The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian Bogusevic Discusses Recent Games & Bullpen Performance

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

Brian Bogusevic Discusses Recent Games & Bullpen Performance

Hour number two of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Again, without Matt Thomas, traveling with the Houston Rockets. He will be getting in the air shortly as they are coming back from a late, late night game in Phoenix. Chris Gordy is here hanging out. And right now we had Brian Bogusevick hanging out on Monday. And we're going to double dip and we're going to have him on a regular spot here on Wednesday at 11 o'clock.

Brian, I hope you don't mind us using you twice in one week. And also we brought up your numbers in Colorado, at Coors Field. They could have used you last night in the lineup. Yeah, it's the weirdest thing, isn't it? You got a team that's tearing the cover off the ball thinking, all right, now we're going to Colorado. It's going to get even better,

and then they put up one last night. Yeah, can't explain it. Yeah, only three hits last night. What did you see overall from the bats as they had the 5 to 1 loss? You know, it was the first time really all season that they looked, I guess, overaggressive. Now, a lot of that had to do with the Rocky Starter,

Kyle Freeland. He was pretty locked in. He didn't make any mistakes. Everything was on the edge. He kind of forced them to have to go after pitchers pitches. But if you just look at the at the pitch count, 107 pitches it took for the Rocky's pitchers to get through nine innings. There's a lot of quickout, a lot of pitchers pitches early in the count that they went after. So it was really the first time where we saw the patience kind of waver a little bit. It's crazy, Brian, look at the numbers. And I mean, they're top five and almost every offensive statistical. category, which is great. That's what we, you know, this team was missing last year. But to be second to last in baseball in ERA, in team ERA of 574, how much of that do you chalk

up to playing games in Sacramento and Colorado? And how much of this is just the bullpen not being great so far and some of your starting rotation not being locked down yet? Yeah, I don't think it has to do with the elements. I think it has to do with the performance and the execution. I mean, if you look at the games in Colorado and even going back to Sacramento, it's mistake pitches that are getting hit, you know, pitches that are supposed to be down in a way that get yanked up and in. That was a home run that was given up last night. You've got the walk number is just at a level that's completely unsustainable. So you're confident that it'll that it'll level out eventually because a lot of these guys have track records of throwing strikes

at a better rate. But no, it's definitely been a performance thing, and it's not just, all right, let's get out of Colorado and everything will be all right, because it was an issue before they even went out on the road. Brian Bogusevich with us here on Sports Talk 790. Just the three starts in. What did you see from Mike Burroughs last night that you liked and that he can improve on? Well, I like the fact that the stuff, the off-speed stuff definitely plays when it's executed. Everything that he threw, all the curveball slider change-up mix that he used and he used a lot of them. When he got it down, he got out. He got ground balls.

He got swings and misses. It definitely plays. It's just not quite as sharp as it was in spring training. There were still too many that hung up in the zone. there were still too many that kind of got pulled out of the zone and got him behind it counts. So, you know, I like the stuff overall. I think he's working through some mechanical things that is affecting the pitch quality and the location quality. But, you know, it's definitely a guy who's got all of the necessary weapons.

It's just kind of tightening it up a little bit at this point. You mentioned on Monday about pitching in a course field and how can you explain that again about how it affects spin and stuff like that. And then if you're a pitcher, no matter who you are on the Astro's side, and you're not going to be at home at Coors Field, what do you take from your outings at that ballpark? Well, what you don't take is thinking that your breaking ball,

there's something wrong with it, and you have to fix it up because the balls don't spin the same way, right? Putting spin on a baseball creates friction against the air, which causes the ball to move. And when you're trying to throw a breaking ball, that's what causes, you know, a curve ball to drop, is the friction of the spin of the baseball against the air. Well, when you're playing in thinner air, there's less friction,

and the ball doesn't break as much. It's one of the reasons why you see off-speed pitches hang up in the zone. It's one of the reasons why sinkers don't sink as much as they normally do. But, you know, everybody's playing in the same element, so you've got to figure it out. But, no, I don't think you take anything from all my fliders not breaking as big as it was. When I last pitched at home, I've got to fix something. Those aren't the adjustments that you make based off of an outing in Colorado.

What did you make in the news with Hunter Brown? And, I mean, look, it's early in the season. But, you know, I've had people saying, what can you do here? I mean, what can you do other than you got a ride with who you got? And you just kind of got to deal with it, right? Yeah, no. I mean, there's no, hey, let's go out on the market and find a top five Si Young finisher. That's not going to be available.

So, you know, this is why you build pitching depth in your organization is because you're going to need it. You're going to have to replace guys. Guys get hurt. The problem is when it's the top guy, you can't actually replace him, right? All you can do is fill his spot in the rotation and hope to kind of fill the void other ways. You know, at first that that starts with everybody in the rotation in the bullpen pitching a little bit better. That would go a long way. But, you know, it's really going to fall a lot.

lot on the offense right now when you're trying to trying to get guys who you know you've got a starter in emai who's still getting used to major league baseball you've got you know some some young guys trying to to fill in role so the offense is going to have to carry it for a while and they've done that for the most part but it's going to be a collective effort of everybody kind of turning it up a little bit to try to cover for hunter which is an impossible task it always seems like since Joe Spot has been the manager. He's gotten like the kitchen sink thrown at him with underperformances or injuries last

year and stuff like that. I mean if you could, Brian, like put yourself in his shoes. Like how are you feeling about this pitching staff to where Hunter Brown is down, a lot of under performances with the starting rotation, and you got Javier going today in altitude as well.

I guess you just kind of have to hope and pray that that especially the starters can hold it down. Yeah, it's frustrating to say the least. I mean, it seems like you're always dealing with something. You probably sitting there thinking, gosh, I wish I could just get through a couple of weeks of not having to deal with something. But if you look around the league, everybody deals with this stuff.

There's plenty of pitchers who've gotten hurt already to start the year. There's plenty of position players who are off to really slow starts that they're trying to fight through. So nobody's going to feel sorry for you. But, you know, you just try to keep the message consistent of we have to play all around baseball. You know, it can't just be all offense. and trying to cover for, you know, a month stretch of just outscoring people. You've got to start playing better in all phases and playing more consistently well-rounded baseball to at least, you know, give yourself a chance every day.

What's been great to see, you know, obviously we talk about a lot of the offense that's been clicking so far. And, you know, Yorda and Alvarez named the American League player the week for last week. But to me, I mean, it's just been so impressive to see Christian Walker look like the guy that they originally tried to sign from Arizona. Whoever that guy was last year, I don't know who that was, but how much of you enjoyed seeing this version of Christian Walker, the guy that they thought they were getting, you know, when they signed him?

It's been great. And to be honest, this version is, if it was this version that they thought they were signed and he'd got a heck of a lot more money than he did, because this is incredible, the hot streak that he's been on. He just looks comfortable, you know, from a hitting standpoint, he looks comfortable with his mechanics. He's getting to the ball a little bit easier. It doesn't look like he's trying to force bat speed or force getting to velocity and overswinging a little bit.

And he just looks comfortable in his role in the offense, comfortable being in his surroundings. And we talked about this on our show the other day a little bit. At no point last year was the offense ever doing anything like they're doing right now, where there's so many guys swinging it well where you have, you know, Yordan just out of his mind. You have Altuve going and just kind of a one through nine, everybody. really putting together good at bats. And as much pressure as there is on a guy, you sign a free agent contract and you're on a new team, there's also pressure on a guy when, hey, you're one of a handful of guys that we can,

you know, we think can produce and help us win on any given day. So that pressure is off too, and it's just more about having a quality at that and being one of many in a lineup instead of having to be the guy. So it just looks like he just looks a lot more settled this year. And sticking with the hitting, Cam Smith also had one of the hits and that huge bomb on Monday. What was it, like 462 feet. Just your overall thoughts on how much of this is a change in approach or just what you're seeing from Cam Smith at the plate? He's getting his bat through the zone more efficiently than he did last year.

I think it has to do. In spring training, started to notice a little bit of a difference in his setup and his load. He's starting a little bit earlier and getting back a little bit further before he comes forward. And it's allowing him to get his bat into the zone a little bit more efficiently, which is allowing it to get out in front a little bit more, a little more quickly. Some of the swings that he's taken this year, he didn't take at any point last year, even when he was swinging really well in spring training, even when he was on hot streaks at various points, the ease at which he's getting to velocity, hitting the ball out front. He's taking, you know, A plus swings on

97, 98 mile an hour fastballs at the top of the zone, whereas last year, he was often kind of just fighting for his life to try to get a piece and fight off high velocity. So he's put himself in better positions physically to get off his best swing. And when he does that, you know, similar to what we saw from Jeremy Payne over the course of a couple of seasons, the more consistently he puts himself in good positions, there's no limit on his potential physically. He's so big. He's so strong. He's got such a good swing. It's just about being in position to consistently get that swing off. And right now, he's doing it almost every at that.

All right. There you go. Brian Bogussevich with us here on Sports Talk 790. Brian, appreciate time. And let's go ahead and salvage a win in Colorado today. Yeah, not something that we thought we would be talking about is trying to steal one in Colorado. Yeah, I know. You know what? Actually, one more before we get you out. Just Javier. What do you need to see from him today? Strikes. Just strike.

That is, I mean, there are, there are many things that we need to see from him. But number one, being in the strike zone more, it's just been too many free pets. He's got more walks than any pitch right now. That's not doable. All right. Thanks a lot. Brian Bogusevich, we will talk to you next week. Appreciate time both Monday and today.

All right. See up.