The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian Bogusevic Joins The Show After Astros Win 13-3 vs The Athletics

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

Brian Bogusevic Joins The Show After Astros Win 13-3 vs The Athletics

1102 on the Matt Thomas show at Ross. Time for us to spend 10 quality minutes with our friend Brian Bogusevick of Space City Home Network. Astros dispose of the Oakland Days. Why, you got to hit myself every time I try. That's done it twice a day. I'm going to bring a taser up in here. The A's by a final score of 13 to 3. Bogey, what were your expectations of Jason Alexander?

And I guess more importantly, did you even know who Jason Alexander was, say, three days ago? I was quite unfamiliar with him besides his work. on Seinfeld, I guess. Yes. Expectations for him personally, no idea what you're going to get, right? It's a guy who's really new to the organization, a guy who doesn't have a ton of big league experience.

But expectations for a pitcher coming up from this Astros minor league system and what that's looked like over the course of the last two to three years, there's been kind of a shift change in what we've seen from guys coming up. You do start to get a general idea. of guys who really understand themselves, know what makes them successful, know how to pitch to

their strength, willing to attack the strike zone, you know, rely on the defense, hope the offense gives them some support, guys who aren't necessarily going to go out there and beat themselves. So that's kind of the expectation at this point. I mean, it feels like, Brian, that everybody that has been given at least some sort of opportunity, maybe with the exception of A.J. Blueball has come up in somehow some way contributed. and I don't know of another major league team at least in 2025 that has gone as deep into their minor league system to grab guys for the spot start,

for the give me five innings to start a day ahead of schedule like Gus did it a couple days ago and kept their teams alive, especially when a team like the Astros have not been with exception to last night, a team that's been scoring a whole lot of runs. No, it's pretty remarkable. I mean, it's been essentially two full seasons of trying to, trying to constantly backfill your rotation and going not just six, seven, deep into your organization, but eight, nine, ten deep into your organization.

And, you know, it says a lot, first of all foremost, about the scouting department, not just the amateur scouting, but you're seeing guys who they're bringing in from other organizations. So you're pro scouting as well. And also just the development and finding traits that you like, guys who can pitch with their fastball, guys who attack the strike zone. and then getting them there and making them feel comfortable enough to do what they were doing in the minor leagues at the big league level. That's the biggest hurdle initially is, you know, you're all of a sudden standing on a major league mound. Oh my gosh, I got to do more. I got to be nastier. I got to throw harder.

And they really seem like they settle these guys right away and convince them that they can just pitch their game. And it's worked for them. So it's a lot of different things. It's clubhouse culture. It's the communication between the coaching staff. and the players and the players understanding what it is that makes them successful. And it's them just kind of relentlessly going out there. I mean, it's not like they're doing this with guys who are top ten draft picks.

These are guys out of small schools, late rounds, scrap heaps from other organizations, and they're getting a lot out of them. And it's just, it's kind of an entire organizational effort, you know, and it really what it does also. It makes you pretty dubious of these organizational minor league rankings that get put out every year. Brian Bogus-Evick with us here on Sports Talk 790. Brian, I just looked this up. Did you know in your career in Colorado, you hit 341 with a 9-89 OPS?

Well, I should have gotten traded there, apparently. Yeah, you should have spent more time in Colorado. I bring that up to say this. What is it like when you're playing? The ball is obviously flying out there in Sacramento and they scored a bunch of runs. When you're at the plate, do you just want to keep everything normal? Or what is it like psychologically for you in a place where the ball is flying out like that? Everything. Everything is good. You know, when you're talking about a place like Colorado or Arizona, you're talking about Sacramento, Tampa now where the rays are playing, and then, you know, there's a long list of minor league stadiums out on the West Coast where the ball really flies. There's a lot of things that work in your favor there. First of all, just thin air. The ball travels. You don't have to get it, you know, very much to get it out and over the fence. But a lot of those parks are also big and spacious trying to.

to combat, you know, the thin air. So you have a lot of room to find hits, you know, big gaps. Outfielders have to cover a lot of ground. They're usually playing deeper so you can bloop hits in in front of them. And one of the best feelings as a hitter is knowing that you can easily hit a ball out the other way, right? If I just barrel a ball up for me, a left-handed hitter to left-center field, it can carry over that fence. I don't have to do any more. I don't have to try to pull.

I don't have to try to swing harder. I don't have to try to elevate. And that keeps everything in line. And then if you do catch one out front and you pull it, it goes even further. But to not have to try to get anything more out of your swing or your approach or whatever and just keep a good hitting approach. And then add to the fact that the ball flies, add to the fact that there's a ton of room for hits. Those are just awesome situations to hit in.

It also helps when you're facing some teams that have pretty bad team ERAs. as well. The A's certainly do, but Cam Smith taking advantage yesterday, do we temper our enthusiasm because it was in Sacramento, or did you see some really good A-Bs there? I temper enthusiasm based off individual games in general, good or bad, but when you're looking at over the course of weeks or months, there's a ton to love about what he's doing. If you look at those two home runs that he hit yesterday. Yes, they were on off-speed pitches, but where he hit that ball, right, out in front of the plate, where he hit it in his swing, you know, swing working up underneath the ball to try to get some elevation. Those are points of contact and, you know, pitches that he

wasn't getting to early on in the season. And he's really embraced mechanical changes. He's really embraced philosophical changes, trying to get more aggressive, trying to get the bad head out front. Those are mindset things. And to do it not only at such a young age and so quickly, but also he was asked to make these changes before he had ever really failed, right? Like he's been an awesome player his whole career. He got drafted in the first round out of college. He tore through the minor leagues.

He made the major leagues in his first spring training. Why would you change? Well, the coaches came to him and said, hey, if you're going to hit here, you're going to have to do X, Y, and Z, and to buy in before you have any real, real struggles. I know it wasn't, you know, tearing the cover off the ball from day one, but to kind of preemptively make adjustments like this, it's pretty remarkable and says a lot about just character and why the Sras would be willing to push him as hard as they have this year. A couple more minutes here at Brian Bogusevick on Sports Talk 790.

Bogie, we're seeing D.H for Altuve. We're seeing left field. we're seeing second base probably perhaps more and i think i brought this up to you a couple of times is this the strategy they should be going with hose is to kind of not necessarily keep him always not on alert or trying to change things up but is it mainly about what the lineup is around him that makes a decision where to put him i think so i think that the plan it's look he's not kept in the dark about anything right when you are a player of his stature and when you're in an organization that is as open with communication as the Astros are, he's certainly kept in the loop

on everything. So it's not that you don't have a role and you're just floating around. It's that your role is to float around. And it's in order to allow us to maximize offensively when we feel like we need to maximize defensively when we need to play a hot hand. You know, Maricio DuBahn is hitting as well as he has all season. So we want to keep him in the line. lineup, so maybe that means more left field. Just whatever it is we need, you know, he's kind of the cog that gets moved around to facilitate all those things. And number one, it takes a selfless player, which everybody knows he is, but it also takes really good communication and trust between player and coaches. And that obviously exists as well. So yeah, I think that is the plan. Now,

if anything ever materialized where there had to be something more concrete, I think he would be open to that. I think the coaches would be. open to that. I don't think anything is off the table at all. So yes, as of right now, I think the plan is just day-to-day match-up to match-up. You know, you're going to be the guy that we move around to get the most out of what we need that day. And this may be premature to ask this now because we're still six weeks away from the trade deadline. But if you're going to four and a half game leading in your division and you already have a minor league system that has been used with current players now and you weren't necessarily deep at a lot of positions and

your two or three guys that you absolutely want to keep a hold of are non-tradable. If Dana said, let's go have a glass of wine and a hamburger somewhere and said, Brian, what do you think about what we should do about the deadline? Right now as we speak, and we can obviously change this conversation in a few weeks. But what do you think they need if they're going to take that next step from being a team that potentially wins the American League West to a team that could knock off the Tigers of the Yankees in the playoffs? Yeah, I think there's, it's kind of two, two faceted at the trade deadline. Are you thinking more about we need help to get to the playoffs or, you know, we need help to win the division, or is it we need help to get us into a position to where we can make a run-in title?

We feel like we're going to be in the playoffs. We need help to run that. And if you're talking about that, you're talking about going and acquiring high-end, high-end bat, high-end pitcher, high-end reliever. And I don't know if you have the willingness or the assets at this point after, you know, 10 years of buying. at the deadline to go out and do that. But if you're in a point to where, you know, the Mariners and the Rangers, they're still kind of hanging around and we want to kind of maybe put ourselves over the top on a, on a depth basis and try to try to put ourselves in a better situation for 162, can you add

somewhere kind of in the middle? And I think that can be done probably more easily in pitching. You know, can you find somebody who slots into the middle of the rotation and take some of the burden off of these young guys? I think the answers from an offensive standpoint are in-house. You're not going to go out and find anybody better than a healthy Yordan or Christian Walker getting right or Yainer getting right, right? Those answers are at home. You're not bringing anybody to jump those guys in the batting order, but you can't find somebody to go in and slot in the middle.

So if that's where it ends up being, I think that would be the move. I mean, you're not going to bring anybody to be at the front of the rotation when you got Frumber and Hunter up there either. Bogey, great work, as always. Thank you for the time, my friend. We'll do this again next week and enjoy the rest of the series and we'll talk with you soon. All right, cool. Thank you. We got it, Brian Bogusovic with the Space City Home Network with us every Wednesday here at 11 o'clock.