The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Still Maintain A 2 Game Lead In AL West After Weekend Series vs Orioles, Texans/Lions Recap.

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

Astros Still Maintain A 2 Game Lead In AL West After Weekend Series vs Orioles, Texans/Lions Recap.

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Good morning. And welcome to a Monday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. They're still the same. They still hold a two-game lead in the American League West. Your beloved Astros do. Good morning, everyone.

10.03. It is a Monday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Ross with a couple of more days off. I'll be back with us on Thursday. Chris Gordy is going to jump in here momentarily and hang out with me for a couple of hours, and we want you to hang out with us for the full four hours of this radio show. How do you do that? Well, first of all, you keep your ears on your IHeart radio app or the dial-in the zone of 790.

Then you put together a couple of verbs and conjugate properly, and you got a couple of thoughts that makes somewhat complete sense, and you dialed into 713-213-2-5-790. 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-7-90 is how you reach a show. If you want to reach out to us via Twitter, you may do that as well. It's at SportsMT, at Chris Gordy, and at Sports Talk 790. So the Astros do win three out of four. Do show some signs of offense, especially not so much yesterday, but the first three games in the series. The Mariners do do what they're supposed to do.

Take two out of three against the A's. But the Astros played on Thursday. The Mariners did not. So the Astros gained a half game. And so, yes, we are still the same. same at two games above the Mariners in the West. The Astros at 72 and 59 and gang. They have a very winnable week.

And I feel like I've been telling you all this. And I think many of you probably share the same sentiments with your buddies of years past. It always feels like there's always one week a season during this amazing run the Astros have had where they were supposed to beat up on somebody. I think it was one year It was the A's in Kansas City or something like that When a back-to-back home stand

And the Astros were like Oh, this is where they can get fat and happy This is where they can expand their lead This is where they can really Separate themselves from the rest of the teams in American League And then No, it doesn't happen. The Astros struggle.

The Astros don't win the series Or they get swept Or there's something going on that makes absolutely no sense it feels like this year more so than ever, they're going to have to do some damage this week. Because Colorado is woeful. The angels have been long checked out. And the Astros have a rigorous schedule after that with the Yankees.

They'll have the Rangers. Now the Braves aren't a big deal anymore, but Toronto's in, you know, fighting for Detroit for the supremacy in the American League West. Or is just the American League when it comes to home field throughout. So needless to say, you got to get fat and happy. You got to beat these teams that are coming up. And you might do it with Yoran Alvarez. Gordy's with me here.

We hang out with us for a couple hours. He'll be with us today and Wednesday. Gordy, how the hell are you? What's up, Matt? Yeah, it was an interesting post-game show yesterday. The Astros lose a close one. Could have, you know, a couple breaks here and there. Maybe I could have won it.

But anytime you come out of a four-game series, when three out of four, that's a win. I can't tell. man, I got three calls of people wanting to know where ESOC Paredes is going to play next year. I'm like, guys, can we please wait till December, January, and February? We have all

off-season to talk about that. It's just wild. So, I don't know. We will see here. I think the good news is you got the lowly Colorado Rockies coming in. Lowly.

You got the angels who stink. Yep. Take care of business. Because Seattle, I was watching that game on the post-game and I'm watching big Dumper go home run number 48, home run number 49. I mean, it is ridiculous

and they have a chance. They play the Padres tonight while the Astros have a buy. So they cut this thing, you lost, they won. They cut it to what, two games? Right. They have a chance to win tonight against the Padres to get this thing to one and a half before you even play a game again.

Are we going to stay up this late and watch this game thing at 840 tonight? Is that what I do? Okay. All right. So And we do welcome you again at 713-1-2-1-2-5-7-70. You had a caller on the 10th inning show suggesting they wanted to see Yordon Albares traded. Is that correct? Yes. And you told them that made no sense.

Correct? And the most polite way you could have. Yes. And then that guy got mad at you. I may have said it was a stupid tick. He got very angry. Was the guy from Huffman by any chance? I don't know.

Okay. I just know this. It's like I do my best. I think you do your best. We try to educate fans a little bit. And that's not our job, but it comes to the territory. But to a point of, we have a lot of people in this town who are football fans that bring the football mentality to baseball. And you just can't do that.

It's too long of a season. In football, if the Texans lose three in a row, we're going, oh, my God, the season's over. In baseball, you can lose three in a row and win the World Series. So it's a hundred and sixty-two. You can lose three in a row to the absolute worst team in baseball. Yes. And it doesn't matter. So why is this?

and maybe this is a little self-diagnosis. We're having a really rough year on the 10th inning show. I don't want to discourage people from calling. And I don't either, because that's the whole point of doing the show, is because it gives us an opportunity to have immediate reaction to something. And I listened a little bit to your show yesterday, and it sounded pretty good for the most part in terms of who you were getting on. And we do get, for the most part, I mean, it's not like we, of every 10 Astro Calders we get,

seven of them are perfectly logical. It's the three this year have just been way out of whack. Just ask yourself, if you're going to call into a radio show and have a question, just run it through your own head and ask it to yourself before you do it. And if you go, yeah, I guess it is kind of dumb. Then it is kind of dumb. Don't ask it. It's just, and again, like, so many people were fired up about what are they going to do about

parades next year? I'm like, why do we care about that right now? You got two paratus calls? Three. Why do we care about that right now? You only got three. You're just, you embellishing. No, I'm serious.

Because I said, these things always work itself out. What if we get to spring training, Matt? And suddenly Carl Scray has a back strain, and he's not ready to go. But you already traded Esauk Paredes because you were like, oh, well, we don't have enough infield spots. It'll work itself out. It will. Don't worry about it. It will.

All right. So if you are one of those seven of ten that I like talking to, come on in. Now, if you're one of the three eight O line talking to, I mean, just know that we may happen we may have to throw hands in radio tournament again we're just we're a friendly group generally speaking but sometimes we just our triggers are a little short when we have crazy whacked out calls and unfortunately you had the trade yorna alvarez a call that came in by the way yorda on a couple hitch yesterday for uh double a corpus christi he's ready well i mean i i always think of it as this how do you wake up this morning or his hands tender oh come on oh please that's not that's not the

craziest thought in the world. I'm going to choose to be half glass full. He's going to be in a line up tomorrow. My glass was half full on May 19th. What would that get me? He's going to be in a lineup tomorrow. He's going to be ripping doubles off the wall and left. Oh, he's going to be just fine. Oh, he's going to Up. I see how you're going with that. All right. We are with you today until 2 o'clock. Ross is not with us today. He's going to go off for a few days. Do you and God knows what in what part of the world I don't even know he's alive. I hope he's alive. I'm like a lion's not eating him or chew him up. He goes camping by himself.

my wife asked me the other day would you mind if I went on a vacation by myself? I said, well, are you going to an all-inclusive place? Are you going to a singles hangout? I guess it's all relative. I said,

I said, the only place I would actually go by myself, and this is on a true vacation, it would be Vegas because I don't, because the casino is there. That's my entertainment. Yeah. Ross takes pictures,

like he sits on high top of mountain top and just looks out and thinks. That's what he does. Yeah, that sucks. I do that at night before I go to bed. I'd rather be on a beach. Another Mai Tai, please, thank you.

Have you gone on a solo vacation since you and Lauren have been married? Just to like football games. That's not really vacation. It was fun though, right? I guess. Okay. Bachelorette, stuff like that.

But you didn't go, I'm talking about when you go on a vacation, by yourself. I mean, you went somewhere. Well, I mean, he likes it. That's his, that's his jam. What's all for? You know, you got to get, you need your downtime. I don't get enough downtime, frankly,

because I'm always involved in something else going on. But when he goes, you get many vacates all year with the rockets. I don't get, you get many vacates all year with the rockets. I don't get married. I'm in Dallas and I'm in L.A. And I'm in Salt Lake City. Yeah, but I'm working and calling a game. Some days you have an off day, a travel day.

Yeah, that's true. All right. To tell the truth has come up at 1130 today. Have you played it in a while? Tell the truth. Oh, this is where you tell, is it three lies and one truth? It depends on how I feel. Sometimes I tell one truth and three lies.

We mix it up a little bit. Oh, no, is that Jonathan doesn't do very well. Yeah, like what? Three for ten? Guys, you're like, you're like, you're like, you're like, Cam Smith these days. Oof. I mean, once in a while, you'll find yourself getting into one, but for the most

spread, it's not been great. By the way, you were bringing up Cam Smith getting set down. It's kind of almost too late for that, honestly. Well, but Dana, if you heard what Dana said pregame, he kind of, it sounded like, especially with Jake on his way back, Jake's about to get back. Yeah. I think with Jake's back with Hazu Sanchez, if there's some games they choose to put your on and left, I mean, I

You're crowded, that's for sure. And this is if, this is if Cam has another 0 for 4-2 strikeouts, 0-4-3 strikeout. Like, if he keeps on this path, I think you have no choice but to send him down for a couple weeks. Problem is the monolick season is running out of time. That's my point. You are. But, I mean, I think just a little break for him might do him some good. All right.

We'll start with Dan on the west side wants to get into some conversation on the Astros. If you wanted to do so as well, 713-212-5-7-90. Gordy's going to give us a complete breakdown of the Texans' Lions preseason game on Saturday. I mean quarter by quarter, play by play. Also, I didn't particularly care about the Iowa State Kansas State game in Dublin until I found out... Until I found out who the quarterback of Kansas State's dad was and his older brother. You can't have a fight outside a stadium without getting in trouble. But when you're fighting with members of your own family, not a great look.

1013, Sports Talk 790. Ross is out. Gordy's going to hang with us until 12 noon to tell the truth is coming up today. at 1130. Believe it or not, is half Avery Johnson, the former San Antonio Spurs and NBA player, half the Kansas State quarterback. Oh, that's funny. Because I couldn't do Avery Johnson, Kansas State. I mean, I can talk about his hair and what he uses for shampoo, but that way. I tell you what, I improved, I moved him up on my draft board. You have a draft, I didn't really yet a draft board. Well, you know, just for future draft prospect. If he's got the bloodlines of a fiery, I mean, his dad's got fire and passion, the brother's got fire and passion, I like that. it's a gamer.

You know, I think the Cougars would like to go play a game overseas. My guess is Dublin, Ireland, would be about the perfect spot, right? I mean, first of all, they're just not going to have a whole lot of alcohol issues. If you're going to a game and want to be sober, that's fine too. But I would presume that most people that are available to drink responsibly would like to have five or six or 14 at a game. Well, there's been a rumor Brian Kelly wants to go play there because Notre Dame, had played there when he had coached. And the problem is the LSU fan base, I don't think...

You can't afford that. Dublin is the one city that they might run out of alcohol if LSU fans go. Yeah, but you guys are afraid to fly on planes. You want to go in your Winnebagoes. You can't go to Winnebago's to Ireland that way. They'll take their Cajun boats, the little air fans across the Atlantic. You would be in an airboat all the way to Dublin? Could you imagine the Irish accent mixing with the Cajun accent?

Oh, yeah. They would not understand a thing. I got to listen to LSU football broadcast Are we carrying the games again? We are. All right. I think Sunday night though, or Saturday night will be on 950

because we'll have Astros here. Okay. Is LSU, can you, do the broadcasters conjugate their verbs properly on that broadcast? Yeah, Chris Blair was over in, he's from like, I think he did Georgia State before. Oh, so he was a regular part of the country. Yeah, he's very much normal broadcaster.

Okay. The next, next, the next voice of LSU, I wanted to be Harold a Trubedo or, or, or Marquez, Tibido. So here's what we got on Saturday. So make sure you set you down. Oh, here we go, write this down. Saturday morning. Yes, sir.

We've got Doug Pike. Is he doing the Texas pregame show? He is, well, he's off at 9 a.m. because we got our handicapper guys back. Oh, okay. So he'll be 9 to 10. All right. At 10 a.m. on these airwaves, Craig Way

will be live from Columbus, Ohio. Perfect. And you're ready with the pregame show at 11 a.m. Kickoff, Archmania begins against Ohio State right here on 790. and then Astros later in the evening. Which I'll be doing the pre-impost. And LSU will be over on our sister station 950. Man, you just want to keep your radio.

If you're going to go on to the boat this weekend, it's Labor Day weekend. You're going to be grilling outside by the pool. Get the radio and just get flipping back and forth. You've been good to go. Cooke's play Thursday night. We'll have that game for you right here on our sister station 950. That's right.

And Willie Fritz will be on the show tomorrow. And I'm going to say, give or take. I got it at 57 to 9. U of H or over SFA. That's probably right. They stink. Even if Austin's not good. Do you know our producer here is Prattis

if you... I thought he was Western Kentucky. Well, he's both. He doesn't know what he wants. He's confused. He's Mr. Transfer Portal. I can, yeah, I can be it for both teams. I get the red both. Okay. And he really believes his Lumberjacks

are going to win. Even the Lumberjacks don't think they're going to win. I think he should claim Western Kentucky. They were dominant over Sam Houston on Saturday. I thought they have really a program, but They're dominant early season. Just wait to get to five games in. It's going to be horrible. Quick note for Kuhk fans. I was on campus

Saturday night. We went to see a show at Cullen Hall. There's a lot of construction going on there. Campus. You've got to like walk around all these walls and they're tearing the street up and all this. Just be diligent. I don't think Thursday's game's going to be a huge draw. Although there's nothing else going on. What are you doing?

Jonathan says there's going to be 6,000000 SFA people there, which I don't believe. No way. I said $750 at most. 750? 750. That's it. Let's talk to Dan on 7 out of your 1023. Dan, good morning.

Good morning, Matt. I've got a couple of optimistic points about the Astros. Sure. But first the question, do you know what their record is now in one-run games? We can look it up, but you keep talking and I can look it up. Sure. So one point is that, optimistically, if Alvarez is most of what he usually is, he makes the whole lineup better. That we got nobody scary in that lineup.

And when Alvarez comes in, I think he's going to make Sanchez better. I think he's going to make Correa better. I think he's going to make Out Tube better. And he's just going to put a little bit of fear into the opposing team. The other point I wanted to make is not offensive, but Mauricio Du Bonn, even though he doesn't really scare you too much, he gets the clutch hits on occasion. But I think that whatever position he plays, with the possible exception of when Jake Myers is available in center, whatever position he plays, he's better than the starter. you see him make great plays in left, in right, at third, at short, and even that one day he substituted for Chris Walker at first.

He really brings it, and I think he makes a big difference. All right, a few things. Dan, the Astros in one-run games are 23 and 14. All right, to answer your question on that. Number two, it's too late in the season. for all the sudden Jordan Alvarez to step in here and then make the guys around him more potent.

The Astros are who they are. Christian Walker has batted significantly better in the last 30 days and he did it in the first 90 days of the season and none of that was with Jordan Alvarez in the lineup. Jose Altube wakes up with two hits per game. I don't think all of a sudden his batting average are going to go up 15 to 20 points.

If Cam Smith in a struggle, the only reason why Cam Smith wouldn't be struggling any further is because Yordon Alvarez is taking his spot. So I think it's a little overrated on my part, just my opinion about adding a bat. Now, does it make the team better you hope in theory? Dan, you're absolutely right. Does it

lengthen the lineup? It certainly does. Does it mean that there are less guys that shouldn't be playing like Jacob Melton will be playing very much? If Taylor Tremel wasn't hurt, he wouldn't be out there as much. So I would just say that lengthening the lineup is the biggest asset that Yorda can do, not necessarily all

the guys that Rondham are like, oh, now Yordaun's I'm going to have about 15 or 20 points higher. And your last point, Maricio Dubon is the prototypical perfect utility guy. You love him whenever he plays and moving him around. But I don't know if Maricio Dubon needs to play seven days a week. And he doesn't play seven days a week. He plays a lot. And he does move around.

He does give guys days off. And because of all the injuries the asteros have had, he's had to play a lot more. But the utility is where he is suited best. and the thing about him is his flexibility makes him a very valuable asset to this baseball team. So I'm not trying to downgrade him. In fact, I'm trying to love on him a lot here. But I don't know if Maricio Dubon replacing Jose Altuve two days a week or replacing Carlos Correa or anybody else is all of a sudden a dramatic improvement over the guy that's previously been there. Except maybe with Jacob Melton or, you know, Chas McCormick, some of those guys like that.

Well, he does give people arrest. I agree with you that seven days a week isn't his thing, but if he got in there four days a week at different positions, what I really admire about him is that he's able to switch so quickly. His mind goes from short to right field, you know, as if he's been playing it every day. You know what? And that's what the definition is. And thank you for the phone call, Dan. I appreciate it.

That in itself is the definition of a fine utility player. You need him to play a couple innings at first base? You can just spell Carlos Correa Day. You need to spell Jeremy Pena day. It works. But this Astros team, when it's very best, will have Correa at third, Pena at shortstop. The left field spot, Gordy, to me, is the one that's going to be the trickiest one. Because, again, we've not seen Jose Al-Tuvae play much to left field at all the last two months.

Yeah, I was trying to think of the last time he's played there. It's been a while. Well, he's been deaching a lot, actually, yeah. Yeah, the injury, with the injuries, well, with the injury to Pena, he was having to play a lot of second there. And, you know, and then to your point, yeah, when he's not played second now, he's usually deaching. But when Yordaun's back, I got to think, ideally, they want Yordaunt deaching every day. Yeah, the thought of Yordaun playing any more outfield than once a week would be to me a stretch. I think he's once a week, if that, if that at all.

But it wasn't his knees or his feet or his ankle. No, but they're just, I think at some point in a person's professional career, they just say, hey, what can we do to minimize any sort of injuries? And if he was a gold glove S type player out there, you'd take that risk. But since he's just, I mean, he's average, not below average. In fact, he's probably played better left field than I ever thought he was ever going to play. But he doesn't make you a plus defensive team. And that's the reason why I think when a guy is out there who you're worried about making sure all parts of his body are 100% taking any liberties playing defense when you're really there for offenses or I think of the Astros will go.

But again, that's the same can be said for Jose Al-Tube. Jose Al-Tuvae's Dech more this year that he has probably in the previous five years combined. He's been a staple at second base. They try to put him in the left field. And I think that he's kind of grown into the role of being a guy that's been deaching three, four times a week. Yeah, I, look, it's, it's going to be a good problem to have, having your rod back. But I think ideally, I mean, this Cam Smith thing needs to work itself out in right field because Hazu Sanchez polled in a lot of right field for the Miami Marlins.

You can, you have a stretch here. Again, it's up to Dana Brown in the front office to decide what to do. They could, they could say Cam Smith has a, oh, he has an elbow strain. is we're going to put them on the IL. We're going to send them down to Sugar Land. And then after, you know, after 10 days, he'll start rehabbing, get a couple starts down there. And in the meantime, you could plug Hazu Sanchez and Wright.

Jake Myers, again, for those who missed it, sounds like he's going to, Dana Brown said he's going to make some rehab starts later this week. So you got to think Jake is probably about a week from being back. So you plug him in center. And then you do whatever the hell you want in left field. Put Chas McCormick out there. put Jordan out there for a game a week. But Al-Tube, you know.

How do you have a lineup that doesn't have Al-Tuve and Alvarez in a lineup with one of them having to play defense? We'll get to more of that coming back in a minute. 1030 is our time. 7-13-212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-2-5-79 if you want to join us. Also, D'Amico Ryans is going to speak today at 11 o'clock. Is he going to tell us that Joe Mixon's not ready for the start of the season? That's my prediction.

1031 on Sports Talk 7.90. 1036. It is Matt and Gordy here today. He'll be with us for a couple of hours. And then he'll go up and got nine radio appearances. You can hear him on a chop-fil-Ios 1.03.6. Take the good interview this morning with Holly Row. Oh, yeah? She will be on the sidelines for LSU Clemson on Saturday night. And then she goes over to Chapel Hill. She will be on the sidelines for Bill Belichick's first game as a college football head coach.

what your gut-filling on his success rate in North Carolina. I mean, my initial, well, they first hired him, my initial reaction was this is going to be an abject disaster, but go look at their football schedule. I mean, it is as forgiving as any schedule out there. Well, the ACC's no juggernaut. I mean, when you have Wake Forest and Duke every year, it's going to help. They opened with TCU on Monday night, who, they were okay last year. They went nine games.

Tudors beat them. But. You're welcome. Then there's Charlotte, Richmond, Richmond. UCF and then they're into the whole you know, ACC, but the toughest ACC game they get is Clemson. They play one ranked team all year. So I look at that and go, if they're good,

he could go 10 and 2. And they are going to make every excuse possible to get him into the playoff. How old is he? He's TV ratings. He's like 70 or something, right? I was going to say he's older than that. Hell, we got to... I'm encouraged... 73. I'm encouraged all these 70-year-olds keeping jobs.

means you and I got a chance staying in this business for a while. What's his girlfriend's age? I think she's in her late 20s. Oh, that's horrible. For whom? It's not horrible for him? No, that's right.

I'm thinking, though. It's horrible for her. Stuff she's got to do. I know. Well. Hmm. So you're saying it's additional work for her. Yeah, like going to get him coffee and stuff.

Oh, is that what you were thinking? Okay. That makes a lot of sense. All right. Texans line. Um, truth be told, uh, nobody watched it. How many minutes did you watch? I tell you right here, this team's awesome, baby.

I was getting text from a buddy who is, like, Graham Mertz looks good. I'm like, seriously, if you are- Mertz is going to be on the practice squad, bro. And this is with all due disrespect. If you are getting excited about Graham Murch, you need to go get laid. You really do. It's a good story. And it's not a good story.

It's a story that means nothing. He literally broke his, what, his leg or his ACL? I don't care. Last season. I'm sure I'm glad he's able to walk. Seriously. The amount of Graham merch tweets on my 4-U tab, I was like, you people need a life. So think about this.

We used to have four pre-season games for the longest. It was stupid. We didn't need four preseason games. We cut it down to three, which I think is fine. but now we're to the point where the third preseason again we don't give a damn bout. So can we cut this back to two? I think we're going to go to two.

You know, I mean, seriously, I have, in the three Texans preseason games, I have watched combined about 15 minutes. I watched the CJ possessions, that's all. That's what I'm saying. CJ and I think I watched the first possession of the game against the Vikings. It was the first time that there were the Texans were on the field.

So I want to get the, I mean, it's like spring training openers for us. Spring training games are on, oh, good, I'll watch two innings and I'll be done. Trust me, I have never in my life oversold you on spring training games, and I'm not going to oversell you on preseason games. Like, they didn't even play Davis Mills in this one. It was exclusively Graham Mertz Keaton Slovis. Who? Keaton Slovis.

Who is that? You don't remember him? No. He bounced around. No, nobody knows who that is. He was at a bunch of different schools. If you and I went to a bar and said, Hi, I'm Chris.

Hi, I'm Matt. This is my, what is the name again? Keaton Slovis. Keaton Slovas. You and I would have much more popularity than that guy would. Three years. years at USC following in Sean Salisbury's footsteps, a year at Pitt and a year at BYU.

I didn't even know his name. Notice anybody should. He'll be cut. I think what they'll do is there, it'll be, C.J. is your starter. Davis Mills is your backup. Graham Mertz is your practice squatter. Keed and Slovis will be working at Staples very soon. So again, if you are running into, if you're thinking to yourself, I'm getting really excited

about Graham Mertz, you must find a. girl or boy it depends on what your sexuality preference is i don't really care each his own but you cannot you must be friendless my guess is your cholesterol levels very high and you're not getting having sex on a regular basis now that you may be all those things of your choice but graham murts on your tweets come on people can i tell you i had a fantasy draft last night and it is like what what some of the fantasy experts are saying now is they think joe mixon it's going to be a while before he's And even when he's back, if Nick Chubb has performed well, this is Nick Chub's season. Woody Marks was going way higher than I thought because, I mean, it was like Damian Pierce and Woody Marks because they don't really know who's going to be the backup to Chub yet.

So you're going to put, what you're going to do, you're going to have to put, you mix out on the injured list, right? Yeah, he's going to start. He's going to start on the PUP or whatever. The pup, as the kids would say. But it, yeah, I mean, like, it's just, it becomes hard because I think, we've seen all these great tweets and videos of Nick Chubb I think he's the guy like we're going in the season

is Nick Chub is the starting running back and whenever Joe Mixing gets back we'll see but I think it's if Chubb is rocking and rolling it's 100 yard games why mess with a good thing? You ready for a crazy hot take in mine I was a thing about using it to tell the truth

but I'm not going to do it there the Texans might have to wait a while to get a hundred yard running back in one game Chub Chubb is capable Chubb can't carry the ball 20 times. Nick Chubb with all the injuries and the wear and tear that the guys that have been in the league as long as he's been in, he's not carrying the ball 20 times. Let's see.

He had a 20 carry game last year against Pitt. And how many yards did he have? 59. Okay. Average 3 yards. There you go. But Cleveland wasn't good. He is 29.

Okay. So he's not in that. Once you're at 30, you probably should follow your retirement papers. No, I'm going to say to this right now. The Texans will not have a 100-yard rusher until Joe Mixin is hopefully back in 100%. 2022, he had six 100-yard games. 2022, we're in 2025. 2020-three?

Do you have any dog years that is it for running backs? 2023, he played in two games, had 100-yard game. And then last year, it was kind of platoon, right? Like, he wasn't the workhorse. Well, the only way, honestly, that any Texan running back gets to 100 yards, at least probably until Mixon is we was perceived to be clear and ready to go, is if one of them breaks off for an 80-yard run, right? You just, you thought you got me. Oh, he carried them all 20 times. And then I sent me yards, 59.

I could see 20 for 59 for him. I might be with you. Mixon, Mixon had one, two, three, four, five. Mixon had 600-yard games last year. Seven, if you count the playoffs. Yeah, I'll count it. For sure, I'll count it. So there you go.

So maybe it's not crazy to think. Mixing will take back over the job when he's back. Just please call me Texans Insider. All these fancy people are selling us on Chub, Chub, Chub, Who? Who are these people? Is Roto doing that? The Yahoo Insider. I don't know.

If he ain't I don't buy it. What did Roto say about mixing? He doesn't think he's going to be back anytime soon. Yeah, well, that's what they, that's what it's saying. But that's a drafting stash. If he's back in like week six and he's awesome, Okay. I'm not nearly as bullish on the running game with the Texans.

I think it's going to have to be... First of all, it's going to have to be the defense, right? I mean, if the Texans are going to win some games, they're going to have to win some 1912-type games, 19-14-time games. The strength of the team is the defense, yes. And how about the fact that we missing John Weeks? Did you see the highlights or the low-lights of whoever the Deep Snapper is for the Texans? Terrible.

Not great. Well, I mean, John, we... is a hall of a year. You could have kept him. John Wink should have his name in the Hall of Ring of Honor. If there's anybody that's been through enough of this crap of this organization, John Freaking Weeks. 1044, Sports Talk, 7.9. 713-212-579 if you want to chime in.

713-212-5-7-90. So we kind of talked about this very briefly. Aaron, Avery Johnson, excuse me, is a quarterback at Kansas. State and been very good. A little inconsistent in the last couple of years and kind of wearing it for the teams lost to Iowa State. Again, I didn't watch any of the game because neither one of those schools do much for me. I've seen international games. It's sexy for those schools that are there. It's the start of college football. Oh, please. The week, starting college football starts this week. I'm

an SEC guy through and through it. I was locked in. Yeah, because you're goofball when it comes of college football. Well, I did bet on Iowa State in the straight-up upset, and I won. Yeah, week zero means nothing. Week zero means these games we just throw on there just to get some sort of attention. Well, but wouldn't

you be smart to do it, though? Like, we've been in this desert craving for any kind of taste to college football all offseason. I mean, everybody I know was tuned into this game on Saturday because it was like, oh, and it was a ranked on rank game. It's not like it was, it was, it was,

You know, what were the other crappy teams? Fresno State versus somebody. Let me give you the week zero lineup. Okay, this is why this is a week zero. K-State, Iowa State, two top 25 teams, Big 12. Idaho State at UNLV wasn't on TV around here. Fresno State, Kansas. I don't know how Kurt Warner's son continues to be a college quarterback.

He sucks. He sucked at his temple. He sucked at Rice, and now he sucks at Fresno State. Sammy Houston lost at Western Kentucky, and then Hawaii beat Stanford. Do you know who Iowa State's quarterback was? No. Rocco Beck, son of Anthony Beck, who you had on the show not too long ago.

B-E-C-H-T, Beck, yeah. Okay, I got you. Okay, good for him. All right. So if you watched Iowa State, Kansas State, come in here right now. You want people to call it if you watch that game. I want to know what your life is like when you said, I must sit down to watch Iowa State versus Kansas.

Well, it was, again, it was the, I mean, it was that in the Texans preseason game. The Astros played later. go outside and spend go to the pool. What you could cook out, Gordy? Look, you know, my pasty white skin could have used it. I mean, you can bring, you can bring a tablet to the pool now.

You can't, you don't have to like choose just outside. Well, yeah, but then your tablet burns and then he overheats and then you lose your feed and like. It was a good game. It came down to the wire. It was a, it was a good game. All right. So far, no one's called.

If you watched Iowa State, Kansas State, and you have no. No ties to Ames or to Manhattan. You just need to call in right now and say, yeah, Matt, I love college football so much. I wanted to watch a lot of the game. Now, if it was on and you were in the background, you know, maybe doing some work at the office or making a, you know, cleaning your garage or something, that doesn't count. I'm talking about pulling a gorty sitting down on your couch with a cold beverage.

I don't know, you've a suggestion of someone. I don't know if you have one or not. Yeah, Crawford box. And you had popcorn. you may be cooked out a burger. You said, I'm going to sit down because I love college football so much. I want to watch Iowa State, Kansas State. 7-1-3-212-5-7-08.

I'm waiting. It was hell-a-good. It was not hell of good. Now, this week is a much different story, my friends. Let me give you the top 25 matchups. Oh, yeah, this weekend's loaded. All right, Boise State, South Florida, nobody cares. 4.30 on Thursday, that game kicks off.

430. 430. Well, you get to ask, I mean. Here's the problem. You don't bet. You don't bet. These are all better specials here. I don't want to bet on these.

I don't have to bet on it. I bet on sports when I'm in the, like I'm familiar, Lake Charles or in Las Vegas. But I'm not betting on games, just to bet on games. All right. Then Friday you've got Western Illinois versus Illinois. Oh, Illinois, you've got to be ashamed of yourself playing that. Texas, Ohio State's awesome. Oh, wait, you didn't mention it.

They're not ranked, but it's Auburn at Baylor Friday night on Fox. That's a good one. That's not bad. That's two brands. Dave Orandez is going to be. And they always have pressure on him in Baylor, doesn't he? Well, Hugh Freeze is on the hot seat, too, at Auburn. So that's a good game there.

By the way, Florida is playing this week, okay? Yeah, Long Island. I didn't even realize Long Island had a football team. I'm being all serious on this. How did I not know that Long Island had a football team? I mean, the, the entrees are Clemson LSU and Texas Ohio State. Those are the two monsters. And my middle son, YouTube.

TSA A&M is a big game for him. By the way, if anybody's got one extra ticket, I would take it from you for that game. For UTSA A&M? Yeah. I'm sure you can walk up. No, the secondary market's ridiculous. Really? Oh, we spent yesterday looking at it.

So if anybody has one spare ticket, I'll buy it for you. I just want to pay crazy price. You also get, there's two games on Sunday. Virginia Tech, South Carolina is in the afternoon, and then at night, Notre Dame Miami. So those are two good, because it's a holiday week. right Labor Day? Yes. And then Monday night, with the NFL off, you know, they haven't started their season yet,

you get the Bill Belichick, TCU, North Carolina. You get your beloved LSU Tigers taken on another set of tigers in Clemson. Yeah. The real Death Valley in Batoners, not Clemson, South Carolina. Wait a minute. Is that because you're just being biased towards it? Why does your Death Valley greater than their Death Valley? Okay.

When you've talked to people and they're like, oh, God, we've got to go play a night game at LSU. Have you ever heard anyone go? Oh, God. We got to play at night in Clemson. You don't know that. Nobody's ever said that. That is a completely biased taking your part. You know U of H.

damn well and good what it's like going to play a night game in Death Valley. I do know this. How bad you'll lose? But let me tell you, you don't think Atlanta sports radio's going, oh, I know what Death Valley is. Going to South Carolina and playing in Clemsonsons more of the Death Valley than playing in Baton Rouge. Nobody's ever said that.

No, but you cannot, you cannot bias. You have such bias. Clemson played three SEC teams last year. They went 0 and 3. So. I'm just telling you, their Death Valley is just as good as yours. It is not. What's Death Valley?

You play, you know what your Death Valley games are? Dabot runs down a hill. You play sectional Louisiana schools. Dabo runs down a hill and goes, oh, shucks. Oh, God. Such ACC. Oh, no wonder you're locked on SEC. It should be called Locked on SEC slash I hate ACC.

Texas Ohio State can be good though. Archmania. Catch it. 11 o'clock. This is the Matt Thomas Show. with Ross. We are your exclusive home of decent sports talk. Sports Talk 790 in the city, Houston, Texas.

11.03 is our time. Gordy's in hanging out with us another hour, and we've got to tell the truth coming up at the bottom of the hour. You may join us right now at 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. And if you want to follow us on Twitter, you may do that as well. At SportsMT, at SportsRV, at Chris.

Gordy and at our sports talk 790 address. Astros dropped 1-3-2 yesterday. Poor John Rooney. I shouldn't say poor. He's a major leaguer now. He's got service time. But he was put into a tough spot, didn't get the job done, probably nervous as I'll get out. He's a major leaguer for the first time after being a minor leaguer for eight years and gives up the winning run. Well, he can get a strikeout. Yeah, he's fine.

He relieved Araggetti. and he got out of the 6th, so that was good, kept it at 2 to 1, and then, yeah, in the bottom of the 7th, gives up the home run. It makes it 3 to 1. Astros battle back in a sack fly in the 8th, but yeah, it did prove to be the difference maker. Because if he keeps it at 2 to 1, and they tie it, we're probably going extra innings.

So, we have a bigger fish to fry beyond the fact that the positive signs where the Astro bats were largely very ambitious and very aggressive of the week. Yeah, I give him a pass yesterday. Taylor Rogers has been all. Have you seen his numbers? He's good. Really good.

The whole month, he's gone seven innings of one-run ball against the Cubs, the Phillies, the Mariners, the Astro. So I didn't have a problem with the, like, Dastro's bats were awesome, all series. They just got shut down by a really good pitcher yesterday. Yeah. I mean, again, I am not the king of you must sweep a series. It's hard to do that. I'll take four game. I'll take three out of four in Baltimore and be very happy with that.

Sure. But the reality is this team is in, I shouldn't say mass. If I'm Joe, I'm really worried about my starting rotation right now. Javier looks like he can't throw a strike. Five walks for Lance McCullors on Friday night. Frumber completely melted down in Detroit. He's the one that has to bounce back. I look at McCullors,

Aragutti, and Javier's basically it's almost like they're coming out of spring training again. Like that's kind of what they're building back. Frobber needs to get his crap together because it's got to be Hunter Brown Framber has to be the one two punch going to the post. And you know what that is?

That's a lot of pressure on two guys because they're the only two that haven't gotten hurt. But if you're going to be front end rotation guys, Gordy, and you're going to be a guy. You've been here long enough. It's not like Framber's in his first. year in the league. It's your responsibility. And literally, ever since the game he got pissed off because of the defensive alignment,

he has cracked like an egg. Yes. And that's why he's never going to be an asteroid again after this year. They've known this. Mental stability isn't his strong suit. Remember these moments when we get into the offseason and every team in their brother is giving offering Yordon these big fat contracts and everybody, MLB networks going, hey, how could you let him walk of the Astros?

This is one of the best pitches in baseball. Just to remember these moments of Yordon, because he's had a lot of these little roller – Frommber, you mean. Fromber, sorry. A lot of these little roller coaster moments. No, the numbers bear out a guy that should be getting a five-year deal, you know, $20, $25 million or whatever the number of me is. But we've seen enough of it.

When Framber is good and throw strike one and the 12-6 curb ball is hooking and he's inducing ground balls. He's fantastic and wonderful. But there are these stretches. Now, it doesn't mean he can't get out of this. But, man, it has been a month of bad defense, heavy

pitch count, giving up these fluky little hits. And again, that's part of the business. But Hunter Brown in that Detroit series went up against Tarek Scouble and said, I can match you mono for mono.

Mono for mono and he did so and I was very happy to that and that's why there is no one in one A anymore Hunter Brown's your race and the last month is again probably given the Astros example to number 15 and 16 of why they're not going to put a lot of money

in his piggy bank will they make a qualifying offer my guess is yes because they don't want to lose draft picks because when he eventually goes somewhere else the Astros can get a draft pick because they did make a qualifying offer whether they make a serious offer beyond that I don't know what the Astros thinking is but when you have not even offered Fromber Valdez a contract before the start of the season,

the signs are that the Astros know that the best days of Fromber as an Astro are not ahead of them. I'll say this. Jason Alexander is hands down your third best pitcher right now. He has been awesome. And this is a big enough sample size now. Four starts in the month of August. He has an E.R.A. of 154. Six shot out innings, six out innings.

Six innings, two runs. Five and a third innings, two runs. he's been great. But if he's your third best, if he's your third best, you're in trouble. And that's no denigration to Jason Alexander. That means the guys in and around him

who are being highly compensated or have had the experience aren't doing their jobs. Well, it starts with McCullors and Javier. They're both getting paid, big, big money to perform. They both have to continue to get, erigating, I'm encouraged by.

He pitched the most pitches he's thrown, what he had, 97 or something yesterday, he's getting closer to looking like old Araggeti. Like he gives up the home run of the first, but then he settled down. What are you retired? Like 10 or 12 in a row. Five and two-thirds of two-run ball, that's good.

That's one of his best outings he's had back. I'm encouraged by that. But the Javier and McCullors, it's the control. It's the walks. You can't give up that many walks. It's the high-pitch count of the first and seven innings of games. You're like 20 pitches in the first inning. Like, that just cannot happen.

So I'm still going to chalk it out. Look, that was Lance's, what, first start back after another prolonged absence, right? Yeah, Friday. And then Javier, you know, he's still building back. So I said that this thing was a twofold, Matt, earlier in the year. When the Astros, the Astros first step was get healthy. You want to get everybody back healthy. Yeah.

Phase two is get right. You're healthy right now from a pitching standpoint with Erigetti back, McCuller's back, and Javier back. but they're not right yet. So you got them healthy, now it's about getting them right. When you get them right, yes, this team will be very deep. And it feels like to me, J.P. France and Luis Garcia, if they help you at all. Bullpen.

But they don't know what to do with them. Well, I mean, to be honest, they need guys eat up innings. I mean, that's the whole reason. I mean, they brought up blue ball. He was a godsend on Saturday, Blue Ball. What do you go four innings? And the reward was he got sent back to AAA. Well, because they need fresh arms.

I mean, this is where you are. John Rooney has no business being on this team, but they need somebody to eat up innings. The Bennett-Susa injury hurts more than we may want to admit. Bennett-Souza, in my mind, was your eighth-inning guy. He was pitching a lot. Extra innings? Who did they go to? It was Bennett-Sus almost every time you brought extra inning.

And that's why Craig Kimberle was signed. That's why John Rooney was brought up here. That's why those guys pitched yesterday. And Kimbril is shutout inning. I'll give him credit. I don't want to overuse them but not bad, not a bad debut. 713-212-5-790.

7-13-212-5-7-90. Bill is with us on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Bill, good morning. How are you? Good. I want to talk about Yardine. I know this is not good feeling time, but I'm going to give you a good feeling anyway.

That's okay. You know how all the... the pitchers have come back with high expectations and everybody got excited. And then, of course, reality set in and we realized that they have to work theirself back into Major League Baseball Farm. Well, I'm going to say the same thing about Yorda. He's done nothing but face double A pitching. And when he comes back, I think we need to understand that it's going to take him, I think,

you know, a week or two, maybe even three, to look like the Yordon that we're accustomed to seeing. And I'll hang up and listen to your thoughts on that. I don't necessarily disagree. I mean, I don't, even if, Gordy, if he had a smack three home runs at AA, I would have been, you know, AA is a significant drop off.

Yeah. It's no one should, you know, he came, he went down there to get swings in live action. action. He went in there to be in the intensity of a professional baseball game. That's something you can't get at the West Palm Beach complex. You just want, I mean, you almost want a little bit of

intimidation factor in him coming back where the opposing pitcher has to go, okay, as a man on base and you're on Alvarez. I mean, like, you almost want that. And look, yes, temporary expectations. I would not expect him to come back in the lineup tomorrow and hit two home runs, but it is a Colorado

Rockies. It is a team that gives up a ton of runs. So, If you were going to bring back Yonan for any series, this one might be the one. So we'll see. But yes, you know, temporary expectations. If he goes one for four but has good contact on two, you know, liners that are right out of an outfielder, okay, fine. I'll take that. But you just, you want the danger of what Yoron can bring it.

Because the biggest problem, Matt, that this team's had the last couple weeks, where's the pop? Ever since Esock Paradeus left for the season, there's no pop. Christian Walker's got a little bit of it. He got a little bit of a heater. Yep. You know, NL Tuvao hit the occasional home run. Paineo hit the occasional home run, but like, there ain't many home run hitters.

Taylor Tremel was not slugging him out of the ballpark. No. No, there isn't a whole lot. And you know what? You don't necessarily have to win a bunch of baseball games by hitting a bunch of home runs. I'm more of the crooked number guys on base, what are your numbers of the runners and scoring position. But they also can't play small ball either.

They can't bunt. They don't bunt. Well, nobody's bunting, but yeah. But the ability, there have been a lot of men left on base. and watching Chas McCormick hit is painful to me. I mean, he left a bunch of guys on base yesterday. Oh, the whole weekend he did. One guy said, he's like,

what is you who bringing your table? I said defense. He's still pretty good defensively. But there's an outfield log jam if you get Jake Myers back and you're bringing Yon on back too. Well, because even if you're on as a play outfield, you're going to probably have to use Jose in the outfield. Tremel out, you know, you need a little bit of depth there. And

Jacob Melton's probably shouldn't be getting any real estate here at this point. He should be in Sugarland. All right, 1114 on Sports Talk 790. 713-212-1-2-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. I think it'll be easy for you all to temper the enthusiasm. You'll be happy that Yardons back, but I also think you understand that playing AA baseball for the last four or five days is not necessarily going to be the precursor for him coming up here and crushing a baseball. It may take a while.

Get to be ready in time for the Seattle series in a couple weeks? I certainly hope so. Or for that matter, before that, the Yankees. 7-13-212-5-790. Dimeke O'Ryan's having a Zoom call with some members of the media that are legit, most of them not, saying that he is... Bloggers? Bloggers, people that think they're members of media with the YouTube page that have 30 subscribers, that kind of thing.

That he's not ready to announce the roster moves to finalize a 53 man. I saw that. That's so, it's so weird because all day yesterday on Twitter, what did I keep seeing, Matt? Oh, the Rams cut this guy. This team cut this guy. The 40 irons cut this guy. Every team was making cuts and trims and all this. And at 11 a.m. on Monday morning, the Texans still don't know one move they're going to make on their roster.

They do know what they move. I can't get heated about this. I don't care. I just want to know what's going to be. It's just odd. Like, why you do things so weird? What they should have done is they should have said, we'll have the press cut. We'll have our media availability tomorrow.

Instead, you send Nemeco up there on Monday saying, I don't know what we're doing here. They're trying to figure out a polite way to say that Joe Mixon's not ready for the start of the season. and how that impacts their roster and how many extra running backs they carry. Yeah, what did he say? He said he declined to give an update on the health of running back. Well, because he was declined because all people want to know about his injury, they don't care about him as a person. What was the injury? What didn't happen in season, right?

But, and then it's apparently he was also wrapped in a, in a, some sort of ankle bracelet as well. And that was in the spring. Yeah. That was like not even a in-season injury. Yeah, that's correct. All this stuff that's going on right now was involving things. that did not involve play during the 2024 season.

Yeah, Adam Schaefter says their silence on the injury is deafening. Yeah, because I told you all that. Everyone's like, oh, man, don't jump with conclusions. They'll be ready to start a season. No, you won't. No, he won't. I, Rod, Gordy, you're our LSU insider. I am the Texans insider on this station.

And I want to be started treating like that. I'd like to go to Aaron Wilson for some stuff. But you can also go to me for some stuff. I told you Joe Mexican will be ready for the start of the year. I told you this Defoddix was going to be one and done and told you that Lamry Tunsel was a turd. I mean, it all works out perfectly. I'm three for three.

If they keep him on the PUP list, he will not, he will miss a minimum of the first four games. Yeah, okay. So I would say that's basically the lock right now. I don't think he's going to come back before that. That's right. And again,

at the end of the day, the average fan that's bumping around town here is like, we don't care. Just get ready for game one against the Rams. Well, but it is, I mean, it's, it's going to be, like, I think when they saw, and Nick Chubb, we were all excited because it was

like, oh, that's a hell of a one-two punch. That's a good... We were not all excited. We were like, Jonathan, you were on this show? Where were Ross and I going? Yeah, when y'all heard Nick Chub, you guys were existing. Come on. Nick Chub, way past this prime. That wasn't a one-two punch.

He looked good. I got out there a couple practices. He looked like old Nick Chubb. It looks healthy. But if it's just Nick Chub, this version of Nick Chub with No Joe mixing a compliment him, that warrants me a little. Gumbulli, Marks, Damien Pierce. He's going to get caught, right?

They're not keeping Damian Pierce. I didn't keep four running backs? Well, yeah, but like if you keep four, then Ogun Bawale's the H-back slash, you know, full-back kind of guy. They have to keep him. Oh, it was interesting. Damian Pierce after the game, I saw some audio of him. The amount of, I'm surprised that Bobby Slash, low it can walk.

He's been thrown under the bus. I mean, by everybody and their mother. He was the problem. Nobody else was the problem. He was the problem. Have you noticed that though in this training camp and there have been subtle and Pierce had the exact same thing? It started with D'Amico. It started with the offensive line. It started with receivers. And then even Damon Pierce was kind of like, man, we didn't

know what we were doing. Now that we've got a new offensive coordinator Nick Cayley. This is, we know what the game plan should be on a third and one, who should be in there. I'm like, and you know what? Sometimes that does present a problem. I just don't know, and maybe things can change, but Bobby Sloick was two years ago, please don't go anywhere else. Stay here. We need you to gutter trash one year later.

I think he was in over, sad. I think they caught the league by Super Bowl. because they didn't really know what Stroud was. And last year they figured him out. There was film on them. And I think Flood got exposed as you're not ready to be a full-time play caller in the NFL. Okay. Nick Kelly's got a little bit more of a track record.

And it is beloved by a lot of people. Rob Grankowski couldn't speak highly enough of the guy. Yeah. But it's good. I mean, if I give Dermiko credit, because obviously he didn't Sloak knew each other, when you put together your first ever staff, you're going to be putting people around you that are like-minded, right? You're putting, you know, and he got rid of him after two years.

That'd be tough for him, but good for him to do that. The reality is last season went along, we realized this offensive line sucks. So you got to do something different from an offensive philosophy to, like, you can't have CJ keep dropping back because the, you know, it's not working. So he's just getting sacked and running for his life back there. So their inability to adapt, I think Nick Cayley will adapt. He gets this is not the greatest offensive line ever. So you're going to have to do some things, some motion things, you know, two-step drop, throw, get the ball out quick. Difference that eyes can help that.

And I think that's exactly what, because again, everything I've heard about Nick Cayley has been fantastic. But ultimately it's going to be about what this team does when the games really count. Here was the quote from Adam Schaefter. The silence from Houston is deafening. regarding Joe Mixon's injury. There's been zero update. There are a lot of questions about when or if he will even be back. We'll continue to wait and update. They're required to provide one by tomorrow. If he hasn't practiced all year, hasn't seen much, hasn't been heard from at all. There's a lot going on with Joe Mixon's ankle that hasn't been addressed and it hangs over this franchise, leaving a major question mark at the running back position. And then what did we get the update 10 minutes ago from Demico? Declines to give an update on the health of Joe Mixon. So there is a There is a chance we don't see Joe Mix on it at all this year. I mean, but like an ankle.

An ankle doesn't sideline you for a year. Like, unless it's like torn. We also had a shin that cost the astral player three months. Yeah. That's the Astros, though. But I mean, Nolan rides. Noel arrives says rub some dirt on it.

If you don't say anything, that's the worst thing, right? Like if I say, Gordy, how you feeling? Fine. What I do immediately? What's wrong with you? Well, this has been my gripe with the, with the Texans here is like, the longer you ignore and don't give an update, the worse it gets.

And the Astros could give you the greatest advice about that. Yes. Silence is deafening. And here's the thing about what D'Amico could have done. If he could have said the worst thing today, we're really concerned. We'd have been like, oh, hell, that's terrible news. But it's not going to make us sleep any later. You can't change things at this point.

You just are just giving the information. I don't know what's the gamesmanship to just hiding. Yeah. There's nothing. Unless it's roster construction. But to not give an update on Joe Mixing to me says everything about what he's not available. What he is and that's not going to be available.

Let's talk to KJ on 790, 1126. KJ, what do you got today? What up, what up, fellas. as a lot of show as usual, man. I've got a Texas comment. I want to see what you guys' opinion is on it. And I also got an Astros question. In regard to the Texas,

I heard a lot this preseason, and I know they absolved themselves to some degree in the one time that CJ played, the offense looked decent. But I heard a lot of back and forth this offseason about how bad the defense was doing the offense in practice. And I equate that to this.

everybody's projecting the Texas defense to be a top five defense. I've even heard some go as far as to say it could potentially be an all the time great. I'm not going to go that far yet until I see it, but top five I easily can comprehend. My question is, when you're going against on a day-in-a-day-out basis against a defense, that's that elite, you have pro bowlers at all three levels on your defense. And I don't mean just borderline pro-boles. I mean studs at all three levels. you're going to struggle consistently as an office.

I don't care if it's a Texan's offense or whoever you're playing. You're going to struggle against that defense. The positive spin I put on it is could this be preparing them to face inferior, much more inferior defenses than a regular season, because you're not going to have success consistently at all against that defense like that. But you're not going to see a Will Anderson and the New Hunter and Carmarie Lasson and all those guys day in and day out. So I think it's a positive in regards to benefit the defense.

although you would like to see more success. And on the Astros, I could be wrong, but I think we have team control from Pena for two more years. Yes. Could you guys... It is two more years? Yes, after this year.

Okay. Do you guys foresee with him here with Scott Bores and the fact that I know on the surface, Correa is saying he's okay with third, but that could just be him being a team player and not wanting to rock the boat? could you guys foresee since they got Correa back, Correa going back to shortstop when Faradis comes back

and them pulling another Kyle Tucker and trading Pena at some point, not now, obviously, but at some point to recoup something for them since they have a propensity to not overpaid players. And again, love the show, man. It's what you guys got to say. Thank you. We'll answer both those questions.

He wants to know about Jeremy Pena's future. And does playing the Superior Texans defense in training camp help you for the regular season. We'll discuss those things plus to tell the truth. It's 1129 on Sports Talk 790. 1133 here on 790. We'll do to tell the truth coming up in just a minute. Let's answer KJ's questions first.

Well, only we know, we only know so much. Does the Texans defense go full throttle every day and every day of practice? Is there any difference in their intensity playing? against the Texans' offense, then there would be during a regular season game. I think the answer is yes, right? They're not going to go try to sack CJ. They're not going to try to take down Nico Collins.

But they bring intensity. They do you and bring intensity. DeMiko, the one thing he has brought to this team is an attitude, and that defense plays with their hair on fire. They were the strength last year. I think that, you know, as far as they were, there was an interview last night with Patrick Mahomes on, on a sports center,

and they were showing highlights last year, and some of the highlights he shows from that playoff game, Texans were hitting hard, man. I mean, they were coming. I mean, we got flagged for the stupid hits on Mahomes, you know, late hit, all that. But they, they play hard. And look, it's just the preseason.

I get it. But they were flying around throughout this preseason. I would say this, KJ, into the others. Yeah. Is the Texans offense benefit from playing against such a good defense? Yeah, because are they going to face as good? I mean, now the Rams may be posing a problem in week one. It's a good defense of front.

But I would say, of course it helps. But I don't think they're thinking, we just got finished playing our defense. It's going to be a piece of cake going against, you know, all of our opponents coming the season. So the most simplistic view is, yeah, it does help. But is it guarantee of success? No, you self-execute.

There are still NFL players on every team on defensive sides that are excellent, that are going to be hard to stop. So, yeah, I don't think it hurts, put it that way, right? Yeah, I mean, look, I'm a believer in him. I think this is really good. I mean, Will Anderson, Jr., I think it's still scratching the surface on what he could be. Daniel Hunter is still at the peak of his prowess.

Secondary is fantastic. Secondary, Stingley, Camari Lassar is coming along, Petrie Bullock, you know, And then the linebackers, getting Christian Harris back is huge. You know, they missed him a lot last year. So, yeah, look, I'll put this way, Matt. There's going to be a lot of 20 to 13 type games this year. I'm okay with that. And look, if CJ and the offense can do something more this year.

They can take one step. And a lot of those on the development of those, the young, the Iowa State receivers, what Higgins and Noel. If they continue to take steps, Christian Kirk shows a little something. We know how good. Nico's the top. five receiver in the league. It just is. But some of those other guys emerge,

maybe this office could take another step. I would know Joe Mixen, and it's all Nick Chub in the backfield. How good is he? We'll see. All right. Second question was about Jeremy Pena and his future. The Astros as an organization are going to have to have a really deep conversation

about making a deal to buy arbitration years for Pena if they wanted to be their full-time shortstop. I'm not saying, they're going to go to that eight, nine, you know, your deal. But they're going to have to make it worth his while. And if it does, if there aren't signs in this offseason Gordy that Jeremy Pena is interested in anything the Astros are thinking about,

with a year left to go, I would move Pena. I just, he just made an all-star game. He's at the peak of his game. I just wouldn't, I would almost rather, if you're not going to sign him long term, I'd rather just play it out, let him play this year, next year, and the year after, and then be a free agent and go elsewhere. Just the whole trading guy still with a year-let. Trading guy is still in his prime. I just don't like that because the key is prospects.

Now, look, the Kyle Tucker trade is looking good so far. Cam Smith, you know, again, start off awesome. I think the future looks super bright for him, and Isok Pradis became an all-star when he got here. So that trade, and Hayden Wisniewsneski, whenever he gets back from Tommy John, I think he'll be good. That's a good trade so far. But the key word is, what are you getting back in return, prospects? Now, if you want to flip Jeremy Payne for one or two established stars in the league, okay, I'll listen to that.

But it just, I don't, why are you trading a guy who just made the All-Star game in his prime? Why do you want to get rid of that? That's not what they want to do. I think they do want to keep Jeremy here. I think they, I believe the Astros will make a concerned effort to have a deep conversation with him. But I'm also saying it's not the end of the world. If he just plays it out here, then he leaves two years from now. I don't know.

I think this Kyle Trucker trade got the Astros thinking in a mindset that they didn't maybe think about three or four years ago. They didn't ever think about this with Carlos. They didn't think about this with George Springer. They didn't think about this with Alex Spragman. So the Astros have gone to this mentality that you're speaking of and have done it plenty of times. I'm thinking they think once Cam Smith gets through the bumps and bruises of him being a, everyday right-fielder and gets to calm down and establish his confidence level again like

it was early on. We got ourselves a future right-fielder. Esock part is, even if Gordy, if he's not a long-term member of this team and gets moved again, at least you got something back in return. He was playing to an all-star level and was your leading slugger in terms of home runs and played your solid

third base. And we know they liked him a lot. They tried to give him to trade down at him last year. I think the mentality for the team changed a little bit and I don't see that being a one-off. I think they would do that again. Again, I don't think I don't want them to do that.

I don't think it's their intention to do that. But the Boris factor, Gordy, is a strong one. And if Gordy, if Boris is your client and he has given you no indication that they are going to work it away all the way up to the very last second, I think you do kick the tires on it. But hopefully that's the conversation we don't have to have. But I'm afraid we might. I just think, I wish teams would start pushing back on Boris and being like, I'm sorry, we're not going to be handcuffed by you because you want top-dott, ridiculous contracts that, oh, by the way, 90% of your players are not even living up to. These are terrible contracts we're handing.

At what point did the team step up and take a stand and say, we're not doing this anymore? We kind of saw it last year. I got news for you, 26 of the team to do that. But 30 don't do it. Four will play the Boris game because they can financially. Who was? Two of his pitchers, they waited and waited and waited and the deal never came. I mean, look at Bregman.

He waited and waited. Jordan Montgomery being the one classic. Yeah, I mean, so I'm hoping there's more pushback here. And maybe that will get back to the Astros going, look, we'll give Peña a reasonable deal. But we're not going to handcuff ourselves for the next decade. But Scott Boris Gordi doesn't want to hear reasonable. That's not what his job is. His job is to get the best deal, not a reasonable deal.

I hope more teams start saying, to hell with you, we're out. Okay, well, the Red Sox of Dodgers. the Yankees, the Mets will disagree with you every single time. But that's, Bregman didn't get like a super awesome deal for the rest of. But he's going to tear up that deal and get a super big deal after all. Well, he rebounded. He had a great year this year. Yeah. Well, the question is going to be what is Kyle Tucker going to get? And Ross and I have a huge bet on that. So I'm hoping for seven years and less.

Time for us to ask you to figure out which one of the following takes I'm about to give you is the truth. We played to tell the truth. Well, but this audience knows that I do tell you. tell the truth. Gordy and Jonathan, gentlemen, I'm going to give you four takes. You are to believe three of them. One of them, I am not telling the truth. You understand everybody? One of the four is a lie. One of the lies. Which one of the four am I lying about? Number one. If the Texans are going to beat the Rams in Los Angeles a week from Sunday, guess what they're going to have to of Gitt.

CJ Stroud is going to have to throw for 250 yards. This team is going to have to pass their way to beating the Rams. It may not be the way that D'Amico wants to do it, but because of all the ailments in the running back core, namely Joe Mixon, CJ is going to have to throw at least for 250 yards in order for the Texans to beat the Rams in Los Angeles. Just my thought.

That's take number one. Number two. I do believe when the dust, settles and a rocket season will not be still two months away, they will have a contract extension with Kevin Durant signed and sealed before the start of the season. So Kevin Durant will get his extension before the start of the season. Number three, if the Astros Wild Card Series against whomever, probably Seattle, started

today, my three-man rotation for the Astros playoff would be Brown, Valdez, and Araggetti. I would take Aragutti as my third starter. And fourth and least, maybe last but not least, I have zero problem with offshore gambling betting sites taking bets on Little League World Series games. We are in a world of sports betting. One of that's WNBA, college football, NFL, tennis, golf.

If you want to bet on Little League World Series, go have fun with it. So my four takes are this follows. CJ Strauss going to have to throw at least for $250 to beat the Rams. The Rockets will get an extension done with Kevin Durant before the start of the season. The Astros Wild Card Series, in my opinion, would be at this point, Brown Frumber Valdez, and Spencer Arigetti. And number four, I've got no problem with offshore gambling betting sites taking bets on the Little League World Series. Which one of the four am I not telling the truth?

Gentlemen, you guys may discuss. Jonathan, you want to give your pick? I'm going to just stay, because I'm just my gut. There's no way Matt believes you can bet on Little League World Series because that can just turn into snowball into a whole ordeal. Yeah, I was going to talk to sell. We just got done talking about how good the Texans defense is. But with the lack of the running game, Nick Chubb, that doesn't believe in.

So I think he does believe Stroud is going to need throw for $2.50 in week one. He's got to. Contract extension with Durant before. For the start of the season. Yes. I mean, you could. I don't know if there's urgency there. You could get it done in season.

It's not, to me, it does. It's not a ton of urgency there. As to his Wild Card Series, I would go Hunter Brown from Rvaldez and Jason Alexander right now. But Matt's going with Aragetti. Okay, he's coming off one of his better starts. I can at least hear that one out. But I think I'm with you, Jonathan.

Matt's a little conservative when it comes to sports betting takes. I think he does think people are morons for betting on Little League World Series. 10 to 12-year-olds. Like, what are we doing? Yeah. Chinese, Taipei. Like, and how much money are we spending on these bets anyway? It's just not going to be good.

I think he thinks you're an idiot if you're betting on Little League World Series. So I'll say that one is the line. All right, here we go. Stroud's got a throw for $2.50. There's no running in to be speaking of. number two i do believe that they will get an extension done and the wild card series i do believe spence erigati you can use jasonlexander gorty as your a long relator if any of those three guys get into trouble if you need to spout for two

innings you need a long you need two inning guy and alexander could do that that's the reason why i would start ergetti over alexander for that point in that point only if you are betting on literally world series games you're a moron wow we got it congratulations both of you We know you too well. All right. I think you're spilling water everywhere. Tom? It was empty.

We got to spill water in the studio. It was empty. The lid didn't come up. A few more minutes of Gordy before he goes and fees the program director he is of this radio station. By the way, quick programming note. Steve Sparks is going to have the series off against the Rockies. Space Cowboys broadcaster, Garrett Green, will join Robert Ford in the booth for this series. So see if Garrett can bring some good luck to Yorna.

He would know that team is as good as anybody would. It's half-space cowboys anyway. You know, I'm always curious. I'm going to have to ask somebody in the Astros organization if they're willing to tell me. What kind of money do they budget? You know, when you have to have a budget of players going on rehab appearances, and you're going to fly them to Palm Beach, you have to fly them to rehab appearance in, I don't know, you know,

Austin or in Corpus or Round Rock or in Oklahoma City. You know what I mean? Could you, whoever's the traveling secretary, his budget screwed for the year, right? You've sent Yorda on to Palm Beach twice. Yeah. You've sent him to Corpus,

and he's not driving himself down there. You know what I mean? You had to put him up in hotels. You got, and a... It is a little bit easier, though, having the AAA team here in town and the AA team not far away in Corpus. Yeah.

I mean, when they were OKC and the worst was Fresno, California. I mean, I remember we talked to Tyler White. Tyler White was, he had just gotten to Fresno, and then somebody got hurt and he had to come back, and so he's on a plane the next day coming back to the Big League Club. Like, that's a nightmare. Yeah. I'm just curious what that is.

How much money is spent? Do you travel them? I mean, does Jordon, if it's like Corpus to Houston, you can't fly on a regular jet. Does Crane send his plane down? down there? Does he fly on you know, dark breast airlines or Schmided?

And did they fly him first class? I mean, it's only a 45 minute flight, right? There is some flight I saw. There's some random city in like Middle Texas that Southwest flies from Houston and there every day. And I'm like, who is on those flights? But I guess there's not a whole lot of flights.

Like if you want to get to Lubbock... You can fly Lubbock. You can fly, you can fly. You can fly nonstop on Schmigman. You have to change planes if you're flying on dark breast. Yeah, there was some, they fly to, I think, like Brownsville, too. Like somewhere away down there. But those are all, they're not doing it because people are flying to Brownsville.

There are people that are flying to Brownsville because they're going somewhere else and they're changing planes. That's the reason of one. Midland. There's a lot of oil and gas. How many people are going to Houston and Midland on a daily basis? But people are going from Cincinnati to Midland. You got to change planes. Who's doing that?

You don't know. It's going on Gas City. People are not, I would say, I would say of the people that are flying from, because you're talking to the travel god here. You know this. I mean, Gordy Sports travel is terrible. I passed the terminal and there's two people sitting there. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.

Who is flying to Odessa on a Tuesday? It's people that are flying from Orlando to a middle of Odessa or Atlanta they've got to change plans in Houston. There are people that are not just going, although one of our great friends has a lot of business in Midland, Odessa. He flies there all the time. It's a far-ass place, Midwest, Texas. What's the other Southwest Hub?

It's Dallas. Dallas, Baltimore, Houston, Baltimore, Chicago Midway, Phoenix, Denver, there's a bunch of hubs. I'm just thinking

when you're connecting through Southwest, there's a few cities that you almost have to go through. If you're in the East Coast, usually it's Baltimore or Chicago. In the west, it's either L.A.

or Denver, Phoenix. Houston's a big hub, Dallas, a big... They have a big... Southwest is, Dark Breast is everywhere. I don't think I'm ever going to fly to Dallas again for it.

Like, it's so drivable. It is. Why would you ever fly to us? From my house, I'm three... hours and 45 minutes. And that's even stopping at Ruckies. I was just looking at two, by the way.

The Texan, or the asterisk play in Arlington in two weeks. Mm-mm. It's here. No. September 5th, 6th, 6th, it's in Arlington. I thought it was here. It's at Texas. Oh, hell.

That Sunday, it'll be Texan... Oh, that's right, it is. They had three in Houston, that's true. They have six with the Rangers slept. Okay. That's Sunday, we get Texans' Rams, 325 kick. Mm-hmm. We're going to be in about the sixth inning of Astros Rangers.

You're going to work that game? I do every Sunday. Okay. It just sucks. I would have rather them a little bit more staggered. Well, the NFL doesn't care about you or care about the Astro or Major League Baseball. 135 first pitch in Arlington. We couldn't get that a Roku game, move it up to 12?

There's a chance. 1130. I don't know. Why are you bagging on Roku? They're fine. But get ready, folks. If you only have one or two streaming services, you're going to need about eight to watch sports next year. Yeah, I think MLB is going to be heavy streaming next year on more mainstream stuff.

Like I think it looks like Netflix is going to get, is going to really get into sports. Which you know what? As long as my Internet, it's okay, Netflix is a great job. How's your peacock? Excuse me? Do you have your peacock account? Because you're going to need it for NBA and MLB. Well, I watch 82 games a year.

That's plenty for me. Peacock's not bad. They've got some good. they got all the housewives crap my wife watches oh you're not watching it i don't i don't watch i watch let me tell you about beverly hills what's up uh gretchen oh orange he's orange county the rest of i don't watch but i i've had a mad love for gretchen for a long time i don't know who any of those people are yeah you do you know i really you know every single one of them is your wife janis and barbara and i don't know every single one of them she talks to you about them all the time

The Astros and the Mariners are still the same. Big fan of Bob Seeger. Still for me, maybe the loudest concert I've ever been to in my entire life in terms of my ears ringing. It was at the old summit, now Lakewood Church. This type of the guys blowing your ears on good. It was so loud.

Do you know other Bob Seeger songs, Jonathan By any chance? I've heard his voice. I couldn't tell you the name. I don't know one of the song, though. Old time rock and roll. Night moves. Hollywood nights. Like a rock.

Oh, you could, let me tell you can, Tom Clan, our engineer back there, he's always fixing our problems because we have a lot of problems here. He's going, man, I'm a seger guy. You got to be a singer. Yeah, he's up me out of here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Listen, you know, you get, you know, give him a song, Tom, to play for the. the next break. A little Bob Seeker bump coming back.

Let's get to the news at noon at 12.07. All right, as you heard, the Astros dropped game number four of the series, could not get the sweep against the Orioles, losing 3 to 2. The Mariners did win yesterday. Two more home runs for Cal Raleigh, and they gain a game on the local 9. So the Astros will be playing

tomorrow night with at least either a 1.5-game lead or a 2-and-a-half game lead in the American League West because the Mariners do play The San Diego Padres in Seattle tonight start a series there. So Astros off today. Yoran Alvarez could be available. Matter of fact, here's Dana Brown on his Sunday conversation,

Robert Ford, talking about him and Jake Myers' potential return. Yeah, good chance. Let's see how he does today, how he feels on Monday. And if all goes well, there's a chance that we could see him in that Colorado series for sure. and then, you know, with Myers, you know, look, Myers has got a chance to get on the rehab assignment sometimes toward the end of this upcoming week, you know, in Sugar Land. So he's coming along nicely as well. So it looks like we're starting to get all of our guys back. You know, we lost a couple guys out of the bullpen, so that hurts a little bit.

But it looks like we're starting to get our hitters back. So hopefully we can get on all cylinders, keep swinging the bats, and go on a little run here. That's what we're expected to do, and that's what we're excited about. Thank you, Dana, for that. From the Texans, D'Amico Ryan's quote, most of our decision roster-wise will be made tomorrow, so no updates on those decisions. He had a Zoom call today with some legit members of the media,

some probably not. They think they're legit because they get on the YouTube page. He also says that includes players like Joe Mixon, who's nursing a bad ankle, was on the non-football injury list, and did not practice during training camp. Again, no update from. Demico on that. Congratulations, by the way, going out to a PGA Tour Pro.

This is a man who has been competing for years and years and years. Tommy Fleetwood wins his first PGA Tour victory Sunday. Two under 68. He finishes the Tour Championship at 18 under par. it was his 164th career star on the PGA tour. And he finally won one. He collected the FedEx Cup. And for winning his first tournament, he wins $10 million.

By the way, he wins a lot of money despite not winning tournaments, but he got a big paycheck yesterday. Congratulations to Tommy Fleetwood. And that, my friends, is the news at noon. By the way, That's the news of do. That is the news. A do you.

There you go. A lot of you are like, man, leave our small market flighting flights alone. Look, you know, I'm a travel whore. I know all these things. I know that the flights of Midland, Odessa, and Lubbock are full. I know the flights of Brownsville are full and McAllen and Corpus and Harlingen. You don't need to be shaming me. Tell Gordy.

Thomas Sports Travel knows exactly where all these flights are full. Thomas Sports Travel. Okay. Yeah. I have several. Let me tell you, I get three side companies, Jonathan.

Okay, okay. Thomas Sports Travel, if you want to go anywhere, I can book you a lower flight. Thomas Sports Enterprises, which evaluates NFL players for drafting and signing players. Dag Prescott is my first one.

And of course, the number one, the OG would be Remote for You. Dot biz. For those that don't know, a remote for you. dot biz is where I get to go to your restaurant and set your program,

your remote controls up so people can go there and watch sports. Because imagine going to racker-r-r-r-roll. They don't have TVs in rack-or-row. Wild Wing. Ruffle-Row-Row-Rings. Terrible place for Wings, by the way. And saying, hey, I want to watch the Astros game. They're like, I don't know.

I don't know how to do it. Want some nibblers? No, I don't want niblers. I don't want to go to Rappelbees. I want to have a beer and watch the game. Can you put on the Monday night football game? What? That's why RemoteForU.Biz is available.

Your company out there that wants me to come to your restaurant before the day starts and program your TV properly, remote for you. dot biz can do it. Publicly traded company, by the way. All right, 1212 on the Matt Thomas show at Ross. Ross is out in West Texas fighting snakes. 713212-570. 7-1-3-212-5-790. Believe it or not today is all things about the two Avery Johnson's.

Avery Johnson, the Kansas State quarterback, who lost on Saturday in Dublin, and his parents, his dad and his older brother got in a fight, fist fight in Dublin. You can see the videos of that, I'm sure, in any of your favorite socials. Or you can be getting questions about the former longtime NBA guard and coach, Avery Johnson. 1213, Sports Talk, 790, 719. 7.13-212-5-790. This is a jam. I want to go on with us in my second song, but teach his own. I'm liking this. Bob Seeger in a silver silver bullet band

Woo! Shout of the time back here. Seriously. Now he's retired. He's not performing anymore, but damn he could. I mean, my ears were ringing. Everybody in the arena was high as a kite, too. I mean, everybody was.

Everybody. Okay. What'd you have? Diet Coke. I cannot confirm I deny my preferences that night. Good choice, good choice. Thank you very much. Ross is out.

He probably thinks Bob Seeger's mid. That's his fault. Is that a rock? I don't know. We'll find it. We'll ask him on Thursday when he's back. It's me by myself. You know what?

It's me and you. It's our quality time together. Now Jonathan's here too, but Jonathan's getting his playbook ready for the SFF. a game because they're going to need his 440 ass out there eventually after getting whooped up for three quarters. I might have to get a little kickoff return or something. Hey, I would pay to watch you kick return.

That is for sure. Yeah, that would come with two broken knees. Poor kid. All right. So if you ever said, hey, I want to spend some quality time with Matt on the phone. You may do that right now at 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-1-2-5-7-90. And again, Avery Johnson's, the former Spurr Warrior Maverick Rocket,

is part of, believe it or not today, as is the current quarterback of Kansas State, his dad and his older brother had a knockdown, dragout fight. What was that about? I was going to ask you about that. I don't even know what is about, but they both apologize,

but if you're Avery Johnson, the K-State quarterback, you're beyond humiliated, right? First of all, your team lost. Right. And then your parent, and then you remember, your older bro and your dad are fighting?

Almost like the Halliburton situation With the Pacers in his day Well but he was just Yeah he was going after the other guys They had a family feud out there I desperately want to be a fly on the wall And just know like what's... You know what I don't I have not run enough about it

I wonder if how much of that was My son son you suck And maybe older bros said Don't be bagging on boy like that And who knows Maybe they were just drunk And just had stupid crap I don't know

But if you're getting that drunk Are you fighting me with your sons, though? Like, are you, they were like braw like chokeholds. They were brawling. You saw the video, right? They are brawling. Let me see if I can Google this.

Reason why Avery Johnson's family fought. Am I going to trust AI on this one? I doubt they have a story. I mean, they might, they probably. Here it is. It says, senseless bickering. They're just a rough house family, I guess. I guess.

know what the type. Family of Kansas State quarterback Avery Johnson apologizes for fight. Let me say they did a written release. Senteless bickering escalated an unnecessary fight. We have resolved our differences and take full responsibility for our actions. The two said in a joint statement. We have apologized to our immediate and extended family and now extend our apologies to Kansas State University. It's alumni and fans. We regret the incident, have learned from it and are committed to ensuring it doesn't happen again. please accept our deepest apologies that's really embarrassing wow they apparently got enough into the fight

at the stadium then it got physical I mean the younger Johnson 273 yards and two touchdowns I've never laid a hand on my kids and I would never one of them is significantly bigger than I am and one is significantly

well I don't say significantly but smaller than I But no, you don't do. You know what? You are, you're trash. If you're fighting with your family member like that, if you want to scrape, you want to throw hands with your dad or your, or your sibling, you got trouble.

And now all the other oppositions of fans when this quarterback goes to plays is going to be getting heckled to. Oh, the signs will be written about it. Absolutely. Let's talk to Phil and Meyerland at 1223. Hi, Phil. What's going on, Matt? I'm calling, I've been a fan and calling you forever, but I stopped calling because I can't talk so much in my office.

But I've been a fan for you. I'll show you how to probably go back. You were doing a remote at badboards over in South and the West, given you getting away tickets to the basketball game. Oh, nice. Put my name in. As soon as I sit down and order my wings, you call my name the wing. Oh, how about that? That's very nice. Good to hear your voice again, Phil.

What's on your mind today? Well, no. Well, I've called in about it. I said you playing Bob Seeker, and you've talked about the song. The best one of all to me is against the wind. So how do I happen to come back with that next? You know what? For you, Phil, anything for you?

Against the wind. You hear that? All right, thanks, Phil, for the phone call. Now we're getting requests on a sports radio show for music. What I think of Against the Wind, I think of a movie. No, actually, I don't think of a movie. You know, Jonathan, I think of a friend of mine. Oh, here we go.

What do you mean? Here we go. Tell you about my friend? I'm listening. I'm all ears. I'm all ears. I'm just a friend of mine. And he was from Alabama.

And he was, he wasn't special needs, but he was different. And, kids made fun of him, but he was always overachieving. And he had a girl that he loved a lot, but she didn't treat him very well.

And he went off to war. and he played college football and he did a lot of great things and he met a, he met a this might be your worst one. Is this Poros Gump? This is all you. That is definitely your hands down your worst one. You tried on me. You know what I want? The problem was I was thinking about

a movie. I should never even said that. And then you said Alabama and special needs but not special? Oh, gave it away. And Jenny's a whore by the way. Yes, no, everybody can tell you that. Everybody knows that Jenny was a whore. but remember when he went running around the country he against the wind was one of the songs he he reigned with

really? That soundtrack is really good by the way I actually listen to this soundtrack I was just get that soundtrack damn it I've been getting you less and less I got you when you first started with me you always like oh that's a great story about you a friend of yours that had two female roommates

yeah I remember that one He's got a segue better I know you're saying it's my fault I gotta get better All right there you go So we'll give you a little against the win. What would be, we've got to put some highlights behind it. We don't have any, we don't make Texans games that mean anything yet. You could, you know, go to the Astros see if there's anything, you put, you already played everything from yesterday, right?

So did you miss anything? I got some Ergeti in there. I mean, most of everything I got in there. All right, play one, I don't care what it is. Play one positive Astro sound bite. We'll get back to the Astros' Conversation. with Against the Win, which is a great, great Bob Seeger song. 1227, 713, 212-5-790.

7-1-3-212-5-7-90. We are talking about the Astros off-date today, three with Colorado, three with the Los Angeles Angels and then three with the New York Yankees next week. Very, very important nine-game homestand coming up for the local nine. Also, we've got the Texans being rather silent about Joe Mixing. You see, you'll miss the first four games of the year? I wouldn't be surprised. I'll be ready for, I think, C.J. Stroud having to throw a lot more than he wanted to,

especially in week one against the Los Angeles Rams. 713-212-750. Come on and join us here. It's just me, along with Jonathan, and we're with you until 2 o'clock on Sports Talk 790. I need to host a show on a classic rock station. I'm not busy enough as it is, but, you know, I need to have one more thing to my plate. Bob Seeger. Oof, good song.

Remember when he was running around the country, he's all depressed because Jenny left? Oh, okay, okay. He was just ran and ran and he ran and he ran. That was inspirational. I'm trying to think, did she sleep with him before he took off, or was that after? Remember, they saw each other At the Woodstock Right

At the Capitol or at the She left with that hippie? Yeah I can't No, I think that's when he started running Because he had no purpose after he came back from the water That's right That's right

We need to watch that movie over again And Boudin hiss the hell out of her, Jenny Bitch Just makes me my blood boil every time Oh God, she Jenny And Forrest loved her so much Every single time

And he forgave her every single time. And then when she was sick, took over for a little force. And he didn't even know if a little forest was around. Oh, my gosh. We got to just pissed off. All right. Back to sports. Sorry.

You pissed me off. All right. 1234 on the Sports Talks somebody. You play that Carlos Correa soundbite. You know, to me, and I want to give you a little peek behind the trade deadline by the the Astros. And obviously when Yoron comes back, the lineup is going to get even fuller than it is today. But when Carlos was traded here, was there a little part, was there a little part of you that was thinking, what Carlos are we getting? Are we getting the guy

who's had decent numbers in Minnesota? But he's just a little past his prime. A lot of money spent, not a real great investment. And are we trying to catch lightning in a bottle for a guy that may be in the bottom third of his major league career? Because I'm going to tell you all the truth. I was kind of thinking that. I didn't want to say it publicly because I wasn't for sure. But in the back of my mind, I was thinking, man, what Carl's career are we getting back? Well, the Carlos Cravek we got back is a guy that's got an OPS above 800,

had a big home run this weekend in Baltimore, has played third base beautifully, and damn, he's trying his best to keep Frumber and Christian Javier under some sort of coolness on the mound, even though they've imploded the last couple times they've taken the hill. I don't want to say I'm stunned, but I'm going to say I'm pleasantly surprised. at how well he's done here.

And that maybe the early forecast of his better days are gone may not necessarily be in play right now. Maybe there's still a lot left in Carlos Correa's tank before we start to see that eventual decline. And the best part is, as long as he's here for this and two more years, at least what the Astros are paying him, not a whole lot.

Remember the Minnesota, Twins are paying a pretty good chunk of his remaining salary. So not only do you get a guy who has been a huge asset and effortlessly replaced ESOC Paredes at their base after he went down with that bad hamstring, but you got a guy who has got some stones. And maybe you need that, especially for some guys in his pitching staff. Folks, are y'all as wigged out as I am about how Frumber is just cracking like a bad egg right now.

And how Christian Javier has struggled the last two times. We're talking about veteran guys who have been there and done that and won huge games for this franchise. This last 35 game stretch for the Astros is going to be a pain gang. This is going to be torturesome. Because after these winnable games against Colorado, and the Angels. You have the Yankees.

You have six with the Texas Rangers. You have three more with Seattle. You have three games in Toronto. It's going to be nice and easy, at least on paper of the next week, and then it's going to be a little bit of a troublesome spot for the next couple weeks in terms of talent competition and the improved players in front of them.

You need your veteran guys to be able, able to say, I got this. And for Yordaun to be, whatever the hell, is Yordaun that mentally weak that a bad defensive situation is causing him to suck for a better part of a month? As even Brian Bogus Evick said on the show

last week, it looked like he was pissed off before the game even started. And honestly, when it comes to Fromber to me, I still think there's plenty left for him to be successful with this team. I'm hoping the Astros need him to it because, again, if Aragutti's not going to be able to give you six or seven on a regular basis, which hopefully isn't the case, but at least he showed some signs of getting closer to it.

And if Lance McCullors is just who Lance McCullors is going to be the rest of the way, you need three guys that absolutely, without a doubt, can get you deeper into games and say, give me the damn ball, I'm going to win some games for this baseball team. I think Hunter Brown's moxie says, I can do that. If you're on,

if Framber can't, this Astro team is screwed. And even if he's not coming back here next year, he's playing for a contract. And while the numbers on the stat card look good, you look at the website, record-wise, wins, losses, relatively low ERA.

Baseball team scout players. Baseball front offices are full of guys 15-20 deep. They know who Framber Valdez is. They know this is a guy that the month of August has been terrible. They know this is a guy that if not everything goes along his way, he gets irritable and he can't shake it off. Not to use a Taylor Swift line, but you know what I mean? So even if he's not doing this for the team, at least do it for yourself.

So if you go somewhere else next year for the foreseeable future and get a new contract with good money, you're able to prove your doubters that you were a guy that can win games when things don't always go your way. And that's how I kind of feel about Frommberg right now. Is it Fronbury hasn't been the same for a month and it's whether it's I didn't defend my position, whether I didn't back up a ball behind home plate,

whether I wasn't happy with an outfield, field positioning. You've got to get past all that. Things are slowly coming together. Erigetti performing yesterday after a sluggish first inning was a positive start. Getting Yordon back and swinging the ball and hitting it for good slug down in Corpus. And granted's AA, so it is what it is. But at least to get him back.

And whatever combination he does come back, whether he plays three days a week, four days a week, or he can play five or six days in a row. I think that's going to be the case. Altuve has been remarkably consistent, especially back half of the year. Christian Walker has played better for a better part of a month. Yonair looks like his numbers are getting there. And you're getting a little bit of heroes here and there,

whether it's Sanchez, a five-hit day or a seven-hit series. Because as much as we bitched and moan and complain about the team's lack of offense and starting pitching hasn't been great, and the bullpen's up been used, and all the injuries that have just swallowed up this team this year, as as much as we've talked about that almost since the injured list became a list this year in 2025 your squad is to use the bob see your term still the same still with a two-game lead it needs to get bigger though especially because of what you got coming in front of you

colorado sucks angels suck you have got to do some damage this week because things get more difficult. And the last thing you want to do is playing basically 500 baseball until the Mariners get here in about three or four weeks because you know they're going to be focused. It might be one of the most highly charged regular season series that the Astros

have had in a long time. Those three games of Seattle are on the 19th, 20th, and 21st. Oh, by the way, they'll be the last three home games of the year because the Astros do close out the season on the road at Sacramento for three at Anaheim for three. So you have those

someone in your back pocket. But we've talked about this earlier in the show today. Hasn't it felt like the last three or four years, the Astros had a week where they were supposed to really get fat and happy off of subpar competition and they wind up squandering it? When they're like last year, two years ago, they had a series of Oakland and then Kansas City where they like went one in six or something like that

or one in five or maybe O and six. And then all of us were like, oh, this team's doomed. I don't think, now again, history may be repeat itself here. I don't think you can do that again and survive the American League West and win it if you don't take care of business this week. Colorado professional baseball players, yes. Are they good major leaguers? No. Angels, are they full of major league players?

Yes. Are they good? No. This kind of feels like it's got to be a five and one week, doesn't it, friends? 713-212-5-7-8. 9-90-7-13-212-5-790. Two main topics we've discussed today over the first two hours and 43 minutes of this show. A lot of astro conversation, which we always love.

And the fact that today that D'Amico Ryan did not speak about Joe Mixon's injury status. And he'll give us more details tomorrow. He has to by NFL rules. For you Texans fans, listen to me right now. With Joe Mixon probably not ready? How nervous are you? Be honest, if you can be not nervous at all, or maybe you are ridiculously nervous about the Texans running game for the first month of the 2025 season. 713-212-5790 if you want to join us on those topics, and then you want to get into 7-13-212-5-7-90.

So just how bad did the Rockies suck? They're 37 and 94. They are the only team in the National League that's technically eliminated from playoff consideration. We're not even in September yet, and you've been eliminated. That's how bad the Rockies suck. Damn. They are 16 and 49 on the road. They have a negative run differential of 349.

You're like, Matt, what is a negative run differential? That means the other teams have scored. 349 more runs than the Astros have. You know what? I'm going to say it because I've got hot takes in my at 1250. Astros don't sweep the series. This will be a disappointing performance weekend. I will be mad as hell

and I won't take it anymore if the Astros don't sweep the Colorado Rockies. Seriously. They got a minus 3.49? What's their staffier? worry about seven. Jesus, they suck. All right.

So go to the games, root hard, eat your dollar hot dog, business fans special on Thursday, Astros will sweep the Colorado Rockies. I guess the better question is

how bad will they sleep the Colorado Rockies? Not if, but how bad are they going to do it? Three bloods, three close games, and let's get some mojo back and let's make sure Yorna Alvarez doesn't have to feel the way of the world on his shoulders by trying to hit home runs just to help the Astros win a couple of ball games. Wouldn't be a bad thing though. All right, 713, 212, 790.

I'm watching the highlights right now. Pittsburgh's playing, Pittsburgh and Colorado played yesterday. Well, Paul Skeen's thrown for the Pirates, so there's no chance. You think Paul Skeens would ever allow a run to the Pirates under any circumstance? Well, he was just mowing him down. left and right. Man, I'm watching this. And by the way, Lauren Shahadi's on here. How can I do it? I need somebody in here with me.

Yeah, exactly. Seriously, I got to turn this. I got to turn that direction. This is bad. This is bad. I never wanted Ross back so badly, but, I mean, I guess I could wait till Thursday. I told you last week, wait until Monday. You're going to miss them a little bit. Well, you know what? I got to put something on besides Lauren Shihiti, because this is just not acceptable. The U.S. Open's going on right now. I'm going to pass on that, too.

I mean, tennis is fine. I'm just turning the TV off. I just can't do it. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. We do have college football starting this week. We talked a little bit about that with Gordy earlier. Willie Fritz can be on tomorrow.

Looking forward to that. He'll be with us every week prior to games. Usually probably two to three, usually two days ahead of time. And the Cougars open things up with Stephen F. Austin. Now, Stephen F. Willie knows because he used to be the coach. It's Sam Houston, I want to say, back in the day.

So he knows what the SFA Lumberjacks are all about. It's, I mean, it's pretty close to open enrollment, but I'm not 100% there. I can't even do it with a straight face with you being in there. I can't even do it. Look, if you underestimate SFA, you might not win by four touchdowns. How about that? You know what?

We've got to ask him, it comes tomorrow, right? Yes. interrupt me but I'll ask, what do you want me ask? You got to ask him what he thinks the prediction, the game, the score's going to be. No, he's not going to do that. Coaches don't do that. You don't think he's going to do that? You know what I'll do? I'll be nice. I will say, you know, what is sneaky good about SFA football? Okay, yeah, let's see what he says. I will make sure. First of all, Willie is such a good dude. He would never say anything bad about him. He'll let me handle all the heavy

lifting on that. But it is interesting that the college football season kind of starts. I think where there's only a handful of games on Thursday. And the Cougars, of course, being the National Powerhouse that we are, decided they need to put the game on Thursday. Right, right, right, right, right. That's exactly what it was. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

This is kind of the most wonderful time of the year. You've got the baseball pennant races going. You have the call before the NFL storm because the Texans will start a week from Sunday against the Rams. Remember, a week from Thursday. will have the Eagles and the Cowboys opening up the NFL season. Well, that's going to be a fun game. Yeah.

Are you paying attention to this Micah Parsons stuff at all? No, I've been keeping up with it ever since because I grew up around DFW. So I was hearing about this Jerry Jones stuff is just like every other year you hear about it. Did you see Micah Parsons laying on a table in the last preseason game? Yeah, and I saw him walking into the last piece of season game with the nachos and hoodie. And like, he doesn't want to be a part of the team. Well, I mean, he's got to be there because he wants to get paid. But Jerry Jones is bound in the defensive about this.

I mean, it feels like to me that Mike is like, we've gone through this over and over and over again. I know what I'm worth. You don't think I'm worth that. And if you can help me with a trade, I wanted to make that happen. Meanwhile, Jerry's like, no, I'm the boss. And I think I've given you the richest offer that I've ever given a defensive player in Dallas Cowboys history as long as I've been the general manager slash owner.

this is what you're going to get. It's frankly, and I'm not really close to it because I don't particularly care about the Dallas Cowboys, but I don't think either side looks particularly good on this. Both look very selfish and not wanting to be a part of the team. Well, if you're not happy with your contract, and that's your right as an NFL player, but laying on the table looking like you are any, you would rather be anywhere else, it's a bad look it's like when Dante Robinson

a quarterback for the Texans many moons ago put the pay me Rick on his shoes you're never going to win the war of public opinion when you do things that look I don't know if the word

child is the word I want to use but it looks how about this it looks unprofessional right the average human being struggles to pay the bills. The average human being, the average fan has to pay for a mortgage, has to feed the family, has to take care of insurance, has to work in 8 to 5.

Now that average Dallas Cowboy fan also loves Micah Parsons very much. He wants him on that team as soon as possible. The average fan also doesn't control the salary cap and doesn't worry about what Jerry has to spend and what for next year the year of that. The average Dallas Cowboy fan wants Micah Parsons on the field. So what I would do is if I'm looking at that and I was on Team Micah, and Micah has been one of the best players in the NFL at his position for many, many years, he might be mad. And look, Jerry's record as a general manager hasn't been great. Plus, Jerry of the last 10 years is overpaid guys.

Zicchio Elliott. Yeah, that's just for the big of mind. You know what I mean? They're a great example. He ridiculously overpaid for Doc Prescott. So he has a history of paying guys crazy money that maybe other teams wouldn't. And Mike is like, wait a minute, I've backed this up. I've played to being at the position I should be as one of the highest paid players in the NFL.

But when you lay there and you have social media and you have television cameras staring at you like this, I just think the optics don't look great on it. that if I, it looks like I'm a selfish player. I'm not going to play by anybody else's rules except the ones I create. And I think it probably hurts him in the court of public opinion. Now remember, the court of public opinion doesn't sign the deals. The contract has to be agreed upon between two people, Jerry Jones and Micah Parsons, okay? I'm forgetting about the agent.

But if you are doing what he's doing and just looking like he's foreseen, he's foreseen, to be somewhere and hanging out and eating nachos and laying on tables and looking completely disinterested, is there anybody that thinks that if you're, that you are a neutral observer of this, that Micah Parsons Man, this is how you're supposed to act the way that if you're in madden about a contract situation? I think, I think it heard him from a, from a PR standpoint. Now, it doesn't really matter, but it just gives the approach of he's only there for himself, is not there to root his teammates on, not there vested to be a, Dallas Cowboy and not looking for the overall good.

Now, all this could be fixed in a matter of days if one of the two sides come to the table and says, okay, let's split the difference. But I just thought the, I thought Micah's look to me, and believe me, I'm not going to side with Jerry Jones on much because I don't think he's been a good general manager for a long period of time. But it just looked like he was a spoiled brat. If he didn't get his way, he's going to act out. Like we used to act out.

we were kids. And he did act out by his lackadaisical half-ass approach to even being at the stadium over the weekend. All right. Final hour of the Matt Thomas show, Ross is coming up. If you want to chime in on the Dallas Cowboys situation, you want to chime in on the fact that D'Amico Rines wouldn't say a word one about Joe Mixon. And how concerned are you Texans fans if you're bumping around town on this Monday about where this running game is going to be? And of course, the Astros may be welcoming back. Yorna Alvarez. All these things will get to. Plus, believe it or not, today is all things about Avery Johnson, the former NBA player and the current Kansas State quarterback.

713-212-5-79. If you want to chime in, 7-1-3-21-5-790. Matt without Ross with you till 2 here on 790. Sports Talk 790. We take you till 2 o'clock. Astros win three of four against the Baltimore Orioles. Off today, three-game series of Colorado and their negative 349 run differential. Await the Astros. We played to tell the truth about an hour and a half ago,

and I said the three starters I would like to see in the Astros because I don't think they're going to, unless they play like 800 baseball the rest of the way, they're probably going to have to go and play the Wild Card series, which will not be fun. Remember the Astros did that last year, lost two straight to Detroit. Now, if you win the division,

you do get to host the Wildcard. card game. If the season ended today, the Astros would be the American League West champions. Who would they face? They would be facing the team with the worst wild card. And the worst walled card is the Seattle Mariners. I got some, you ready for this? The Astros will be definitely facing the Mariners in September 19th, 20th, and 21st. Then they have to be, have a week off to play, not off, but they have a week to play the A's and the Angels. If things hold up and the Astros hold on to win the West, chances are they're going to be playing the Seattle Mariners and the Wild Card Series.

Now, let's say the Astros implode and don't win that series or get swept by the Mariners, and the Astros don't win the American League West. But hold on to a wildcard spot. Guess who they could be playing? The Seattle Mariners. There's a significant, I wouldn't say significant. There is a chance. The Astros could be playing their last home series of the season against the Seattle Mariners and their first playoff series against the Seattle Mariners.

Now, again, if both teams are super hot, one wins a division, one wins the wild card, and they both move up the wild card. but if things were a status quo and things don't change a whole lot between now and the end of the season still with a month left to go, you could be seeing Seattle a lot in the next couple of weeks.

And that's where the big difference makes. I think the Astros would much rather have to win a two out of three series against the Mariners in the playoffs in Houston, Texas as compared to going up to Seattle where the Mariners have been excellent so far this year on their home field. case and point.

The Seattle Mariners are 39 and 26 at home. They're 31 and 35 on the road. So they're kind of two different baseball teams. They really are. They did drop seven to their last 10. They did beat Seattle, the Oakland, whatever, Las Vegas A's two out of three this past weekend. They've got San Diego tonight starting a series there in Seattle. But clearly the Mariners are a much better team and much more fluid team.

when they're on their home field and they are on the road. So getting the Astros not only to win the division is number one and number two, maybe I'm trying to avoid any thought of having to play Seattle, especially if that lineup continues to hit the way they have hit so far. But again, having the games in Houston may make a big difference. All right, so the Astros are off. Yoron was in Corpus again yesterday. So, man, I don't want to put too much pressure on the situation.

I don't want to put too much pressure on the situation. But, Yorne, you are needed badly. Because with the exception of what happened in this past weekend against the Baltimore or else who are obviously competitive but not anything of a contender, your team really struggled against good pitching. Case in point the Baltimore series before that and the trip in Seattle or in Detroit. And how much is he supposed to play? Is there going to be a game, is it going to be a game?

going to be plays a game Monday, takes Tuesday off, plays a game Wednesday, takes Thursday off. And that's one of the things we're going to talk to Joe Espada when he joins us on the show tomorrow. Is that, you know, is he going to need a date off in between? Just because Yorna is activated, how much playing time does he get? And we can't control that. Yordon can't, I mean, Joe can't control that. I mean, if it was Joe's thought, he'd probably play him six days a week if he could. and we had a caller brought this up earlier today.

We thought that all these pitchers coming back from injury would just step on the mound and start throwing 97 mile per hour heat and would start throwing and giving you 85, 90, 95 pitches. It just doesn't work that way. Guys have got to get back into the mode. Will McCullors ever get to that point? I don't know. It looked like Erigetti turned the corner. Javier has yet to turn the corner.

So while I'm excited, and I know a lot of you will be excited as well to hear Yordon's name in the ballpark tomorrow and see him on the lineup card, I think we got to temper our expectations just a little bit. For me, Christian Walker hitting, Hesu Sanchez, if Cam Smith is no longer able to hit much anymore this year, Jesus-sense-fills up that. The Carrotini-D-S combination works out well behind the. Dish, Pena continues to be the good leadoff guy, and Carl's Correa has a month of September like you had a month in August when he was top three in American League and hits. So I would just say selfishly, as an astro observer and fan, join me in not trying to put

the way of the world on Yordan's shoulders. Guy hadn't played since May. And we're supposed to expect him to come up here and slug over our line. 1100 with an OPS, that's just, that's not possible. If it is, and we don't need to worry about the law card. We don't need to worry about the Seattle Barrettors. But I don't think that's realistic. And that's why I said, and God, I hope I'm wrong about this.

I put the over under on Yorna and Alvarez, put it this way. Yon, my number of home runs that I thought Yorda was going to hit the rest of this year, when Ross and I talked about it a month ago was, remember what I said, said zero. I said zero. If I'm right, we're in big trouble. Not we, you and me, the Astros are in big trouble. Now, he doesn't need to hit 10 to be productive. If he wants to hit gap doubles and, you know, and get key base hits and draw walks, I'm all for that. I'm not going to be some, it's going to be obsessed by the number of home runs he hits. But this lineup needs lengthening and it needs some slug. And those are two things I think.

think Yarden Alvarez can bring as long as those hands are able to withstand the pressure of going against major league pitching and the pressure and the ability to be able to play six or seven days in an eight or nine game span. You know the Astros. This is their last off day until the eighth. They have one more on the 18th and they have one more in the 22nd. the Astros have three days off the rest of the season. Three.

They place consecutively between August 26th and September the 7th. To expect you're on a plane 90% of those games would be foolish. But if you can play 75, Local 9 might be in pretty good shape. 713-212-5-790. If you want to chime in, get in on the Astros conversation. about to be a It should be a very fat and happy week.

And if not, it will be really, really nervous, especially if San Diego does not help the Astros out by winning some games in Seattle up in the Pacific Northwest. Believe it or not, today is about Avery Johnson, the quarterback at Kansas State and the former NBA player. If you didn't see the video, you got to go check it out. Avery's dad and his older brother got in a fight in Dublin, Ireland.

after the game against Ohio, Iowa State. I'm trying to think, have we ever had any other parental fights that got physical like that? I've never even seen it before until this video. I'm trying to think. I mean, there are famous fathers and sons all over the place, right?

But it's not like Serena and Venus were pushing dad around. You know what I mean? You know? Who else? I couldn't tell you. You told me. You tell me. Oh, I got one.

Did LeVar Ball ever fight with, With Lanzo? That's a good one, yeah. I mean, didn't Lamello ever get mad? I mean, LeVar was nuts. Still is probably, but at least he wouldn't be fighting with his kid.

Yeah, his kids respect them a lot. I think they do. They come out. I was saying they love the dad's still, you know. Well, I would hope so. That's what most dads and sons are supposed to do. And then you got. But then you got,

but you're throwing hands in Ireland? I mean, that's like Jerry Springer type bit, right? I'm trying to think of any other father's sons have fought that we would know in the world of sports. Or hell for that matter in life. I'm not thinking about these things. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790.

You want to follow us on Twitter. It's at SportsMT, and I'm on Instagram as well. At SportsMT as well. Follow me there. If you follow me, you will not see pictures of snakes out in West Texas. At SportsMT on Instagram. 160 on 790. Advertising makes the world go round.

And if not for advertising, we would not be on the air. We thank those great advertisers on this show. It's interesting, though, that there are levels that people are putting advertising on that either are going, this is too much, or, man, I didn't think of this first. Big deal today at the University of Texas, there is a company that handles cardiovascular health for student athletes and fans. they're going to have their logo on the field at Darrell K. Royal Stadium. And it's got quite a bit of conversation going about why this is happening in college athletics. And you know what I'm thinking? I'm so used to corporate sponsorships on all my fields, in my outfields, in my basketball courts.

It doesn't necessarily wig me out. Well, isn't that a good thing? Isn't that a good thing? Well, it's not a good. I don't know if it's a good thing, but it pays bills. So in some respects, it does. Yeah, if you don't have advertising, you can't pay bills. And if this helps schools fund programs and scholarships

and help pay for the $20 million a year that Eddie Nunez was talking about to pay student athletes their money, if they got to figure out ways to do, they've got to do it. I mean, there were things that were sacred than are no longer sacred. I mean, you know, if you've looked at Wrigley Field watching games over the last 25 years. They didn't have a scoreboard out there in left field. Well, they had the scoreboard out there because they wanted you to show video replay, but they also did because they wanted to put some more ads on there. So apparently

this new company, I'm not giving a plug because they don't spend any money with us, but they have their name at a certain yard line. And I'm not bothered by it. I've told this, Jonathan, I've told this to the audience a hundred times and I'll say this over and over again.

As long as you don't make a rule change for the sake of a dollar, I'm okay with it. I agree with you. Case and point, if you were to land in the, if you land in the back left corner of the end zone

and there was a golden arches over there, you know, for the, whatever that place. Right, right, right. And that touchdown was worth more because you land in that area, then I'm done with sports.

Yeah, then it's just, that's not even, it's a big end, it's a pinball video game is what it is. You know what I mean? I mean, that's what it is. As long as you don't fundamentally change, things. Like, if you are, if you were watching on a basketball court and there was a, um,

a sign, M&M's at commercials sponsored at the NBA. And a Kevin Durant had a three-pointer in the M&M circle. It was worth four points. Done. I'm just, I'm being stupid, but you get my point. Yeah, no, I'm trying to imagine. That's just crazy to think about. Well, you know, you see that all the time in those stupid NBA, you know, those, those celebrity games they play and those MTV stuff they do. Or if you do something in this certain area, it's worth bonus points or something like that. That's all I'm saying. It's just don't change the

rules of the sport. If you want to put logos on the court, you want to put logos on the field, that's y'all's deal. And if your fan base gets mad about it, then you can talk to them about it. I don't know. Again, I don't want, I don't know if I want a football field or a basketball court littered like a NASCAR's

truck or car looks or a guy's uniform. But the NBA has patches on their shoulder blade, on their uniform top. The Astros have the logos on their side. It hasn't affected the way I've watched the game. And I'm telling you,

if someone works in media, advertising makes the world go around. So within, you know, you wouldn't want me doing commercials every five seconds in between a comment. No, I would, but, you know, you don't think you want me doing that. And I just, I just don't want the, I don't want the

essence of sports to change because you're putting a logo on the field. Maybe one thing you notice when Texas has a home game, there'll be some corporate logos on there. And I think a lot of colleges do the exact same thing, especially if somebody's willing to pay for it. Let's talk to Jerry on 798-126. Jerry, what do you got going today? Oh, man, another beautiful day in the Space City. Another great show on your behalf.

I want to ask you, why is no one mentioning Myers? You know what, M.T. I'd rather see Myers come back and be that first, that guy we saw. in the first half of the year, I'd rather him than Alvarez, because it adds that consistency. In my opinion, Alvarez is kind of a streak. He'll get on a huge streak, and the numbers will run up so good that when he gets in that slump, by the time he gets out of the slump, the numbers are still good. And so what's up with Myers?

Why isn't anybody talking about getting him back? That's who I want to see come back, you know, for one question, too. What do you think? Well, I'll say this. The more feared hitter of the two by far is Yorna Alvarez. You wouldn't argue with me about that, right? No, no, no. I'll argue with that.

Number two, Jake's offensive production this year is the best he's had in his major league career. He doesn't have a long history of being a productive offensive player. You would also agree with me on that, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So I'm going to take the body of work of both those players in the more. more feared hitter, the more that guy can hit doubles and hit home runs and strike the fear in and lineups is way more on Yordon Alvarez than it is on Jake Myers. But with that being said,

Jake's defense is really good. Jake can play six or seven days in a row and not think twice about it. But there's also that's scary, I mean, I don't know what Jake's going to be, Jake is going to get some rehab games in here very shortly. So he may be coming back in the next week or so hopefully. He's going to be an additional part, but I don't think it's kind of been either or situation because there's two different types of ballplayers. Well, I just, and to everyone's surprised, I sure would like to see that first half, Myers out there that we saw.

I know, you know why? Because you know why you want him, Jerry? It's because every day you put him out in center field, he was going to make a great catch and he was going to get on base once or twice a game. And so I'm right there with you on that. Oh, yeah, I saw a play the other day that Melton didn't make, that I'm sure Myers would have made going deep towards a warning track. He slowed down for that wall. You know, Myers would have cautiously slowed down,

but he would have still been on that ball, you know. Yeah, I felt bad. Tremel's a good defensive player. I just felt bad that he ran on that wall and wound up getting hurt on it. That was a tough spot. And again, that's because Myers has just been playing more than Tremel has the last couple of years. Yeah, that's right. Boy, that walla gets you, though.

Hey, why didn't Myers, why didn't Alvarez go to AAA? Why did they just? Because they were, I think they were on the road last week, and they want to keep the guys close to Houston. Well, I'm going to answer to this last question. Is this the best defensive infield in the history of the organization? I mean, that guy at first base,

he's the best fielding first baseman. in the history of the franchise, in my opinion, I've seen a lot of them. I mean, you know, you can go down the list, Watson, Glenn Davis, you know, Bergman, all those guys. Don't forget, Gurriel. Don't forget, Gary L, too. He was good.

Yeah, but man, this guy is something that. I think everybody's looking at hitting, but, boy, he makes some phenomenal plays over there at first base. And then, I know you probably saw the game yesterday. I mean to say it was just show. time on defense between Correa and Pena. It was some astonishing place. I sense, M.T., that we're getting a certain amount of synergy between that third

basement and that shortstop, you know, that's going to be real valuable in the future. Jerry, you're right. You know what? You're talking about Christian Walker. He's got three straight gold gloves. Thanks for the phone call. He's really good. He filled his position beautifully.

Offense? Not what we want him to see, but he's getting. closer to his yearly averages honestly. We are. I mean, you'd like to have a good month of September because certainly it's month of August is good. But from a defensive standpoint, Christian Walker, A, is durable,

and B, he fields his position very well. And as far as all-time Astros infield, Bregman at third, Correa short, Altovae at second, Gurriel at first, probably is better. But this one's not bad either. Part of the reason why they've been able to stay in games. They have not thrown away in a lot of games this year,

or for that matter, any of the last seven or eight years because their defense has been bad. Altuve was a minus defensive player now, but he wasn't five years ago. Yeah, I would say the previous run with Bregman, Correa, Altuve, Gureel, greater than what this is now. But this isn't bad.

131, Sports Talk, 790. If you'd like to join us, 713, 212, 5, 790. 136. 790, Matt, with you. Tomorrow on the show, Joe Espada, Willie Fritz, and our buddy Cole Thompson's going to hang out for a couple hours from 11 o'clock and 2-1.

So we got that gut feelings. Wednesday, we've got Brian Bogus Sevik, shut your bum ass up. Gordia will be in for a little bit, and then we're also back on Thursday as the Astros. Hopefully we'll be talking about a sweep of the Colorado Rocky Series.

Again, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday for the Rockies, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. The Anaheimers are in town. Let's talk to Daryl on 798-136. Hi, Darrell. Hey, guys. Hi. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. Thank you. I have a discussion on the Astros. I have a question, maybe a suggestion. Would it make sense to improve the offensive productivity if Altuvae was put back in the one-hole? And I ask that question because I don't know the stats. Maybe you guys have it. What are his stats with one of the ones?

two out and runners in scoring position versus say Pena or Correa. I'll hang up and listen but I really would like to know. Well, I'm by myself right now so I can't get you those specific numbers. I'm not changing the lineup. I am very

happy with Jeremy Pena leading off. I'm very happy with wherever L2A is in the lineup, which has primarily been third. I mean, Carlos Correa,

You could, you know, look, gang, let's be brutally honest here for a second. You add Yoran to the mix. You could go Peña, Correa, Altuve, Alvarez, Walker, Diaz. It's pretty good. I don't want to oversell something, but I'm going to say it again. Pena, OPS, well above 800. Correa OPS way above 800

Altuvee over 800 Actually he's a little shy of 800 He went over four yesterday Walker You bump down from four to five So you'd have your top three guys All at 800 or above Then you go

Alvarez Walker Diaz That's a pretty good top six, right? Am I right? sort of. Mike on 7 on a hello, Mike. Hey, how you doing? Good. Nice to be talking to you, Mantee.

How you've been doing? I'm very good friend. Thank you for calling. What's on your mind? McCormick, what is the deal with McCormick? He looks like a deer in headlights when he gets up to bat. And then when he knows, he's like an instant out. And when he strikes out, he's just talking to himself.

I'll hang up and listen and listen to what you have to say. But Mike, you and I, you and I, you know. You know the answer. You're not calling for a surprise, are you? Oh, no, sir. No, sir. All right. Just want to make sure you knew that.

I don't know. It's tough. It's tough watching. Now, he can, he bunts, just for those of you that are pro bunters, love that kind of stuff. But I'm not overly encouraged about him playing a lot between now and the end of the year, especially if Jake Myers comes back. And Yordon plays outfield occasionally.

Because here's the thing. that Joe's really going to have to mess with. He's been playing El Tuvae a lot of DH and a lot at second base. Very little left field work. You can't DH two people in one game. Now, the decision for Joe will be easy if Yorda needs a day off, and you can give Jose a day off now and then if you need to before the end of the year, but he's not a guy that needs a lot.

Somebody's playing left field that you don't want playing left field, which is going to squeeze. McCormick's playing team even more. And then you have, if Jake Myers comes back, my presumption is Myers comes back, Melton gets sent back down, and then you're rotating between Jesus and Cam Smith and Reinfeld.

That's how I kind of see it the rest of the way. But Chaz, been not given a super large amount of opportunity, but you can only give somebody, so many looks before you say, you know what, it's just not a thing. I'm actually frankly surprised at Chad still with the team, not necessarily being released. I would have thought the Astros could have gotten something in return in a trade,

maybe an extra right-handed reliever, something, I don't know. But I was a little surprised he's still in the squad. And I think he probably, if Jake Myers was healthy, I think it would have been no doubt in our mind that Chaz would have been traded. But the Myers situation did change things a little bit. Alan is with us at 141. Alan, what do you have this afternoon? Good afternoon. Do you?

I got something I just don't understand Blue ball he pitches a couple of weeks ago and probably had as good of control and as good of stuff as anybody so they send him down for I think it's a minimum of 15 days well rolls around again

he pitches good his next outing which was yesterday or the day before surely they won't send him down again for another 15 days God, I just don't get it. Well, he can come back if somebody gets hurt. And unfortunately, Alan, a lot of people have been getting hurt. So he's able to come back.

Oh, yeah. They're just, they're running out of bodies, unfortunately. And he was used in a situation where his arm was okay to go. But, yeah, he's, and when you get option one time per year, you can go up and back as many times as you want, and it's only considered one option. So he's a flexible guy. Jason Alexander was that guy for a while, too,

until he started really pitching really well. The fact is, I would be surprised if Blue Ball gets called up one more time before the end of the year, especially if some tired guys get in there

and if guys get DFA, he can obviously come back after the 15 days or if somebody gets hurt, which hopefully isn't the case because Alan, the Astros have been hurt way too much. He'll be back before the end of the year.

My problem is, hurt or not, I see more control and better stuff than not all, but most all, of his relief pitchers. I just don't get it. But anyway, thanks for the call. You got it. Yeah, I know.

He's been okay. He's not been lights out, but he helped the cause today, four and a third innings. Now, he did blow the save because the team, he'd be one of getting the win. So it wasn't letting us far from perfect. But he's done okay. But I don't think he's the missing ingredient in what has happened so far

for this team's pitching staff. He's just been a right place, right time, and a guy that's been available to help them out because of all the different injuries. And Ben-At-Susa going down. So you're losing your seventh-in-in-in-guy, who's going to be your eighth-in-in-guy? Because your ninth-th inning guy is gone.

Now that your eighth-ending guy is, now your ninth-th inning guy. Brian King, need big innings from your friend. Willie, before we play, believe it or not. Hi, Willie. Hi, hi. Listen, I was kidding with your friend over there. Jonathan, the last time I called.

I told him when he answered, I said, now you know I'm not a man, right? Oh, well, he knows better now. I said, I thought it was funny, but I said, y'all kept going on about it. I said, gosh, enough is enough. Anyways, what irritates me is when you have a pitcher that has thrown a lot of pitchers, pitches, it finally gets out of the inning and sits in a dugout to collect himself and rest. why do the next three batters insist on three up and three down?

Why can't they just stand there and take a few pitches and give this guy a break? I see it all the time. It happened twice this weekend. You notice that? Once for Aragutti and once for what's, I can't remember who it was. It was in the Saturday game. I forgot who it was. But that happened twice.

That the opposing pitcher for the Orioles hardly had to work because his pitch count was low. meanwhile the other Astro starter had to pitch like 20 or 25 pitch. I think it was Javier on Saturday in Erigati yesterday. Yeah, Javier, when he went back to the dugout, this was a game covered by Fox and even the guy, AJ, said, now Correa is coming to bat. He's taken his one step back at the plate to give himself more time. And he mentioned, well, he knows that Javier needs a few more minutes

and he's walking out slow. Correa seemed the only one to get it. I mean, I don't understand what they don't get. They need to take some pitches to let this pitcher rest. And Javier wasn't given adequate rest. Well, the best one was is, that just makes Carlos Correa smart guy, Willie. He took the time out before he even took the at-bat. And then he waited for a couple pitches to go by.

And I want to say even drew a walk, which was even better. Yeah. That's just a savvy baseball move. So it's sometimes easier as done to taking pitching, especially if the pitches are strike one, strike two. But Cray did it all he could to at least give his pitcher a little bit of rest.

Very good, astute point in your part there, Willie from notice and that. All right, let's play, believe it or not. It's up next. It's all things about Avery Johnson, the former basketball player and coach, and Avery Johnson, the quarterback at Kansas State. that's what we're doing today on today's edition

and believe it or not, 713212-5-790 if you want to play. Five minutes up 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. Believe it or not and here's how it works.

You call 7-1-3-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Today's edition of Believe it or not is all things about Avery Johnson, the Kansas State quarterback, and Avery Johnson, a former NBA player. I'll read your statement about one of those two gentlemen, statement completely utterly accurate. You'll say this.

Believe it. If a statement's erroneous football can made up, you'll see this. Not. Two believe it were nots in a row will win you one of these prizes. A 7-90 t-shirt. Oh, look at this, Jonathan. A pair of tickets to see the Cougars take on SFA and the Lone Star Stampede Thursday night at TDCU Stadium.

Let's go. Five pair of tickets to see the weekend live this Sunday, August 13th. 31st, an NRG Stadium. And a pair of tickets to see the fix on September the 3rd at the House of Blues. Oh, we got prizes a galore. Let's go. Win these prizes from us. The fix, the weekend, the Cougars, or a 790 t-shirt.

You first got to believe it or not. 7-13-212-5-7-90. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Alfred on 790. you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Alfred, good luck to you. Kansas State's Avery Johnson spent his freshman season at Oklahoma State where he was a backup.

He transferred to Kansas State after being told he'd be the starting quarterback. Believe it or not? Not. That is correct. He was a K-State guy all the way through. Statement number two for the win. As part of his NIL deal with Kansas State, Avery Johnson owns a lavender corvette. Believe it or not.

No. He does. It's nice too. You ever seen a lavender corvette in your life, folks? Rick on 790 Rick. What was your favorite part of today's radio show? The part where you were going off on Rod. That's every day.

Here we go. Avery's dad, who got in the fight with his other son this weekend, is a part owner of a bail bond's company in Wichita, Kansas. Believe it or not? Not. He is. of a set it once and a thousand times. You gotta know what Avery Johnson's dad does for a living.

Greg on 790, Greg, you're ready to play believe it or not? Believe it. Avery Johnson, the Kansas State quarterback, is very particular on what he eats on game day. He likes his last meal before kickoff to be oatmeal and a large banana strawberry smoothie. Believe it or not. That's so bizarre. I'll say believe it. No, I made that up.

God bless it, folks. John, we got all these prizes. We've got to give these away here. Kelsey on 790, ready to play, believe it or not? I'm assuming you're talking to me. That's LC. L.C. You put Kelsey on the screen.

What is wrong with you? I got all these people calling it. L.C. The NBA's Avery Johnson once sent an NBA record by missing 27 straight three-point attempts in one month during the 1992 season. Believe it or not? Not. That's correct. I made that up.

Statement number two for the last. win. Avery Johnson during his NBA career played for six different NBA teams. Believe it or not? Not. Did. Believe it. God was it. You know we're going to do tomorrow?

We're going to have to give away for one correct answer tomorrow because we have so many nice prizes. Right, right. But today it's two. Colin on 790, Colin, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Last season, the NBA's Avery Johnson was accidentally sent a custom football by a prominent alum at Kansas

state. The NBA's Avery John, let me finish. The NBA's Avery Johnson laughed it off and had it shipped to the right Avery Johnson. Believe it or not. Not. Not. Yeah. That was hard to believe. I get that one.

I understand. Statement number two for the win. The NBA's Avery Johnson stands only 5 foot 11. It was nicknamed the little general during his NBA career. Believe it or not. Believe it. There you go. Finally a winner.

Finally. All right. Up next. It's Clanton. It's Wexler. It's the team. I'll talk to you folks. Tomorrow at 10 a.m. on these airwaves that we call Sports Talk 790.