The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Take Game 2 vs Rockies, Sitting #2 In The American League & Comfortably #1 In the AL West With A Record of 52-34.

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Astros Take Game 2 vs Rockies, Sitting #2 In The American League & Comfortably #1 In the AL West With A Record of 52-34.

in H-town. What's happening? Here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross, it is a Thursday edition, but we are going with a Friday edition, open of the Matt Thomas show with Ross, without Matt Thomas, with Chris Gordy. I feel like that one needs to be played every week. The cheeks was an all-time bit. I mean, the whole thing.

The hamster is in the freezer. If you haven't heard it, you can find it. my Instagram at SportsRV. Welcome into the Matt Thomas show with Ross without Matt Thomas. He is out. His daughter is volleyballing her face off in Dallas. It is the national championships. I do want to say I appreciate Matt for hanging out the first three days of this week. He didn't have to do that. He had some vacation time, but he said, you know what? I'm going to step up to the plate. It's slow around this time. Plus there's been some other guys out like Adam Clanton who takes vacation about 15 weeks a year. So Matt Thomas stepping up big this week

And being on the show, I do appreciate him for that But he is out today Chris Gordy is here with me hanging out I also appreciate him because Chris Gordy, tell the good folks where we're at right now Yeah, we're out here at Carbock Brewing Inside the Pizza and Pints, air-conditioned Now, quick disclaimer, they don't open until 11

So don't come out here until 11 But if you're looking for a place to grab lunch, grab a brew, grab a Crawford-Bock And watch afternoon Astroo Ross, we will have the on-deck show for you from taking up to 140, and then we'll send it to Robert Ford and Steve Sparks to 10 first pitch central. You will hear Astros of Rockies. Astros going for a sweep.

It's essentially a holiday Friday for a lot of people. Oh, dude, I was getting... You want to knock off at noon? All the email... You should see the emails I was getting yesterday at 4 or 5 o'clock. They were all my typical Thursday and Friday emails I get, meaning almost everyone and their brother was preparing to be off together. to get themselves a four-day weekend.

And that's not just, I don't know. It feels like a lot of people off today. I'm not here to judge. Okay, we have to be here. And I'm also working five to seven after the Ashurst game, but that's okay. We've got to get you a lot of Crawford Box, make that a very entertaining, technique. Might have to take it slow. What I'm saying is it's basically a holiday Friday.

Come hang out with us here at Pizza and Pines at Carbock Brewing. We have a number of different giveaways, including Gordon, can I say? Big prize? Don't have them yet, but we may have some Astro's stickers. It might rhyme with Mastro's Micketts that we'll be giving away on a site. So if you want to come by

for one. We got coosies, T-shirts, cups. And Gordy is signing eight by tens. I didn't bring those, but... Okay. I get you. They got them reprinted. I might have a locked-on SEC Cousy if you want that. Back-back, back-order slips. All right, so we're hanging out

at Pizza and Pints. You want to get in. You can. 7-13. 212-5-7-90 is the phone number. 7-13-212-5-7-90. It is and anything goes Friday on the program. Sounds like the Rockets are getting together an NBA record seven-team trade together for the Kevin Durant deal. I'm smiling. Gordy's taking a selfie of us for social media.

Okay. And then you have the Astros, of course, continuing to do their thing. And anything you guys want to get to at 7-13. 2-1-2-5-7-90. It is a holiday weekend. It is a getaway Friday on a Thursday here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. As Gordy mentioned, we do have the Astros in Action in Colorado. They get the two wins in two games.

They have clinched the series. They continue to rack up series wins. Haven't lost the series in over a month. They go for the sweep today with Brandon Walter on the Hill. They're minus 200 favorites in that one. But Gordy Yordon setbacks Everybody's all upset

I'm seeing these These pictures Floating on the internet of him getting on a plane Coming back to Houston I don't know what to believe there But we'll see what happens with that But the Astros just keep winning ball games They're 52 and 34

Unfortunately the Royals couldn't get it done for us Last night in Seattle But seven games ahead of the Seattle Mariners I mean with everything that's going on. They keep on winning. They've won three in a row. They've won eight of their last 10. Ashthers just keep on pulling up dubs. They do. Look, I don't want to get overly excited. It was the lowly Rockies who stink. So, man, they're horrible. But 16 hits. I mean, that was basically

as Cooper Hummel and Shea Whitcomb and all these guys, Shea Whitcomb hits his first big league home run. Yeah, 450 feet. Cam Smith going, getting three hits. I mean, it was basically the Space Cowboys are beating the Colorado Rockies. Now, I will say Hunter Brown, not his best outing of the year, gives up a couple runs to the lowly Rockies, but still continues to be awesome. He's basically an automatic dub

when he goes out there. And credit Benet's Sousa, too, on a night where you've basically used Josh Hader so much in the past week. I want to say, Wex said something like, how many saves his Hater having, like, the last week? It's like five or six.

Five or six, yeah. So it's something crazy. So anyway, so Bennett Sousa comes in and he gets the job done with a three-run lead. But, well, ends up being what a two-one two-run win. But, no, Rocky Stink, and you're able to, a chance to go for a sweep today. Who's on the mound today? That would be Brandon Walter. Okay, he's been, look, he's been a pleasant surprise.

That's a name that they basically picked up off the scrap heap. And that dude's been awesome. I've been very impressed with Ben and Susan or with Brandon Walter. But, you know, look, when today, because I just want to set up for this weekend, Ross, going to Dodger Stadium, it's a tough place to play. Show Hey, Otany, all those players they got. I said it to Sean and Dan an hour ago. To me, my expectations for that one is just don't get swept.

I know how great Dasters have been playing, but it's Dodger Stadium in Dodger Stadium. July 4th weekend. There's going to be a ton of Dodger fans there. It's going to be stupid boo birds for Al Tuvei. You know. Well, they're going to boo. And let's be, Lance McCullors is going Friday night. I mean, again, I don't want to say I don't have confidence in them, but I just, it's one of those things where I feel like just win one of the three this weekend.

So that's why I feel like today's a must win. Like today. Oh, must. All right. Must win. You know what I mean. You know what I mean. I'm not really said.

But like, if you sweep the Rockies, yeah. Losing 203 at Dodgers Stadium is more palatable. It'll feel a lot better. Okay, I get you. But you know how I hate that phrase. But yeah, you got McCullough. Was it McCullors? Didn't he have a good start in Los Angeles?

Like after everything broke in 2020, was it? With the cardboard cutouts? Yeah. Okay, was it then? I can't remember. Because it was when they were, maybe it was 21. The crowds came back, yeah. Okay.

And I think he was good, right? Didn't he have a really good start there or something like that? I mean, that was also. 20 was at Minutemade with the cardboard cutouts when Joe Kelly did the pouty face to Carlos Correa. I'm thinking of maybe it was, but I was also a major injury and multiple setbacks ago for Lance McCullors, Jr. And he was not good his last time out, but hopefully he can bounce back. But then you've got Framber on Saturday and Colton Gordon on Sunday. Yeah, August 3rd, 2021 at Dodgers Stadium, Lance McCullors went six and two-third shutout innings with nine strikeouts.

And the Astros won that game three to nothing. Okay. If you can just do that again, okay, like I said, it's only it was four years ago. Yeah, and Chohei Otani was not a Dodger. Oh, wow. He was a toiling with the angels. Do you just walk him when he could? I'd walk him.

No, stop. Give him the Bond Street. Dude, yeah. Walk him so Freddie Freeman and Mukie Betts can come up? I don't know about all that. All right, so we already got to get a break. That's how much fun we're having here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross, without Matt Thomas. Chris Cordy's here.

We've got to talk about this weekend. Didn't even mention. a couple of interesting stats about why the Astros are where they are. There are two big reasons. I'll give you those when we come back. Phone lines are open if you want to get in. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790.

We're with you from Pizza and Pints at Carbock. Brewing. We'll be with you up until Astros on deck at 1 o'clock. It's Chris Gordy. It's me, Ross Vio, with you on Sports Talk 790. Your home for your Houston Astros. 1019 a.m. here on Sports Talk 790.

Back with you on the Matt Thomas show with Ross without Matt Thomas. Chris Gordy here is here hanging out with me at Pizza and Pints. It's effectively an extended edition of the Crawford Boxcast, which you can catch for free, Gordy, on the I-Heart radio app. That you can, and we got plenty to get into with the Houston Astros as yet another win, man. Again, Hunter Brown improves to 9 and 3 on the season. He goes six innings of two-run ball, eight strikeouts, 102 pitches. Stephen Okert with a clean inning, Caleb Bort with a clean inning,

Ben-Atsusa gives up a run in the ninth, but no harm, no foul. Astros went five to three last night. I mean, this is Wild Ross. It's another – the Astros just had a five-game win streak that got snapped against the Cubs. Now they're on a three-game win streak. It feels like they've been on a lot of win-streaks lately. It's nuts. Yes.

And as I mentioned, going into the bruce was. break two big reasons of course the bullpen i mean it's it's just been great and we were so worried about what's going to what was it going to be outside of josh hater and brian abray you and other guys have stepped up you mentioned bennett susa getting another save last night and you had i mean even caleb board who hasn't been great i mean he went out there and had a one two three inning for you stephen oaker it has been really good you go up and down the list of of the relievers and it's just been one of the best bullpins in baseball. Another reason, how about this?

I heard Robert Ford, I believe, or Steve Sparks, mentioning it, or maybe both of them, on the broadcast last night. The Astros have won 10 out of 10 of Framber Valdez's last 10 starts, and they have won seven in a row of Hunter Brown's last seven starts. So seven in a row they've won when Hunter Brown started, 10 in a row with Framber Valdez If you go back to May 7th When those two guys start

They are 18 and 2 Those guys have been bringing it And I know There's been a lot of question marks With those other guys and the Colton Gordons And the Ryan Gustos and all that type of stuff But 18 and 2 in the last 20 starts Combined of Framber Valdez and Hunter Brown

It's like where would they be without those guys Where would they be without the bullpen? They certainly wouldn't be anywhere close as they are. They're 18 games above 500 now, seven games ahead of the Seattle Mariners. It's just crazy. I mean, it's nuts so that they're doing what they're doing.

Again, you're playing the Colorado Rockies. I just want to keep preference that. Yes, yes, yes. I mean, to sweep the Phillies, the way you did with dominant pitching was incredible. To take two out of three against a really good Cubs team was great. I mean,

it's Wild Ross when you look at the standings and see, they're just a game and a half back at Detroit, who I believe split a double header yesterday for best record in the American League. I'm just telling me right now, win today. If they can take two out of three against the Dodgers, that would be crazy. I think they're going to take two out of three against the Guardians and two out of three against the Rangers. I think there's a chance we're talking to the Astros in first place in the American League going to the All-Star break. Ooh, you're getting spicy with it now. I'm just saying. I feel like at some point

And, you know, people get mad at me when I'm not 100% blind Homer, but I just have to tell you how I feel. I mean, at some point, I mean, I guess we should just keep on enjoying this ride while it's here. They did get 16 hits yesterday. But, I mean, when you're going with, I mean, Walker turning things around, he's got five hits in two games. By the way, gut feeling hit already in two games of the series, Jonathan Allen. I want to congratulate you. You said Christian Walker was going to have five hits in the Colorado series. He's already got five hits.

He can go O for today. And that's a dub for you. I want to give you your props on that. So, I mean, it also is against Colorado pitching, so we'll see what happens about Christian Walker turning the corner. But, I mean, Cooper Hummel, Shea Whitcomb, Maricio DuBond in this lineup. Deas and Walker haven't been great all season long. Thankfully, Esoc Parade has continued.

used to be good, but I mean, you're going with Esauk, Paratus, and Jake Myers as your leadoff. What if I'd have plop to you to like it at, like, February 1st, and I would have been like, hey, Gordy, right about the All-Star break, it'll be Paredes, Myers, Altuve, Cam Smith, as the top four of the Astros lineup. And you'd be like, oh, my God,

how many injuries did they have, and how many games under 500 are they? Yeah. And here they are right now. And they're holding the glue together for sure, but I'm a little worried about how long they can keep this up. I'll feel a lot better if it's only going to be a couple of weeks for Jeremy Pena, which, I mean, sounds like they're optimistic.

And it is fortuitous in a way that his rib injury, which is normally just a few weeks for people, about a month at the most, is going to happen with, you get a little bit of a buffer with that week of the All-Star break. So that's good, and you can hold on until he comes back. but I'm really getting wary of this this Jordon Alvarez situation and what's going to happen there. Well, I said it with Sean and Dan earlier.

I almost feel like he's out of side out of mind right now. Yeah, I know. I'm going to play the remaining, whatever, this season as if he's not coming back. Now, that's a little bit on Dana Brown coming up with the approaching trade deadline. To think that way as well. To think what if if Yordon doesn't come back?

Look, they've already said they're in the market for a left-handed impact. So if you can get a left-handed bat, will a little pop? I mean, I'm almost willing to give up an extra prospect just to say, and then again, if Yorda does come back, it makes this line of that much more dangerous. So, again, like, that's how I kind of look at. I'm almost like, because here's the other thing, Ross, we saw a month of Yordon. He didn't look like Yorda.

He was, you know, they said he was playing through the, and he wasn't good. So I almost look at it. If I'm Joe Spada, if I'm Dana Brown, I can't bring back Yoron until I know 100% that he's ready to go. Like, he's got to be 100. I don't want 75% Yoron. Yeah, but they've already said that they weren't going to let him swing a bat until he was 100%. And then he started swinging a bat and he had a setback, man. It's crazy.

Yeah, I just, again, I got them. This team is good enough that like we can win without him. I mean, you'd love to have him. Don't get me wrong. But I got to move all without Yoron mentally. Just like we got to prepare this team to win down the stretch. I'm not expecting them at all. I mean, I don't do it.

Yeah, day to day, you're seeing the lineup posted. I mean, you're kind of numb to it at this point. We've seen it for two months. I don't ever see the lineup post. It'll be like, oh, man, yeah, we're done still out. Now, losing pain, you hurts. Again, hopefully this is just, what do you feel like a month? Yeah, I don't know.

But I'm going to say, I looked at a couple of rib injuries. We talked about it on the show. I think when it happened, or maybe it was. was Monday or Tuesday. It seems like about a month for everybody. Last year, Cody Bellinger came back after two weeks, but then he talked about how sore he was when he was swinging. But Pena was saying he wasn't sore when he was swinging.

He was more sore when he was throwing. Yeah. So that'll be interesting. And also we have to- I wonder do you bring it back as a DH for a little bit? Yeah, I would think, I think that's a good idea because what you're saying, and what he said is that he was swinging, he was okay.

and also think about re-injury as a shortstop. Who on the baseball field dives around more than a shortstop? Maybe a center fielder? I mean, it's about the same and maybe more violent diving around for a centerfielder, but the shortstop's got to be diving around all over there. You're trying to cover a lot of ground. I mean, there's a reason it's the most premium defensive position on the field along with center field because you're diving around.

So I would be kind of worried that he would get some kind of re-injury there. So, yeah, maybe a couple of weeks he can DH. that spot is obviously open and that is given a lot of flexibility to Joe Espada. You don't want Yoron out but he's been able to put a bunch of different guys there. You had Shea Wickham there last night because he's used to hitting in the altitude

at the PCL and he can do that in Colorado and then he did it last night with that 450 foot bomb. So hopefully a couple of weeks, maybe some deaching and then Jeremy Payne can get back out there at shortstop. Thankfully right now you have

Marissa Dubon taking over that shortstop spot but after that I mean heaven forbid something happened to him I don't even know who'd be a shortstop they put Jack's Jack short there for a couple innings yeah I mean if if something happened with Dubon and he would be out for a little bit of time I think you would uh I think Bryce Matthews would have to get the call up who back in that he's in the top 100 MLB pipeline just announced he's going to play in the futures game coming up he's in the futures game he was their minor leaguer of the month and he's number 98 on the

top 100 prospects list. Oh, I got to mention that, too. If we get a chance, it might be worth replaying. Lex and I had Cam Smith on yesterday on the A-team, and he, I mean, the kid is just light years ahead of where we thought he would be. But I brought it up to him. I said, Cam, in another, they just announced the futures roster. I said, in another universe, you're in the Astros' organization,

and you're getting named to the futures game. Yeah. And we're talking about, excited about the future of Cam Smith one day being an Astro. Instead, this dude makes the opening day roster. Yes. And what, batted 300 basically this past month? Yeah, he's hitting. I mean, overall, even his overall numbers right now.

He's batting clean up. A rookie. A guy, a year ago, the college world series just wrapped up. A year ago, he was playing for Florida State in the college world series. And now he's batting cleanup for the Houston Astros, who ALS leading Houston Astros, second best record in the American League, Houston Astros. It's just crazy to me. Yeah, you know people talk about applying for jobs they're not qualified for,

and then they just learn on the job. Now, of course, Cam Smith was qualified, but, I mean, he was, it was a rush job, and it took him a little while, and he was a little bit slow to start the first, I don't know, month, but, man, he has been spectacular this last month of the season, like you said, and the numbers are great, and the numbers bear it out, and he's been great in right field from the get-go. We were wondering how he was going to be there. Kids are phenom, and as you said, you were talking to him,

and I heard some of that interview as well, and I've heard him talking to the media. He just sounds wise beyond his years. That's part of the reason the Astros did get him up to the major leagues because they knew he'd be able to take the lumps and take it mentally, as it's a mental battle, just as much as a physical battle, especially for position players, and especially for someone learning a new position, and then the cat and mouse game of going up against the best pitchers on the planet.

He's been doing great. Did you hear Joe Spottis say he doesn't have batted bats? Yeah. Like, that's what's so crazy. Last night, his third hit, it's like this pitch, he goes up and gets and hits it so hard at the shortstop that he can't even handle it. And it bounces in the center field. Like, he just, man, he puts up good at bats. Yeah, he, let's see, oh, man, it just popped away.

I had the last 20 games, he's been hitting 372 with 1,000 OPS with four home runs. So he's got seven home runs on the season, but four of them have come in the last 20 games. he is really starting to when we come back there was a moment last night I was very scared for you me yes okay I think I know where you're going with this we'll talk about it when we come back look at Chris Gordy with the professional

radio tease he is here Matt Thomas is not we are at pizza and pints it opens up at 11 o'clock we should have some tickets to give away if you want to come say hello but even if we don't we got hot pizza they got cold beer as well we're here at Carbock brewing and pizza and pints You want to get in the phone lines. You can 713-212-5-7-90. I say reason number one, the Astros are where they are is the bullpen.

Reason number two is Hunter Brown and Framber Valdez. What say you? 7-13-212-5-7-90, the phone number. Here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross with you until 140 ahead of the Astros and the Rockies here on Sports Talk 790. You're home for your stroes. All right, we're back on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Rossiuria, Chris Gordy, with you.

713-212-5-790 is the phone number, 7-1-2-5-7-90. Congratulations to the AL Pitcher of the month for June. That would be Hunter Brown. Well deserved, of course. He has been fantastic. And we kind of touch on this briefly. Gordy, when we were recapping the game last night, Astros win 5 to 3, 52, and 34 on the season now.

But to me, there was a game, I'd have to pull up the game logs last year. I'm not exactly sure where it was, where he was struggling. Now, last night it was his curb ball, that it was just, unfortunately, not spinning in the altitude. He talked about it. He was asked directly, why do you think the curve ball wasn't effective?

And he just flat out said it was the altitude. And so what happened was he just started throwing a bunch of gas. And he threw his hardest pitch that he's thrown all year in his career. And he's talked about trying to hit triple digits. But 99.8 miles per hour on a fastball. And it happened in a start in the middle of last year when he was turning things around where he didn't have his best stuff. And he still put in a quality start.

It was like six innings of shutout or one run ball or something. And then last night against Colorado, Again, we do have to keep throwing in the qualifier, like you say. It was the Colorado Rockies. But to be effective at altitude, you got to ditch the curveball, you got to figure something out. That's ace stuff where you don't have it. Because you're going to go out there 25, 30 times a year, and you're not going to have your best stuff 25, 30 times. So Hunter Brown, still able to be affected.

The six innings, two runs given up, eight strikeouts, a quality start, having to dig. some of his breaking stuff and still getting it done, that is the mark of an ace. It is. And, yeah, it's funny with the qualifier in there. That's like a few weeks ago where Lance McCullors had, what, the 12 strikeouts, and I kept saying it's Oakland A's, okay? Sacramento A's. It was good, but, you know, you got to say who it was against.

Yeah, but the A's have a, well, okay, their team OPS is like top 10, but that's also because the ball flies out in Sacramento. But, yeah, but go ahead. Brent Rooker's been very good. but no it's um again it was a great night for for hunter brown uh he gets his ninth win crazy to think he could have 10 wins going into the all-star break i mean a 20 win was last aster's 20 win uh pitcher uh okay i'm going to try to do this without looking up the last 20 game winner i did um when in in 19 when cole and and verlander finished one two did i think verlander

just got there and Cole didn't? Yeah, we'll have to look it up, but regardless, pitching's been outstanding, but I was scared for you at one point last night. I'm sorry, the other way around. Verlander got there and Cole didn't, I think. Let me look. But go ahead, sorry. When Jake Myers took one to Emmy, he turned his back, and it almost, I was like, please don't let him hit him in the ribs.

Please don't let this be the same exact thing that happened to Jeremy Payne. It was like... Luckily, he stayed in the game and was able to play well. But it was a little scary there. Yeah, it was scary. He stayed in the game. We'll see if we hear anything as far as a follow-up, because sometimes guys do stay in games.

You've got the adrenaline. There's not as much swelling. You give it a day, and maybe some swelling will pop up. It also is a day game, so it's a quick turnaround. So that's certainly something I would. say that I'm keeping an eye on for the lineup today as far as, I mean, we know a lot of the guys that are already going to be out, but

with Jake Myers getting hit yesterday, I'll be curious to see, and we should know within the next couple of hours here when the lineup should be posted, if Jake Myers is going to be in that lineup because he was hit by that pitch, did stay in the game, but who knows, swelling could go up, and it's almost like

the way that things have been going with the Astros at this point. I'm almost expecting another injury. It seems like it's happening every day at this point dudes are dropping life like flies it's ridiculous yeah um yeah 2019 was was what we were thinking of justin verlander was verlander with uh 21 wins garret cole with 20 so they both they both did it 20 win um and they both i mean if there was any year where you should have two si young i mean they both deserved it that year yeah they finish one too it was pretty silly but um i mean

that's how and you had wade mylie who went 14 and six that season miley zach granky who had who went eight and one uh brad peter got you seven wins that year like i mean that pitching staff was was outstanding and that's what's crazy to think is this staff um when you look at 20 you know the 20 25 staff hunter brand and framber are so good but to have these other dudes step in i mean brandon freaking walter and colton gordon gordon it's it's amazing they're getting they're getting by yeah uh brandon walter walter's numbers have been good uh gus those took a little bit of a back seat i think colton gordon now he struggled a little bit and it was Colorado, and he was having some issues as well, and everybody does.

His ERA is around like 450-ish, a little 437 or something like that. Yeah, let me see, 437. So we'll see, and that's kind of where I get worried, Garty. I'm like, is the other shoe going to drop with all this stuff that keeps happening, and how are they going to keep this together? Well, we saw it a little bit, that Cubs series, right? I mean, McCullors got blown up. Yeah, I'm worried about it.

that. There was, well, but in all honesty, though, what was the Chandler-Rome tweet? He was dreadful against the Reds and the Cubs. Yeah. But all the other games he's pitched, he had a 259 ERA.

Like, he's been good. Yeah. He's been good. Like, you can't let those two blowups overshadowed all the goodies brought, too. He's still been getting a ton of swing and miss. Also, all three of the home runs that were hit in that game were not a home run in

15 or more ballparks. I think it was 13. It was like one that was like a true Crawford box, like literally out of one ballpark, and it was, it was, uh, Dikin. And then one was the, the Kyle Tucker one was out of like seven ballparks, I think. So if you want to go half, glass half full, even if the glass is only like 40% full, I'm going to do that. I mean, I've been on McCullors Island this whole season.

I ain't hopping off right now. We'll see what happens, though. Should be an electric atmosphere at Dodger Stadium tomorrow. And Colton Gordon, you know, last time out on Tuesday was his first, his first kind of hiccup of a start. It was the first start he couldn't get through five of his like last one, two, three, four, five, six, seven starts. Yeah. Now, he came one out shy. But that's pretty crazy that you had seven straight starts that Colton Gordon gave you five innings of basically two-run ball.

And this one was four runs in four-and-two-third. But even that, you still won the game. So, like, that's what's crazy about it. Bullpen, bullpen, bullpen. It was a game where Colton Gordon didn't have his best, and you still got the win. Yeah, that's where the bullpen has been factoring in. They have been excellent all year long. Besides that one, we can get against Tampa Bay.

And a lot of that was Forrest Whitley, giving up a ton of runs, and now he's off the team, and I think he's off the raise now, too. So, bullpen, excellent. And then, of course, Hunter Brown and Fomber Valdez had been huge. They've won 18 of the last 20 starts by those two. 10 of Frombers, 8 out of 10 of Hunter Browns. All right, quick break here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. You guys want to get in.

Of course, we're talking some heavy stroves. We've got other stuff to get to as well. Phone line is open. 713-213-21-5-790. 7-1-3-2-5-7-90. Cumping up at 11 o'clock. We're going to address something that's been floating around the Internet as it relates to the Astros. We'll get to that and we'll get to you here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

without Matt Thomas with you until 140 at Pizza and Pints at Carbock Brewing. Continuing along here at Pizza and Pints at Carbock Brewing, it opens in 10 minutes. Gordy. Wood-fired pizza. Cold bruskeys, if you're into that kind of thing,

really good bruskeys as well. Of course, always, the ice cold and refreshing Crawford-Bach is a fine choice. Yeah, and by the way, very quick. They've got like the screens up here where you can do like the self-order so you can come in, tap in your order, pay, and boom, they'll have it to you super quick. So if you just want to come do a pickup, if you don't want to eat here, you want to grab and go, super easy to do that over here at Pizza Pines.

We also have some giveaways. We've got some coosies. We've got some backpacks. We got a sports talk 790 t-shirt. We got what are these tech? We got some Texans like tumblers. We got some battle red tumblers. Some Astros cups, a coffee buck cup. So, yeah, some good stuff out here. Yeah, make sure you come by and you say hi. And when are we going to hear about those Astros tickets that were giving away? We're waiting.

Until we have. We're waiting to hear back. Okay, I don't want to make any false promises. We're supposed to have some tickets. At some point, we'll be giving away some Astros tickets here on the program. We are at Pizza and Pints until 1.40 p.m. We're going to Astros on deck mode at 1 o'clock. You've got the Astros and the Rockies.

At 210 Astros going for a sweep, they continue to play well. The bullpen continues to do their thing. We mentioned Bennett Souza picking up, I mean, he was like good at the end of, what, 23 when he had showed up and kind of came out of nowhere for the Astros. And then he was hurt. And then he was hurt. He had, I think it was thoracic outlet surgery, whatever that is. And then he's been back in this year, 26 games. 2-0, 3 saves, 1.95 ERA, and 0.87 whip.

You think Dusty Baker is like, oh, okay, now you got all these lefties? What's the deal? Ocert, Hater, Sousa, who else? I'm missing. Brian King. It's like all lefties all the time out of the bullpen. And Dusty was like, can you just please give me one lefty, please? Who is this guy he loved?

Brooks Raleigh. Brooks Raleigh. Yeah, one lefty besides Brooks Raleigh. We're like, oh, my God, here comes Brooks Raley, because Dusty was old school, and he would just go platoon, left, he righty, no matter what. And, I mean, it was Brooks Raley season, and we weren't usually too happy about it. Well, and I want to be fair, too, for all the people that were a year ago at this time, we're going, I bet you wish you had Dusty now.

We've got to give Joe Spott of his credit. Joe Spada has been awesome as a manager. Yeah, where's Fire Joe Spada guy? haven't seen how's how's fire Joe spot a guy going and that wasn't give us a call 713212-1-2-5790 that wasn't exclusive to dusty that was I mean there were

no there were people who when dusty struggled were bring back AJ Hitch you should have kept now you should only let Hinch be suspended for a year and kept him well as he has the best record in the American League that's true

you know you make that case Hinch is very good but I mean I'm going to I'm going to stay consistent until I hit the grave especially when it comes to baseball, it's the players. Joe Espada can go to Bennett-Suzza, and he's been great, and he can find the right pockets of the lineup for him,

but he's also got to go out there and perform. And people were calling for Espada's firing earlier in the season. Right in the third. He keeps going to Luis Contreras. He doesn't have any other options in the bullpen. A bunch of people were hurt, not ready to start the season. I mean, it is what it is. So I like Joe Spada.

I think his number one job is to keep the guys motivated to play, keep it light and then put them in positions to succeed. He's done that. But from there, it's like you just got to let them go out there and spread their wings and fly. All right? And they've been doing that. They've been really good. And Joe Spot is doing a good job.

But, I mean, it's down to the players in this bullpen as well. Do we want to talk about Matthew O'Quam? Matthew O'Clam. Oquan. Oh, Oquam. Yes. I was going to bring that up at the start. of next hour.

Okay. We'll save it. Yes, we'll talk about that in a couple of minutes. What Gordy is referencing, I was talking about it earlier, Internet rumors, believe them or not. That's what we are going to have to try and figure out. Because, yes, this is something that was sent to me, it was sent to a lot of people around Houston, and now even other listeners are getting in on the act.

So we will break that down when we come back. But that is going to do it for our number one of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Without Matt Thomas, he is out volleyball dadding, harder than anyone has volleyball dad in Dallas. Chris Gordy is here with me. We are at Pizza and Pines. They open up in a couple of minutes if you guys want to come by and say hello. Phone lines are open at 713212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790.

The Astros Internet. rumor that is taking the Astros Twitter sphere by storm. We'll talk about that next in hour number two of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Hey, it's Matt here for Berkeley Eye Center. I need to tell you that your clear vision this summer is super important, especially from Berkeley Eye Center. Right now you get 30% off. I repeat 30% off your LASIC laser vision correction.

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Eye Center. 713-526 eyes. That's 713-526 EYES, Berkeley Eye Center. Sarah Spain for I-Hart Women's Sports presented by Capital One. Chicago Sky Forward Angel Reese was named the WNBA's Eastern Conference Player of the Week for Week 4 after averaging 19.7 points and 17 rebounds as the sky went 2 and 1 during a three-game stretch. Asia Wilson earned Western Conference Player of the Week on Earth, averaging 23.3 points per game and 10.3 rebounds leading the Las Vegas Aces to a 2-1 record during the week. For more women's sports stories, subscribe to a good game with Sarah Spain on IHeart Podcast. Capital One is a founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports Network.

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your home for your home teams. This is Sports Talk 790 from the Parsons Imagine Next Studios. Hey y'all, it's Bun B, the official Trill OG of the Houston Astro. Your shot at $1,000 is happening right now. Just enter this nationwide keyword at sports790. com bills b i l l l s bills enter it now at sports 790 dot com 11 o'clock straight up here on sports talk 790 it is the matt thomas show with ross with without matt thomas as we broadcast live from pizza and pints car brook brewing the doors

opening up if you want to come by and say hello you could do that as i said matt thomas is out. Chris Cordy is with me. I got to be honest, I was like in Friday holiday mode, so I didn't tease this properly, but we have, of course, the regular Thursday guest, Brian McTaggart ofastroes.com,

MLB.com, our weekly Thursday guest here at 11 o'clock. Brian, appreciate the time as always. Let's go ahead and start with the pitcher of the month. We were talking about this earlier. To me, one of the big marks of an ace is you don't have your best stuff. You've got to ditch a pitch and figure things out.

That's what Hunter Brown did yesterday with the curveball in Denver. He is a bona fide ace. Yeah, I don't think there's any doubt. I mean, he came into that start leading the major leagues in ERA and opponent's average, which is pretty incredible. But yeah, he admitted after the game, you know, his curveball wasn't performing like it should have been just because of the altitude. So he sort of had to change things a little bit on the fly through the chains up a little bit more.

but, you know, he was solid. I mean, he was a 90-something pitch, I think 91 pitches after the fifth inning. They went back out, got them through six, which is really important because they were without a couple of their key bullpen guys. And picked up his first win since June 1st. So it looks like to me he's probably headed the All-Star game as well. He should be, right? What's crazy to me, Brian, is how this team is able to do this night in and night out, that even when some of their pitchers don't have their best stuff,

You know, we saw it from Colton Gordon the other night. It was first start, and I think seven starts where he wasn't able to go a full five and gave up four runs. And yet the Astros still find a way to win. It's crazy. I mean, obviously, we have the two front-end starters in Framber and Hunter doing their thing is awesome. But I'm just, I'm wild by what they're getting out of these other guys. And we're going to get to see Brandon Walter go today. But, I mean, that's a guy.

His name wasn't even on the radar a few months ago. And it's like he's come out of nowhere and been great for him. It's pretty shocking how they're getting this thing done, right? It is. I mean, and then, you know, they call up Jason Alexander. Another guy, no one knows anything about. He pitches really well, you know, big props for their pitching coaches for getting these guys ready. I mean, every one of these guys, when they pit the no-name guys, you know,

I say no name but not the household name guys, when they pitch, like you said, even when they're not great, they're keeping the team in the game. And, you know, give them five innings and hand them. the ball over to that bullpen and it's shut down time. So can they keep this up here over the final three months? You know, who knows? But the good news for the Astros is

they should be getting a lot of, you know, at least some of their starters back healthy. And, you know, guys like Erigetti will be back. You know, Javier seems like he's trending towards coming back and all of a sudden now you've got starting pitching depth. So that will be a good problem to have if they can get there.

Brian McTaggart with us here on Sports Talk 790. And of course, Brian, the big story overall this week has been the Yordon Alvarez saga, and it seems to unfortunately keep popping up with the Astros and their handling of things and the medical staff and all that type of stuff. Of course, we know a lot of the fans are upset and all that, but just your perspective, I mean, it does seem to me like a lot of this is some bad luck, but at what point do you say, is this just too much to be a coincidence? just what do you think about the way that things have been handled with the Astros and some of these injuries and then the latest with Yordon Alvarez? Yeah, well, there's been a lot of pitching injuries around the league. I mean, Astros, I think, are third with the most IL days. So there's a couple of teams ahead of them in that regard to Dodgers are one of them.

So to have a bunch of pitchers on the IL, not ideal, but some other teams are going through the same thing. The Alvarez situation, yeah, has got to be frustrating because that's twice now that they were close. close and then he had a setback. I will say it's not like they were pushing him when they didn't think he was ready. By everything, by everything that, you know, all the information they had, especially the last time they thought that he was close. And, you know, Dana Brown said Monday, they were thinking about flying him to L.A. this weekend. And then he came in, you know, Tuesday after taking some swings and the hand was sore again.

I mean, I think we'll probably get an update on Alvarez today in Denver. I mean, I'm in the press box right now at Coorsfield, so I'll be in the clubhouse here in a few minutes. So hopefully within the next hour may be the jealous spot or Dana Browdery's here. Can give us an update to see what's next for him. But it certainly appears like the Astros might be without Alvarez for a little while. But, hey, they've been without him for two months, and they just keep on trucking. So the bigger thing I think in the short term is getting Pena back and putting him back at the top of the lineup because they, really miss him as well.

It's crazy, too, Brian, with the injury to Jeremy Pena. I mean, we keep looking and saying how many more injuries can they overcome? And, you know, Jake Myers gets hit on the side last night. I think we all kind of breathe a little bit, you know, paused a little bit going, oh, my God, not another one. But luckily, he stayed in the game. But, I mean, if you're Dana Brown, I mean, he's been preaching for the last couple weeks. You know, we're looking at a left-handed bat, left-handed bat, left-handed bat.

I just almost wonder the approach of if Yoron's going to be out a significant amount of time, which it just feels that way. I mean, does that maybe escalate them a little bit more here at the deadline to say, you know what? We have to get a bat regardless. Yeah, Dana, we asked Dana about that the other day, and he said the Gordaun injury really doesn't change their thoughts

of the trade deadline. He's been on record saying they need a left-handed bat. The urgency is there, and it still is. So I think it's pretty safe to say they're going to get some kind bat to add to this lineup, a left-handed bat. They're not going to replace Yard on Alvarez for sure, but they definitely, I think they're 19th and runs per game, so they definitely could use just another, you know, another capable bat in there, especially one that can bat from the left side because even though they've called

up some guys here, they can hit left-handed in the last couple of weeks. Guys like Hubble, but they're still very much right-handed when it comes to the core guys in the lineup. So they will add a left-handed bat at the deadline. sure. What do you feel about the pitching side? I think it's kind of a tough situation because you've got all these guys who are coming back or look like they're on track to come back, but then it's kind of an unknown thing

as far as setbacks or new injuries popping up and the deadline now being four weeks away from today. Yeah, I think if they don't have any more injuries to their pitchers and they feel confident, they're going to get Arred Getty back. And I think he would be the first one to come back. I mean, he's still only throwing bullpins. but, you know, he's completely healthy. He's just building up right now like he's at spring training.

So he will be back. I think Javier's pretty far down the road as well. I mean, I have to take a little bit of that with a little bit of caution because some of these guys have suffered setbacks. But if they can get Aragetti and another one of these other rehabbing pitchers back at the end of July, early August, really no need to go get a starting pitcher. I mean, a starting pitcher is going to cost you, you know, what, three prospects last year, Kikuchi?

So the price on those is pretty high, and they have six-home-a-ls, and four of them are deep in rehabs in Florida. So I don't think the urgency is there for starting pitching. I think offense is definitely where they need to bolster the lineup. Well, and I almost wonder too, though, Brian, like if you're getting a bat or you're getting an arm, I almost think you want to go rental as opposed to a guy who would have multiple years of team control because all these injured guys are going to be back next year, presumably. the Tommy John guys won't be back at the start of the season, but like, just when you get back fully healthy, I mean, you know, in a perfect world, you don't have any open positions, position-wise, and all that kind of stuff. So unless it's like a pure upgrade where it's a guy, we've got three more years of control, whatever, I almost think it'd be easier to go rental and easier to part with maybe a middle-tier prospect for a guy who's a rental.

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, I don't think they're going to get anybody. I think they're going to trade for a bat who they're, you know, they're going to plug into their lineup for the next three or four years. It's going to be a guy who can, you know, hit six or seventh or, you know, if someone's getting a day off, can hit second, you know, just give you another bat from the left side. It's going to have to be somebody with some positional versatility just with the way this roster set up. And like you said, some guys are coming back off injury, maybe someone that can play second in an outfield or maybe first in outfield.

but yeah, I mean, I certainly agree with you. I think it'll be someone, you know, like a Trey Mancini who's only here for a couple of months, and, you know, you hope to catch lightning in a bottle. Brian McTaggart, Astros.com, MobB.com with us here on Sports Talk 790. Jose Altuve passing Jeff Bagwell last night on the Astros' all-time hit list. You've obviously been there covering his career. I mean, just we just, you love on Jose Al-Tuve, what it's been. been like and I think to me personally the the hand-eye coordination impresses me the most about

him what about you and what it's been like following him and just in all-time Astros great yeah he's got the best bat to ball skills that I've seen just daily close up I mean you know I didn't get a chance to see in person anyway Wade Boggs or Tony Gwen but just seeing Altuvei every day his bat to ball skills are just super elite and the thing that stands up for me also is just how clutch it is. I mean, look at his postseason numbers. They speak for themselves. But even last night, like the hit to pass Bagwell, first hits, two-runs single

up the middle. I mean, that, you know, that hit won the game. I mean, that's a huge hit in the grand scheme of things. And that's just what he does. And I know that his numbers have declined a little bit, but I think the question now becomes, can he get to 3,000 hits? I mean, I think he has a really good shot. I was able to top the Bagwell during the game.

game yesterday and I thought it was funny after the game Altubei said Bagwell texts him all the time about his swing and if he takes a bad swing Bagwell texting and says what the heck was that? So there's not very many people that can criticize Jose Altube

but Bagwell is one of them and you know he's now passed him on the hits list so he's got some work to do to get to Bigio but I would not doubt that he's going to get to 3,000 and pass Bidio here in the next four or five years. talking to Brian McTaggart

Brian don't want to overlook today's game obviously Astros go for a sweep against the Rockies today this afternoon you'll hear that right here on 790 but looking a little bit ahead to this weekend going out to Dodger Stadium July 4th weekend it's going to be a heck of a series I'm sure you'll have a lot of celebrities out there

and that sort of thing but a big start for Lance McCullors coming this Friday as he wants to bounce back from that outing against the Cubs but what's crazy Brian the last two times Lance McCullors has pitched at out there at Dodger Stadium. The last time was August 3rd, 2021,

in a regular season game where he went six and two-thirds shutout innings. Astros won that game 3-0, and then I believe the time before that was Game 7 of the World Series in 2017. So it's a place McCulloch just had success, but you just look at that daunting Dodger lineup and say, God, it's going to be a tough test. Yeah, very tough test. And, you know, Lance is coming up, you know,

a start that wasn't great. you know, his first start off to IL. But, you know, Lance was a competitor, and I guarantee you he's probably going to be frothed him at the mouth for this chance to go out there and pitch at Dodger Stadium. Yeah, he did start game 7 in 2017. Didn't pitch deep in that game. Also had an RBI in that game if people don't remember.

It was kind of a crazy game. But, yeah, I mean, if they can go to Dodger Stadium and win that series, then, I mean, I think they got a chance maybe to get the number one seed in the American League. I mean, even if they go to Dodgers Stadium and don't win the series, not the end of the world. The Dodgers are really good. They're really good at home. Astros is short-handed.

It's going to be a really tough series for sure. But they do have Framber Valdez going in one of those games, and they've won, what, 10 consecutive starts, he's pitched. So if they can win his start and scratch out another win somewhere and come home after a good road trip in good shape here, a week out from the All-Star break. Brian McTaggart, Astros.com, with us here on Sports Talk 7-90. We appreciate the time, as always.

is Brian, let the folks know what you got up at the website. Yeah, I got some cool stuff up there. Like I said, taught to Bagwell last night. I have a story on Bagwell and Al-Tubei sort of talking about each other. As Al-Tube passes him on the hits list today, a Reddit AMA yesterday. Ask me anything and had the transcribe of that on the website as well. So check that out. Okay.

What was the craziest question you got? Or answered. The craziest question you answered. How about both? The craziest question you got and the crazyest? one you answered. Somebody asked me about how I got started in journalism. I didn't answer it because I don't think anybody cares.

And other than that, they were all pretty straightforward. Someone asked my favorite Astros player to cover of all time, and I said Lance Berkman, of course. Oh, okay. All right. Well, thank you, Brian. We'll check that out at astros.com. Appreciate the time. And get the Astros beat email sent right to your email.

Newsletter, baby. Yeah, it's great. Newsletter came out yesterday. Or the day, but I can't remember. but another one is coming out Saturday. I did an interview with Bryce Matthews talking about his progress and the futures game coming up, so that'll be in your inbox Saturday.

Wow, you're officially the hardest working beat reporter on the Astros beat. All right, I'll take it out of the three. I'm one of three. Thanks, Brian. That's debatable, but thank you. Appreciate it. Brian McTaggart, great stuff with him, as always. What's that?

I said to see you. Okay, I'm sorry. I thought she said something else. All right. we're going to take a break on that note ross vio rye out chris gordy with you matt thomas is out but it's the matt thomas show with ross you guys can get in if you want to react to anything that brian had to say we're here at pizza and pints at carbach brewing and the phone lines are open at seven one two five seven ninety seven ninety seven nine 11-20 in the AM here on Sports Talk 790. Ross, we're out with you at Pizza and Pints on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Without Matt Thomas.

Chris Gordy is here. Our guy, Mark showed up. He's like, where's those Astero's tickets? We're trying to hear back. I'm sorry. We'll get some more details on that as we go along. Appreciate you all listening. Appreciate Brian McTaggart for joining.

Phone lines are open if you want to get in. It's 7-13-212-5-79. 7-13-1-2-125-790. So we mentioned this before we hit hour number two, Gordy. There is an internet rumor floating around with somebody who has put up a picture of Yordon Alvarez on a flight to Houston? Yes. So this is a guy by the name of Matthew O'Quan. Matthew O'Quain, baby.

He's a singer-songwriter, A&M grad. So if this is wrong, blame the Aggies. I will. He has, he's a musician, so I mean, he's got a pretty good following. He's from Houston. He posted this earlier this morning. It is a picture of Yordon Alvarez on a flight with a cast on his right arm, sitting next to an older gentleman. And Matthew O'Quinn says, quote, here is Jordan Alvarez last night cast on.

Directly from the man himself, my dad asked, and he said, my ligament popped during my rehab stint, and I won't be swinging for six weeks. I hope this finds you well, Astros fans. And so, of course, a lot of people took him the task. They said fake. He said, I promise this is not fake. They said, prove it. He said, how do I prove it?

And he took a screenshot of his group text with his family. Yes. And titled La Familia. And it was a picture of his dad with Yordon that said, my new travel buddy. So clearly his dad is sitting on a plane next to Yudan Avarez and starts chatting him up. And that's what Yoran told him. So I just find that funny, I mean, if that ends up being correct, one, it's funny that we don't get the news from the team yet. We get it from Yordauntel's some random guy on an airplane, and that makes it out there.

But two, a lot of people connecting the dots here saying, you know, that would basically put him out till, you know, mid-August, you know, somewhere in that timeline. Again, don't want to put a, this is all speculation. This is all from, you know, a guy on Twitter saying his dad talked to you. you're not on a plane whatever but again like brian mctaggart said earlier we'll get an update an actual update from the team perhaps later today uh perhaps in the next hour with the open clubhouse there in uh in colorado but just one of those internet things again take everything everything on the internet with a grin of salt but this would appear to be pretty legit i mean it is yorda with a cast on his right hand on an airplane next to an older gentleman yeah i have a couple

things here uh it is a the guy qualified that it would i mean um clarified that it was a brace, not a cast. Yeah. So that is good. Number one, it is on his right hand, and that is the hand that is hurt for Yordon. Yes. But Yordon, while he does speak and understand English,

he's talking to a stranger on a plane and telling this person about his injury and his prognosis, that seems a little bit like a bridge too far. Now, could his dad have run into Yordon? Absolutely. But, I mean, are you, first of all, I don't even like to talk to strangers on planes. And maybe it's different, of course,

because Yordon is a celebrity and got recognized and they took a picture together. Well, and noticing the picture, too, Yordons got headphones in, but they're dangling over his ear. Yeah, what's that about? He was listening, but then the dad, I guess, kept bugging him, and so he did the nice thing,

he took the earbuds out. And Yordons got wired earphones? Well, you know, maybe somebody out there wants to get them. I mean, look, I'm, I got wired earphones, but I'm broke. All right. Yoron can't get some $500, like, wireless over-the-ear noise-canceling things, or is he just keeping it frugal, which I can respect as well? So, yeah, I'm looking at this picture.

He's got wired headphones. Have you ever seen anybody hang earphones over their ear like that? It's because he had them in, and the guys started talking to him, so he pulled him out. But they're around the ear? I think he just has them hanging. I think he just has them hanging. You take him off and then hang them over your ear?

But you're right. If he gets the full-on headphone, like the ones that cover your ear, put those on, if somebody tries to talk to you, just smile and nod. Yeah, that's what most people do. I can't talk. So I'm saying I am not calling, I'm not calling this not legit. I am saying I am skeptical that Yorda with his, his Apple default wired headphones sitting next to this guy,

takes the headphones out and says, Hey, I pop the look at in my hand. I'm going to be out for six weeks. Crazy, right? See, I don't think it went down that way. I think the guy's just conversating with him and Yonauts doing it. Here's the other thing, too. In English or Spanish?

Well, here's the thing. Context clues. Yeah. Our friend Matthew O'Quinn on Twitter. O'Quain, baby. The screenshot he has of his family, it is titled La Familia. Okay. So, again, that's a group text with his dad and his family.

There may be some bilingualness there. Bilingualness, if that's the word. So if his dad may speak Spanish, and perhaps that's how he got the information. Now, Al-Quaan is a French name, correct? All-Qaeda, baby. It could be southern, yeah, it could be from the south. It sounds French to me. All right, so there we go.

I'm not sure what to make of all this, but this guy does already follow me. He had before. I know his name. He is, I believe, a listener to the show. And now, I've had like three other people send this to me after the guy who made this tweet sent it to me. And I'm not going to run with it.

I'm not going to say it's a six-week prognosis. And a clarification, it's a brace on his hand, not a cast, like the original tweet said. So, again, we'll wait for the official, thing from the team but but here's the thing like when the team's so vague so often with injuries it's almost like we gotta go to tweet some guys on airplanes they've done a good job of being more straightforward with updates so hopefully they can continue to do that oh yeah i love the updates they've given in the um in the game notes like here's the latest on this guy and this guy and this

guy because it's good to know we're not down at the florida complex league we don't know what ergettie's doing and chas mccormick and all those guys are doing down there yeah exactly So there you go. Internet rumor, believe it or not, I guess we'll have to figure it out. Hopefully we hear something very soon. I think the bigger picture is we're not expecting news to come out and them to go, yeah, Yoron, it was just a little bit of setback. He's going to be good. He'll be back next week. I think we understand he's going to be out for some time. I imagine there is some kind of surgery, but most of the hand surgeries, I've done research on the hamlet bone and stuff like that.

I mean, it could be a few, anywhere from a couple of months to three months. and right now on July 3rd, three months from now, would be basically around the start of the playoffs. The Astros were lucky enough to clinch a top two seed without Yordan for that long, then they would have that week off. They would have to play, I mean, I'll go ahead and look at the exact calendar, I guess, for October.

But yeah, October 3rd would be a Friday, so that weekend probably, I think, or would it be the next weekend when ALDSs would be starting? I think it's that weekend. All right, so we'll figure that out. Small ball. If this team's one in the World Series, they're doing it with pitching. Yeah, but I'll say this.

They're not doing it without Yordon. What's up? They could. I don't think so. Cam Smith MVP? Okay, yeah. You know if Cam Smith develops into an old world guy, then maybe we can talk. They don't have enough hitting, I don't think.

To win the World Series. To get to the playoffs, yes, to win the World Series. I don't think so, but that will come to that. bridge. I'm sorry, do you have the AL pitcher of the month on this team? Yes, you do. Do you have the AL reliever of the month on this team? Yeah, you've got good pitching. But you've got to hit some, everybody else has

got, yeah, when you're going up against some of the, now, of course, in the playoffs, I don't know how great, the Detroit Tigers need to acquire a pitcher, and we'll see, because we know that Terek Skoubel can't start every game of a playoff series, but anyways, we'll go, we'll come to those bridges when we cross them, we'll see what happens to the Yorda on Alvarez.

hopefully we get some news very soon. All right, 713-212-5-790 is the phone number. Thomas, to see you on hold. We'll get to you in the next segment. Anybody else you want to get in, 7-13-212-5-790. That's the latest from the Internet on Yordon Alvarez. We've been talking to Stros, though. They're going for a sweep today at 210 here on Sports Talk 790.

We'll be with you until 1 to 40. We'll go into Astros on deck mode at 1 o'clock. We've got some news at noon coming up here shortly. Sports Talk 790, the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Welcome back to the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Again, I'm going to be honest with you, folks. I'm in Friday mode. It feels like a Friday. I keep forgetting.

We all know we're off tomorrow. I forgot that we had Brian McTaggart today at 11 o'clock. I forgot that we're supposed to have. I just don't get it at 1130 on Thursdays because it's like Friday, we don't have any of those things. Anything that goes Friday. And I think I even said anything to go Friday to start the show. didn't I? Nobody corrected me. What's wrong? I'm calling out both of y'all.

I mean, it is. It's a Friday. Yeah, yeah, it is a Friday. We went with the Friday open. We're going to do non-Florida stories? I've been Friday. You know what? Whatever, whichever. Dealer's choice. You want to do non-Florida stories or you want to do? I just don't get it. I'm like, I just don't get it. Okay, we'll pull that up at 1230 instead of 1130 here on the show. That's my bed. That's on me. I've got to do better. I keep forgetting which day is.

Remund listeners where we're at. Yes, we are at Pizza and Pints at Carbock Brewing. If you want to come by, say hello. The wood-fired grill is ready to go. We just ordered a pizza. You want to come by, say hello, you can do so. Look, it's, like I said, it's basically Friday. Just come out an ice-cold, refresh, and Crawford-Bock.

Hang out with us if you'd like. All right, 7-13-212-5-790 is the phone number. We've got the news at noon coming up at noon. Then at 1230 we'll do I Just Don't Get it. And you at 7-13-212-5-790. Thomas has rung in, so we want to get him. What's up, Thomas? Hey guys, yeah, while you were talking about Yordon and that plane flight, I happened to look at the four-letter network website.

The Astros transferred him to the 60-day injured list, and it's sourced by Matt Kalaara of the Houston Chronicle. So he's on the 60-day IL. Yeah, but that was preliminary because he was, I think Lex brought it up. Yesterday was day 54, so that doesn't really, they just did that to be able to get Zach short, on the roster with Luis Giormi going down. Yeah, that's just procedural. That doesn't necessarily mean anything else after that. Because he's already been, you can make that retroactive,

and as Gordy said, it's already been 54 days. So that is, yeah, that's just firing. Knowing he's not going to be back for six days, which you just move to the six. Yeah, that's the filing of paperwork there, Thomas. So it's not necessarily a death now for his season. Gotcha. All right, thank you.

That's all good times. I think we should, Wex did a good job of clarifying that yesterday, and I feel like we should have told the rest of the guys to kind of bring that up to kind of, for clarification, because, yes, the headline becomes Jordan Alvarez moved to the 60-day IL, and everybody immediately assumes, oh, my God,

he's out the next 60 days, no, it's retroactive. I think today's day 55. So you know he's not coming back in the next five days? Yeah. He could theoretically, on the 60-day IL come back next week, but he's obviously not with the setback to the hand.

Right. So we're not going to say we're all good or anything like that, but it's basically the filing of paperwork to get somebody back, to get somebody on the roster. Yeah, I think I didn't realize. So you can go on the, what is it, the seven-day I-L? With a concussion. It's normally 10 days.

For pitchers, it's 15, and 7-day would only be the concussion. But if you're on one of those, you're still taking up a roster spot. Yes. If you're on the 60, you're not. Correct. So they're taking him off the 40 man to get him to make room. Right. Or the roster.

Yeah, because Zach's short to come up. You had to make a move to get him on the active roster. Right. So, there you go. What did the Whiskey Army? What happened to him? He had a hamstring strain. Okay.

I think, I don't know exactly what happened or what they... I love that guy's defense. He just throws his body around. Yeah, well, yeah, that one play that he made. That probably how he strained his hamstring. It doesn't look like he's been moving super well since then, so I don't know if that's something he's been dealing with. But, yeah, he went on the aisle with hamstring injury.

I mean, it's just the hits keep on coming at this point. And the lineup has been posted, Gordy. Did you see it? Today's lineup, no. Yes, Isok Paredes leading off. Jake Myers is batting second. We're all okay. thing to worry about.

He's going to be in the lineup, folks. And he's batting second. Altuve is at DH. Yeah, let's just go and run through it real quick. Cam Smith is leading, excuse me, cleaning up for you. Christian Walker up to the fifth spot. Karatini, Hummel, Whitcomb, Dubon, and Walter.

You got to do Wickham in the field today. He will be at second base for the Houston Astros. Yeah, Dubon in ninth place here. And then, of course, Walter getting the start. So, So you said Jake Myers is in there? Yeah, Jake Myers is in there, and he's in center field. Yiner Diaz getting the day off today.

That's fine. Let him clear his head. Although I think he... He had a hit last night. Yeah, he did. I think, did he have two, maybe? I can't remember. Yonder Diaz was two for five.

Everybody had a hit last night. Yeah, they had 16 hits yesterday. So that's okay. Yeah, day off. Day game after a night game, day off for the catcher Yierre Diaz. but the good news is Jake Myers back in the lineup. So I will, at least for a little while, get over my fears that he was going to be out after he got hit by that pitch yesterday.

So it doesn't seem like there's any issues there. That is great news. 713-212-790 is the phone number if you want to get in. 7-13-212-5-790. Jose and Katie, you're next up on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Hey, Matt. One thing I'm born and raised in Houston, Texas, die hard. Astros fan.

One thing I could say about this team, and I guess everybody agree with me, is regardless of the injuries, pitching or whatever, when we most need the player that's probably not hitting at the moment comes through so we could win games. So whether Altub is in a slump, then Christian comes through or somebody's in a slump. and the team's always going to come through and make sure we're going to make it and we're going to make it to the world serious this year again and I'll listen on your thoughts on the radio. All right, Matt, what were your thoughts on that? Nothing but nylon.

Look, I've been in the business for 30 plus years, folks, and that's neither here nor there. All right, thank you, Jose. Matt is out today, but I do appreciate you getting in and getting involved in the show. Yeah, the ashoes have been clutch. They've been clutch with two outs. They've been clutch in one-run games.

I keep pointing this out, and you can get mad at me if you want, but their record in one-run games is like 18 and 7. Generally, that tends to even out a little bit as the season goes along. But they do have a really good bullpen. They've been clutched. You add it all up, especially with the great starts from Fromber and Hunter Brown. And they just keep on winning. So, I mean, until they stop,

I'm not going to necessarily say that this is like this is fake or they're not real or whatever. I mean, run differential is plus 49. That's still best in the division. Not one of the best in baseball, but they're still getting it done. And until proven otherwise, I think they should definitely be, at minimum, of course, American League West champs, hopefully a two seed in the American League. Gosh, I'm just looking at the pitcher they're going up against today. Kyle Freeland.

Kyle Freeland is one and nine with an ERA of four. 556. He got his first win of the season back a month ago on June 4th against the Miami Marlins. Everyone else he has lost to. Okay. And his last time out lasted four innings up in Milwaukee where he give up six earned runs off eight hits. So, Astor should get after this guy. The Yankees got him for nine runs back in May.

The Dodgers got him for nine runs off 11 hits back in May. See, Gordy, you're not like me. You say all that stuff, and I'm like, uh-oh, this guy's about to throw six shut out against the Astros. This is not good. He is a lefty. It is not good. Yeah, okay, they do very well against lefties. Brady, Myers, Eltuve, Cam Smith, Walker, Caratini, Hummel, Whitcomb, and Dubon, yes.

Carrotini, getting some right-handed A-Bs in this game. That's a rarity for him. I like it. Okay. All right. Are you telling me they're going to be all right? I'll believe you. Kyle Freeland, the rare, he's a Denver, Colorado native pitching for the hometown team.

Man, not doing well. Is anybody happy when they're a pitcher and you get selected or, like, signed by the Denver, be the Colorado Rockies? You've got to be pissed. That's just not good for anyone. Oh, because of the ballpark? Yeah. Or the T.R.A's going to go up.

Or both. I remember they signed, like, Mike Hampton to a big deal back of the day, and then, like, his ERAs were out of control. I mean, they got the, the fences, it's like 350. to left and 340 to right or something like that out there. I mean, they do everything they can, but the ball just continues to fly out of there. All right, time for a break here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Without Matt Thomas, folks, he is not here. Those of you on hold, we'll get you in the next segment.

We've got the news at noon coming up at noon. 1230 we'll have, I just don't get it. 1 o'clock will start Astros on deck, and we have you at 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. All right. We've got an internet sleuth, R-S-J-R-D-K, who I appreciate. I don't know if he found this or someone else did, but I'm going to give him credit until told otherwise.

There is a post from April 13th by the Houston Astros on Twitter, Gordy. It's a picture. It's sponsored by Shm United Airlines, where the guys are all getting ready to get on the plane. and in one of the pictures is Jordan Alvarez with luggage and with wireless over-the-ear headphones. A couple things. He could have lost him for sure. But also, if he's got these default wired headphones, you'd have to have one of the older iPhones as well.

You'd have to have, because the new ones have USBC, which I'm. I think it's the 15 that started with. So if he's got a 15 or 16, maybe Yordon's old school. And he's like, you know what? I don't need all these frills. I got my old iPhone SE2 and it has an iPhone jack and he's got plugged in. Or maybe he's got a USBC adapter. I don't know.

Just another angle on this to think about. Because the picture doesn't look Photoshopped to me. No. I think that's a real photo. I think that's a real picture of Yonon-Alvarez. on a flight. With wired headphones. His arms, I don't know.

His arms don't even look that muscular, though. That's your dog. Don't try to... No, that's his face. But look at it. You can put his face on somebody else's body. That's not Photoshop. That's an actual photo.

Are you sure? Because then look at below. The guy, look in the comments. The guy screenshoted the actual photo. You can do that, too. If you're going to go do this, yeah. I mean, you can Photoshop, but you've got to copy and paste it into it.

Okay. I'm just saying, That is a photo of Matthew O'Quinn's dad with Yorna Alvarez on a plane. Now, was it from yesterday or was it from four years ago? I don't know. But that looks like it was from yesterday. It looks legit. All right.

Well, we'll see if he popped. What does that even mean? My ligament popped. Well, that one I don't know. So he's sitting next to him and Yoron is giving out his own medical information to a stranger on a plane. I mean, if he's silly conversating, and again, if the guy speaks, Spanish, if he's bilingual, and he's, Ola, you're done.

Oh, la, you're, yes, six weeks. Cés mesas. Oh, wait, was that months? Can ligament? Can ligament get lost in translation? What's Spanish for ligament? Cés me? Okay. Yeah, okay.

I guess, like, he's giving him the prognosis and everything. I'm skeptical. I'll wait for Brian McTagher and Chandler-Rone. Yes, as will I. Dana Bryant gives us the official word. All right, a couple of all. let's get to you. Jerry and Paraline's been holding longest. What's up, Jerry?

Hey, guys. Just a couple things. I am not complaining. I started this season telling everybody that would listen, which is probably not that many, that we had a mediocre offense last year, and we got worse on paper anyway.

So I'm happy with what I'm seeing. I'm just as amazed as anybody else is how they're doing it. My main concern, two things. Number one, the, I love the Benes Susan when I saw the little snippet before he got hurt last year, so I was anxious to get him up here, and I love

the guys that they've got in the pen. They're all actually legit good arms, but I'm just, I'm just thinking they need to get healthier, obviously everybody knows that, overall in the pitching staff, but also because, you know, some of these guys

that are, that have stepped up, Gusto, Mort, uh, Gordon, et cetera. I don't know, you know, there's going to be a low, and I'm just worried about another injury. How many can we take?

So it'd be nice to have another arm to take some of the load off those three guys I'm thinking of, especially in the middle of the bullpen that are so good, King and Susan and Ord and even Okard. So that's one thing. The other thing is their offense shouldn't be good, but it is. I mean, it's not. It's not great. and it started out not great, but it's better than I expected.

I do think Yorda will eventually come back. But I'm just wondering if you guys have any idea or have you looked, they're looking for a left-handed bat, but usually a trade deadline deal is better for the team trading, and the guys that are giving up are on losing teams. So I'm just wondering what they could possibly get as a left-handed bat without giving up the farm. All right, Jerry.

Thanks a lot. I appreciate it. Yeah, they're fifth in average, Gordy, but I mean, come on, man. That's old school. They're 13th in OPS and 18th in run scored. The offense is not very good. What are they hitting-wise with two outs? Yeah, exactly.

I mean, they're clutch. Okay, yes. Timely hitting when they need it most. They have been good, but especially with Pian down now as well, this offense is going to get worse. They need help. I think they need to, it needs to be much, much better. thankfully Christian Walker's having a good series so far

he's got five hits but it's also in altitude and against bad pitching for the Colorado Rockies but I don't think they can just keep this up to where as I said they're 18th in runs scored per game in baseball you got to be better than that the offense does have to be better than that how about this I would look at digging into the offensive numbers so their fifth in league batting average in 257

they're 12th in total hits they're 15th in home runs, they're 18th in runs scored, but they're fifth least in strikeouts. So they don't strike out a lot. They don't hit a ton of home runs, but they get timely hitting. That's the story of this offense.

And, of course, their third and team ERA. Yeah, timely enough hitting that they're 18th in runs scored. I mean, they're behind the Angels actually have a lot of home runs. They're behind the Marlins, the, I mean, I was going to say, Washington centers, the nationals. Clutch gene, Ross. They're so clutch, they're 18th, they're 18th and runs per game. That's not, it'd be more clutch you would figure.

But, yeah, that's what I'm saying, this. No, because that doesn't, I mean, hitting with two outs, you can have no runs through the other innings. It's a dangerous game to play to think that that's just going to happen the rest of the season. As I said, they've been very good in one-run games. That luck tends to turn around, even though the bullpen has been good. They need to think that they need some offensive help. just absolutely do. Yeah, yeah, but

I mean, that's the thing is like, okay, left-handed power hitter on expiring deal. How many of those are out there? I don't know. I'd have to look around. But there's a few of them. There's going to be some options. I don't know exactly which doors they're going to go down, but they're going to have some options

there. And you can't just keep banking on like, oh, Cooper Humble hit us a home run and we won this game. And, oh, Victor Caratini, won a hit a grand slam, and we won this game. You know, Jose Al-Tuvé definitely is going to come up, clutch for you here and there is he had the go-ahead single that won them the game yesterday but uh i think at some point i mean and danna brown knows this they they have to to improve this offense

especially depending on what is actually going on with yorda alvarez and how long he is going to be out all right uh tray in sugarland has been holding patiently so let's get him real quick what's up tray yeah just talking about the hitting and thinking about it you know i've been looking at this throughout your season. Is this an organizational wide issue? It appears to be when you look at the stats in the minor leagues at AAA and double A, for example, there's nobody down there.

There's maybe two or three guys that had strikeout rates, for example, less than 30 percent and contact rate and all of those metrics that Dana Brown's been talking about recently, you know, like in relation to Bryce Matthews. You know, question, I guess, comes is this an organizational, wide philosophical problem that they're having with hitting. There's nobody

that's down there that looks like they're ready to come up yet and contribute at the plate. Some of the guys' opinion on that, it seems to be organization-wide. Yeah, I got you, Trey. Yeah, I mean, it has been kind of a shortage of who is, of course, Cam Smith was one of their top

prospect, but they just traded them this offseason with Kyle Tucker. A guy who's come up through the ranks recently and been an impact position player and really, really good at the plate. I mean, we can go all the way back to like

Kyle Tucker or Alex Bregman. I mean, Jeremy Pena came up through the system, I guess, and he's been pretty good, and he was a guy that was, I think, the year before he came up, he was in a top 100 prospect list. I think the baseball prospectus had him like 17th or something like that.

I honestly can't speak to that, Gory. I don't know. It's been a lot of really good pitching and guys who come up and that are really effective. But it's also just harder to, in general, to have impact high-level hitters go through the system, especially with the way that this Astros farm system has been, and not thought of as one of the best in baseball. Yeah, they've been funded and, you know, diamonds in the rough pitching-wise. but Bryce Matthews is somebody to keep an eye on.

Zach DeZenzo's been in the farm system, but he's hurt now, and he was actually showing some flashes for you as well. Jacob Melton is not thought of as a plus plus bat, even though he's your number two prospect. And he was showing here, something here and there, but then he got hurt as well. Here's a name. I was just reading CBS Sports.

has some trade deadline potential guys who would be available. Josh Naylor, first baseman for the Arizona Diamondbacks. So not much is going on the Diamondbacks way this season, but replacing Christian Walker with Naylor counts as a win. He provides plenty of contact and power against right-handed pitching, and he's chosen an opportune time to enjoy what Mike O'Dowdown is a career best season. Josh Naylor batting 303 with 10 homers for the Diamondbacks, and he's a left-handed bat.

he's on a one year $10 million deal was arbitration avoided. He's playing first, right? Yeah, he's a pending free agent and the funny thing is he's the guy who replaced Christian Walker. I think it'd be pretty funny to make a move for him.

Let him come platoon. He could DH. He can play for his base. I think they're going to want to still continue to give. I wonder how long the leash is for Christian Walker. It might be all the way up into the playoffs. I'm just saying this is a left-handed bat that is going to be available. Yeah. Well, hey, John Singleton is available too.

All right. I'm going to take a break. on that note. Ross v. Rial, Chris Gordy with you. Those of you on hold, we will get to you momentarily. Phone lines open at 713 2125-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. We have I just don't get it. Come out of

1230. We have Astros on deck coming up at 1 o'clock. We are at Pizza and Pints at Carbock Brewing. Come by and say hello. Hour number three of the Matt Thomas show with Ross without Matt Thomas. Chris Gordy with me at Pizza and Pints and Carbach Brewing as it is a Thursday edition of the program here on Sports Talk 790.

All right. Yeah, we're using the Friday open on a Thursday. That's how we're rolling on the Mattsomah show with Ross, even though it is confusing me. And I'm thinking that today's Friday. That's all right. We'll get through it somehow, some way. We have, I just don't get it coming up at 1230.

will go into Astros on deck mode coming up at 1 o'clock. But right now, it is time for the news at noon here on Sports Talk 7-9. All right, Gordy, I'm going to bring you the news at noon, and you're going to react. Now, of course, we know that the use of Astros won yesterday in Colorado. They are two games up in this series. They have clinched a victory. They're going for a sweep coming up at 210 here on Sports Talk 790. But the news, or is it?

of the day has been from our guy Matthew Aalcone. Or however, you're saying it. Apparently, Jordon Alvarez spotted at LaGuardia, is what people are saying? Why is he in New York? Is that where the hand specialist is? Because somebody sent me a picture of him at LaGuardia. And then we got this other tweet saying, quote, Here is Jordan Alvarez last night, cast on.

He did clarify that it's a brace, not a cast. Directly from the man himself, my dad asked and said, quote, my ligament popped during my rehab stint, and I won't be swinging for six weeks. And then it's a picture of Jordan Alvarez with some old wired headphones, although people have pointed out that he could be using wired headphones to plug into the television of the plane. because we also have photos of him with some nice wireless headphones.

So is Jordan Alvarez just a cheap bastard? Or was he listening to video? Or is this picture old or not real at all? That's what we have to figure out. It's more of an investigative edition of the news at noon. I believe this. I believe the photo is real. I believe that is really Jordan Alvarez with Matthew O'Quan's father

on social media. The only thing we just don't know is the legitimacy of Yordon telling this guy's father on a plane that, oh yeah, my ligament popped during my rehab and I won't be swinging for six weeks. So not swinging for six weeks. That's...

Yeah, that means he would still have to build up. Five, six. Okay, that's mid-August just starting to pick up a bat again. Yeah, then probably two, three weeks of rehab. So that would be the start of September. That actually would be a good thing. I mean, we've got to figure out what's going on with this whole Yordon debacle and the setbacks.

Hopefully we get something soon with this because I don't want to be speculating and talking about these ridiculous tweets that we're seeing from people taking pictures of Yorda. And apparently he's giving this guy's dad the entire prognosis of what's going on with his hand and a timeline. Yeah. Again, we'll wait for the official word from any of the Astros. sources, but that is, that's out there. That's all we're doing. Passing that along. All right. Well, elsewhere on the news at noon, some unfortunate news, Gordy. Liverpool forward Diego Houta. This is your number two news tidbit?

Dead in a car crash in Spain? Your thoughts? Yeah. Not familiar, but may he rest. It's horrible. 28 years old. He and his brother died in a car crash in Spain. I mean 182 appearances at Liverpool in five years This is big international news That's what I'm trying to bring you It is the news at noon

That's what I'm just trying to tell you Unless you want to talk about Luis Ortiz Under Investigation Over an alleged gambling scheme Yeah that's intriguing From a standpoint of Current athletes betting on sports We knew this was going to be a thing

That was going to happen with the legalization Of sports betting across so many places. Not here in Texas though. This sports betting's bad, okay? Dan Patrick is going to see to that. Yeah. I'm dumb because I didn't think this would happen. At least not with basketball players. Now, I guess I get it more with

baseball players, especially guys like on league minimum deals. It's not like they're making millions and millions of dollars. But I just didn't think people would be stupid enough to continue to do this to risk banishment for a life from the sport. Yeah. Well, he is under investigation

according to Jeff Passen he's placed on paid leave by MLB that will have a league investigation into his gambling activities horrible all right well there was another baseball related tidbit

go ahead Chandler Rome putting it out there Chohey Otani will start opposite Fromber Valdez on Saturday on the mound how much will he pitch well here's the thing

he's made three starts back on the mound. Past few weeks. He pitched one inning against the Padres, one inning against the nationals, and two innings against the Royals. He's given up one total

run in those three outings. So he's got four innings pitch total in the area of 225. He's been good. So, okay. So last time out, he went two innings.

So I would say maybe they try to stretch him to three this time. Okay. It's like a spring... Here's the funny thing about it. Gordon's on the case. Well, here's the funny thing about it. So he's back

into pitching form, but he can't make rehab starts in the minors because his bat's too important in the big league club. So it's almost like they have to just gut through it. Hey, Shohei, we need your bat in the lineup every day. So we're just going to keep starting you one or two innings at a time until you build back up.

Okay. But that's that's balls you do opposite Framber. I mean, you're basically saying that's going to be a bullpen game. You've got to get him some work at some point. You got to get him some work. All right. We're going to take quick break here on that note. Oh, one more quick news item. Your reliever of the month for June. The American League, Josh Hader. Your pitcher of the month, Hunter Brown.

Pretty good. Not bad at all. All right. We're going to take quick break here. We have an update on Yordon Alvarez when we come back. This is hot off the presses. So we're going to hit a quick break. Stephen, I see you. We'll get to you soon as well. But a Yordaunt update is next. I literally just saw it. I'm going to take quick break. Be right back with that. 1220 at the PM here on. Sports Talk 790, and we have a lengthy update.

We're going to have to parse through a lot here, Gordy, on Yordon Alvarez and his hand. We are out at the Pizza and Pints at Karbach Brewing. Appreciate a couple of you guys have come out. Carlos, Steve, others have come by. I appreciate all of them. We've got some good prizes for it. If you want to come by, say hello. We're here at Pizza and Pints.

Stephen, we will get to you in just a moment, but we have to get to this Yorda update put out by the Astros. All right. Let's get this started, Gordy. Yordon Alvarez and the Astros received some encouraging news from a hand specialist that examined Alvarez's sore right hand on Wednesday. As part of the examination, additional imaging was done on his right hand, which revealed that the main cause of his current pain is due to inflammation. I think that's good. Doesn't sound like a pop ligament.

Doesn't sound like a fracture or anything like that. All right, I continue on. The specialist also indicated that at this point in the recovery process, the small fracture that had been sustained is now a non-factor in the discomfort that Alvarez is currently experiencing. So they're saying no fracture or the fracture is not what's causing him pain. So the fracture's healed. That's what it sounds like they're trying to say without saying, but also. We were a few weeks ago, it was 40%, then it was 16%.

But wouldn't they have said the fracture is fully healed in this statement as well? They didn't say that they tried to imply it without saying it, which is giving me pause. The small fracture that had been sustained is now a non-factor. A non-factor in the discomfort. That doesn't mean a non-factor in his recovery process, right? Well, it might be like 95%. I don't know. I'm just saying they're being a little dodgy.

We've seen this before. When they're saying it's a non-factor, I say it's a non-factor. It's a non-factor in the discomfort. They're saying it's not the fracture that's hurt. which is healing properly, he's hurt somewhere else, which I don't know. All right. As a result of the examination, Alvarez received two injections in his hand on Wednesday and will refrain from any activity involving in his hand in the upcoming days.

This was not the first time that Alvarez had received injections in his hands while on the injured list. All right. Specialists also reviewed the multiple sets of imaging that had been done previously on Alvarez's hand and concurred with the findings of the Astros medical staffs and other hand specialists. So that's a little FU to some people. Why they have all these great doctors? They put that in on purpose, of course. All right.

Specialists also determined that the imaging done on Wednesday were fueled that Alvarez's hand made noticeable progress when compared to imaging done over the past several weeks. Prior to Wednesday's MRI, the most recent imaging on Alvarez's hand had indicated that the inflammation had been reduced. Alvarez began to ramp up his baseball activity last week and was able to take batting practice on the field on Saturday with positive results. However, on Tuesday morning, he reported to the medical staff the pain in his hand return,

which resulted in Wednesday's visit to the additional hand specialist. So the key part of this is they're calling it encouraging. They're saying that it's inflammation and not due to a fracture and certainly not due to some guy on the internet posting a picture of Yordon and saying he's going to be out six weeks

with a popped ligament. Well, Armin on Twitter said, you know, the asteros gave Yorda a good talking to about talking to random dudes on airplanes about your injuries. Whether that's true or not. I'm calling BS on the whole thing still.

I'm sorry, Matthew. That Yordon would go and say, oh, my ligament popped them out in six weeks. Don't believe it. I didn't believe it. I was more skeptical. And now after this, they're not mentioning anything about a ligament,

doesn't mention a timetable. Now, it could turn out to be true. Astros have been dodgy with injury stuff before, I understand. But this sounds, I'm going to say it sounds pretty good. They use the word encouraging, and I'm going to go with that. And they're saying it's not the fracture that's hurting them. We're going to be eye. What do you think?

Yeah, I mean, again, this is the official statement from the team, and they are acting very positive about this. If it were true that there was a ligament pop or anything like that, I feel like they would have alluded to that in this. Yeah. So, I mean, it starts with the Astros and Jordan Alvarez received some encouraging news from a hand specialist on Wednesday. Okay. I'm going to take them out their word on that.

And we're just going to go from here. So what do you read it through? Okay, so they think, as part of the examination on Wednesday, additional imaging was done on his right hand, which revealed the main cause of his current pain is due to inflammation. and they indicated the small fracture that had been sustained is now a non-factor in the discomfort. So the fracture's healed. So he just keep having, what's causing inflammation then? Soreness, bruising, I don't know.

I mean, this is just crazy. And should we also say that they've said before that inflammation makes it harder to get good, reliable imaging? Right. I just feel like this is, we're in circles here. He doesn't say no fracture. I don't know. Because remember even a few weeks back when he was. starting to swing and all this, they were like, yeah, the problem is, it's just like he feels good,

and then he swings, and then the next day, the inflammation pops up, and he can't, and he's got discomfort in there. It's like, well, this is just going to keep lasting all season. Like, it's going to be a circular thing here. Well, we'll see. We'll get the updates when we come with them. I'm not going to believe that Yordon told some stranger he popped the ligament in his hand. Right. And I feel like they would have put that, that news would have been in here, if that were true. I agree. All right, well... But they're basically saying that they determined the imaging done on Wednesday

revealed his hand has made noticeable progress when compared to the imaging from a few weeks ago. Okay, great. Then what's the setback? Why is there a setback if this new imaging is like, oh, no, he's actually doing great. What's a setback? It's a setback is that he's hurt,

and that he's feeling discomforted. He's discomforted. Yeah, they said on Tuesday, Alvarez reported the Astros, the pain in his hand. had returned, which resulted in the next, you know, him seeing a hands sputist on Wednesday. But I just, I feel like I don't understand here. Like, okay, so he's having pain. Yes.

That's the setback. They said they're going to shut him down for, they said a couple of days, right? Yeah, so he's getting in, he's got inflammation. A couple of days he's shut down. All right. Well, on that note, we're going to take a break, and I'm going to try to clear this headache that I'm getting from trying to figure out what the hell's going on. If you order on Alvarez's hand, you want to call in to react to any of that.

You can 713, 212, 5, 790. 713, 212 5, 790. Ross v. Real, Chris Cordy with you, have pizza and pints. I just don't get it. Well, coming up in the next segment, actually, I got some things I just don't get. And then we have Astros on deck coming up at 1 o'clock. Astros, 210 first pitch. They go for a sweep against Colorado Rockies here on Sports Talk 790.

You're home for your stroes. All right, it is that time of the week. something you don't understand. What is going on? I just don't get it. 713, 212.1, 790. 713, 212.5-790. We'll get to that in just a moment, but we are getting a few tweets from Matthew. Say his name again?

O'Quain. O'Qua'am. Matthew O'Quain, baby. So, Matt Thomas replied to him a few minutes ago, saying this is exactly the opposite of what the Astros just reported. We shall see. Matthew says, I am simply telling you what Yordon told my father.

Y'all can flame me all you want. I thought I was doing a good thing. I wasn't making anything up and I was fully transparent. I hope it's not six weeks. I wish he was back hitting and wasn't hurt to begin with. There you go. Matthew Oquan is standing by his father's

reporting, but the Astros are saying something completely different. Yeah. I mean, couldn't dad just be playing a joke? Yeah, he told me six weeks for his ligament. Well, again, let's break down what is, what is this report from the Astros saying?

It's not saying anything about a pop liquid in six weeks. Right. They start by calling it encouraging news. Right. And all they're saying is from this additional imaging that was done on Wednesday revealed that the main cause of his pain is inflammation. Okay. I thought that was the deal.

They're saying, oh, the small fracture is a non-factorous discomfort. Okay, but like you had told us weeks ago. Remember, Dana Brown was like, oh, the fracture, that's almost healed, man. That thing's healing up so quick. It's really just the discomfort that he's having. Like, that was the explanation a month ago. Okay. You know, he picks up a bat and he swings and he feels good.

And then, you know, later on, the pain kind of comes in. And we looked at it. It's due to inflammation. So this report today is going, you know what? We had this new hand specials. You know what he found? His pain has caused to due to inflammation. Yeah, we knew that already.

Like, I don't get it. Like, what's the deal here? I have to ask myself a question and everyone else a question. If there is a ligament issue or a fracture or something like that, and they are not telling us about it, why? Yeah, I mean, what's the benefit? Now, this kind of did happen last year with the fracture with Kyle Tucker, where they weren't going to say it was a fracture until it was literally going to be reported.

And they're like, all right, fine, it's a fracture. So I would say, I would be asked the same question there, and I still don't have an answer. Why would they lie about a shin bruise versus a fracture versus somebody with somebody missing 90 games? But why aren't they given more than that? But I have to ask again, hopefully they have learned from this. You know what, I'll throw this right into. I just don't get it. If the Astros are lying, why?

What is the harm in saying? What is the harm in saying? Guys get hurt every year. They have Tommy John. They have shin bruises. They are fractures, all this stuff. What is the Harmon saying? Joron Alvarez has a ligament issue.

We're looking into surgery, and we're going to go from there. There's this long, thousand-word explanation. It basically just says he's got a little bit of soreness. He got some injections. He's going to be okay. couple of days. I just, it is difficult to make heads or tails of this. It just really is. Again, they called it encouraging, but I think the encouraging part, all they're saying is this new hand specialist found that pain he's having his hand, it's not even due to the fracture.

The fracture's fine. That thing's healing up. It's just inflammation, to which my question is inflammation from what? If he's not swinging a bat, well, I guess he was. So if he was a few years ago. So they're saying, oh, he picked up and he was swinging the bat again and maybe he was playing that punching game at the arcade and he accidentally he hit the boxing I don't think he was doing with that okay I think that would have been pretty irresponsible

of him to go punch well he's also on planes telling people his six week prognosis according to the internet but again as the rest of the report they indicated at this point the small fracture is the non-factors result he received two injections in his hand

which I don't know what injections for something that reduces inflammation I would assume. They don't say what they're injecting him with. He will refrain from any activity involving his hand in the upcoming days. Days, not weeks, months, whatever. This was not the first time he received injections in his hand. So, again, he's been having inflammation. He got injections with inflammation.

It hasn't helped, apparently. But he got more injections. I'm just trying to redo this logically. All right. I don't get it. I don't get it either. Also, some more injury news real quick here, Gordy. Red Panda suffered a broken wrist after falling off of her unicycle. How long did she out? She spent 11 hours in the hospital.

She will need further consultation with an orthopedic surgeon, but intends to be ready for next season. There's your Red Panda out there. Could we take Red Panda's other hand and give that to Yorda? I don't think you want a 51-year-old woman's hand for Yorda to swing with? Okay. I'm just trying to think outside the box. I appreciate you. We did have an encouraging medical arm.

update. Go ahead. Chas McCormick will join AAA Sugar Land today and begin playing with them tomorrow. Okay, well, I get that. What don't you get? I'm going to go with this Luis Ortiz gambling thing. Have people not seen that people are getting caught with these gambling things and you're being banished for life? I understand, and I thought this wasn't really going to happen much with gambling because these sports books have data.

If you're telling one person to, hey, bet on my prop bed or bet on this prop bed, they're going to tell somebody they're going to tell ten people then there's going to be a flurry of activity and that sets off red flags at all these sports books so the fact that this just keeps happening with malik beasley with uh whoever else i can't even remember at this point these cheating scandals that have been popping up and they continue to happen i mean you think people would learn their lesson after the firestorm from the first couple of these i just don't get it i'm with you i i and especially i'm surprised college. It hasn't happened more. Broke college players trying to make some extra money.

I'm surprised. I'm surprised that hasn't happened a little bit more. But, yeah, I mean, I also think the punishments are a little extra. Like, who was the guy in a, it was the wide receiver for the Jaguars, right? Oh, he was making parlayes and then he, um, uh. But Roger Goodell was like, automatic ban, a full year, like a full year. Yeah. man.

For betting on parley's. Yeah, he was with the Falcons, and then now he's with the Jaguars. Why can't I remember his name right now? Starts at the C? I can't remember. Cam Ridley. Calvin Ridley, sorry. Calvaryl.

Alabama kid. Oh, you're trying to throw Sabin under the bus. I see you working. Yeah, I just don't get it. What don't you get, Gordy? I don't get why ESPN continues to pay Stephen A. Smith as much as they do and make him the face of all their sports coverage. Look, it's one thing to ask him NBA stuff.

I think it's absolutely silly when they have him to try to talk Major League Baseball or college football stuff because he always gets things wrong. But apparently Stephen A. Smith on ESPN yesterday was asked about the Knicks hiring Mike Brown as head coach. And Stephen A on the phone was giving his thoughts and talked about how excited he is to see a lot of the great players for the Knicks back, including Michael McBride. It's Miles McBride. He got one of the key players from the Knicks names wrong on ESPN. That's less egregious than some other things he did.

There was a tight end, and it was Derek Johnson of the Chiefs, and then it was a tight end for somebody else, and he was talking about their matchup, and neither of them were still on the team. So he's had some bad slip-ups. It continues to happen, though. Yeah. I'm going to say getting the name wrong. At least he got the started letter. You said Miles and Michael? Yeah. Michael McBride. Everybody out there's like, who the hell's Michael McBride?

That one's not that bad, but I'm with you. I understand like he makes all that money. And that's what ESPN does. We're paying this guy $20 million? All right, well, we're going to put you on this, this, this, this, this, and this. That way you have to justify the salary. Let me slide in another. I just don't get it. Because it's another highly paid ESPN talent. Uh-oh. How about Paul Feinbaum? Oh, I saw that. On their morning show the other morning says, Oh, my gosh.

That Arch Manning is the most talented quarterback to come along since Tim Tebow. Oh. That's insane. He said he's the best quarterback. Yeah, yeah, I think so. And it's like, dude, yeah, let's just ignore Cam Newton, Joe Burrow. Cam Newton was the first one that came to my mind. Johnny Mansell.

I mean, we have had Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback after Heisman Trophy winning quarterback. come through not just college football, but the SECs particularly. You're going to go to Tebow from 2007, 2006? Johnny Mansell. Did you say Johnny Mansell? Joe Burrow, Jaden Daniels. Baker Mayfield. I mean, yeah, the list goes on and on. Kyler Murray.

Jeez. Yeah, that was horrible. I saw that, and of course I'm a Texas fan. I'm hoping that he's right about Archmanning. But that was a hard eye. I couldn't believe that he said that either. And then he stood by it. And then like yesterday, he was like offended that people were offended by his dumb-ass take.

But again, guy makes millions. Please, if there's an ESPN executive out there, please, I will take millions from you, have dumb-ass takes. I will make a career out of that. We'll get your agent right on that. All right, Jonathan, what don't you just get? You know, this is one I've just been waiting to ask because I don't understand all these headlines about the Rockets and Sons with Kevin Durant are trying to do a 7.

like way he did with seven teams I don't understand what the Rockets is gaining out of this and what's the point of that I don't understand this I need someone to help me get a I don't know what's going on I think you can kind of benefit in some ways like where you end up picking up a second round pick or a trade exception

or you end up matching the money more easily so you don't have to give as much as far as your roster players there's a number of reasons I will say overall I kind of don't I don't understand it I think it's a Curtis But I get it. I think you're getting calls from some of the other GFs going, hey, Rafael, do you mind?

We're trying to get under the apron. We're going to do this transactional deal with the bucks. Do you mind if we get in this? Yeah, we don't. Do you mind if we make this a seven-team deal? Yeah, do us a solid. It's kind of like that. Yeah, you scratch our back, we'll scratch yours, all that kind of stuff, Jonathan.

So there you go. Okay, we're going to take quick break. Those you on hold, we'll get to you. I promise coming up next. It'll be the final segment of the Matt Thomas show with Ross for Matt. We will go into Astros on deck mode coming up at 1 o'clock until 1.40 when we will go into Astros Radio Network. And then 210, first pitch, Astros and Rockies game number three of the three game set coming right at you here on Sports Talk 790. You're home for the Shros.

All right. Only a little time before we get to Astros on deck mode. Couple of you on hold, so let's go ahead and get after it. Starting with those of you who just don't get it. Robert and Katie, go ahead. The floor is yours. Hey man, what I just don't get is these Colorado fans booing Al Tuvei calling them a cheater. You know, they need to look in the mirror.

I believe they were one of the teams that got caught banging on the can, and Al2A wasn't any part of that. And I just don't get it, man. When are they going to stop? Yeah, unfortunately, Robert, I have to say I do get it because number one rule of life. People are idiots. And, I mean, this whole Johnboy thing that took over, I don't like it. I don't think that it should still be happening.

I think it's ridiculous. I mean, he's proven how good he is over the years. But people are fools. They don't research that he didn't participate in this. They don't research that the buzzer thing was 100% completely made up by but-hurt Johnboy after the Yankees got destroyed by Jose Al-Tuvae in that series. And they're talking about literal wrinkles in his jersey or are him holding on to a buzzer. So unfortunately, I get it, but I wish it was not happening. Thank you, Robert.

Greg and Livingston. You're next up. What's up, Greg? I just don't get how the Savannah bananas sell out almost every stadium and I'll hang up. All right. You know what, that's a good one. It was on, so I have multiple TV. I know you do too, Gordy.

In this day and age, you've got to have multiple TVs in your living room. And I was like flipping around, looking for something to put on the second TV. and it was like Savannah Banana. I was like, whatever, I'll put this on. I can't remember. I think I was watching the Astros or something else. And I am with our caller.

Like, I was like, what is this? First of all, there's points and there's runs. It's confusing. I don't know what the rules are. The pitchers are like grooving pitches every five seconds. And the place, at that time, it was in Charlotte. It was Bank of America Stadium, like where the Panthers play. And the place was completely packed.

Yeah. It's fun entertaining baseball. They do stuff you get extra points for like a trick play and all kinds of stuff. Savannah Banana's enthusiast Chris Gordy? Well, I saw them live when it came to... How'd you like it? It was fun. There's music playing.

You and all the 12-year-olds had a good time. I mean, it's definitely for the kids. One of the guys at Bat Songs was the SpongeBob theme song, and the whole... Every kid in the place sang every word to the SpongeBob team song. Okay, well, who doesn't know all the words that SpongeBob theme song? But that was two years ago in Sugar Land. They've gotten so big now.

They're selling out of them. NFL stadiums and MLB ballpark. So it's pretty insane. Yeah, definitely insane, but I will say, I kind of don't get it. Okay, that's going to do it for I just don't get it. But Terry has been waiting patiently, so let's go ahead and go to him out on the phone lines. Terry, go ahead. The floor is yours.

Yeah, this is actually not Terry. This is Jordon's hand on a mobile. Oh, okay, thank you. Yordawn's hand on a mobile. How are you feeling? You know, there's a lot of reports out there. I just want to get things straight. You know, I'm feeling good.

Oh, no. Oh, crap. Oh, the bone fracture. Oh, no. Bone fracture. No, I'm feeling better. It's healing. I'm feeling good about it.

And so, you know, I just want to get better every day. Oh, God, that ligament in front of them. Oh, God. Terry, how many times did you practice this, Terry? Three. Yeah, well, let's go back to the drawing board. Yeah, I mean, to me, it's not even, it's not, it's not the leg, I mean, it's not a fracture. It's inflammation.

Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. And I have to keep going back to the what's causing the inflammation. It's like, well, you know, he just, he picked up a bat, he took some swings, it just got a little inflamed. Okay, like, I get inflammation when I eat salty foods. I get inflammation in my hamstring right now. Like, is this something that we just have to deal with? But the, like, the statement was like, we've clarified the thing that's causing him pain.

Okay, what is it? Inflammation. Okay, but wasn't he having inflammation before? Yes. Okay. But, like, all we solved is the pain is not coming from the fraction. Information came back. Yeah, they're like, we have determined the pain he's having it.

It's not from the fraction. Okay, great. But what's the inflammation from? We don't know. You know what? I know we have to talk about it because the release was just put out. We're going to talk about it, the Astros on Deck Show, coming up in a couple of minutes. But I'm thankful.

We're going to get a day off of this. And then when the Matt Thomas, part of the Matt Thomas show with Ross, comes back on Monday, we will discuss. Because both of us are kind of over this. It's like, this is let me know when he's back in the lineup. I don't need to know the particulars. I don't need to know the metacarpals, metatarsals, any of that stuff, is say, hey, give us as close as you can to some semblance of a timeline. Let us know when he's back in the lineup, and that's it. I'm very much over all this.

And these ridiculous things with the guy in the airplane, we've got conspiracy theories, false information, thousand-word releases by the Astros. It's just like, man, I'm just ready to be done with this. Yeah, I mean, like I said, let me know when he's ready to swing about with the big league club again. That's all I'm waiting for. Wake me up when he's in the lineup.

That's pretty much... Here's the good news, Ross. They're doing all right without them. Yes. We have a first place ball club. They're 18 games above 500. There's seven games in first place in the American League West. To me, this would all be way more frustrating if they were losing and the offense stunk and they didn't have Yorna.

Then it would be magnified. But right now, they're doing all right without them. So just keep us post and let us know when Yoron's back. Pitching and vibes. The story of the 2025 Houston Astros, who are 18 games about. above 500. They will go for 19 games above 500 here coming up to 10

on Sports Talk 790. Your home for your Houston Astros. Ross v. Real, Chris Cordy with you. We are going to take a quick top of the hour break. We're not going anywhere. We're still hanging out at pizza and pints. Appreciate everybody to come out and hang. The pizza is flowing. The pints are flowing as well here

at Pinsa Pints at Carbock Brewing. We're going to be here until 140, but we're going to switch into Astros on deck mode coming up here after this top of the hour break. Don't go anywhere.