The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian Bogusevic Joins The Show before Astros Matchup

Episode Date: April 16, 2025

Brian Bogusevic Joins The Show before Astros Matchup 

Wednesday guest, Brian Bogussevik of Space City Home Network and, of course, former Astro with us here on the program. Brian, how are things? Very good. How are you all? Pretty good. I would say things maybe not so good for the Astros' bats, but at least you scratched enough across the plate for a win yesterday. But just in general, because it's kind of funny to me that's like everybody at the same time was kind of slumping except Jose Altuvae. then he kind of goes on his slump.

What is that like in a clubhouse in the major leagues? And I mean, is it like an infectious thing or these guys where it seems to be hitting everyone at the same time? And what's it like dealing with something like that? You know, it's, is it infectious yet, kind of? Because, you know, you can see as, you know, everybody knows what the box score looks like at the end of the game. and everybody knows, you know, when a big situation comes up, oh, man, we, you know, if we could, if we could get this base hit with second and third, this really might, you know, be the tipping point.

So everybody's kind of on edge and feeling that pressure a little bit, collective pressure. But it's not really something that's discussed, you know, nobody talks about, oh, man, we're all, we're all dying over here. What do we need to do? But, you know, it's also very important in a situation like this to, you know, to, you know, to have veterans and have guys who've gone through things like this before because you don't want to panic. You do want to keep a level head and say, okay, what can I take out of this that I'm doing right that I need to try to build on? What am I not doing right that I need to fix and not just be out there scrambling, not just be out there searching for something?

And today, you know, I'm trying to put my hands in this position or tomorrow I'm going to open up my stance. that's going to do it for me. There's got to be some level-headedness. And with guys that have had success, there's a lot more of that than there is panic in a clubhouse. And let's just go to some of the hitters individually. Yordon Alvarez with the Rocket yesterday, and he had some hard hit balls a day before.

Looks like he's starting to wake up like we all expected he will. Yeah, that's a good sign. And it's a really good sign that he hit yesterday was a pitch out over the plate, like maybe even off the plate a little bit. And when he's getting extended on those pitches, when he's, you know, staying down and not pulling off a little bit and miss hitting those pitches, that's a really good sign of what's to come in front of that.

Also, with Jordan a little bit, you know, more so than I can really remember in the past, he seems a little bit more apt to expand the zone or not even expand the zone, just expand what he wants to really attack. You know, he's been more. more prone to swinging at pitches on the edge or just a little bit off early in counts. You know, I think he's usually very, very selective.

And a lot of that could just be, you know, struggling a little bit, trying to get yourself going. Some of it could be, you know, he's gotten pitched very carefully with the struggles of guys behind him. Nobody really wants to mess with Yordon, you know, or really has to mess with Yordon. So that could be a little bit of frustration of just the pitches that he's getting. But, but, yeah, it's always a good sign when he starts. hitting the ball out over the plate into the middle of field because eventually off of that

comes everything else and comes, you know, driving the ball on his pole side. Brian Bogussevick with us here on a Sports Talk 7-9. Let's go to Christian Walker, unfortunately, especially relative to what we've seen from him before. The whiffs are up. The walk rate did improve. He had that four straight game stretch where he was drawing two walks a game. So it kind of looks like he's trying to be a little bit more patient. What are you seeing from him?

Is he just trying to impress a little bit too much being here in a Houston Astros uniform? What does it look like to you? It looks like a guy who's pressing. It looks like 100% a guy who wants nothing more than to validate the contract, validate, bring brought into an organization, you know, have the fans say, okay, that's why we went and got that guy. We all know, everybody in the stadium knows what he's done the last couple of years and the player that he's been and the caliber of player that he is.

but they also want to see it here now this year. And I also wouldn't discount, you know, I mean, he knows what happened here at first base over the last couple of years with Abraeu, and he knows that nobody wants to see that again. So it just looks like a guy who's putting, you know, as much pressure as there is from the outside, there looks like there's a lot more pressure coming from the inside. But it does look different now than it did.

At the beginning of the season, you know, there was some hard contact. and balls not falling in. Now it's kind of been all or nothing one way or the other. He's either very selective in working walks or, you know, it looks like there are times when he goes up there and he says, all right, this is the time. I'm going to get a picture hit. I'm going to swing. I'm going to drive it. And then, you know, it's a slider down and away and I swing anyways. That's just a guy who's trying to force it. And there's really no cure. I mean, his swing looks fine. His swing looks like it always has. It just looks like a guy who needs a couple of

of at-bats of success to relax a little bit and the only thing you can do is keep running out there every day until it happens. Yeah, that last comment you made was leads me to my next question. Like if you put your manager's hat on and you're Joe Espada and you see the pressing, he's again in the lineup today. He's played in every single game. That's what he's brought here to do. But at what point do you say maybe just give him a couple of days off or is that just conversation? It's a case-by-case basis because clearly seems like he wants to be there in the lineup every day and try to work this thing out. Yeah, I don't know.

That's having to get to know your player. That's having to get to know, you know, what he's going to be like and do on an off day. Some guys you can say, I'm going to give you an off day so you can get away from baseball not think about it, decompressed. And a guy will do just that. You know, he'll come in. He won't even put on batting gloves that day, skip batting practice, just check out. Other guys, they'll go down to the cage and they'll hit for two hours because that's going to be the day that they're going to figure it out. And so, you know, you've got to know what kind of guy you're dealing with and if the day off will be helpful or harmful.

And I don't know the answer to that. That's that's a manager's job more than, you know, deciding who's coming in out of the bullpen and writing out the lineup every day is learning your players, learning personalities. You know, Walker, you know, from the outside looking in, seems like a guy who he doesn't want the day off. I think he just wants to play and figure it out. but, you know, you sit in the manager's seat to manage people, not necessarily just manage a game. Brian Bogussev, continuing with us here on a Sports Talk 790. Have you gotten, I don't know if we've addressed this with you yet this season.

Brian, have you gotten your hands on a torpedo bat? And is, to my knowledge, Mariso Dubon is the only one using one for the Astros right now, correct? Yeah, as far as I know. I know that some guys, I know some guys in the minor leagues were, you know, hitting batting practice and tinkering with them during spring training. I'm sure guys have had their hands on them and picked him up. I mean, you've been in clubhouses to see the amount of bats in there and everything. But yeah, as far as I know, he's the only one to put one into use during the season so far.

And actually, you had a pretty good game. The first day, pulled it out. So I'm sure a couple other guys were like, yeah, maybe I'll think about that too. Yeah, how much of that is, I mean, what is the difference? What is it much to do about nothing? Is it changing things up? So the concept is fairly simple, right? It's, you know, there are limitations to weight and shape of a bat.

And all it is is taking, you know, within those parameters, shifting where the most mass of the bat is to try to maximize, you know, the results when you hit the ball. So if you're a guy who, you know, hits the ball down towards. the label often, you know, they shift the weight from the end of the bat down towards the middle of the bat and then have it taper off towards the end. You know, we're used to seeing bats flare out to their barrel and then they're that size all the way to the end. The torpedo bat just moves a little bit more of the mass into the middle and then has another taper at the end where you don't want to hit the ball anyway. It's not a different concept to different models of bats. I mean, there are endless, endless models of bats. You know, some are thicker in the

handle. Some are thinner and have larger heads. Some are cupped at the end to have more mass in the middle. Some have, you know, full ends to keep more mass at the end of the bat. It's not dissimilar to that. It's just a more extreme example and it's the newest example, which is why

everybody's in the house about it. All right, let's move. I mean, kind of a little bit to the pitching side, but not really. Hunter Brown, pretty good yesterday. Did get some traffic on the base pass, but I mean, obviously, at this moment, the Astros' most reliable starter. What is that like for you as a position player?

Like, maybe you can remember some guys you played behind when they were pitching and you're like, you feel like you're just kind of spectating. You're like, this guy's on the hill today? I'm not doing anything in the field. It's great. It's great. And there's a difference. Am I not doing anything in the field because it's just ball for, ball for, ball for, nibble, nibble, nibble, nibble, or am I not doing anything in the field because he's just going out there and shoving it on people and then we're running back in the dugout to hit? Because that's kind of what, that's what it's been with Hunter.

know, for, it's been about a year ago since he added that two-seamer, and everything has changed. Obviously, the results have changed, and he's been so good, but just the style of pitching, the aggressiveness in the strike zone, the willingness to challenge people, to pitch to contact, to be efficient with his pitches, just everything has completely done a 180. And he's really turned into the kind of guy that you love playing behind, you love hitting on the days that he pitches because it feels, like you're in your dugout all the time. And it's just when you have that guy, I mean, he's six innings at a minimum.

He's going to give you a chance to win. And it's easy to show up. It's easy to be motivated. It's easy to play hard behind guys like that. It's almost like he's just had a switch flipped as well to where like he just kind gets pissed off out there. You know, like he gives up a hit. He's like, give me the ball back.

I'm going to go ahead and clean this up. Well, you know, before before everything turned and he's been this kind of, kind of picture. It was the exact opposite. It was almost as if he was standing on the mound thinking, all right, when's the next shoe going to drop? When are things going to fall apart? When are two bloopers going to fall in? And then I'm going to make a bad pitch and it's going to get hit. It was one of those like, when is the sky going to fall? And now you see him, if he gives up a hit, it does not affect him at all. It's almost just like, oh, that was lucky for them. They got a hit, but like, this next guy's not going to. And it doesn't face him. It seems like

everything has slowed down to where he can really diagnose what's going on between him and a hitter. He can really diagnose what's going on. Did I make a bad pitch and need to fix it up? Or did that guy just hit one off of his hands and it dropped in behind the second basement, in which case I need to do nothing different because the next one's going to be a ground ball double play? And the addition of the sinker, the ground ball rate that he's getting now and his ability to get double plays, just the confidence is off the charts from a guy who, you know, one year ago at the start of last season, looked like his confidence was shaken.