The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian Bogusevic Breaks Down Astros Big Game 2 Win Over Blue Jays

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

Brian Bogusevic Breaks Down Astros Big Game 2 Win Over Blue Jays

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Time for us to spend 10 quality minutes with our friend Brian Bogus-Sevick. He is on Space City Home Network. And yesterday an 11-eating contest and the Astros won it. We're going to talk to him about that right now here on the program. Bogeague, first of all, good morning. What a strange turn of events. I know for nothing is not supposed to be an insurmountable lead.

but I was irritated to how they came back, eventually took the lead in a wide ranging of emotions of how that game turned out yesterday afternoon in Toronto. Yeah, it was, honestly,

yesterday's game felt like two games. I mean, first of all, just because of length of game, but the way the first, I don't know, four, four, five innings played out where it just was kind of stale offense, very much like the day before

where there was a base runners, but nobody was really getting anything going. and then the second half of the game where it was like no lead is safe, we're just going to go back and forth and trade runs. It was a wild game. There were a lot of swings. Those games are exhausting. Begin with.

It's a good thing you win, though, because they feel twice as exhausting if you don't get the win and spend all of that energy and all of those resources to come up empty. I'll say this, and I don't know if the asteros are going to have a change by the time the game is going tonight because you've got to cut. customs and it's Toronto, but this bullpen has beat the hell up, Brian. You know, tonight starter is going to have to go deep in this contest because, man, you get a lot of tired arms. I mean, Brian King's thinking about throwing with his right army, is that tired? They've thrown a ton of pitches. They've used a lot of guys. They've had guys kind of

overextend themselves. It seems like every outing for a reliever is come into the game, get out of this jam and finish the inning, and then go out there for the next inning, and try to get through that inning. They feel overexend. extended and you really felt yesterday, you felt that one man short in the pen because they're in the six-man rotation. It felt like they needed one more leverage guy down there and the game almost got away because of it. But, you know, they did a nice job, but, no, you're right.

There are some logistical issues to getting somebody into Toronto to help out. But, yeah, they can certainly use six innings or more from Burroughs today and hopefully a big enough lead to where they don't have to push it with some of these guys. So not only do they need length from a guy, they need goodness from the guy who was demoted very shortly to the bullpen. So I'd like to say don't make too much out of this one start. So I'm not going to make too much out of this one start because it will be atypical. If Burroughs was to struggle today, he's going to have to kind of work his way out of it while

on the mound, not by sitting in the dugout after a subpar performance. That's why hopefully he doesn't have that today. Yeah, he's going to be out there for. 90 plus pitches probably regardless of what it is. You know, and that's just kind of the state of the team staff right now. And, you know, first and foremost, he's going to have to, he's going to have to command his fastball. That's been the pitch that has got him this year. And it's the inconsistencies with location.

There's been a lot of fastballs that have shown up in the middle and he's gotten hurt big on them. And if he can get that pitch going and stay ahead and counts, it's also, it's a very difficult. Toronto lineup. We've seen the last two days, both Peter Lambert and Hunter Brown, neither of them had their best stuff by any means. But it's just a Toronto offense that just wears you down, wears he out, makes you throw a lot of pitches. So he's going to have to be really aggressive in the zone, but also be pretty sharp to have those pitches be effective. And not only just the mentality of Burroughs, can you just kind of give us some insight, maybe even the whole team to where, you know, if you're a great team, you're building all this momentum and we're going to try to

be contenders. If you're really bad, you're like, all right, well, we suck. The Astros have been somewhere in between and, of course, below 500 all season long. What is that like for the team that feels like they're maybe spinning their wheels and trying to dig out of these ruts and they can't always consistently find it? Well, it can be frustrating because you see glimpses of what it can be. We've seen some games, especially recently, where they've played really well and they've played kind of well-rounded games, and we've had games where they pitched really well. We've had games where the offense has shown up. So there's a lot in there. So it can be frustrating that it doesn't show up as consistently as you hope.

But at the same time, everybody knows that they haven't really been whole at any point this season. You know, they're getting closer and they're almost there and knock on wood that Jeremy Payne is not going to be out for any extended period. But it's kind of, yeah, we're not where we want to be, but we know what we can. be if we get it going and you know you just kind of hold the line and keep your head above water until you make the run until everybody's there until it clicks with everybody and then hopefully you you run off the stretch of games for a couple of weeks that that put you back to where you want to be Brian Bogusevic with us here on sports talk 790 another massive bomb from cam Smith yesterday and it feels like if you just watch like the highlight of his home runs you

you think the dude is like hitting 35, 40 home runs. And I ask you, we've kind of talked about him throughout the year, Brian. Like, what is it that he continues to, we see these flashes from him as well as we're talking about the whole team being inconsistent that he needs to do to be more consistent? Well, he's got a long way to go in terms of his growth and development as there. I mean, just where he's at in terms of professional at bats under his belt. I mean, he had 135, 140 played appearances in the minor leagues before he got here. You look at other guys who've come up through the organization over the years, guys like George Springer, guys like Kyle Tucker.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

you have Jose Altuve later in his career, you have Yordon Alvarez in the prime of his career. You are in go for it mode. You are in win now mode. So you can say, hey, look, this team, if you have a chance, to get in, you are dangerous because they know how to win. They've been there before. If you get to the playoffs, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, you know, think the Astros were going to be overmatched against anybody in a playoff type of series.

You have an ace at the top of the rotation. You have veteran hitters who have played that kind of baseball before. So, yes, because of that kind of trajectory that they're on where they're at as an organization, as long as you are still alive in a playoff race, you are still going for it. great stuff as always thank you brian for the visit as usual on this wednesday we'll do this again next week look forward to seeing you on the space city later tonight all right see you guys thank you brian