bounced in the first round 0% chance. Okay. Zero. We'll see.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's no, no, no, no, no. Zero percent chance. Okay, Maddie. You're Nostradamus of basketball. This is Nostra common. Common. This is not interesting.

This is common sense kicking in here. This is not me making a prediction. Just signing extension this. It would cost a lot of money to get rid of him, and they had injuries. 0% chance I believe it I believe thank you

thank you very much trust me when I say these things you can ask Ross he'd be the same thing zero percent chance I never like to say zero in life so I'm going to 0.1% chance I'm going zero

Will on 790 at 123 hello Will hey man I agree with you zero percent chance you'll be fired second thing I got a question about Tugler is he coming out this year

I hope not he needs to stay man I tell you what that kid remind me a beef stew from Detroit oh you think what you think he's Isaiah Stewart wow that's high praise I'll tell you that kid I will take that kid on this team

at this time here's the problem he's got energy here's a problem he's got two problems going against it One, he does not have much range, which doesn't necessarily mean you can be in the NBA and have limited range. He just is so foul prone and it's not gotten any better. And I love Jojo.

And he's been so enriched in this program. And he has everything that you want from a big man, the wingspan, the athleticism. But he just doesn't have much of an outside shot. And the foul troubles have just haunted him his entire college career. But I just wanted for the bench, Matt. Just wanting for the bench. You mean like to... Stewart doesn't have any outside range either.

Yeah, but Isaiah Stewart can stay on the floor for 30 minutes at a time. Yeah, but he... I think Doug will be a good fit. Second point. Yes, sir. Late in the season, baseball, Astro's got two aces in homes. Let's say that they run into problems may not make the playoffs. They can deal parades and they could deal Walker.

What would you get in return for them? Well, first of all, if you trade Walker, you're going to pick up some of his salary. You don't have to worry about that with Breritus. Yes. If Christian Walker gets moved, the Astros are paying some of that salary. Okay. Now, another issue in the conundrum you have is if you're paying for salary, then you're going to want better prospects in return. Now, look, I think, I think Dana's going to want a haul for ESOC.

You may not have to worry about a haul for Christian Walker. But, again, those names will be brought. If things turn south well, they will throw out all those names. Everybody will be up for grabs that the Astros do not succeed this year. That includes it Bray. And if I'm the Astros, I'm going to Boston and I'm asked for Cassus, the big first basement. I don't know how he's doing. I don't know.

That doesn't ring a bell to me. Are you sure that's his name? Yes. Okay. That's kind of batter. All right. Check him out. I'm looking at his numbers now.

He batted 182 and 89. at bats last year. Tristan Cassis, you're speaking of. 2004, he batted 241. 2023, 263, 2022, 197. Why do I want that? Sounds great. No, it doesn't. Doesn't sound good at all. Oh. Not at all. Unless I'm missing something.

Oh, oh, yeah. Turn it up. I thought this was a woman my whole life. Is you really? Yes. Come on No, I never thought that Jonathan Like a You know like a

Like a scratchy voiced woman But y'all had Prince back in the day Yeah Very men a little right Okay you can shut your bum ass up on that Here we go really quick Kyle Tucker First series of the Dodgers

Two for 11 182 batting average Okay No home runs. Two RBIs. Four strikeouts, two walks. OPS? Didn't write that down.

Should I write that down? Okay, I'll say the OPS is about 400. I don't know. I'll look it up. Frumber Valdez. One start for the Tigers against the Padres. 580. So I was close.

No, really. Fromber Valdez, one start. Six innings, seven hits. one earn run, one walk, five Ks. Did you say seven hits? Yeah, one earn run. He's working around. He got some curveball, double ball, a double plays, did he?

Working around some issues? I mean, GIDPs did he have? That's a quality start, by the way. That is. He was Mr. Quality Start and his heyday. How many quality starts at the Astros get over the weekend? Alex Bregman, 231 batting average first weekend for the Cubs against the Washington Nationals.

three hits, two ribbies. Those two of those three hits, solo home runs. 231, Breckman 3 for 13. Mauricio Dubon. Two games. Yes. One for six, a walk, two strikeouts.

That's something about right. Justin. Justin Chandler Verlander. Brooks. Makes his debut tonight for the Tigers against the Diamondbacks in Arizona. Most importantly, Lance McCuller, Jr. On the Hill tonight for your Houston Astros.

Where in the city connects again. Yeah. Love it. I'm going to say something. I'm not proud of it. What? This song's kind of a jam. It's not bad. It's not bad at all.

It's fine. It's kind of a jam. It's kind of a defiant song, isn't it? Yeah, this lady sings great. It's not a lady. John Wait. Is he so? alive? Let me look.

What do you think? I'm taking a guess on this. Come on. This is how I imagine y'all's problems were like. Yeah. Okay. John Waite is 73 years old. He's a British, English rock singer and musician. 1984

missing you reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Reach what? Number one. That was a number one song. That's a number one number freaking one. It's got a banger. I'm not going to lie. It's fine. He was born on July 4th.

How about that? From Lancaster, Landshare, England. Oh, Lancaster, England. He was a former member of the Ringo star in his All-Star band. Why do you go to Ireland for some reason? I don't know. He was in the Ringo Starr, All-Star band? That's hilarious.

Everybody at some points in the Ringo Starr, All-Star band. Middaling 80s or 70s artists. He's lived in Santa Monica since 2014. That's crazy. Jonathan, best place to eat and drink in Santa Monica, would be, there's only one answer. The pier? The regal beagle.

Did you get that reference? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is it? He knows about the regal beagle. His professor in college used to work at the regal beagle. That is a fun fact. That is a fun. It's exactly a fun fact.

You don't remember the story, do you? Was I not here that day? You were at, Ross. Wasn't Ross here? I missed a lot of time. I see, I don't know if he was here or not. Oh. All right. Well, tell the story. Fair. 135, Sports Talk 790. Matt and Ross

with you for another 25 minutes. Tomorrow, Joe Espada makes his first appearance with us on the radio program. We have very likely, we have the manager and the coach of the two of the three sports teams. D'Amico will not be on this show. We'll try, but we'll be rejected. But we'll keep trying. But yeah, Joe Spada on the show tomorrow. Also, we'll have got feelings on the show tomorrow. And a lot of highlights of an Astros win. against the bow socks. Love it.

Lance McCullors, shutting him down, baby. Nothing but Lance McCuller's highlights tomorrow. And bury him in the age. Don't bury him on the mound. Give the man a chance. I am.

I went optimistic on every line you put. Until the very last thing you said. No, I said under a three and a half earn runs. You set over. Nine seven Astros tonight. Y'all sit back, relax. Get ready for three hours and 15 minutes of baseball. I'm not saying he's going to go and throw a perfect game.

be nice we did roof closed by way we need to stop talking about the roof it's going to be closed the rest of the year nobody wants it up you guys want it open the players and the managers don't no they don't it's terrible but it is what it is it's you can die on the vine for it like

I want the wave to end and it ain't going to end I know you want the rain apparently 75 degrees yesterday for the game really but it was going to get to 80 you know they don't want the roof open the last time the roof was open

Open Ross, wasn't it? Because Managing Baseball mandated it during the World Series? That's the World Series. I mean, that's what's going to happen. You know what? I want open air baseball in Houston. You're not going to get it. Matt. No. You're saying they're not

coming to the, I'm saying, I want open air baseball in Houston. Open air baseball in Houston. That would mean. That would mean the World Series. Let's go, baby. That's what I want. Jim Crane's already called Rob Man and said, sorry, we're going to have to close the roof.

Technical issues. Let's go. Let's talk to Vince in Midtown. Hello, Vince. Hey, guys. How are you all doing? Good. Hey, real quick, before I get to my main point, I had a dream this morning that I called in the show.

And you guys accepted my call and I start talking, but like the words aren't coming out very well. You guys cut straight to a commercial. Well, it's funny because I had a dream last night, too, that's like this. didn't involve this radio station, Vince. I'm just going to be brutally honest with you. Okay. Hey, so I have an early gut feeling because I'm not going to get the call in tomorrow. All right.

First, I want to just double check. Fleming's and Senac, they have not committed one way or the other. That is correct. This season still, I mean, no, there's a timeline, but it's not anything in the next 30 days or so. Okay. My gut feeling is either one or both will come back. Okay. There is zero chance Fleming's comes back.

Senac, maybe, if the money is right. But I would put that at about 25%. But again, these are kids that could change your mind. But Kings and Fleming's is going to be a top seven selection in the NBA draft. He needs to go on. It is what it is. All right. Thanks for taking a call.

I know. And by the way, thanks for dreaming of us. But Vince, it means a lot to us. That's beautiful. I don't know. It's kind of weird, but I still, I find it to be, I mean, he didn't dream about another show. He didn't dream about the A team. Probably not.

You didn't dream about opening. We are the dreamiest show. show on radio. Really? Sure, why not? Have you ever had a dream about us? 713. 212-5-790.

Now I'm scared. And were we doing a radio show? We're involving something else. You know what, Ross? I have had 16 years of dreams. You've never been one of my dreams ever. That's great. I love that.

What about daydreams? Daydreams? Well, Ross, daydreams when I'm on the road. Do you hear a Friday show? No. Were you on the road? Was on the road Friday? I was going all week. I was struggling.

How are you feeling, by the way? I didn't ask you today. I feel a lot better. You look good. Thank you. You're looking again if you. I don't think I did, but thank you. I gained five pounds on a trip.

Okay, cool. It's not cool. I don't want to lose game. Oh, okay, not cool. Yeah, I'm going to drop the five quark quick. Thank you. I'm feeling better. I was feeling pretty good.

I just need to stay more. I think I've just, uh, uh, uh, hydration? Yeah, hydrated. Better hydration. Okay. It's all we can ask for. Because I need you upright. I need you working.

I know. I was checked out at the last hour. Not checked out. I was running on fumes. It's going to happen to all this. I went home and I napped for like three hours. Did you? Yeah.

You dreamed during that time? I'm sure I did. I dream like almost every night. Matt, you're supposed to dream. I don't want to dream. No, it's good. You want to hear about my dream from last night? No.

All right. I kind of want to do. Oh. It doesn't make any... The last time I said no. And then I said yes. And then it was about him like popping a blister, which you're not supposed to do.

Yeah, I'm going to the foot doctor right after the show today. I screwed up. It's got infection, did it? It did. See, that's why you don't pop blisters, folks. Man, that's like one-on-one. No, this is nice. It's a cationary tale.

There's a reason your body, trust your body. There's a reason the blister is there. It is cushioning you, and it is taking care of you and protecting the broken skin. I'm kind of disappointed you, my Thomas. I'm kind of disappointed. I'm not surprised. You know better.

I accept this shame. folks don't pop your blisters because of the infection risk as well. I did it. I'm guilty. Really quick at my dream. Me and my buddy Ed were in a car. We were on a Westheimer or some heavy congested street. And there was an airplane parts attached to a, you know how you carry like multiple cars?

Like you put 10 or 11 cars on, what do they call those things? When you have one big truck that's pulling like 10 or 11 cars. Okay. I don't know what they call it. There was a part. Carport car? Yeah, whatever. Car transporter carrying chunks of an airplane that were on fire. And was smited.

Hmm. You have some, you're beyond my help. I love that you remember all your dreams. That's why I tell you over and over again, I don't want to remember my dreams. I'm worried about you. You should be. Good thing you travel private. You travel private. Hmm.

There's a lot going in this thick forest of... Mm-hmm. You shame me about the bluster. This is a tangled forest. You shame me about my dreams. Anything else you want to just frankly attack in the... I'm not shaming you. You're just...

I... You're the one that popped your own blister. I didn't do it. I know. And I should have it. As a public service, I want to let people know. It costs me a co-pay. I got a blister on my pinky toe from hiking.

I'm not touching it. Don't touch your pinky. Let the body do it work. Yeah, don't touch your blister. Let it heal naturally. I am. Yeah. By the way, I bought like 14 different things of neosporine. Oh, I don't know what kind of gangrene you got going on there.

Well, I'm glad you're going to the doctor. When are you going? 3 o'clock. Okay, good. Let's get you looked at. For many. And then I probably need a psychiatry appointment at 4. And then 6. If everybody's got a spot open for a psychiatric evaluation of my dreams, let me know. Astros on deck tonight. Start at 6 o'clock here on Sports Talk 790.

710 first pitch, Astros and the Bow Sox. Rockets will play the Knicks tomorrow night. That is a national television game, which means if you want a purely biased perspective, you'll listen to your friend Matt Thomas right here on Sports Talk 790. Let's see what else going on. We got gut feelings on the show tomorrow. Joe Espada will be on the radio program tomorrow.

And lots of Lance McCuller strikeout highlights. Now, here's the thing. We usually play songs after every game. I'm going to have to really go to the deep dive into finding some new music here. We played happy because we were happy because of both the Rockets and the Astros won. Jonathan, we're going to have to go to your musical collection for some additional songs. I'm kind of running out of stuff. All right, that's fine.

The Astros are going to win 90 games this year. We've got to think of 90 different songs. We got to use Space Cowboys this year. We didn't use them last year. Oh, the song Space Cowboys? Yeah. Is it a group or is there a song called Space Cowboys? This is a song calls, basically.

Is this good? You know what? I'll listen. We've got to do believe it or not, but I'll listen to it. Let's see if it gets the seal of approval. Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We should play America's fastest growing sports radio game show.

We simply call it B. Leaving it on and here's how it works. You call 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. today's edition of Believe it or Not is whether or not this person plays for a UFL team and if they don't

hold on if they do you'll say this Oh sorry Believe it And if they don't What do they do Ross? They're a former Texan A former Texan? Yes

And then you'll say this Two believe or nots in a row Well when you are prize your choices today are Tickets to see the Outlaw Music Festival with Willie Nelson Wilcoe, Cheryl Crow Lucas Nelson, Stephen Wisen, or Wisen, Wisen, Wisen, Wison, and more July 5th of the Woodlands Pavilion. It's available tickets at Ticketmaster.com or a pair tickets to see Dave Matthews for the May 8th of the Woodlands Pavilion.

Tickets are also available for you there at Ticketmaster.com. Let's play, believe it or not. Felipe on 790, Felipe, you ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Felipe, Corey Lilliton plays linebacker for the D.C. Defenders, believe it or not? That's correct Same on number two for the win DeAngelo Ross is a cornerback for the

Orlando Storm. Believe it or not. No. That's correct. Nicely done. Ross, what did Cora Lillerton play? Linebacker for the Texans. Oh, the positions are correct. Oh, the positions are correct. All right. The things you learn on the show. Let's go to Patrick on 790.

Patrick, what was your favorite part of today's 10-2 radio show? Definitely you're talking about your dreams, Matt. Thank you very much, Patrick. Grayland Arnold is a safety for the Louisville Kings. Believe it or not? I'll believe it. No, you shouldn't, but thank you for playing.

Matt, on 790, Matt, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Tallulia, Tagavaloa, quarterback, Houston Gamblers. Believe it or not? Not. We just talked about an hour ago. Oh, no. It's too late.

Oh, man, you got to scurrilow. screwed Matt. That's a gimmie because obviously he wasn't a Texan. Yeah. Matt on 790, you ready to play, believe it or not? Yes. Matt, Eno or NO? How are we pronouncing it? Eno. Sure why not. Eno Benjamin, running back.

Columbus Aviators. Believe it or not? Believe it. No, Ross made that up. He's a former Texan. Let's go to Taylor on 790. Taylor, you ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Taylor, Greg Ward Jr. wide receiver, Dallas Renegades. Believe it or not?

Not. That's a believe it. When the Greg Ward ever played for the Texans? He never played for the Texans. All right, we need callers. 713, 212-1-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Javier on 790.

Javier, your favorite part of today's 10-2 radio show. Rust, yeast. Rust, yeast, safety, or, Lando Storm, believe it or not? Oh, believe it. No, we talked about Russ East last year. Guess we have no Dave Matthews winners, huh? Wex would have crushed this, by the way.

Oh, Wex would live for this. Wex would have gone back to his tweet deck and been able to find all the names he tweeted of people. Let's talk to John on 790 John. You're ready to play, believe it or not? Marcus Yarns, running back, Houston Gamblers. Believe it or not? Not.

That's a believe it. We're having a tough time today on the old program. S on 790 E.S. Are you ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Curtis Jacobs, linebacker, D.C. defenders. Believe it or not? Believe it.

There you go. Statement number two for the win. Last chance. Chuck Filiaga, offensive linemen, Columbus Aviators. Believe it or not. Believe it. There you go.

Nicely done. All we do is. giveaway concert tickets, my friends, and we'll do it every single day at 150 during, believe it or not. All right, thanks to all of you that called and partook in the show today. Appreciate you all following me on in Twitter

and Instagram at SportsMT. And of course, at WaveBusters, H-O-U, because yes, we do not believe in the wave. Up next, two men that have never participated in the wave before. That can give you one of them can. Every single player that's ever played for the Texans in their history, whether they were on the practice squad

or they were active. That man is Adam Wexer. He'll be joined by Adam Flatton, and they are the A team. Talk to you tomorrow at 10 right here on Sports Talk 790.