The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian T. Smith On Astros Struggles & Why He Doesn't Fear Anyone For Rockets

Episode Date: August 7, 2020

Brian T. Smith On Astros Struggles & Why He Doesn't Fear Anyone For Rockets

This is the Matt Thomas Show. 2.01 on the final hour of Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. We always look forward to our Friday 2 o'clock visits with the one and only. Brian T. Smith of the Houston Chronicle. BTS, I got to be honest with you. I don't know if you take blood pressure medicine. I know if sports makes you take it. But the Astero season is going to make you get that medicine

because nights like last night, I don't think. think are going to go away for quite some period of time unless the Astros make a significant move to get a starter and or a reliever and or both. Factually, Matt, I don't care what science says or stat says or some informal Internet poll says. I know this for a fact. Not speaking personally, just for the United States of America. Factually, during the coronavirus, America's obviously been drinking more. That was before the Astros' 2020 season.

started. Thanks to the 2020 Astros, Americans are drinking even more than before. I mean, chaos, right? I mean, who's in the bullpen? You know, who's on first? The lineup's not an issue so much, even though, you know, you've had Brantley in and out and, you know, some other guys. But, Matt, this bullpen, this rotation, Lance McCuller's Jr., Jack Grinky, you know, I know some people on Twitter kind of are okay with Grinky. In terms of what he's done with the Astros, I've said this many times, I believe, overall he's disappointed. You know, Christian Javier, Christian Javier might be their best pitcher right now,

and nobody was thinking that the entire season would, you know, come down to, could he save them every five days? So the fact that they're six and six is actually promising and encouraging because it really does feel like Matt, they could be three and nine right now. Here's the problem is that when you brag on a bullpen, it's great, but you also want to brag on a bullpen that's

been there and done that. You've got about nine guys with about 20 innings of Major League Baseball experience. The pressures will increase the time they will see these teams. Remember, they're also seeing the same teams over and over and over again during the 60-game stretch. To think that Mr. Taylor

was going to be able to go an entire season without giving up an earn run is crazy. the fact that you would have thought Chub would have been an absolute late game closer. That's just not true, not fair to him either. I was just a little blown away by how quickly Ryan Presley fell apart last night. And again, no matter if you're a rookie or you're a 15-year veteran, you walk the opening batter or the leadoff hitter in any inning, especially the one that you're trying to save,

and that usually is doomsday for the particular team. Yeah, but I mean, not in his defense, but in his defense, Matt, that's not his role. I mean, he's been a fantastic, you know, set up man for a couple years now. And obviously, you know, it's had some, you know, whatever, you know, injury issues or, you know, been a little in and out. But he's, that is not his role. That's not why he was brought to the Astros. I think it says a lot about the, you know, they have depth within the organization and they're able to keep moving names around.

but in terms of, you know, oh my gosh, 2015, 17, 18, 19 talent, it's just not there anymore. And, you know, you began this by talking about trades. And I know, you know, with the trade deadline and this crazy 60 game season, it's not that far away. But Matt, I mean, they still have names that could trade, but they don't have nearly what they used to, you know, two years ago, three years ago. And so if you're going to try to make one of those moves, Jeff Luno dealt with this every year. You're hurting yourself in the short term, I mean, in the long term, for the potential of short term game. And they don't have those names anymore. It's unbelievable that the, you know, you take the science stealing scandal away,

AJ Hens, Jeff Luno, all the changes. You take all that away, which is impossible to do. But let's just theoretically do that. they still should never be in this position. If you have Altoouvae and Bregman and Springer and Correa and Brantley and Guriel, you have one of the best line of some baseball. Their bullpen is, and they're kind of holding on, that's the crazy part. But yeah, it can't last.

I mean, maybe on some level the 60-game season helps them. I think it'd be even worse, Matt, in 150-game season. I mean, the idea of these guys having to piece this together, Dusty Baker, having to piece it together, May, June, July, August, and September, they're probably not making the playoffs that way. And this year, all you have to do is finishing second place in your division. You're making the playoffs. So they still have the lineup to, you know, put up seven runs a night.

You still have Grinky, and hopefully McCullors can figure it out. But there's, you know, once you lose Verlander and you lose her sooner, this is not a World Series contender. and this right now feels like a team that's just going to be lucky to make the playoffs unless something significantly changes. Yeah, my guess is a team at 500 because eight teams making in each league is going to make the playoffs, and the Astros might be in that category barring a trade. Here's the facts, and we'll move on to one more Astro thing after this.

They've lost two aces, one to injury, one to the New York Yankees. They lost a closer to the injury. They lost their next best reliever to free agency, and it didn't replenish. when you don't replenish, this is what you get stuck with. So I can't, this is not a complete surprise. You just couldn't believe that the sheer number of injuries have forced a bunch of players you've never heard of. One of the thing I want to get to. Go ahead.

That's exactly it. Go ahead. So we have had this debate, and this is what talk radio does because we're talking to Astros about if only one sticks around who's the guy, George Springer or Carlos Correa. and if you would have said this argument before the start of the season, it is George has got to be here no matter what. Here's the problem. He's the much older of the two players.

He's having a, well, he's hit well lately, but it's been not nearly what it was in previous years. Carlos is playing kind of the level we finally expected him to, and he does have age on his side. And oh, by the way, George Springer's probably going to be on the lineup tonight. May miss a couple of games because, again, he's such a defensive dog that he just loves to. to go out and grab everything, he winds up hurting himself

out there. So how often do you wrestle with thinking about the fact that the Astros are only going to keep one? Which one do you keep? Well, I mean, in terms of how often do I wrestle with it, I don't sit around and play that game, but we discuss this a lot. I write about it a lot in general.

And it's a fun question, it's a great question. And I'm going to be writing in Sunday's Chronicle, Matt, just just about where this franchise is. I mean, again, you can't talk about the Astros without talking about the sign stealing and everything. But at some point, if you're in Houston, if you're an Astros fan across the country, you have to move on, right?

Because there's a baseball team in the 2020 season. So one of the main stories of this entire season, yeah, it's Springer or it's Correa. And it's those futures. And it's not A.J. Hens and Jeff Roano deciding this. It's James Click. You know, and maybe a little bit of Jim Crane, a little bit of Dusty Baker. but it's a first-year general manager who's going to have to figure all this out.

The Correa thing, it just, it's fascinating. It's so Astros fans. Astros fans in 15, and rightfully so, I'm not knocking them here, but in 15 and 16 and 17,

for the most part, love Correa. And it really started the turn in 18, and really last year, with all the injuries and, you know, some of the mysterious stuff, potentially all, you know, all those things and some of the 790 hosts had a lot of fun with it. But Astros fans really turned against Correa. And that changed only after the sign-stealing scandal when he was the one guy during spring training. And I didn't fully agree with it.

I thought it was whiny and missed a lot of huge points. Like, oh, yeah, we cheated. But Correa went on national TV and dropped an F-bomb or, you know, whatever he said with him. Rosenthal and stood up for basically 20% of the Astros fan base. And ever since then, Astros fans are back in love with him, and he's playing really well now. So it's completely changed. It was always mostly Springer, Springer, Springer, and as Correa fell off, especially within the minds of fans, there was no question. If you had to pick one of the two for a fun radio bait, it would be George Springer.

Even I think going into this all season, it's changed. And that's not a knock on Springer. But yeah, Springer is also injury prone. And, you know, struggles to make it through 162 games season, mostly because he plays so damn hard. He's older. You know, maybe he starts to decline at some point. Maybe George Springer hits 500, you know, 450 home runs,

and he's doing this for 10 more years. If I had to pick, I would pick Springer. But I really do feel like the debate has changed so much. just in the last eight months within the fan base, especially because Karea is playing so well right now in the field and at the plate, and he's in some ways become this team's leader, post-sign sailing scandal, that the fan base would want Karea, which to me is very, very interesting,

considering that this fan base had really soured on Korea just 12, 18 months. Yeah, I think it's going to be a fantastic debate until Frayden's year. I think you could flip a coin and have a great debate either side. before I let you run, a thought or two about the Rockets. And I brought this up to Ross earlier in the show. We were kind of having some fun with it too. Look, when you take LeBron off the Lakers, it's not the same Laker team under any circumstance.

But I saw a vulnerability with them that makes me really want, and I shouldn't say openly rooting to play the Lakers in round one, too, because that'd be stupid to say that. But I'm still more on that clipper side than I am on Laker side, and I feel like I'm flip-flopping on that too, but it feels like to me that LeBron has said there's some issues in the bubble that he doesn't want to get into. They're not shooting threes particularly well. And 80 could have had 25 and 20 yesterday, and he was good.

But that rest of that team was very, very average. And I will take two megastars and a bunch of average players over a team of the clippers that can legitimately go seven or eight players deep. Look, number one, you know, the pre-bubble departure of Avery Bradley is not being talked about enough. Number two, I'm very hesitant to overreact the four games, you know, for the Western Conference number one seed. That being said, this is all unprecedented. You know, there's that word again. There's no home court advantage, right? So you're going to have to make it through four rounds and you're not playing all your games as staples.

Center and you have those LA fans behind you and it's the Kobe season and everything means so much locally and oh, it's so tough to go there. You know, Matt, that's all out the window. Number two, the Lakers were horrible last night. And yeah, you know, they were missing LeBron James. The Rockets were missing Russell Westbrook and Eric Gordon. I'm sorry, Alex Crusoe. Alex Brousseau is not Eric Gordon.

I'm not saying the Lakers don't scare me. They obviously are a completely different team with LeBron James. But I fully agree with you. Now, the Rockets doesn't keep playing defense. They have to stay healthy. It's not about winning the first or second round for this team or the Lakers. It's about being in the NBA finals, winning the finals. But I continue to like the potential of this Rockets team, the way that they're playing right now.

They're going to get Eric Gordon back. The Lakers don't have the depth, Matt. They don't have the depth. They don't have the chemistry. So if they have LeBron, I still believe they should come out of the West. But I don't think they're winning the finals. I would still pick the Bucks. and they've had some issues.

But the Rockets in the West, Utah's falling off. You know, Dallas is sort of falling off. Denver stepped up a little bit. Kind of there. Yeah. You know, I feel like all the Rockets have to do, stay healthy and keep playing defense. And if they do that, they should be in the Western Conference finals. And maybe they, if they're playing the Lakers in the second round,

they're a deeper, you know, more driven, you know, more popular, you know, more popular. college team than the Lakers are really with two superstars and not much else. Yeah, the fear factor I had with the Golden State the last four or five years is not found without either the clippers or the Lakers at this point. No, nobody scared me in the West. That's great. Especially Matt with no home court advantage. You're playing in a bubble basically on television and a high school holiday tournament.

The best team, the healthiest team, is going to win. We'll leave it that. Have a great weekend. and talk to you next week. Thank you for the time. Take care. Thanks a lot, Matt. You got it, Brian T. Smith, Chronicle Sports. You can find him on Twitter at Cron Brian Smith. More of your phone calls coming up in the next segment of the show. And in 15 minutes, we will have a...

We're doing production value on the show today. We have all of the theme songs from all the TV shows that Ross and I will take with us down to our bubble. It is the Matt Thomas show with the Fantasy 5 and 15 minutes here on Sports Talk 790.