The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian Bogusevic Breaks Down Astros Offensive Surge During 4-Game Win Streak

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

Brian Bogusevic Breaks Down Astros Offensive Surge During 4-Game Win Streak

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 11-0-2 here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Sports Talk 790 with you until 12 o'clock, at which point we will head into Astros on deck mode. 110 first pitch. Astros going for a sweep against the Boston Red Sox after taking the first couple of games in this series. And right now,

pleased to be joined by our weekly baseball guest, Brian Bogus Sevik of Space City Home Network and of course a former Astro himself. Brian, appreciate the time as always. Let's just go ahead and start with this offense, leading the entire majors in-run scored. First couple of games scuffling a bit. Let's just kind of do with more of a macro before getting into some of the individual hitters. But just how are the Astros doing this piling up all these runs? You know what?

They're doing it a lot of different ways. which is a good thing. If you're going to score runs consistently over the course of the season, you're going to have to be able to do it in multiple ways. And, you know, we've seen the long innings that they had a couple of times against the Angels. We've seen more of a power, quick strike offense show up here against the Red Sox. There's been some aggressive base running. They're working walks, so there's a lot of traffic on bases. Extra base hits are piling up besides just the home runs. They're driving the ball all over the field.

So, you know, right now, they're scoring runs a ton of different ways, which is great, and it's a lot of fun to watch. But, you know, if you're going to try to look at it further down the road and say, what does that mean for the long haul? It means, you know, there's going to be times when you're not doing one or the other, but, you know, you can continue to go out there and have an offense that can put up runs no matter what. Astros second in team OPS in baseball right now. and, well, let's get into the micro, some of the individuals, starting with Yordon Alvarez. That guy's pretty good. It's crazy. It's just, you know, having a season like last year where he was out so much,

and when he was here, he wasn't fully healthy. You know, you almost forget what it looks like when he's fully healthy and totally locked in, which is what he is right now. It just looks like everything at the plate is moving so slowly for him. When he gets a good pitch to hit, he just unleashes a swing that, you know, hitting the ball a mile. But it's the takes that are really impressive. For a guy to have that, you know, violent and powerful a swing,

when he takes the ball, he doesn't flinch. It's not a bunch of check swings. It's not starting early to get the bat head out. He had some tough takes on two-strike breaking balls yesterday that he's seeing it out of the hand. And when you have a guy who's seeing the ball that well, the swing is so pure. he can drive the ball to any part of the ballpark. It's just he really does feel dangerous on every single pitch. Yeah, and we hear that a lot, Brian, seeing the ball well,

and it's something that kind of comes and goes. Can you explain that to us? Like, what does that mean? I'm seeing the ball well, and what does that mean when it pales to I'm not seeing the ball well? Well, you have to pick up different cues to tip you off as to what pitch is coming, right? A fastball, a slide, or a change-up. there's different things that you can find.

And when your timing's not right or maybe you have a little bit of head movement, it takes longer to recognize those things. The ball seems like it's sped up on you. But when everything's kind of moving slow, when your head and your eyes are real still, you'll see the little bit of different arm angle that a pitcher has on a fast ball versus a change of, or you'll see the breaking ball pop up out of the guy's hand

just a little bit earlier that'll tip you off as to what pitch it is. and for Yordaun right now, it almost seems like as soon as that pitcher's arm gets up above his head, he's recognizing what pitch is coming, he's doing the calculation on where it needs to start versus where it needs to land for it to be a pitch that he's going to go after. And all those decisions that are happening in, you know, fractions of a second, it seems like he's got way more time than he actually does. Brian Bogusevic with us here on Sports Talk 790. Jose Altuvae, eight walks in the first.

six games. That certainly has jumped out at us. What are you seeing from him as far as meshing being the same old Altovae who's going to be a Hall of Famer into maybe a different approach? Is that what you're seeing from him so far? Yeah. And, you know, I don't think the approach is necessarily be more patient in terms of him walking as much as he had. But I think it's an approach of being committed to hitting the ball in the middle of the field using the other way, not being so full-happy, not trying to force pull-side power. And what that's allowed him to do is see the ball a little bit longer and make better swing decisions.

A lot of the pitches that he's laid off of, especially later in counts, have been breaking balls down in a way, pitches that, you know, he would have committed early to and maybe swung over the top of or chopped into the ground last year. He's waiting just a little bit longer because he's comfortable hitting the ball in the middle of the field and able to lay off those pitches.

and but the thing is is that he's not giving anything up to do that. We saw the two home runs the other night. Both of those were on the pole side. So how does that happen? Well, he's seeing the ball long enough to make good swing decisions, but the swing is in a good place to where he's still quick enough when a hanging breaking ball shows up or a sinker leaks back in. He's still quick enough to get around on it and drive it.

And it's just he's in a really good spot right now where the swing's in a good spot and the approach is in a good spot, and he's covering everything. Brian Bogusevich, continuing with us here on Sports Talk 790. Why was Lance McCuller's junior so good, and how does he keep it up? Well, you saw it in spring training. You saw, first of all, the stuff being a little bit sharper than it was last year, the velocity up a little bit, the breaking ball spin a little bit tighter.

but you also saw a more committed approach to attacking the zone, and a lot of that probably comes from just the confidence in the stuff being a little bit better. But what we saw in that first start was even turned up a little bit more from what we saw in spring training. It was a guy who looked like every pitch that he was throwing, he wanted to induce the swing. He wanted to induce contact because he was confident that his stuff was going to beat the hitters in the zone. It looked like, you know, at times last year where he wanted to get chases,

he wanted to get swings at pitches that weren't going to be able to be put in play because he didn't trust his stuff to be to play in the zone. And this year it just looks like he's got to increase confidence in what his pitches are, what the shape of them are, what the velocity of those pitches are, and going out there and say, hey, I hope you swing and I hope you hit it because I know that I'm going to win. We'll get to Jeremy Payne in a second. and he is out of the lineup today.

But just kind of a general question. What does that, when we always talk about in baseball, day game after a night game and that being a grind, can you just kind of take us through that? How much those extra couple hours change your routine? Of course, Christian Vasquez is in the lineup today. Of course, you try to keep catchers off their feet at a day game after a night game. What happens?

What changes with those extra six hours or so that get shaved off with the day game? Well, you know, the obvious thing is just the quick turnaround. You know, you're on your. feet running around, finishing the game last night at 10 o'clock. And now these guys are already back on the field. They just finish taking ground balls here at, you know, 11 o'clock. So a quicker turnaround, but it interrupts your regular routine of getting ready for the game. A lot of these guys, you know, they get here 12, 1 o'clock in the afternoon.

You eat, you start to get stretched out. You do some work in the weight room, get some work in the training room. And it's this slow buildup to work into batting practice to then. get yourself ready for the game and you just don't have time to do that so it's an abbreviated routine you have to get on your feet a little bit quicker maybe don't have as much time to to check all those boxes you just have to hit kind of the main points that you want to get to get to so it's a combination of the quick turnaround and just not having as much time to recover but also the abbreviated routine for whatever it is that you do to get yourself ready for a seven o'clock game

did you ever have an injury similar to jeremy's No, not something like that that I was still kind of working through on the buildup back. I mean, I've had broken bones and stuff, but by the time I was back into gameplay, I was 100% full go. I mean, what it looks like he's at right now is a guy who's recovered from the injury, but still in the buildup phase. And it would have been a non-factor if this would have happened earlier in spring. And he could have used the last week or two to do that more natural buildup. You know, in spring training, you're not going to take a guy with him played in a while and just say, okay, you've got nine innings back to back to back to back days.

So just kind of the timing of it, it's more of, it feels like it's a buildup of we are protecting your body, not necessarily trying to baby or nurse an injury. Yeah, Brian Bogus is having with us here on Sports Talk 790. Mike Burroughs on the mound. We were very excited about his results in spring training. first start didn't go maybe the way well really anybody on the Astros side wanted what did you see from him in the first start

what does he need to improve today honestly you know besides two swings it wasn't really a whole lot different than what we saw in spring training he gave up five runs four of them were on a three run homer that landed in the front row the Crawford boxes and then

you know Mike Trout locked in like that gets a whole lot of guys so really the stuff didn't look all that different the bottom line wasn't I don't think what anybody would have expected based on how he threw the ball in spring. What I think is really interesting about his matchup today is what we saw from Lance two nights ago and then Hunter yesterday was a lot of really aggressive pitching early in the count, a lot of strikes, a lot of attacking with fast balls, get ahead, put away, get ahead, put away.

And that was exactly what Mike Burroughs' MO was all throughout spring training. He was working fast. He was ahead of everybody. and it looked like a guy who really had no interest in messing around and setting up pitches. It was just, here's my stuff, it's good, I'm going at you with it, and I think I'm going to beat you. So I think that approach that he had all throughout the spring plays well against what this Boston offense is in its current state. So, yeah, I think from a bottom line aspect, the first start of the year wasn't exactly what you would have wanted, but I don't think what he was,

it was all that different from what we saw in spring. All right, there you go. Brian Bogus, have a great stuff. As always, our weekly to, excuse me, Wednesday guest here on Sports Talk 790 throughout the baseball season. Brian, thanks for the time. We'll talk to you next week.

All right, thanks well.