The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian Bogusevic Joins The Show After Astros Win 7 Out Of Their 10 Games To Take #1 Spot In AL West

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

Brian Bogusevic Joins The Show After Astros Win 7 Out Of Their 10 Games To Take #1 Spot In AL West

Hour number two of the Matt Thomas show with Ross here on Sports Talk 790. Ross Vireel with you, Matt Thomas out today and tomorrow. We've got the news at noon coming up. We have ain't nobody got time for that slash shut you, bum ass up coming up at 1130. But right now, please to be joined by one of my favorite guests on the week of the whole station. Brian Bogusevic, Space City Home Network, joins us Wednesdays at 11 o'clock. Brian, let's just start with what we saw last night on the hill. Not the Paul Skeen side.

Poor guy, eight innings of one-run ball, and you pick up the L. But Lance McCullors Jr., back-to-back, quality starts. How about that from a guy who's been through such a long journey? Yeah, it's been a ride, hasn't it? I think it's, you know, very important to remember that once a guy is deemed healthy, and active, that that's not necessarily he's the guy who is going to be. You know, that's kind of the last step in the process. There's still a lot of progress to be made once somebody returns to action because,

I mean, we've seen Lance, you know, over, what is it, six starts now, however many, continue to get better and better. And incrementally, right? Like sometimes it'll be a little bit of the velocity, either being up a tick or just maintaining velocity a little bit deeper into a, an outing or, you know, having a little bit more sharpness to a breaking ball or having both versions of the breaking ball working at the same time. So there are steps to take even after your, you know, quote unquote, healthy and back into the rotation. But no, it's been great. I mean,

he continues to get better. He's really got a feel for the off-speed stuff. And, you know, you had to be fairly certain that, you know, given health, eventually that feel for the breaking pitch, the feel for spin and varying the shapes of the breaking ball will come back because that's kind of always what he's been a master at. And it's, you know, it's been a lot of fun to watch, you know, a guy who's just able to go out there and compete because that's what he does. You know, at his best, what Lance McCullors does is he goes out there and he figures out a way to compete. And it's enjoyable to watch. Yes, it is. And it's just, to me, it's such a fascinating story. I mean, just, it feels like you could, like, write a book or a movie or both about

this. It's just so fascinating and intriguing to me. The, the where he goes to rehab, to, to miss those two years. Can you just, I mean, speak to what it takes internally from Lance McCuller's junior. It's impressive to me, the mental fortitude to battle back the way that he has, to fight off. I mean, in the back of his mind, it's always got to be. When's the next shoe going to drop? When am I next going to feel some discomfort? And he keeps pushing through that. And now he's being successful on the mound, getting out at the major league level.

No, it's crazy. I mean, just the determination and the willingness to stick to it and to keep trying and keep coming back and have setbacks and restarts. You know, that says a lot about him personally. It also says a lot about how much the guy loves baseball and loves the team, right? you know, there's a lot of people in his situation who would say, you know what, I've had my success, I've made my money, I guess that's just over, but it's a guy who just wants to go out there and play. I think one thing that people don't realize about players when they are rehabbing is it is a completely different experience from a player who is playing in terms of you are very often removed from the team. Not that you're not welcome around the team, but, you know, your work. is going on early before the rest of the team is out there doing their work.

You know, sometimes you're staying behind at a spring training complex to do your rehab. And once the seasons start and the affiliates start, those places are cleared out. And there's a lot of time in an empty clubhouse by yourself. And when you're in an empty clubhouse and you're sitting there with, you know, an ice pack on your elbow and you're just there with your thoughts about, man, I've got another injury, you know, another six months, another throwing pro. program started again, you know, you can start having some thoughts that you don't want to have about where you stand in the game and to be able to fight through that, along with the physical

stuff of trying to just get your arm back healthy and get your body back healthy to be able to go out there and get out at the major league level. It is a long, long journey. And, you know, that's why I, you'll see it throughout baseball is when guys come back from long injuries, right, Tommy John stuff, knees things, you know, where they miss a year. everybody across the game is happy to see them back. And there will be guys giving them a little nod and a little, hey, good for you because they realize what it takes. Last bit on Lance McCullors, 102 pitches, two starts ago, 96 pitches and a last start.

Do you think that's a function of there has been some starting pitching injuries and we maybe need to push him a little bit? Or do you think independent of all that, this is where he would be? I don't think they would push him to a place that, that they weren't comfortable doing just because, you know, all of a sudden there's another injury and we're going to throw you to 100 pitches instead of 80 pitches. That wouldn't be a safe thing to do for him. I do think they're willing to take him to his limit a little more and maybe expose him to a lineup,

you know, a third or fourth time or expose him to a matchup that maybe they would, they would fire on into the bullpen given full strength in the rotation just because that's what they need. I mean, they absolutely, not only do they need a quality pitcher to go out there and get outs for them, they need people to eat innings. And you know what you're going to get from Hunter and Frumber in that sense. But at the back end of the bullpen, back into the rotation, you don't really know what you're going to get. So when you've got a veteran like Lance who, you know, he can go out there and he'll figure out how to get through an inning and he'll figure out how to, you know, he'll give guys a different look at the third time through than maybe he gave him

the first time. So there's probably just a little bit more trust in if we've got to push somebody, he's going to be the guy that we're going to do it versus, you know, the rookies who are just trying to figure out how to get out for the big leagues for the first time. Former Astro and Space City Home Networks Brian Bogus-Evick with us here on Sports Talk 790. Josh Hater, 16 saves, also has a win. The Astros have 33 wins. He is factored in that way in 17 of them. Obviously huge. And what do you think's been the difference for him this year?

You know, I don't think there's any difference in his stuff, right? His pitches look pretty much the same. He is executing them very well. That's needless to say. There's probably just a little bit more comfort. Obviously, second year with the team, you'll be a little bit more comfortable, even for a guy who's coming back to an organization. So you hit the ground running day one.

I will say this, there's a little bit of a different pitch mix. He last year got very fastball heavy and for good reason. You know, it's one of the best pitches in baseball. And batting average against on it was, you know, 160 something. But there's a little bit more of a 50-50 split between the fastball and the slider. And, you know, if you're facing Josh Hader as a hitter, you almost have to guess, right? right? If you're going to give yourself a chance, you've got to guess. And if he can, you know, tip the scales just a little bit more to where, you know, it's not 70, 30, and it's 50, 50,

and you're going to guess wrong a little bit more often, he's going to be that much more effective because, you know, both of those pitches are as good an individual pitch as there is in baseball. You put them both together and you don't know what you're getting at any given situation. Good luck. And, you know, hitters haven't had a whole lot of it against them this year. I'm interested on your perspective in the whole Yordon Alvarez saga. The way that it played out and it seemed like they weren't forthcoming with a lot of information. Then it sounded like he's coming back. And then, of course, now it's a fracture.

How much do you feel that this is possibly on the Astros? Dana Brown admitting that they may have rushed him back from the initial hand soreness. How much of this is a kind of a freak accident thing that could happen to any team? and especially with the context that we kind of went through something similar with Kyle Tucker last year. Yeah, I think all of those things put together makes for, you know, a lot of people who are unhappy with the situation all around. I'll say this. I'll start by saying I had an injury at one point in my career where an x-ray showed no fracture and then two weeks later, an MRI showed a fracture. So I've been down that road and I know that that.

that happens. I think probably from the outside looking in, fan standpoint, you're probably most frustrated with the communication. But I mean, the fact of the matter is, besides designating an injury when a team puts somebody on the injured list, teams don't owe anybody anything to say. And I know that's frustrating, but that's just kind of the way it is. I think from a player standpoint from what I would think Jordan is feeling. The worst thing to have from an injury standpoint as a player is

not knowing, right? Feeling that something is wrong, but not having a diagnosis, not having a definitive timeline. And at least now that it's been found and they know, then he can kind of be at ease with where this process is because

going out there and saying, man, it just doesn't feel right. And then hearing from the training staff that, well, we think it is right, is really frustrating. But, you know, hopefully we've moved past all the ambiguity, and it's defined because, I mean, we just need the guy back. And that's the bottom line. And he wants to be back.

The team wants him back. The fans want him back. And once he is back, hopefully we can just put it all the rest. Yeah, and I was also intrigued by the angle I saw in the Channel of Rome article about Yordon getting a second opinion through his agent. Is that something that is very common, or is that something that we should, we should raise an eyebrow on. No, it's very common.

I mean, a lot of times when players get second opinions, it's because their first opinion, they didn't like it. You know, you see it all the time when guys are having Tommy John, they're getting a second opinion because the first one said they needed Tommy John, right? But players do that just because, again, you want to know. And if things are coming back inconclusive or, you know, you're hearing it might be this or it might be that, you know, there's a lot of really good doctors out there. And the more people you can have looking at things, the more different sets of eyes and kind of different experiences that you can have looking at it, the better.

Because the end of the day is we want to get it figured out so that we can figure out how to fix it. And so, no, I don't really take a whole lot away from players getting second opinions because until you know something definitively, you want to have as many people looking at as possible. Very short sample size so far with Jacob Melton, but a couple of good A.Bs last night, including working that walk against Paul Skeens. No, absolutely. And that's the, you know, from an offensive standpoint with him, everybody's always talked about the tools and just, you know, controlling the strike zone more to allow the tools to play. And again, like you said, very small sample size. But if he can do that, I mean, if he puts the ball in play, he can really, run so he's going to get on base. He's a he's a strong kind of explosive athletic guy so there's going to be popping that bat and if you can you know not chase pitches out of the zone he's got some tools that that will play in the zone and you know having another left-handed option is huge for

this team having a guy who can really go out and run him down in the outfield you put put him out there with Jake Myers and Cam Smith two other guys who can really go get it. Yeah it's a really good addition to the roster. Brian Bogussevik, appreciate the time. As always, Space City Home Network's own and a weekly guest 11 o'clock Wednesdays here on Sports Talk 790. Brian, appreciate it. We'll talk to you down the road.

All right, thanks, guys. All right, there you go. Great stuff with Brian Bogusevick, as always. You want to react to anything he had to say. Good stuff on Lance McCullors, Jr., Josh Hayter, Yordon injury as well. You can get in 713-212. 5-790 is your phone number. 7132125790 coming up at noon