The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian Bogusevic Joins The Show To Talk Astros Struggling Bats

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

Brian Bogusevic Joins The Show To Talk Astros Struggling Bats.

Rosvia Real, Adam Wexer, with you at the Big City Wings Markey location. We'll be given away a couple of four-packs to Astros tickets. We'll be here until 2 o'clock come by and say, hey. A lot of stuff to get to here on the show. We got ain't nobody got time for that slash shut your bum ass up coming up at 1130. But right now we are pleased to be joined by Brian Bogus Sevik. Joins us every week. Does a great job.

And, well, I was mentioning this earlier on the show, Brian. And it's good to have you now, especially, like, if everybody were hitting, we would maybe have a little bit less to talk about with you, or maybe it would be more fun. But we've got a lot to break down with these struggling bats with the Astros right now. And let's go ahead and start it off. I'll spin the wheel. Let's go to Yiner Diaz.

Oh, that's a tough place to start. You know, there are a lot of guys as we go through this who you can say, you know, point to different things as to why they're close or why, you know, it's just a matter of time. I think Yiner's in the toughest spot. He looks like he just doesn't have any timing. He looks lost. You know, his body's going in one direction,

his bats going in the other direction. And the swings have just been kind of, you know, flailing at balls. It looks to me like he needs a couple of games where he just left the ball travel and get into the hitting zone because he's out trying to hit. He's trying to hit the ball way out front of home plate while his body's going into the third base dugout at the same time.

he's probably as much as so many of these guys on offense has struggled I think Yiner's probably had it the worst A bogey, Wex here with you as well I'm curious if at any point during his previous seasons Have you noticed him ever looking like this And maybe then what he did to get out of it? Not this bad

You know there's been times when he struggled But a lot of that has just kind of been Overaggressiveness right now it just looks like he's trying to hit the ball as soon as it comes out of the pitcher's hands. I think really what will do him well is if he just completely eliminate the left side of the field for a couple of that bat or a couple of games and just says, you know, I'm going to try to shoot balls into the forehole and into right field and back that contact point up a little bit.

But he's done that at times, you know, throughout the course of the last couple years when things have not been going well, just take that simple approach of like, I'm going to take a couple pitches, see it, and move that contact point back, and use the other way. But he's a long way from even being able to do that. Is it kind of looking back at last night's game-winning hit, that kind of at bat, just from the right side, looking at how Victor Keratinny took that pitch and just popped it through the hole to drive in the run, that kind of at bat,

and just say, this is where it's pitched, just send it through the hole for Yiner, just on the right side? Absolutely. I mean, there was such a good replay of that swing from Keratini, and you could just see how long his head stayed down on that ball, how deep the pitch got into his swing. You know, he hit it basically off of his back leg through the six hole on the left side.

You know, if Yanger could take a couple of those and just see where that contact point is, that's a good place to start, because then you can start working it out front, then you can start worrying about elevating, then you can start pulling balls for power. But right now he's just got to get the ball to a point to where he can make solid contact with it. Brian Bogusufik with us here on a Sports Talk 790. Let's go to Camp Smith.

First extra base hit, first run batted in after a couple of days off. Did you see anything different from him yesterday and just evaluate what you have been seeing from him? Yes and no. I mean, that was certainly the best swing. he's taken, you know, all season, you know, eliminate the spring training stuff. But since the regular season has started, that was definitely the best swing he took. He's late. He's been late on fastballs, you know, since the regular season started.

He looks a little bit passive, almost like he's trying to get on the fastball by trying to get into hitter's counts where he can look and hunt for the fastball, but all he's doing is getting himself behind in the count and making it worse. That pitch that he hit for the triple, It was a breaking ball. And, you know, it's probably off script of what the Mariners pitchers wanted to do because Luis Castillo to start that game was just heater, heater, heater on Cam the whole time. You get a reliever in there.

But the thing that he did earlier in that at bat is he took a really aggressive swing on the first pitch of that at bat at the fastball. So now all of a sudden you can put into the pitcher's head, okay, maybe he's starting to get on it. Maybe I have to do something else. And he throws a pitch that kind of goes into his bat a little bit. But, you know, at the major league level, you're not going to get into hitters counts and you're not going to walk just by taking pitches. Pitchers don't just lose their control and push you in a 3-1 count because they can't throw a strike.

You've got to scare them out of the zone. You've got to scare them away from attacking the middle of the zone. So I would almost like to see Cam go up there and get more aggressive. You know, usually you're trying to take young hitters and dial them back a little bit. You know, I'd almost like to see him maybe not the point of what George Springer was when he first came up where he was ready to swing when he woke up in the morning. But just go out there and just, you know, get to hack and let your natural ability take over. And then you can start scaring pitchers out of the zone.

Then you can start working at that, getting in hitters' counts, hunting pitches. But right now, they're just attacking a hitter who they think is just behind it a little bit. Not quite to go pick the stick on you, because you guys will take care of that later today and all throughout the season over on the TV side on Space City Home Network. But rather than going through the whole lineup, we'll eliminate Jose Al-Tuvai at the top and eliminate the elite hitter that Jake Myers is at the bottom of the lineup. You got anybody else in between? And this is not just today, but maybe over the next couple of games, who would be your pick-to-click? Who do you see maybe starting to come around and no longer hitting below 200?

Well, I think Jordan's really close. And, you know, that's not anything, you know, revelatory right there. I mean, he's one of the best hitters in the world. But his swings have looked much better. He's just missed a couple of pitches, hit another couple pitches hard. He's also getting pitched really carefully right now because the guys around him aren't hitting. But I just think it's a matter of time before, you know, a pitcher makes a mistake and he jumps all over it. Or, you know, Christian Walker wakes up and he gets – or all of a sudden, Yoron gets a couple more pitches to hit.

He's getting really close. And I really like the swings that Jeremy Pena has been taking. His bat looked really quick. He's on the fastball, but he's not cheating to get to the fastball. He's able to lay off with some tough breaking balls while still being quick enough to handle high velocity. So I like where Yordon is getting to, and I really like where Payne has been for most of the season. Brian Bougassevin continuing with us here on a sports talk 790. Let's go to the pitching side.

Last night, Joe Spada in the seventh inning going to Taylor Scott. Were you surprised to see him in that role or come out of the bullpen then? No, because I think we're still in the mode of the roles are kind of what we're defined in spring training and going through the offseason and that, you know, Taylor Scott was kind of penciled into that seventh inning role. It's kind of morphed into a hybrid of him to Stephen O'Kert based on what you want from a matchup, lefty-righty standpoint in that pocket of the lineup. lent itself to Taylor Scott. You know, he hasn't thrown the ball particularly well to start the season or even

early in spring training. So that might, you know, that might change, you know, here in the near future. But no, I wasn't seen. The season that he had last year buys him a little bit of a longer leash to go out there and get right. But, you know, somebody is going to have to step up and be that seventh inning guy. And he did it last year and it's still his kind of job to lose. but, you know, it might not be for long.

We already rubber-stamped Brian King as the seventh inning guy. Is that okay? He's been great. And not only has it been great from a result standpoint, every inning that he throws looks easy. I mean, he goes out there and he just blows 92 by guys and he just drops fliers and that nobody can hit. And every time I look up and I'm filling out the scorebook,

you know, he's finished an inning with no base runners and he's thrown only like 12 pitches. I mean, he's been unbelievable. Stephen Ockert has had some success as a major league reliever, some very good success. A couple of seasons ago with Miami, it obviously went in the opposite direction in the last two years. Did he refine what he had been doing when you watch him pitch and he was on the mound last night to finish things off? What is making him so successful again? Well, first of all, he dealt with some injuries the last couple of seasons.

So he looks like he's healthy, first of all, because he has had some really good success. in years past. The biggest question coming into this season for him was, what is he going to be able to give you against righties? He's always been really good against lefties. He's always had a really good slider that's tough on lefties, but what does he do against righties to get them out? And the inning that he threw last night,

the biggest out that he had to get, Ryan Bliss at the end, you know, to close out the game, he had to go off of his, I'm just going to slider a lefty to death because he's facing a good right-handed hitter, a right-handed hitter who handles lefties very well. And he located three fastballs, one at the top of the zone, two on the outside corner, you know, 92, 94 miles an hour.

So that's the biggest thing that I've seen is that he's got weapons to handle righties as well as lefties. And he did it in as big a spot as there's been so far last night. Let's talk about some more positive things. Is Jose Al-Tuvae just going to hit until he's 50? I wouldn't bet against it. everything that he's ever been challenged with, he's done. So, yeah, I mean, what's going to affect him?

You know, when they said he couldn't hit in the big leagues he did, when they said he couldn't hit for power he did, when, you know, they said they're going to change his position, and is that going to affect his hitting? It didn't. I mean, he, with all the stuff that he's dealt with this offseason and coming into the season, trying to learn a new position, you know, he's out there.

You know, when the team's at home and we get to go out there early, he's on the field at, you know, 3.30, 4 o'clock, taking extra fly balls. Like the amount of workload that he's taking on is greater than what he's probably had since he was in his, you know, second, third year in the big leagues. And yeah, he just continues to be the hitter that we've seen for 12 years now. So I don't know why it's ever going to stop. Well, I'm not a ball player.

I'm not flying on the charter with the team. I'm not making those trips from city to city. You've obviously done that. I view today's game not only to get at 6 and 6 win a third series. get on back out of town. But that happy flight, I always think, is a huge, huge deal. You're playing Seattle also. All those things go into it.

But it seems like today I'm not going to go big game, must win, anything quite like that. But it's kind of important to go out there and take care of it today and hop on that burden style. No, I think you're right. And yes, there's a little bit of a, I don't know if it's momentum or just, you know, mood thing that will carry over when you win on a good. away day. But really, if you think about it, you know, if they win today, they win two series on the road in which they didn't really hit it all. They had a couple of blow-up starts from starters where the bullpen had to cover a ton of inning. So if you're all of a sudden coming back from a road trip and you go and you can go four and two without, you know, really playing all that

well outside of some, a couple of really good pitching performances, you know, that, that, that, that in and of itself as a confidence booster to where you can look around that club out and say, hey, man, if we ever start playing well, like there's no telling what we can do because we're out here winning series and we're not even playing well yet. Brian Bogus Sevik, thanks for the time as always. Appreciate you, and we'll continue to talk to you down the road. All right, guys. Appreciate it.