The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Take The Win To Finish The Series, Will It Be Enough To Find A Rhythm ? Rockets Post Season Talks

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

Astros Take The Win To Finish The Series, Will It Be Enough To Find A Rhythm ? Rockets Post Season Talk

10-01 in H-Town, L.O. And welcome in to a Thursday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Without Matt Thomas. Normally, I needle and make fun of Matt, but today is a very special day for him. Oh, don't worry. You've got me here for a reason. Okay, well, you can do all the needling.

I'm queued up, I'm teed up, I'm ready to go when it comes to that. A bit of an overlap from Dan Matthews. He'll be hanging out. Appreciate you. Dan, Matt Thomas is out his youngest, I'm sorry, middle son, youngest boy is graduating from a Texas A&M, the fighting Aggie. So congratulations to the Thomas family and their son Peyton, who is a lovely young man. He is graduating from Texas A&M today. Yeah, the best news.

The best news, he doesn't have to live in College Station anymore. Yeah. Well, see, you're going to take the shots. I guess, yeah, I'll sit in the math thing and play the straight and then you could take the shots because that's what I normally do. We'll flip-flop rolls there. I mean, you're not wrong. Roll reversing the day. Nobody stays in college station.

It's a good college town. They got the Dixie Chicken and Northgate and all that stuff and getting into trouble. Johnny Mansell seemed to have a good time over there. Yeah, he's got a bar there now too. He does? Yeah, he's got a bar on Northgate. That is like a match made in heaven. Dude, just commit to the bit and stick with the bit.

Some people try to tell you, you know, don't go with the same st. Well, you had addiction problems too? Maybe he shouldn't open a bar. Well, I mean, doesn't mean he can have some money off your name. Maybe he should open a therapy and mental well-being clinic. Maybe he should do that. I don't know. Okay, well, I didn't know Johnny Manzo had a joint over there.

Wait, wait, I didn't mean to use that word. But anyways, all right, so Johnny Manzel has a bar at Northgate. Good for him. All right. So Matt Thomas is out. Dan Matthews, appreciate you hanging out. Jonathan Allen is here. You guys can get in.

Phone lines are open. I'm going to be honest. sometimes you folks are a little dead on the phone lines of the 10 o'clock hour, so they're wide open. You want to get in, you can get on. 713-212-5-790 is the phone number. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. We'll have Brian Bogusevick coming up very soon.

We also will have, since we weren't on yesterday, normally the Thursday bit is I just don't get it. But we're going to do ain't nobody got time for that slash shut your bum ass up, man, coming up at 1130. We'll have Brian McTaggart on later in the show. Adam Lexer is joining later on in the show. It's a jam-pack program today out of Thursday, Dan. I was going to say, you're covering it all soup to nuts.

Oh, yes. Soup to nuts here. So we're going to talk about a number of things. We are still into fallout mode with the rockets. I did some diving on some numbers from Jalen Green. I kind of hinted at this yesterday. I posted the video on my Twitter if you want to see. Or actually, my Instagram.

Hi, folks. My name is Ross, and this is a heartfelt plea. follow my Instagram. Let me just say it's going to help me professionally and I would really appreciate it. At SportsRFee. And you can see the video there that I put up. I don't know if you caught it, Dan,

but basically I did a bit of a dive on Jalen Green and some of his numbers compared to some of his young contemporaries in their first four years. And it doesn't look good. We'll get into that. We also have the dumbest instance of somebody saying something is a must-win game that I think I've ever seen in my life.

Life. We'll get to that later on. And then, of course, we will get into your Houston Astros. You guys had Dana Brown earlier today. Dan, how about them Astros? 9 to 1 victory. Frumber Valdez looked like Framber. He gave up the solo shot. But other than that, everything was okay.

Seven innings of one run ball. Even at a blowout, you used to bray you and Hayter just because you get the day off. Hater hadn't pitched for a while as well. And feels a little bit better to not get out of Milwaukee with a sweep. No, and I mean, especially too, the team you got coming in, the Reds, you have not been able to beat those guys over the last few years. So even though you're coming home, you would like to be able to get back on the winning track. Because, I mean, how many times in baseball do we see that where you have a good series against the team like they did against the Tigers?

Then you lose that final one and it kind of sends you in a little bit of a tailspin. You go to Chicago. You lose two out of three. You lose two out of three here. But at least you get out of there on a high note. and you get on a happy flight, come back and rest up today, and hopefully make it two in a row tomorrow against the Reds. Yeah, that would be nice.

And as far as the, where are we at right now on the rotation? Because Farmer was good, but he's been somewhat up and down. Hunter Brown, we know is your ace right now. He is just unstoppable. Hayden Wesniewski had take a couple extra days because he needed some rest because his Velo was down and he was super effective when he was out there. Lance McCullors, Jr., is. still kind of a wild card.

How are we feeling about something that was even, you know, it's always week to week with baseball. A couple of weeks ago, we're like, man, this rotation is great. Everybody's locking everything down. And now it's like, I don't know if I'm feeling so hot about it. Taking away the guys you're supposed to count on in Hunter and Frumber? Well, you can throw Fromber in there. His last start was very good, but he's been somewhat shaky this year.

Okay, so if you throw Fromber in there, I'll say surprised. Because it's a good and bad on the surprise for the bad. it's that he hasn't been better. I mean, I understand he gave you the start yesterday. I understand he gave you the start against the Royals. But outside of that, it's been either or ooh. I mean, it's pretty much been that with Frommers

so far this season, again, outside of those two starts. But then you don't really have much of a sample size on Arredgeti. Gusto, pleasantly surprised. Hayden was Neski, same deal there. And I mean, I know that he hasn't really given you much, you know, longevity

in terms of the innings. and then Blanco, I would probably say surprised because the amount of innings he threw last year, you saw some shaky outings during spring training and some shakiness at the beginning of the season. But, I mean, he's somebody that's been able to turn it around, but the long ball is an issue with him. Yeah, it has been issued with him.

It's been an issue with Hayden Wesnowski as well. If you just take out the home runs, Edwinn-Neski's been great, but unfortunately you can't just take out the home runs. He's got that expert sweeper that he's stolen up there, and that's getting swing and miss. I mean, I would say that probably, like you said, you throw Fromber in there, surprised.

Without him, pleasantly surprised. So the rotation lining up this weekend, it'll be Hunter Brown on Friday. Well, honestly, I probably shouldn't look on ESPN because they usually get stuff wrong. But at least what I'm seeing right now, Hunter Brown, then Lance McCullors Jr., and then Ronald Blanco.

Lance McCullors Jr., first start, 87 pitches, three and two-thirds innings, should have gotten the call on that, last hitter on a three two pitch. It was in the, it got dipped into the top of the zone. God called the ball. Unfortunately, he got pulled, so it was a walk. But, I mean,

it was kind of the Lance McCuller's Jr. experience. He, and this happens with pitchers with really good stuff is that they will get a lot of whiffs and they will miss the strike zone a lot. We've seen it from Lance McCulley Jr. We've seen it from Spencer Erigetti. Those types of pitchers can run into command issues

because their stuff is so good. It kind of just, they they throw it out there and then hope it lands somewhere close to the strike zone and hope they get a whiff. So we saw basically what we've seen a lot from Lance McCuller Jr. in his career, he was giving up walks, but he was also striking guys out, and then at the end of the day, didn't give up a run. Yeah, thanks a lot, Shane Liv and Sparker. Really appreciate that ball call that you had that chased Lance out in the fourth inning at that

start. I have a crazy idea, Dan. What if I could wave a magic wand and we had technology that could get every single call right? Now, why would we do that? Wouldn't that be crazy? Why would we do that? Why would you come up with such a crazy concept there?

Imagine the world. I would make baseball do something that seems so common-sensical. I'll tell you something even crazier. What if we had the technology? And they didn't use it. That'd be weird. That would be incredibly weird. I'm sorry.

Go ahead. I mean, you know, the installation, it takes time, all of this. Oh. What if I told you, revenues are up and higher than ever in baseball as well? I think you just answered your own question. I think I just answered why they're not doing it. It's not broken. Revenues are up.

We're fine. Umpire, you're going to have to fight the union probably on this, because one of the skills that they do have, all these guys are the best in the world at calling balls and strikes. And so if you take away that skill from them, then I guess they aren't as special or it's harder. It's easier for other guys to get in the union. I don't know. You and I could probably go. If we don't have to call balls and strikes, you can go learn how to umpire in about three months,

probably under. Go to umpire in school? I'll take it. Yeah. You know, if you have the stomach to be, you know, yelled out by fans and be booed and all of that kind of stuff, then, you know, if you're of the sensitive variety, then I would not recommend doing it. But no, I mean. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry, on Lance McCuller's Jr. Yeah, I mean, it's, you hit it right on the head. I mean, it was a start that it had taken us a while to remember this, but once we saw it, we were like, oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, that is this guy. In a way, it's comforting. It's like, same old Lance. Yeah, it's just the lancy. Look at this guy walking everybody. into trouble. Throwing a lot of pitches. Somehow finding a way to get out of it. You know, he would do that. But, I mean, we talked with Dana Brown, as you mentioned.

And, you know, his big concern was how is he going to feel after that? So he feels great. So it's great to hear that. I mean, I think it is going to pretty much be a start-to-start thing. And we just want to make sure that we don't run into the, yeah, we pulled him because he had this. And it's just like, oh, God, man. Like, it is one of those with Lance that that's my biggest fear is that something like that. even as minimal as it might be, you're going to have the fans. Of course. That is going to be a cloud over him. Basically, I mean,

I mean, he's going to have to pitch 50 starts in a row, probably even more before that is something that would go away. And it's fair in a way and he earned it. But I was talking about this last night with Chris Gordy on the Crawford boxcast, which you can catch for free on the I Heart Radio app presented by Carbuck Brewing. Talking all things Astros once a week.

I don't want to see every Lance McCullors Jr. post. I don't want to see five people saying, well, he's going to get hurt. Well, it's not going to last. Well, here comes the other shooter drop. Here comes discomfort. Just let the man go out there. This has been such a tough mental battle for him. Lance McCullors Jr. loves the city of Houston.

He loves wearing that Astros uniform. He lives and breathes this Astros organization. He's wanted to be out there more than anyone else on the planet. He has checked every box so far into this rehab to where he starts. throwing and then he's throwing catch and then he's throwing bullpins and then he's throwing live BP and then he's getting his rehab start and now he is literally

thrown on a major league mound 87 pitches and still 75% of the responses are here comes discomfort like just keep it to yourself you know what? This is an early shut show bummed ass up. I'm going to write this down I'm going to say it again at 1130

so yeah I've had it I've had it just let him go out there and do his thing and just keep you else shut. If he does get hurt, nobody's going to be super surprised, but you can't predict the future. I can't predict the future. He's checked every box up to this point, and he's healthy

right now. Well, I mean, I agree with everything you said and wholeheartedly, but I mean, it's a trained response to have that reaction to him because that's what we've gotten. Turn it loose. Let it go. Let it go. I mean, and you're right.

He could have gotten hurt 15 times up to this point, and he hasn't. He's out there. You have a chance to be able to changed the perception of you. And the way that you do that is, hey, you make your second start. Then you make your third. Then you make your fourth. And then we look up at the end of the season. And hopefully we're saying, oh, man, this is start number 22 of the year for Lance. I mean, we get to that point, then maybe that starts to subside. But until then, it's a wait and see. Yeah, I understand. I understand. But I'm just saying we don't have to tweet that

out. Or you can think it. Just don't tweet it. It's going to be all right. You met Astros' Twitter? What are you new here? Don't get me started on them or Rockets Twitter. All right. We're going to take a quick break here on the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. My name is Ross Vierreel. Dan Matthews is hanging out. Matt Thomas is out because his wonderful young son is graduating from college. You want to get in. You can. 713-212-5-790 is the phone number. 7-13-212-5-7. We got Brian Bogussevick coming up. Brian McTaggart later as well. Shut Joe bum-ass up coming up 1130. I mean, it is a jam-packed show. It is the Matt

Thomas show with Ross with you until 2 o'clock here on Sports Talk 7. 7. 1018 a.m. here on Sports Talk 790. Rosviya Ria with you. Phone lines open at 713, 212.1.5.790. 713, 212 5790. You can send tweets to at SportsRV,

also at Dan Matthews, H-O-U. That is Matthews with 1T. So talking a little bit of Astros. I know you guys had Dana Brown on earlier today. Anything of note? Any groundbreaking stuff from the Astros general manager? Well, I mean, feeling good about Yordon. as he actually mentioned, it was a muscle strain in the right hand,

but don't think he's going to be out long. I think he's due to come off the I.O., what, middle of next week. So hopefully he's back then. And then calling Zach DeZenzo and Cam Smith, guys, that can be corner pillars for the organization for years to come. Ooh, that is interesting. Now, Zach DeZenzo is an interesting case. We'll get to him first.

He has been hitting. He has been doing well. He's, his approach is looking pretty good. numbers are looking great. They're looking, I mean, they're ahead of Cam Smith, but also he has more experience than Cam Smith does. But he's also interesting to me in that, you know, start of the year, you start getting ready for the season, and you're looking at guys and sometimes like who's on what prospects list. And generally, there's nobody anywhere for the Houston Astros. But I noticed that Zach DeZenzo, two years ago, wasn't on anybody's top 100 prospect list,

but he was number 40 on baseball prospectus's list. And I was like, whoa. why do they have him up here? Nobody else hasn't been in the top 100. And just basically their profile on him was dude has a lot of power if he can get a hold of the ball. And I think that's kind of what we're seeing right now. He's got the home run.

He's been getting some hits and making some contact. So there's been some hard hit contact out of the bat of Zach DeZenzo. He's long. He's rangy. And that would be, I mean, what found money that would be for the Astros if Zach DeZenzo could end up being a contributor.

This feels like kind of what they were hoping. for as far as the outfield. It's like, well, we're just going to throw, I don't want to say throw it up against a wall, but we're just going to kind of give everybody a little bit of a shot and see what shakes out. And so far right now, Zach Zinzo has responded. He's playing pretty well. No, there's no doubt. And I think another thing that kind of feeds into everything you were just talking about is where do you play them? I mean, that's what I think was probably the question that a lot of, you know, scouts and, you know, the evaluators that work for those sites probably were wrestling with, of, you know, he played shortstop in college, but he's not

going to play that in the prox. Yeah, he was a third baseman, and I do remember them saying, I mean, just things that I had read about him as a prospect, that he wasn't long for third base. And I mean, we asked Dana Brown, when he does become an everyday guy, where do you see him playing? And he said, left field or first base? Yeah, that makes sense. And we'll see. And well, some people want DeZenzo already to take over for Christian Walker at first base, but that's another discussion for another time. Cam Smith, not in the lineup yesterday. and we'll talk about those of a Brian Bogusavik coming up. You just have to feel for the young man in the ninth spot of the lineup.

It's not like he's been terrible. He did have that two home run day. We'll always remember even though one of them snuck into the first row of the Crawford boxes. Still counts. Still a home run. The first one was a bomb. But it's been a mixed bag and not setting the world on fire as Cam Smith. Well, I mean, you're talking about Cam Smith or Christian Walker?

Cam Smith. Can you. Neither of them are setting the world on fire. No, no, no, no. And I mean, and that was another thing, you know, we talked about with Dana is that he's at 85 at bats right now. He thinks that 150 at bats, you can have a pretty good idea of what this guy is. So he's 65 away from that. But Christian Walker, I mean, you've had a couple of games here of some singles in there, but, I mean, let's be honest, you're not paying him $20 million a year to hit singles for you and up the average. You're paying them that much money to up the average. And, oh, by the way,

Put the ball over the wall. That would be nice. It would be nice to see at least more consistently. Brian Bogusovic coming up at 11 o'clock here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 713-2125790 is the phone number. 7-1-3-212-5-790. Roger is on the northwest side and has gotten in here on the program. What's up, Roger?

Hey, how's it going, guys? Yow has an interesting conversation with Dana Brown there. He mentioned, well, he's a GM. He's not going to throw shade on his own. club, that would be ridiculous. What I got out of that was, you know, once we get on all cylinders. The key to me is the question is all cylinders, all. We're missing cylinders, and I'm not sure how many cylinders we're going to need going forward,

but some of these cylinders are not on a club yet as far as by way of trade or acquisition or however we're going to do it. And then you've got the guys that are supposed to be the pillars of your offense, Alteu, Alvarez, and Walker, and those guys, for the most part, not showing up yet. Al-Tuva just ran through another stop sign, and he just got caught on top seeing again right now as he speak. So I just don't know where these fillers are coming from, and I know, Aaron Brown, you know, he's going to be the political guy that he is.

He's not going to, you know, shake the ship just yet, He's not going to do anything to worry the fan base. But I just, you know, when Dan brought it up the other day, you know, when he got Myers leading your club in most offensive categories, it's a pretty telling sign. And, yeah, we've been spoiled up until this point. Hey, come on, man. We'll be taking shots to Jake Roger.

Hey, that's my guy. But, yeah, I just, I just, I just. just want to say y'all just want to enter an early shut your bum ass up and they've got top of that right now, dude. All right. Now we're doing. Thank you, Roger. Appreciate it. Yeah, okay. First of all, if Jake Myers is leading your team in batting average in OPS, one of two things are happening. He is lighting the world on fire or your team offense isn't very good.

It's kind of in between. He's not lighting the world on fire right now. OPS at 777, but it has been a bad offense. And that's the thing we have to wonder and we'll just continue to you know, it's a 162 game season. We'll monitor it week by week, day by day. We keep saying we can use the excuse that's early right now.

But I mean, the Jose Altuves of the world, Jordan Alvarez, Christian Walker, guys, Yiner Diaz at least is getting some hits now. But those guys for the balance of the season have been horrible and much worse relative to where they've been the last several years. His bath's supposed to be an added bonus. I mean, he's in this lineup because of what he gives you out in the outfield

than what it gives you on the base paths. That's why Jake Myers is here. And, I mean, Roger brought it up. Yeah, we talked about it yesterday morning of, you know, I keep hearing about, oh, when these bats get going. I'm like, when? Okay. Well, I mean, yeah, that is the question that we have,

is when is this going to happen. And when it gets going, what does it look like? Because, I mean, Dana Brown even talked about it this morning. You know, what do you project him to be as a hitter? He's probably more of a 250 to 270 guy. If he's really getting going, and if he is, then you feel really good about it. But continuing the past.

the pace that he's been on the last week and a half. I mean, didn't he do this last year in the month of May? He did this, I believe it was, was it May or June? One of the first month. It was one of the first few months. I think it was May. He was OPSing over like 900. And then he, the crazy thing to me is, you know,

it's always an emotional roller coaster as the, as the president of the Jake Myers fan club. Even then, of course, last year I was like, okay, he's not a 900 OPS guy. But if at least what you want from him is basically, OPS Plus, for those that don't know, So, league average is 100. You just want them at basically 100,

and then you bring great center field defense. That's a plus player. If he can just do that, he'd be great. He ended up like at 89 last year. He had one of his worst offensive seasons, even with that torrid month of May, which is crazy. That's how far he tumbled down. So, yeah, with him, we can wait and see the other shoe will drop.

He's not going to hit 297 all season long. But yeah, as Dana Brown said, if he can hear around 250, 2, 27, be effective, be it the nine-hole hitter. He's been drawing a little bit more walks, it feels like. I'd have to look at the rates, but just from seeing him and some of his A-Bs, it looks at least competent out there,

but we have seen this from him before, and you have to wonder, okay, when is the other shoe going to drop? That's the thing that aggravates you about him, is, I mean, if you just had a hint of more plate discipline, which he has. I mean, he has. I mean, it'd be interesting to see what the numbers are in terms of the walks and, you know,

just being able to get on base one way or the other this year. But I mean, but then there is also those at bats where you just see a slider that's almost in the outside batters box. He's giving you the Yiner Diaz, and you're just like, dude, how many times this year have we seen the Yiner Diaz, a little league swing of, you know, the asses in the third base dug out? He swings at everything. Yeah, I mean, even the base is loaded in the fifth inning yesterday where it's like, hmm, Issoc Perretti just had five pitches.

He took a walk. Christian Walker, same deal. and then the first pitch almost hits you and you're offering at it. Like it's just like, dude, I get it. Like you're kind of trying to make up for lost time, but base is loaded two outs. That ain't the time to try to course correct. Yeah, walk percentage is up for him from 6.8 last year to 8% of the time.

M.O. Major League Baseball average is 8.4, so he's still below league average, but at least he's trending upwards right now. I was going to say, at least he's taking the step in the right direction. Hey, if your nine-hole hitter has an average walk percentage, percentage. That's not horrible, especially if he can get a hold of one and get some high exit V-Ls, which Jake Myers has been able to do. All right, quick break here. Dan Matthews hanging out. I do appreciate you. It is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. I am the Ross part of that.

Phone lines are open for you at 713-212-5-790. 7-19. 7-1-1-1-2-7-9-7-9. Tweet-1-1-7-9-2. At SportsRV at Dan Matthews, and on Instagram at SportsRV as well. Quick break here. We'll have Brian and Bogussevic come up at 11 o'clock, more Astros talk and your calls. on the Matt Thomas show with Ross on Sports Talk 790. Lone Star Chevrolet.com. Log on and get the low, low, loan star Chevy price on over 600 brand new Chevys and find out why we're Houston's favored Chevy dealer. Lone Star Chevrolet.com or visit the legendary Lone Star Chevrolet 290 at Eldridge.

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Chuckling to myself. Oh, man. There's some audio will play for you later on that I'm recording. As I mentioned, the whole reason I started my must-win crusade. We will get to that actually coming up in the next segment here on Sports Talk 790. You guys want to get in, you can. 7-13-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790.

While Brian Bogus Heavik coming up, we'll talk some Astros. And, you know, I love how Brian Bogus Hevick on. I think he does a great job. And one of his, of course, his expert, Ortice lies in hitting and breaking down hitting and hitters as a former Major League hitter himself. So it's good to have him on the part of the season, especially when everybody is struggling at the plate. If everybody was hitting and this, this is like the number one offensive baseball, like, hey, hey, buggy, how's it going? Anything talking about?

No, we'll catch you next week. Appreciate it. But we have a lot to discuss, a lot to break down, a lot of different guys struggling in different ways. And it all continuing to happen collectively. Now, things have improved somewhat to a certain degree to the point where at least they're not 30th out of 30 in team OPS in baseball, but right now they are 20th. And that's an improvement from where they have been to start the season, especially last year. And really all you need is a few games, especially this early in the season, to really make a leap. Like if you just look at the micro, for example, Jake Myers, to where over the weekend, he has a four-for-four game.

He drives in seven runs, and he then follows that up with a game where he's getting on base with a couple of walks and a hit. He goes on a hit streak. And within the span of a week, he goes from like a 250-whatever hitter with an OPS of like 650 to now he's leading the team in OPS. He's hitting 297. So if you could just get even a week of hot hit. hitting from this team collectively, you would just see those numbers jump up significantly to where we're talking about them getting top 15

and hopefully fringe top 10 offense and all of baseball. That's how early we are into the season. But it just almost feels like coming on here, and it's an everyday talk show Monday through Friday here on Sports Talk 790, so we do talk sports, but it's to an extent where it's like, it's going to turn at some point, it's going to get better at some point.

They're going to start hitting at some point. and then at some point where that point is, you say, okay, maybe it's not turning. Now, we have to do that on a case-by-case basis. This is a team of individuals, especially when you're talking about baseball. It is the most, to me, of our major sports, individualistic. It is one pitcher against one hitter. You have nine different guys in the lineup with nine different swings, nine different approaches, and they're going to be pitched nine different ways.

But you add it all up. it's crazy to me how collectively they continue to struggle to where your hottest hitter, like we said, is a guy who is going to be your eight, nine hitter all season long. Everyone continues to struggle for the most part. Well, I mean, it's nice to have that right now. But again, I mean, except Jeremy Payne, I should bring up, has been great. I was against, I mean, yeah, and he continued that yesterday, a three-run Homer. God, that was a sight for sore eyes where you get the fifth inning and then, you know, the following inning.

you get a couple of guys on two outs and you're like, we're not going to do this again, are we guys? Like soon enough. Like guys, soon enough, somebody's got to do something. And Jeremy Pena said, hey, hey, hey, I got you. It's like a cold drink of water in the desert when they come through with runners in scoring position. I've said it that this offense is seriously the suit store in my cousin, Veni. The entire store has the flu.

That's why he shows up wearing a tuxedo. So when the Astros aren't hitting well and I say we're all wearing tuxedos, that's the reference. What? Yeah, okay. Wait, you say my cousin Vinnie? Yeah, my cousin Vinny. I just watched that too ago. Hey, so now you get the reference.

It was like the best movie ever. Your best movie ever, 10 out of 10. I've been watching all these. That was time. Mr. Gambini, are you mocking me? How about Prime Marissa Tomey, Jonathan? I don't know that is. The woman?

Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, yes. It's called disclosure. Yes. Prime Marissa Tomei? I didn't know who that was until the movie. Who, now you're, now she's on your radar, isn't she? George Castanza was a big friend.

fan. Well, you was. I think we all are. I think we all still are. She's like in her 50, right? She's in her 50s and so it looks pretty good. All right. Anyways, that's, you don't know this, Jonathan, but every time Dan fills in, we're going to get a number of movie references. We used to have a sounder for it. I can't remember what it was, but we'll have to figure something. Yeah, I think it's a Jalen Rose ding for any time that Dan goes to the movie reference. And I actually, normally when you sit in this seat, I start making a bunch of movie references because it just like via osmosis, I can't stop doing it. Dude, I'm telling you. It rubs off in a positive way and you just embrace the energy and you go with it. That's a clip. It feels like. All right. 713, 212-5-790. Anthony, holy glaug us here on The Mad Thomas show. What's up, Anthony? Hey, good morning, guys. Before I say what I'm going to say, I would like to say that I am a diehard Astros fan.

but I played the game of baseball for 14 years and played one year D2 baseball before I tore my LCL and my elbow. But now I'm trying to teach my 8-year-old son how to play baseball. And there are specific guys that I like to tell him, hey, let's watch this guy. And the Reds have one coming to town this weekend in L.E. Dela Cruz. If you have not watched that kid. Yeah, Anthony, yeah, just tell your son to be six foot four, lithe, rangey with explosive power and blinding speed. That's all your son's got to do.

Man, I hope so, but more so the way Ellie plays the game fast, doesn't take a play off. If you have not watched this kid play baseball, he's a lecture. Get out to the ballpark this weekend. Yes, sir. Yeah. All right. Is that it, Anthony? Yes, sir.

All right, yeah, appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah, look, if your son just wants to have explosive power, blinding speed, and be six foot four, and rangey at shortstop, it's easy. It's kind of like the joke that Wade Phillips made when they had to go up against, what was it, Gronk?

What? Gronk and another guy that played tight in there. My dad, he's the greatest defensive coordinator of all time. And the joke was asking about the secondary, trying to cover those guys. He goes, yeah, we're going to coach height. That's what we're going to coach. We're going to coach height.

That's what it is when it's guys like that of, oh man, how do I get to be that guy, genetics, birth? Yeah, that's how that's how it happens. I understand what he's saying. Watch somebody. I love the passion and not taking him too serious that Ellie Dela Cruz plays with. But, I mean, he has a lot of God-given gifts, but he's also electric. And that's especially the beauty of, of, now, you don't make it to any professional sport of the highest level without putting in some work, especially, of course, not Major League Baseball. So, yeah, I mean, and he's a guy that gets it done with everything.

I mean, power, speed. And, you know, everybody wants to talk about the guy out in L.A. and Choheyotani. But I'm like, you put this guy in New York, Chicago, any other place? Yeah. He's one of the biggest, he's one of the biggest superstars in the game. Maybe eventually it'll happen. I think he was signed as a 15, 16-year-old for like $60,000 or less than that.

Well, the Astros do that a lot. So maybe they'll find L.E. Well, that'd be nice. They don't grow on trees, but the Cincinnati Reds got them one. He is certainly electric. and will be fun to watch this weekend. Cincinnati Reds coming into town. Nobody's electric for the Astros right now.

Who do you think? Who is the most electric, like, his ceiling even for the Astros? I guess Yordon Alvarez. Cam? For sure. Yeah, Cam Smith, you're right. He could get there at some point.

He hasn't been there. It's early in his major league career. He's definitely going through it. And then, of course, we know Jake Myers is electric. Another great catch in center field yesterday. Yes, he did. Just saying. He's got that part of the game.

We know that. I just, the only thing that disappoints me with Cam Smith is that we have yet to get the aircraft carrier hats, you know, like the hats that have like the wings that like the ship commanders wear that we need to have the Kamsmith, you know, kind of USS style hats. That's what we need to have. And I've brought it up. Okay. And it's never. Falling on deaf ears. That's fine.

That's like me trying. Merchandising has not picked me up on it. It's like me trying to get the boogeyman started as a men Thompson's nickname. I think it got crushed in the poll I put on Sports Talk 790 yesterday. I do like it, though. I think it's not that bad. I mean, especially too, if you do get Kevin Durant over the offseason, the boogeyman and the Srim Reaper.

Oh, I like that. Everyone wants to go with the evil twin. I'm like, yeah, but I think he likes to be independent of his twin. Yeah. How long original is that? Exactly. He's a twin brother. Everyone goes with things with people's names or with their twin or like what country they're from.

And it's like, can we just come up with something a little bit more original? And when I was watching, I was watching Steph Curry getting guarded by Amend Thompson and shots he would normally pull up and shoot, he didn't do it. I'm like, he is shook, he is scared. A men Thompson is the boogeyman. Well, and it's also too, you think of what the boogeyman is. The boogeyman hides under your bed in your closet. You know, you hear that creak. You're not hearing things.

That's actually the boogeyman. And that's what a men Thompson does. You guard you face up. You know what? I got you on board. Yeah, I am 100% on board. Thank you. He guards you face up.

or it's one of those, hey, all right, here goes one right off the glass. No, it's not. All right, guys. That's the Ben Thompson. We've got to take a quick break here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. When we come back, one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. And honestly, this is from a source that it's not that surprising that it happened. But I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was as far as the reason I started this must-win game crusade.

I'll give you that reason coming up next. here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. The Matt Thomas show with Ross here on Sports Talk 790. As I've joked about earlier, don't adjust the radio. I mean, because, you know,

had a little bit of technical issues earlier today, Ross. But we were able to get the show going with me and Sean, weekday morning, 6 to 10 a.m. How's the morning shift going for you? It's going to be. Are you staying up?

No. What time are you going to bed normally? 10 o'clock. So I get a good six hours. It's not bad. But then you nap every day? Yes. That's the worst part.

Why? Do you sometimes wake up for a nap and you know what day it is? It's happened, but it also too, you get the kind of... Is it 2 a.m. or is it 2 p.m.? It's the extra groginess. It's like when you day drink. Like you go out to a brunch and you're like, yeah, all I can drink mimosis, sounds like a great idea.

It's the best. It is the best until you wake up at 4 and you're not sure if it's 4 a.m. or 4 p.m. Oh, no. It's awesome. I mean, like, you know... With a massive headache from cheap champagne. Like especially this time of the year, it's, it's like tremendously amazing where you go do that, go to brunch, come home, maybe throw some golf or some afternoon baseball on the TV, fall asleep for a little bit.

Yeah. Then you wake back up and you say, yeah, hey, let's go get a boozy dinner. Yeah, and you go throw up and then you go to dinner. Yeah, it's a good time. Well, I'm not going, I'm not mixing. I'm not going crazy here. Oh, I thought we, well, then why are you doing bottomless pimosas if you ain't going crazy, man? Well, I mean, yeah, I'm going crazy on the bottomless mimosas, but then I'm not.

Hey, bring on the shots. ain't no half stepping at the at the bottomless mimosa brunch there's there's come on man there is none pedal to the metal I was gonna say maybe maybe even you know you want to throw a Michelotta like that's a thing too it's like I'll mess with the good Michelada the one for me that I think is the biggest grift and especially two for these places that get just so overboard with them

Bloody Marys I'm not a big Bloody Mary guy the same thing I'm not a Mitchelada guy because I don't like tomato juice in general I can only do one so I like Mijalas I can do two of I like beer but I don't like tomato juice and I just, that's kind of and I just don't get it for me. And that's fine. If you drink them, I'm not going to hate on you, but yeah, it's not my deal. The tahin, maybe even throw a little bit of some extra spice

in there. Maybe I need to try it. I haven't had a good bloody merry. Whatever you've put on an absolute just, you really tied one on the night before. For me, there's nothing better than a draft beer the next day. It might just be mentally, which is fine. Or it is like the extra carbonation, the nitrogen, whatever the hell it is. I think that's called problem drinking, Dan.

I checked out. All right. Anyways, as I was mentioning going into the break. I knew that's why you wanted me to stick around. I feel deceived. This is an intervention. Dan, you've affected me in the following ways. All right, sorry.

No, this is not happening. All right. So going into the break, I was mentioning must win game, Dan. You've heard me get on my soapbox about this. One of the reasons I started this crusade against must win game is because there is so much gray area. And to me, it's not a must win game. game unless I go back to the Brian Regan bit we've played before. You must win them or you're eliminated.

Other than that, it's a very important game. Every game is important. And I started this crusade years ago because people were overusing it. They're like, oh, game three, game one against the Reds this weekend in May is a must win game. Oh, Rockets November tilt against the Oklahoma City Thunder. This is a must win game. It's like, no, they're not all must win games. So I took the gray out personally.

and I'm like on an island by this, by the way. I think some people support me, but for the most part, I'm by myself. I take the gray out, black or white. Will you get eliminated from either playoff contingent or the actual playoffs? If the answer is no, it is not a must-win game. Shaq and Chuck on TNT seem to disagree. Don't get comfortable. It's a must-win for Boston, but it's also a must-win for Knicks.

If you want to put serious pressure on the champs, game... By the way, I should tell you, for those of you don't know, The Knicks are up to nothing in the series coming home. And Shaq is calling this a must win for the Knicks. Game 3 is a must. 30 to 17. Oh, God. My audio's messed up.

Who have been in this situation twice. I was just going to bring that up as a minute. I said, I've been. All right, hold on. Let me see. Oh, geez, this is just fantastic. This is spectacular radio. You know what?

I need to shut my bum ass up. 30 to 17 in the fourth quarter. So let me take that for a second. He is 100% correct. I was blown away. I was like, he is a. 100% correct? Is that what you're going with, Shaq?

And so he went on to explain multiple times Chuck was up to nothing in series. And he is saying, yes, unequivocally, it is a must-win game. Because then the pressure switches. But also with Kenny, when we won the first two games in Houston, I remember telling the guys, we cannot go back to Houston 2. We cannot go back to Houston 2-2. I said, we got to win game three. And in both of those, and so what Shaq said, game three is a must win.

It's going to sound stupid. Yes, it is. Game three is a must win for the Knicks. Because if they get back, because game four, because Boston's got a better team, they've been up 20, but I'm telling you, been in that situation twice. You've got to win that third game. And I knew, I still thought we were going to win the series when we were up, But when we lost game three.

Yeah. So basically, my favorite part is this is going to sound stupid. If ever you say that, maybe you should just stop the sentence right there. Yeah, follow me on this or hear me out. Those are always the ones that follow us. Oh, my God. This is going to sound. So you know what?

I wanted to take this opportunity. Hit the music, Jonathan. I want to do another public service announcement for that looks. Hi. My name is Ross for your real. I have an important message from Sports Talk 790. and I heart media. Too many times in our lives, we use phrases that we shouldn't.

We say things are literal when they're not. Like, he's literally a million years old. No, he's not literally a million years old. And maybe I think, take things too literally and I shouldn't do it myself. But you literally cannot sit up there making millions of dollars as a sports pundit. And yes, I'm very jealous. and call a game where a team is up to nothing coming home a must-win game. So I plead with all of you.

Be more, just be better. Be more decisive and just be more hesitant to use the phrase must-win game. It's overused. It's overblown. not everything is a must-win game. Your 8-year-old's weekend series where nobody knows what's going on in T-ball and nobody can follow the ball,

it's not a must-win game, okay? Game 6 of your 7-game series of your career on NBA 2K, it's not a must-win game. Nobody's going to die if they lose it. And I guess, you know what? We could even say none of them are must-win games because generally nobody dies after somebody loses a game 7.

Now, the Mayan ball game, that was a must-win game. Okay? If you're Maximus and the Gladiator games in the Coliseum, that's a must-win game. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Must-win. That's a must-win. Absolutely. But game two?

Yeah, thank you. We got your movie reference. But unless you can get eliminated, it's not a must-win game. And I'll even give a little grace and leeway. But going up to nothing, coming home, game three, is not a must-win game. Thank you. This has been a heartfelt message from your friend Ross. Thank you for being here for that, Dan.

Well, I rescued the dogs, so that song no longer gets to me. Oh, okay, that's good. You gave her her 75 cents or whatever? Oh, I just did it myself. That's good. We just brought in the dogs. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you, Dan.

All right, well, Dan, thanks for hanging out. I don't know if you want to hang out for bogey or how long you're staying or whatever. You feeling tired, energetic? Is it nap time? Oh, yeah, for bogey. I like bogey. Okay. All right, cool. So we'll have Brian Bogusevick talking some Astros when we come back.

Is Game 1 against the round? Reds a must-win game. We will ask Brian Bogus-Evick coming up next year. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross on Sports Talk 7-19. 11 o'clock straight up here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Ross Viery out with you. Matt Thomas is out. His son

is graduating from Texas A&M. Congratulations to Peyton Thomas. Dan Matthews hanging out for a little bit longer. Appreciate him and also appreciate Brian Bogusevick as well. Did you get a degree from Tulane, Brian?

I do have a degree. Oh, nice. What was your major? It was like business law. Oh, my God. General. I'm going to go with business ethics. Oh, okay.

What is your consulting fee, man? I got a lot of questions. I got a lot of questions for you. You want nothing from me other than baseball. All right. Appreciate you joining us, as always, Brian. Good news is we are going to talk about the hitting not coming, but at least they scored nine runs yesterday.

So let's start with a little bit of positive. I asked you two weeks ago, do we think the breakout for Jeremy Pena is here? And you said yes and continues to be the hard hit rates. He's moved into the start of the lineup. Just what have you seen from him, especially relative to the last couple of years, that we are seeing the breakout in real time from Jeremy Pena?

He's controlling the strike zone really well. You know, if you can break down hitting into an overly simplistic idea. It's get a pitch to hit and get a good swing off. And then whatever happens after that, kind of you just live with. And he's getting his foot down. He's keeping his hands back. So he's in a good position to hit.

He's not chasing, you know, so he's getting pitches to drive and he's putting good swings on them. That's why they felt comfortable moving him up into, you know, the lead off spot because he can really control and at bat. And that's where the confidence was coming from. when the results weren't there, the first, you know, a couple of weeks or so, he's hovering around 200 when I'm thinking it's all there. Because at bat after at bat, he's got all of the ingredients for having more success. It's just a matter of it coming.

And now, you know, what is it, like 24 out of 25 games or something. And I think yesterday's game was a really good example. You know, he turns on 96 up and in to hit a home run. And then the following at bat, he takes a pretty good breaking ball down in a way and is able to put the barrel on it also for, for a double. So, you know, it's not like he's cheating to get to velocity. It's not like he's giving up on the fastball to not chase. He's just in a really good spot. Brian, what was different about Fromber yesterday? Like, what did we see from him that we hadn't necessarily seen from any of the other starts? Well, for him, it all starts with his sinker

and establishing the bottom of the zone with his sinker. And that, and, you know, he has to get that ball moving with downward action. When it starts, coming off the side of his hand and is a little bit flatter, even if it's harder, even if it's 96-97, but it's running flat arm-side, that's not a good thing. He started off, you know, he really made the point to get his extension out front that has the ball sinking down at the bottom of the zone, and that tells hitters, okay, I have to swing at that pitch when it's down. He's not going to give me the mistake out over the plate. He's going to pound that fastball down, down, down, and then not only is he going to get ground balls off of that pitch, but now you're susceptible

to the curveball because it comes out of the same spot and then he just starts going to work on guys and it's a bunch of ground balls on the sinker it's a bunch of swings and misses on the curve ball that is the exact formula that you want to see from him establish the sinker down go to work on guys with the curve ball mixing a couple of

changeups and once he can do both of those things he doesn't have to do anything different Brian Bogusevick with us here on a sports talk 790 let's just go to the weekly Christian Walker update we keep saying it's going to turn around unfortunately it hasn't

and we don't want to invoke the name of who rhymes with Mosei Moureou but is there a curse at first base for this team? What's going on over there? Yeah, I wouldn't go so far as to say it's cursed yet but it's not looking good. You know what? The thing with him is that you can't really point to anyone's thing and say, hey, this is not there. You know, when Jose Abraeu was really struggling, he,

he was overmatched by fastballs. And it was like, oh, man, if you can't hit the fastball, you're in trouble. And for Walker, it's like, you know, he'll get blown up by a fastball one at bat, but then he'll turn on a fastball or he'll chase. It's just, it's just a guy who's searching. And, you know, everybody goes through it. And, you know, it stinks when it's at the beginning of the season. It really stinks when it's at the beginning of a season with a brand new team.

But, you know, there isn't anything that you can point to and say, like, he can no longer recognize a breaking ball. or he can no longer catch up to a fastball. He's just a dude who's in a slump, and, you know, he's kind of swimming in his head a little bit. I'm still very hopeful that he'll break out and he'll be fine. But, yeah, it's past the point of just kind of early season add-all, I'll level out.

There's got to be something that kind of, there's got to be a switch that flips mentally where he can relax. It looked like he might have been coming out of it on the last homestand a little bit, but, you know, now he's kind of regressed a little bit. Again, Brian Bogusavik, Space City Home Network, join us here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Bogey, a little bit of a revolving door right now, platoon situation over at second base.

You get Maricio Dubon on Monday, then you get Brendan Rogers there the last couple of nights. Would you like to see Joe kind of settle that position of if he's going to go with Rogers, go with him? If you're going to go with Dubon, same deal. Well, I would love to see it settled, but it's not going to be Joe who settles it. It's going to be the players who settle it.

And I would love to see it settled because somebody, you know, just starts, if you start hitting, you're going to be there every day. between one of those two guys. And it just hasn't happened for either yet. You know, the good news is the main reason you moved Altuvae into the outfield was to get better defense at second base. And you're getting that with both of those guys. They've both been very good over there.

But, yeah, I would like for one of them to settle it by getting hot. And, you know, Brennan Rogers can provide, you know, a little bit more power theoretically. But we've also seen Maricio Devon get hot and just put together some stretches where he's getting a ton of hits. If either one of those guys gets remotely hot, it will be their job, you know, until it's not. But it's not on Joe to just decide on one or the other because, you know, if you can't make the decision, it's probably because neither guy has really taken hold of it. Cam Smith with the day off yesterday, can you just try to at least get into the mind of a

campsmith? What do you think is going through his mind? What do you think is his head spinning? Is he just being uncomfortable? Is he just having a little bit of bad luck? When you're a young guy and you're struggling and you get the day off, where do you think he is right now? Well, for a guy like him, a young guy still working on, you know, days off are work days, right?

Like it's a lot of work in the cage for him still, you know, getting work in the outfield and stuff. But for him, it's extra swings. It's not just sit down and watch the game and get a day off like you would, you know, when Altuvae gets a day off once every month or so. because he's still got things that he's got to work on. I mean, it's been made very clear to him by the hitting coaches of what that plan needs to be, you know, getting more aggressive in his at-bats, trying to work to get a little bit more pre-pitch rhythm,

get his hands going a little bit, trying to move the contact point out in front, because until he can do that consistently and be timed up to a fastball, nothing else is really going to fall in place. And now, even to the fact that teams have gotten, you know, gotten a little bit of a book on him, and he's not going to get the, oh, this guy just randomly threw me a change up and hung it over the middle of the plate, and I ran into it. Like, teams are catching on to the fact that he's struggling to get the bad head out on velocity, and he's going to see less and less soft stuff that he can handle.

So, yeah, off days for a young guy like that are, you know, extra work days. And a bogey with Yordon. I mean, expect him back hopefully sometime in the middle of the week. It's not a hamstring. It's not a quad. It's not anything like that. But when you see injuries like this with the hand, I mean, is it something that it goes away now, then it comes back later?

Like, you know, how do you think that this is going to shake out for them? Yeah, you know, it's kind of vague on what the actual injury is. You know, they called it a strain or a sprain or something. You know, a lot of times with hands, I think of, you know, you get jammed and your hand kind of blows up on you and you get swelling. That's not the case. That's something that can pop up on any given swing. You know, if this is some kind of.

of a muscular thing. You would think that just giving it some time off, it calms down and then it's back to normal. Hopefully, that's the case. And hopefully once he picks the bat back up, it's fine and there's no lingering effects. But, you know, you never really know. Hands are such delicate things when it comes to hitting, you know, even just being sore a little bit, you know, something that in theory, you think, oh, I can play through this. It doesn't hurt all of that, all that bad, but just being off a little bit with your grip strength can affect your swing, which can really affect, you know, the production that you're putting up. So hopefully the IL stint was overly precaution and, you know, what could have been knocked out in three or four days really gets

knocked out in 10 days and, you know, it comes back and you've got to get him hot. You know, this offense is not going to be what it can be or what it needs to be until he's healthy and getting going and they've got to have it quickly. Brian Bogussevik continuing with us here on Sports Talk 7-9. This is more of a general question. Brian, this is more for the fans. I see this everywhere. It's like, fire the hitting coaches.

Fire the hitting coaches. I'm like, okay, well, Jeremy Payne is having a breakout season. Jake Myers is looking great. A lot of the production they're not getting is from established major leaguers. But two-parter, what is exactly the job of the hitting coaches? Like how much is it on the players? How much is it on the coaches? And then just as much as you can from your perspective,

evaluating Troy Snicker and Alexandron. Yeah, you know, a lot of, you know, we think of, you have to think of coaching at the major league level as very different than coaching at, say, youth levels, right? Like, yes, you're still developing players. Yes, you're working on things. Yes, you're teaching things. But a lot of what coaches do in the major leagues, it's game planning stuff and it's

maintenance type stuff on there. There's my dog. You know, they're not. He doesn't like Troy Snicker. Yeah, he hears us talking about hitting and he's ready to go. You know, it's not, they're not building guys swings from the ground up. You know, that's at A ball and college and high school. They're talking about getting ready to put together a game plan against a certain starting

pitcher or they're digging into video with an established guy saying, hey, this is a video from, you know, late last year and this looks a little bit different than what I'm seeing right now. It's very minor things. It's very detailed and minute type of things. So I don't think that you can look at a hitting coach and say, oh, well, the team's struggling offensively. It's the hitting coaches.

Like, really, like, what are they doing differently this year with, you know, Jordan that they haven't done in the last four or five years? You know, some of it you just look at the players and say, hey, eventually you guys are going to have to do what your hair to do and what we know you can do. Otherwise, we're not going anywhere. what is a new hitting coach going to come in and tell, you know, Christian Walker that they don't already know about him? So I think the hitting coaches are doing fine. It's not that. It's you've got guys who are supposed to hit, you know,

second, third, fourth, fifth in the middle of your lineup, not doing it. You know, nobody is going to have a productive offense when the middle of their order is not really getting it done. Yeah, it feels like to me if something were to happen, it would be one of those situations where somebody's got to be the fall guy. and then maybe just getting a different voice in the different voices in the clubhouse. Do you think there's value in that, or do you think that would just be a rash decision if the organization did something like that? I don't. I think the firing of coaches and even managers in the middle of the season is just because it's something that you can do because you can't fire players.

I mean, it's almost always struggling teams and the players are struggling, and what are we going to do? We've got to shake it up. These guys know what needs to be done. experienced team. They've got veteran leadership. You know, they don't need, nobody needs to send a message to Jose Altuve. Nobody needs to send a message to Jordon Albrez.

They know what they, what is needed from them. They know how to do it. It's just a matter of time before it happens. So, no, I think that would just be, those types of moves are more or less useless in my book. All right, there we go. That's why we bring you on here, Brian, for the hard hitting stuff. Plus, it's treat time, too. So, I mean, we're going to let you get to your dog, Brian.

Go for you guys going for a walk or what's going on? No, we already did that. He's just barking at everything. Okay, so you got a security system too like ours. Anything that moves past? There you go. What's his name? Van.

Van. He's the new guy, yep. All right. Send Van our regards. Give us a couple extra pets just for us, Brian. Thanks for the time, man. We'll talk to you down the road. See ya.

All right, there we go. Brian, Bogus 7. Good stuff with him. as always love his perspective on hitting and I hope fans will take to heart that hitting coach stuff that we just got to there and plus I mean look what's better than talking baseball and dogs I mean

we got both those we checked all the boxes yes we got all absolutely Dan appreciate you hanging out man you're welcome buddy thank you I need to call in with a shut your bum ass up let us know I might just do that I might call in his van somebody might cut you yeah he's like shut your bum ass up I'm on an interview

God's coming up ain't nobody got time for that slash shut yo bum ass up is coming up at 1130 you guys want to get in you can 713 212 5 790 the phone number 713 212 5 790 we'll have adam wexer joining at 1 o'clock we have a lot of other stuff to get to as well you guys can get in though it is the matt thomas show with ross at 713 212 5 790 we've got breaking news from adam schfter apparently Yes, thank you. Yeah, pump up my Catholic jams. A new

Pope has been selected. Oh. We have white smoke. He will soon appear at the central window of St. Peter's Basilica. Apparently it's going to happen now.

We got white smoke, folks. And for us Catholics, man, I mean, this is our Super Bowl right here. This is huge. You know, this is this is draft day. This is the Super Bowl. It's everything. How would you compare, Dan,

Pietro Periland? He's one of the favorites on the board right now to more of an underdog going like Mateo Zupi. I don't know. I mean, they all wear the red capes and then throw on everything. I mean, I'm probably speaking like a heretic. Is this a must-win game for Mateo Zupi?

I feel good about his chances. I don't think that he's worried about letting any of the enemies of the Catholic Church. I'm going to stop this music. before we get struck by lightning. What'd you go with? What'd you go with? Just like it gets a Catholic chance. Okay. There you go. That's a classic.

All right. Thank you, Dan, for hanging out. Well, you can hang out and talk some Pope talking. Standing, kneeling. You know, peace be with you, with your spirits. And also with you. It is right and just. 713-212-5-790 is the phone number here on Sports Talk 790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

All right. We were talking some with Brian Bogussevick in the last segment. And yeah, look, I know it's like the fan. first thing that they want. Hey, we aren't hitting. Fire the hitting coaches. Well, these guys have been here since 2019, I think maybe

even since 17 for one of them. They've both been on the staff since 19. You had one of the best offenses in baseball in that time. And you lose Alex Bregman. You lose Kyle Tucker. And Christian Walker is struggling. As Brian Bogusevic said, it's not like they're just going to coach them up

and teach them how to hit. Same thing for Yordon Alvarez and Jose Altovae. All those guys are hitting well below the way they do in the careers. Now, young guys that you want to see improvement from, like Jake Myers and Jeremy Payne, you're getting that. So just everybody relaxed with the, what the hitting coach is talking. You want, maybe I'll bring that up coming up in the next segment when we do ain't nobody got time for that slash shut yo bum ass up. 713-2125790 is the phone number if you want to get in.

713-212-5-790. Robert in Webster holding along us. What's up, Robert? fellas saw something come across the old Instagram feed two days ago just wanted to make y'all aware I'm sure you already are so this is MLB official way too early MVP ranking

Alex Breggman number three on the list MVP rankings NL Kyle Tucker number four just serious, you know, nightmarish situation. How are we supposed to feel if both of those guys win MVP? Imagine this offense with Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman.

What a world that would have been, Robert. Right? Would have been pretty cool to see. No, they'd be hitting 179 for what, just because they'd be put on an Astros uniform. Yeah, it hurts, Robert. For sure. No, they're both not going to win MVP. please, it can't happen.

It's going to be Aaron Judge. It's going to be Aaron Judge and Otani or I don't know, L.E. Del Cruz or somebody. Now, Kyle Tucker to me probably has more of a legit shot. Alex Breggman's got a cool off at some point. He just does. I feel way more confident

saying that than that of Kyle Tucker. Yeah, I hope you're right. But yeah, I just wanted to share that because that's my heart. All right. Do you want to punch me in the stomach too? Oh, you're here, Robert? No. Oh, I'm good.

I'm good. All right. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right. Thanks a lot, Robert. Appreciate it. Yeah.

Look, Kyle Tucker and Alex Breggman are tearing it up. It is what it is. Jim Crane, if he wanted to open up the checkbook in a huge way, Alex Breggman could still be here. And Kyle Tucker, you did not have to trade away. He was still under team control. They wanted to go all in for the 2025 season. They could have had both of these guys back and try to pry open that window for as long as possible.

So I understand, though, what Jim Crane is doing, who has not been cheap, but he also hasn't spent lavishly like the Mets, Yankees, and Dodgers have. And those teams, by the way, I just mentioned, are in New York and Los Angeles. And especially in the case of the Dodgers, they have that huge deal with their local broadcast network where they make a ton of money so they get to spend a ton of money. And oh, by the way, they've got like a billion dollars in deferred money, which should be a loophole that should be closed by Major League Baseball. So I don't fault not wanting to sign Alex Bregman to a huge long-term deal.

Those don't normally pay off. Right now, Alex Bregman is having like the hottest April and May, basically of his entire career. So it's some bad luck there. But Kyle Tucker is on track of where he was kind of showing when he was healthy last year. This is not at all shocking. And he's the one I expect of the two of them to keep the same. this up the most. And that was one of the storylines that we talked about in this

offseason, is where do the Astros want to go? How much do they want to continue to just keep this one window open or kind of close it a little bit to try to keep it and keep things fresh long term? Because they did that with

the Kyle Tucker trade. I'm sure the Chicago Cubs have no qualms about the deal that they made right now because of what Tucker is producing. And for them to try to be competitive in the National League and win a World Series. But on its face, you've got multiple years of control from Issock Paredes. You've got Cam Smith, who is struggling right now at the back end of your lineup, but you're

hoping is going to be a good plus major league player. And Hayden Westnatsky, who, although the last time he went out, he wasn't great, and the Velos have been down. He overall has been a plus for the Astros. So you're getting three starters, basically, for the price of one Kyle Tucker, who's doing great. but you also have all those guys under team control for several more years. So it was still a good deal for the Astros with Kyle Tucker.

I understand that. And in a different situation with Alex Bregman, he's a free agent. He's 30, 31 years old. They didn't want to sign him to a long six, seven, eight year deal to huge money. They made the offer that they did. He got a bigger offer from the Detroit Tigers. Red Sox swooped in, which would seem like a crazy deal paying him 40. million dollars with opt-outs, but right now it's paying off, at least for the Red Sox.

They're not winning. They're around 500, but they'd probably be worse if Alex Breggman wasn't doing what he's doing, and they're at least in second place in the ALE East, which is turning out to be weaker than everybody thought preseason. The Baltimore Orioles are terrible right now. They're 13 and 22. What is going on over there? But yeah, two different deals.

one off season, a new era for the Houston Astros, and right now those guys are thriving. There's no way around it. They are top five major league baseball, or American League and National League, respectively, MVP candidates. I don't think they're going to win, but the fact that they're even on those lists

tells you that they are currently two of the best players in baseball. And two players that we would love to have here in a Houston Astros uniform. I understand. It's Jim Crane's money. He can spend it however he likes. I would have liked them both to be here because it ain't my money. But long term, I think you're still going to be in a good spot, especially with what you got back from Kyle Tucker.

713-212-5-790 is the phone number coming up next. It is your opportunity to tell somebody, ain't nobody got time for that slash shut Joe bum ass up. You want to tell me to shut my bum ass up for that take that I just had or any takes that I've had? You can. You got something you want to get off your check. You need to vent. You can do it next.

713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Ain't nobody got time for that slash shut-your-bum-ass up is coming up next here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Ain't nobody getting time for that. Ain't nobody getting time for that. Oh, baby. It is time for our favorite segment. of the week. Anything you want to get off your chest, anybody that has been making you upset,

anybody, let's say somebody's at work and they're talking to your ear off and you don't want to hear what they have to say and you're like, I got other things to do. I don't want to be time to be messing with you and all your little problems. You tell them, hey nobody got time for that. Ain't nobody got time for that? Or if there's a certain pundit on some major

networks who make $40 million a year or whatever it is and they're saying absolutely outrageous stuff and not paying attention to what going on in their league and you want to tell them shut your bum ass up man shit your bum ass up man this is the segment to do it 713 212 5 790 is the phone number 713 212 5 790 yes i was saying that earlier jonathan we played the audio shack and chuck calling a must win game.

For the Nix. If you're not paying attention, the Nicks are up to nothing on the series. They won both games in Boston. They just have to win two out of the last five games. They are calling it a must win game

on TNT. For the Nix, don't get comfortable. It's a must win for Boston, but it's also a must win for Nix. If you want to put serious pressure on the champs, game three is a must. 30 to 17. Game 3 is a must win game.

You know what? Shack and Chut? Shut, shut your bum ass up. Shut your bum ass up, man. Also, please don't hurt me. You can crush me like a grape. But, I mean, come on, man. That actually sounded really idiotic.

I'm not going to lie. I mean, every time you play it. So can I win you over to my side, Jonathan? Are you still going to use must-win games? I'm not going to lie. Yeah. I'm not taking it. I used to say it, too.

Matt always says I'm taking it too literally. and I get that but man I mean that's what I try to do it's too much gray area they need a different word for it exactly exactly the word is just used way too much

you say it's an important game it's a crucial game saying a must win game is just way too much Shack and Chuck I've had enough shut your bum ass up also mentioned this earlier

we talked about it with Brian Bogussevick and quite frankly I'm sick of some of you people. Every time we talk about the Astros and struggling and hitting coaches, that's what comes up. Hitting coaches, they got a fart. What's Troy Snicker doing? Bro is lost out there. Hitting coaches, as Brian Bogussevick so beautifully laid out, they're not building up guys swings. They're helping with approach.

They're helping with how guys are going to be pitched and how to combat against how they're going to be pitched. Jose Al-Tuve, these hitting coaches have been there here since 2019. He's looked pretty good. Yorda and Alvarez has looked like a monster. Both those guys are underperforming. You're going to blame that on the hitting coaches? Christian Walker can't hit a lick right now. Yiner Diaz, under the tutelage of these hitting coaches, has set the world

on fire, but he's not doing so this year. Jake Myers is hitting 27. Nobody says good job hitting coaches. Jeremy Payne has had five home runs. He's leading off. He's on like a 10 out of 11 game hit streak. Nobody says, oh, great job hitting coaches. So if you are

fire the hitting coach guy, you got to relax and you got to shut your bum ass up. Shut your bum ass up, man. Oh, that feels good. Good. Oh, great weight off my chest. You got anything, Jonathan? You know.

What do I know? I got one for Shaq. Oh, Edg. You got Shaq and Chuck, too? I just realized, you know, being in live production, guys, I'm young and I'm realizing a lot of things. Ain't nobody got time for them not to make a segment and just trying to talk about some random must-wins games.

They just send them one at the time to get the spreadsheet out and think about something creative. Ain't nobody got time for that? And then I got one more for all these college students out there doing chat GBT and using all. I keep seeing it everywhere and how. And now about the secondary education about how they're trying to fact check her,

all this sort of stuff and they're like, why don't you just chat GBT? Ain't nobody got time for that, man. You gotta use your head. This is why we like this. Yeah, we're going to have to go back to live handwritten essays. Now, see, you don't know this. Jonathan, do you even know what a number two pencil is?

Yes, you do, right? Of course. Okay. Did you, do you, like, okay, so you're young, you're 22. Did you have to handwrite stuff still in school back in your day? I was, like, the first, like, class, do, like, cursive. Like, we had to, like, write it in cursive. Okay, they got rid of cursive, though, right?

Yeah. Or they brought it back. Yeah. You know, I feel like special class. Special kids. You know what? Back in my day, we had to handwrite our essays. And I know you.

say ain't nobody got time for that but i gotta say ain't nobody got time for you just using chat gp to so we're gonna go back to typewriters that's what we're gonna do we're gonna either type it out no more computers no more chat gpt yeah jonathan you're exactly right ain't nobody got time for all you cheating on your essays ain't nobody got time for that all right seven one three two one two five seven ninety is the phone number seven one three two one two five seven ninety tony in baytown go Go ahead. Hey, guys. With all the love I got for our Tuvei, man, two-two count, stealing with no outs.

Ain't nobody got time for that. We all know that cost the game. He didn't take the old green light. He's got no light. Ain't nobody got time for him running without somebody hitting the ball. Yeah. That's it, guys, man. It's crazy, though.

It's crazy. Yeah, ain't nobody got time for that. I appreciate you Tony. It hurts, right? Doesn't hurt us here in Houston to talk bad about Jose Latuvie, all the great moments he's given us and all the love we have for him and how great of a human being he is. But man, when he gets on those bases,

I want to say he loses his mind, but that's who he is. When he's struggling at the plate, he gets aggressive. He starts swinging at everything. When he wants to go and make errors on the base path, sometimes he steals home and it looks great. He gets aggressive. It's a bang, bang, bang, play. We're like, Jose Altuve, a heart of a champion.

When he gets thrown out, unfortunately, we say, ain't nobody got time for that. 713, 212, 5-790. The phone number, 713-212-5-790. Scott in River Oaks is next up. What's up, Scott? All right, Ross. I wasn't going to call in, but I am one of those fired the Astros hitting coaches, guys.

You look around, so Alex Bregman all of a sudden is putting up MVP numbers, which you hadn't done with us since 2019. You talk about how... He's going to cool off. Call me back when he cools off, Scott, but go ahead. And so you talk... I think you should, too, but I mean, until he does, I mean, we have to give him credit for what he's doing.

Not only that, we talk about hitting coaches helping with approach and things like that. We've been terrible with runners in the scoring position. Last year, we were one of the... We saw some of the fewest pitches for any team in the whole league. The approach has been terrible. Nobody, I mean, they, and sometimes it's a good thing just to kind of switch some things up. The Rangers did it. The Rockies have already fired their hitting coach.

And is it going to make, is it going to change the world drastically for them? I don't know. But sometimes the voices get failed in a coaching staff, whether it's in baseball, you see it in basketball and football as well. So people who say fire their hitting coaches, keep talking. You just tell me to shut my bum ass up, man. I appreciate that. Look, I'll bring up the stats because I did it earlier. Since these guys have been here,

the Astros have been among the best hitters in baseball. And I'm consistent with this. When the Astros win 9 out of 10, I think it's the players. When the Astros are going to win in 2 out of 10, I think it's the players. Managers can help a little bit. The hitting coaches, and I'm not saying the job doesn't matter, but you have capable, smart hitting coaches

who have been here for one of the best offenses in baseball over the last 10 years, you got to give them the credit. If they score nine runs like they did yesterday, not a single person. I will search the web. Not a single person, I'm going to bet you gave Troy Snicker or Alexintron

any credit for the Astros scoring nine runs yesterday. And also they did score a couple of those because the brewers were out there throwing past balls and not playing good defense and some, errors were committed, but you get my drift. When they score a bunch of runs, nobody says a word. When they're not scoring runs and guys who are established major league hitters are not coming

through and it's all on the hitting coaches. We talked about it with Brian Bogus-Evick. Actually, we might have to replay a little bit, especially that part of that conversation a little bit later here on the program. But fine, ain't nobody got time for you. Now, I get it. Differences of opinion, we can have them. That's what makes sports talk so great.

and that's what keeps things going for us here. And we've got four hours to feel I love differences of opinions. Okay, we're going to take a quick break. If you still want to get in, you can. Ain't nobody got time for that slash shut Joe, bum ass up. 713-212-5-790 is the number 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Oh, you know what? I forgot.

I remembered the one that I had from the very first segment. I will get to, I'll say it when we cut. See, you're supposed to. I'm teaching you, Jonathan. Radio T's. You keep the people hanging on. Keep it right here, folks. You're going to hear some words from our great sponsors when we come back.

The one I remembered from the very first segment. I'm going to come after some of you folks, and unfortunately, it's going to be Astros fans. Again, that's coming up next year on Sports Talk 790. The evolution of the preset. What started in your car? Now works on your phone. With the new and improved I-heart radio app. I love the new presets.

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on Sports Talk 790. All right, I remember the one I wanted to get to. And I actually understand where people are going from this. So quickly, if you want to get in with an ain't nobody got time for that slash Shut your bum ass up here on the show. You can. 713-212-5-790 is the phone number. 7-1-3-212-5-790.

I was talking about this earlier with Dan Matthews. As far as Lance McCuller's Jr., I understand he has suffered a lot of injuries. But we do have to remember that this is the same injury from 2021 that he tried. to rehab in 2022. He got it surgically repaired then. It was a 15-month recovery. He suffered a setback. And now he's back. So it's been one injury. And of course, he's had Tommy John and he's had some issues. But he has gone through all of his rehab. He started throwing catch. Then he started throwing live BP's. Then he started his rehab. Now he is literally pitched on a major league mound. So we can think about. him and possibly getting re-injured, but we don't have to mention it in every single tweet, like 75% of you, he's just going to get hurt again. Oh, who cares? The wind's discomfort coming.

Oh, well, here it comes. Here comes Tommy John. Shut your bum ass up. Shut your bum ass up, man. Lance McCuller's Jr. has poured his heart and soul in for this city. He's poured his heart and soul into this rehab. He wants to be out there contributing as much as anybody. I wish him all the success in the world.

And by the way, this team needs some good starting pitching, especially when they're going to go to a six-man rotation very, very soon. So I'll like you one more. Shut your bum ass up. Shut your bum ass up, man. Team McCullors over here on Sports Talk 790. 7-13-212-5-790 is the phone number. 7-13-212-750.

Anything else, Jonathan? You want to get off your chest? Are you good right now? I'm good right now. Okay. You feel, oh, I see. Yeah. You know, we need to have like a – I told Matt we need to do this.

We need to a segment where we like say good things. Encourage people. Isn't that a show like people do like the good news? It's good things are happening. Rather than like the world is collapsing and there's murders and wars and everything everywhere. Like we need to have what do we call that? I got time for that. Flow time with Matt.

I don't know. Flow time with Matt. All right. I don't know. Got time for that. Hey, I saw something on the news and it was great. What's the opposite of shut your bad mess up? Keep talking.

I'm listening intently, please. I don't know. All right. 7.13, 2.1, 2, 5, 790. Our old friend, James in Kline. Hey, James. Yeah, the Houston Roughnecks have won three games in a row. Matt said earlier this week that they want a very good team.

They are a good team. Shut the bum ass up. They won three games in a row, and they're going to play this Sunday. You need to check them out. Yeah. Get your bum ass up, Matt. Houston Roughnecks for life. I'm going to be honest.

I haven't been paying attention to the Houston Roughnecks. Let me pull up their old schedule. They've won three games in a row. I thought they started off losing a bunch of games. These websites are terrible. They've only won two in a row. James, shut your bum ass up. You said they won three in a row.

All right. Congratulations to, they play the Birmingham Stallions in prospective stadium. That will be May 11th. That's this weekend coming up at 11th. 11 a.m. So, yeah, you know what? And that's double A, right? Houston Roughnecks? No, it's football.

Oh, as the UFL team? Oh, Jonathan. So young. So much to learn. No, the years, are you thinking about the space cowboys? Yeah, yeah. Those are AAA Sugar Land Space Cowboys. They used to be the scooters.

See, folks, young Jonathan is 22. Give him grace and, and don't make fun of the young man. He just, he's not dumb. He's just ignorant. He just doesn't, no, and that sounds bad. He just doesn't know. get fed. That's what they say. Well, that too.

Yeah, the AA team is the Corpus Christi Hux. They have multiple A teams. I don't know. It's the Fayetteville Woodpeckers, and they still have the Asheville, the Greenville Astros or something. I can't keep track.

But anyways, the AA team is the Corpus Christi Hux. I still want to get out to Wodeburg Field, by the way. And the AAA team is the Sugar Land. They rebranded it a couple of years ago as the space cowboys. They were the Skeeters,

which was a horrible name. Oh. Yeah, they started in the Atlantic, Independent Atlanta League as the Skeeters. Then they became the Asher's AAA affiliate. Previously it was what like the Fresno Grizzlies. It was the Oklahoma City Red Hawks.

It was the Round Rock Express. But yeah. Now it is the Sugar Land Space Cowboys. All right. That's it for ain't nobody good time for that. Slash shut your bum ass up. Appreciate you guys coming in with that. I did have a caller.

I wanted to bring up this tweet that I brought up previously. Now I understand. The Astros hitting isn't where you want it to be. but to solely say this is the hitting coaches and that's that, I just think that's patently false. For guys who have been here on this hitting coaching staff, where this team has been one of the best offenses in baseball over the last seven years, I just call it low-hanging fruit.

Now, I will also say that I don't know. I'm not in the clubhouse. I'm not in those hitters meetings. I'm not looking at scouting reports and on the iPad with the guys. It's up to the players. It's up to the Jose Altuvés, the Jeremy Pena's, the Yorda and Alvarez, the whoever's of the world, to say and speak up if they think the hitting coaches aren't giving them what they want.

So I will say, you know, if we find out in the next couple of weeks, boom, Troy Snicker and Alex Tron have been relieved of their duties, they're going with something else. I wouldn't be shocked, but I also will say to me, especially in baseball, it is on the hitters. And if you look at the track record of what's been happening here, this team has been really good with these guys. So yeah, I tweeted this April 3rd. Funny enough, we're talking about a month ago and still things haven't turned around for the hitters. So I understand why people are frustrated. Over the last season, three seasons, Astros are fourth in team OPS, third in weighted runs created, which is a metric I like that basically it's very predictive.

Teams with the best weighted runs created, generally year to year, it's pretty predictive, are going to have the most runs scored. So they've been fourth and third in those metrics. since 2019, since both Snicker and Centrone have been together on the staff as hitting coaches. They are third in OPS and second in weighted runs created. Third and second. Now, those numbers might be changing a little bit since it's been another bad month. And by the way, this is guys with like George Springer departing. Carlos Correa, Michael Brantley.

Now Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker have departed. And oh, by the way, the guys that you brought in, to shore up that offense and replace them. Cam Smith, the young phenom, isn't hitting well, and Christian Walker is not hitting like he has the last couple of years. So, yeah, the offensive numbers are not looking good. But look at what's been happening with Jeremy Pena. He's looking really good.

Look what's happening with Jake Myers. He is. Zach DeZenzo, a young player. He's been hitting well. So it's kind of funny to me that we don't give the hitting coaches any of the credit when guys are doing well, when they're scoring runs, when they score nine yesterday.

And let's see, how many of those were unearned? Two of them. So they score seven runs yesterday. Crickets. Crickets on the hitting coaches. Because it's the hiters. Your Ron Alvarez knows how to hit. He's had a hurt hand. He's been dealing with all season long.

Not all season long, but he's been dealing with an undetermined amount of time. It's not something they just cropped up out of nowhere. He's been dealing with a hurt hand. He is not hitting to the level he has in the last couple of years when he's the best hitter on the planet. And while the offense is suffering. Jose Altuva is 35 years old right now. He had his worst OPS in like since 2015 last year.

And this year, unfortunately, right now it's worse. You can't, you know, they're not going to slow down father time the hitting coaches. They're not magicians. Christian Walker has been a great hitter. He's pressing now and he's underperforming. Yonder Diaz is underperforming. And when he has thrived, it's been under the tutelage of this hitting coaching staff. So, again, I just say it is low-hanging fruit.

Does that mean that Troy Snicker and Alex Entron are infallible and their gods and they're untouchable? No. Could they be replaced and do the Astros need another voice in the room? Perhaps. We talked with Brian Bogussevich earlier this hour. He says in that, in his mind, that that is just a bunch of bull, basically, in not so many words. If you disagree, that's okay. I can disagree.

I can on this microphone for four hours a day. I am wrong all the time. I'm right a lot too. 713-212-5-790 is the phone number if you want to get in. 7-13-212-5-7-90. We are going to get into our number three of the program. Coming up at 1 o'clock, we will have both Brian McTaggart and Adam Wexer going in the show. So this next hour, after the news at noon, hosted by Jonathan Allen, by the way,

I should have told you that earlier, Jonathan. That's my bad. We'll get some stuff ready to go. after the news at noon, it will just be me. So you want to be kind of my de facto co-host? Phone lines open. 713, 212-5-790. Hour number three of the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

As the show continues along, we will be joined by Adam Wexler for an hour coming up at 1 o'clock. We also will have Brian McTaggart into the fold. We'll get him on for an interview coming up at 1 o'clock as well. Thanks to Brian Bogusevic and Dan Matthews for joining earlier. You guys want to get in. This is a solo hour for me so you can do so. 713-212-5-7-90. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

We've got some Astros stuff to get to as well. I put a post out on my social media on Instagram at SportsRV. I did a little bit of diving on some Jalen Green stuff, which is alarming. We'll talk about that as well. But right now, all the top sports news items of the day, We go to Jonathan Allen with the news at noon. Thank you, Ross. Hey, welcome back, guys.

My name is Jonathan Allen. They call me J.K. for short. And just, you know, obviously, actually. And the smooth operator, I believe they also call you. Smooth operator. You know, smooth criminals would I like to go by. Oh, smooth criminal, oh.

You know, but. The smooth felon. Oh, it's fine. Mastometers? I'm just kidding. You know, soft lifting charges. Okay. Annie, are you okay?

All right, anyways, go ahead, Jonathan. Going on to the local nine, you know, I know we're frustrated. They end up losing those two games, but took it away this yesterday night. Afternoon. Afternoon, I apologize. Afternoon and take away and a,

just having him, getting his three home run, you know, his spots is past. A three-run home run. Bats are popping off. Long set. Now the pitch. Campania, Rockets went deep to left. Going back on it is Collins on the warning.

track looking up and that ball is gone. Just did clear the fence. A three-run home run for Jeremy Pena. And the Astros lead it six to one. Pena's fifth of the season. And a massive three-run shot comes with two out for the Astros. The biggest swing of this road trip. Yeah.

It seems like they keep doing this. Every other three games is coming like they have a real big pop-off. Everyone wants to talk about it. And then just, you know, this next team thing is. Yeah, have you seen that meme where it's like Tony Soprano with his therapist and it's like, yesterday you said it's over. Today you say we're back. What changed?

It's basically that with the Astros. I mean, for 13, 14 games, whatever it was, they were alternating wins and losses. Now it's like they're going on three game winning streaks and three game losing streaks with the occasional wins and losses in between. They're average right now, 18 and 18. The good thing is, your mic is on, Jonathan. It's okay. The good thing is that the Astros aren't going on prolonged six, seven game losing streak. So you can look at the glass half empty or the glass half full when it comes to a 500 team like they are.

The pitching has been relatively good. The hitting is getting better, but it's in small increments. I mean, they were like 29th, 30th in team OPS earlier parts of the season. Now they're up to 20th. it's getting a little bit better Jeremy Pena's hitting well at the top of the lineup at least that's going for you. Where would you be without him and the production of Jake Myers?

Certainly nice to get the bats going at least to a certain extent for the Stroes and they have the day off today they will be in action this weekend against the Cincinnati Reds. Hunter Brown? Lance McCuller's Jr., Ronell Blanco scheduled to throw this weekend in Houston.

Jonathan Allen, what else is going on? Let's move it on. In the news and news. You know, let's move it on to the Rockets that was just passed. And about the talk about Rapids Stone about, you know, the person that flopped all through the playoffs, Jalen Green, and what's going on with him in the future he has here at Houston Rockets. That's a really flawed question. Like, we have, there's, there's great data that we have and we use.

But, and I can, one of my, EMA would know, one of my favorite things, and I tell them when, when we have new coaches join, And one of my favorite things to tell him is I can make data say whatever I wanted to say. And so, you know, I think, you know, we heavily use it, but we're very careful to try and really parse it out. And I would say that, I would say that some of our very best lineups include him. And so, so that piece by itself, I just think that's just, yeah, that's just not correct. He's sounding a little bit like me sitting around with the mic. Right. What's going on with there, man?

Yeah, so he was asked a question by Jackson Galen of Locked on Rockets that a lot of the lineup data says that the rockets are better with Chiling Green off the floor than on the floor. I will agree that sometimes you can spend data any way that you want. But I also will say there is some data that is alarming. Like I said, I put some of it on my social media at SportsRV on Twitter and Instagram. If you want to check it out, we'll be talking about it coming up here this hour. but the fact of the matter is

Jalen Green underperformed. I wish we didn't have to talk about this. I wish we didn't say this as I continue to go back to yes to say I wanted Jalen Green. Number two overall. I've been defending this pick for four years now. And there's been times where it's looked great and we've seen the flashes and his highlight reel is as good as anybody.

But there's no way to sugarcoat him not performing in six out of seven games in a first round playoff series. It was his first playoff basketball taste. But it also was for Alpern Shingoon, who led the team in points, rebounds, assist, and steals. It also was for Amen Thompson, who did struggle at points in the series, but really ramped it up and turned it on. And he was their best player in Game 7. And he's younger than, I mean, than Jalen Green. And it makes you question, are you, is our Rockets going to go for the best regular season team and keep doing this?

Or we're going to pick the people that play and perform this playoffs and move on with that core? Yeah, that is the question. the Rockets are going to have to answer this offseason is who are we going to continue to go with? And look, if Jalen Green is leading the team in scoring and you win 52 games and he's making $36 million a year, that's not the worst deal. It's not the worst contract in basketball. It's not that big of a deal.

It's just if you want him to step up and be that guy, which we all do and I desperately want, I just don't know that it's going to happen. I think he is going to have playoff flashes where he had like he had 38 points in game two. We cannot forget that he came up huge in those moments, but he also shied away. number of times and did not perform, especially with the team, having their backs against the

wall, getting down 3-1 in the series and three straight games, he was not good. So we'll see what happens with the team. We'll have a little bit more of a nuanced discussion in the next segment. But in the meantime, what else do we have on the news at noon, Jonathan Allen? Continue along with the NBA and how this unpredictable playoff has been going on. The Knicks take game two At Home with the Celtics Just by one point with

What's his name again? I can't say. Jaylen Brunson? No, no, no. McIll Bridges. Mikhail Bridges going Absolutely insane. I watched the highlights this morning. You got a clip to the game and It's looking kind of scary over there in the Celtics, man. Well, some are calling it a must-win game for the Celtics in game three. It's Charles Barkley and Shaquillo.

O'Neill. Ross says a must-win game. Yeah. Well, well, this is of course when I get my back against the wall. Don't ask me if it's a must-win game from the Celtics, because by my definition, it is not, but it would be nice if they won.

But anyways, we'll see what happens in game three on the road. But yeah, the Knicks getting down big in both of those games, coming back and winning. I know a lot of you people, it falls in deaf ears in Houston. We look at the ratings. It's not a great NBA basketball town. But an interesting series abound. This to me is the sweet spot of the NBA playoffs,

where you have basically the elite. of the NBA. Good basketball on every single night. Last night was good. Tonight, Warriors and Timberwolves, as the Timberwolves have their backs against the wall. Is it a must-win game for the Minnesota Timberwolves as well? It's the playoffs. Every game is extremely important. Must-win game, whatever you want to call it, we shall see. But good playoff action has been going on with those games,

although I guess Thunder Nuggets was not good playoff action, as the Thunder just absolutely mollywapped the Nuggets. 87 points in the first half. A playoff record for the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first half of that game. That's pretty good. The Rockets were scoring 87 points in a game. You got the defensive team though.

Defense team, though. And defensive team. Well, they're just not as good as the Thunder. And we can take solace in that, I guess, if we're Rockets fans. Like, even if they won, they beat the Oklahoma City Thunder. And while they couldn't even get past the Warriors.

All right, anything else? What else is on the news at noon? Jonathan. For those who don't know, National news right now, white smoke is up. What? What? Catholic and, you know, really into you guys.

Right now, watch the live stream anywhere. Just look it up. You can find it. No, no, stay here on Sports Talk 790. You can listen. You can watch the smoke, but listen, listen to Sports Talk 790. You're home for Houston sports. Yeah, I was looking this up.

The conclave only lasted like a day and a little bit over a day. Doesn't it last longer than that? Normally, I don't know. I know, according to Google AI, which of course is extremely unreliable, they say it normally averages around three days for a conclave. So this one was almost, you would say, it was a quick one. Pretty predictable, right?

I think it was three days when they got Pope Francis in 2013. So who knows? I don't know what the conclays were doing back in like the 1560s, how long they were averaging back, but, you know, maybe in this internet age day, everything's a little bit faster. Like, man, let's get this over with. I want to get back to get my screen time. I got a new level of candy crush I'm trying to get to.

Let's get out of this candy club. I mean, a conclave. I'm getting out of here. And that is your news. And then. Wow. Thank you very much, Jonathan. Appreciate it.

All right, Ros V. Real with you. Those of you on hold will get you in the next segment. As I mentioned, I am solo the rest of the hour. So you want to get in chat with me. You can do it. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

Brian McTaggart and Adam. What's are coming up at 1 o'clock and your calls at 713-212-5-790. Congratulations to Robert Francis Prevost. That's the first American Pope, right? I don't know. I think so. Could be. Wow.

Okay. Well, congratulations to him. Apparently, is this true? He went to Villanova. He liked Villanova Wildcats, Hoops. And, well, he is your new Pope. I don't know what his pope name is going to be. Do you call it Papel name?

I don't know. Pappel, Papacy, those are fun names to were to say, but, well, I grew up Catholic. Congratulations to all you Catholics out there. And well, if you don't care about who the Pope is, that's okay too. All right, 713-212-5-790 is the phone number 713-212-5-790. You can send tweets to at SportsRV. Also, you can find me on Instagram at SportsRV as well. Here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Matt Thomas is out. Peyton Thomas, his young son. barely knows a word, eight pounds, six ounce. Okay, he's a lot bigger than that.

He is graduating from Texas A&M. Congratulations to him. So Matt Thomas will be back here tomorrow. And there's been a lot of shows where he's been missing time or out on the road, but the rocket season is over. So he'll be here most every day. And I'm happy to hear that.

I'll be with you every day as well here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. So last segment, we were talking a little bit about Jalen Green and his performance. We played some of the audio from Rock. NFL Stone. I'm going to play it again. So as I said, there was this kind of spreadsheet that I had been working on that I was thinking about. Really around game three, I think after that bad performance, I was like, man, another single-digit playoff performance from Jalen Green with the 38-point sandwich in between.

This is just an extremely expected outcome for what we've seen from him in his career, where he's up, he's down, but a lot of times you add it all up. The shooting percentages haven't been good enough. And to where he got his three point percentage to 35%, that's good, but that's still below league average. So I started to think about Jalen Green and where he was. And like I said, I did a little bit of diving with some analytics. And I made a video about it. And we'll get to that in a second.

But again, I wanted to play you guys some of the audio we heard from Coach Udocha and Raphael Stone on Jailon Green. and talk about where I think he is. But here's what Ema Adoka had to say about Jalen Green and his performance in that first round series. There are opportunities that you still have with that. And the more stops we can get, the more we can play in transition to avoid those is good for him and good for us. But, you know, we went through some growing pains, no doubt.

I think physically getting stronger to absorb contact on some of his drives when he has the advantage or finishing at the rim when he does get the driving lane. All those things are things we talked about with him going into offseason and able to use them off ball a little bit more. And you've got to get a little bit stronger as far as that because they took them out of some of those actions where they couldn't trap. And so some areas for him to grow, obviously, some areas for us to use them a little bit better. But when he does face those, we have enough talent behind it, especially a really good passing

big like Alpy that should punish that every night. Yeah, they got to figure things out when it comes to the trap. I mean, Steph Curry was getting trapped a ton and that led to easy buckets for Gary Peyton in some points. it led to easy buckets for other guys and sometimes it led to easy buckets for for Steph Curry getting trapped. He was going around the traps, he was splitting traps,

and you can still get to the basket, just because you get double teamed. Now when it comes in and the team is defending properly, certainly it is very difficult, especially with good defenders like the Golden State Warriors have, but it's not a death knell. Now the teams didn't just say, all right, we're going to double team Michael Jordan, and then

that's it, we're going to win every game. No, things turned out pretty well for him. And he also look at his scoring numbers, they turned out pretty well as well. although it was a little bit of a different error because they had the illegal defense rules, which nobody ever brings up, by the way, when they bring up hand-checking for and how that helps guys today, nobody brings up that you couldn't double-team and zone up and pack the paint like you can now. You couldn't have done that against Michael Jordan, but I digress. That's a different discussion for a different time.

But the bottom line is Anthony Edwards gets double-teamed and blitz. Dame Lillard, Janice St. Ticompo, James Hardin, of course, famously had it happen where he was getting picked up half-court and getting double-teamed. So it's not like he's the first guy in the history of the NBA to be double-team. And yeah, he's going up against a good defense and they're keying in on him. Yeah, that's the playoffs. That's how it's supposed to be. You're the team's leading score. You cannot just, unfortunately, be this type of disappearing act. So that, of course, begs the question, what happens with this off-season? The man who will make that decision is the Rockets General Manager Raphael Stone. So I did want to play this again and kind of set it up. He's asked a question

by Jackson Gallon of Lockdown Rockets about the data where he says basically on off the floor. When he's on the floor, the team performs a certain way. When he's off the floor, the team performs better according to certain metrics. Raphael Stone says, you can make the data say whatever you want. So he was pretty dismissive. And I will say, this is what Rafael Stone is going to say. He's got to say, he's not going to go on there and say, yeah, man, that data is concerning. I think we got a dud and Jalen Green.

He's not going to be what we thought. He's not going to say that. He's not going to come out that say in the public. I don't think he, I don't believe he thinks that either. But he's going to defend his guy, and he is not incorrect in saying you can shape and form data in different ways. But here's his response to that question. That's a really flawed question. Like, we have, there's, there's great data that we have and we use.

But, and I can, one of my, you may would know, one of my favorite things, I tell them when, when we have new coaches join, And one of my favorite things to tell them is I can make data say whatever I wanted to say. And so, you know, I think, you know, we heavily use it, but we're very careful to try and really parse it out. And I would say that, I would say that that, some of our very best lineups include him. And so, so that, that piece by itself, I just think that's just, yeah, that's just, that's just, that's just not correct. Okay, that's just, it's not not correct. The data is what it is.

But by that metric, Jalen Green is not good. And so as I mentioned, I did this. You can find it on my Instagram at SportsRV and all my Twitter at SportsRV as well, if you'd like to see. So basically what I did is I looked at players who are under 30 who have made an all NBA first, second, or third team. And then I looked at some different metrics, which we will get to. in a second. I also put their years of their ages on there. And as far as the first year, the

Jaylen Green, for example, he only got one year out of high school. And by the way, it was a shortened pandemic G-League that season. He only played 15 games, I believe, in the G-League. So he is lacking in development from that standpoint. So if you want to look at through a lens, kind of like what Raphael Stone says,

you can convince yourself of whatever you want with Jalen Green. You can say, yeah, he's just 23. Yeah, he just he missed that year of development. with the pandemic. Yeah, the first two years, it was Stephen Silas, and there wasn't a whole lot of structure in the offense. I think he's going to grow.

And if you want to believe that, you can't. I'm not going to say you're crazy. If he breaks out next year, I would be a bit surprised, but it wouldn't be the most shocking thing in the world. Players also do break out in between their fourth and fifth years. There is data that shows that. But I compared him in the first four years of his career to other guys like Devin Booker, Jalen Brunson,

and Flukidonjit blows him out of the water. can even just go ahead and throw him out. But guys like John Morant, Deere and Fox, Trey Young, not Bradley Beal. Bradley Beal is over 30, but Trey Young, Jason Tatum, those types of guys. And so when I bring up that data of their first four years only, unfortunately, in the statistics that I did,

true shooting percentage, which that looks at field goal, three point, and free throw percentage, and it's true shooting percentage plus, with 100 being league average, he's last among all those guys. Player efficiency rating, if you haven't heard of that, that was invented by John Hollinger. It looks at basically all the stats as well,

and then it spits out a number. Generally, the player efficiency rating leaders in the NBA are the best players on the planet. For example, if you look at all-time player efficiency rating, well, the all-time leader is Nicoliochich, then Michael Jordan, LeBron James. That's top three. Then Anthony Davis is up there,

Shaquille O'Neill, David Robinson, Wilk Chamberlain. But if you look at just, I'm trying to pull up for just this year. Yeah, this year, the top, these are the top players and player efficiency rating.

Tell me if this doesn't sound like good players. Nicoliochich, Shegildjus Alexander, Janice Zionne-Tacompo, Zion Williamson, Anthony Davis. Okay, Daniel Gafford of Dallas being up there. Maybe you want to dismiss player efficiency rating.

But that was in a smaller sample size, right? How many games do he play? But anyways, so you look at the top players of the year. Generally, it is going to be the top players. And if you look at that by the first four years, by year four,

unfortunately, our friend Jalen Green, is last among all those players. So not good, not where you want to be there as well. And then there's another advanced stat. It is called

Box Plus Minus. And for example, again, the top players this year on Box Plus Minus. It's another advanced metric. It estimates impact in 100 processions relative to a league average player. Your top players in the NBA this year, Box Plus Minutes, Nikolokic, Shea Gilgis Alexander, Yonis Anzacombo, Luca Donchich, Victor Wimbunyama, Stefan Curry, Tyrese Halliburton,

LeBron James, Anthony Davis. Those are some of the best players in basketball. So I like Box Plus Minus. Jalen Green, first four years by year four, dead last again on this list of his contemporaries. It's concerning. Now, where he does do well is win shares. Again, that's another kind of metric that looks at the best players in basketball.

Again, the top guys, well, they have Evisa Subots is number three in win shares this year. So maybe it's not the greatest metric ever. But She gives Alexander, Nikolaokic, Janice, Tyrese Halliburton, those type of guys at the top of this list. Jalen Green does perform better there, but still, you compare him to his peers in their first four years only, or at least young guard slash wing players. It doesn't look good. It is concerning. And I kind of have an opinion of what the Rockets should do with Jailen Green.

But it's time for a quick break here on the Matt Tomit show with Ross. I will talk about what I think the offseason plan should be for Jalen Green. You could talk about it as well if you'd like it. 713, 212. 5790. 713 212 5790. Adam Wexler and Brian McTaggart coming up at 1 o'clock. You can come on and get in as you'd like as well at 713-212-5-790.

It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross until 2 o'clock here on Sports Talk 790. 7-1-3-2-5-790. The phone number here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. We've been talking some stroze. Brian Bogussevick on earlier. We got Brian McTagher coming. up at 1 o'clock. Also been talking some rockets as the offseason will continue.

If you had not heard the news, Fred Van Vleet and the Rockets, there was a five-day deadline for them to have to opt in to his contract. I guess there was a way for them to mutually agree to push it back 30 days. So they did that. And basically what we thought was going to happen, I thought was going to happen, I think is going to happen to where Fred Van Vleet will stay here, but not at a one year $44.9 million team option. They're probably going to do a long-term deal.

So I've just been kind of throwing a number out there, three years, $90 million. If it's somewhere around there, more or less, I don't know where it's going to be. I think the cap will be going up for the NBA. The revenues continue to go up. So I'm not an NBA capologist, but I'm going to guess Fred Van Vleet will be here

for the foreseeable future as the point guard of this Rockets team. And I'm on board with it. He was huge in the playoffs. I think people criticize him way too much. He did have a bad shooting year from three relative to his career, but he can bounce back from that. Just look at the offense when he is off the floor. It's a lot less organized.

And I think it's a lot better with Fred Van Lee on this team as a second, third, fourth option, not as the team's leader. And of course, he gets paid like the team leader. He had been. But as a guy who is a complimentary player and a floor general, and a true pure point guard for the squad. I like Fred Van Vleet on this team. Veteran leadership, all that type of stuff, intangibles.

He brings it to the floor, championship experience, whatever cliches you want to throw out there. Fred Van Vleet has that. Now to Jalen Green, as I said before the last segment, I was going to give my opinion. A lot of people want him traded, and some people think he's still going to develop into a star. I think right now, if you had to bet,

first of all, I don't want Jalen Green traded away. depending on the package of course if it's going to help you get Kevin Durant or Janus or whatever we can come to that bridge when we cross it but I don't think the I don't think the Astros I don't think the Rockets are going to go big game hunting in this offseason like that so I think Jalen Green will stay here and I'm on board with that NBA players do not peak at the age of 23 now I'm not one of those Jalen Green stands who convinces themselves that this guy's going to be a perennial all-star. I don't think that. I think four years in, we have a sample size to say he is not going to be that type of player. But I think he can be a

second, third type of option to where on a given night, like he did, you know, if you change the scope of the lens of Jalen Green and what he provided in that playoff series, if you just change your expectation level, it wasn't

that bad. Oh, wow. I think if I say a role player scored around double digits three times, went off for 38, the rest of the time didn't do much, you'd be like, okay, well, you know, he was all right, played good defense. Oh, okay, didn't turn the ball over a lot? Yeah, sure. You would say, yeah, that makes sense. If I said one of your guys that was your leading score all season long did that, then, yeah, that's when the alarm bells start ringing. But if you change your expectation, if you think of Alperin Shungoon maybe as a one as the, as the alpha dog offensively, for this squad and you run things more through him. Also, if you think of Amen Thompson as somebody who can be

your secondary score, we'll see what happens as far as the lottery pick and other guys on this squad. Can Jabarisman Jr. turn it up with the scoring? He's not going to be, but if you think of Jalen Green basically as your second third option, and he averages 21 points per game and shoots okay

from the floor, basically around league average when I was talking about true shooting percentages earlier, well this year he was like uh what was he a 97 i think i'll go pull that back i know he's a 94 actually which is not good but anyways he he has years where he's been closer to league average if he's just a league average guy he can score you 20 points he can especially help you in an 82 game season because he can go off against a wizard and that's fine he drops you 40 against the wizards and you

win that game that's in the win column if you just change a level of expectations for jalen green and say he's not going to be a star player or a perennial all-star player, then he's totally fine where he is. Yeah, he's making $36 million, but in today's NBA, that is not max-max money. Supermax money is going to be like $70 million. So he's making $36 million next year. If he gives you 20 to 22 points at league average efficiency,

plays good perimeter defense, it's not the worst contract in the world. We just, I think, have to lower expectations for Jalen Green. I don't think he's a horrible player. I don't think you need to cut bait and he is lost. He is not a bust. If you average in two of your first four years 20 plus points per game, you're not a bust,

but he's also not a star, which when you started tanking and you piled up top five picks, you were hoping for stars slash superstars. And first of all, you had bad luck in that you never got a number one overall pick despite having the worst record in basketball three straight years. And also you got bad luck in that, you know, Jabari Smith Jr. went in the year that Chad Holmgren and Palo Bencaro went, and both of the guys are better than him.

Jalen Green went in a year where Cade Cunningham was the consensus number one over a pick, and that guy's better than him. Of course, you could take in Evan Mobley. I understand why they swung for the fences with the dynamic wing player in Jalen Green, but it hasn't worked out to that standard. So when you compare him to his young peers, and when you compare him to guys even in his draft class, he is certainly lagging behind.

But as I said, if you change, your expectation level for him, it gets a little bit easier of a pill to swallow for what he's been. 21 points per game, 35% from 3, decent. Second, third option when the playoffs

come around, and that's okay. There's value in that. I'm just personally going to stop thinking of Jalen Green as a future star. That's where I am on him right now. Could I be proven wrong? Could things change? Will I have egg on my face and he's going to average 25

plus points per game next year. It's possible. But I don't think it's likely. 713-212-5-790 is the phone number. Chris in Kingwood is next up here on the phone lines. What's up, Chris? Yes, sir. Well, just watching the playoffs,

and I mean that he had that knockout, incredible hot game that he played, talking about Jalen Green. Yes. However, at times he seems. timid or maybe there's some anxiety. I really don't know.

I'm not a basketball psychologist, but it's concerning to me. I like him. I mean, I don't have a beef with Jalen Crane. But I don't know. It just seems like there might be some kind of playoff anxiety playing into his head or something. I really don't know.

Yeah, I don't know if that was part of it, Chris, or what? it was just, and thank you for getting in and the call. It was, it was, it was concerning and it was disappointing. And, you know, it's not, by the way, we have to realize we're talking about sports here. We're also talking about Jalen Green, who is a human being, who, if I give you 100 different human beings, you know, like they always say, you'd go to high school, then you go to a four-year college and you in your career. That's not how things go for everyone. That's how things didn't go for me. I was out of major college in a couple of years.

I went to a small program. and then I've been in this career for 15 years. I did not take a traditional route to finding my career, right? And Jalen Green may not take a traditional route to growing into the player that he is and that he can be. And that's okay too. It's just basketball. So when I do say disappointment and disheartening, I mean that in a basketball sense because I am a Rockets fan. I root for the Houston Rockets.

I want them to succeed. I want to Jalen Green to do nothing. But prove everyone wrong and drop 40 points in game 7. But it didn't happen. And he didn't need close. So maybe he is going to be rather than a Jason Tatum or, I don't know, a Trey Young, a Devin Booker, one of those guys who was one of the best players in basketball. Maybe he is going to be, I mean, Bradley Bill did make a couple of All-Star games. he did average 30 points per game in a year,

although he also led the league in shots attempted that year they did. Maybe he's going to be a Bradley Bill. Or, I mean, well, Jamal Murray's shooting percentages are well ahead of Jalen Greens, both three point and field goal percent shooting. But Jamal Murray type player where he's like, oh my God, that guy just went off for 40. Jail Green can go off for 40. But it can also just be a no-show.

So, like I said, change. your way of thinking about him, which I did by the end of the series. I wasn't, game seven came, I wasn't like, man, Jalen Green's got to go off and this team's got no shot. I was thinking, Men Thompson's got to make paint shots. Alper and Shingoon's got to do good

in his matchups against Jarmon Green. You need Javarizma Jr. to knock down his open threes. Like, by the end of that series, I was like, eh, Jalen Green's kind of important, but I just don't expect him to factor in. And you know what?

I wasn't disappointed by Jalen Green when he didn't show up in the game. You lower your expectations, you'll never be disappointed. This is the life lesson, folks. Okay, maybe don't do that. You can still keep your ambitions. I know, I know. I'm just kidding.

But if, yeah, if you lower your expectations for Jalen Green, he won't disappoint you. I say that as a joke, but you get my point. That if we start thinking about him not as a number two overall pick, hopeful franchise cornerstone, he's not bad. He's got value. He plays good defense, scores 21 points per game, and he is going to be the focal point. the opposing defense that's going to allow other guys to operate.

Rockets could have won that series without Jalen Green. They could have. They could have won it if Alperin Shingun was a little bit more efficient in the paint. I'm in Thompson as well. If Shingun makes that game winner in game five? I'm sorry, game four. Yeah, game four. If Shingun makes that game,

if somebody scores a bucket in game four, Rockets win this series. With Jalen Green being as much of a dud as he has, has been. Players are not done growing and getting better at age 23, so he can get more efficient. He can get better. I think maybe it is trying to, it is time to cool our jets on possible superstardom or being a perennial all-star. I think maybe he can make a stray all-star team here or there. I mentioned Bradley Beale. He made one. Zach Levine is a guy we can compare him to. He's made two two all-star teams

and has just been a guy who's going to score and, well, efficiently on bad teams, but on good teams, Jalen Green has value. So I don't want him traded. I don't want him gone. I just want to change my expectations. 713-212-5-790. Do you disagree with me? You want him traded off the team?

And there are some of you who still think that Jalen Green can be a star. I'd like to hear from you as well. If you want to argue on that, we're all friends here, but just talk about it. Discussion. That's what this is. An open forum for discussion here on Sports Talk 790 and the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 713-212-5-790 is the number. 7-13-212-5-7-90.

Brian McTaggart and Adam Wux are coming up at 1 o'clock and we'll be back right after this short break. Rolling along here on a Thursday on the Mad Thomas show with Ross. Matt Thomas out. Son graduating from Texas A&M. Congratulations to him. He'll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, we have Brian McTegert.

Brian McTaggart coming on at 1 o'clock. And then we also have Adam Wexer as well. You guys can get in 713-212-5-790, 7-1-3-1-3-2-1-2-5-790 tweets at SportsRV. If you'd like to get at me that way. So, all right, a couple of y'all getting on the phone lines. We've been talking a little bit of Jalen Green. And I know it's kind of a topic that comes up a lot on these shows, but also, I mean, it just happened.

We got our first look at him playing playoff basketball. And this is a season where the Rockets do have to decide that if they won 52 games, but they weren't even good enough to get out of the first round. Do they want to make some moves? I don't think that they will. Rafael Stone said as much in the last couple of days when he's been speaking to the media. I think I did a gut feeling even a couple of weeks ago that Jalen Green would still be on this team. Game one of the 2526 campaign.

I will stick with that right now, but I'm also not a fortune teller. So we shall see. 713, 212, 579, the phone number, and a good friend of the show, Willa in Pearland is up. What's up, Willa? What's going on, man? I was just calling about this Jalen Green situation. I'm with you that we don't need to trade them, but I don't think when you say that he's not taking a traditional route, that that is incorrect.

So I think if you look like who's the best guys in the league right now, it's like SGA took him a long time to get good. Yokic took him a long time to get good. Janis took him a long time to get good. Only person that came dominating was like Luca, right? And maybe John Moran. Trey Young is pretty good. Yeah, so I did, I talked about this earlier, Willa.

I did kind of a study. I looked at guys in their first fours, like guards and wings in their first four years, and Jalen Greene's behind all of them. I'll give you a list of some of the names I pulled up there. Devin Booker, Jalen Brown, Deere and Fox, Shea Gildes-A-Alexander, Donovan Mitchell, John, Jason Tatum, Trey Young. So what do you mean behind? Yeah.

Like, what does that mean? Because he scored 21 and they scored 22. You know what? Right. So I looked at a little, I looked at some deeper analytics. Do you know what true shooting percentage is? No, no. Okay.

That's kind of like, um, It's field goal, three point, and free throw percentage, okay? And league average is 100 when you do true shooting plus. He's last out of all those guys at their fourth year that I brought it. I put it on my Twitter. You can find it at SportsRV. I did a little bit of video. And I investigated this a couple of weeks ago.

I started doing it because I was curious. I wanted Jalen Green to look a little bit better than these numbers. And I looked at other stuff like player efficiency rating, box plus minus, win shares. and just at first four years only, and then I also only looked at guys who have had one year out of college, which he did. So yeah, he can grow and he can get better,

but relative to those guys that I just mentioned, he's lagging behind most of them, if not all of them. Okay, all right, yeah, because just looking at the stats, he didn't seem that far behind. And it seems like that year five is where most of these guys,

all of those guys, took the jump, right? So even Jason Tatum, and like you said, he didn't go to college. I guess he just went to the G-League. Yeah, he went to G-League. And also, I think it does. I think that's a valid argument because he went to the G-League.

He did not go to college. He didn't play big games. And in the G-League, because of the pandemic, he only played 15 games. Ah, come on, man. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's not, I didn't even know all that. I just know he went to the G-League,

and he's never played a big game. This was his first big games in his life, and he's sort of nut it up. Yeah, but this is the thing to will have. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. I was going to say, let's just say I'm not going to give up that he's going to be really good yet. You know what I'm saying?

It's not looking good. But, you know, I think he's still got a little time. 23 years old. He's still spectacular when it comes to athletic ability. When he's on, he can shoot the ball. And I think, you know, when he's only shooting eight or nine times, I don't know if that's him or if that's the coach. You know what I'm saying? Because he's getting out the game.

You make a couple of bad shots, he's gone, right? So it's like, what do you do? I'll just sit here and play defense then, right? It's one of those situations. To me, his superstar status, it's like in a coma, and the doctors are saying we're not sure if he's going to wake up out of the coma. I got you. Yeah, no, I feel you on that.

It's like, should we pull the plug on the guy in the coma, or should we give him a little bit of time to wake up out of the coma? That's basically where we are. I got a question, though, on those other guys that you look up, like, we got a different type of coach out here, right? We got a coach just like, no, no nonsense. You make a mistake. there. These other guys, they probably didn't

have that. I know Trey Young, it doesn't have that for sure. He's just firing up. It doesn't matter. He's doing what he wants to do. Jason Tatum, I think, him coming up to have a different coach. But I'm thinking, you know, I thinking like the guy said, it's a mental thing. You know, you make a miss a couple of shots. You're coming out of the game.

You're coming out the game. You know what I'm saying? For this team. Yeah, I don't think it's also just missing shots. It's also just like his attitude in the way that he's looking where coach says, you know, we know what? We can't run with him. And you mentioned, yeah, It's his first playoff taste, but it was a men Thompson's first playoff taste. He took over game seven for stretches.

It was Alpern Shingoon's first playoff games. He led in points, rebounds, assists, and steals. You know what I'm saying? So they played in college. They played in Shagoon. Auburn Shingun did. No, Ben Thompson played it for overtime elite. Oh, okay.

Well, Shagoon played it won the championship right into the Turkish league, right? He was the Turkish league MVP, yes. Right. He's also 22. Yeah. Good talk, Will. I appreciate you, but he's also 22.

He's also a year younger. Amin Thompson is two years younger. So, yeah, we can make, like I said, it's all about how you want to look at it. It's, you know, we want to look at it for, you see somebody in the mother's love, right? If you want to be the mothers,

give Jalen Green the mother's love, oh, well, he's just, you know, it's his fourth year. Oh, it was his own, his own, his first time in the playoffs. Oh, he didn't, you know, G-League Ignite. Yeah, but look at Timmy across the street. Timmy across the street is doing better. Timmy across the street has a lot of the same circumstances. He's making all-star teams. He doesn't have the same single-digit playoff performances. I also brought this up and I might do something on this

as well. And I really sound like I'm attacking Jalen Green, but I'm not. Like I said, I wanted the numbers to look better. And I was looking first, I was looking, I'll give you the honest truth. When I went to go look at everybody else's first four years, I was looking for them to also be behind in development so I could convince myself that there's still something there. But you look at single-digit playoff performances. Jalen Greens already got more than Devin Booker, Anthony Edwards, and John Morant combined.

It's concerning, to say the least. All right, company on hold. We'll get to you. We've got to take a top of the hour break, but we do have Brian McTaggart coming in. So I do appreciate you guys if you want to call back or if you want to hold through. I promise if you aren't on hold, we will get to you. That's up to you guys.

If you want to hold, I do appreciate you. 713, 212-5-790. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to switch into Astros mode with Brian McTaggart and Adam Wexler coming up next year on Sports Talk 790. Hour number four of the Matt Thomas show with Ross here on Sports Talk 790. Matt Thomas out. Adam Wexer now just joining a four this hour. do appreciate him.

And now for this hour, normally on Thursdays earlier in the show, but he did, I don't know if he's in flight or where are you right now, Brian McTaggart? I am back in Houston. I landed earlier today, had a flight out of Milwaukee this morning. So back in some 80-plus degree weather, thankfully, because that was a chilly road trip. Yeah, a little bit of a chilly road trip and, well, especially the results were chilly for the Astros. But they picked up the win in the last game. You know, I did a lot of this offseason defending of Framber Valdez.

I'm like, no, there's not good and bad Framber. He's mostly been good. Guy's been finishing top 10 in the Sye Young every year, and he really settled in after that horrible outing against the Angels last year. But then, of course, as I defended him all offseason, we have been kind of seeing good and bad Framber this year, but we got the good one yesterday, and what do you think is the key to that? Yeah, it was good Framber.

I mean, he had the, you know, the sinker and change-up were really effective pitches. for him yesterday in that they were coming out of the hand, you know, pretty similar. They were tonning similarly. So, and the Velo on the changeup, he was, you know, he was 90 miles an hour with it. And then he, of course, has a curveball to put people away. So he was keeping the ball down, which was a key for him when he got in trouble in a couple of the previous starts. So it was pretty vintage Framber. And it's still in there.

And that's kind of what I wrote. I mean, he sort of reminded people who he is, not that the brewers or the, you know, a great lineup. or anything, but it was a lineup that he needed to come out there and dominate, and he did just that. And now he's got to try to build on that going forward against probably a couple lineups coming up there a little bit better. He's also getting the, hey, you're the ace of the staff, so hey, we're not going to score you any runs until yesterday. Yeah, that's true. His run support all season, it really has not been good. I mean, he had the complete game loss on the road earlier. I mean, you know, Hunter Browns probably supplanted him as,

his ace at this point. But, I mean, there's room for two aces. So, you know, if you're going to be a team that's going to be taken seriously and win a division, you've got to have two aces and they need Framer to pitch up to those expectations and build on what he did yesterday. Yeah, five of his eight starts have been ace level material to earn runs or fewer, a pair of starts where he gave up no runs, three other starts. Obviously, you'd like to have him a little bit better from a guy at the top of the rotation.

But all in all, five times they probably should have won those games with the way he's pitched. when they've turned it over, when anybody's turned it over to the bullpen. It's obviously been borderline spectacular, especially the back four. What did you think when you knew that this team would be so heavy on Ocurt and Brian King, after the first couple of games and weeks maybe, you realize they're definitely going to lean on these guys, and they've absolutely been able to continue to answer the bell? Well, King was a guy that they talked a lot about in spring training. You know, he came up last year.

They really loved his stuff. And so they didn't go out and get a seventh inning guy to sort of replace Presley when you moved, you know, you moved everybody else up to the back of the bullpen. There was an opening sort of in that seventh inning spot. And they sort of annoyed to King and said, you know, this is a guy that can do it. And he's done a really, really nice job. Stephen Okert has been an incredible fine. I mean, this guy, you know, two scoreless innings the other night, he's been a really big bright spot for them. I thought the bullpen was probably their biggest issue going into the season.

you just had a lot of, you know, guys you pulled from other teams, unproven guys, and they've all stepped up. And it turns out their biggest issue is offense. Starting pitching is about what I thought it would be, maybe a little bit better. You know, Argeti being injured, you know, hurt them. But, you know, Gusto stepped up and done a pretty good job. So the pitching's been good enough. I mean, we all know that.

And they're sitting here with Christian Walker underperforming, Yonard Diaz underperforming, Alvarez, underperforming, now injured, and they're 18 and 18. It feels like they should be like 10 games under 500, but they're not. So if you're an Astros fan, it gives you hope that, hey, when those bats start to come around, they can maybe make a little bit of a push here. Brian McTaggart, MLB.com with us here on Sports Talk 790, keeping with the pitching for a second here.

Lance McCullors, Jr., just the latest on how he's feeling and how you thought he looked, somewhat vintage McCullors with the walks and getting out of some trouble in a soft landing spot against that White Sox lineup. Yeah, I mean, the fact he got up to 87 pitches, I think, was the biggest news of the day. You know, he competed like he always does. You know, he walked the bases loaded, and it looked like, you know, it looked like it was about to go south. The bullpen was warming up. He came back and got an out and ended up going another inning after that.

So, you know, stuff looked pretty good. You know, he wasn't happy with his slider. He called it an F slider, so he got through four innings with an F slider. The rest of the pitches look pretty good. It'll be interesting to see if his below can bump up a little bit, I think, with the sinker. he was 91-94. You know, maybe if he can stretch another mile an hour or two out of that. He, you know, he said when he was rehabbing or coming back in 2022,

it did take a few starts for the Velo to come around. So, you know, he'll get a chance Saturday against the Reds team that he probably doesn't know much about. And his first home starts, I know that's got to be pretty special for him too. But all in all, I thought, you know, a pretty solid first step for a guy who hadn't pitched in 200 or what, two and a half years. Off date today, off day again on May 26th, baseball every day in between. Do you anticipate the last start of this homestand going to the sixth man in the rotation, presumably Ryan Gusto?

Yes, I do. I think a spot has gone on record and said they're going to go to a six-man rotation journey in this stretch. They like to do that whenever they can. Dana Brown is a big fan of that. It makes a lot of sense. I mean, they have a guy like Gusto they can put in there. and he's available in the pen for now, maybe even for the next game or two.

But then I would imagine they would save him for that start. But yeah, six-man rotation. You know, this homestand will get a chance to see where Eric Getty's at. He was not on the road trip. So he's still got the cast on, so it seems like he's not close. But, you know, if they can get him back here in the next month into June, I think that would be huge for them as well. I mean, like I said, I thought starting pitching depth would be a huge issue for them. And so far it's not.

So credit to, you know, some of those other guys stepping up, even when you've had a, you know, a pretty bad injury like Ari Getty, which, you know, he's been out a month plus now. Switching to the hitting, we know there's been a lot of struggles. Some people are on Pope Watch. I'm on Pena Breakout Season to watch, Brian. Where are we at on that? Yeah, I mean, I think it's fair to say he's in route to one.

I mean, even after moving him to the leadoff spot on April 27th, he's hitting 349, has not slowed down. He just looks more confident. You know, he's striking out less, walking more. So it looks like he, you know, he's figured something out. You know, I always say we'll get to Memorial Day and let's see where everybody's at. You get a better assessment. You're about a third of the way through the season.

But, yeah, I think I'm about ready to say that Jeremy Pena is having his breakout season we were all waiting for. And it comes at the right time with all the struggles they've had with other guys. And I think it was you that said earlier, Ross, where would they be without Pena? there'd probably be three, four games under 500 at this point. So, you know, hopefully for their sake, he can keep that up. And, you know, Jake Myers can keep doing his thing. And eventually maybe some of these guys will come around. And if Yardant's hand has been bothering him, I mean, that's probably good news for the Astros.

And he was just not in a season-long funk. He just wasn't healthy. So, you know, I'd be given him the takes off. We'll get him back on track as well. Brought up the name Jake Myers, and far be it for me to ask the Jake Myers question when I'm sitting in the presence of the president. of the Jake Myers fan club, but I'll take it anyway. Do you think in the interim, in the waiting for Yordon to get back, they will, Joe will consider

Jake Myers as a hitter that doesn't bat six, seven, eight, or nine? I don't think so. That would really surprise me at this point. And maybe one of the reasons Myers is hitting so well is because he's hitting in the right spot in the order. So, you know, there's not a ton of pressure on them. And so a lot of times when guys are performing well, and maybe it rolls in the bullpen, pitching in certain situations, and hitting somewhere in the order and people want them to change. Well, some of the reasons they're doing well is because they're in the right spot. And I get that feeling with Jake Myers is that he's in the right spot.

He's still a bottom third order guy to me. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of guys underperforming. You could move him up, but I wouldn't tinker with it at this point. If you want to hit him six, you know, keeping there and, you know, hopefully for their sake, he keeps swinging the bat like he is because he had a really, really good road trip. I mean, he single-handedly won one of the games in Chicago and kept him from getting swept. So it would have been a one-and-five road trip if it wasn't for Jake Myers breaking out. But, yeah, I'll be keeping where it is and not try to change that formula right now.

And keeping with that as we look at guys who are kind of part-time players and thriving in opportunities given, one of those is Zach DeZenzo. Where do you think they are right now, especially with Joe, obviously trying to get him some more starts in the lineup, and he's performed pretty well? Yeah, I mean, he's done a really nice job. I mean, he's had a couple of hiccups in the outfield to drop ball the other night. He had a throw in left field on the road trip that wasn't the best. A little bit of a base running issue in the game yesterday where, you know, he had to scurry back to first.

But, you know, offensively, the guy hits the ball really hard, and they really like the quality of what he does when he goes up there. So, yeah, he can play left. He can d.H. He can play right. I think we're going to continue to see him do that. Joe was asked point blank, could he get back on the dirt, you know, play some first or third? And, you know, we've seen a little bit of them at first. But, you know, as long as Cam Smith continues to struggle, and I think it's fair to say Cam's struggle a little bit, that I think Desenzo will get more at Batson right field.

And, you know, and Cam is not playing, you know, super every day right now consistently. So it's going to be hard for him to come out of this struggle, I think. but you can't ignore, you know, Sanzos at bats, how hard he's hitting the ball, his versatility. He brings a lot to the lineup right now, and I think he's going to play more days than not. Brian McTaggart MLB.com or a weekly guest here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

Appreciate the time, as always, Brian, but quickly, what's going on at Astros.com? Well, glad you asked. I did a little video last night in the hotel. We called him Tap Stories. Oh. Is you sent that out on accident? No, no.

It was a very professional. professional polished baseball video. Yeah, so yeah, don't get too excited there. That's on the website. I did a thing the other day comparing Altuve and Vigio's numbers. It's 35 and the chances of Altuve running down some of those Vizio team records. So that was a fun one as well. And yeah, we'll have a newsletter out on Saturday as well.

So keep on and look out for that. All right. Thanks, Brian. Appreciate the time. We'll talk to you next week. Or actually, somebody will talk to you tomorrow. It won't be me. Oh, actually, wait, it is me.

Actually, I'll talk to you tomorrow, Brian. You're welcome. All right. I'll ask you all the same questions in the same form tomorrow. You ready for that? Okay. Yeah, sounds good. I'll be ready.

All right. Thank you, Brian. Appreciate the time as always. That's right. It is me tomorrow. Dang, I thought I was going to have a free Friday. I'll be with you for Astros on deck and 10th inning tomorrow. Thanks to Brian McTaggart.

Good stuff on the Astros. You want to react to anything. He had to say you can. 713, 212, 5-790. We also were doing a little bit of Jalen Green talk before. as well. Curious to get Wex's thoughts on that. And anything you guys want to get to with you until 2 o'clock on the Matt Thomas show with Ross at 713-2-125.

7-90. Thanks to Brian McTaggart. Bringing it as always talking some stroes. We'll talk to him tomorrow on the Astros on Deck show at 6 o'clock. Astros after the day off the day, we'll settle in at home for a weekend three-game set against the Cincinnati Reds. no rocket's coverage. So we'll have all the games here on Sports Talk 790. Adam Wexler hanging out. Matt Thomas is out for his son's graduation.

You can get in on the phone lines at 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. So just before you got in here, Mr. Wexler, we were also talking about Jalen Green. So curious, your thoughts. Of course, Raphael Stone will say that the data, you can spin it any way that you would like. But if you look at it, as I kind of did a little bit on my social media,

and we've been talking about it, he is not at the level of development for the players that are all NBA type caliber, even for their first four years. But also it is true to say that NBA players do not peak at year 23. They do not peak in year four normally. So where is that peak for Jalen Green? And if you were the general manager, how would you handle him this offseason? Well, first of all, just because you put it out there, and I know a lot of people have seen it, those that haven't. Can you give them an idea of the names on the list?

Oh, okay, we're talking about my social media post. Guys who have made all NBA 30 years are under first, second, third team. There's Devin Booker, Jalen Brown, Jalenson, I mean, okay, Luca Donchard Johnson. I mean, okay, Luca don't know. Trey Young, John Morant, Tyrese Halliburton, Donovan, Mitchell. So you did a statistical analysis with these players. Yes. Which, while very much appreciated, is, I think, extremely unnecessary when you hear those names.

Do listeners think Jalen Green belongs in that group? He's played basketball in the NBA for four years. He's not playing like those players. No, he's not. But I was wondering, I was curious about their first four years relative to his first four years, see how far behind or far, not ahead he would be, but where he's stacked up. And I was making a reference to where those players were earlier in their career. Quite clearly, each one of those players is not entering their fifth season.

in next year. They're much further along in years. They're also much further along in their development. But I also think at that point in their career, I would have said the exact same thing, which is essentially what I meant. It's more about what do you anticipate his future being. I do think there is some learning that definitely happened in this series. I wished, and it's not fair to compare individual players because they were defended and counted on differently. but you had three guys that played massive roles in the Rocket seven-game series against Golden State that were all in their first years. So eliminate Tari Isson and Jabari Smith Jr. Only that their opportunities were much more limited and include Amin Thompson, Alperin Shingoon, and Jalen Green.

The focus of the Golden State defense was very clear. All of our attention is on Jalen Green. We're going to blitz him. We're going to double him. We're going to force him left. He's going to have very little space. He's going to be forced by us, we think, to make the past. To get the ball out of his hands, we'll see if we can beat the other guys four on three.

Alper and Shingoon was defended by one player, pretty much exclusively. Not one specific player, but by only one warrior, whoever it might be. He wasn't double-teamed very often. The rockets ran their offense through him much of the time, and some nights it worked, some nights it didn't. His overall series, quite obviously, was very good as a big picture. He was very, very good in his first playoff series. And I meant Thompson there was virtually no focus defensively on him, which is normally the case throughout his first two years in the NBA.

He's allowed to freelance. He moves without the ball very well within the limits of this offense. And as the series went on, unlike Jalen and unlike Alprin, he figured it out on the fly. Got better and better and better. Man, if there was a game eight or game nine between the Warriors and Rockets, who knows what a man Thompson might have been able to do. Rockets in 15. Let's go. And so it comes back to Jalen.

It's almost like the Rockets felt two things, offensively and defensively. which they never shied away from and never steered differently. Defensively, we're taking Curry and we're focusing all our energy on him. If the other guys beat us, so be it. And it happened all seven games. Three times it worked, four times it didn't. And they allowed the Warriors to do the same thing to them offensively and never changed. Well, if they want to take Jalen Green out, that's fine.

We have confidence on our other four players, whoever are on the court, and they're going to beat them. And it didn't work. It actually didn't work six times. They managed to win three of those games or two of those games. The one time it didn't work for the Warriors is when Jalen obviously went off. Super aggressive, shots were falling early, and his play, that's what we should be talking about. It took me a while to get there. But how he played opening game two, it's not about scoring 12 points in the first four minutes.

Far from it. You can recall this. Our listeners recall this. He was creative. He was playmaking. He was aggressive. He found his teammates. They were playing the kind of offense that they really needed to play much more often in this series.

And it was all because of him. It was because of his ability to beat the. those blitzes, his ability to get around them, to create something for his team. I'm just not sure why he wasn't able to do that a little bit more often, but then it goes into the big Jalen picture. That's what we're asking for four years. Why isn't there more of that? And the Warriors did pick on his clear weaknesses, which I'm sure the Rockets were aware of before

this series. He doesn't have a very good handle going to his left. He's not still four years in, not strong enough to finish with authority, finish through enough of the contact, playoff contact. he definitely got better finishing through regular season contact this year. I'd like to acknowledge that. He was much better at the basket and the regular season. But he looked like first three years, Jalen, at the basket in the postseason.

Yes, and the improvements have been there. And then the flashes have been there. And that's, I think what makes us always not a difficult conversation, but a way to where you can see the light of those great performances and the 30 points and the making, I mean, circus layups through. traffic through three guys, step back threes to his left, to his right. I mean, from the top of the key, swish, you can see so much from him. And then all of a sudden, it vanishes.

And to the point, was it game four? I think at the end of the game, he wasn't even on the floor. So we can talk about, yeah, the warrior's trying to key on him and being defensive. Like, Emilio Doka said, we need one bucket to win. I believe that's correct. He was off the floor in that last possession, that Alperin Shingoon missed that bucket against Draymond Green, he was not on the floor, I believe. It was at least one of those end-of-the-game scenarios where Jalen Green's not even out there to where

Emaidoka says, I don't need him on the floor to help us win this playoff game. And that's what's concerning for me. Yeah, there were several games where the minutes were way down. That particular instance, I think they knew what they wanted to do and they went about it that way and gave the ball to Alperin. He just created for himself and missed the shot, unfortunately. not having him on the floor in light of how the series went, I don't even know that that was such a knock on him versus,

well, he put Easton and, Amand Thompson on the floor. Let me take that back. He put Adams. That's what I thought he did. I was double-checking. Adams came in with Alperin for that possession at the end of the game. And that's why Jalen's off.

It's not that they don't want him out there. And this, they were playing for the, get this, miss. They were playing for the, this is our best lineup. This is the best group that's been on the floor against Golden State. It includes Adams. And if Adams is on the floor, in this series, they just finished, you have to take somebody out that would normally be in. Why Tar Easton?

I mean, he's about the same three-point shooter. If Jalen Greene is taking all this gravity and he's getting all this attention, he should be on the floor there. Eason was out. Eason and a men came out. Alperin and Stephen Adams came in. So my assumption is if I can recreate this. I have to find the possession.

That Jalen was actually on the floor. I don't think he was. I don't think they have enough players for him not to have been. Okay. Unless it was Jabari, Alperin, Fred, Dylan, and Stephen Adams. Yeah. I'll all look into that. We have to, well, actually, Steve's been holding a long time.

Let's get him real quick here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. What's up, Stephen? Hey, guys, just a couple points on Jalen Green, and then I have a small little rant on the Thunder basketball. I think what we have to, consider, and it's not an excuse, obviously, is that playoffs are all about matchups. And I thought that the Rockets had an advantage against Golden State in almost every matchup except for the shooting guard position. Jalen Green has not played well against them this entire year. And I mean,

it's not, it shouldn't be breaking news. They're a really good defensive team. And they had one goal in mind, which was to make everybody beat them except for Jalen Green. And I just thought it was a bad matchup going into the series. And for six of the seven games, it proved that it was, it just wasn't a good matchup for that particular position. And, you know, I'm of the opinion that, you know, I just think that, you know, you trust the process. You gather the data and just hope that this is all a learning experience.

for the core players and you move forward. And my last thing on the Thunder is that, you know, they look really, really good. But every time I watch a game, I'm constantly shaking my head because how does SGA get away with pushing off defenders every single drive to the basket? I mean, I guess it's an effective strategy because they never call it. But like every drive, he's pushing off a defender.

And it's just, it's annoying to watch just because he gets away with it. So I appreciate the call. guys all listen on the other lines. Glad Stephen sees what everybody sees, except for the referees. Luca Donchich says hello. I honestly, I really do truly believe this is different. This really is. It's literally every single drive. It's out of control. We'll get to that in another segment so we can finish the Jalen discussion. He was off the floor, by the way. Dillard Brooks had checked in for him with 458 to go, and that was the last of June. It was Jabari, Jabari Brooks, Fred Van Vleet, and then Adams and Shinggoo.

Right. I get, look, spacing. I mean, I would write. rather have Jabari out there for spacing purposes. And Dylan Brooks and Fred Van Vleet as well. And Jalen Green, that's also an indictment of Jalen Green's play. That's fine, because it's a fact. This is in the series. You're in the middle of this series.

Jalen was your worst shooter. Why would you have him on the floor there? Jabari was a much better shooter. You know, a men's not going to take the shot. He's not going to be out at the three point line. Now, at this point in the series, Fred was just coming alive. This was game four. Oh, that's right.

And that's the other part of, you know, here's what they did the whole series. Here's how they're defending. And as Stephen brought up, Jalen was terrible against the Warriors overall for the five regular season games. So was Fred. Awful against the Warriors this year in the regular season. And then awful again in the first three games. The veteran, because they weren't focused on him, realized I'm wasting myself here. I'm letting this happen.

He took advantage of the Golden State defense in the last four games of the series. Like, it would have been nice had he been able to do that earlier. Well, yeah, it would have been. But that's basketball. All right. We have to take a quick break here on the last. The Matt Thomas show with Ross. Adam Lexer, so graciously, it's hanging out here.

I appreciate him. You guys want to get in. You can 713, 212-1-5-790. 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross without Matt Thomas, with you until 2 o'clock. Continuing along on the Matt Thomas show. Without Matt Thomas, Ross via Rial with you.

Adam Wexer with you. Matt will be back tomorrow. Astros with the day off. We're into Rocky. offseason mode. The news coming out recently that the, not a surprise at all, basically what we all think,

it's like the worst kept secret in Houston Rockets offseason history, that Fred Van Vleet rockets with the team option at $44.9 million. They're pushing back the deadline to June 29th. Additional time to navigate exercise in the option perhaps, or okay, probably, Fred Van Vleet here on a longer term deal,

the question being, how many millions of dollars and most importantly I think how many more years do you think Fred Van Vleet will be at least contracted, contractually obligated unless he is traded to be a Houston Rocket. Yeah, I don't think it's going to sound

any different for your listeners since I know you've said something similarly. Three years, 90-ish million sounds very reasonable. I mean, for the individual I wouldn't look at it as a $14.9 million pay cut. I would look at it as a $45.1 million

dollar extra guarantee because now you're guaranteed to make 90 million dollars as opposed to 44.9. So I think Fred and his agency probably will see that. But there's the backside of that is the other question. Okay, so it's clearly good for how he finished and what he means to this team and all that. But is it good for what they did last year at this time, late May or late June, and drafted Reed Shepard? How many more years of Fred on the roster makes sense if, as we're led to believe internally, they love Reed Shepard. This year was clearly a year where it was going to be difficult

to crack the rotation, as it proved to be. But I think they view him as he has to be at least part of the answer in the future to one of their biggest problems, which was shooting the three. Yeah, I think it's a fair question as far as the Reed Shepard thing and

going into the season when they drafted him and they talked about loving him, that, yeah, sure, you can love a prospect, and do you think there is part of them? got their eyes on them and had them around for a year and said, maybe this guy isn't going to develop into all we think he is. It's a great question because I think they fell more in love with him. The more they had him, the more he was here, the more he was on the roster,

the more he was practicing, probably because of his looks. But I do think this series might give anybody pause. We barely talked about it because everyone's so focused on amend this and amend that. But Fred Van Vleet was, I don't know what the minutes guarding Curry added up to after seven games. I'm sure his total was very high. Fred's total, very high. In order for the Rockets to deploy the type of defense they wanted in this particular matchup, it required a lot of minutes from Fred defensively to be one of the guys that could switch out onto him.

I don't know that they feel like in a year that Reed Shepard's capable of doing that with Steph, with Anthony Edwards, with John Morant, with run through the list of back court killers in the West. That would still cause me concern. Yeah. Yeah, well, I guess the defensive development of Rechap, it will be something we'll be keeping an eye on. But that'll be one of the things happening this offseason. And the other thing, people are talking about trading Jalen Green. So is he wearing a Rockets uniform game number one of the 2025 season in come October?

I mean, it's simple. I'll just give you the simple yes. Because that basically means I don't think they're going to end up with, I think it's, Booker could be a rocket. I really don't think Anna Coupo, Kevin Durant, John Morant, and now fill in the blank with any other name we might come up with the next two months. Durant, Morant. I just don't, I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think it's the deal that this group feels like making,

even though it's pretty clear they're close. Everybody in the West is close. All eight teams that made the playoffs probably think they're very, very close, including the four that didn't advance, like Houston. But if you're moving Jalen for any of those other pieces, okay, well, then you've created an opening that you don't necessarily have the ability to fill unless you've traded for Devin Booker.

Like what lineup are you running out there if Jalen's been moved for Kevin Durant? I guess, and who's still out there? And are you saying you've traded Jailen so you can keep Cam Whitmore who all of a sudden has earned the trust of the coaches in year three? I don't know if that's happening. Right.

Yeah, I don't know. I think Jalen Green is here. I'm in agreement with you. I think Jailen Green is here. I think you have seen the incremental improvement. I think he still can get better. don't think he's, like I said, we just kind of have to lower the bar of expectation to where he's second and third option. He's not blossoming into this star who is going to consistently take over games and carry teams. The guys you mentioned, the Devin Booker, the John Morantz, he's going to be a lesser player. I think we have enough sample size to say he's going to be a lesser

player than those types of guys, but that doesn't mean he does not have a value and a role, especially with the improvement overall in his perimeter defense. Yeah, basketball player improvement was pretty clear to see this year. He was a better basketball player than he's been in any of this for three years. He was more important to winning without necessarily being a tremendously improved offensive player or shooter. Now, it's worth noting his three-point shooting numbers did go up by enough that I would note it. It went up to 35 and change. It would previously in the 33's.

His overall shooting, basically, though, was the same. His field goal percentage coming into this year was 42.2%. and he shot 42.3% this year. His effective field goal percentage was 49.8. He shot 50.5. He's never been above 50.8. He's never been below 48.5. There's a lot of what I look at in his fourth year that I was hoping I wouldn't see in Jeremy Pena's fourth year because those numbers are so remarkably similar.

And Jeremy's telling me, you're right. You're not going to see that in my fourth year. But for the most part, we did see that with Jalen. There's parts of the... He got better as a player. if he's not a better shooter and a better scorer, more efficient score, it becomes difficult to elevate where you place him on the list of players at his position, because that's what's necessary for players at his position.

You've got to be able to put the ball in the basket a little bit more effectively than he has shown to do. Yeah, I think he also has value in the regular season as well. Look, hey, 40 points against the Wizards, hey, that counts. That still gets you a win, even it's against a bad team. If he has the capability of doing that, especially against worst teams, and I'm not trying to say that he only scores big against worst teams, but worst defenses, Jalen Green, can thrive in the tools that he has. That can provide you value to the point where he was the leading score on a 52-win team.

He's got value. So I'm with you. I think the Rockets will not necessarily rock the boat in a big way, and he will still be here. We have to take quick break here on the Matt Thomas show. We will talk some more Rockets when we come back. You do have a couple of minutes to get in if you'd like. Believe it or not today with Matt Thomas out, I take a mental break off.

I know Jonathan Allen likes it too. You don't have to hit all those sounders and get all those winners. So Matt will be back tomorrow. Believe it or not, we'll be back tomorrow. But you can get in for some regular conversation in the final segment. It's 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Final segment of the show, but you don't have to go anywhere.

Adam Clanton and Adam Wexler are coming up next at 2.0. a clock, Adam Wexer, thankfully, hanging out with me for the last hour of this program with Matt Thomas out. He will be back tomorrow. Didn't talk at a lot of Astros, but lately been talking a lot of Rockets, Jalen Green as well. And I mean, we kind of haven't been talking about this either because he did show up in the series. I would say showing up leading the team in points, rebounds, assists, and steals is a pretty good way to show up in a seven-game playoff series. But As you mentioned, he was only guarded by one guy the whole series, whoever that was. A lot of it was Draymond Green, who is a great defender and very strong.

But the efficiency numbers weren't there for Alperin Shingun as far as the shooting percentage. And also, we talked about this in the regular season as far as missed bunnies, missed shots in the paint, a lot of it falling short. And now you have three straight seasons for Shingoon, 55% shooting down to 53.7. Then under 50 for a 611 big man who doesn't take a bunch of threes, 49.6% from him. I do feel like we can get more of a bounce back there. I don't know if he's just got to get his weight up. Is it just simply getting stronger and bigger as a 22-year-old?

What do you think about the off-season for Alperin Schuongue? I think he needs to get a better handle on which shots to take. He did get one thing correct this year, and you just mentioned it, he took a lot fewer threes this year, and that should be pretty much permanent. it and he should also take zero threes if the shot clock has a one on it and it's not the only digit ever it just doesn't make any sense basically just don't do it even though he made three of eight in this seven game series but yeah you can't have a player who takes the majority of shots from 15 feet and in or even a bigger percentage of that majority right at the basket he can't shoot 45% from the floor which is what he did in those seven games he i think he he he's getting to his spots more often than he thinks and he's passing on that to make another move and to make another move and to make another spin and kind of puts himself in harm's way or sends himself into traffic into the defense when he's already kind of won. He's already gotten where he should want to go against Looney or Pajemski or Green or whomever in this series.

And other teams might defend him differently. But I think that was one big problem. And watching the ball be released from his hand on a regular set shot, jump shot, or free throw, he cannot be a 63% free throw shooter anymore. It is 100% mental. It is 100% about lack of consistency with his technique and his motion. He doesn't do the same thing every time. He still talks to the ball.

He still spins the ball. He says the wrong things to the ball, clearly. Sometimes he leans in. Sometimes he has a lane violation that he knows will go uncalled because the reps are... Sorry. He just doesn't do the same thing every time. You can't be as act. He's going to get to the free throw line.

and you should want him to. That should be a plus. 75% is not elite, but that's where he should be with his abilities. He was there for the first couple months of the season. Wasn't he around like 75, 77% I think? And quite clearly, it was a major factor in this series, not just him, the whole team.

You had three games where you missed 9 plus at the free throw line and put you in a horrible position. So those two things, I think, are the simplest things to fix. It's pretty clear he got a lot stronger. He was much more capable of handling how basketball, basketball was played in the playoffs physically. I thought he did an awesome job of that. I was really happy with how he responded to everything from the antics portion of it and just the straight-up physical play.

He didn't spin the helicopter as often as he usually does. He wasn't asking for every call to be reviewed. He's the number one offender on the Rockets with that, right? Yes. I think so. I still think the coaching staff listens too much. Well, they did. What was it one during the series?

That was when they were up 30, I think, in game two or whatever it was. And it was a Jimmy Buller and one. He hits him on the shoulder. and he's like, he's doing the helicopter hand. And they're like, fine, whatever. We'll challenge it for you. I'd love to see more improvement. I'm glad that he said himself, he didn't play offense well this season.

But if you get 21, 12, and 5 and two steals, and his turnovers were definitely down in this series. He was very good at that. Only had 15 turnovers in seven games. That's very acceptable for someone whose usage rate is where it is. He had a good playoff series. If there's more in his next playoff series, series, that's borderline superstar kind of production.

The effectiveness, efficiency of it could stand to go up. Yeah, maybe I got to, now I've got to dive into other big men in the first four years in development. He did have the benefit of playing pro basketball before coming in. And just as a prospect in general, I think one of the reasons where he wasn't super high on people's boards, where he wasn't a top five guy, is because he doesn't wow anybody with the athleticism. So are you really, really mad at me? Are you Clanton level mad at me? If I say, well, Jalen played pro basketball before the NBA, too.

That's true. He played 15 games with G League of Night in the bubble. Yes, he did. That's pro bat. He got paid for it and everything. You're right. But not a couple of years. He wasn't a Turkish league MVP.

At least I don't think Jailen Green was. I have to look back up at his resume. But no. I will not. I don't think I'll ever get Adam Clanton levels of mad at you like. Just to let you know. Anyways. So,

I think adding strength, he of course can't add polish. He of course can work on some of the, it's like passing and things like that in post moves. But he came into the league with a lot of that already. So what I say, what I'm saying is he was closer to his ceiling, I think, in those types of categories. But I think if he does continue to add strength and bulk, that's going to help him so much down low. Do you think any other team in the West, the seven other playoff teams? any of them could have or would have defended him the way the Warriors did, essentially not double team.

I think the answer is no. I don't think the, I think Memphis would have helped Sharon Jackson. I think the Nuggets would have helped Nikola Yokic. I think the Lakers wouldn't have known what to do. Rudy go bear guards in Mauna one-on-one. I mean, he's gone off for 40 plus. He's also played very well.

He's gone off for 40 against Rudy, but he's also had bad games against Rudy. To me, that's kind of a mixed bag. I would have to go back and look through game-by-game basis there. You think Draymond's number one of the eight individual defenders that could have played him individually? I think Zubots plays him pretty well individually. Who else? Where's Jonas Valenius these days?

He normally can give him fits? And you would see a team that has him saying maybe we should do something. Maybe we give him more minutes because he has done that. Yeah. If it's a play. I just think, I'm not calling it a bad matchup by any means, but I do think the defense played on him individually allowed the Warriors to play this whole series of certain way. I think against certain big sinners, yeah, he will do what he does, where he's moving and shaking and kind of slip it on the floor, losing the ball, and not getting as close to the basket as he can against weaker big men and or mismatches.

Yeah, just you're allowed to do different things offensively if you keep running things throughout and he's drawing doubles. I mean, they're not going to have any games where they only shoot 12 threes through the first three quarters, again, ever. Because that's, if you're committing defense to on the interior, people going to the basket, whether it's a drive or, simply a post play, well, you're leaving guys open on the wings. And they just, that wasn't available to them much. Do you think part of that was wondering, I didn't have to go back and look at the game, but yeah, like, I was alarmed how few threes there were. And I was wondering if part of them was like, we don't want to put this up to the three point gods. We want to try to make easier baskets.

They kind of did play like that, because I do think there probably were more opportunities to shoot threes, but they definitely went at the bat. The rockets were aggressive going to the basket. And probably, I think we said it during the game. Some will definitely say it. in hindsight. It was not a correct strategy that night. What was it? 23 of 55 in the paint or something like that in Game 7?

Not good. Well, back to the drawing board. And I do think Al-Prinich and Goon will continue to grow, but concerning that the field goal percentages have gone down. So any of these ridiculous deals that have put out there where he's involved in moving out, you're like, I don't think so. I'm not calling anybody untouchable. And that includes him in Thompson.

I know we love, like, people are like, no, I wouldn't give him any honest deal. You're hoping he, Janus is a two-time MVP and defensive player of the year. That's what you're hoping Amin can be. And he is that. So to me, nobody's untouchable. Everybody, you know, Amin is one of the more, I would like less to be touched. That sounds weird. I don't know.

I would like to keep Amman Thompson, certainly. And then Alperin Shungoon more than us, don't make that face, Jonathan. You know what I'm saying. But anyways, I wouldn't call anybody untouchable. It's not like he's making videos in his hotel room. That was, that was like, oh, all right. Brian, geez. All right, we're going to get out on that note. Wex, thanks for hanging out. I'll be here for the next four hours.

Yes, next four hours with another guy named Adam. Thank you to Dan Matthews for hanging out earlier in the show. Thanks to Adam Wexer for coming in earlier as well. Thanks to Brian Bogusevich for joining. Brian McTaggart. Thanks to Jonathan Allen for producing. Thanks to all of you for listening and interacting with the show. I do appreciate you.

That's going to do it for me, but don't go anywhere. There's two Adams. They call themselves the 18. team. They are coming up next here on Sports Talk 790, your home for your home teams.