The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Take Game 2 vs Jays, NHL to Houston?!

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

Astros Take Game 2 vs Jays, NHL to Houston?!

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. To a Wednesday edition of the Matt Thomas show Canadian style with Ross. It's on Sports Talk 7.9. What a win for the Astros. defeating the Blue Jays 9 to 7 and 11. Joey Lofino's first homeowner of the season is a three-run shot and proves to be the game winner. And Logan Van Wye, his first big league victory.

promise that we're going to keep a game next couple days. We were worried it was going to be some other people if they were losing. I found a song from a Canadian group that worked out well. Because yes, Ross, the Astros, and it was a Circuitus route, right?

Secuitus. Oh, look at you. Yes. Yeah. Circuitous. Rout, but they did do it. They had to go extras. They had to watch a 4-0 lead road.

They had to watch some lousy defense. and then they came back and of course former Blue Jay legend Joey Loperfito the hero yes he had opportunities earlier in the game and I was like okay well this would be poetic if he was able to do it

and then he didn't but then when it came time he hit the big three run shot Neatros got the win baby you couldn't use Hater for multiple innings Brian and Brayu is on the restricted list You're in a six-man rotation. Logan Van Wye is why the goat. And I wouldn't be totally shocked if he finds himself on a flight to Sugarland

or at least to one of the year. Houston Air sports. Probably because they used him for a couple of innings. The bullpen is completely beat up. I mean. Everyday ochreth. Angel de Los Santos giving up a couple of runs. Brian King's like, I'll go out there, but I have to use my right arm

because my left one is just being overused. Yeah, Ennio de los Santos is unfortunately going Enio Delos Santos. He was looking good early in the season. But, I mean, he had to use. He got four saved for you early in the year. But he's been just a guy. Basically his entire career. And, well, the last few times out, he's been looking like just a guy.

Yeah, they're piecing, mealing it together. Nate Pearson's going to be working some PFPs. For those of you who know, his pitching field in practice. That will be done today in Toronto because he completely screwed himself. by forcing, I think it was Vlad Guerrero at the plate, a little tap inning resolved, and then he throws a ball so wide that even Christian Walker, who fields his position beautifully,

not the tallest first base in the world, but definitely has fielded it well, Pearson gave him an absolutely horrific throw, and boom. Yeah, I will stick with this. When the error is on the pitcher, sitting those runs be earned on the pitcher, you can't cause the errors and get the unearned runs.

So maybe that's a sneaky way to lower your E. I just put a bunch of people on the base pads and maybe through your fault. Just throw the ball into the stands and then you're clear. Yeah. That makes complete sense, but you have, you're going to be like, you're slicing up stats. I know. That feels like a lot of extra work. So with that said, the local nine have, I mean, what a bizarre series.

Could have won game one, had game two. Now, granted, four-nothing leads can go away, but it was ugly the way they gave it up. And again, you're looking at another, and by the way, you were, did you say quality start for Peter Lambert? I believe I said quality start. Yes. And he did not reach that. Oh, well. Heavy bullpen use, yes.

Yeah. He was one out from a quality start late. But he didn't get there. Yeah. Okay. Four and two-thirds. He looked pretty sharp early on. And then, well, the fourth inning happened.

Yeah, it's fine. But they won. Yeah, they won the game. And because you are very happy. Mario de los Santos, by the way, gets four outs, gives up a couple of runs and earns the win. Yeah. Winds are stupid in baseball. Yeah, yeah.

It's something else. But I can tell you this, it's a good day to look at those standings. Oh, is it? Yeah. Let's go. All right. What do you got standings, M.T? I am the official standings whore of Houston Sports Radio.

The Astros are three and a half. out of first place. Four in the lost column, if you're counting. But, now the Astros find themselves just two games out of the final Walgart spot in the American League. I'm going to team to hop. I know that's always the first question you ask immediately after,

and the answer is, well, it's a little context. Five. Okay. It's doable. Now, let's talk about you've got Minnesota at home next week. You can bump them out of the way really nicely. You can knock to run. Toronto down on their stretch because right now, Toronto, even though they've got a record under 500 at 39 and 40 are the last wildcarts.

You can you can get within, you know, bump them out and get yourself one step closer. Everything is working out beautifully. For a team that remains five games under 500, that has been the, well, since the opening weekend when they won their first two series, they went on that road trip and were terrible. They haven't been as close as five. They haven't gotten four under 400 mark, four mark in quite some. time. So the question I must ask you, Matthew. Yes. And this is, you know, in life. You want to be open-minded. You want to have a perspective. You want to say, you know, you want to look at yourself. You want to point yourself in the mirror.

Like teams like to self-scout. Are the Astros fringe contenders win, get in and we got a shot? Or are they the team where we would be talking about some other team in the American League? Maybe how we might view the A's or the, I don't know, even the Rangers or some other team to say, like, these guys are trying to, to trick themselves into thinking their contenders. Yeah, they're hovering around, but I don't think they have the pieces. That can be all true. I'm just asking. No, no, you absolutely have

to do that. But you also, I mean, look. This is something Dana Brown needs to ask. No, because Dana's looking, going, look, my team is underperformed. I don't have any, I don't have a solid lineup, especially my outfield is, I was going to say that bad word with five letters and rhymes with rash, but I don't want to say that.

Oh, yeah, don't say that. Well, underperforming. Amongst the worst in baseball. OPS, we brought it up. There were 28th, 28th, and like 20 or 18th, I think, in the outfield spots. Well below average. So we got that to worry about. Okay.

But the reality is you only can do what the standings tell you to do. Okay. And if the standings say that you are three and a half out of first place on June 22nd. That's honestly, that, what are we, June 22nd? 24th, excuse me. That's close. That's really nothing. And you're two out of the wall cart.

Okay. You got a bunch of teams in front of you, but who's in front of you? It's comparable teams. It's a third of the league. Ain't scared. Okay, good. Now, if this was the National League West, we would be talking about it. The Astros were with Arizona and San Diego and San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Any, I mean, any division within proximity of what they were supposed to be like, they're never going to be an Eastern team. If they were a happen to be in the National League Central, America League Central, this would be a sell-off. This would be a, what, do you have those heart-to-heart-to-heart? conversations with Jeremy Pena. You don't necessarily have to do it with Yordon or Hunter, but Penae would be one. Christian Walker would be another player that you would talk about, and Esoc Pernos would be players.

And if the Astros do fall off the map in the next month or so, those three players I just brought up would be guys that you'd bring up once again. But they're not falling off. We keep asking for somebody in this American League West to step up and blow the Astros out of the water and think about these things. But if the A's aren't going to do it, the Rangers aren't going to do it. and Seattle, who on paper looks like to be the best team in the division, if they're doing it, then the Astros shouldn't be sellers.

And I would love them to go buy something. I don't know what they're going to be able to do. They're bargain bin shopping, like they have been in the last three years. But you need punch in the outfield, and I just don't know what the Astros could possibly give. Think about this. And man, I wish I was a decent analogy guy. Because I'm looking for something here.

Ross, you are an under 500 team. You are not under most circumstances this late in the season at 81 games and 5, 500, you are not thinking about buying at the deadline. You are not thinking about winning a division. You are not thinking about the wild card. But yet because it is 2026, the division is laid out the way that it is, it's still on your head. Huh.

You've put on 30 pounds. You've got a wedding this weekend. You're not going to go to Neiman Marcus. you got to go to Ross. You got limited funds and you don't want to overspend. And you got to worry about the future. May I give you a worse one?

Okay, good. Hey, that wasn't that bad. You've gained 15 pounds. Okay. You have a wedding coming up in a month. Wait, okay, this sounds like mine. You're going to go buy something that you you're going to go purchase something

that you could easily wear 15 pounds ago because you're saying to yourself, I can lose those 15 pounds. I mean, that's what a person would do, but that's not what the Astros are going to do. thus a terrible analogy. You don't want to fool yourself into thinking you are some kind of bona fide contender

and you're one piece away. But the situation that is unfolding in front of you might tell you that you have a chance because the division is so bad. So it is interesting. To juxtapose the two. If we were in any other,

well, I mean the central is turning out not to be that great. But if you were in the east or something like that and you're 10, 12 games back or whatever. Yeah, you're like, let's full on sell. But you're close in a wild card, which is what the third wild card is done. It's trick teams into thinking their contenders when maybe they aren't. So there's some things to figure out for Dana who spoke on the morning drive earlier.

Yes, he did. All right. Brian Bogoshevick at 11 o'clock. Yes. 1130 shut your ball mess up. I got two from just today. Really? Yes.

I don't know their names. I just know who they are. Okay. 12.30 today, Joe is spotted from Toronto and believe it or not today at 150. Other things, we've got to talk some NHL to Houston. For real this time. For real? Like for real, for real. And we don't have to guess who has the deal. 1021 on Sports Talk 790. Good morning. It is Matt and Ross with you until 2 o'clock this afternoon. 713-212-5-790. 713212-5-7-90 and it was just, I was so aggravated. I did the 10th inning Monday and yesterday.

I'll do it again tonight here as the Astros try to go for the series win. You know what? Thank you, Matthew. Matthew is stepping up. He's taking it for me tonight. No, you're stepping up huge, Matt. I want to give you some kudos, even on air. Thank you so much.

I'm going to be on with Chris Gordy because Wex is out and Adam Clanton are out. And then you said, you know what? Let me get the postgame show. And I appreciate you, Matt. so I am free tonight because of you, so I wanted to say thanks. Well, you're also filling in for the A team, so we're all seven. We're going to do what you're going to do. Point being is this, I was just, I was not necessarily elated, but it was exciting to see the three home runs,

especially the third home run, which I thought was one of the most majestic shots ever seen in my life, but really of the home runs, Cam Smith's was the longest. That dude, okay, how come he either strikes out and goes in a one for 20 or he's hitting 460 foot bombs? Like, what is going on with Cam Smith? That's a question for Bogota. Let me write that down. That's a question for Bogusevic. It's under the Thursday, I just don't get it.

I just don't get it. Man, he can get a hold of one. He's got the bad speed. He's athletic. He's strong. And Tremel hits that one to the upper tank. Yes. Which wasn't nearly as sexy as I thought it was going to be.

Tremel has hit some majestic bombs as well. They just, it's, well, you know, there were guys when I was growing up, Ross, Dave Kingman being the great example of that, for those of you that are old school baseball fans, hit home runs or he struck out. Adam Dunn is the one that comes in my mind. Because he was,

everybody thought he sucked because he had a 220 average. But when you go back and look at his numbers, he OPS over 8 or 900 like every year. Yeah. But there was. And we didn't appreciate that in those days. And one of the things about Reggie Jackson,

again, a little bit different story because he's a Hall of Famer, but Reggie was also one of the biggest strikeout guys in the history of baseball too. But point being is those guys don't have a great average. They don't have an OPS, but they do hit some serious bombs. And they did so.

And it was, you got out to a 4-0 lead, you felt good about things, and then things fell apart. Defense did not help you, and you found yourself going to extra innings and you didn't score in the top of the 10th. And usually, not every single time, but usually if you don't score on the top of the 10. I thought it was over. I was like, see you later. All right. I definitely thought it was over. And Logan Van Wye, by the way, I am, I mentioned this on Twitter yesterday.

I am so obsessed with his uniform. The way those letters look on his uniform are so bizarre. I don't know. Okay. Because they don't have the same font as the rest of the guys do. There's a story behind it. I saw a channel of Rome posted, but I didn't read it. Greg Rajin from the Chronicle to the story about it.

Maybe it's Greg Rajan. Yeah. Yeah. So, sorry, Greg. Oh, he's listening. Don't worry. I appreciate it. I'll hear from him.

I know, me too. I will hear from him for sure. But then they came back and then low perfido gets the three-run bond that I was worried it was going to go foul, but it stayed in fair on the right field line. And now, even though the Astros to give up a run, Van Wye did in the 11. it was a 9-7 baseball game. Yeah, you were short on arms. You were short on the bench.

It had to happen there. So I'm glad that it did. And Jeremy Payne got a little bit of work. I wonder, he probably, what would you have to guess? Still out of the lineup today? I guess it's a question for Joe Espott. Yeah. Well, I mean, he did pinch it.

Got a couple of A.Bs yesterday. Weird that he pinch hit for Tremel, who hit the home run earlier. People were kind of doing a double-take on that. Yeah. So that's the issue there. Again, the Astros win. And I do think it's a storyline for the course of the rest of the season, is that who are they? And I think doing more deducing after what we just talked about, we know who they are.

They're an under 500 team. They don't have championship level talent. But, again, it's what the conditions dictate. It's the fact that you are in the worst division in baseball. You've had no one take off. you thought Seattle was going to about a month ago and they have come back down to earth a little bit the Rangers haven't pulled away

the A's who are who they are, the A's can hit, they just haven't of pitching and I don't anticipate them being a team everybody keeps saying over and over again the A's are on a slow build they want to go all in on being a contending team when they moved to Las Vegas and that's two years away so

or a year and a half well it depends on what's going on with the baseball situation the lockout but point being is that they're not going to be teams that are going to be combing the trade market, then the trade ones will not be flowing through West Sacramento, California. So if all that is in play and the Mariners don't hit and the Rangers are inconsistent and Toronto's bullpen gets used more than any other bullpen in baseball, we saw that yesterday.

I saw that in the previous game. I ain't scared of Minnesota. Okay. Baltimore, you would think would be probably better than what they are. There's no reason why you cannot at least seriously think. The worst case, Ross, this team could be a wildcard team. And if you're going to be the third wildcard team, guess you're going to play. The worst division record, it would be your own division, which would be the Seattle Mariners.

And that's what I was going to say is that even if you won, you say you win your division, you're going to be the third seat. So you've got to be built for a short series. Anything can happen in a short series. It's going to be Hunter Brown and Yordon carrying the day. That's what you need. But also, Hunter Brown wasn't great the long time out. But Hunter Brown's going to be fine. Yordon's going to be Yordon.

on and you're just going to need to catch a little bit of lightning. You're going to have to catch some lightning in a bottle during the season, and then you're going to have to see what you just roll the dice of the postseason. We've seen that in baseball teams get hot. But I will say this, as much as it sucks, and it's not fun to talk about a team that is under 500, and we are in now approaching July 1. They're in a pennant race.

Excuse me. They're in a division race. Yes, kind of. Yes. I don't think kind of. I think, yeah. Does it matter if they were 11 games about 500 and they were still three and a half out? Two things are true.

They're only three and a half out, but they're also in fourth place. Okay. But that should show you that the teams in front of them aren't great either. So I'm not, put it this way. I'm not scared of the A's of the Rangers. It's a slow race. Yeah. Would you feel better if the Astros were, what do they?

This is 81 games. They're not racing with the Cheetah. No, they're in the quarter horses. I always say hippos, but those guys are fast. They're not in the thoroughbred season at the race. It's a sloth race. They're in the wiener dog race. Is that what you're saying?

Or the camels. Those camels are quick, Maddie. You got to watch out. Go to break. All right. Oh, come on. We had a roll going there. You say so.

All right. Other big news of the day. Look, NBA draft last night was yon. It just was. There was an NBA draft last night? I know. Okay. I know.

It provided, I mean, other teams are great. When the Rockets don't know number one pick you. don't get excited about it. That's just the truth. And there was no major trade yesterday. Yeah. So I took a look at who the, who was DeBanson went first. Yes. Peterson second. Yes. Okay. Fleming's went eighth. I saw that. I wanted to see where Kingston landed. And Chris and Ack went 28 to Boston. Oh, a little bit further back than maybe some probably so. Some people had him like top 20ish. Yeah.

It's Matt and Ross. I'm Sports Talk 790. Our time is 1035. It is a Wednesday edition of the show. If you'd like to come in and join us, we'd love to have you. you at 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. As the Astros win a game and a rubber game tonight, we'll have it for you here on 7-90. The On-Dex show will be with, I believe, Chris Gordy, and then I'll have the 10th inning show following tonight's game. All right, so I am going to, and I want to do this organically with you.

We're going to, if you, and it was brought up, I think, what very late in our show yesterday, that the NHL, has officially said there is serious conversation about the NHL expanding to Texas. And they said the two markets

that are under consideration are Houston and Austin. Okay. We did not know by the time our show ended yesterday that it was going to be the Freakin Group, which is one of three billionaires here in the Houston area, three of the richest billionaires,

the freaking group again, Gulf States, Toyota. And obviously the Fortita family. We didn't know who was going to own, who was the one that was going to be the one. And then Ward came out from the Chronicle yesterday, Greg Raj and our friend, said that he found out, and the letter was given out from the NHL that the exclusive negotiating window right now is going to the Freakin group. It's F-R-R-I-E-D-K-I-N. And as you mentioned, it's got investments in soccer. Most of his wealth is coming from the automobile business. Beres Resorts. I don't know if you've heard of those.

I have not. Yeah, Roma, Everton, now the NHL team. Also, 30 West, an independent film production company. They did distributed Parasite. I believe they have won some awards. No, Parasite is one of the great films the last 10 years. I don't know if you've seen it, Jonathan, but I suggested it won best picture in like 2018 or something like that. Which one?

Parasite. It's a Korean. Yeah, I watched, I haven't finished it. Oh, okay. It was really good. I got you. The Freakin Group is not as wealthy as Tillman, but he's close. This Wikipedia says 9.6 billion.

I'm sorry, 9.4 billion. Sorry, only 9.4. Just kidding. There is obviously a lot of money for this group and family to bring NHL to the state of Texas. Now, what the Freakin Group, the Freakin Group will do is they will do their due diligence and probably report back to the NHL. To me, to me, and this is just one man's opinion on this, I think the Friedkin group will go to the city

that gives them the best arena deal. From the city. From the city. Right. The county is around the city or county, right, I got you. So as I thought, the Moody Center is not in play to be the home of the team. Because it's owned by the universe Texas.

And for those of who don't know, again, you don't want to be a renter. You want to be the landlord. You want to be the owner. Now, if the hockey team was to come to Houston, I'm sure the Friedkin Group would work with the Fortitas because they have, the Tootis Center is through the Friedkin Group. That's who the big, that's who the conduit is. That's who the sponsorship is through. Yeah. Not exclusively, but they are the primary force behind that.

Okay. So there is a relationship. And again, when you have billionaire to billionaire, they'll work something. out. So I guarantee you that the TOTA Center will be probably the temporary home for the NHL team if it was to be coming here and say two years. But long term, it's not going to be the home of the Houston NHL team if there is one. These are all just educated guesses on my part. When I first heard about the Friedkin group being interested, I had heard they were thinking about building an arena in Edo

would be their grand plan. I think that that stance has softened a little bit. Okay. Because of the trend as we've talked about for the last few months of a lot of these cities going to the suburbs to grab their own area. And we just saw this. They make their own complexes. Last month, we're seeing the Dallas Mavericks leaving downtown Dallas to go to one end of Dallas suburb. The Dallas Stars are moving to Plano to do their own thing.

Yeah, I think it's Plano. Yeah, it's not Friscoe's Plano. So everybody wants their own megaplex, restaurants, bars, hotels, practice facilities, and most importantly, Rossi, their own arena. So with that being said, we're going to draw up a list here of what benefits Austin Moore over Houston and Houston over Austin, knowing again, in my gut feeling that I think the city that gives him the best, in the freaking group, the best arena deal in terms of not spending money on the arena is going to get the team or they'll push towards that team. So let's go some other factors.

Let's go to Austin first. You are not competing with any other in a professional sport in that city. I know Austin has an MLS team, correct? Oh yeah, Austin FC. Okay, but that's not a major sport. So my number one thing is they don't. Agnesel arguably. Non-competition against pro teams.

Yes. Non-competition against the Longhorns. Non-competition against the Longhorns. Right. Number two, I think the ticket sales would be a piece of cake. Think so? Yes. There are a lot of corporate interests, a lot of, a lot of headquarters and huge corporate interest.

Way more than I think you would think for a city that is, by some people still think it's a college town. It's really not. It's, yeah, it's, I don't want to call it cosmopolitan, but you have a lot of transplants. And the way that there's a lot of transplants here in Houston, there's a lot of transplants and people from all over the country. And all over the world. Yeah. All over the world. A lot of Californians move there. But not that those are guys that are like big hockey fans.

Right. I think you could regionalize the team in some respects. I could see San Antonio. You know, they're getting a new arena for the Spurs. I could see this team in Austin playing two to four games in San Antonio every year. Okay. Just thinking out loud. Okay.

I'm trying to think, is there anything else that would be a direct super bonus to Austin? Not saying it's detriment to Houston, but just what makes Austin so sexy? I think being the only pro sport team in town, I think ticket sales would not be an issue because it would be the only pro sports team in town. You do have a huge corporate interest in that city. You could regionalize the team if you wanted to. Is there anything else that would come to mind

that would make Austin really sexy? I don't know. What were you saying, Jonathan? No, I was just saying a suggestion for Houston, like someone was saying the Northwest Mall area for a stadium. it doesn't really matter it could be just as easy Montgomery County I mean it could be

it could be anywhere it could be Cyprus it could be I mean there's still lots even though Toro Towns the Conroe arrows I mean that's true all I can think of right now at the top yeah that would make that would make

really Austin very oh okay yeah I would yeah so let's go to Houston TV market size is significantly better significantly greater population.

Now you don't get the regionalization of it, but still you combine San Antonio Austin, it's not as big as the greater southeast Texas area, meaning Houston, Galveston, all points in between. Number three, you have a built-in TV network potential partner. I would assume that Space City would want to have interest in joining up with you. Does you have the alternate channel? Yes, you can figure it.

it out. You could also do some over the air, but it would be you don't have to necessarily go into the television business either, because if you notice in sports, the Rangers have their own TV network now, the Braves have it, because all these regional networks are going away. You don't have to do a little heavy lifting of creating a production and a television network for your games. I would assume that Space City would show some interest in carrying these games. Number four, you are in a city that knows pro sports. as much as we love the Houston Cougars. Yes.

It's not a college, this is not a college market. But also, it's not the most passionate sports town. We go to the negatives later. I'm just trying to think about the positive. Okay. So is there any other positive to me? Population. Yeah. Television network is already in place.

A large transplant population. A lot of corporate interest, but I don't know if you can divvy them up to hire. I don't know. Okay, so let's go. So those are some of the positives on the Houston side. And again, it's just Houston. Been there, done that, pro sports. Oh, by the way, it has a history of hockey.

No, it's been a while, but it does have a history of hockey where Austin has what the ice bats or whatever they're calling their team now down there. So let's go to the negatives. The negatives are, it's very expensive. Hockey prices are every bit as expensive as MBA tickets are. are we already tapped out in Houston spending crazy money for our sports tickets whereas Austin doesn't have to go through that now you may have season ticket holders to UT football

but that's that crowd of 100,000 is also coming in from all over the state to Kim to Sierra Games. I mean in Houston here the tickets are sold the butts aren't in seats but they don't care about that. Making group cares about tickets sold. Right. Tickets sold. Number two, you are playing fourth fiddle. And I do believe that

That is something that would have to be addressed. I would say by far as well. Yeah. Because if the Rockets and the Texans and the hockey team are all playing on the same night, how much of the sports attention are you getting? Very, very little. Number three. You have to win, obviously, like Golden, like Las Vegas.

Right. And number three, don't you think, and this is a lot of people forget to break here, don't you think these cities that crave sports teams want to learn the sport and get invested as fast as possible, where you and I, we've talked about this before, we have a lot of sports here to talk about in our own community. If you're in Austin and you have this brand new sports team, you're going to learn hockey, you're going to embrace hockey, you're going to know what icing is and off sides and three line pass or whatever. I don't know, all that stuff.

Shift changes. Uh-huh. Where Vegas did that. Columbus did that. Nashville did that. Will we just say, oh, this hockey's kind of cool, let's go have a good time and watch this and not particularly have that passion

that maybe an Austin sports fan base would have? It'd be fun to find out. I think it'd be good for the city, too. Oh, let me tell you something. Sports teams are always great for the city. Yeah. For our business. It seems like a bigger deal, yeah.

Yeah, and, you know, when an opera house goes up, you don't rally around opera house or are the symphony. Oh, I do. Well, that's because you're a cultural nerd. But that's a different issue to attempt for time. We rally around our sports teams. And look at what Vegas has done with all the sports teams. Maybe their gambling is down, but their population isn't.

So just the things to think about there. I just want to lay out the positives and negatives. We'll go to the negatives on the Austin side and we come back. All right. So those of you that call us occasionally with, you know, hey, Matt, Ross, sell us. Sell it. We want the NHL to Houston. Let's go.

Let's make it happen. Okay? Well, it's not in your hands. It's in the hands of a multi-billionaire who is going to spend, I don't know how long he's going to take to figure this out, but he's going to ultimately go to Commissioner Gary Bettman in the NHL and say, hey, I think I want to put a franchise in the city. And again, we could give you, and look, we're just doing this as a couple of radio jimokes.

There are PR firms, there's research departments, yes. There's legal teams that are all going over the pluses and minuses of all these things. and they're putting up the numbers that are way more in detail than you and I can just guesstimate on. Talking to city officials. Right. But I do believe at the end of the day, it's going to be who gives the Friedkin Group the best opportunity for an arena, meaning you want us to pay this? And then when we help you build this arena here, what kind of tax breaks are we going to get, how much county and or city contributions are coming in?

And then what are we going to stand to make once this building is built? Yeah. It does it seem a little bit like you're trying to leverage one city and the other? No question. So if you're Houston, how much do you fight for this team over Austin? And if you're Austin, how much do you fight for this team over Houston? And we're not talking about the people that are already here. We're talking about elected officials.

Yes, elected officials. Yeah. It's a good question. How bad does the Austin mayor or the city council, Now, if Travis County is the main county in Austin, right? Yes. I feel like Austin would have to, would fight pretty hard, would want to get in the fight pretty hard.

Would Ron Rock all of a sudden say, look, we're already busy enough. Okay, something around the... Hmm. You could do Georgetown, you could do Ron Rock. You could do Buddha. You could do... Oh, yeah, Buda. Buda.

Buda. Kyle. Marble Falls. I'm sorry, I'm just naming suburbs now. So you're telling, here's what I'm saying. What did Arlington do, Rossi, the last 20 years? I don't know what they did. They said we said sweet ordeal.

We've got two, it was actually three stadiums. You think about it. The two baseballs and one football. It would be huge. And as our listener, Aaron, the big hockey fan says, like, Vegas was the first game in town. Columbus and Nashville, same thing. As far as major pro sports. No, were the Titans before the Predators, though?

Oh, okay. Well, then I guess not. Never mind. Sorry. Aaron, you're wrong. That's what I get for reading it. It's okay. Point being, though, but relatively speaking, that's the first organic team.

I mean, they inherited a team and they got one to move, but this would be theirs. It's going to be who gives them the biggest plot of land to build, you know, hockey rinks and restaurants and big hotels. I mean, we're seeing the trend on this. Everything we've seen, Ross, in the last five years is, and it started with Atlanta, when the Braves moved out of downtown Atlanta to go up to the north part, of town. What are they called? The district up there is that what they call it? I don't know what they call it. But you get my drift on this. They want an arena.

And they obviously want to fill the arena. But they want the bells and whistles that go with it. Yeah. But I don't say there's a zero percent chance, but I would think it's one percent chance that if the NHO was to come to Houston, the team is playing in TOTA center in 10 years. I just find that to be highly improbable. Right. And how much would Austin fight for something

in city to give them some give the freaking group a sweetheart deal on some land to let them control it but also keep it in the city where they can have their cake and eat it too My lean on that would be probably it's going to be outside of

Travis County Yeah, I have no idea. So I just... Yeah, but Austin might just could be a different different deal. Who knows? That's right. But again, cities will... Harris County is over the Texans. Harris County's like, we're good.

Yeah. You owe us a Billy. Yeah. Go to Torrey. Town. Enjoy yourself back out there. So I'm just... Now, the biggest negative for me for Austin is, it just doesn't have the number of people. You're not going to... You build the Austin

IceBats, okay? That's the team they call their minor league are used to at least. And you're going to have a solid fan core base of potentially between Austin, San Antonio, San Marcos, New Bromwell's, but about 4 million, maybe. Yeah, TV... I'm just looking it up right now. TV homes in Houston

2.9 million, which is 6th. TV Holmes in Austin, which is 32nd, $1 million. Now, you could put the games in San Antonio, too. True. But even though, I mean, I don't know how San Antonio's feel about an Austin team. Well, Waco probably would be to the Dallas market. But my point is, San Antonio may say, oh, that's nice. You're putting these games on, but you're really not our team.

It is more than Hartford, more than Columbus, more than Kansas City, more than Cincinnati, any more than Vegas and Milwaukee. Oh yeah, by the way, don't sleep on Austin being this small little college due town. It's a major metropolitan city now. More than OKC, more than New Orleans. But do the television homes matter? Of course it does. Yeah.

Because, again, it's going to go down to the corporate dollars. If I'm going to spend X amount of money, if I built up with the team in Austin and I want to get Johnson Beer to be a big sponsor, Johnson Beer's like, what's your reach? John Severe's like, well, okay, so you're in San Antonio and Austin markets. Okay, that's $4.5.5 million. Okay, well, I'm going to pay you X. Oh, if I can be reached by 7 million people in Houston, I'm going to give you X plus 10%. So even though Austin feels like, oh, that's a cool place to go.

That's the first pro team. You're going to be locked in by the fact the population just isn't as large there as it is in Houston, Texas, or the metropolitan area. Yeah, but the population also more split in Houston. That's right. And that's where you've got to do the digging. How many people are going to deviate from their normal sports practices, watching practice, and attending for that matter? I mean, does somebody go, hey, Houston, Joe Schmo that lives in Conroe, are you going to down your grade your Astro's season ticket package because you now want to be a season ticket holder for the Houston hockey team? Hello Rocket fan

Do you want to now go from seeing 20 games to 10 because you want to get a 20 game package? Yeah. This is where again, it takes a lot of research and a lot of in-depth Yeah, fan evaluation. I wonder what the resources are to figure out because everybody says they're going to buy it.

You can line up 10,000 people to say, oh, I'm going to be a season ticket holder. That's right. But when it's time to make that deposit, you're going to lose a lot of them. because again, and you're going to be paying NHL ticket prices that will be comparable to major markets. They're not going to, as the boys are talking about this morning, they're not going to give you that introductory offer. You know, when you go on your phone and you get that app for 99 cents for like three months and then they charge you $11 for that.

They're not going to do that. They're not going to say, come watch our team for $11. You're going to be paying prime prices right off the top because the NHL, to its credit, gives you an expansion draft of really good players. Brian Bogus Civic joins us to start the next hour here on Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Time for us to spend 10 quality minutes with our friend Brian Bogusevic. He is on Space City Home Network. And yesterday an 11-eating contest and the Astros won it.

We're going to talk to him about that right now here on the program. Bogeek, first of all, good morning. What a strange turn of events. I know for nothing is not supposed to be. an insurmountable lead. But I was irritated to how they came back, eventually took the lead in a wide ranging of emotions

of how that game turned out yesterday afternoon in Toronto. Yeah, it was, honestly, yesterday's game felt like two games. I mean, first of all, just because of length of game, but the way the first, I don't know, four, four, five innings played out where it just was kind of stale offense,

very much like the day before, where there was a base runner's, but nobody was really getting, anything going. And then the second half of the game where it was like no lead is safe. We're just going to go back and forth and trade runs. It was a wild game.

There were a lot of swings. Those games are exhausting. Begin with. It's a good thing you win, though, because they feel twice as exhausting if you don't get the way to spend all of that energy and all of those resources to come up empty. I'll say this. And I don't know if the Astros are going to have a change

by the time the game is going tonight, because You've got a customs and it's Toronto. But this bullpen has beat the hell up, Brian. You know, tonight's starter is going to have to go deep in this contest because, man, you get a lot of tired arms. I mean, Brian King's thinking about throwing with his right army. He's that tired. They've thrown a ton of pitches. They've used a lot of guys.

They've had guys kind of overextend themselves. It seems like every outing for a reliever is come into the game, get out of this jam and finish the inning, and then go out there for the next inning and try to get through that inning. They feel overextended, and you really felt yesterday, you felt that one man short in the pen because they're in the six-man rotation. It felt like they needed one more leverage guy down there, and the game almost got away because of it. But, you know, they did a nice job, but, no, you're right. There are some logistical issues to getting somebody into Toronto to help out. But, yeah, they can certainly use six innings or more from Burroughs today, and hopefully a big enough lead to where they don't have to push.

with some of these guys. So not only do they need length from a guy, they need goodness from a guy who was demoted very shortly to the bullpen. So I'd like to say don't make too much out of this one start. So I'm not going to make too much out of this one start because it will be atypical. If Burroughs was to struggle today, he's going to have to kind of work his way out of it while on the mound, not by sitting in the dugout after a subpar performance. That's why hopefully he doesn't have that today. Yeah, he's going to be out there for 90 plus pitches probably regardless of what it is. You know, and that's just kind of the state of the Jingstaff right now. And, you know, first and foremost, he's going to have to, he's going to have to command his fastball. That's been the pitch that has got him this year. And it's the inconsistencies with location. There's been a lot of fastball that have shown up in the middle and he's gotten hurt big on them. And if he can get that pitch going and stay ahead and count,

It's also, it's a very difficult Toronto lineup to navigate. We've seen the last two days, both Peter Lambert and Hunter Brown. Neither of them had their best stuff by any means. But it's just a Toronto offense that just wears you down, wears he out, makes you throw a lot of pitches. So he's going to have to be really aggressive in the zone, but also be pretty sharp to have those pitches be effective. And not only just the mentality of burrows,

can you just kind of give us some insight, maybe even the whole team to where, you know, if you're a great team, you're building all this momentum and we're going to try to be contenders. If you're really bad, you're like, all right, well, we suck. The Astros have been somewhere in between and, of course, below 500 all season long. What is that like for the team that feels like they're maybe spinning their wheels and trying to dig out of these ruts and they can't always consistently find it? Well, it can be frustrating because you see glimpses of what it can be.

We've seen some games, especially recently, where they played really well. And they've played kind of well-rounded games, and we've had games where they pitched really well. We've had games where the offense has shown up. So there's a lot in there. So it can be frustrating that it doesn't show up as consistently as you hope. But at the same time, everybody knows that they haven't really been whole at any point this season. You know, they're getting closer and they're almost there. And knock on wood that Jeremy Payne is not going to be out for any extended period.

But it's kind of, yeah, we're not where we want to be, but we know what, we can be if we get it going and you know you just kind of hold the line and keep your head above water until you make the run until everybody's there until it clicks with everybody and then hopefully you you run off the stretch of games for a couple of weeks that that put you back to where you want to be Brian Bogusevic with us here on sports talk 790 another massive bomb from cam smith yesterday and it feels like if you just watched like the highlight of his home runs you think the dude is like hitting 35, 40 home runs. And I ask you, we've kind of talked about him throughout the year, Brian.

Like, what is it that he continues to, we see these flashes from him as well as we're talking about the whole team being inconsistent that he needs to do to be more consistent? Well, he's got a long way to go in terms of his growth and development as there. I mean, just where he's at in terms of professional at bats under his belt. I mean, he had 135, 140 played appearances in the minor leagues before he got here. You look at other guys who've come up through the organization over the years, guys like George Springer, guys like Kyle Tucker. You're talking about 1,000 plus at-back,

1,500-plus played appearances in the minor leagues. It's a lot of time to work on stuff and figure stuff out and make minor adjustments and say, hey, maybe this week I'm going to try something for the next 30 at back and see what I get out of it. He's doing all this stuff at the major league level. He's doing all this stuff in a win now environment. But, yeah, when it flashes, it's crazy. I mean, he's got as much power as anybody.

He's huge. He's filling out. He's got long levers. He creates a ton of power. And when he can more consistently, number one, figure out the pitches that he wants to hunt to drive on his pole side. Number two, figure out his timing and his start to when he needs to be ready to get the bat into position and just find that contact point. there's a ton of power. There's no doubt that he's going to have seasons later on in his career where he hits 30 plus home runs. He's just that strong. And he's a good hitter. He puts the barrel on the ball. He just always, he just does it in the back of his swing most consistently right now. And as that moves forward and as that creeps out a little bit further in front of him, as he learns how to do that, the power is going to be there because it's significant power. Bogey, the outfield offense collectively was a worry spot for the team when they left spring training. And it's still to the same.

day as we approach the end of June. That's a tough spot for your manager to be in because it feels like if I was in his shoes, I can't give you the right combination. We've seen Yordawn play a lot of left field, not a lot, but more in the last a week or so. I've given Cam Smith the day off. I put Joey Lopofito out there. I've tried Desenzo. I've tried Cole before this.

I've tied Tremel. If you are the bench coach for your manager in Joe Espada, putting you in that role, what are y'all talking about when it comes to how the hell are they going to figure this out if nobody's willing to step up and really be that consistent hitter that this team needs? Yeah, there's no there's no

end-all be-all answer right? It's not, hey, it's going to be these three guys, those are our guys. Really what it is is you have to play it on the day by day almost at bat by at-bat match-up by match-up kind of way and just try to find edges, try to find situations

that tip the scales in your favor. Try to find advantages for certain guys. Keep your eye on guys during batting practice. See how their swings looks. See if they're looking confident. And you're basically just going to be playing hot hands. And I don't know that anybody's really going to break out to a point to where besides Cam Smith, he's going to be pretty much every day in right field from this point forward. But it's just going to be, hey, Taylor Smell took a great swing yesterday and hit a ball a mile. We're facing a righty today. He's probably going to be. in the lineup and just ride it out as long as you can.

And then knowing in the back of your mind that if the signs start to show that it's not there anymore, what's our next move? What's our next matchup? Who's our next guy that we can slot in there? How can we shuffle guys between the different positions to get the right mix for any given day? And I think that's all you can do because I don't think there's any real everyday answer internally. All right.

So we kept thinking this month was going to be a soft-term. month and the Astros are playing winning baseball. It's not the 600 level, but it's a few games above 500. The wild card is within reach. The division is within reach. And I brought this up to Ross last hour and I think it's worthy of your thoughts. Look, the Astros are under 500. This division is the worst in baseball. But honestly, you have to play the cards that are dealt to you. If this team was, say, nine or ten games about 500 and six back, we'd be way worse than we are. So I don't know what the clubhouse demeanor is. I don't know what the general manager's demeanor is about buying and selling around the deadline or the ownership group,

but you kind of have to play what's in front of you, and that is beating up on subpar teams, beating up on a Toronto team that's right in front of you in the wild card, and beating up a Detroit team who's playing better as of late, but they're way underachieving, and they're probably going to move Terrick Scoobo at the deadline. Yeah, and you also have to look at it from the standpoint of what the team is and what the organization is in terms of their contention trajectory. If this was a very young, you know, just out of a rebuild type of team, you might say, hey, let's pump the brakes a little bit because, you know, we're not going to go and just dump a bunch of resources into a team that's kind of fringely contending. But because this is a championship pedigree team, because you have a lot of veterans,

you have Jose Altuve later in his career, you have Yordon Alvarez in the prime of his career, you are in go for it mode, you are in win now mode. So you can say, hey, look, this team, if you have a chance, chance to get in, you are dangerous because they know how to win. They've been there before. If you get to the playoffs, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, you know, think the Astros were going to be overmatched against anybody in a playoff type of series. You have an ace at the top of the rotation. You have veteran hitters who have played that kind of baseball before. So, yes, because of that kind of trajectory that they're on where they're at as an organization,

as long as you are still alive in a playoff race, you are still going for it. great stuff as always thank you brian for the visit as usual on this wednesday we'll do this again next week look forward to seeing you on the space city later tonight all right see you guys thank you brian bogus epic with us here on sports talk 790 we got to shut your bum ass up coming up at the bottom of the rossi got anything you want to spout off on yes i do i'm sure you do 713 212 5 790 by the way those are you concerned and i'd like the answer would be minimal on that i had very minimal dreamage yesterday. Matt, you need to dream. No.

Jonathan, if it doesn't involve Lauren Shahati, I don't want to dream. Hundreds of years of neurology. Saying I'm the guy that doesn't need to dream. I know. I feel like if you don't dream, you end up getting a mental week old. Yeah, it's not good, Matt. Can I get more shahadi dreams? I mean, is that, that's fine.

All right, there is a little lunchtime baseball that we will keep an ear on. We are your home for Miami Marlins baseball. He was like, what are you talking about? Let's go Marlins. Marlins and Rangers.

Suck it, DeGrom. Jacob, DeGrom, Little D. That's what his first letter is, Little D. Don't call him Little D. Well, that's what little D, little E, B. He will break you in half. I don't know. Not with that hair, he cannot.

Oh, he throws a ball. He just threw a 99-mile-an-hour fastball. Yeah, and something about him, Lopez got a base at the right field. Quick, Twitch muscle fibers. He'd break you in half. Okay, that's fine. No score Marlins and Rangers.

We are rooting for the Marlins. Yes, we are. One step closer to the Waldgarde and one step closer to the division lead. Climbing the ladder. They're in fourth place. So we did climb some ladders, folks. Okay, in Miami, it's probably 90 degrees of the 75% humidity. There may be 5,000 people in the stadium.

They got a roof over there, right? Oh, yes, I'm saying, why wouldn't you, if you are an off day, why wouldn't you go in that stadium, go sit down and get a choice of seats? Let's see. Why would I want to go see crappy Marlins' base? baseball or they're actually 41 and 39 actually. No, that's not crappy. That's very comparable.

I mean, it's like, yeah, it's a lot better than the Astros this year. Well, things are going to change. They're eight games back though. That's what I'm saying. Braves are crushing it. Yeah. All right, the Texans sent us an email today, Rossi. Oh my God, the Dodgers have 51 wins.

51 and 29. Nothing with Kyle Tucker underperforming. Their run differentials plus 143. Do you think if Astros is minus 41. If they go get Tarex, go, but do you think we just stop talking baseball the rest of the year? No, I love it. Do it.

Make this even more absurd and ridiculous and more obvious that there need to be wholesale changes. I'm with it. Let's go. It's only a rental. Yes. Only a rental at this point. All right. So the game themes are out for the Texans this year.

Oh, really? So don't look at the email. Okay. Grade them one to five, one being what the hell is? is that. Okay. Five being, that's an awesome idea. There's a Tankdale ankle boot night. You can write that down for Friday?

Okay, I'm sorry. Write that for Friday. Okay, I'm sorry. Let me write that down. Now, if there is a game theme that doesn't feel like it needs to be graded, then you can just say I'm going to not a pickable. There's Joe Mix and Holster Night for you guys. Jonathan, if we get Joe Mix and Holster Night, I will get you just 50 our line seats. Leather hand-stitched holsters.

How about first 30,000 people get a picture of his x-ray with a shattered foot and a big bullet wound in it? That's what it is, too. Okay. All right, so here we go. One to five, unless it's like military day, you would not want to grade that. I mean, that would be a non-applicable one. Okay. We will start.

Cal McNair, Bricklayer Knight. Okay. These are, these are red, the ones. You are doing rejected ones. The two preseason games are play football. That's, who cares? What does that even mean? It's like for the kids.

Yeah. Come get some concussions, children. Yeah. Let's go. Sunday, September 13th is kickoff. Okay. That's originality one. What?

Yeah. It's their kickoff thing. It's the first game. Yeah. Okay. I guess you got to have a kickoff game. I don't know. September 20th, the final week is international day.

All right. That's good. Because Houston Stadium was hosting a lot of international people. The Portuguese. You know, I'll tell what. Why don't we do this? The Congolese. I don't think a reliance.

spends any money with us. Okay. So this is called Houston Stadium from here on now. I like that. You're okay with that? Yeah. We'll be like FIFA. And if they want us to call their name, yes. You can spend some cash. They know with a check. Yes, sir. With their check. International Day, would

that bring some Lolitos to the game? Don't say that. Is that a bad word? Yes, say Latinos. Latinas. Don't say Lolitas. That means underage girls. Oh, oh, no, no, no. Latinas. Hi, folks. Sports Talk 790. and I heart media.

Matt Thomas misspoke that was an accident. Yeah, we don't want that. For sure, we don't want that. Jesus Christ. All right, here's the one that probably doesn't get a great grade. 25th season anniversary game against the Dallas Cowboys. Do you want that, Ross? I'm sorry, saying again?

Cowboys Night is 25th anniversary game. Yeah, I mean, the first 10,000 fans get Brass Knuckles. 25 years of expansion, mediocrity, and disappointment and then against the Dallas Cowboys. Bloodyed jerseys in the parking lots. Now, they've stopped doing that. Are you sure? No, but...

Remember they had to have like elevated police presence? Oh, yeah, and they will again. Yeah. Because cowboy fans like to throw hands. Cowboys fans like to slice and dice. October 25th will be the Battle Red game, which is... Okay, put the red jerseys on. Who are they playing in the Battle Red game?

The New York Giants. That's like when you set up homecoming against McArthur. And Aldi? Yeah. Oh, MacArthur's in town. Time for homecoming. Easy dubs. Yeah, we never scheduled ours against Stratford.

We always scheduled ours against like Katie Taylor. I know. All right. You know, MacArthur, they used to have bongs in the huddle, which I thought was odd. They would pass it around. We need to apologize for both things we've said so far in this segment. You have a two to one lead on that. Actually, three to one lead.

Indianapolis is the rivalry game. What? Who thought of this? Who was the rival? Jacksonville? It's Indianapolis? Indianapolis. On a Thursday night, yeah. Who is the Texans' biggest rival?

We don't have one. God, they're 20-something years in. They don't have, I don't know, I would say Jacksonville. It has to be somebody. Titans? That's like having Houston saying Rice is our rival. That's not what you want. Titans would be the rival.

Okay. I guess. Just for natural reasons. Yeah, because it may. Okay, so the rivalry game, I mean, did the marketing department of the Texans take months to figure this out? I mean, or was this done like yesterday? Big bucks.

Two more home games left. November 29th is against the Ravens at Salute to Service. Nothing wrong with that. Kids Day, which is December the 20th. That's a sponsored thing. So that's not particularly original. And then the Tennessee Titans game is the Space City game presented at that game. The Space City game?

Okay. So they're going to wear like astronaut helmets instead of their Texans Toro helmets? That feels... do you even write a release on that? I mean, you kind of mean... Yes, Matt. And they're all presented by corporate sponsors. Don't be such a hater.

No, I'm just saying nothing really was stood out, right? What is the most exciting theme of the 10-game? A space city day? You didn't. Okay, explain it then. I'm going to wear my astronaut suit and go to the game. Are you really? Yeah. It's going to be a little tight in the seats.

We're a full astronaut gear. Are you going to wear that astronaut had it? I'm pulling up in a land rover. That would be, yeah, Ross will be the tall, six-foot guy in a white suit in a helmet of. on. Yes. All right. Oh, it's time for people to shut their bumasses out. Oh, let's go, baby. All right, look, you need to get this off your chest. Let us help you here at 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. Ain't nobody getting time for it? Ain't nobody getting time for it? Hey, nobody getting time for it. And I'm going to get bad for me.

1135 on Sports Talk 790. And it is the Matt Thomas show at Ross. 713-212-790. 7-1-3-2-2-2-7-90. If you'd like to join us, we'd love to have you here on a shut-your-bum-ass Wednesday. I want to give a special shout-out to the two people that I honked at on 59 coming in. Oh, wow. And I gave them both a middle finger for driving.

Oh, my. Maybe 55 in the far left lane today. Now, again, you don't want to go 80 in the far left. I get that. That's way past the speed limit. I get it. Get your ass out of the far left lane. So for those of you, the two of you that I middle fingered and honked at,

anybody got time for you going 55 in the far left lane. You know exactly who you are. Everybody got time for that. One of you was at 1960 and 59. The other one was at Green's Road. So North Siders, act your age, act strong, far left lane, speed. Other side, you're fine. Yeah.

Hey nobody got time for that. I agree with you with this wholeheartedly, Matt. I'm sorry, Jonathan. I can't, I can't handle that. I cannot handle the fact that you've got people in the far left lane going 55 miles an hour. It's just, it's awful. And I double middle finger people today. So that's just me.

And I just got an email. No, that was like a beer. Nick, we're adding context? I'm sorry. Production value? Don't even get me started. This is the computer. I've turned off the sounds three times now, but they keep coming back.

713, 212, 570. 710790. 713-1-2-570. Rossi, what's the matter with you? Okay, so the World Cup is going on, and there's been a lot of people talking about. Messi, who I think is the greatest professional sportsmen I've ever seen with my eyes. He's amazing.

He's great. But then you have all these people that are, propping up messy and then tearing down others, including most importantly, like Cristiano Ronaldo, who's an all-time great. He's not as great as Messi, because they're Ronaldo fans like to argue about that. But you don't have to downgrade one guy to celebrate another. I just don't understand where that became part of our discourse, like Kobe fans and LeBron fans and people who think Michael Jordan is the greatest all time and then they just want to bleep on LeBron or people who I think LeBron's the greatest of all time,

and they want to talk about Michael Jordan playing against plumbers. Like, can't we just celebrate everyone? Can we just be like, you know what? That guy's great and that guy's great too. You ever eaten a cheeseburger and you're like, you know what? Chicken tenders are terrible. No, you can enjoy both. It's okay.

Shut all your bum asses up. We can celebrate. Set your bum ass up, man. We can celebrate greatness without having to tear down another. You believe we're in 1979, don't you? Maybe we've never been able to do that. I don't know. But it's okay to say Cristiano Ronaldo is great and an all-time great.

And then it's okay to say, Lionel Messi is an all-time great and the greatest of all-time. It's like, for instance, for me, I've appreciated what Michael Jordan and LeBron and James have both brought to the NBA game. I love them both as players. I'm not big fans of one of them otherwise. I actually both got some matches character-wise, but that's the neither here nor there.

But you can love both of them without having to be put into a corner saying you must pick one. It's okay. It's okay to enjoy things. Like, we love Waterburger and they're bringing us lunch today. Uh-huh. I also love In and Out. I love them both. And it doesn't mean I'm a bad human being.

It means I've got a good, decent size power. We have our preferences, but that doesn't mean one is bad and one is serious. You know what? I love a good rabbi. I might prefer a New York strip or a filet. I'll eat all of them. You put them on a plate. I'm ready to go.

I, uh, you did get a surline last week, which kind of was like, what are you getting a surline for? You did? What's wrong with a sir one? Yeah. It's, uh, it's the Baytown of steaks. It's leaner. Zero flavor. It's less calories.

No, it had flavor. Surlain has zero flavor? In my mind, cheap cut of meat. I don't know. I'm anti-surline. Sorline is, it's lower calorie, and it's still high in protein and potassium.

Now you're steak shaming me for health. I'm not steak shaming you. I'm just telling you. I'm telling you the facts of why I ordered, and it was $15 cheaper. So I'm saving money, and it's a leaner cut of meat. We had a discount, though. Yeah, I understand. Okay.

Now, I like a good rib eye. Like, see, you're shaming me. Why? I can enjoy a sirloin. I love a riba. I literally, I cast iron pan seared a ribai last night. And quite frankly, it was delicious. Okay?

I made an excellent pepper-crusted pan-seered ribby last night because they were on sale at at Rachree-Ree-R-9-pound. Good for you. Good for you. Good. So I made some excellent. I'll send you the pictures of my meat. Okay?

I never want to see. your meat in pictures. I'm going to send you the pictures of my meat. It was delicious. Okay? Now I had a sirloin when we went to maltgrass and then at home I had a delicious rib eye. I can eat both. I can enjoy both. And here's some picks of my meat. If you'd like some picks of his meat, send him a follow on Instagram at SportsRV. If you don't want to see my meat because I'm not putting my meat on the photos. I may put the wings on there. I put the big city wings on the photos on there.

me on Instagram there at SportsMT. 713-212-5-7-90. 7-1-3-212-5-7-9. Anything else matter with you? No. They're pan-seared, medium-rare in the middle. Oh, you're still on your steak conversation? Yeah, you're making me upset.

That's fine. Shut your bum ass up. Jonathan, what's the matter with you? I'm mad at this dude called Dan Clark Sports on Twitter. Oh, long block. Oh, that guy's long blocks. Okay, so I didn't notice that who it was, but he's, talking about jazz chisholm on the yankees

and I don't know if he saw, but he's on the field and just like feeling and you know, sucking on a lollipop. What? That's what he's doing. He's got a lollipot. I guess those double bubble lollipops whatever. Yes. He goes, Jazz Chisholm is an attention-seeking idiot. His stupidity never seems to

amaze me. Not only is he is this terribly dangerous for himself, he is sitting an atrocious example for young kids watching. Well, somebody think of the children. Now, Jazz Chisholm does seek attention. But I mean, who cares? Because he's eating a lollipop?

What are we talking about? I don't get it. We see baseball players doing dip and just all the other stuff, but we're talking about a lollipop? That's a bad example for kids. Yeah, this guy's a troll or an idiot. Just mute him. I was like, I saw it something like, this is no way.

This is like, you're talking about a bad example for kids because he's eating the lollipop. They're for kids. I don't know enough about it. I would say it's probably, At the end of the day, Dan Clark sucks. Yeah, that's, that was the easy block for you, by the way. Shut your bum ass up, Dan Clark.

I will say this, Jonathan. There was a baseball player that I was a fan of when I was a kid. He played for the Kansas City Royals. His name was U.L. Washington. That name doesn't ring a bell to you under any circumstance, correct? No. U.L. would play with a toothpick in his mouth. Oh, okay.

That's what they're quoting on the post. They're putting pictures of him on a toothpick. Now, that to me is way more dangerous than him sucking on a lollipop. Could you imagine Ross sucking on something while the show was on the air trying to speak? See, I saw the gears turning, Jonathan. He's going to try to spin this somehow. By the way, you all Washington. By the way, you suck on lozages sometimes and talk on air.

Yeah, because I'm trying to melt this velvety voice of mine. Make sure it's good for the four hours of working with you and maybe a Rockets game at night. Yeah, that's going to happen sometimes. So you're always sucking on stuff during the show. Folks, you did it. You started it. Ross sent me pictures of my meat.

Pictures of his meat. What do you think? I mean, looks flavorful. Pepper crust looks pretty good, right? You just sit down on the grill, right? Cast iron. How hot did you get it?

Did you figure it out? Extremely, I don't know. I mean, it's medium rare in the middle. How long take you to cook in each side? I do it about 90 seconds aside. That's it. Very high heat, do 90 seconds. Salt them down for a couple hours.

Put a lot of pepper on there. And I actually use a bird. burger masher to push them into the pan to get the crust. Okay. And these are my secret tips. And what was your side dish? cauliflower mash. Really? That was not on the big board. Yeah. Good for you.

All right. There you go. So if you want to see Ross's meat. Oh, should I put it on my IG story? Yeah, you should. Okay. And just say, this is my meat. 713-212-5-7.0. 7-13-1-2-5-7-0. So nobody's in a bad mood, huh? Everybody's chilling.

Maybe the Astros are winning and y'all just chill. Five of the last seven, they've won. Well, Joe's spotta coming up at 1230. It's always good to have them after a win. It's a couple of weeks in a row now. I think we've got, this will be the third shirt we've talked up to win. Good. Man, it ain't fun talking after our loss.

No, it's not. Well, you lost 10 to 1 last night. And you used eight relievers. How you doing, Joe? What did you think about Joe? What did you think about Joe? What did you think about Joe? No, you didn't do that.

Nice comeback thriller as well. Joey Lopo Fido with the big swing and the 10th. 11th, excuse me. Watching Toronto games is kind of fun. They, they, it is, and I don't mean to overly brag on a city that's not ours because I'm, you know, of course I'm Mr. Texas. But they didn't have a sellout yesterday,

but they had like $37,000 for an afternoon game. I mean, they love their Blue Jays. And granted, they're also the American League champion, so you would expect them to have a good house. Still, you weren't selling out Mondays and Tuesdays here. that consistently, depending on who's in town, I guess. And when I travel at the NBA, guess who's in their seats at Tip Time? Toronto fan.

Toronto fan? The Raptors? Yes. Hmm. Good for them. And they don't even need real singers. When it's time to sing O Canada, they all just do it all together. Nobody sings.

They just play the song. And everybody sings it. A little organ and we get going. Oh, really? Yeah. Craig and I sing it. Two of them, too. Oh, that's cool.

That's cute. Because we want to... You guys love O Canada. you think it's better. You hate America because you think it's better than the Star Spangled Banner,

which it's not. It's a better anthem. It just is. No, it's not. It is. Star Spangled Banner. Goat. No, O Canada,

easy to sing, easy to remember. And just delightful. Now, not everything about Canada's delightful. You know what? I can enjoy O Canada and I can enjoy Star Spangled Banner, but I have a preference.

You know what? I respect that, Ross. Thank you, Matt. In 2016, we can respect each other's opinions. By the way, I put up picks of my meat on my Instagram. I'm getting a lot of likes

on the picks of my meat. meat. That's funny. People have been asking for your meat for a while. Yeah. You've been hiding that for a while. All right. You see, the meat puns are going to continue unless you all want to come in here. It's really y'all's fault. Shout out to David. He's backing me up on the sirline. High protein, low fat. And less flavor.

Yeah. And I mean, I'm going to just, here's my thought of us. You don't have to, do you only ever 100,000 percent ever eat a ribby? If the last 10 steak meals, now sirloin, you can make like a Philly cheese steak, you can slice it thin. There is room for sirloin on the dinner menu. Okay. But the last 10 times I've either cooked or eaten the steak at a restaurant. It's either been a rabbi or once in a while a strip, New York strip. Other than that, I've never purchased a sirloin probably.

What about a fillet mignon? I've done that as well. Okay. You can enjoy it all, Matt. It's all beefy. I like a flank steak, too. What's up? I like flank steak.

I'll marinate a flank snake, and I'll sear that bad boy and slice it up, too. Yeah. I just, sirloin to me, would be just kind of a waste. Okay. Well, it wasn't a waste. It was good in my belly. Well, at least you're happy. That's right.

All right. We've got the top of the hour coming up. We're going to run through. How did you like my choice of music today for taking care of business? Oh, I didn't even realize that BTO was Canadian. So what I did last night is I looked up greatest rock songs from Canadian rock bands and their

song came up with one of the top ones. I thought this is perfect. I'll go, you ain't seen nothing yet, and now it's your turn for a BTO song. Don't cry out loud? That sounds made up. Is that real? No, of course not. You could have sold me.

You set me up terribly for that. They have like one, right? They only have, their two-hit wonder? they have another one. Bachman Turner owner drive overdrive. Yeah, but I mean, two really big

Canadian bangers. You know, Stephen King had a pseudonym and he used Bachman because of Bachman Turner Overnor Overdrive. Is that right? Yes.

Little things you know. You know what we can do Believe it or not today is this a Canadian entertainer or not? Making it nice simple. Canadian or dead? Wasn't that a SNL bit

or something like that? That I don't know. Or was on MTV? Canadian or that's actually pretty good. That's almost like I'm dead or alive. Yeah. So you can do Canadian or dead.

We could just Canadian or not. Yeah, Canadian or not. Or, I don't know. Some of the funniest people alive are from Canada. Yes. Jim Carrey? I said, funniest people alive. Jim Carrey's one of the funniest people alive.

He had such a good early career, but now he's just old and cranky. He is cranky. He's a painter now. Is he? Yeah. Best Jim Carrey movie for you. Dumb and dumber. The first one.

Well, duh. Ace Ventura, I mean, really hit the scene good. Ace Ventura was funny. Truban Show was great. Truman Show was good. The one that I really wanted to think was really enjoyable, but it got super dark, was Cable Guy. Cable Guy was good. Yeah, it's dark comedy.

Cable guy underrated. Too dark. Underrated. What was the one where, oh, liar, liar was pretty funny because I feel like if that was ever given to me, I would have a terrible time living. Eternal Sunshine and the Spotless Mind. Have you seen that one, Jonathan? No, I haven't. That's a good one.

That's a good, like, film film. And he had, I wouldn't recommend to Matt. And he had one, thanks. And he had one of the hotties in the 90s. Lauren Holley's his wife, right? Yes. They married? Yeah, because they were in Dumb and Dumber together.

Yes. That's where they met. Yeah. I haven't caught Sonic the Hedgehog 3, so I don't know how good he was in that. That's, it's an animated, you're fine on that. I saw the first one. But it's funny. He went from, and this happens to everybody, Will Ferrell kind of the same way.

I mean, one hit after the other to, to, Now he's cranking out Sonic the Hedgehogs every two years. Look, they're on the Sonic the Hedgehog 4. Well, he's always doing well then. 20, 22, 24, and 2027, Sonic the Hedgehogs. These must be getting big checks in the million. This is pretty easy. Have your nieces and nephew's been watching any shows?

I think maybe. I saw the first one because I loved Sonic the Hedgehog when I was in the 90s. That was my favorite game. See you or the Head Hog. I remember the cheat code. Up, down, left, right, a, hold A, and start. That's how you unlock all the, all the, all the levels. The things you learn here on the Matt Thomas show are here to help.

Thank you very much for all that. We have the news at noon coming up. Yes. Joe Espott is coming up in 30 minutes. Yes. And believe it or not, is this person Canadian? That's a even nice and easy. I like that.

You know why we need one? Because we've not given away a single ticket this week on believe it or not. Because your question has been too difficult. I'm sorry. And they haven't been that difficult. People haven't been answering them well. not that well. That's because they jump in the show at 150. People are asking where my picks of my meat are.

That would be on Instagram at Sports RV. Thank you. Thank you, Troy, for asking. Oh, that's good. Troy's asking for pictures of your meat. Yes. You should be pleased. All right, let's get to the news at noon here with a word first for uptown appliance repair.

Well, this got weird really quick. What was weird? That men are asking for your meat picks. Yeah, they're up on Instagram at Sports. survey on my story. Put on your Twitter. No, I'm trying to build the Instagram. Oh, I see. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

Headlines of the day, the Astros win 9-7. Have a chance to win another series tonight in Toronto on deck at 5 with Chris Gordy. First pitch at 607, I'll have the 10th inning show after the game. Also, Joe Spada

joined us a half an hour ago so that Christian Walker gets a day off and Isak Prado's will pay it first base. Mike Burroughs on the mound. Remember Ross, my gut feeling was it Mike Burroughs. I was bullish on him. Yeah, I believe you said eight innings of one run ball tonight.

Was your gut feeling, right? I could have said that for sure. No, you didn't. I'm not putting that on you. Now, you also said that you're going to see Jake Myers start to tear it up? Jake Myers. Jake the rake? Hot streak, baby. Within the next 30 days, you heard you here first. All right. And yes, Yesterday to see how hot he was.

He was out. He was out of the lineup. Jake Myers was a pinch runner in center fielder and went zero for zero. Yeah, see? Didn't strike out, didn't make it out. So he didn't necessarily cool off. Yeah, exactly. He's got the damn to clear his head. He's going to be ready to go.

He's ready to dominate. He's ready to show you punks, what's up. All right, I got you. All you doubters. You know, they call him doubting Thomas's. Yes, that's you. That's right. So there was a newspaper writer of you, sorry for the Houston Post named Jay Frank, who listens to the show occasionally, so to this day.

Okay. And he would always take nicknames of people in the marketplace. Mm-hmm. And he said, hey, you're going to be my media person on the week. This is probably 25 years ago. And I said, he says, what nickname should I use? And I said, well, people always say what a Downing Thomas is. Okay.

So I go to the Friday's negative TV writing media column, and he puts, this week's media personality is Matt English muffin Thomas English muffin Thomas Yeah because Thomas is a brand of English muffins I didn't know that Yeah In fact I would probably have to say

They're probably number one in English muffin making Oh really? Yeah I got them in my top three I got them on my Mount Rushmore Of English muffin Who else is in your top three? Pepperidge Farms You don't even know that

Mrs. Bairds Now that's a possibility But yeah Thomas He's English. Okay. You asked me. That's true. But Donnie Thomas was a piece of cake, right?

Thomas English muffins? It seems negative. It seems too negative for me. Well, have you met me? Yeah, I know. Well, we call you peach basket. That's your nickname. You're a vast basketball knowledge in history.

You're a peach basket Thomas. All right. Or full throat, Thomas. I prefer Mr. Texas. 113, 212, 5, 790. Let's go to Scott and River Oaks once to talk to the World Cup. I beg out, say hi to Ross on soccer 790. Hold on, Matt.

Hold on. So you were not here the last time I called in to talk about the World Cup. I believe it was Ross. It was you and Bogie. I'm like you, Matt. I'm not a traditional soccer guy. I've called it many times. This would be the second time ever that I've called in to talk about the World Cup.

But I would consider myself now one of the guys that has. seen the proverbial light, so to speak. I've been very, very entertained by this cup. Now, full disclosure, I think something that's helped garner my attention is I've been placing responsible wagers on these games. Mm-hmm. Of course. If you want to try and view it from a different perspective,

I do think, as someone who, again, wages responsibly, it is one of the more entertaining sports to bed. on because the drama keeps building and building and building. And every time the team you're rooting for touches the ball or if you have the over or if you have the under, there's just always something to root for with it. So if you want to Ross maybe to help get him entertained, you guys can make a little, let Matt pick aside,

whatever he wants, you all bet whatever is. We've been doing some dollars. I've already, I won yesterday. He had gone a plus a goal and a half and they didn't score a goal in the game. So, yeah, I won a Harry. Kane. Jackass. Did you watch the game?

No, it should have been a penalty for Ghana. No chance. Yeah, I watched the game. It was a good game. Now, not to make it all peaches, peaches and rainbows. Like, the original thing I wanted to make sure I threw out there when I called about the water.

Peaches and rainbows. Are you mixing your metaphors? Yeah. Not to make it sound like it's all the greatest thing in the world. Yeah, that was my metaphor. Okay, so I'm going to give you a chance to try this one time. Sunshine and herb? And herb?

And herb. Or peaches and rainbows. Or peaches and rainbows. Okay. My due over a chance is I'll say not to make it sound like it's all hunky dory. There you go. You know what? Everybody appreciates a good hunky dory.

Are the kids saying hunky dory? Jonathan, you know what I mean when we say it's hunky dory? We know, but no one says that. Okay. Nobody. Hey, give it, hunky-dory, kids? I'm on the radio, so I can't. I'm not fairly used the language that I would use when I'm speaking with my friends.

I'll ask you this. Roll fast, we get to your last question. Would you rather say hunky-dory or easy-peasy? Hunky-dory. Okay. Go on, please. So I do think we're getting to a point where the group stage has dragged on a little long, I would say. I don't know, Ross, do you agree with that or not? Well, I mean, it starts wrapping up today. It's literally the last round. So the group stage, yeah, I mean, when you have a bunch of these countries that don't belong, I'm with you. I'm ready for knockouts. I'm ready for the big dog. to eat. It's kind of like the first couple rounds of the NCAA tournament. You're like, that's cool high point university. I'm ready for you getting knocked out. It's time for some Kansas

versus North Carolina. Exactly. Well, I think they could double down and make it even more like the NCAA tournament. Instead of three games a day, let's do six games a day. Let's get the TV package. I got great news for you. There's six games today.

There's six games today, tomorrow and Friday and Saturday, I think. No, you're right. they could have been doing this from the beginning. That's all I'm saying. You know, the U.S., when they played their first game, I was like, wouldn't they play again? They don't play again for another week.

I mean, that should happen later in the tournament. And I think once they get into the knockout stages, the games are like three or four days apart. I just think that should be the inverse. Yeah, well, they can't play every other day. They've got to run around for 90 minutes, so you've got to space them out. Scott, that's true.

Pleasure to visit with you, as always. Thank you very much, and congratulations on your success. and perhaps you are trading these things on Kalshi. You could be. Hopefully, and if you trade on Kalshi, get you a $20 bonus. When you trade 20, K-A-L-S-H-I, K-A-L-S-H-I. Do you use a promo code 7-90?

Yes, you do. Bupkis. That's right. It's easy peasing, and it's hunky-dory. If you use Kalshi with the 7-90 code. It's all peaches and rainbows. Love it. Jonathan, when Ross said peaches and herb,

did that do anything for you? He has no idea. Nothing. They didn't do anything for me. honestly I've been looking at y'all like what do y'all you know you know when like you're at the adult table you just kind of like listening oh you know some peaches and herb probably you know reunited and it feels so good don't you a little shake your groove thing oh I went with more of the softer side yeah I don't know any other songs are there that's it we're I think we're knocked out of two hit one or peaches and herb I wonder are you don't want them alive I'm gonna say both just because I don't know where we got to be one of them dude it's not the piping house I'm gonna guess at the end of day The herb is probably dead, right? Yeah, I know this is too slow, but you speed this up. This is what we used to play when one of us would come back from vacation.

Yes, we'd take some time off. Yes. This is pizzas and herb. Yes, reunited. Herb, herb fame is alive. Francine is dead. Oh, you missed. I had it backwards.

Oh, this is like some old pick up stuff. Oh, there have been a number of different peaches. I don't mean to gross you out, John. He just kept getting replaced. No way. Yeah. How many peaches are there? Three.

Are they all lined? One of which is dead. Which one is this? I think this is the original, Francine Edna Hurd Baker. There's two females in this song. I don't know. Linda Green is also peaches. She's peaches number three.

All right. There you go. All things peaches and herb. No, we're not doing that today. What are we doing? Canadian or not? Canadian or not? Okay.

By the way, shout out to Ram Shirts. He says that's the type of meat I dream about. Talking about my meat. I've met Ram Shirts guy. He dreams of meat constantly. Thank you. Bonnie Joe says that your meat looks juicy and just the way I like it. So shout out to Bonnie Joe.

Look, we're down to 47 minutes left for this show. It hasn't been some of our best work. We've tried to make it a good sports show. We talked to NHL to Houston. We did not talk about NBA draft much because there's no rocket draft pick. Oh, by way, let's go back to do. Jalen Brown, we come back. Okay.

Because we'll get the Brian Bogosovic replay coming up at the bottom of the hour. So we will get your baseball fix-in as well. And believe it or not, today, is this person Canadian or not? 7-13-212-5-7-19. All right, real quick, a little NBA chatter. Ross got dark during the break. Not like his meat. It remains pink in the middle.

Succulent and juicy. How many likes have you gotten on your meat so far? today. It's like 20 something. That's the most likes you've ever had in your meat in your life. I don't even know what to say to that. You shouldn't say anything. All right, so Jalen Brown.

It looks like close to 25. Yeah. Yeah, you can say on Instagram, add Sports RV on my story. Well, next time I put my meat out there, I will see how many if I can get some more likes. Okay, Jaylen Brown. It was hard to pay attention to the draft yesterday. because there was just so little drama.

Plus, again, when the Rockets aren't involved in the first round, they've got two in the second round here tonight. It feels like to me that I was looking for trades. Interesting stories. Now, by the way, word today that Austin Reeves is going to re-sign with the Los Angeles Lakers, getting a big money deal. Yes, I meant to mention that the news at noon, $185 million over four years. That's what, $40, 46 a million a year?

Can I make the gut feeling on a Wednesday? with even though it's supposed to be out on Tuesday. $46 million a year for Austin Reeves. Remember when I told you that Jalen Brown 50 ain't much? Well, staying with the Lakers real quick. LeBron doesn't want a discount. LeBron wants as much money as he can get. As he should.

As he should. So with that being said, there's no way they can pay everybody. I don't know what's going on. Luca is going to be looking for a new deal, right? Or does there already have one? I mean, he's always looking for a new deal. I think he's got a couple years left, but I don't know if that doesn't mean he's not eligible for an extension. Now, granted, Luke, in a couple of years, you'll have to tend with, or you wouldn't necessarily don't want to worry about that with LeBron.

I never thought that LeBron wearing Golden State Warrior gear would be a possibility, but I'm now going to put that in the possibility range. Yeah. Get the unction going? All the old guys, Draymond and LeBron and Steph? Because I think if there's any franchise That would overpay and go to the second apron It would be the most successful financial franchise in the NBA It'd be the Golden State Warriors

It's like the plot of Uncle Drew but real life Yeah Three more years for Luca plus a player option So technically up to four more years So it doesn't impact now But I mean if you're giving Austin that money And Luca's already got good money I mean I guess can you pay him?

August of last year he signed an extension Luca So he's probably another year away So the Jalen Brown story was brought up a few times during the draft last night and the easy question to all the national media was like, wait a minute, you dangled him out there, how

does he feel? And if you listen to Shams, who obviously has got his ear on the ground of everything, it sounds like that the Celtics are still saying, hey, we'll take some phone calls. And there have been a handful of teams that have been associated with said phone calls. Whether how deep those phone calls are

or how long they win or but the Houston Rockets were a on that list of phone calls. Portland was on that list of phone calls. Houston was. I'm trying to think who else was in that mix of Jalen Brown phone call. I can't remember who it was. I have a stupid question.

Please. Why would the Celtics move Jalen Brown at this point? He was just number six in the MVP. You got Jason Tatum back. You were the number two seed. The East, I don't want to say, is wide open, but you're amongst the East contenders where there is no... Miami didn't become the lead dog favor, by the way.

There's no clear favor. Right. There's no no doubt about it, clear favorite like there is in the West. It's thunder spurs and everyone else. Why would you be moving Jalen Brown? Unless he is really that hurt, say, I am not going, unless he's refusing to play for them, why would you not run it back? If you dangle me out once, what's to make you think I'm not going to do it again? Yeah. The other team I was thinking about was a Cleveland Cavaliers. Okay. And then what is Donovan Mitchell involved in that deal? Evan Mobley could be involved in that.

Evan Mobley? Hey, there's a drive. La Field God! Home run Miami! Oh, yes. Marlon's up 4-1 now. Suck it, Rangers. That's good news.

Here's the problem with Jaylen Brown. No matter how pissed off he is or how his feelings are hurt. He makes crazy, crazy money. Ross, we talked about the show yesterday. He's got a not an impossible contract to move, but a very difficult contractor. He's got to be going through it right now. I understand.

Your feelings are going to be hurt, for sure. But they're in a great position. Don't want to go west. I mean, yeah, everybody's laying out Jalen Brown trade scenarios. I just don't get it. And again, I get it when it's for Yonis.

I get that. I don't get it if it's not going to be for a superstar player. But let me ask you this. Does Jalen Brown think Jalen Brown is as good as Janus or better? Mine guess is he does. Probably, yeah.

I'm younger. He's wrong. I've played more. Yeah. And I can hit more three-pointers. And free throws. And free throws. Now we've got a double in the gap.

Man, this is getting good. Good job, fish. Let's go, Marlins. Go on for a triple. Let's go, baby. Sorry to interrupt our NBA with this, but we're happy. The 4,000 people the Marlins game are thrilled. We hate watching the Rangers.

I think it's understandable. So, yeah, I don't know what they're going to do. I don't know why Brad Stevens is very smart. Brad Stevens is like a baseball savannah, I should say. I just think the Celtics may want to move him, but that contract is going to involve a lot of heavy pieces that are also bringing back salary back to the Celtics. Apparently Brad Stevens says he's been in contact with Jalen Brown

when he was putting him in trade talks. Like he was up front about it. Like, hey, we might be moving you. And you can probably sell it to us that way as saying, well, you know what, we're not moving you for chopped liver. We're going for a guy who's a multiple time MVP, world champion. You kind of get it. And he's like, yeah, okay, I get it.

No. Yeah. Just because you get in contact with some doesn't mean you'd still like it. How about this from Jalen Brown, though? If Jalen Brown says, well, you don't think we're good enough. You're trying to get yonness because you don't think we're good enough to win it all. Then why should I think we're good enough to win it all? Yeah.

I just think, no matter who is on the other side of the trade, if you use me as a trade chip, I get my feelings hurt. Yeah. if you don't think you're good enough with me, then why should I stay? And why should you think that I'm coming back to your team and you're like, oh, so glad to have you when they really didn't want to have you as better. I guess I could see that.

713-212-5-790. A topic we'll use tomorrow on the show. Mike Vrabel's girlfriend, Diana Resini, making 800 Gs to work at the athletic. I'm sorry. I'm an athletic subscriber. I did not read one of my money back.

Can I get a piece back of my subscription? Lord. The media dollars that are being spent on some people. Give that to Chandlero. Give that to Chandlero. Well, we'll got to read, too. My guy covers the Rockets. Okay.

Good dudes. Serious, $800,000 for Diana Rossini. Are you kidding me? So she can sleep with the get her information? Well, she was getting the stories, Matt. They didn't ask how. $800,000 for her? All right.

Oh, geez. I mean, I'm telling the truth. Teddy Truff. What's what you're on today, by the way? I need to know for a very specific reason right now. Canada or not? Canadian or not? Let's go.

We're going to let you hear from Brian Bogus. He's an American. He was on with us earlier today to discuss the Astros and how crazy last night's game was up for nothing only to have to win it in extra frames. Yeah, it was, honestly, yesterday's game felt like two games. I mean, first of all, just because of length of game,

but the way the first, I don't know, four, four, five innings, played out where it just was kind of stale offense very much like the day before where there was a base runners but nobody was really getting anything going and then the second half of the game where it was like no lead is safe we're just going to go back and forth and trade runs um it was it was a wild game there were a lot of swings um those games are exhausting begin with um it's a good thing you win though because they feel they feel twice as exhausting if you don't get the way to spend all of that energy and all of those resources to come up empty.

I'll say this, and I don't know if the Astros are going to have a change by the time the game is going tonight because you've got a customs in Toronto, but this bullpen has beat the hell up, Brian. You know, tonight's starter is going to have to go deep in this contest because, man, you get a lot of tired arms. I mean, Brian King's thinking about throwing with his right army, he's that tired. They've thrown a ton of pitches. They've used a lot of guys. They've had guys kind of overextend themselves. It seems like every outing for a reliever is come into the game, get out of this jam and finish the inning,

and then go out there for the next inning and try to get through that inning. They feel overextended. And you really felt yesterday you felt that one man short in the pen because they're in the six-man rotation. It felt like they needed one more leverage guy down there and the game almost got away because of it. But, you know, they did a nice job, but no, you're right. there are some logistical issues to getting somebody into Toronto about, but yeah, they can certainly use six innings or more from Burroughs today and hopefully a big enough lead to where they don't have to push it with some of these guys.

So not only do they need length from a guy, they need goodness from a guy who was demoted very shortly to the bullpen. So I'd like to say don't make too much out of this one start. So I'm not going to make too much out of this one start because it will be atypical. If Burroughs was to struggle today, he's going to have to kind of work his way out of it while on the mound, not by sitting in the dugout after a subpar performance. That's why hopefully he doesn't have that today. Yeah, he's going to be out there for 90 plus pitches probably regardless of what it is.

You know, and that's just kind of the state of the Jingstaff right now. And, you know, first and foremost, he's going to have to, he's going to have to command his fastball. That's been the pitch that has got him. this year. And it's the inconsistencies with location. There's been a lot of fastballs that have shown up in the middle and he's gotten hurt big on them. And if he can get that pitch going and stay ahead and counts, it's also, it's a very difficult Toronto lineup to nap. We've seen the last two days, both Peter Lambert and Hunter Brown, neither of them had their best stuff by any means. But it's just a Toronto offense that just

wears you down, wears he out, makes you throw a lot of pitches. So he's going to have to be really aggressive in the zone, but also be pretty sharp to have those pitches be effective. And not only just the mentality of burrows, can you just kind of give us some insight, maybe even the whole team to where, you know, if you're a great team, you're building all this momentum and we're going to try to be contenders.

If you're really bad, you're like, all right, well, we suck. The Astros have been somewhere in between and, of course, below 500 all season long. What is that like for the team that feels like they're maybe spinning their wheels and trying to dig out of these ruts and they can't always

consistently find it? Well, it can be frustrating because you see glimpses of what it can be. We've seen some games, especially recently, where they've played really well, and they've played kind of well-rounded games, and we've had games where they've pitched really well. We've got games where the offense has shown up. So there's a lot in there. So it can be frustrating that it doesn't show up as consistently as you hope. But at the same time, everybody knows that they haven't really been whole at any point this season. You know, they're getting closer and they're almost there and knock on wood that Jeremy Payne is not going to be out for any extended period. But it's kind of, yeah, we're not where we want to be, but we know what we can be

if we get it going. And, you know, you just kind of hold the line and keep your head above water until you make the run until everybody's there until it clicks with everybody. And then hopefully you run off the stretch of games for a couple of weeks that puts you back to where you want to be. Brian Bogus-Evick with us here on Sports Talk 790. Another massive bomb from Cam Smith yesterday. And it feels like if you just watched the highlight of his home runs, you'd think the dude is like hitting 35, 40 home runs. And I ask you, we've kind of talked about him throughout the year, Brian.

Like what is it that he continues to, we see these flashes from him as well, as we're talking about the whole team being inconsistent, that he needs to do to be more consistent. Well, he's got a long way to go in terms of his growth and development as there. I mean, just where he's at in terms of professional at batts under his belt. I mean, he had 135, 140 played appearances in the minor leagues before he got here. You look at other guys who've come up through the organization over the years, guys like George Springer, guys like Kyle Tucker.

You're talking about 1,000 plus at bat, 1,500 plus played appearances in the minor leagues. It's a lot of time to work on stuff and figure stuff out and make minor adjustments and say, hey, maybe this week I'm going to try something for the next 30 at bat and see what I get out of it. He's doing all this stuff at the Major League level. He's doing all this stuff in a win now environment. But, yeah, when it flashes, it's crazy. I mean, he's got as much power as anybody. He's huge.

He's filling out. He's got long levers. He creates a ton of power. And when he can more consistently, number one, figure out the pitches that he wants to hunt to drive on his pole side. Number two, figure out his timing and his start to when he needs to be ready to get the bat into position and just find that contact point. There's a ton of power. There's no doubt that he's going to have seasons later on in his career where he hits 30 plus home runs. He's just that strong.

And he's a good hitter. He puts the barrel on the ball. He just does it in the back of his swing, most consistent. consistently right now. And as that moves forward and as that creeps out a little bit further in front of him, as he learns how to do that, the power is going to be there because it's significant power. Bogie, the outfield offense collectively was a worry spot for the team when they left spring training. And it's still to this day as we approach the end of June. That's a tough spot for your manager to be in because it feels like if I was in his shoes,

I don't, I can't give you the right combination. We've seen Yordawn play a lot of left field, not a lot of more in the last a week or so. I've given Cam Smith the day off. I put Joey Loporffito out there. I've tried DeSenzo. I've tried Cole before this. I've tied Tremel. If you are the bench coach for your manager in Joe Espada, putting you in that role,

what are you all talking about when it comes to how the hell are they going to figure this out if nobody's willing to step up and really be that consistent hitter that this team needs? Yeah, there's no, there's no end-all be-all answer, right? It's not, hey, it's going to be these three. guys, those are our guys. Really what it is is you have to play it on the day by day, almost at bat by at bat matchup by matchup kind of way and just try to find edges, try to find situations that tip the scales in your favor, try to find advantages for certain guys, keep your eye on guys during batting practice, see how their swings looks, see if they're

looking confident, and you're basically just going to be playing hot hands. And I don't know that anybody's really going to break out to a point to where besides Cam Smith, he's going to be pretty much every day in right field from this point forward, but it's just going to be, hey, Taylor Smell took a great

swing yesterday and hit a ball a mile. We're facing a righty today, he's probably going to be in the lineup and just ride it out as long as you can. And then knowing in the back of your mind that if the signs start to show that it's not there anymore, what's our next move? What's our next matchup? Who's our next guy that we

can slot in there. How can we shuffle guys between the different positions to get the right mix for any given day? And I think that's all you can do because I don't think there's any real everyday answer internally. All right. So we kept thinking this month was going to be a softer month and the Astros are playing winning baseball. It's not the 600 level, but it's a few games above 500. The wild card is within reach. The division is within reach. And I brought this up to Ross last hour. And I think it's worthy of your thoughts. Look, the Astros are under 500. This division is the worst in baseball, but honestly, you have to play the cards that are dealt to you. If this team was, say, nine or ten games about

five hundred and six back, we'd be full way worse than we are. So I don't know what the clubhouse demeanor is. I don't know what the general manager's demeanor is about buying and selling around the deadline or the ownership group, but you kind of have to play what's in front of you. And that is beating up on subpar teams, beating up on a Toronto team that's right in front of you in the wild card and beating up with a Detroit team who's playing better as of late, but they're way underachieving and they're probably going to move Terrick Scoobo at the deadline. Yeah, and you also have to look at it from the standpoint of what the team is and what the organization is in terms of their contention trajectory. If this was a very young, you know, just out of a rebuild

type of team, you might say, hey, let's pump the brakes a little bit because, you know, we're not going to go and just dump a bunch of resources into a team that's kind of fringely contending, but because this is a championship pedigree team, because you have a lot of veterans, you have Jose Altuve later in his career, you have Jordan Alvarez in the prime of his career, you are in go for it mode. You are in win now mode. So you can say, hey, look, this team, if you have a chance to get in, you are dangerous because they know how to win. They've been there before. If you get to the playoffs, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, you know, think the a, the Astros were going to be overmatched against anybody in a playoff type of series. You have an ace at the top of the rotation.

you have veteran hitters who have played that kind of baseball before. So, yes, because of that kind of trajectory that they're on where they're at as an organization, as long as you are still alive in a playoff race, you are still going for it. All right, that's what they got to do. Three and a half out, two of the walled card. Three and a half out of the first place in the American League West. Chance to gain some more ground today. And the on-deck show at Gordi at 5.

I'll have the 10th inning shot for that. First pitch will be at 607. Girls? Who's bullish on them sports RV? America. This guy. 713-212-5-790. Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We should play America's fastest-growing sports radio game show. We simply call it B. Believe it or not, and here's how it works.

You call 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. Today's edition of Believe it or not is all things about whether this celebrity is from Canada. If they are, you'll say this. Believe it. If they're not, you'll say this. Not. Two believe it or not in a row, and we got some prize giveaway.

We got Black Crow and Whiskey Meyer tickets on their Southern Hospitality tour, August the 8th of the Woodlands Favilion. Tickets are on sale now at Ticketmaster.com for the Black Crows and Whiskey Myers on August the 8th. Let's talk to Ken on 790. Ken, you ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Ken, Jason Sudakis is from Toronto, Ontario. Believe it or not. Not.

Name number two for the win. Adam Driver is from Charlottetown Prince Edward Island. Believe it or not? Not. Correct. Winner. Thank you. Ross, what does Adam Driver do?

He's a famous actor? All right. I'm going to need some help on some of these. I know. Thank you. 713-212-5-790. Scott, your favorite part of today's 10-2-2-2-2-0. Scott, your favorite part of today's 10-2-2

radio show. Oh, you know I never miss Brian Bogus Seventh. William Shatner's from Montreal, Quebec. Believe it or not? William Shatner? Yeah. Sure, why not? Believe it. The game is not called sure why not.

Here we go. Statement number two for the win. Michael Sarah, what does Michael Serra do, sports, Harvey? He's another famous actor. Michael Sarah's from Brampton, Ontario. Believe it or not. Believe it. Believe it.

That's right. That's two winners. Like Arrested Development, Super Bad. Oh, Super Bad, I like. Year 1. Blake on 790. Blake, you're ready to play Believe it or not? Believe it.

Steve Carell is from Missogana, Ontario. Believe it or not? Believe it? No, thanks for playing. Do you know who's from Missogana? Who? Dylan Brooks. Wow.

Things you learn on the Matt Thomas show. Bill, what is your favorite Black Crow song? She talks to angels Nelly Furtado's from Victoria, British Columbia. Believe it or not? Believe it. Yeah. Name number two for the win. Ryan Gosling is from London, Ontario.

Believe it or not? Not. He is, but thanks for playing. See you. Hill, what's your favorite Canadian province? Fighter. Who's Leboos? Shai.

Is her name Shia LaBouf? Is it from Montreal, Quebec? Believe it or not? Believe it. No, goodbye. Get out of here. We should have played. We or no.

But that's only part of Canada. Let's go to Ruben on 790 Rubin. You're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Eugene Levy's from Hamilton, Ontario. Believe it or not? Nah. Oh, come on.

He was part of the SEC Trud Comedy Squad. Ike on 790 Ike you're ready to play believe it or not Believe it Gildner Radner is from Toronto Ontario Believe it or not Believe it No she's from L.A. We had a couple winners at least

That's good Back tomorrow for four hours McTagrits in Paris I'll be back in one hour Where you going? Take a little break? I'm going to go home and yeah Refresh

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