The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian Bogusevic Addresses the Astros Bullpen Situation

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

Brian Bogusevic Addresses the Astros Bullpen Situation 

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Our Wednesday visits with Brian Bogus-Evich of Space City Home Network, of course, the former Astro, and on hand to watch in person at Dike and Park and certainly from the studios on the road as the Astros even up the series with the Nationals. From a macro viewpoint, Brian, say what you all about where this team is and still chasing 500. To be able to put together a stretch of about a month where they've lost one series, let's give them some flowers here because they've done them to do that the last few weeks. Yeah, it's been a pretty incredible turnaround from where it was the first six weeks of the season

and what it's been for the last six weeks or so. And the craziest thing to me is just how kind of methodable and consistent it's been. I mean, I think over the last 20-ish games or something, you know, the record's like 13 and 7 or 12 and 8 or something. and there haven't been any kind of winning streets, losing streets. It's just been like two out of three, two out of three. And that's kind of been what they've been talking about all season. You know, if we win series, we win series, we'll end up where we are. And it has proven that way, not just from a record standpoint,

but it's proven that way from a how are we playing standpoint, because it has been pretty consistent. Even when they have a bad game here or there, it seems like they turn the page really quickly and get back to playing good baseball. And the reality is the way the American League is slated this year, especially the West, you don't have to win 9 of 11. You can take these series and get right back in the race, and that's exactly what they're doing.

I thought yesterday's game was bizarre for many reasons. One, if I'm the nationals, I'm not happy that I walked as many people that I did and from the Astro side of things, especially with guys in the outfield who have really struggled to have a consistent bat. That, to me, was one of the underlying thoughts of the game yesterday was the ability to take some pitches and get on the base paths

without having to swing and make contact with the baseball. No, absolutely. Every rally any of the Astros had was basically handed to them with a couple of base runners from walks and hit by pitches. But that's been the season for the nationals. If you look at them, they've got one of the best, arguably the best offense in all of baseball. They score a ton of runs. They hit a ton of home runs. They steal a ton of bases. They do all these great things offensively. And the pitching is basically the complete opposite. They walk everybody. They give up a ton of runs. And that's why you have a team that's got maybe the best office in baseball and they're just kind of struggling to stay around 500. But, you know, kudos to the Astros because they took advantage of it. And it wasn't a couple of walks at the bottom. And then here's Yordaun with the three-run Homer. It was the guys at the bottom of the order getting it done and getting those runners in and executing at bats and, you know, sacrifice flies, productive outs.

They kind of grinded out six runs yesterday. So Eey gets into trouble in the first inning with the bloody blister, whatever that was and couldn't get you four. and Burroughs get sent down. And, you know, Araggeti had two good months, one lousy month, and hopefully July is a turnaround for him as well. There's a lot of it that Ross and I just shake our heads at daily, and I'm sure you do the same thing.

How is the team where it is with the fact that starting pitching? Macro view of this is an underperforming starting five or in some case starting six? Yep, because they've been pretty consistently very good everywhere else. You know, the bullpen has been great for a huge chunk of the season now, and they continue to get better and deeper down there. The offense, you know, they had some ups and downs early, but they've really leveled off into being a pretty good offense. Certainly when you have Yordan going out of his mind for an entire season that helps. They've been generally good on the basis. They've been generally good defensively, and they've kind of covered up for the fact that the same pitching has been inconsistent at best and at times has been, you know,

kind of detrimental, but I think once you get an idea of what you are as a team and know what you can rely on and what you have to cover up for, you can play a certain style of game. And yesterday, I mean, that was a pretty quick hook on in my, I know that pitch count was running up there, but he's good to go to 100 plus pitches and to get him out there in the low 80s. It was kind of like, okay, we've seen enough. Let's get it to the guys who we trust, who we can count on to kind of lock this thing down. So I think from the, you know, at the very least,

you know what you have around that starting pitching now as you wait for it to maybe get a little bit better with some guys getting healthy. What went wrong with Mike Burroughs? Because, I mean, even if you look at his last year, his numbers with the Pirates, okay, 394 ERA, his whip was like 1.24.

That's not, you were, the thinking was, at least if he's that, it was a decent trade and he should be better here, but he's been much, much worse. Yeah, something doesn't add up with him, right? If you make the Mike Burroughs scouting report, you put it down on paper and you just kind of watch his pitches on video, say, without the hitter or the result, you would say that's pretty good stuff, that's doable, that stuff is going to work. I mean, fastball velocity, the change of the movement on the breaking balls, but it's been very hitable.

And the last couple of outings that he had, there has not been very much swing and miss at all. There hasn't been, you know, uncomfortable swings. There haven't been the ability to get away with the mistake. Anything he throws in the middle of the plate gets hammered. He makes a good pitch down below the zone and guys still put a good swing on that. And to me, from a hitter standpoint, that is all the signs of just they see the ball really well off of him. And they've got a long time to see it. They've got a long time to recognize and they're always putting good swings on it.

And there's always got to be some element of deception in a picture. pitcher's delivery, hiding the ball a little bit, not seeing it right out of the hand. And he's tinkered with his mechanics quite a bit over the course of the season. He's talked about different arm slots. He's talked about landing more open or more closed. And when you start doing that, especially with your landing and kind of swinging your leg, open and closed, you always risk opening up a little bit earlier and showing the ball earlier to hitters.

And I think going down to AAA, working on some of those things, and finding out where he needs to be from a directional standpoint, hopefully. Hopefully he can find a little bit more of deception because he's not getting the kinds of swings that he should based on what the stuff out of the hand is. So I think I think he's just lost a little bit of deception as well as, you know, had some command issues also. Brian Bogusevich was here on Sports Talk 790. Last night, Brian Abraeu hitting 98.8 on the gun, a couple other fast balls at 98. obviously if the Astros are going to make a run, it would be nice for him to be a big part of it.

Apart from the velocity, what did you see from him? Well, it was the velocity and it was the shape of the breaking ball. It was big, it was hard, it was more down than side to side, which is always a good sign. For him, I thought it was maybe one of the better outings that he's had all season. And, you know, the fastball, the velocity, it wasn't just like one or two pitches that popped.

was pretty consistent throughout the outing. So I don't know. You're not going to sit here and say, oh, he's back because he threw a pitch 99 miles an hour. But I certainly think that it's a huge step in the right direction. We'll see if he, you know, hopefully he gets run out there again today and it looks the same and he can string together some outings. But even if he doesn't get all the way back to, you know, maybe best set up man in all of baseball, what he was, if he can just be a guy that you can rely on to throw, you know,

a leverage inning or a seventh inning here or be a bridge in the sixth inning there, I think that would be a huge gain based off of what it was for the majority of the first half. Bogie, was the Jake Myers send down a wake-up call? Not maybe wake-up call is a strange term, but I'll go with it anyway. For everybody, not just Jake, but nobody's safe in the bat, waiver wire, and that shuttle between Sugarland and Dyken Park can happen almost on a daily basis. Yeah, I don't know if there's a wake-up call because everybody, everybody's very aware of what this business is. And it's very, you know, what have you done for me lately?

And it's very much in the now. But, yeah, it's just a little reminder of the game moves forward and teams move forward. And, you know, if you're not producing or if you go through a stretch where you're struggling, nothing is really safe. And I think we saw that, you know, with Jake being sent down, I think we saw that with Christian Javier coming off of the aisle and being put directly into the bullpen. We'll see if he gets back into the rotation or not. But it's that time of the season where it's getting late, right?

We're past the 90 game point and tough decisions have to be made and we have to make decisions in the now and what can help us immediately. So, yeah, it's just kind of a little heightened sense of awareness that we're getting to that point of the season. You know, I don't like the trade deadline even being pushed back a couple of days further. and I know the reason why they do this because they want to keep as many teams vested in maybe thinking about making a deadline,

but if you're going to do something here and nothing really is going to happen until probably the last week or so, whoever you're inheriting, better make an immediate impact, whether it's a starting pitcher, a reliever, going to get an outfielder, a left-handed bat up some sort.

Your sample size to make an impact for a team is now down to less than two months. Yeah, it's tough because, especially when, you know, when you're adding a on the position player side because I mean everybody throughout the course of the season has a rough spell of a couple weeks or so

and when that's all you're really getting it can really diminish the return on going out and getting somebody. So I think also one of the things that you have to look at when you're scouting players and thinking about bringing somebody in it isn't just hey this is what this guy has been in

2026 and these are his overall numbers. It's really a here's how he's swing it right now or here's how he's throwing it right now and trying to capitalize on bringing in not just a quality bat or a quality arm but maybe a hot bat also. Last question and you're, you know, people are trying to bring up trade possibilities. You know, the Astros farm system doesn't have as much as, say, many other teams, unfortunately it's been considered bottom five for a while. From a minor league perspective, and Brian, you were obviously spent time in my leagues before

becoming a major leaguer. Do the young men of 19, 20, 21 years old that are just looking to get that call to the show. Do they hear their names being brought up in trade speculation? And what is that perspective? We always hear about the player on a major league roster, but, you know, like Montyak being, for example, for the Rockies being a name but brought up. But what are the minor league kids thinking about at this point in time?

Oh, yeah, very aware, very aware. I would say, you know, sometimes they're more aware of it down there than the guys in the big league clubhouses. And, you know, a lot of times what they are is they're looking for opportunities. and you know if your name is coming up as somebody who could potentially be traded usually that is a good thing right it's not that that your old team did not want you anymore it's that somebody else thinks you have you have value and and if you're a player being brought in whether you're an a ball or double a or whatever that new organization is now highly invested in your success so yeah those

guys are very aware of it and and not that anybody wants to get traded but you know everybody in any industry, any job type of situation is looking for opportunities somewhere.