The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Chris Devenski Joins The Matt Thomas Show from Spring Training

Episode Date: February 20, 2020

Chris Devenski Joins The Matt Thomas Show At Spring Training

My bestie Chris Tivinsky is with us here on the Matt Thomas show. Debo, I always open up a conversation with, how's your offseason treating you? And so I'm going to just pass on that this year. Are you okay with that? Yeah, offseason. What off season. No question. Are you ready to start playing some games?

I mean, you guys have been down here for a week, and I always feel like that's the obligatory first question on the get-go is you're tired of warming up and doing the stretching and you're ready to see some live pitching or hitting? Yeah, I want to get in a game. get in the fire now, see some live action and go out there and compete. It's that time now. The weather's been treating y'all okay, though. It's not like it's 115 degrees at this point.

No, it's hot out there today, though. It's a little smoky, little steamy. We got the headband game working very nicely here. You know what this actually is? I took a arm sleeve and I cut it right in the middle, and it's all uneven and stuff, but, you know, I guess the job done. That feels like it's a second career of yours once baseball is done. Possibly.

Possibly. All right, let's get to the phone call or text you got from Will Harris. And he says to you, bro, love you, but I'm moving to the Washington Nationals. What was that like? It was kind of weird, you know. You know, he's, you know, I'm happy for Will. I'm happy he signed his deal. Great man.

Learned a lot from him. You know, as me coming up, young little rookie, Will Harris, you know, big leader in the bullpen. And, you know, he's right across the way. I haven't seen him yet. Hopefully, I'll see him pitch. You know, I'd love to watch him pitch. Great cutter, you know, had a great year for us last year. And, you know, a great family man.

Just, you know, kind of weird and kind of sad to see him go. All right. So once you get past that, you're like, okay, somebody's going to pick up those innings. And I'm thinking in the back of your mind, you've got to be saying, I'm the guys going to be able to do that for this team in 2020. Yeah, for sure, opportunity. You know, I'm ready.

You know, coming off a year that I wasn't happy with, I mean, personally, you know, took the off season to make some adjustments, make some sacrifices, get my body in better shape, just to feel overall better with my health and, you know, feel better out there on the mound. So that means what? Like, workout starting sooner, maybe backing off on the, you know, favorite bear and or food of choice? There you go. Which one beer? That's it. No, no beer. I'm not a big drinker.

You know, I enjoy one every once in a while. But, you know, for everyone who's overage, I enjoy one every once in a while. But, you know, snacks and goodies, you know, I have a sweet tooth. But, you know, I said, you know what? It's my career. It's my livelihood. You know, it's what I do every day. I got to be in the best shape to perform to help the Houston Astros win.

So I got these half bag of M&M. Oh, let me see those. Yeah, right there. What's your toughest one to give up? Your snack. Peanut butter M&Ms. Those aren't peanut butter M&F, I'm not even looking at it. Fair enough. Fair enough.

No, but yeah, I mean, I'm, you know. That's your weakness, the peanut butter M&Ms? Ah, yeah, man. Yeah, those are tough to see them go. That's funny. It's tougher to see Will go, though. Yeah, oh, the snack. Okay, so do you spend a lot of time,

obviously you said your own personal performance wasn't up to expectations? Do you spend a lot of time going over what I could have done, what pitch I should have thrown, Do you watch yourself on video? What is it like for a team that went as deep as it did and has played as long as it did to try to get away from the sport? But yet realize you want to be better in 2020 than you were a year ago. Yeah. I mean, for me, I think it was minor adjustments.

You know, little stuff that, you know, I was so close to locking in and being great. Yeah. But kind of at the same time felt like it was far away. So I had to, you know, I felt like I had to go through what I went through my fails. failures that I went through and I can make my adjustments from there. So just little little adjustments with you know each of my pitches releasing of pitches, you know the way I spin the ball out of my hand, you know little things like that. Brent Strom, do you visit with him at all during the offices in at all? Phone calls,

maybe vacation together. Yeah, a few, no no fishing in Mexico but a few or you know Tucson where he's from you know I didn't make any trips to Tucson but you know phone calls here and there. you know, going over stuff that we were working on last year and, you know, kind of just building off of where we finished last year. I mean, what type of things you do guys? How much, what percentage in the offseason is, you know, just chatting or, you know, shooting the breeze and talking about whatever? Or how much of it is it straight baseball? You know, probably from December on, you know, it's basically back into baseball.

You know, take some time, give myself, you know, some time to recover. and, you know, say no to all those snacks. But, yeah, you know, I mean, I work out with a group of guys in San Diego, you know, minor league guys, some big league guys. And, you know, we just talk baseball and try to, you know, better each other and, you know, want everyone to do good and succeed. And you talked about tinkering with a couple of things. What is the difference between Chris Tivinsky locked in on getting guys out with no problem

and Chris Tivinsky struggling a little bit out there? I think it's my fastball command. Fastball command and the backspin I have on the ball and the life and the hop. So, you know, I made an effort to really, you know, do a lot of drills that, where I just simplify my release point, you know, with my fingers, you know. The last scene touching the ball is my fingers. So, you know, I'm spending the ball off my fingers as best as I can. Is there anybody non-named Brent Strom that you can go to in terms of this guys and this

pitching staff that you're like, oh, he saw something. noticing that. Thanks for pointing that out. Is there a lot of self-diagnose when you're looking at yourself and getting yourself ready for the spring training? I mean, I think, you know, that's what makes this team great. You know, you can go to any guy and especially who you're playing catch with that day, you know, depending on the guy you're playing catch with, you know, say, hey, you know, look for this, look for the spin on the ball like this. You know, always trying to get feedback and always trying to, you know, figure out a way to better yourself because this game's all about adjustments. Now to the elephant in the room, we'll get it out of the way.

You've got a fan base that is listening to this show right now that is digging for you guys to come back to Houston, Texas, that are like, let's just go, let's play some baseball. You've gotten your PR beatings everywhere. What do you say to those folks back home as you guys are getting ready for your first spring training game coming up here in a couple of days? Just, hey, just wait for us kind of thing? We'll be coming? We'll be on the train to Houston. Yeah. We'll be on the train to.

We're not on the train to Georgia. We're on the train to Houston. So, you know, we'll be, we're excited to go there and, you know, see the people there with open arms and ready to rock and roll, man. Have a good year, you know. And, you know, not just a good year, but, you know, go out there and, you know, win every pitch. You know, the safest thing for y'all is to get off. I've been telling the audience, have like a nine game lead in the middle of May.

I mean, that would be like very nice, right? A lot of the other stuff will kind of dissipate, I think. Yeah. I'm on board with that. Yeah. And Zach Granky's got some new rules. He does not hear yet, which at some point you're going to get that, right? You can come into spring training whenever you want to.

Yeah, yeah, sure. Why not? The Divinsky rules. I like the Divinsky rules. What other DaVinsky rules do you want? If you could change things up in spring training? No snacks in the clubhouse. Man, you all about the snacks.

Too many temptations, right? I'm a change, man. I'm disciplined, man. You know, I've always been disciplined in my life. You know, I come from a background where my father's disciplined me and, you know, and, yeah, I'm not going to give in, you know, I'm not going to, I'm not going to be the sloppy guy I felt like I was last year at the end of the year, you know, come up short of winning at all, you know, we have, we're better, we're better than, you know, losing that, you know, so, you know, I think we got a, we got a great shot this year. So you're telling me you could live without snacks, but not live without the cards or you have to have both? Cards? Yeah. There's like six decks of cards in there every day.

Oh, I mean, you all are chasing. No, cards is fun, man. That's, you know, that's, you know, that's, that's, that's good. Yeah, that's good. And, you know, that gets the bonding with the teammates going and stuff. That's fun. That's competitive, you know. We all go in there trying to win. All right, last thing. Give me something anecdotal about Dusty Baker so far.

Story-wise. I mean, he's, I just want to hug him after. Pretty cool, man. Dusty Baker gave me a tight-eyed shirt. So I'm pretty, that was a great gesture. You know, I'm thankful for that. It goes with the hair. Yeah, so I rocked it, you know.

What did other guys get? I'm not sure. He's probably, you know, you know, talking to everybody and give us some good, you know, hand out some good gestures too. But, you know, he's good to be around. And, you know, I just want to hear him talk and listen to him and his baseball knowledge. And, you know, the career he's had is, you know, it's like an honor. It's an honor to be here and to play for a man like that.

You're about the 10th player that said that so far. Yeah. It's crazy that for a guy that has come in relatively new, trying to learn you guys as much as possible, but that you all have had such an appreciation for him. I think he's going to pick up on that pretty quickly because he hasn't already. The thing, I met him a few years ago. We did a, we did. He was the main speaker at a dinner in Fresno,

and I was like a guest speaker there, and even being there and, you know, meeting him in the hotel lobby and just, you know, it's Dusty Baker. Right. Which you know, anyone who knows a game of baseball knows what, you know, some of the accomplishments he has, and it's just, you know, like I said, it's an honor to be in the same room.

Man, you're taking care of Fresno. You got San Diego? What other? parts of California have you addressed here lately? What's the worst city in California? The worst city in California? I mean, I'm not a hater, but...

Come on now. You can tell the truth. I mean, I... Who said that? I was going to say... I was going to say... I was going to say, Baker'sfield, or... I mean, I was going to... Highway 99, there ain't much up there,

but, you know, I got to... I got to give a shout out to, you know, the 5-6-2-7-14 area as well. You know, Cerritos, San... Cornato... Island, right? You got to take care of that area. Corona Island. Too fancy.

No, that's, hey, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, you know, so, but, uh, yeah, you know, so, but like it, you know, I want to, you know, thank, thank you for the support and, and being there for us and, uh, you know, like you said, we're going to go out there and rock and roll for them.