The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian Bogusevic Talks Astros Struggles After Game 1 vs Blue Jays

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Brian Bogusevic Talks Astros Struggles After Game 1 vs Blue Jays

I'll save it then for you. 11.04, Sports Talk, 790. Let's spend 10. You know what, Brian Bogus-Sever, we're going to have to talk 11 minutes with you this week because I need you to walk me off the ledge. Yesterday, exacerbation, I don't know, whatever, you know, pissed off.

Exasperation? Whatever, that too. Bogey, 3-1, Bray, you can't find the strike zone in the ninth. Runners in scoring position. It was just another injury. It was like a microcosm of the entire season. And I keep trying to hold on to this notion that the Astros are still in first place, in which they are.

And they'd be in the playoffs today at the season end today. But, man, it has been really two and a half months of just holding on for dear life. Yeah, I don't think one extra minute's going to be enough to get you off the ledge that you're on. That feels fair. Thank you. But, yeah, so you're right about yesterday. I think yesterday, you know, as much as it hurt. because it's a loss in a big game at the end of the season,

and it's one that it felt like was in your hand and you didn't get it. That always hurts, but it's the way it happened. It's kind of all of your concerns with this team rolled into one. You know, obviously the injury that happens. We've seen too many of those. You know, it's an offense that can't pull away and make it easy on the pitching staff. It's hitting with runners in scoring position. It's a bullpen that is, you know, depleted and is starting to look.

gasped, looking vulnerable because they look depleted and gassed. And, you know, every one individual concern that you could kind of point to and say, ooh, that might be a problem. Ooh, that might be a problem. We saw them all all at once. And, yeah, that's, you know, it hurts kind of doubly bad watching it happen yesterday because that's 20 games left in the season. You can't have one in your hand and not get it.

So, Bray, you inherits the closers role when Hader goes down. And I mean the first four or five appearances were like, man, there is no slippage at all. This is going to be fun. And now he's having a hard time finding the strike zone. We talked about this in the first hour. When you're a two-pitch pitcher against a team that doesn't strike out a lot or doesn't have a lot of swing and miss, that's a recipe for disaster. We saw that again last night.

Yeah. You know, when a brave is right, it doesn't matter who you are, what style of here you are. His stuff is overpowering enough to get the best contact lineup. to swing and miss. I mean, the whiff rates that he gets on each of his pitches individually are crazy. But they have to be working together, right? He's got to get that good crossfire angle on this fastball to his glove side to set up the big sweeping slider that comes off the same plane,

but goes even further out of the zone. And, you know, if you go back and look at kind of the pitch chart yesterday, there were misses outside of the zone. That's a problem. But the fastballs in particular that were in the zone weren't. getting to that arm side or to the glove side. They were in the middle of the plate. They were hitable pitches.

They were pitches that weren't going to set up the slider going down and away out of the zone. And anytime a pitcher is missing up and to the arm side, the first thing that you think of is fatigue. And then you start looking at the velocities. It was a lot of 95s and 96 is yesterday when typically we see 97s and 98. And honestly, in a situation like that where it's a got-a-have-it game and against the first place team in the American League,

you would think a little bit extra juice running. I was waiting to see 99s and maybe 100. So it's starting to look like he's got, I don't think the closer thing has gotten to him. I don't think, you know, he's an eighth inning guy that can't do the ninth inning. I think he's the one guy who's been the constant down there all year. You know, he hasn't had an injury. He hasn't had performance affect him and him floated in and out of the high leverage

situation. It's been full go. and they've leaned on him, you know, even when Hater was there more heavily than anybody. And it's starting to look like it's catching up to him. Yeah, and that just begs the question, what's the solution? Just a couple of days off, just something he has to work through. And, I mean, it'd be nice if the office could go out there and score a bunch of runs, but they just end up in so many high leverage situations because of the nature of how the team is.

Yeah, you hit it on the nose, right? There is no solution from a pitching standpoint. You only got the guys you got, you only have the availability of what you got. And if it's a closing situation, it's going to be Brian Abrae, and you're going to have to live and die with him because that's what you got and that's what you're going to have to do. The solution or way around it is exactly that. It's to score more runs. You know, it's not, if you lose a one-run game because the bullpen gives it up, it's not necessarily on the bullpen. Guys aren't perfect.

Guys are going to give up runs here and there. complimentary baseball is there being times when you score so many runs early that your starting pitcher can really settle in and just pound the strike zone and worry about nothing but getting deep into the game. You know, it's creating situations that aren't saved situations so you can throw to the guys who haven't thrown in five days who are fresh versus the guys who've thrown, you know, three out of the last five days and been getting worn out all year. And we've seen far too few of those games where it's the offense just taking over and saying, hey, pitchers. you guys essentially have the day off today. Brian Bogus-Evich with us here on Sports Talk 790. It's been a tough go of it the last 1530 games or so for Jose Al-Tuve. And I find myself, Brian, questioning like, okay, is this just a typical Jose Al-Tuve slump?

Or is this some decline? What are you seeing from him at the plate? A little bit, a little bit of both, maybe. he's always a guy who, when he struggles, is going to get super aggressive. So you're going to see some wild swinging. He's also a guy who, you know, all throughout the course of his career, will hunt pitches and guess in certain situations. And every once in a while, you know, he guesses wrong and takes a swing that looks ridiculous.

But, you know, it's an extended kind of version of that right now, which makes me think that, you know, is he in a situation where he's having to do more of those things to kind of keep up and less and less just straight up hitting. You know, granted, he can always break out of it and look completely locked in for the next, you know, months plus and just go on a tear. That's still in there. We've seen him get hot this season, but it just looks like a guy who's relying more and more on hunting one pitch at a time or one location at a time versus a guy who, you know,

there were times when it didn't matter what speed or what location he threw it and he could hit it in any direction at any time. trying to get himself out of it, but it just hasn't happened recently. Bogie, the runners in the scoring position number has been the one that's discouraging so much. We look at every single loss, and we can go back to that one particular category. Is there some sort of magic elixir that you would give a particular hitter, whether it's a different approach of the plate, whether it's swinging early, swinging later, trying to position the, you know, to pull the ball, go opo, whatever,

because it just feels like that so much of the angst is these key hitters in this astro lineup with runners at second and third or bases loaded a couple times in that game last week against the Yankees in the ninth inning with the tying run at the plate. Correa strikes out, Walker strikes out. Those are terrible, terrible ways to end games. What do you do when you get the guys on the bases and you're just looking for that one clutch hit? Yeah, there's a lot of things that come into play. First of all, crazy as it sounds, the thing that correlates most of the hitting with runners

and scoring position is just team batting average in general. Generally, teams that can hit with runners and scoring position, but that's not been, you know, the extras are near, they're probably in the top third of the league still in batting average overall, and then we see their struggles with runners and scoring position. So that's kind of, you know, can't make heads or tails of that. But I think the thing that you would look at now, right, hitting with runners in scoring position used to be all about take what's out there, right? There's a man on third, less than two outs. Just get him in.

Second and third, get him over, maybe get him in, maybe get the guy over at the same time and kind of take what's out there. But now, you know, there's such a different approach to hitting where it's all about trying to have big innings, especially early in games. Because that's what wins games, right? You have to put up big crooked numbers. there are very, very few two to one games anymore, right? Everybody's getting on a race to five or a race to six, and you have to have big eating to do so. But when you're struggling with runners in scoring position,

sometimes I would think just take a step back. You know, if you're up there and it's a man on third with one out in the second inning, instead of taking the approach of like, okay, I'm having my regular at bat, maybe I hit a double that'll score and put me in scoring position, will be in position to have that big inning. Just take what's out there. maybe a little bit earlier in the bat, earlier in the game. Cash in one, and maybe just that gets the ball rolling a little bit.

It seems like a lot of times there's more focus on here's our opportunity to have the beginning versus here's our opportunity to get that one that's out there right in front of us. And, you know, mathematically, does it make sense to do that? Maybe not. But at the same time, it could kind of jumpstart things a little bit. We kept it 11 minutes. Thank you very much for the time, as always. Are you off the ledge?

No. And your boy, Josh Redick was losing his mind last night, too. So all you guys are basically are kind of feeling it right now, I think. Yeah, I think everybody's feeling it right now. All right. Are you working this weekend? Yes. All right.

Well, maybe you're the election that will fix things because that series coming up in a couple days. Thank you for the time, as always, for him. We really appreciate it. All right. See you, guys. All right.