The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian T. Smith On Alvarez: There Is Potential He Could Jump Start This Team

Episode Date: August 14, 2020

Brian T. Smith On Alverz: There Is Potential He Could Jump Start This Team

Us as fans, we as fans want to see that. Houston Sports Talk 790. From the owner to the coach to the players. Your home for your home teams. 1231, Sports Talk 790. The Matt Thomas Show without Matt Thomas, Ross via Real, Joe George, Bird and Riley with you till 3 o'clock. Astros reliever Andre Scrub coming up at 2.30. Happy to talk with him.

And came over to the Astros and the Tyler White Trade. So looking forward to hearing from him later on the show. Now, I'm looking forward to hearing from Mr. Brian Smith of the Houston Chronicle. Brian, you're welcome. We gave you a week off from Matt. It's always better when you do it, Ross. And I'm not just talking on radio. You know, I'd like to disagree, Brian, but I just don't think I can.

All right, let's just get this started with the good news of today. Yordon Alvarez getting called up. He is activated. He is on the Astros roster. A couple of things to be shuffled with what's going to happen with Michael Brantley. Is he going to DH or how quickly is he going to be in the lineup? but has to be good news overall for the Astros who are in desperate need of some good news in 2020. 100%.

I mean, I said, I think last week on the air, I said this week on our Houston Chronicle videos that we're doing at Texas Sports Nation, that the rockets will drive you crazy. The Astros just make you drink more. And 2020, whether it's, you know, some serious heavy stuff, Prosecco or Kool-Aid, you know, the bad Kool-Aid, the super sugary Kool-Kolay that's not good for you that you don't like. the Astros have just been, I mean, completely unpredictable. Nobody, you know, for as much Ross as we've talked about the 60-game season and all the issues, nobody in the world could have predicted what the Astros would be going through, what they'd be dealing with, you know, the lack of starting pitching, the lack of the bullpen, but they're still in it.

And you add Jordan Alvarez to this lineup. He was the player outside of everyone else in the organization. I was the most excited. I mean, just very simple, excited to watch this year, because in a 60-game season, if he gets hot, he can have 15 home runs. And for him to not be with the team for almost the entire first start of the season, but to get him back with about 15 days before the trade deadline, this is your acquisition.

I mean, this is your big move. Now you have to hope that he comes up and he immediately starts clubbing home runs and raking. But we've seen that before. And there's nobody like him on that roster. As deep as that lineup is, Ross, there's nobody like him when he's connecting and he's locked in. And it's going to be such a unique situation for him because there won't be any fans. It's obviously it's the pandemic. It's Corona Baseball.

There is the obvious potential that he could jumpstart this team. Pitching is still going to be an issue all year. But if they can put up five, six, seven runs a game and it's harder to pitch around, you know, player A, player B, player C, he can carry you for a month. Yeah, and that's what I was going to ask you, Brian, about just how do you see the state of the Astros now? You get Yoron Alvarez back. You look at the last two starts from Lance McCullors and Zach Granky, both of them pitching very well. I mean, I think we could see where it looked like we couldn't see it a week ago.

Maybe we can see where this Astros team can be good to very good and maybe even start contending. I'm hesitant just personally to say very good or contending right now because you're missing your ace, you're missing your closure. Now, the Verlander thing is going to be very interesting. I saw the report for MLV.com just watching that play out. You know, the Chronicles reported that he is out for the season. That's obviously a huge, huge wild card. But the Astros haven't been able to give any concrete information about Verlander since this all started.

But I'm hesitant to say contend until this team can start to put it together, until Hose-L-2-Vey can start hitting, until Josh Reddick can be a little more consistent. And, you know, on and on. I mean, they've dealt with injuries through the lineup. But look, you have Altova, you have Bregman, you have Alvarez now, you have Brantley, you have Gurio, you have Correa. That is one of the best lineups in baseball, which is why it's been so crazy. Even when all the injuries were all this team lost five straight in a 60 game season, that they were, you know, six and nine, that they're still, as we speak, in third place in the AOS, right? I mean, there's no right now in terms of making the playoffs, but they're almost a third of the way through

season. So McCullors was encouraging. He's got me more consistent. Grinky looked like the number one starter. I mean, you know, he's had those moments. Maybe he's starting to put it together with Verlander out. So the potential is there, but I've got to see this team start to look a little like

the 17, 18, 19 team before I started getting really excited about them again. All right, Brian Smith of the Houston Chronicle here on Sports Talk 790. Brian, let's go ahead and pivot to the Rockets. They know they have the game today. It'll be interesting to see what goes on with the starters. We know that Russell Westbrook is out, and that's the wild card.

We know that they're locked in against the Oklahoma City Thunder. What is your confidence level with the Rockets against the Thunder without Russell Westbrook for a couple of games and then with him? It is the unknown. I mean, there's no way anybody could have any certainty about this series right now. I mean, James Hardin's the best score in the NBA. They, if this team is hot and they're hitting their threes, they're one of the most dangerous teams in the NBA.

But every good Rocket fan knows this year as crazy as Hardin's numbers have been again. I mean, Westbrook, you know, since January, often, has been their best overall player. Ross, if he misses one or two games, they can survive. I can still see them winning the series if they're hot and Hardin plays his butt off for seven games without Russell Westbrook.

Let's say he misses three games, four games. There's no home court advantage. It's not like you have to go back to OKC. I mean, you're taking out a huge. huge, huge advantage theoretically in the series for Oklahoma City. Without home corner advantage, obviously. It's 50-50. That impacts the Rockets as well.

I still believe the Rockets will win this series, but Ross is Covington and Eric Gordon, especially Eric Gordon. I mean, Eric Gordon is getting paid way too much money. One of the extension, got it. Injuries are injuries. But it's been like this entire season for him. If he can't step up, the Russell Westbrook out, they're not winning this series.

I still think they have enough talent to win it. Mike Dan Tony's got to step up. You factor in small ball. This is the most loaded series in the NBA in the first round, and all of a sudden, Russell Westbrook's not playing. So they can get down 2 to 1, get Westbrook back. I still think they're win. But if they're down 2-0 and you're not getting Westbrook back to game 4,

I mean, this team season can be over. And Ross, if this team's season's over, and I'm writing about this on Sunday's Chronicle, and they lose in the first round when you have, James Harden and Russell Westbrook, the same season you traded Chris Pau to Oklahoma City. Mike Dantone's gone. Darryl Morey should be gone. At some point, Tom and Fritita's got to realize that what we have just isn't good enough.

Hopefully, that doesn't happen to this team. And that's the question, Brian. It's kind of a where do you go from here? Let's just say, obviously, I think if they would win this series and then they get to the Lakers and then they get to the Lakers and let's say somehow they defeat them and then maybe lose to the Clippers. And they could. They very well could. Westbrook, if they're clicking, I think they could definitely beat the Lakers, especially you don't have to go to L.A.

I mean, if you're the lesser team in some ways not having a home court advantage, you know, for the better team on paper, completely plays, you know, and your favorite in the Florida bubble. Yeah, I'm saying I think they could make the Western fine. The ceiling is very high for the rockets, but let's say that they go to the kind of the middle ground, where they get out of the first round and then they fall in six or seven games to the Lakers. Where do you think that Tillman goes from there?

Well, there are a couple huge factors that are completely unpredictable that were not there. It's a great question, Ross, that were not there five months ago. Number one, the coronavirus pandemic. Number one, Tillman Threata, you know, a multi-billionaire, I guess it's, what do you, I mean, five years ago, we would have said it was a humble brag. If you say you can afford to lose a billion dollars because you've got a few billion more, I think during a coronavirus pandemic and, you know, layoffs and on and on, that's a little tone deaf. But, you know, you can say that when you're billionaire. So there are a couple complete unknowns that were not there five months ago. I know this right now.

The Houston Rockets underperformed last year, right? And the Houston Rockets have underperformed this year. And James Hardin, you know, for all the pros and all the cons, you have the best score in the NBA. He does play defense. The focus can come and go. It came and went during the regular season. But you cannot.

It's kind of like, it'd be like wasting to Sean Watson the entire prime of his career. You know, they traded the way DeAndre Hopkins, but they did start to put a line together. And they started to, on some level, build the team around him. You cannot, if you're a Tillman for Tita and you buy this team for Les Alexander, waste the end of the prime of James Hardin's career. And you just can't keep trying to think that it's going to hope that it gets better next year. Maybe we won't have this commenter station in the month, Ross. Maybe they beat the Lakers in the second round.

They're in the Western Conference finals. it all clicks, they're in the NBA finals. But if they fall short, that's two straight years under Dan Tony. They've fallen short. You have a, he's literally a lame duck. He could walk away at any point. Helman has not backed him, and there's going to be the back and forth with the agent on and on,

but the Rockets have not backed Antony. And Dan Tony, most importantly, has not attached two cells to the Rockets long term. I'm not saying you have to blow it up, but you have to change it. And if it doesn't work, maybe you want to try to play real basketball for 82 games and not go small ball.

You know, I mean, that's, this is the most frustrating, exciting, exciting, perplexing, fascinating team and the NBA. And you have so many back stories and you have, you know, so much going on at one time. And the potential still there, but Ross, it could all fall apart. And they're, you know, basically, I guess building around Hardin and Westbrook. But I don't know how you do that when those two guys make that much money for this much longer. they have to win now. Yeah, and I can't wait to get my hopes up as a Rockets fan and be disappointed yet again, Brian.

All right, let's, before we get you out, Brian, appreciate the time as always. What do you got going on at the, hold on, Houston Chronicle.com? I know Cron.com is no more. We've been thinking it every two weeks now, but Houston Chronicle.com, and look, we've been covering Texans, Rock, Astros, U of H, all the high schools. I mean, everything, college football, you know, nonstop, we're five months during the chronic virus pandemic. still doing it. Every time I come on, I appreciate it, but there's only one thing I'm going to pitch, you know, plug, and that's Houston Chronicle.com. All right, thanks a lot,

Brian. Appreciate the time. We'll talk to you next week. Thank you, Ross. All right, Brian Smith of the Houston Chronicle. You can find him on Twitter at Cron Brian Smith. We're going to take a quick break here on the Matt Thomas show without Matt Thomas. You guys want to react to anything he said. We'll talk some Astros. We're talking some

Rockets. Yord on his back, baby. It's Yordon Day. 713, 2, 1-2-5-790. The phone number 7-1-3-2-790. I can.