The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Take Game 2 vs Twins, Lance is Out Again?? Joe Espada Joins

Episode Date: May 20, 2026

Astros Take Game 2 vs Twins, Lance is Out Again?? Joe Espada Joins

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Hey H-Town. Boy, hey, Rossi. Astros win last night. You went in a little to airplane pilot mode for a second there. Hey, Ron. Good morning, everybody. Welcome. We have some delays here at our kind of airport.

We've got some dodged some thunderstorms. And we'll get you up there as fast as we can. Get you up to 28, 29,000 feet. It could be a few bumps along the way. Sit back and relax. And remember if you're, flying with us here on Delta and you've got a flight less than 350 miles you'll get no water

you'll get no Biscoff cookies and you'll be a Oh wow they're cutting down You didn't hear that? No Well again my guess is it I would like some Biscoff cookies The Biscop cookies are so good

They are crack cocaine You know what the crazy part is that we fly that airline Just to get those but you can go to the grocery store I see them all the time There's no reason why we can't go get Biscop at home Yeah, go get a couple sleeves of them. Yeah. All right.

So Rossi, the Astros won yesterday. Yes, they did. Didn't get a whole lot of offense. Just five measly hits. Mm-hmm. Got it going in the first inning. And they had two runs by the second batter, and then that was it. That was it.

That's so baseball of them. Yeah. What's that song called, Where Have All the Cowboys Gone? Is that a song? Uh-huh. I feel like we need to make a spoof, maybe get Gordy involved. Where has the Astros' offense gone? it's come back to Earth

what kind of knew that right well when you have lose large amounts of it because of injuries I mean Correa's gone Altova's gone it wasn't like it was a robust offense with Altuvi the last month or so but yeah they kind of regress back to the norm basically right yes

and the pitching's gotten better including Chris Gordy fan club president of Jason Alexander yes so I remember folks when Ross and I were in Houston. This is back in what late February,

Gordy comes back says, man, you guys got to see this, Jason Alexander. I mean, he was good last. Oh, you're overselling it. Let me, can I please oversell? Yes, no, because you're always taking shots at Gordy, and I'm letting you know. I'm not taking shots. Yes, you are. Yes, you are.

Matt is overselling it. Relax. He didn't say Jason Alexander's Cy Young campaign starts today. He's got probably, he's got 20-game winning arm in his body there. No, none of that happened. Okay. I'm just teasing. Gosh.

So ridiculous. You're such a fraud. I wonder what kind of things you say about me when I'm gone. Oh, come on. I was saying to your face. That's the best part of it there. All right. We have a short show today, Rossi.

By the way, the weather sucks today. Man, does it suck? Yeah, it's going to be a soggy weekend per potentially a soggy Memorial Day weekend here in Houston. Yeah, I just looked at the forecast or extending the rain through Monday, which is not great. Which is not great because my daughter is flipping out because she graduates high school on Friday and all her and her and her little girlfriends are worried about their hair and going to Dinkin's car.

Oh my God. I'm like, just get the diploma and get out. Yeah, just relax. So rain will be here or won't? Do you remember your high school graduation vividly? I mean, I remember the valedictorian address and I remember walking and that's about it.

I think at the M.O. Campbell-Simmer? I don't remember where ours was. I don't think it was called Tully Arena. Tully Stadium this is over in Strath. Oh, I know. I've been to Tully Stadium. Yeah, some of my elbow skin is in there still. That AstroTurf.

Good God. Think about all the lawsuits kids could have up with that too. You basically played on concrete. Dude, you played on concrete with the hottest, worst turf ever, and it was like 110 degrees. Yeah, it wasn't good. Yeah, Road Stadium. I mean, Katie wasn't a whole lot better.

Now these high school stadiums are all Taj Mahals. I know. All right. We have a short show today, so we're with you only to 1130. So you 10 o'clockers, you guys got to step up. Woo! It's a rainy day 10 o'clock. And James and Klein can call 49 times.

We're not taking his call. Aw. I mean, his call are terrible. I try to defend him. What kind of crap was he coming with yesterday? I forget. He's been singing. He's coming on in rhyming.

I mean, I don't know he's a mental giant. I don't know that for sure. I mean, I'm wishing him the best. I wish him indifference. He thinks he's hilarious. He does. That's half the battle's confidence. Do you think he listens to the podcast of our show, which we hope that you all do on the eye

that radio app and goes, man, I was really awesome. On the I heart radio app, you can also find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, check out the latest tennis podcast available. Yes. voting the hell out. Yeah, I think they break down the top spin lob for 40 minutes. That's not a terrible line by you. I don't think I could pull that one off.

Good job by you on that one. All right, so since we're only on for a literally snack-size edition of the show. By the way, Joe Spott is going to join us in about to 25 minutes. Give or take. So it depends on what's going on. That's beautiful. He's going to be in line for his juicy Lucy and get on with us for a couple minutes. All right.

this one dollar bet do you think he knows what a Juicy Lucy is? 100%. Okay, we're going to ask him that. We're going to try to lighten things up here. I'll bet you. You think he doesn't? I'll bet you a dollar he does.

I don't know. I'll take the other side of it. Whatever you take. Okay. I'd say he does for a dollar. Okay. Isn't it crazy that certain food items are regionalized, but really they shouldn't be? I mean, for those that don't know, a Juicy Lucy is basically taking a hamburger patty.

pre-cooked pre-cooked obviously slicing it and butterflying it and just stacking cheese in the middle of it and then slamming the patty back together and cooking it nothing nothing I mean nothing out of the ordinary now that you can't get cheese and beef everywhere in this country in this world

but for some reason Minnesota's got claim to it and it doesn't make any sense it just I don't just don't get it well you can just put the cheese on top of the burger and that's easier yeah but for some reason you like the gooey cheese to ooze out. And you call it a juicy Lucy.

And you call it a juicy Lucy. And they put, they actually put, they also put onions on them too, which is really good. The crispy. Oh, they're delicious. Oh, it's just, it is, it is super good. And my favorite Matt is Matt's. Your favorite Juicy Lucy's at Matt's? Yeah, that too.

Okay. All right. So, $1 bet right off the top. And if anybody with the Astros PR department's listening, do not tell him ahead of time. We'll see if he knows what a juicy Lucy is ahead of time. Also on the sports landscape today, look, we in Houston feel sorry for ourselves a lot of times when it comes to sports teams. You know what I mean? Like how we've lost games and like the older game against Buffalo or the Damien Lillard shot or any one of the variety of things that have happened in Houston sports that feel like we're doomed. Minneapolis is I think even beats us when it comes to it pound for pound in terms of terrible losses.

but if you're a Cleveland Cavalier fan today, you're up 20 in the fourth quarter, Ross, right? Am I correct? Yeah, I think it was, yeah. It was at least 22 was the biggest lead. You get outscored, I think, fourth quarter, and overtime, it's been like 41-11. 46 to 21.

Oh, my God. How awful is that? Yeah. A little mix minus 7.5. Hit. Did you have a side on that? No, no, Matthew. I wouldn't gamble.

Very good for you. Good for you. You know, you always remember your bad beats. You should remember your good wins. That's what I'm saying, because you do it more than I do. And so when you win, you should come brag. Yeah. I want a lot of enough of the audience.

If, hey, if you had, now again, it's a playoff game. You could flip it to their side. I like when people brag about the ones like, man, I had Bowling Green plus 33 and a half against Ohio State. That was what I really was happy about. Because those are the ones that are just, they're just begging you to go bet those bad boys. Looking at the box score. First of all, his offensive production was atrocious.

And then what people are doing now, aggregators, or just people that love the NBA Ross, they're isowing every time the Knicks went at him defensively. I think I saw one of them where they went at him eight consecutive times and the Knicks scored eight consecutive possessions. against James Harden defensively. Yeah, I'm seeing one now that says nine possessions and a 1.9 points per

it says direct action. So for those you don't know, if you shoot 50%, that's one point per possession. That's good. 1.9 is absurd. Correct. They ISOed him and it was bad. And look, James at 30,

what is how old is James now? 37 or 38? He's, you know, he was never an elite defensive play, but he held his own. Oh, he's only 36? He's young. Yeah. We got to keep saying that, only 36. But they were picking on him yesterday.

And it was, again, didn't shoot well and certainly didn't defend well. He's always been a decent post defender, but on the open space, it's just not good. And Landry Schemitt was knocking down shots. Jalen Brunson was knocking everything down, Carlin Anthony Towns. So just when you, you. you feel bad about the trials and tribulations about what Houston sports have gone through. Just be Cleveland sports fan today. First of all, you live in Cleveland.

Not a bad town, but in a great town. What's the number one industry in Cleveland? What do they do there? I want to say, I mean, there's a lot of smokestacks. They're like a rubber factories or something like that? Well, that's an Akron. That's good year's a client was in Akron. So that's not what I'm thinking of.

Okay. I'm in the ballpark. I mean, you're in northeastern Ohio. That counts for something. Healthcare and biomedical research. Yeah, the Cleveland Clinic. Oh, okay, because all that dirty water from Lake Erie, they get to get all the pathogens. They got a good downtown.

The flights area is good. Okay. Because I know you are a connoisseur of good downtown. Cleveland's got a really, really good place. I don't know if I'll ever go to Cleveland, but thank you. But, I mean, hey, remember you and Gordy would travel Astros. That's true. That's true.

That's true. That's true. We're working on it. Crawford Boxcast. We get back. We got to talk about Lance McCullors. What happened? He's okay, right?

Hey, didn't I get feeling literally yesterday? He's going to hit the IL or something? What did I say? I said he wasn't going to finish this season with the Astros. Either I.L. or DFA. Well, guess what I've done for you, my friend. I have a bouquet of flowers for you. I just do.

because I'm not I don't think what we're going if you're a Lance McCullers fan or just I wish him the best or at least a Lance McCullors he's a Hall of Famer in my mind but if you're a Lance McCullors sympathy

Apologist? No no no Sympathizer? If you're a sympathizer you're not going to like I think what's coming up with him just a little bit of a gut feeling on that 1019 on Sports Talk 7 o'clock 7 o'clock

we will be joined hopefully the next few minutes by Joe's spot I was told around 1030 so give or take a few minutes here and there. 713-213-212-5-790. You 10 o'clockers get it in and say hello to us. We really would appreciate that. 7-1-2-5-790. That's 7-1-3-212-5-790.

So, yeah, Jason Alexander gives you six innings of shot-out baseball. That was great with the spot start. And I'm wondering, and I don't want to get into Joe's business, but I'm going to assume the part of the reason why he did. not join us yesterday. Ross was because he was probably getting warned that Lance couldn't throw it because I think, and you'll hear this during the On-Dex show, Jason Alexander said he

found out about noon yesterday. So kind of time and we're supposed to have Joe 1230. So I like your sleuthing skills there, Matthew. Thank you very much. You're Sherlock Thomas. They call me Inspector Thomas. Yeah. Usually when they call you Sherlock, they say no something right before that. So I'm glad it's like you're legitimately getting called Sherlock this time.

It's funny that every time. they do call me Sherlock. They always put two words in front of it. That's weird. Y'all noticed that jabs have been taking at me in the first 20 minutes of this show. That wasn't a jab? It's a joke. I know.

I would have said that about my mother. That's true. Not true. I love your mom. I'm, we have no idea. But if you're Lance, and he gets these results or whatever these.

Oh, Lancy, Lancy, Lancy. Stop, stop, start. even the sentence because you're so down. I love Lance. Go ahead. If you're in Lance, this is how you start a sentence. If you're in Lance.

If you're Lance, go ahead. Let's put this in perspective. Does he, if he was told. I mean, shoulder inflammation. I mean, inflammation,

inflammation can go down. I mean, antibiotics cure inflammation. So that's not, I mean, it's not like it's, he didn't feel a pop. You know what I'm saying?

There's differences. But, man, of all the athletes and the Astros pitching staff that doesn't need an injury, that doesn't come back quickly from injury, it's Lance McCullors, right? Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, his body has been failing him for five years,

and it looks like it's going to fail him another one. And I don't know if he, I just, we'll see what happens with this, but it feels like this is it for him. that are not nearly as talented as Lance that will have said in the past. Yeah, I'm not going to this. This is enough.

He fought, man. He fought. He's got a fighter spirit. He's got a winner spirit. Yeah. His body just fails him. I had a buddy mine who was a middle-round pick of a major league baseball team within the last 10 years. And, again, to obviously much lesser extent,

never made to the big leagues. But every time he'd go out there or every four or five months, it was another helmet. And he fends and said, I just can't do this anymore. Yep. Now, Lance is a lot different

because Lance has made a lot of money. He is set for life. So no one's going to cry a tear over him of him, because he's made a lot of money. But, you know, if you've been playing baseball since you were able to walk and talk

and you're just, when you got to the highest level, your body just said, I can't do it. I can't. I can't give you every five days. It's like how I had to retire from pick up basketball bat. I just couldn't do it anymore.

I thought it was belly fat, but that's a different issue. No, it was more bad. Well, I mean, that contributed to the load on my knees and my back and my ankle. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it was more back knees and ankle. All right. More on this coming up in a little bit, as we will talk with Joe in just a few minutes here on 790. Let's go to Ron on 7.9.1023.

Ron, good afternoon to you. Thanks for calling. Hey, what's up, Matt and Ross? Love y'all's show, man. Thank you. Hey, I just, I want to hit on a couple, I want to hit on a couple of things. First of all, James Harden, man. He's been my favorite player since he came to the Rockets.

But, man, that guy looked like he's shot. I hate to see it. He don't have no, it seems like he have no type of movement at all. And secondly, Wembe, I always wondered how it would be to see like a 75, 7, 7, 7, 6 guy who hams the ball like a guard and shoot like a guard. and I'm lucky enough to say I saw it in my lifetime, man. That guy's unbelievable. And that shot that he took the other night, I was watching.

I was like, I know he's not going to take this shot, man. That guy's crazy good, man. And I just want to hear what I've got to say about those two things. Yeah, thanks for the phone call. We've talked a lot about James actually late in the week. I still, I mean, James to me, and I'll say this in all honesty, it was an honor for me to call his games. I am when people say who were your favorites among guys that took over games Rossi and we got prime James Hardin.

We did. The dude was dropping a 50 point triple double like every other game for a little while. That unguardable tour year where he averaged like 35 points per game, I was unlike anything I'd ever seen. And unfortunately, in real time, though, a lot of people were like, this is boring. I don't like watching James Harden. This is not good basketball. Make it all shut their bumasses up because it's, it was, it's still. hasn't been seen since.

And I'll say this again, because I want to make sure you guys know I'm not hypocritical on this. You know, James was the early foulbator when we started talking about the word falbator. And I remember you and I talk and I was like, you know what? If James gets the free throw line 14 times and makes 12 of them, that's 12 points Rossi. I'll take them. Yeah. So as much as I don't enjoy watching Shake Gillis Alexander, I now see it from the other side

of things, but James did it. And when James was on a role in the heart of his career, it was awesome. But the latest tour, which is now Cleveland, in the last five years, have not treated him so well. I mean, and again, yesterday, again, it won't take you long to go run to a website, whether you're on social media or just going to the web itself. And they were, Ross, they were hunting him last night. Yep. And teams would do that when he was even in his prime, but he was a little bit more fleet of foot.

He's never been good side to side, but good post defender, as you mentioned, quick hands. He can poke the ball away. Yeah. And now he's, he just doesn't have it. It's like watching a faded heavyweight boxer or something. He just doesn't have it. Yeah. And the shot just hasn't been there.

I mean, he was terrible yesterday. Terrible in game seven against Troy and terrible last night, too. I mean, turn of the ball over, too. My goodness. And then to Wemby's point, we're scared to death of Wemby. I mean, most of the 790 staff is. Not everybody. He's going to, he will get hurt some.

But that's worth predicting the future. He's on the floor right now. And he's dropping 40 and 20s with blocks and knocking down 30 footers. On a dime. And when he's on the floor, stop pop go. He's affecting every possession defensively. Every possession he affects. You know where he is.

Everyone knows where he is. Everyone's aware. of where he is. He affects, he blocks three shots and he affects 20 more. It's crazy. All right. It makes me sad. It makes me sad. And I'm not praying for Victor. I'm praying, I'm not praying

for injury, but I'm praying for, well, I mean, I may be praying for injury. Don't make me horrible. I mean, it's the only shot. Because he's, look, everybody, everybody, everybody gets hurt. Except McKell Bridges. Everybody gets hurt. Everybody in the league gets hurt. It's just part of the world. Kevin Grant got hurt in the playoffs. That's right.

10.30 here on Sports Talk 7.90, and we certainly do appreciate our next guest, Joe, Spotted, joining us here. This is kind of cool in some respect. I know the reason why a day later because we didn't join us yesterday, but we're catching you two hours prior to game. Skip, how are you this morning? I'm doing well, guys. Sorry about yesterday. Busy during that time of our call. But good. All good.

Beautiful day here in Minnesota. Opportunity to win a series today. Hey. Hey, first of all, congratulations on the victory yesterday. I got to get one small thing on the way. Do you know what a juicy Lucy is? No. I win a dollar.

It's a hamburger that's famous in Minneapolis, St. Paul. Next year, you get to go enjoy that. Hey, let's get to business now. I'm going to, again, I know that you told Jason around noon yesterday that he was going to start. Maybe that's part of the reason why you couldn't turn is because you had to get logistics going on that. Tell me about, if you can, as much, about when Lance finally came to you and said, hey, I'm trying to work through this, but I just can't give it a go today. And, you know, we've been talking throughout the week, you know, after every start,

I check on all our starters and want to hear from them the next day how they feel, you know, just to check in, right? You know, want to hear anything about soreness or anything about their performance. We talk about their start, things that they did, things that we could, you know, try to do different, just checking in. and now I was checking with Lance. And, you know, he normally, after every start, you know, he takes a while for his body to flush the, the, the, just the soreness of every start. And the last couple days, he just wasn't feeling great.

And then yesterday morning, he called me and we talked. It's like, Joe, you know, just this week, I haven't been able to flush things out like I'd done in the past. And then I make the decision to say, you know what, why don't we, you know, let's just take the day. day. I'm going to scratch you. Let's go see the doctors and let's just try to get it right. And, you know, Jason was here, ready to go and deliver a great outing for us. We were just talking about Lansing. And Joe, you have been through, and as a manager, you have been as a coach hundreds and hundreds of players. You've got a guy that's in Lans who's been throwing the baseball since he was able to walk and talk. Obviously his dad played major

League Baseball. He gets to the pinnacle. He helps the Astros win a World Series, and the body just breaks down. I mean, this is part of you being a manager, part of you being a friend, and part of you trying to just, I guess, be an amateur psychologist for a guy that has to, was hoping to have a healthy spring, which he did have, and gave you starts every fifth day, to have to have this kind of conversations, especially with all the other guys you've had to deal with. I mean, this is a lot for him to handle, and personally for you to handle it.

right now. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I've been here for nine seasons now, and I've been around these players for a very long time, and I've seen how they grinded and competed and put their bodies and stress, you know, for years for the organization and for our city and for one another. So we play a ton of games.

We have been postseason. We have been in World Series. So there's wear and tear. that will happen to our players. You know, players like, you know, like Altuvei and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, Jeremy, who's been in Wall Series since, since the rookie, right? So, they're going to go through moments where their body, as humans, they're going to get

fatigue and injuries will happen. And, you know, that's the case with Lance, you know, I remember in 17 when I was on the other side with the Yankees and Lance, you know, through that terrific game where, um, he threw 20-something breaking balls. in a row and we couldn't figure him out. Like, he's been competing at a high level for a very long time, and injuries are going to happen. So having this conversation with these guys throughout the season

and needing to give them breaks to get back to somewhat normal, it's not easy. And their daily conversations, trying to get these guys through games. But it's part of the business, and, you know, I enjoy figuring things out with them, you know. I, I, I, I'm, this is a family and I feel like I've been, you know, their fathers for a very long time. So we, we sit here, we have conversation and trying to pitch it together and continue to grind through this. What's it been like for you, Joe? Because I know if me personally,

I would be like, how does this keep happening? Why me? And you've had to work through it. And last year, it was so bad. And somehow this year feels like it's, it's almost gotten like worse. How are you handling this staying resilient and, and going, out there and just trying to do your best? You know, I try to, I don't ask that question, why me? I try

to stay present and this is a situation that we are all in. It's not about me. It's about the team. My players, it's been very difficult

because when we are healthy, we know how good of a team we are, but I also see that despite all these challenges and all these injuries, we fight games from first place with 112 games to go. You know, that's a sign of resiliency. That's a sign of toughness of grit that this team always had. And I always remind them, my guys, despite all this, look where we are at. Let's continue to play through this. So once we throw our players back, we could put ourselves in a position to make a run.

So us feeling sorry of me feeling, oh my God, what this keeps happening to me, it's not going to help solve our problems. It's not. So it's figuring out today, helping out young players, put them in a position where they can compete and win today's game, win today's, you know, innings of bats, our pitching matchups. Like we can see, we focus on the small victories that we can gain through our day, to at the end of the day, at the end of the day, we could be shaking hands like we did last night. Astroves manager Joe Espada with us here on Sports Talk 790.

Altuve, unfortunately, going down with the oblique injury. And specifically on the obliques, we've seen it not only with you guys, but all over baseball. What are you guys talking about and working with trainers and players? Because how much of that is the emphasis on bat speed and kind of the new age baseball to where you are seeing these oblique injuries pop up all over the place? Yeah, yeah. You know, this, we all been asking the same question is happening throughout the league. The way we try to do it is we're trying to control the volume of swings the guys take in the cages, right?

You know, like BP on the field, we try not to have a ton of those, just monitor volume where we tell our players, we tell our hitting coaches, guys go in there, get ready, get warm, we do our video. presentation on today's pitcher guys take x amount of swings and let's control the volume and we know we asking the hitting coaches and we asking the players like you take what you need just to get ready for that for that for that for that game and get out of case especially when we go into long stretches of game right limiting the amount of swings like on machines you know where machines right now are very challenging when it comes to high velocity so we're going to we like working on those in the case just kind of simulate the game speed But let's take X amount of swings so we can be good for the game.

So we try to monitor that aspect of things. But it's unfortunate because it's just happening so often throughout the game that we all try to figure it out and trying to, you know, look for answers. Just logistically, when do you think you'll hear something about Lance, Joe? You know what? He was seeing the doctor today around 1030, which is 1030 is 1038. So he's actually seeing our team doctors right now. So maybe, you know, in a couple hours, I hear so maybe have something post-game. I do know that Altube is going to meet us in Chicago. So, you know, he's been one of those guys that have been blessed with, like, his body heals very quickly. And he, you know, he takes really good care of his body. And, you know, he takes really good care of his body. And, the way he eats, the way he rests. So hopefully when we see him in Chicago, he's in a better spot. Maybe we could start doing some mobility activation in the weight room and start doing some core exercises if he feels good.

But with Lance, we'll hear something here in the next hour or two. We'll let you go on this. Your offense in the first month of the year was putting up some huge numbers. And again, overall, the work has been pretty good. But it feels like it's been about a two-week stretch where you were kind of dying for some offense, really probably since that. 10-run game against Cincinnati. Where are you finding things?

Is this a byproduct of some guys slumping? Is this a by-product of injured players, which I think would be a large part of that? Tell me where you're seeing this team. Because look, you're getting a win. You got one yesterday, but you know, you obviously want to get more than five hits in a baseball game. Yeah, you know, and getting, you know, more than, more than two runs and, you know, be able to open some games up so we can get some work, you know, don't rely, don't have to rely on the same guys out of our bullpen.

We could give some guys some opportunities and take some of our starters out of the games. All those stuff are great. But in this game, it's, you know, offense go ups and down. And another thing is the last two series at home, you know, Seattle, Texas, you know, that's probably the best starting pitcher in the game. So you have to grind through that. And, you know, we did that with Texas. We'll take two out of three.

we're facing Joe Ryan today, who's another good starter. So we have been running into some really good pitching staff, and you have to find a way to score runs. Even, you know, I mean, even doing through small ball bunning guys over, like we have to find ways to get guys across on plate. Joe, thank you for the visit. And good luck this afternoon. Safe Travels to Chicago, and we'll talk again next week.

We really appreciate it, as always. All right, fellas. Appreciate you, man. See you got it. Joe Spotted with us here on Sports Talks. running kind of cool Rossi first pitches at two hours we're talking to the manager it's kind of weird that's awesome

yeah so we appreciate Joe Stuy who's gonna give us a pep talk you know maybe you know frankly I think he's like having to put his hand on guy's shoulders and saying hey this will get better sorry about your oblique you think he's got a prepared speech already I mean he's had like 40 guys go on the IL

40 IL trips on the last two years he's got to have it down to a science You know, and Yeah. I don't even know what to say. I mean... I'm sorry. Because I'm thinking about him. Now again, remember, these guys are highly compensated.

Yes. I think Joe's going to be just fine. Yes. But if anybody's going to look back, like when you and I do a show three years from now, and we look back at this year, the last year, we're going to put our hands on our head and go, my God, how could anybody win this when you can't keep a roster healthy? Now, does that a deep dive into the sports sciences?

Is that a tremendous run of bad luck? Is our athletes trying to push themselves too hard? Is the industry flawed? And it feels like Rossi, those are all categories there that will be applicable when talking about this recent era of Houston Astros baseball. things will get better only five out Joe said what you say

maybe we should get some t-shirts made what if they end up six out maybe Centrogenics and wouldn't be like to be a sponsor those T-shirts You know what they would Joe's spot up you're joining as 1049 Sports Talk 7-90

man Ross with you here until 1130 today at 713-212-5-790 if you want to come in 7-1-3-2-5-7-90 we'll do shut your bum-ass up tomorrow at 1130 as part of a full Thursday show. I was just looking during the Bragg Ross to see if maybe the Astros are the one-off. And I think this is where baseball's got to go in here. Now, remember, injured lists do also have guys on 40-man that are also 60-day I-L guys that are like long-term shelf injuries.

Yes. I went through about 10 or 11 teams. Now, this is, again, a small sample. There's like 10 to 11 players per team. Yes. Do you remember When the Astros scandal came out There was an Astros fan

Who logged every single pitch And listened for bangs Right Yeah and he was in the documentary His name is Tony Adams Okay So he has been He also has been keeping tabs on teams

With the most IL stints Astros lead the way in baseball with 22 The fewest is St. Louis with four There are 10 teams with 9 or fewer IEL stints. The Astros have 22. Next most is Baltimore with 19. That's crazy.

That's 22 different times. Somebody has to go on an injured list. Yes. Next most is 19. Jeremiah and Randall's gone. You can't blame him. I don't know. Is Rob Manfred and I'm not,

I guess I'm pointing it directly to him because he's the most influential administrator in the sport. Does he, when he closed to bed at night, look at that injurious and go, man, I love our sport, we've got to get the stars out there. Because look, with certainly no disrespect to Jason Alexander, you want Lance McCullors out there pitching every five days. He's the elite pitcher.

Jason Alexander is not considered, I think, a long-term starter in the big leagues. And maybe he will become that. I can't wait for him if that's the case. But you want more Jeremy Pena's and less Allen's. You want to... Nick Allen, Matt. Come on, man. Mr. Allen.

I want to give him his respect. Nicholas. Nicholas? You... No disrespect to Shea Wickham. But you want Jake... Well, maybe that's the greatest example. No, Jake Meyer's a everyday player.

He's playing... Yeah, he's been a little... like a few years. Yeah, he's everyday player. Come on now. So I'm just, you're going to run into trouble. Everybody's,

it's so funny. Everybody's going to, we're all waiting for the shoot, what is it, the shoe to drop? The other shooter drop. The other shooter drop. We worry about that with our television contracts,

with our sports teams, worry about the cost of going to sports events, and now we're waiting for the, quote-unquote, shoot-a-drop when it comes to the number of player injuries in Major League Baseball. It's not if, but it's when. And that was an interesting insight on the oblique stuff. He was talking about not wanting him to hit the cages hard and stuff like that.

Like limit swings and maybe you limit the injuries. That's crazy. I mean, they're obviously all aware of it. The pitchers, every pitcher we interview talks about the injuries and where they've cropped up. Every hitter now is aware. We've had three guys go down with an oblique injury this year already. It's freaking May 20th. And meanwhile, he's supposed to keep a stiff upper lip.

while fighting for his job. Yeah. 22 IEL stints. You said it. You ready for today's terrible analogy? Yeah, let's go. I feel like it should be like a daily segment that's sponsored by somebody. Ross, I am a chef at a restaurant.

Okay. And my boss is like, you've got to start cooking some better food. Okay. But the delivery truck doesn't show up with all the vegetables. You've got no ingredients. I got no ingredients. Oh, it's like you're on chopped of the quick fire challenge. And they're like, they're giving you bean paste in Vienna sausages and say, make me a five-star meal.

So you actually think my analogy isn't the wretched person. It wasn't that bad. I was actually- John, then you can't come in and laugh at that early on. You've got to give me credit. He's laughing. I'm laughing. You're stunned.

He's so surprised. It's stunned laughter. Mr. Analogy. Because I'm telling you, Jim Crane. don't care. He's going to look at that bottom line result. Wins, losses, place and division, playoff. I mean, I can't imagine Jim saying we've had 22 injured list since Joe, here's a new contract. Right? Am I right about that?

Yeah. But it's guys get, guys get in bad situations and it doesn't work out all the time. And then, I mean, how many times have we seen an NBA coach or Major League Baseball Manager? I mean, Don Mattingly, right? He's the baseballing genius with the Phillies. Who did he get let go? Was it Miami or wherever he was the? He's been like going Miami, yeah, for sure. Some other places.

Yeah, as a manager. He was the Dodgers manager, Marlins manager. All of a sudden, he learned baseball with the Phillies. It's amazing. Bryce Harper's playing hitting home runs. Yeah. Things are dramatically different. Don Maddenley.

ball games career. He's running a great yeah, a great ship. Yeah. That's why Bain's sports is cruel. It's cruel. He's, Joe Espada has got the chef's hat on

and the apron and says, Kiss the chef, Ross. Oh, really? And he's been, he's got, he's got another but Kansas, man,

spam would be kind of rude. Spam, spam's actually underrated, depending on how you make it. I think you have to fry it really, really crispy, right? Don't you? Spam and eggs?

Not bad. We'll spam a soured. I know you love those, Matt. I love it to me, Musubi. Wasn't your favorite catcher of all time, Tony Musubi? All right.

You know what? I lost the credibility after the analogy. Actually, that was like a five out of ten. Normally your puns are like a one out of ten. What was the one yesterday, Jonathan? Oh, it was a battle. John Mason, right? Yeah, something about getting shot in the foot.

Yeah. Whatever team grabs. Joe Mixon will be all guns of blazing. All right. I think that was the one too. Let's put that one on the shelf. Yeah, that's a gun. We have to find out what happened to Joe Mitch. You should have kept that one in the holster.

You know what? You know what? I miss firing on that last pun. That was better. Thank you very much. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 1102 Sports Talk 790. Matt and Ross with another half an hour here. Hello, 11 o'clockers.

You guys are out for early lunch, perhaps, today. Come out and say hello to us. 7-13-21-22-5-7-90. I've got the On-Deck show coming up in one-half hour. From now, we mentioned the Astro's winning yesterday, Jason Alexander. I wonder if some guys, and we're going to get some other things here real quick, but I wonder if some guys, especially guys that are fringe major leaguers, that don't have much time to think about that start.

I mean, he knew at noon. First pitch was at 640. He didn't have a chance to, compartmentalize a lot of things. He went out there and threw BBs. Low hits, low walks, good strikeouts, and didn't have to worry about the bullpen. The only thing it kind of made me kind of he-be-giby yesterday, Rossi, was the fact that Brian and Brayu's velocity, and I didn't even have a chance to talk to Joe about this because we

were more than short, but man, he ain't firing, bro. He just not. It's back down. It ticked up to 97, I think, over the weekend. Yeah. And then, yeah, it was around 93.5-ish. I can go back and look at all the... Second of the last pitch he threw, like, went 50 feet. He's getting better, but he ain't all the way back. And maybe he'll never be all the way back.

I don't want to say this gut feeling out loud. Then don't, then. Just tell Jonathan off air. I'm here. Jonathan, I think he might be hurt. Mm-mm. Don't put that into existence. What are you doing?

And he's trying to play through it. Oh, God. That was off air, right? Topic change. I mean, what else? What else is it? He goes for, I mean, our oldest Chapman is like 40 years old.

He's still throwing 101. Yeah. But I mean, everybody's not built differently. And I guess the question would be is how much do we read into a two to three mile per hour down tick? A lot, I would say that's very significant. Yeah. Let's see, okay, he threw one of them 94. That's good.

As a pitcher, are you really going through it, like, fighting through an entry? That's scary. It could maybe not be an arm injury. Who knows? Could be an oblique or a leg or something. I never want to use the word oblique ever again. Power comes from your legs when you're a pitcher. It could be a leg problem.

92. Yeah. I looked at it last night. 94.3 he topped out at. Donnie, do I go look last year and see if he threw a single pitch? 92 point whatever. Fastball. It's not good.

The only guys that Ross can get away with 94 as a closer is like Marino Rivera, right? I mean, that was like late stage, though. Yeah. Earlier in his career, he threw a lot harder. It was like he's in his 40s. Brian Bray's not in his 40s. No. And he's also playing for a contract, too.

This is, I mean, he's not building a resume. That's for sure. All right. So if you want to get on that, we can certainly welcome. your phone calls at 713212-5-790. We had the Knicks overcome a 20-point deficit in the fourth quarter to beat the Cavaliers in overtime yesterday. As James Harden got, I mean, and it's not just him,

but man, he got really exposed, especially on the defensive side of things. They were picking at him all night long. Game two of the Western Finals is tonight between San Antonio, Oklahoma City. I am also infatuated, and maybe I'm just by myself on this, and if I am, I apologize. I am infatuated with all of these conference commissioners, Rossi. They are drawn a line in the sand about the expanded CFP. Who's drawing the line?

They want it, and the networks don't. Everybody wants it except the SEC. Ah. We're saying, but why does everybody but the SEC? But why does everybody but the SEC? because ESPN doesn't want the 2014. And who cuts SEC the crazy big check? ESPN?

Do you think ESPN went to SEC commissioner and said, hey, bro, look, we're partners here. We need you to stay in firm on this. Because there are conversations out now about keeping it 12, expanding it to 16, and expanding it to 24. If you expand it any more than where it's at right now, you're eliminating conference championship games. The SEC makes a lot of money on their championship game. The Big Ten does too, but the Big Ten don't care at this point. Big Ten just wants to be relevant and stay with the SEC. But it's, I would love to, and again, I don't know how

many people are fascinated beyond me, but the phone calls, the text messages, the hey, I scratch your back, you scratch money on this. ESPN does not want to open it up to anybody else. They want the entire thing to themselves. They don't want to pay for any more. That's what I'm

saying. They don't want to pay for more. They've already got their budget set. We own the college football playoff. You cannot watch a college football playoff with not having ESPN involved. Now, they sell off a couple of games at TNT, but they literally do sell than the TNT. So it's still their deal.

Rossi, I know I'm going to take a loss on this. I hate the idea of 24. I absolutely hate the idea of 24 teams. 24 is too many. I'm just reading a little bit on this. One through eight would get a buy and then a home game. So after that, you would be down to the, after the buy round and the home game round, you'd be down to the final eight. And then that's when you'd probably disperse to the bowl games and then the champion

and then the same is in the championship. I don't even know. Honestly, Ross, I don't even care about the logistics of it. I think if you're a fan, you have to, I mean, I guess you can't pay to go to every game. You're going to have to pick and choose. And there'll probably be enough people,

especially with the home games factored in. For instance, if you are, if you are Alabama and you are, if you're budgeting, you're not going to three games, are you? I'm going to tell you as a, Longhorn fan, like you want to wait to the finals. I mean, I went to the sim as a couple years ago, but that was, I got goaded into that. I would think the only way you could do this 2014 bit and actually have full stadiums is have as many games on site as possible.

Yeah, so I imagine the first round, home games for the teams 9 through 16. And the second round is home games for teams 1 through 8 who got their buy. And then you go to the bowl games for the four matchups. the two semis and then the one. That's still a huge. So that's seven games. But let's say that you're an Alabama fan and you're going to go watch your team.

I mean, not everybody that's an Alabama fan lives in Tuscaloosa. No. Birmingham, for that matter. They don't care. They're going to, it's TV money more than the ticket sales. Yeah.

But the TV money and the SEC is good because the SEC, that game itself is worth a hundred, a couple, I don't want to miss number. It's a huge windfall for ESPN. Yeah, my logic for the same. was either A, I'm going to be sad that I went to the game because they lost or B, that means I got to shell out more cash for the next round.

Yeah. But ACC, Big 12, Big 10, yeah, let's go to 24. We want as many teams as possible. We want as many of our teams as possible. SEC's like, you're telling me we have to get rid of championship game weekend? Uh-uh. No, thank you. And ESPN's like, you're telling me that you're going to open up for Fox or for TNT or for Amazon

or for Prime to buy some of these games? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're very proud to be the home of the CFP. We pay for it. Because guess what's going to happen then? If you have, let's say, Rake Rarm Insurance is buying the CFP title sponsorship for ESPN, well, guess what Rake Rarm might do?

Rake Rarm might spend some money on old Netflix to put a couple of games, you know, you're losing advertising dollars that way. That's what I'm wondering is, are the advertising dollars infinite? Because everybody's operating like they are. how much can first of all how much is rate ram screwing everyone that we see them on dude they got like all these uh who is it like a danny mcbride and kegan michael key and uh what's her name from haley steinfeld on these spots and they're paying uh jake jake makes millions and millions of dollars doing very well for himself jake is a multi-millioner

how much is rate rarm screwing their average human being that they can rack up so much cash that They have front line star people in their 30 second ads, and they're on every single TV show I ever turn on, every single sports game I ever turn on. My God. Yeah, it's nuts. It is absolutely nuts. See, that's why ESPN is all.

They don't want the additional games because they're going to lose a championship game, which makes them a lot of money, and they're worried the advertisers that are already spending money with them are going to cipher off some of their money to the other network. Yeah, what do they tap out? Yeah. No, boss. I can't do this.

The semifinals, brought to you by Dan's Party Barn. Matt, you said no moss? Say it again? Did you say no moss? Mm-hmm. Yes, he did. Why? I'm going to have to call Mr. Texas.

I didn't know he knew anything. Oh, that's a... Thank you. Thank you, Jonathan. Hold on. It's more of a Roberto Duran a reference. Don't tell him that. He's from Panama.

Don't tell Jonathan that. Let him think that's organic. One segment of calls. Let's get to you guys next. We'll start. We'll talk. with some Astros. We'll do that in a minute here. 713, 212.5-790.

7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Matt and Ross with you at 11-16. We've got Astros on deck coming up in about 15 minutes. Ross, we're going to do with yourself today. We've got a short day on the old program. Oh, I got a long day. I don't believe that. No, I don't.

It's raining. It's raining all day. Got those day baseball? It's a nap and watch baseball. I'm going to get on my couch and get in a blankie. Are you really? You're going to snuggie? Yeah, I get my Astros Blanky.

Shout out Grandma. She got it for me for Christmas. Are you going to have a bowl of soup too and put a little cap on that? Yeah. Yeah, I'll get some shin black ramen. Oh, it's delicious. You know you owe us some chili. I owe you chili.

Yeah, why not? I brought you. Jonathan got brought you chili. I thought you owed us more, though, right? I agree. I brought you sausage this week. Potato salad. I got more of that, by the way.

Yeah, I didn't ask for it, though. You were just trying to pawn it off on us. It was good, though. I got a lot of potatoes out of the house. There is not a single house in a huge of a area. It's got more potato salad than my house right now. Yeah. What are you going to do with it?

Just take it to the shelter up in Kewood. I might have to, because, I mean, I can before it spoils, please. Or make a Cheeks Memorial, you know, give them, They have cheeks? Buried cheeks and peseta salad like he always wanted. I love the fact that you guys are thinking about cheeks during this just dreadful time. Terrible. All right, let's go to the phones.

Talk to the great people in Houston, Texas. We'll start with Will on 790 and 1119. Good morning, Will. Good morning, phones. How are you doing? Good. I'm so I get in the car this morning, you guys talk about the injuries with the Astros. Yeah.

And that was like right up my alley, right? So what I did the other night was I went to, you know, you write the questions into Google, whatever, and I said, okay, how is it possible? Does the Detroit Tigers have maybe two more wins than the Astros? Don't have the injuries, but nobody's talking about firing. A.J. Hens. But they all are talking about firing shoulder espada. So Google, I mean, AI comes back and it gives me all these different reasons. And it kind of said the same thing you said, Matt.

It comes down to Jim Crane. It's like, Jim Crane wants things done a certain way. And he's not interested in why this didn't happen or why that didn't happen. I'm only interested in results. Well, you're not going to win that people are hurt. I don't give them, it's Casey Stingles managing this team. It's not going to happen. But I thought that was cool.

The second thing I did was I put in a proposed trade for the Stroes just to see what the AI response would be. and it was amazing what I got back. I was astounded. So in my proposed trades, I said, we're not going to blow this thing up, we're going to retool, right? I'm going to deal Jeremy Payne. I'm going to deal Paredes.

I'm going to deal Walker and Bobby O'Brien, and what will I get in return? And what, hey, I came back, actually absolutely amazed at me. We're talking about eight top players in the minor league system coming back and maybe one starter. So if I'm trading parade, it is I don't want the outfieler everybody keeps talking about. I want to bring, well, but you're your braier back if I'm going to make a deal with the Red Hawks.

They need a third basin. They've been in third base for 30 damn years. So that's my deal. So I just want to let you know somebody else is thinking the same way you guys are. Well, a couple things. Number one, I never want you to go to AI ever again, okay? I think you've got an AI problem, Will. We've got to stop doing the AI bit.

You cannot punch and throw players into AI and expect any sort of reasonable response. These are human beings. Number two, not that this makes a huge difference, Will, but A.J. Hinch has got a contract extension through at least next season with the Tigers. Yeah, that was a mention. So, would Jim be different about how he evaluates Joe

if he wasn't on the hook for a contract, this year? Maybe. I don't know. You know, in the NBA, guys get fired all the time with lots of years left in their contract. And Major League Baseball doesn't happen nearly as much because usually contracts are not nearly as long for Major League managers. Now,

we're all speculative on this because nobody really knows how long AJ's contract is or how much is worth. But they, I just did a quick search and it's at least through 2027. So I don't know how much it is. But, Will, you took all the nice players

and you asked AI to go find minor leaguers? Did AI tell you to shut your bomb ass up or what did it tell you to do? No, sir. No, sir. That's crazy. I thought I had a great idea because here's the key. Your core of your team is still there. That's Alvarez, Al-Tube, and our catch-of-the-ass.

That's the core of your team. You still got Smith. And I think this guy's Cole, I feel like I can remember his name. Zach Cole. I think he's a player. He's a player. So now what you're doing is you're going to bring in top prospects to fill that out. That's the reason I said, you're not rebuilding.

You're retooling. I'm just saying. I mean, I mean. I think what you should have done is you should have thought about those players after the end of this season. I would be astonished if Jeremy Payne got traded this off. But sometimes this year. Well, let me tell you.

One of the things, reason Payne would be the top. commodity. And it's the fact that the three teams that need them the most are the three teams with some of the best minor league talent. That would be the Yankees, the Dodgers, and the Braves. That's all we need is get more of the Yankees and more Dodger players. No, no, we're giving to the Yankees, but I give it to the Braves. All right, all right.

Yeah. Braves have Marisa Dubon, Ross, they're fine. They don't need anybody else. They've already plumbed from the Astros tree. And Jeremy Payne, well, I mean, obviously he had been hurt too, but it's not like he's been tearing it up at the plate.

He did, but though he did get a couple hits yesterday. Yeah, he was okay. It was all right. Remember, as Joe Spada said, maybe Joe Spada still him a bit. We're just five out. Just five out. Okay.

As opposed to already five out. I don't like it. I think when you use the term already five out, that's like April 5th. it's May 20th It's not Oh five games It's not like we're in July

I mean here it's the reality It's it's also just five out because the division leaders are correct Right if it's a normal If you have a normal good first place team it's Oh damn you're nine out But that's not the case this year It would be 13 and a half back of the race It would be eight back of the guardians

We live in southeast Texas and we're American Thank God the division is dog water. All right. Last call before we get to Astros on deck. Let's talk to Lewis and Sugarland. Hi, Lewis. Matt, how are y'all doing? Hey, Ross.

What's going on? We're great. Hello, Lewis. Hey, I got a question. And, you know, you are the basketball officianto. Peach basket. As I was watching Cleveland

polar rockets last night and blow a huge lead. Oh, come on. come on what we don't blow that many 20 point I haven't made this year's not a great example but continue on go ahead

I didn't say that many but that's that's a rocket thing anyway I noticed and boy at the end they went after James Harden about 12 times in a row and I'm sick didn't it and I was listening to Mike

Brown's press conference afterwards and he basically said we went after him fourth quarter, we found his man and we went after him. And I'm just thinking, you know, has he lost that much to where, you know, you've got to pull him out at the end of games? I just wanted to see what you thought and I love the show. Thank you very much. It's funny,

Ross, because Kenny Atkinson, the coach of the Cavaliers, was asked that exact question. And, you know, like a coach, he defended his players. He said he's one of better defenders. This was a one of a one-all. which is just not true. Remember, the average person lies four times a day.

What's he going to do? Call him out. He's not, no, you can't call him out. There's no chance. He had to say what he had to say. Yeah, there's already montages of James Harden getting scored on. It will take you, Ross. It'll take you 75 seconds to find a montage.

It's all over the place. Cavaliers were outscored 32 to 18 in the fourth quarter. After outscoring the Knicks in the third quarter, 35, 23, and they were outskirts. They went from 11, 12 down to winning by 11? Crazy. And I don't know about you. We got one minute here.

Are we going to start to get nauseated by the watching Knicks games and seeing all the celebrities in the crowd? No, you, I don't do that because I'm calling the game when I'm in MSG, but you've seen games at MSG on TV before. They always show. Ben Stiller and Tina Faye. do you when you think of that do you go oh that's interesting or do you go go away i don't i don't care that you are a nix fan you can't even name three nicks now i think do you think tina fain knows

who mitchell robinson is yes by the way i you owe me a dollar yeah i know how does he not know juicy lucies he's been going there for years mad russes so mad you know what i don't think they they're creatures of habit i don't think he's going to go hey we all want to go eat I know Carlos Correa, all he would talk about was Juicy Lucy's when he was in Minnesota, so I figured at least he got him one. So frankly, it's Carlos Correa's fault. Yeah, that's literally the reason I thought he would know is because of Carlos Correa. We're going to Astros on Deck mode right now.

All right. Ross, hope you're okay. See it later. Grinding day that you put in. I'm feeling tired. I'm a little sleepy. I did the 10th inning for you last night, too. Thank you.

I'm team MTE, Team Ross. I don't care what. You don't care what they're saying. I don't care what Adam Adam says about you. You're the best. Well, you and Adam are going to go watch a game two together, right? Spurs and Wolves?

Oh, yeah. I got him a wimby jersey. Oh, no, you did not. That's crazy.