The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian Bogusevic Joins The Show To Talk All Star Game & Astros 2nd Half

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Brian Bogusevic Joins The Show To Talk All Star Game & Astros 2nd Half

It's the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 11.02, Sports Talk 790, hour number two of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. We are happy to be joined by our good friend and regular contributor to this radio show every Wednesday at 11 o'clock. We say hi to Brian Bogus Evik of Space City Home Network. Bogey, a happy All-Star break. Your thoughts about just the general evening, everything about last night, tell me what you did and did not like, if there was anything about both that kind of drew your interest about last night's events? I'm kind of in the middle about everything.

I enjoy the celebration of the game. Part of it, I enjoy kind of the celebration of also the individuals and letting guys kind of get outside of the team aspect a little bit and see some personalities. At the same time, after close to 100, games of real baseball and exhibition game. I'm kind of meh about. I do like the idea of trying out some different things and having the game be a little bit different than just your average regular season game and putting in some, you know, different tweaks or ideas that we'll

maybe see in the future. But other than that, for me, it's not necessarily about the game. It's just about the weekend and the events and the people. And, you know, that to me is the fun part. All right, a couple of real quick things. Automatic Ball Strike Challenge system, what do you think? I like it. I liked it in spring training. I like where they're going with it. I think they've done a really nice job.

You know, they've used it for so long and so many games in the minor leagues that I think they've got a really good feel for how to use it quickly and efficiently. I like the added drama of showing it up on the big board in real time and kind of giving the crowd something to get into. I think it's a great idea. I was a big proponent of if we got it, let's just use it for every pitch. But I do like the way they're trying to use it, you know, just a more important situation type of way. Boogie, we had Breggman on with us a couple of years ago when he was still with a team in spring training.

And we thought he would universally, like every player, would love it. The consensus was we couldn't find enough people that are active players, that love every pitch being determined ball strike via the computer. Why do you think so many players are against it? They're just naturally resistant to change, first of all. I mean, when you've spent the amount of time preparing and training to play a certain way, the idea that things are going to be changed and there's going to be some unknown is a little bit unnerving. But they also assimilate to everything really quickly and very smoothly.

I think also there is, you know, the human element and the gamesmanship is something that you can appreciate while you're in the game. You know, from the outside looking in, it's very black and white. It's like it's the ball. We want to the ball. It's a strike. We want to strike. But the idea of, you know, watching a Zach Grinky hit the outside corner over and over and then start going an inch or two off and walking the umpire off the plate as well as the hitters. Like, you know, that appreciation of skill is something that could be.

lost if we're just using a computer and it's black and white. So I think it's two things. I think it's just natural resistant to change. And them not wanting to lose an element of true greatness, not being able to exploit human error, I guess. Yeah, that makes some sense. Let me also ask you this. And we'll get Ross got a couple questions in after me. One of the things I brought up about the ABS is what are managers going to tell their players when and

if they use it in the right situations. Do you potentially squawking something in the third inning knowing if you lose it, you might not get it, you got one challenge left if this comes into play. My question to you is if you were a manager, what would you tell your 26-man roster about how and when and what seems appropriate to use those ABSs?

Because if you lose the two challenges, you're done, you may want them in the ninth inning of a very close game. Yeah, I think first and foremost, you express the idea that, It is for important situations, right? It's something that's flipping inning, flip a game, flipping that bat, and preferably later high leverage type of situations. That being said, I mean, there are so many, you know,

if Estock Parade is 100% sure that a ball got called to strike, I'd be okay with him challenging. You know, it's kind of got to be a little bit of self-recognition also. I think some of the teams in the way they were using in spring training, It was a good idea where from the pitching side, they put it on the catchers to be the ones making the challenges and not the pitchers, trying to take a little bit of the emotion and adrenaline out of it. And, you know, I think it's going to be kind of case-by-case basis. But, you know, even in – they had meetings with teams in spring training just going over this. And everybody is on the same page that the way that it's being implemented and most likely will be implemented is to not try to change in O.O.

pitch in the first inning. It's to try to get, you know, a big pitch right in the seventh or eighth inning in a one-run game. And if everybody kind of understands that, I think guys will be fine just letting it back to play out the way they do in your kind of run-of-the-mill type of situations. You know, for the most part, everybody understands that. Maybe there's a couple of guys. You've got to pull aside and have a conversation with them like, hey, you do not have the green light to call. I mean, you got to shut guys down on the base pass every once in a while. you can shut them down on challenging stuff too. That'd be a fun conversation to have.

Brian Bogussevik with us here, to Sports Talk 790. Transitioning a bit to the team in the second half coming up. Let's start with Hunter Brown. Last couple of starts, not the way that he wanted them to go. What do you think as far as what's happening with him? Is there just some fatigue?

Is it just a couple of bad starts? And that's it. And also kind of a gut feeling from you, do you think with him pitching on Sunday, do you think he'll get a couple of extra days off, for the weekend or where do you think Joe Spott is going to throw him? Yeah, so I think coming out of the gate, my guess is you see both Fromber and Hunter in the Seattle series because you need that.

And I think it'll be Fromber first and then Hunter in either game two or game three. I think, you know, Fromber will be on an extra day rest going Friday. You don't want him on too much rest. And Hunter looks like he can use an extra day or even two. As long as you get him in that series, I would be trying with him throwing Sunday. I actually like the idea of them being split up and, you know, having the ability to stagger them if you need to push somebody to eat up innings because there's a short start somewhere. But in terms of his last couple starts, you know, it all kind of started in the Colorado start for me. That's typing or something.

Wasn't moving the same. I kind of attributed it to altitude. You know, the sinker doesn't always seem to same way. You can just fit them in for a second. balls on the same bias. But then we kind of saw some of that stuff carry over into Cleveland and then Texas. I think it might be a little bit of fatigue. And, you know, I'm not talking about fatigue.

Oh, my gosh, he's dying out there, his arms hanging. I mean, the velocity is still there. The spin rates are still there. Everything looks good. It's just every once in a while. Every once in a while, there'll be a fastball that'll kind of get on the side of instead of finish through it and have that hop at the top of the zone. There have been a couple hits on changeups where they've kind of cut,

back into the middle of the plate instead of him getting on top of it and kind of pronating and getting that drop and sink. And that's just, you know, a little bit of release point stuff. And if you start getting a little tired, your body starts getting a little tired, things go out of sync and it shows up at release point. And it's just little bits where, you know, he was, he was out, there were times when he'd go out there and throw 100 pitches and perfectly execute all

hundred pitches. You know, everything came out of his hand exactly how he wanted it. You know, you get a little bit of fatigue and all of a sudden a couple of mistakes show up in the middle of the zone and they get hit. To be expected, he's 115 innings already. He's gone deep into almost every start that he's pitched. I think, you know, the All-Star break and maybe an extra day on the backside will be good for him. And I think there's no reason that he's not going to be fine coming out of it. All right.

And on the hitting side, it feels like, again, we ask every week about Christian Walker. How beneficial you think a couple of days to clear the head for him and, and, and kind of finding where he's at to where, I mean, we are this deep into the season, and he just still has not fully busted out of the funk. And when it kind of looked like he was, unfortunately, although I'm saying, you know, in the grand scheme of things in life, he doesn't think it's unfortunate, but he had to go on to the paternity list. Then he came back and didn't have a good series against Texas.

Yeah, it was unfortunate, the timing of it, you know, because he was really heating up. But at the same time, you know, he goes into the break. having four days to kind of sit on what he's done in the past, you know, a couple of weeks, which I'm sure a lot of that will just be baby time, not going to think about hitting all that much. But, you know, to have a little bit of positive momentum with how that last road trip went, you know, when you think about a guy who goes into a prolonged slump, you think there should be some, you know, equally high, high coming off of it. And that's how it's going to balance out.

You know, maybe we're not going to see that. Maybe we're not going to see, you know, a month where he hits over 400 and hits 12 home runs. But, you know, maybe we're just going to see the guy, a guy who's putting up the numbers that we thought he was going to put up just, you know, minus the first six weeks of the season or whatever, whatever. And maybe it doesn't all the way balance out. But, you know, if you look at his body of work over, you know, prolonged period of that bats, it's not all of that far off. And I know we haven't had that huge swing back to correct it and level everything out for the whole. but it's been overall not that far off of what we expected. So I think the biggest thing for him is now getting pitches into locations that he wants.

You know, he was trying to hit everything that they were throwing at him, prove that I can hit all parts of the strike zone. What I thought he did best on that road trip when he's sitting the ball well was getting the fastball down in the zone out over the plate. Like, you know, two ways you can deal with that fastball at the top of the zone. Either figure out how to hit it or just stop swinging at it. It looks like he's gotten to the point to where he's going to try to stop swinging at it unless he has to, you know, with two strikes. So get pitches and locations that you want, finish the up at bat on those pitches and deal with the results and take what you can get.

And I think, you know, we're starting to see him move down that path. Last question, Bogie. Do you think that we'll know what the injury status is of so many of these players based off what Dana does in the next two weeks? via trade. Would that be an indirect sign of, hey, Christian's close, hey, we may get Luis Garcia back, hey, we might have Spencer Arredgetti, you're

on Alvarez, an infam I mean, is there an if-then statement to how active the Astros are with potentially improving the team based off of injuries, or do you think if you had a chance to pull Dana's side and say, hey, even if you get one, two, three

these guys back, you've got to go get some reinforcements before the deadline. No, I don't think it will have anything to do with injury status or injury severity, because I don't know that they have the ability or means or desire even to make a big move if one were warranted. You know, if you were counting on Yordan coming back and all of a sudden they know in the back of their mind, he's not coming back. there's no move to be made that they can make to go to go replace that. So I think that the moves that they can make and will make, because they're going to, you know, certainly do something, are going to kind of be the same types of moves,

the same caliber of moves, which will be additive, but not big. And, you know, even if you're going to get a good chunk of those guys back on the pitching side, you're still probably going to want to add an arm. And if you aren't going to get those guys back, I don't think they have the ability to go add a bunch of arms. And I don't think they have really the prospect capital to go out and add a top of the rotation type of guy. So, you know, I think they're kind of just in the situation that they're in where you're going to kind of, you know, add on the fringes and solidify some things. And hopefully get all the guys back that you're expecting to get back.

But if you're not, you're kind of just in the position that you're in. Bogey, great stuff as always. Hope you enjoyed some downtime and we'll talk again next week. Thank you for the visit as always. All right. Cool. See you guys. You got it. Brian Bogus-Evick with us here on Sports Talk 7-19-5. And deal with the results and take what you can get. And I think we're starting to see him move down that path.

Last question, Bogie. Do you think that we'll know what the injury status is of so many of these players based off what Dana does in the next two weeks via trade? Would that be an indirect sign of, hey, Christian's close, hey, we may get Luis Garcia back, hey, we might have Spencer Araggetti, you're on Alvarez, an infam, I mean, is there an if-then statement to how active the Astros are with potentially improving the team based off of injuries, or do you think if you had a chance to pull Dana's side and say, hey, even if you get one, two, three of these guys back, you've got to go get some reinforcements before the deadline.

No, I don't think it will have anything to do with injury status or injury severity because I don't know that they have the ability or means or desire even to make a big move if one were warranted. You know, if you were counting on Jordan coming back and all of a sudden they know in the back of their mind, he's not coming back. There's no move to be made that they can make to go to go replace that. So I think that the moves that they can make and will make, because they're going to, you know, certainly do something, are going to kind of be the same types of moves, the same caliber of moves, which will be additive, but not big. And, you know, even if you're going to get a good chunk of those guys back on the pitching side, you're still probably going to want to add an arm. And if you aren't going to get those guys back, I don't think they have the ability to go add a bunch of arms. And I don't think they have really the prospect capital to go out. and add a top of the rotation type of guy.

So, you know, I think they're kind of just in the situation that they're in where you're going to kind of, you know, add on the fringes and solidify some things and hopefully get all the guys back that you're expecting to get back. But if you're not, you're kind of just in the position that you're in. Bogey, great stuff as always. Hope you enjoyed some downtime and we'll talk again next week. Thank you for the visit as always.

All right. Cool. See you guys. You got it. Brian Bogussevick with us here. Sports Talk 790.