The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian McTaggart Discusses Philly Loss & Astros Road Ahead

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

Brian McTaggart Discusses Philly Loss & Astros’ Road Ahead

This is Matt and Ross in the morning. 901. 9.01, I'm 790. Final 60 minutes of this program. About to begin with our good friend Brian McTaggart every Thursday between now and hopefully November. Again, I'm putting the cart before the horse. Just thinking a little positive about a deep playoff run. But Brian McTaggart with us from MLB.com at Astros.com.

So, wow. How are you feeling watching the local lineup that 4-0? against one of the best pitchers in the National League, and then, man, if Hunter Brown could have come in and done what he did the previous start, we've been in a whole different situation. Yesterday was just a bad night overall, Brian, for the entire pitching staff. Yeah, no doubt. I mean, you get a 4-0 lead against Christopher Sanchez on the road.

That's a game you should win, especially with your ace on the mound. So, I mean, Hunter Brown was the first to tell you that, that, you know, it needs to be better, and they need to lock that game down because, you know, he gave four runs right back, And, you know, at that point, it's a game you're not going to win. And they didn't end up getting blown out. But that was sort of disappointing. But, you know, a chance to win the series today. And I think if they can take two out of three from Philadelphia, they'll feel really good about that.

But, yeah, I think a blown opportunity yesterday. You know, Hunter, not walking guys, didn't give up a ton of hard contact. But still, you know, the guys came around and scored. And, you know, that's a pretty deep fillies. lineup and you know they put a lot of pressure on you and and they sort of wreaked havoc on the basis yesterday and then got the big grand slam so you know win today and then you move on and try to get through this tough stretch you know we were talking earlier this year about worrying about the number of innings that a guy like stephen o'curt was pitching and now he's gone on the

injured list with the hamstring ailment but now is that concern now placed on an j blueball he's putting up some major innings as well the back-to-backs have not worked out for him Yeah, you know, he hasn't pitched as well since they sort of put him in the high leverage roll. You know, so Oakridge spent out pitching a little bit later in games. And so maybe that's something, you know, you have to consider in putting him back on the role that he was. I mean, yeah, he's right around 90 innings, which is by far the most of any reliever just because he's pitching, you know, multiple innings most times. And overall, he's done a pretty nice job, but the last few outings haven't been great.

So, you know, there's probably some wearing tear, some tiredness going on there. He's pitched a ton. And I'm sure they're going to have to keep that in mind here over the next few weeks. But you're at the point where a lot of these relievers are not feeling their best and they're trying to gut it through. And, you know, it's tough to put guys out there, you know, every other day because it seems like every game is really close. And they don't have the very rarely is there a blowout where they can, you know, put a guy out there at the end of the game that puts three innings

and give guys rest. They're trying to win every one of these games because every one of these games is crucial considering the lead they have in the division. There's only two games now. There was a moment in the fourth inning last night where Hunter Brown was clapping, and the Phillies broadcast was speculating it was sarcastically at Jose Altuve.

Did you notice anything about that or any there, notice that moment? I saw the clip, but there is no way Hunter Brown's going to show up or clap sarcastically for Jose Altuve. I'm not in Philadelphia, so I did not, you know, I haven't asked Hunter what it was about, but there's no way Hunter Brown has shown anybody up. I mean, that's not who he is, and especially when it comes to Jose Altuve. So I don't know what kind of leap the Phillies announcers we're going to try to make there, but there's absolutely no chance that that was happening.

And on Jose Al-Tovie, Brian McTaggart with us here, Sports Talk 790, 2,500 hits. I mean, just, say whatever you can or will about Jose Al Tuve, just the 103rd batter in baseball history to reach that milestone. Pretty incredible. I mean, I still remember when he got called up. I kept hearing about this guy in AA Altova, and he was seeing like 391 in AA. And I, you know, I looked on his page and I was like,

this guy's 5 foot 5. I'm 5, 6. I'm like, okay, this can't be real. And even when he gets called up, I'm like, he's probably not you know he got called straight up from uh double a once they traded jeff kepenger and so i'm like well you know we'll see i'm i was skeptical and man 2,500 hits later here he is to be one of the few to ever get that is pretty amazing um all the things he's done in his career it's going to be a really tough climb to 3,000 just on where he is at this point in his career

his age. He is slowing down. It seems like every year, you know, his numbers go down just a little bit, but, you know, he's got to, I think, average about 162 hits a year, which to get to 3,000 by the end of his contract, which will be really tough to do. And he's probably going to have to play beyond that. And I'm not sure he'll, he's going to want to play beyond that. It depends on how close he gets to 3,000. But either way, he's already put up Cooperstown numbers. And, uh, Yeah, just a remarkable achievement from where he started, where he came from, how his career started, and everything he's had to overcome. I am a regular follower of Brian McTaggart on Twitter. Ross has muted you a long time ago so you didn't see that.

Your tweet 27 minutes ago, this is as sobering as it gets from Brian McTaggart on Twitter. Tatsu Emi has pitched 25 and 2 thirds innings since July the 1st. He's walked 25 batters, period. That's all you said. Is that bad? It's not great. That's not great. Nope.

That's, you know, two scoreless endings yesterday, but three walks. I mean, that's just, that's just his control issues have just marred his entire season. And that's why he's pretty much a mop-up reliever now who pitches once a week. So, you know, the signing has been pretty disastrous. A lot of the things they did in the offseason in terms of the pictures they acquired have not been good. And he's at the top of that list. And so it'll be an interesting off season to see where he goes from here. Of course, he has the player option to come back next year.

You know, maybe he doesn't want to. Maybe he wants to go back to Japan because it certainly doesn't feel like he ever got really comfortable here. So only he knows what's going on there. But certainly his inability to throw strikes has been an ongoing thing all year long with the exception of a few good outings here and there. Brian, the Astros have gone to the waiver wire a lot the last month or so. Meanwhile, you've got gentlemen like Jake Myers has been up and down. Loporfito we've been seen in forever, Zach.

Cole, we didn't see since early this year. Kevin Bizio has not been called up. Have you checked in on why the decision's been made not to bring some of those other guys up, at least guys we're familiar with as compared to picking up guys off the waiver wire from Arizona? Yeah, well, as far as low perfeito, I mean, they already have a couple of left-handed hitting outfielders in Tramel and Wade. So I don't think there's only space for a third unless they got rid of one of those guys. which doesn't look like they're going to do. I mean, you know,

Kevin Vigio's best positions defensively are on the infield. You know, he can't really play shortstop, and they're, you know, pretty set on the infield. So, um, Zach Cole is swinging the bat really well recently at AAA, but he was injured for a while. Still tons of strikeouts. But yeah, I mean, they've,

all season they've brought in, you know, going back to Dustin Harris and the other guy they brought in about that time. I can't even remember his name. But, you know, the Nelson Velazquez's and I mean they're just grasping for straws here trying to find you know somebody who can maybe fit in the lineup can do things a little bit differently and I mean there's there's a reason that you know these guys are available and not have been put put on waivers or whatever is because other teams don't want them so it's not like they're going to be able to get Alex Bregman back they're just they're just basically desperate for any kind of help and I guess it's sort of an indictment, I guess, against some of those guys they have in AAA that they don't think they can come up here and help them at this point. Yeah, who is that an indictment of? How much is it, Dana Brown? How much of it just things didn't pan out? Because, I mean, coming into the off season, we were hopeful. Cam Smith would make a leap. Zach Cole would lock some down. Jake Myers was coming off a pretty good season. It didn't seem like it was going to be as bad as it has been.

Yeah, you're right. I mean, I think it's pretty much worst case scenario for all of those guys. and low perfido when they traded for him at the beginning of camp. It was like, well, you know, he looks like a different hitter. You know, strikeout percentage is way down. And it hasn't worked out. I mean, you know, Zach Cole came up and still way too much swing and miss was striking out a ton and not hitting the home runs, you know, like he did last year. You know, Cam Smith, you know, what, he's doubled his home run output, but still too many

strikeouts. It just doesn't look like he's gotten completely comfortable. I think if they went back in time, Cam Smith probably begins last season in the minor leagues. I think you can get fooled a lot by performances in March, and everybody was really excited. They made the trade, and he comes up and kills the ball in spring training. But probably the best thing for him and his development was to start in the minor leagues. Now that we look at hindsight's 2020, but I don't think it did him any favors, I think, to throw him into the major leagues at that point with so few minor league at bats.

So still a chance he could get it figured out. I mean, I think next year is going to be a sort of a make or break year for him. And he probably knows that as well. I mean, he's still only 23 years old, so he's still a very young player. But, yeah, I mean, there were a lot of things they were banking on going right that didn't go right, not only with pitching, but with the lineup. And here they are in first place, which is pretty incredible. I know the division stinks. If they were in the NL.

They'd be buried, but they're not. They're in the AOL West, and with all the holes they have, this imperfect roster, they still have a chance to get to the playoffs. And at the end of the day, that's what matters. Will they go far? Probably not. I mean, unless they catch lightning in a bottle, but it's happened before. So just get in and see what happens. Last question.

How intrigued are you about anything that Carlos Carrillo can provide this team if he can play in the month of September? Yeah, I think it's very intriguing. just to have him and his presence and line up. I know anytime we talk about career, people talk about his leadership and his presence and there's probably a lot of eye rolling going on, but all that stuff is pretty real. At the end of the day, he's going to have to hit,

and he's going to make the lineup a little bit longer, a little bit better. I think we'll see him probably, we're probably a week or so away, maybe, would be my guess, at best, because he's still going to be in Florida for a few more days, probably rehab maybe next week. These are just, you know, loose timelines.

But it can't hurt. Have him in the lineup, move some guys around, just get this lineup a little bit deeper so you're not having to, you know, rely on these, you know, waiver claims. You pick out of Varadis as a guy who was having a good year who's been there, done that, has been a leader, been an All-Star, adding him for the last week, 10 days of the season, and the playoffs.

You know, it can do nothing but help. So you just have to hope that he doesn't, you know, suffer any kind of setback. But he started running the bases yesterday. And I think that was one of the last hurdles he had to do to try to get back. So it looks like he's inching closer. And, yeah, they'll welcome him back with open arms for sure.