The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Game 5: Rockets vs. Lakers, Can the Rockets Keep the Series Alive? Astros Lose Game 1 vs Orioles

Episode Date: April 29, 2026

Game 5: Rockets vs. Lakers, Can the Rockets Keep the Series Alive? Astros Lose Game 1 vs Orioles 

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 10-01 in H-town. Good morning and welcome to a Wednesday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross from Los Angeles. This is Sports Talk 790. Blaze Alexander, who came on for defense in the eighth inning, making the game-ending play, and Baltimore takes the first game of this series, five to three. This was Corpus Christi.

Ross, good morning to you. Good morning, Houston, Texas. Matthew, how are you? All right, I've been better. Okay. Everything, I mean, flight was okay? Yeah, these allergies are... Bad allergies?

destroying me, yeah. Oh, yeah, you sound a little stuffy. Yeah, I can't hear out of my left ear very well. So I've got prescriptions coming in right after the show. So as soon as the show ends at noon, I'll be going to get those. Good God. I know. It sucks.

I mean, I look great. I'll take your word for it, I guess. I mean, you know, you saw me yesterday. No, you didn't see me yesterday. Oh, I look spectacular, Ross. I just do. Yeah, I don't see much of you, but that's all right. Don't say what you want to say.

I know what exactly what you want to say. You're going to see a lot more of me. I know you're going to say that. I wasn't going to say anything. You were thinking it? No, I wasn't. What were you thinking? Good morning, everybody?

Yeah. Hope you're having a great whatever day this is, Wednesday? Yeah. Beautiful Los Angeles, 68 degrees on a cloud in the sky. Mm-hmm. No mudslides at this point, no earthquakes. That's good. No alarms going off in the hotel.

I mean, things are going pretty well. I mean, yeah, it's a pretty desirable area. Very expensive. And it's an elimination day, but not for the rocket. It's a must win day. Must win Wednesday. Yes. Some say for both teams.

Oh, Kendrick Perkins apparently said that, right? I know. I'm just trying to create a narrative. You can get hours and hours to fill on television and radio. I mean, I guess. How many hours is Kendrick Perkins on TV? Well, it basically isn't ESPN just Dan O'Lofsky, Mike Greenberg, and Kendrick Perkins? Oh, Stephen A. Smith. Can't forget about that.

Yeah, they're breaking down, Kendrick Perkins, hockey talk. Yeah, up next, Dan Orlovsky with a one down of the U.S. Open, tennis and golf. And it's Kendrick Perkins on the Canadians versus the Predators. That's right. Mike Greenberg gives you a rundown of the latest WWF, WWE of pay-per-view. They were running with a bunch of that content yesterday. This is ridiculous. It's embarrassing.

I'm glad you, even as a wrestling lover, I love wrestling, can recognize how ridiculous it is. It is absolutely. Can I be get off my long guy for one second? Yes. This is, I swear to God, I'll try. I try to minimize this as often as possible. Can I get my ESPN back?

the ESPN that we loved. No, I know the highlight world is gone. Playing sports center hour after hour. That's just not going to. Yeah, it used to be the only place we could get the highlights. Right. I mean, I'm ready to get past that. But I'm to try to legitimize the WWE in conversation to have these,

I'm sorry. You know what? I'm going to get back on my lawn. You're walking on my lawn, Ross. You're a liar. The reality is it's just not as good as it used to be. But they don't care because they're looking for a new generation of people to watch. And it's working.

Yeah. And it's been an incremental change because they have years. This is the thing. And we always blame ESPN. Like, they have years of data. This is what works. This is what they like. This is what we like.

Everyone likes screaming and yelling and the hot takes because that's what gets viewed. So that's why they do it. Thankfully, you and I have not been able to. to do too much of that or have to do too much of that in 16 years. We've never manufactured a topic or manufactured an argument. No. But everything's manufactured, yeah.

Everything on ESPN is manufactured. And it's crazy to me that people still love it and buy into it. Yeah. I mean, there's a reason why Stephen A makes more money than Pat McAfee are those guys crushing it because that's what they want. Yeah. All right. That was a nice segue to Rossi to not having to bring up the Astros yesterday.

And I could. I got here to the hotel and I'm like, you know what? I'm going to Chromecast the game, so I did. I watch it on the TV here. I mean, they lost a bullpen game 5 to 3. It wasn't the worst thing ever. Wasn't like, the worst thing. It wasn't a disgrace.

I mean, could have done better with the basis loaded. Well, the runners in scoring position numbers are not good from last night. I know. Hitting coaches had a bad night. Bullpen coach had to work a lot. You've got a bunch of guys. Yeah. Ryan Weiss, well, I was going to say came up huge, but he got a lot of outs for you.

Well, kind of we can give you three. Yeah. It is what it is. Yes. Joe Spotty yesterday saying he would be in an opener roll. Yeah. He was fairly efficient. Three innings, 42 pitches.

I mean, if you could have gotten a fourth inning, I'd been fine again, now your bullpen is a little taxed. Here's the issue. There could be some serious rain in Baltimore today, so that could be, there could be a washout, so you never know how it's going to turn out. You're going to double-headed tomorrow? I don't know how that works.

Because, I mean, I don't think they won't. want to make a separate trip back to Baltimore for just one game. I mean, they'll try to get today's game in for sure, but, you know, it's one of those situations. Like, what do they'll be later? Oh, so Adams might have to do a full show. Oh, no. Don't bring that up to them. That'll make them cranky.

Why? They won't be cranky. I like to do it. We got a very short show tomorrow. How was a Wexler show yesterday? The hour. Wexler, I was good. We talked Astros.

We talked Rockets. And we talked Diana Rossini, I think. the Spotify playlist thing. Did you see that? Yeah, didn't she name it after them or something? She made a playlist called like, I don't know, don't give up or whatever, and sent it to a guy named a user named Mike

after the Titans were on a four-year-old, coincidentally at the same time frame that the Titans were on a four-game losing streak. She cares about somebody else's man. No, it's her man, too, I guess. Well, apparently. I mean, when you're long-term side, piece is kind of your man too, I guess.

Yeah, I mean, she basically lived a second life with him. I mean, he lived a second life. And I'll say this, do you think the temperature is turning up on him at all because of all the stuff that's coming out? I think a little bit, but I don't know, it's certainly not enough to get him fired. But again, I keep going back to, and I don't know,

everybody just shuts me down. It's like, this is very unethical for Mike Vrable. Advantage just could have been gained for him in, like, on the field, like knowing injuries, knowing about, I don't know, game planning or whatever. Right. Because as I was telling a Wexler and he was pushing back on me yesterday, Matthew,

you hear about injuries that you cannot report. I hear about injuries that I can't, and, you know, any reporter. Chandler Rome, Brian McTaggart, Diana Rossini is a reporter. Of course, those guys are much more ethical. But those reporters hear things they cannot report. Yes. And it is conceivable. She knew stuff that she was relaying to Mike Rable that was not for public.

there is no doubt in my mind that happened. Yeah. There are blurred lines beyond the sexual activity. Exactly. So if you're a coach and there's somebody questionable on your injury report and Diana Rossini's telling you he ain't going to play, you gain an advantage, right? Right.

Now, here's the thing, Ross, and we've talked about this already. The NFL just hasn't cared. They don't see anything of this being an issue at all. So it will not be an issue to the NFL decides It's an issue. Now, the question is going to be what NFL teams are going to run to tagliaboo to to Roger Goodell and say, why aren't you looking at this?

There is intelligence being disseminated between a lead NFL reporter. I mean, Diana Rossini is not just a generic works for the Akron Beacon Journal. I mean, she's a national football reporter that was working for ESPN and then the athletic. I mean, she was in high esteem among NFL beat reporters. So, yeah, it's funny, though, TMZ is chasing after Rabel's wife. It's getting really ugly, really, really ugly. TMZ is going to TMZ. Yeah, TMZ, that's what they do.

They take emotions out of it for sure. They absolutely do. All right, Rossi, we got our friend Brian Bogus Hevick's going to join the show today at 11 o'clock. Looking forward to that. We have shut your bum ass up at 1130 today. We'll have the news anew. We'll have a believe it or not today at 150. And then we have a word that probably Austin Reeves are going to play tonight for the Los Angeles Lakers.

How are we feeling? I'm feeling like 1, 2, 3, Kanku. You asked me. I answered. I want to be wrong. I'm Rudy for the Rockets. I mean, we're Houston Rocket fans before we were anything else. I am huge into sports because of the Rockets Championships.

They happened when I was 9 and 10 years old. Oh, yeah. that's the perfect time to get ingrained as a lifelong fan. And that's what happened to me. Love the Rockets. Akema Langeon, on to Stevie Francis, and Cotino Mobley and Louis Scola and Ron Artec. And, like, I mean, all of that. I used to watch every game when it was, they were terrible on 20 vision.

Oh, you're 20 vision guy. Good for you. Were you at 51? 51, yes. I remember watching when I first came back to Houston in 2010, Matt Bullard and Bill R.L. doing the games, and they're like celebrating a 42 and 40 season. I'm like, we're so close. I'm like, oh, my God, what a distance from the championship years.

You remember watching Steve Francis and Cotino Movley and Walt Williams and Calvin Cato. That was a rough watch for a while. Yes. It was not great. You're convincing yourself up. Michael Dickerson's going to become a player. What was your favorite Bryce Drew as a rocket moment? Oh man, Luther Head out of Illinois.

I'm really feeling like he could become a good point guard for the Rockets. Right, right. Some interesting times. Michael Dickerson, what a poll for you. All right, we're not going to go back to yesteryear Rocket Talk, because, man, that means we're done with the season, so I don't want to get to that. 713-212-5-79 if you want to join the show. you 10 o'clockers we love you ross tell the audience how much we love the 10 o'clockers we love the 10 o'clockers and we'll only be talking to the 10 o'clockers tomorrow

yeah i get this i think this will be the shortest show and no are you gonna be on what's to deal with that i guess i should read your text yeah i'll be on okay and then i think dan's gonna do the on deck show yes he is he volunteered and i was like go ahead brother yeah yeah because i'm gonna as soon as a rocket season's over with and i get back from volleyball if i go i will be doing a lot of astros get you i will be pulling my weight here on the old 7-90-year team. Well, I'm going to potentially be on to, if the rocket's lose, until like 1 a.m.

So you can skip tomorrow if you want. I don't care. You know what? I might do that. Yeah, you can handle a half hour, I believe in you. Yeah, I mean, I can do it. Hmm. I might take you up on that.

You should. Let me tell you something. We are, you know, look. Team 790. We're Team 790. Maybe I'll call in. If the rockets are done for the season, I want to be on, I guess. Yeah, you might as well.

If we're going to, if we're going to say goodbye. of them for the same. Maybe I'll call in. I live five minutes from here. I'll come in. All right. 713-212-5-790. Astros suffered a defeat early in the series against Baltimore. And we come back. The Corpus Christi Box score, Rossi. Why?

Because that's what we do. We provide information for the show. It's fine. They always tell you don't pay attention to rehab numbers. Haven't you heard that? Yeah. But we'll at least read them. And Justin Verlanta got shelled in like Fayetteville one time. like it's all good. Okay, so we've got Tetsui Emai is the Justin Verlander of 2020. Absolutely.

I think they have the same exact track record in the major leagues. Yes, and both are got a first run path to the Hall of Fame. Was the mound too hard or too soft? You know what? Don't do that, Ross. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm asking. No. You know what you can blame?

You? The sushi and Corpus Christi. He did not eat sushi and Corpus Christi. You don't know that? Or maybe not at a restaurant. can we just get him whatever he needs hire personal chef i don't care what it is yeah i wouldn't control let's do it go fund me for a personal chef for him get his parents in town whatever creature comforts we need let's get to him there that he needs a head and seen it in a wall yeah absolutely

yeah let's get him some let's get him his his old main pieces or side pieces or some strange pieces how about just a piece yeah that's fine whatever it's going to take clear his mind 713-212-5-790. Join us here on a Wednesday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross with a word for Serta Pro Painters. Back in Houston. Jabari Smith had a couple of things to say about the Rockets and the game tonight against the Lakers.

We'll hear from him coming up at the bottom of the hour. But as promised, I do want to give you the stat line of Tatsuwe-Emi's performance yesterday during his appearance for AA Corpus Christi. Here we go. Two innings. six hits, five runs, three walks, two Ks, one homer and allowed, 59 pitches, 31 strikes. How are we feeling?

It was a disaster start for him. Not feeling great. I don't know. I'll have to. I did not hear Dana this morning. I'm curious and maybe Dan and Colford listening can help us tell us if there was a conversation about email. I'm sure they asked about email his performance according when he found out. But, yeah.

Yeah, the thing about that is it's just rehab start. And he's been feeling good. And we're really hopeful that he's going to be able to turn this thing around. And he was out there and he feels good. That's the important part. And this is a step in the right direction. And hopefully next time out, he can be feeling better. And we'll have him back with the big league club and thrown well.

That was an outstanding Dana-Bron impersonation and probably fairly accurate too. Thank you, Matthew. Because the reality is, you're right. A lot of guys go down there and they just try things. Right? I mean, that's what you do. It's almost like a spring training star. Yes, this is, of course, a unique situation, though, with him.

See, here's a thing that really worries me. This has, and it's not fair to him specifically, but it's something the Astros have done outside of their comfort zone. Now, granted, their new relationship with Dichen has opened up some avenues in the Far East that maybe weren't there, even, say, three years ago, Ross. So if there is a way to connect the Far East with there has been plenty of Major League talent that have gone to teams primarily in the West, but every team's got some assemblance of Far East talent, the Astros really haven't had a whole lot of it. They've had some, but not as compared to other teams. you went and got, what would you say? I don't know how many there were, the high-in free agents,

but EMI was a guy that when he signed with the Astros, that turned heads around Major League Baseball. This was a good sign. This was the Astros not relying exclusively on the Dominican Republic. This was not the Astros relying on their draft. This was the Astros saying, we're going to try something different. We have a corporate partner that wants to get involved.

This is like a start of a new relationship. and that's why everybody was so fired up for it. You might, remember he comes to Houston, he's throwing the H's up, and he's going to Rockets games, and he's hanging out and having, playing golf or eating dinner with his new bros. I mean, this was a wonderful relationship until he took the mound.

Yeah. This has to be fixed. It's very, very, it's unfolding, unfortunately, about as bad as it could have, right? I mean, he's having trouble adjusting to living in America, and he's not good on the mound. And he got hurt. Or we don't know, I mean,

how hurt he was, but he threw 60 pitches, so that's good. It's something he's bouncing back from quicker than everyone else. Let's put it that way. And then, yeah, and then he was bad in Corpus.

So, yes, of course, corpus outings can be bad, but that's with somebody with an established major league track record, it's a little bit easier of a pill to swallow. With Tatuille.

who has not thrown, who's not had a good outing in a major league, in the United States, he hasn't had a good outing. Anywhere. Corpus Christi, Houston, wherever. Seattle? Well, in Florida, it wasn't great. It was like, you know, he's getting used to it. Okay, well, then we can buy into that.

Yeah, weather's hot. I don't know. He likes the hot weather, right? I can't keep track. I don't know. You know, I'm not to discuss the meteorological situation in southeast Texas. Get your Google Translate out and let's go. Oh, by the way, he said three translators.

What does that mean? That's odd. Okay. In Sacramento, he wasn't that bad. Yeah, five and two-thirds. That's right. In Sacramento, he's getting all those whiffs and nine strikeouts. Well, it was decent there.

He likes Northern California. So, yeah, he's pitched in Houston, Sacramento, Seattle, and Corpus. It's only gone good in Sacramento. How has that happened? How is that possible? He's certainly getting to learn the union pretty well, right? Here's beautiful Sacramento, Tatsuya. I think they have like a train museum.

Check that out. Okay. this up like two weeks ago and you got mad at me so i'm just going to say to him here it is here it is if he sucks which is a chance and he's miserable he has to get out of the contract right i didn't get mad at you why would he turn down why would he opt out of all the money i mean it's possible right you're not you're not saying crazy stuff sometimes you say crazy stuff right isn't it a responsible thing to do no i don't want to i want to yeah yeah the principal thing would be to say you know what, this is not my bit, I need to go somewhere else.

No, there's not a principal thing? No, they signed him the contract. But aren't opt-outs for two reasons? Yeah. I'm not happy. He opt out if you're going to make more money. I think he's going to opt out. He's going to opt in. Do you think a player would tear their ACL at the end of the year? Guys, you know, the principal right thing to do is I'm going to opt out of my contract.

Did Fred Van Vleet turned down his salary this year? But that's because he was injured. This is E. Ma not liking being in the United States. That's different. Guys end up in places they don't like. John Wall sat on the bench for an entire year, made 40 mil. I'm just going to say it. There's going to be a brushback if he picks up his option.

If he's really, if this is who he is. We don't know. We don't know. That's right. I imagine he's going to have a better ERA than seven by the end of the season, and he's going to integrate at some point. It's obviously a very rocky start. You can be off to a rocky start and things can turn around.

If this ends up being a disaster and, He starts like melting down on the mound and taking his shoes off and sitting down like Zach Grinky and tossing up Ephes pitches. Yeah. Okay. It's going to get weird. But we'll see. It's off to a disaster start. But yeah, it's, there's a long way to go.

And I promise you, I will not bring this up again until after the off the program. You can. But if he's horrible, I don't believe you. First of all, I don't believe you. Second of all, he can, that's no. Why would he do that? Unless he really, really hates it here. and he wants to turn down all the...

I don't know. What's the average Japanese League salary? I have no idea. It would be the right thing to do. No, the right thing to do would be opting into the contract they signed you to and taking the money. But if he hates it here, why would he do that? Then he wouldn't.

Then you'll be right. Okay. Japanese league players average about 256... Yeah, he's staying. Okay, Mike. You forget this conversation. We're never having it again. Scott Borr's like...

You are taking this money. I don't care what you think about the United States. You are taking this coin. Earn an average salary. Oh, no, this is even worse. Yeah, top, top stars max out around $6 million. All right, this is a foolish conversation then. Scott Boris will not let him get out of the contractor.

No, yeah. It'll be a bad look, but hopefully this won't be a look. We won't even worry about discussing. All right, we'll go to the phones next. We're going to hear from Jabari Smith, too, as he was at practice yesterday before the board. We've always took the flight here to L.A. 713-212-5-790. Matt and Ross with you at 1035 on Sports Talk 790.

7-1-3-212-5-790 if you want to join us. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. I'm here in Los Angeles. Game number five of the Western Conference First Round Playoff series tonight. I think we're going to put it on KTRH and then flip it as well to KBME. So 740 and 790 will have the games. the only reason why we're just starting on KTRRH potentially because the Orioles Astros game could go a little bit late

and again, whether or not good in the Baltimore area for today. Ross, you'll have the launch pad at 8 o'clock over on KTRH. Is that correct? Yeah, so on News Radio 740, KTRH. I have to lock out like that when I'm on KTRH. It's just, I don't know. It's just something I have to do. Well, you sound more newsy.

I know. I can't help it. Well, for instance, I mean, I sound more newsy when I'm over there. Yeah, exactly. I don't know why. I just because, I mean, I've been listening to that kind of lockout since I was a kid, right? Back in the day, Jonathan, we used to listen to news on the radio. I know.

He's like, what? There was a, the catchphrase at KTRH when I was growing up was give us 30 minutes, we'll give you the world. Yes. Dad, mom, everybody, we would listen like, what's going on? We got to turn on it. News Radio 740, KTRH. So I always say it like that when I'm over there. It's funny.

If you did, if you talked to your girl, like you, talk to KTRH, but you'd have two different relationships. Really? Like if you're talking to your girl in 790 voice, what's up, girl? How can do it, baby? I don't love you. And at the end of the day, your mother's a bitch. Yeah, you stupid whore. And then if you go to 740, you know, honey,

I think you're beautiful. I think you're very important to me, and I look to have a long relationship with you for the rest of our lives right here on KTRH. That is so inside baseball. We're sorry. Honey, it's been two weeks. 7.90. Come on, girl. It's time.

7.40. We've had some relationship issues. Can we fix them now on KTRH? Never mind. All right. I'm stopping. We're done. It's so inside baseball.

We got some KTRH listeners here. Yeah, we do. It's fine. All right. Chapari Smith does not listen to KTRH. Yeah, point is, listen to KTRH for the game. Probably going to be KBME simulcast. as soon as the Astros coverage is over,

but who knows, because it's a 535 start, plus it will be post-game and perhaps rain-de-lead. Yeah. Imagine being in Baltimore in late April and rain delay. I mean, it looked miserable last night. People sitting in that stand, those stands. All, however many of them there were. Yeah.

It was a friend and family type atmosphere. All right. Here's Shabari Smith talking about getting ready for this one, and he was not afraid to say how he really felt about his squad. You know, just stay with it. Be us, be aggressive, play free. You know, we're obviously the better team, I feel like, so just knowing that, being confident, trusting our word.

He's just telling us to be us. Why do you think you're the better team in the series? We, us. I just feel like from top to bottom. You can say that's an opinion. You can say I'm biased, but I just think we're the better team. That was what Kevin Durant. was telling the guys because Kevin obviously did not practice with the squad and listed his out.

And so he was asked about what Kevin told the guys. And Barri says we're better, Rossi. I love the attitude. Uh-oh. I hear him and a haw. What's the matter? Well, again, I will start with Twitter's not real life. Uh-oh, here we go.

But everybody, not everybody. So many people crushing Jabari Smith Jr. for saying that. Two things. Number one, there have been four games in this series so far. far, yes, Matthew? How many games have the Rockets been the favorite in the Vegas odds? Every one of them. That would be four. Okay? So yes, it's okay for him to say they're the better team. They just haven't played better. Number two, what do you want him to say? You're in the playoffs. So yeah, I'm on board with Jabari. Go out there and say we're the better team. And he's

getting crushed by a bunch of people. It's ridiculous. I, you know what? I'm going to go with you because now, would we be saying that if we were doing Lakers Radio 790 right now? Probably not. But since we're not, we're doing the Houston side of things. I want you to feel good about it. We have to have we. The Rockets have to have swag. No, no.

You wear, you're on the broadcast team. They cut the check. You go say we. It's all good. Because I'm with these guys all the time. Because I mean, you know I live and die with this. I slam my hands on the table. Yeah, you got check signed by Tellman.

You're good. All right. I'm an employee. So, yeah. But I'm also employee of I Heart in 790, too. So there's a bunch of wheeze in this current conversation. I want to have the swag. I want to come here, and I want to see Diane Cannon's face move because she'll be sad.

You're not going to see that, no matter what. That's probably true. I was probably a bad choice on my thought on that. But I think people here now think it's over tonight, especially because Austin Rees is going to probably play. They should be believing that. Yeah. But we'll see. We'll see.

713-212-5-790 Christian Lamarck 790 Good morning of you, sir Good morning, Matt Thomas and Ross Villa Real. You know, I would usually come on here And do my usual gimmick, but 20 minutes ago When I heard y'all talk and I couldn't help But hear myself, you know,

Hear y'all talk about the yesteryear rockets The not just another basketball team Or be a part of something big rockets. I mean, let's face it, I'm only 13. but I'm older up to remember when they were so mid that the only thing I was interested in for those broadcasts was hearing Lisa Malowski fumble on a live mic. Or how they were so bad on Channel 55 that they moved to 20 vision, Channel 39, and TV 51 because they couldn't find a stable TV deal. The Rockets are down 3-1 to the Lakers, and we're here talking about yesteryear. I want to hear about how this team can do tonight with their backs against the wall,

how they can beat the Lakers tonight with no KD again. Instead of talking about memories this team had when I was only a kid. I mean, is that too much to ask? Christian, it's a four-year, it's a four-hour show, and we were talking about how we're Rockets fans, and we were talking about back in the day we've been Rockets fans. I know. So, get your bum ass up, Christian.

Christian. My apologies, Ross. Give me your thoughts about Perkins short. Let's go. Late in his NBA career. Stop. You can call it and break down the game. We were talking about the game.

We just played audio from Jabari Smith Jr. from practice yesterday. And talking about the series and how I think the Rockets are the better team. Well, y'all were also saying about the fact how the Rockets were favored in every game. Yes. I mean, to be honest, when it comes down to it, do you think that, you know, if they do the feet, no, if they don't defeat the, Lakers in this series, that this season would be just a mere disappointment? Yes.

Okay. I mean, the season was a disappointment, frankly, the moment that Fred Van Blyt, you know, hurt himself in the Bahamas. Boy is ACL. Yeah. I know. Yeah, that, I mean, that was not what this was built for. And Christian, thank you for the phone call. We appreciate your passion.

We wish, frankly, had more of you like that out there. But the season did turn on Fred's ACL. It just did. Of course. you missed 82 games of Fred Van Vleet 82 games we never once got to see this team the way that Raphael Stone envisioned it

yeah we never saw Durant and Vambly on the floor at the same time yeah and this guy G. Glass and is tweeting me what is he supposed to say how about nothing nobody asked him that he volunteered that comment incredibly foolish when your team is down 3-1 he believes they're the better team he can talk and he can speak

he doesn't have to give players speak And as I said, they've been favored in every single game in this series. He is right. They are the better team. They have to play better. And it's a comment in the middle of practice. Why are we acting like this is some sort of like he got in front of Congress and committed perjury or something like this? Jibarysman Jr., who is an NBA player, who it is his job to be on this Rockets team.

And he believes in the players that are next to him that they are the better team and believes they can go on the road and win and then come home and win and win game seven. He's supposed to believe in his team. He's supposed to believe they're the better team. What's he's going to say? All right, now, we're not good. They're probably going to beat us. We're going to go to Cancun.

I already booked my flights. No, we're the clearly better team, and we should go out there and win. He's showing some confidence. What is so wrong with that? Amen. I need it. I want it. Because it's going to, but you know what,

and I got some really good insight information for you all. and I trust me when I tell you this these players on the Lakers side don't care what Jabari Smith has to say they're not putting the audio of Jabari Smith or the video in their locker room on a constant playback I don't know if y'all know this or not

but NBA players blink talk each other all the time and it wasn't necessarily even an indictment against the Lakers it was I love them our team. I kind of need that because there are not a lot of folks right now that think the rockets can come back from this.

And again, odds are there not? No one's ever done it. But I'd rather him saying that than, hey, we're going to go out there and give it our best. Yeah. Yeah, guys, we're cooked. By the way, do you think Cancun really appreciates

all this one, two, three bit? I mean, they're getting so much run. Oh, they love it. What do you mean? You never hear one, two, three. incredible, by the way. One, two, three, Missoula, Montana. Especially with, like, you know,

things are looking a little shaky in Mexico for a while there. I've never been to Cancun. Is it really bad, everything good? You've never, I've been to Cancun multiple times. It's gorgeous. It's gorgeous. It's amazing.

Yeah. You feel safe? Absolutely. Oh, my God. Well, man, that's an honest question. No, I got, I've been, uh, never mind. You're fine.

Just don't go by yourself in a cab at late at night, and you'll be fine. This is the thing too. I don't know if I'm going to be safe in Cancun. You're going to the all-inclusive and you're never leaving the property. You're fine. It's not any different to go into like the, I don't know, the Hyatt in Panama City or something like that. You're very safe. You might need to know a little bit more kitchen Spanish.

You might say, gracias and denada more than you normally do. Or desulp. You learn like five Spanish words. You're going to be fine. And the beaches are gorgeous. Me and you bros trip to. I want a couple couples trip with the lady we can go to Chechenica

we can go we can go snorkeling we can go to Isla Mujeres It's gorgeous out there It's amazing seafood incredible One two three Wichita Yeah see no one two three Galveston Nobody says that Oh they should though I would do it

One two three San Marcos I'm Mr Texas Almost our new trend One two three Odessa Yeah, that's if you like you got your tax return was a lot lower than you thought. 1, 2, 3, Galveston. All right. Oh.

And again, we've got Brian Bogusse coming up in less than 10 minutes here on 790. Just a PS of the Jabari Smith comment. Do you think the Lakers, after they heard that, stopped practice and said, did you all hear what Jabari Smith just said? Yeah, I mean, if there's some kind of cut up they do or whatever, they might toss that in there or something like that. But it's not going to, just the same way, like I said, if Alperin Shingoon gave it. some speech and it motivated him to the win on Sunday, then he needs to give the same speech tonight. And at the end of the day,

you've got to go on the floor and you've got to execute and you've got to play well. Yes. Oh, a comment at a press event or a right after the practice floor is not going to all of a sudden change the momentum of a series. Yeah, guys like to talk about that. But I mean, any players you talk to, especially off record,

they're like, yeah, it doesn't matter. Like, we got to go out there. We got to do these are guys who live and breathe basketball, who have reached the heights of an NBA basketball. Maybe it motivates you, I don't know, in your eighth grade game or something like that. But these guys are professionals and they're going to go out there and they're going to do what they're going to do. Real quick, and we will get to more. This is the show Progressive, but we have the short segment here.

NCAA tournament is going to be 76 teams next year. I mean, who asked for this? The people that like to cut the checks? Yeah, who's going to say? I guess T&T? Impractical Jokers needed another week off? I mean, true TV's got to. have something programming on besides that yikes

now you got me curious true TV well I mean it maybe they open it up to ESPN it ends up a layer of the contract who knows yeah that would make sense maybe Netflix or Apple or you know whomever

peacock hmm no I imagine they they have an exclusive some kind of exclusive deal with CBS properties I'm sure they yeah by the way I'm looking at the forecast for Baltimore. They're not playing, they're not playing this game today. There's no chance.

Really? I mean, the weather at 1 o'clock is 60% chance of rain in Baltimore. It's 66, 78, 65, 76, 89, 77, and 91% chance of rain. So it's supposed to rain all night. Okay. Interesting. So. Maybe they'll try to find a window where they are to try to get five innings in or something. Yeah. By the way, Rolando's is 1, 2, 3, Memphis? I don't know if that works. Maybe, you know, if you lose a series,

you should go to somewhere you wouldn't want to go. Yeah, maybe, no, maybe the Big Elvis fans. 1, 2, 3, Detroit. 1, 2, 3, Grace Land? Yeesh. Yeah, it's funny. You lose a series and you say, 1, 2, 3, and you go somewhere warm and fun and interesting,

with beautiful people. It's like you should only go to somewhere nice the longer you're in the playoffs. You're not to make the playoffs. 1, 2, 3, Birmingham. By the way, quick note, Spencer Arrogatti will be on the A team at 205 p.m. today.

Oh, Astros Aes. Astros Aes, Spencer Arrogatti. Let's go, baby. I'm ready for that. Cinco Ranch Stallwart. Yep. All right, 713, 212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

Yeah, 76 teams in the NCAA tournament. again, it's not great, but I kind of see it. I mean, there's 350 teams that are playing, so it's not like it's a huge additional percentage. It's not an all-invite, but it's just going to, it's just going to muck up what is already a wonderful time of year with an extra layer of games, generally speaking, we won't care about, right?

Is that how it kind of works in your mind? Yeah, it's, it's whatever. I guess, what's the format? I guess it's just more playing. That's how it kind of feels, right? Yeah. I guess it doesn't really hurt anything and it's going to make them more money.

The teams are going to be excited. It's more games to gamble on. But it just dilutes the product. Already 64 teams. I said this. 64 teams have bloated anyways. If I was doing it, if we were to, how come when it's, when it's football,

16 is way too much, but when it's basketball, eh, 16, that's 76. Yeah. Well, we're going to expansion all these playoffs. Because when it's football, we're like 16 teams. don't really deserve to win the crown. Yeah, 76 teams don't deserve to win the crown.

And normally it all shakes out, but you have upsets. Yep. I think it should be 32, Max. I'll give you a crazy thought. 16 in a basketball tournament feels right. Get out of here. I'm sorry. We love the brackets.

I'm sorry. We love the brackets. We love the madness. But at the end of the day, do you need 76 teams to determine the real champion? Because it's just, I don't want to call it Mickey Mouse, but it's, um, it's Get there. It's a lottery. Yep. But let me just point real quick before we go to break.

You say that, but then what if there's some dogs that we've seen to go to NBA are on these small teams? That's true, I guess. You can get them playing. They should be on better teams. But, I mean, if they're getting NIL money from that program, they're loyal to it where everybody wants now. You might have more of that if you put more teams in the tournament that can go rather than just the power. Let me go to last year's draft. How many team players?

out of last year's draft were on small schools. Well, a lot of it's international players. This is kind of a moot conversation, isn't it? Maryland, I guess. Derek Queen? No, it's ACC. No, Big Ten, excuse me. You'd be...

I'm just looking for like a non-big-powering. Colorado State, Neek Clifford, 24th. It feels about right. Brian Bogussevick to join us on the Astros Chatter. Next, 11 o'clock on 790. This is the Matt Thomas Show. with Ross. 11.02 on Sports Talk 790.

We start our number two of the radio program. I'm here in Los Angeles. Ross back in Houston. Brian Bogus-Evich, you've been seeing and watching and enjoying his coverage of pre-and-post games on Space City Home Network, S-E-H-N, and Bogies with us every Wednesday at 11 o'clock here on the show. Bogie last night, a case of a lot of people on the base paths, not enough of them touching the PlayStation.

Yeah. You know, we saw, a lot of that in the last couple of years, the way the offense has been this year, we haven't seen quite as many of those. But it's still going to happen. Honestly, a lot of it has to do with the opponent that you're facing and what they've got. Shane Boz is a big swing and miss guy. And it happens. I'm at the point with this offense, I'm pretty confident, even though there has been a little bit of a lull and drop off recently. They're going to score runs. They're going to be sign. Yes, games like this, it kind of shows up bigger when you don't get it done. But

you know, a couple of times this year when we've said, oh, you know, they had a, they had this basis loaded opportunity. They, they only got one run out of it or whatever. It almost feels like you're being a little greedy and asking too much of the offense at times. It's going to, it's going to happen. So yeah, it got them yesterday. But I think overall, more often than not we should be okay with the way the offense goes. Let me ask you this, and I've never been one of those that worries too much about having enough left-handed bats, enough right-handed bats in the lineup. But case and pouring in a couple of times in the game yesterday, the Orioles could go to right-handed

relievers with the so heavy right-handed side of the Astro lineup. Obviously, that's a construction. That's obviously about who's healthy and who can go, but do you sometimes worry, even before the start of the season boge that maybe this team was too right-handed dependent because Dana-Bron has mentioned on numerous occasions. He's always been looking for a left-handed bat. No, absolutely.

You need balance. You need guys that hit from the both sides. You need guys who are contact hitters. You need guys who are power-hitters. You need guys who work at bats different ways. And for me, it's not necessarily a left-handed, right-handed

for you. It's not, you know, we can't get it done if we're all right-handed or left-handed. It's about what that poses to the other side. It changes a manager's ability to play matchups coming out of the bullpen or target certain parts of the lineup with certain guys. It also, from a starting pitcher who's got to go through that lineup two or three times, they're going to go through long stretches of seeing righty, righty, righty, righty, and they can pitch the same way.

The more you make a pitcher have to do multiple things, you know, he's got to pitch in, he's got to pitch out, he's got to go up down, He's got to throw changeups to this guy, but he's got to go sliders to this guy. It just seems like there are times when with a right-handed dominant lineup, specifically a right-handed pitcher, can just fall in love with fastball the glove slide, slider off of it. And they just fall into a rhythm, whereas if you get them off their spot, it's like a shooter who's hot from a spot.

If you, you know, get them off of that spot, maybe you just break that rhythm a little bit. And when that rhythm gets broken, they become successful to mistakes. And if you just let them stay in that groove, over and over and over again, you don't get the mistakes to hit. All right. So if you're Joe Espada, how do you manage a run-a-line-up where you're just don't have that kind of selection available to you? You have what you have.

And you try to find other ways around it. You know, look, I'll take best nine over best five righties and four lefties. You know, I'll just give me the best overall in general. But understanding what individuals, do differently. You know, if you have a guy who, like Parades, a guy who's looking to pull versus maybe a Cam Smith who likes to use the middle of the field and the other way more. You can kind of play those off of each other in your lineup construction and try to get

the most out of what you have. It was like, you know, it was like when Hector Narris would come out of the bullpen. Yes, he was a right-handed pitcher, but he had that split so it made him an option against left-handed hitters. Try to find things like that. try to find guys who are, you know, reverse platoon types. But, you know, at the end of the day, you've got what you've got, and you run out the lineup that, you know,

you just take your best guys versus trying to match up at certain spots in the lineup. Brian Bogosovic with us here on Sports Talk 790. You mentioned Cam Smith, and I do want to ask what you're seeing from him. But also, I'm curious if you can give us some kind of insight into the cat and mouse game when it comes to a guy like him who's changing his approach, it's working to start the season, and then things kind of go south a little bit to where he's now hitting eighth in the lineup.

What is that like from a hitter standpoint of trying to figure out what you want to do and then kind of readjusting when other pitching staffs are readjusting? Well, hitting is fluid. There is no destination in hitting, even the best hitters in the world. the guys who are in the Hall of Fame over time, their swings were tinkered with, their setups were tinkered with, their approaches change, and it's all kind of based on how

you're feeling and how the matchup is from day to day. So that's something that as you mature as a hitter, you know, I think young hitters are often trying to figure out what is it that's going to click and then I'm the hitter that I'm supposed to be and at prime goes on, you realize you're never actually there, you're just always working and you just get comfortable. in that and it's kind of just something that comes over time and you know cam's a very mature kid and he's got a lot of veteran hitters around him who you know he can make him understand that um and he's just in one of those points right now where where it's a readjust and timing was so important for cam and it

was something that he was trying to get on last year it's something that we saw at the beginning of this season working very well for him and kind of his start and his load and getting in a position to hit early, he can get a little stale at times. And even when he's doing that little leg kick, his hands can get a little stagnant to where his body's drifting back, but he's not getting his hands back. His hands are kind of getting stuck at his shoulder so that when he goes to swing, he's not actually in that ready position that he's trying to get to. And it's just, you know, he's in one of those spots now to where he's trying to get on time and he's just not on time. And then you overcompensate. You know, you start pushing forward. You start trying to get a little

rotational, trying to make up for what you didn't get in the back year swing. And, you know, it's something that every hitter goes through over the course of the season. You have times when you feel right when you don't, especially young hitters, it comes and goes quicker and it can take a little bit longer to find. But, you know, it's, it's one of the reasons why they were okay with him making the team out of spring training this year and him trying to go through all of these growing pains at the major league level because they felt like he was. he could handle it from a mental standpoint and be able to work through it here. A little bit more on the positive side.

Nice game from Bryce Matthews. He had three hits. So what did you see from him last night? You know, a guy who's getting a little bit more playing time and getting comfortable. It's a really difficult thing to do for a young player to go into a part-time or, you know, at one point this beginning this year, it was less than part-time role where you're not getting regular at bats. His entire life, he's been an everyday player and he's gotten every day at bats and he's always had the rhythm of being an everyday guy and he's always had the timing of being an everyday guy. And then, you know,

all of a sudden you sit for four or five days and they say, hey, you're in, you're in today, try to hit this 100 mile an hour fastball and don't swing at the slider in the dirt. And it's like, oh man, I haven't seen a pitch in a couple days. So I think a guy who trying to adjust to that for the first time, but now forced into a more everyday role in the outfield looks a little bit more timed up and looks like the swing

quality is a little bit better. There were some times where he was just off. When he was coming in, not sitting pitching for a couple days, he was late, he was jumpy, he was, you know, his head was flying as he was trying to generate the back speed to catch up and now it just looks a little bit

more smoothed out and a little bit more on time. All right. a few more minutes here with Brian Bogussevich on Space City Home Network here on Sports Talk 790. So Boggi, they went with a bullpen game yesterday. A thought or two about EMI. A thought about bullpen games this early in the year. Again, a lot of it is because of necessity. And then a thought or two, obviously, about what we saw, at least numbers-wise, from Corpus Christi about Emi.

We weren't there to see eyewitness. Just getting back on the bump, what are you thinking if you were a pitching coach, if you were a friend to Tatsui about how he approach is getting back to becoming a Houston Astro again. I think so the most important thing I think for Imi, whether he's pitching in Corpus or pitching here or whatever he's doing is he's got to get confident. He's got to get confident in himself and trust the fact that he's good enough to get major league hitters out. And he looks like a guy who is very uncomfortable and the fact that he's uncomfortable is affecting his confidence. You know, a lot has been made of just all the things that he's trying to deal with in adjusting to American life and American baseball. And when all of your processes and routines are thrown off, you don't have anything to fall back on when you're not getting the results that you want.

And that can shake your confidence. And when your confidence gets shaken, it doesn't matter how talented you are. It doesn't matter, you know, pitch or hitter, where you're at. that AA major leagues, you're going to struggle. And I didn't see him throw. I didn't even see what the velocities were or anything. But just looking at that line and mainly the pitch count, right, 60 pitches to get through two innings of a double a outing.

For a guy who's not, he's fatigued, he's not hurt. It's just too, that's too many pitches. It's too difficult to get through two innings. And it looks like a guy who's not comfortable just going out there and reaching back and throwing it by some double a hitters. And that, to me, screams a guy who's unsure of himself. And, you know, confidence is a tough thing to say, how do you get it back?

I don't know. But he's got to get confident in all the things that go into getting him ready to pitch. And as far as the starter, the pitching staff right now, if you're Ryan Weiss, if you're EMI, I'm not EMI, if you're Wang, if you're any of the other guys that have been going back and forth between bullpen starters. You got a chance here to kind of establish yourself because so many guys are still not ready to go,

but it's sometimes easier to send than done. I mean, I know Ryan would like to be a starter, and he's talked about it when he signed the deal originally, but it's going to come down to performance and how much trust that Joe has in a guy like Weiss and other people in that group as well. No, absolutely. I mean, that's the silver lining of injuries

is that it creates opportunity, and you look at what Lambert and Araggetti have done, those guys have put themselves in a really good position to move forward, you know, regardless of who comes back from injury. And I think the Kaiwei Tang experiment is an opener. Are they going to try to stretch him out? We'll see what they do. I think they might ultimately decide that he can be maximized as a reliever.

But, yeah, I mean, Ryan White's going to get opportunities. He's got the stuff. When he's in the zone, the stuff is good. He's got to throw more strikes. He's got to stay ahead and count. you know but for the foreseeable future there are going to be endings to be had and opportunities for guys to take if they can bogey great visit as always i don't know if you're working tonight but have your uh rain delay material ready to go for space city studio work you know this is the first series that i've had off and it's the first rain threat

that we've had and i am not mad about it at least you're being honest thanks bogey we'll talk to you next week. Thanks for the visit. See you guys. All right, that's Brian Bogasevick. He's like, I caught a break. Happens. Yeah. Good for him.

Works hard. Does a great job. He does a good job. We'll always visit, enjoy our visits with him here on Wednesdays. Love hearing him talking, hitting, and pitching. He's great at both. Yep. Yeah.

1115. Let's get people to shut their bumasses up in 15 minutes. You want to do that, Rossi? Yes. Yes. Oh, yes. Are you fighting on Twitter again already today? I'm not fighting with them.

anyone. Did I put out a sarcastic comment or two? Maybe. Maybe that guy wants to tell you to shut your bum ass up. That's fine. 7.13, 21, 212, 7.90. Shut your bum ass up. It ain't nobody got time for that. But up at 15 minutes here on Sports Talk, 7 out of. You know, Rossi, we talk sports, sports and sports so much on the show, right? We do nothing but sports.

Yeah, sure, why not? But allow me 30 seconds of non-sports, and it's a food commentary here quickly. So you were with me when we took Peyton my middle son to Vegas for his 21st birthday. Yes. And we stayed downtown and had a really good time. Do we not? I thought we were, you were staying by the New York, New York. Wasn't it one time Payton was with us?

I thought we were on the strip for that. Point being is this. One of the meals we had when Peyton and I were downtown were at Tony Romis at the Fremont Casino. Okay. Now, Tony Roma's not great. It is what it is. But if you need a rib fix and you're hungry and you're, you know, you want ribs, you get, you, you do the Tony Romas in Fremont. Well, it's closing its doors.

Oh, man. I know. I'm so sorry to hear. That leaves now six Tony Romas left in the United States after this. I, you're reading an article on this, I assume. Correct. It's my four U.T. I was going to say.

If you're keeping tabs on how many Tony Romas left. Well, it was a rash Marcosi, who's a sports reporter. Yes. He must be going to Tony Romas, too. I mean, it's not great. Come on. It's the Burger King of ribs, right? Would that be fair?

Don't they have like a $999 prime rib and stuff like that? Well, maybe. So if you are a Tony Romas fan, what I'm going to assume that I'm going to say a decent segment of the pie? populations listen to this show has been the tournament of what percentage of tony roma's fans also are smoking at least a pack a day okay let's not get that let's not get the deeds involved in this here six locations left carson california anaheim california duke iowa great falls montana durham north california and kimball tennessee they are down to six okay i wonder when tony romans

was at its finest how many they had i'm reading some reviews uh yuck steak was dry and overcooked vegetables are soggy, place was dingy. I mean, that's all fair. Went for prime rib special. Good value. I've had better prime rib, but this is a low price. Will I go back? Maybe. Not the warm as the reviews. No.

I just had to bring that up. I'm sorry. I just thought it was interesting. A chain that you could, I mean, you could find them in every major city. I remember going to the Mall of America when I was living in St. Paul. There was a Tony Roma at the Mall of America. The special for 1799 steak and lobster was not worth it. They overcooked the steak and it looked like it's heated up in the microwave.

The vegetables are like frozen bags sold in Walmart. Thus, there's only six locations left. The wings were delicious and cooked to perfection and they still gave it one star. Come on, you guys, that's at least a two-star review. Yeah. I think we're being too difficult. Is this on Yelp or is this on the direct website? Google.

A lot of five-star reviews. The lobster was gummy. Oh, all right. I'm closing this. Why are you getting lobster at Tony Rom? It's ribs and that's it. Maybe chicken. They have a 1799 steak and lobster special, apparently.

Yeah, this is why they're closing. Yeah, all right. I didn't mean to go off in this tangent, but I just thought it was interesting. Okay. Oh, Tony Romba's closing it. If you're closing on Fremont, that's got, that's a not a good sign. You must really be porous there. Yeah.

Man, I wouldn't expect if you're not, you know, the most delicate palate out there. Steak and lobster. I'll go to the steak and shake. I got you. All right. Good stuff from Brian Bogosovic. But yeah, it felt like to me that the Orioles yesterday were just throwing one right-handed reliever after the other. And that right-handed heavy lineup that was out there just was like, eh, we can't make contact.

Isn't it crazy that we had a storyline earlier this year about Issock Prettis and he's got to be moved? And now he's got to play. and now he's playing, he's just been okay, had been great. He's been better. He's got three home runs over the weekend. Yeah. But remember it was,

you cannot get rid of him. And then we kept saying, well, you've got to get rid of him because you've got to get value. You got to go with some outfield help. I think this is what we thought might happen is somebody's going to get hurt. Now we didn't know everybody was going to get hurt.

Yeah, we didn't realize we got the infirmary report for the second straight year. It's ridiculous. But yes, Isok Paratus has provided great depth for the Astros. And thank goodness, Walker's been hitting well. El Tuva is quietly cooled off significantly.

Yeah, what, he had an off day, what, two days ago, right? Yeah. Yeah, and he was 0 for 3 on Saturday, 0 for 5 yesterday. How's the OPS? Well, it's, let me tell you, the beginning of, well, how about two weeks ago? It was around 900. Now it's 738. man, that is a serious drop-off.

Yes, he has been struggling mightily. And how about Dustin Harris, who could not have looked more like a deer in headlights one at bat and then gets a triple the next time up? Yeah. He looked a little gassed. Yeah, the triple made me the most least satisfying hit in sports, right? I mean, it's rare, so it's fun. I don't know, but you feel like you're tired and you've got to run like an extra 90 feet to score that run?

This is his first career triple. Oh, Ross is going to be a lot. it was his first Astros hit, right? Yeah, batting average, let me look here. You don't have to. Last seven days, he's one for ten, so I would assume that would be the case of three games played.

Yeah, this is his first hitting an Astros uniform. Oh, Houston, what are we going to do? It's going to be a long year. Astros are going to rally. Touch you, your mind, he's going to write the ship in Corpus. Who he is? Yes. Yeah, the intelligence reports.

Oh, the fastball was lively. Yes, it was. so live of the double a hitters were smacking around for two and a half hours. It was lively hitting the back of the net. Oh, no. Yeah, she's got a pitch time violation too. Yeah. He's working on it. It's different.

So about this Texans draft? You know what? That's why the Rock's going to win tonight. It's why Team Jabari is all in on the positive talk. We're going to overcome this 3-1 deficit. We're going to overcome this 3-0 and do something that never has been down in the history of the NBA. People are very

mad still about this. Why? Like one person, mad or like several? My guess is if you went and looked Jabari Smith up on Twitter, there's going to be, what is this blank, blank doing? Yeah, that's basically. If you all, and look, players don't get to, the general public doesn't get to know the players. Jabari's a really good dude.

He didn't do it because he was going, oh, it's my opportunity to smack talk, or it's my opportunity to put bowling to board material. He said it because he meant it. and my guess is if you pull even with the you know look would you have said it if lucid don't i mean if lucid don't just in austin ruse are playing every single game this probably would i mean brutally honest we would have been an under heavy underdog in the series but they weren't because of those guys being gone and the game four loss or game three loss was awful i you know i don't want to run from it and if you're going to overcome this deficit and get back in this series you

can't run from this you have to have this we can go here and go to l.a and win this game go Rockets Say it loud, say it proud, Rossi Go Rockets Go Rockets Don't say 1, 2, 3, Fresno They're not going to Fresno Unless they're connecting

Don't say 1, 2, 3 What's the rando? Cleveland Nobody's going to Cleveland Ask Joaquin Noah Yeah All right This is our favorite time of the week

Yes I mean And if you feel like you When you say it Say it loud and say it proud. You want to tell somebody to shut their own ass up? 1-3-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

If you ain't got nobody time for something, if somebody at the office is just blabbering endlessly about stuff you don't care about, some storyline about the casserole of they made, or their trip to the grocery store, or how their pharmacists is delayed with their medications, saying, anybody got time for that. Nobody wants to hear that. That seems like a delay.

That seems like a real great. If you're a pharmacist, it's not getting your meds. I mean, I'm going to have to wait a couple hours here in Beverly Hills, but that's fine. Okay. I mean, I've literally in the 90210. Most famous zip code in America? Yes. I don't know.

What is the close? What is the second? That's a good question. 7705. Oh, I was going to give you mine, too. All right, 713-212-750. Let's tell us to people to shut their bum asses up. for that.

Ain't nobody getting time for that? Sports Talk 7.O. Back here from Los Angeles, Ross at Houston. Jonathan, our producer, 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-790. If you get something that is irritating you, making you mad, let us know, and tell them to shut their bum-asses up.

Just like somebody told me inside the TOTUS Center when I was walking the concourse in the night. Get off the elevator after eating dinner, walking to my broadcast spot, listeners says, hey, Matt, I said what? Shut your bum ass up, may? Shut your bum ass up, man. So that's just a kind and endearing way to say hello to somebody.

Do it. 713-212-5-790. Ross, what are you mad about this week? A lot of things. The Jabari people I said earlier, you know what, I might even circle back on that because everybody's doubling down on it. But I'm going to go with

the Kevin Durant Hater and agenda pushers. And there's even one in this building rhymes with Rissy the Ultimate Spurs fan. Oh, no. Trying to tell me that Kevin Duran is healthy and he's quitting on his team.

No way. Yes. This is a person who will be playing basketball while we're all dead and buried in the ground. He lives basketball. He breathes basketball. He wants to be. be out there. He played 78

games for the Rockets in the regular season. If he's shutting down now because he doesn't think they're going to win a championship, he would have shut down in like April when it was or March I should say when it was clear they weren't going to win a championship. He's got a bone bruise in his ankle and

a knee injury and he's out tonight. It's an injury. He's not sitting out because he doesn't like everyone and he's pouting and he wants to get on his burners and the people that are crying about him not being on the bench on Friday because he's getting treatment. Shut your bum ass up.

Shit your bum ass up, man. Man, I'm going to do one for myself here. Matt Thomas. Yes, I like this. Shut your bum ass up. Anybody got time for Kendrick Perkins? Shut your bum ass up, man. Ain't nobody got time for that?

Massive, massive fail on my part. I let you down to Houston, Texans. We played two Kendrick Perkins' Sumbites in the same way. Woo! Sometimes you've got to call out your own. own and sometimes you're going to call yourself out. I call myself out. I'm sorry, Houston, and shut my own bum ass up.

Shit your bum ass up, man. 713-212-5-790. Jonathan, what's the matter with you? A couple days ago, Paige Bukers, Paige Buckets came out saying, like, you know, how she's dating her, her coworker, her teammate, and they asked about it, and she was upset. You know, like, this is none of nobody's business.

and then we got all this media trying to like make it a story ain't nobody got time for this. Why is this even a topic? Why, like, everybody doesn't want to hype up WAA, let's make it a sport like, you know, you know, women's into place.

And then we're talking about stuff that doesn't even why do we care that she's dating somebody? I don't even know what it's on like a slow sports day. I don't understand it. Like get something else. I'm going to push back on that a little bit. Really? Yes.

So you think. this would be a sports story. No, I'm not saying it's a story, but it became a story because they tried to quash it so quick. It is very rare in sports that you have a romantic relationship with a teammate, especially when those said relationship was publicly announced by that group. If nobody knew that Paige was hanging, her girlfriend was the number one pick, no one would have think twice about it. But when they publicly announced that they're together and then all by the way, the team

picks that your girlfriend is the number one pick, it's a question asked, it's a question answered, and it's moving along. Instead, Dallas Wings decided to say, ah, we don't have time for this. And then, Paige comes out and says, what we

do is what we do and you'll be left alone. We'll tell you and we want to tell you something. You took a very small anecdotal question and made it a much bigger deal. So I would say, with all due respect,

Jonathan, shut your bum ass up. Really? So, get your bum ass up, man. Now everybody should be in my business. Well, yeah, what, hold on. In what business? What was the question asked? I guess it's to me, I need some more specifics.

The question was like, what is it like having your, and again, I'm paraphrasing here, it was basically what is it going to be like to have your security, significant other on your same team. This is very, it doesn't happen in sports. Not that we know of, at least publicly.

I kind of saw this story. I didn't see the line of questioning. I think, of course, obviously there's a line to toe. If the question is, hey, it's unique. What do you think the dynamics are of you having a significant other on the team? I think that's a fair question. If it's pretty much anything more than that, then I don't think it's a fair question. Hold on.

But this is a versus a business conference sports. talking about my ball playing meeting. This isn't about No, John. You're wrong on this. This is a this is a very strange situation. You don't have romantic interest on the same team.

And especially when you, when they, those two women told the world they were partners, it's a question. It's not a narrative. It's not a, hey, come see two women who love each other playing the same team. It was a question at a press guy. I put to you, asking that question creates that narrative.

you get what I'm saying? Like, if we, it's nobody's business. I think you make it a bigger, it's called, what is it called? The Barber Streisand effect, I think. Would you bring more attention to something by kind of denying it or downplaying it? If you say, yeah, it'll be, it'll be interesting. It's unique for both of us and we're looking to have a successful season. This could have been quashed very clear.

And I'll put it. This is what I'm saying. Nobody has time for this. This is the whole point. Why do we care? Why is media care? Because they're on the scene team and they're dating. I don't know if that has that ever happened before?

I have no idea. At least publicly, no. Privately? I'm sure it has. I'll give you an example, Jonathan. Back in the day, Jeannie Bus, whose father owned the Lakers, was engaged with Phil Jackson, the Lakers coach. And Phil Jackson would get asked about that, like the relationship, and he did interviews,

and I think they wrote books and stuff like that. It's a story because, yeah, if you're dating the owner's daughter and you're engaged to her, it's a unique interrelationship within your building. He answered questions about that. I mean, obviously it's not an apples to apples comparison, but when it's something like that, they're like, hey, what are the dynamics like?

I don't know. People get asked what their dynamics are like with their coach or with their other teammates. And this one has an, for example, like people are, have teammates that they played with in college and they're on the same team. Hey, what's that like? It's just an extra layer. Of course, it can be a little more salacious if people want to make it that way. But I think it's a completely fair question to ask somebody.

It's somebody's personal relationship, though. this isn't about like I play with my teammate but it's in a professional setting right if she's not on the team she is not getting asked about her right but this is the problem is media is upset by like my said how her response was

I'm not upset I don't even know what she said what did she say I believe me and as he's personal relationship is nobody business but our own and what we choose to share is completely up to us yeah that's fine that's her prerogative is because she put it out there it's going to be a narrative like because you

you knocked it down so quick. The reality is this. And I don't know the draft evaluation of these, but the young lady that was number one selected was not considered the number one draft pick. And that there was thought, again, I don't work in these circles, but the thought was the Dallas Wings chose the young lady

because part of the room was because they're star players, girlfriend is on that team. Yeah, I can't. I can't speak to that. I can't speak to that. It doesn't make sense. No, it's a story. And look, I think it's completely above board and fair for media to ask, like, hey, what is this?

It's a very unique situation. It's someone you're with as a teammate. And it's also, I got another thing for you. It's totally within her rights to say, I don't want to talk about this at all and shut it down. Yes. The biggest issue, Jonathan of all, was the Dallas PR folks screwed it up by saying, we're not going to answer that. Let her answer it and move on.

You added fuel to the fire by trying to quash it as compared to just honestly answering and moving along. Yeah, she could have just said, oh, yeah, it's a very unique dynamic, and we're looking forward to having a good season. Bing, bang, boom. And that's all. But even for her to say, yeah, she's also well within her rights to try to shut everything down and say, we're not going to talk about this. But if you're asking the media to pretend that they're not together

when that's public knowledge, I mean, I don't understand that either. There's an elephant in the room in that scenario. All right. on the phones next we got gambor jim oh god can't wait for gambler jim the rest of we come on in 713 212 5 790 713 212 5 790 it is the matthomas show with ross we've got the news at noon coming up we also have uh believe it or not today at 150 all things about the dallas wings right ross who you know we're not doing the dallas wings we'll do some comments when the comments get back in there but none they're available right now

What are we doing? What is going on in the world? Diane Cannon? No. I mean, she is a very famous Laker fan. Just saying. 713-212-5-7-90. All right, here we go with more of a shut show bomb ass up.

I ain't nobody got time for that. 7-1-3-212-5-7-9. We'll start with Gambler Jim on 7-90. Gambler Jim, what's going on? Morning, Texas, Matt. ain't nobody got time for Dike and Park to jack up the parking prices because the Yankees are in town. Our game started at 11 o'clock. I got there at 10 o'clock, and I still had to pay double the price of parking when I normally pay.

Some of those parking spots for $60. Ain't nobody got time for that. Ain't nobody got time for that. I got terrible news for you. It's called dynamic pricing. Hotels do it, airlines do it, rental cars do it, parking lots do it. I mean, it's right, but it's just what you. what's going on.

Dynamic is another word for gouging. Correct. Ross, gouging pricing doesn't sound nearly as good as dynamic pricing. No, it doesn't. But it's also true, and I believe, illegal depending. Well, if it's illegal, then why are they still doing it?

I don't know. I think it's illegal, maybe on, like, maybe it's only on necessities you can't gouge. I don't know. Parking is not a system. The parking at a baseball game is not a necessity. I'd have to look into this. We'll get somebody legal, a legal mind on this. it's like I got one free this is a this is more of I just don't get it

let's say I wanted to fly today here from LA and I wanted to go to let's just say Phoenix and there were like 14 seats on the plane and you would think well if I'm the airline I can sell a seat if I can sell it for like $85 but instead if they want me to fly to Phoenix today

on that airline on a short notice on a day notice or day of it's $464.64 would you rather take the 85 and at least get that seat full? Or would you rather stick true to your guns and ask for 464 in the seat not being occupied? I mean, I guess it's a trade-off. They only need one person to buy it 400 rather than 5 at 80. Yeah. Things I don't get.

But the problem is that I guess the airlines would think at the end of the day, someone's going to pay that 464. If I got to get to Phoenix that badly, I'm going to pay. You're probably desperate. it. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. Roger, what's the matter of you?

Well, this is directed at Javari Smith, and yes, this will be the last game you see as a rocket because, thank God we're going to get the live support taken off because of this lousy season. But you know what? Jabari, if you're going to talk smack, you've got to be able to back it up. So this is a precursor.

This is a pre-shut-shut-your-bon ass up, because you're going to throw up closer to 10 points and you are 30. So, yeah, so shut your bum ass up. Take your ass to the off season, develop a dribble and a handle, and make yourself more valuable to a team before you go on and say your team's better because clearly it's not, mentally and physically capable. That's all I got. Shit your bum ass up, man.

Shut your bum ass up, Roger? Shit your bum ass up, man. It's like he was cutting a promo. Okay? And telling the Lakers, they need to be quaking in their boots. Let me tell you something here, Los Angeles. We're going to come into your building and we're going to take your kids and your girlfriends. We're the clearly better team. Oh, yeah. He wasn't doing that.

He's just talking like, yeah, I think we're clearly the better team and we need to play like it. Like, that's all he said. That's what he's supposed to believe. Maybe we're too close to it. I guess. I guess because everyone's crushing him. What's Jonathan's opinion on the matter? Jonathan, what do you got?

Your good smack talker. I mean, look, could he have gone without saying that for sure? But it's like the worst thing ever? Weren't you running a race, Jonathan? And maybe you weren't the fastest guy in the race, but you have to believe you are. No, I'm talking to, yes, I'm walking to. Yes. Like, I'm not going to let you bitch me, okay?

I'm not going to let you bitch me, okay? Yeah. Tell him, Jonathan. And just because they're losing. That'll mean he can't think he's a better team. It should be two, too. right now if we're really if we're really talking so i'm i'm standing with them i'm thank you better team okay good yeah i'm looking at this the twitter streets ain't pretty on old javari

yeah javari smith sucks uh he doesn't suck mr. junior wow okay now thanks he's not an all star but he's been good yeah all right you know what let him be let him score 19 points he come on the post game show and talk all the smack you want to yeah speaking words back to the age Speaking words of wisdom, Matt. Let it be. Oh, we didn't play Don't Let Me Down yet. It was a rocket highlights. We don't have to.

We won't. We don't think we can. It's a great uplifting, energetic song. Oh, stop! No! Did you hear Javier call in and singing it? I did not. Was it good?

Oh, you missed it? Yeah. Yeah, he killed it. These things stand by me again? No, he's saying, don't let me down, ah? Rockets. Oh, I really missed it, huh? Damn.

Jabari in this series, averaging 18 and a half, eight rebounds, shooting 39% from three. So basically a little bit more scoring than he would during the regular season. Three points about the same. He's been good. Needed to be great. And my guess is when he shoots his first, and he misses his first shot tonight, the crowd in LA is going to go nuts. It's okay. He's still going to make 10 or 11, hopefully.

Koso. 7.90. So what's the matter with you? To Roger. Yes. Just your bum ass up, man. Shit your bum ass up, man. On this show.

Jabari Smith, Jr., what do you want him to say? That he's not out there battling with this team? They are the better team. They're just screwing it up. Shut your bum ass up, fake-ass-ass-fan. Biotts. Shit your bum-ass up, man. Oh, Koso, let's go.

Bringing the heat. Spicy Koso. So you get a little extra jalapinos in those cases. All right. That's it for shut your bum ass up. Anybody got time for that? Anything else, Jonathan, you want to say? We got, because, I mean, we can do more WNBA if you want.

And like, like I said, nobody has time for that, man. Like, that should have been the point. That should have been, that's what? That's what if there were two bros that there were in a relationship? Do you think it would be asked at a press conference? You know, all right, to your point, I think they would be asked. But it should not. It would definitely be asked.

It should not go, like, for days on Twitter talking about, like, oh, what's going on? Like, no, it's not, come on. There's a lot. Has it been going for days? Not on my tab. No, it's settled down a little bit. All right. Is it the same old song for the Astros on the road?

This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Blaze Alexander, who came on for defense in the eighth inning. making the game ending play and Baltimore takes the first game of this series, five to three. Ross, am I a lot of tip of game? I guess. Here I go. I'm not checked the standings in a day and a half.

Are only four and a half out? That's nothing. Oh, 11 and 19. Worst record in the American League. Oh. Worst record in the American League. League? What's that? Worst record in the American League?

Yes. Not good. Oh, great. That's cool. But only a half game out of having the second worst record in the American League. Run differential, tied for worst in the American League at minus 25. Best the Yankees at a plus 50.

Now, the A's are in first place in the American League West. They have a negative run differential of a So just saying. And by the way, the Mariners are won 7 to 10, and then out of the first place in a game from being 500. Other than that, things are great. We present to you at 12-08, the news at noon.

All right, Matthew, a lot of piping hot stuff on the news at noon. I mean, I guess we'll start with the Astros. They lost 5 to 3 to the Baltimore Oriole Baltimore. Orioles. As Matt, your thoughts on Shane Bavs. And his outing, five and two thirds, only gave up the one run, six strikeouts on the flip side. Kai Wei Ting in an opener roll, or whatever you want to call it, 42 pitches, three innings, five hits, a couple of earned runs. Yes.

Stephen Okert then came in relief and walked. Oh, no, I thought he, oh, was it only two? No, he faced three batters. Then Ryan Weiss came in, gave up some runs, and Bennett Tsuza closed things out to lower ZERA to 30. By the way, is Brian or are you going to pitch anytime soon? I don't know. Have we just given him like a little like vacation? He needs to hit the IL or he's got to figure this out.

It can only be one or the other. He cannot be this bad. There's no, it doesn't make any sense. Astros, go ahead. But he is not blown a save. Yes, correct. So your gut feeling is still in playing. Yes, sir.

That's a W. Uh, did you just snort? Yes. Astros leave 10 on base and go two for 14 with runners in scoring position. Your thoughts, Matthew? I'm happy they had 14 guys on base or 14 opportunities to score. I guess. By the way, the Cleveland and Tampa Bay game is already in a rain delay.

I don't know if that's the same system. It's going to make it over to Baltimore. Well, yeah, if you're, hmm. Yeah, I don't think. we're playing baseball today, which is going to make things very peculiar for the devil header tomorrow. Well, I'm glad you brought that up, Matt. We go to our meteorological bureau of the news at noon. We go to Matt Thomas in Los Angeles with the Baltimore weather report. Oh, it is the same system. Oh, my God. Basically, the entire northeast is under rain.

Really? Who else plays in the east today? I don't know, but I'm going to tell you, Pittsburgh, Washington. All that's the same area. Philly, New York it's going to, it looks like. Call it now so the boys can have a four-hour. show today. It is blanketed. No, it's more fun if they have to like give themselves a little hope and then they have to

Oh, do you think they're going to stick around for this? OX will because he's a good team employee. That's true. Plan will be like, you know, put Fox Sports Radio on. That's good. It's got to go finish this campaign. I'm Grant Theft Auto. All right, let's go. All right, elsewhere in the news at noon, Matt.

Garrett Crochet, placed on the IL with shoulder inflammation for the Boston Red Sox as the hits keep coming. course they fired Alex Cora recently and now they have placed their ace Garrett Crochet on the

injured list. Two-time All-Star has a 6.30 ERA over his first six starts this year. Unfortunate. With a new managerial staff and a new coaching staff. Yes. Also, Matt, LeBron James did a new

interview with Dave McMineman and actually a wide-ranging series of interviews with ESPN. And he has acknowledged, of course, the influence that Michael Jordan had on him. And the answer that was? LeBron said, I hope I made him proud, at least, wearing that number 23. Oh, so they are good friends after all. I don't think MJ likes him that much because he's so competitive.

I've never compared myself to MJ because our games are totally different. I've been a point forward slash forward point my whole life. I've always looked for the pass. Amj kind of looked for the shot. Not kind of, he did. He looked for the shot. There are a lot of things where I would say my game is a lot different and a little better than his, but he was bleeping great. We're both great.

We're both great basketball players. Very diplomatic. Who will get a bigger round of applause tonight? LeBron James or Brony James? It's going to be close. Well, the question is if Brony going to take the floor, especially if Austin Reuss plays in tonight's game. List it is questionable, by the way.

definitely out. May I give you one non-sports headline during the news at noon? Yes. TMZ a few hours ago says Lisa Kudrow says the friends, writers were horny, harsh, and way out of line. Hmm. It's funny.

Everyone is saying, you didn't bring this up when you were making a million episode. Okay. That's right, but I mean, you took the check. It doesn't make it right, Matt. No. I want to say friends. It's still in harsh conditions. large a little overrated for a show

friends oh way overrated yeah okay it's elementary humor and it's not that great it's about all the later seasons got horrible Jennifer Anson still is an all time good for me they made they made Joey and Rachel get together

that's when it jumped the shark that was uncomfortable that was a bad combination God how many of these people how many of their friends is is Rachel sleeping with well I mean it was they didn't like mingle with each other I mean there was a brother and sister in the group. Yeah.

That would have been really desperate. All right. And that was the news at noon. What we failed to mention was Tatsu Emi's performance in Corpus Christi. Well, well, it didn't feel like headline news. We're going to get to it next. Fine.

We are information providers, Rossi. It was just a rehab start. Nothing to worry about. You know what you got to do for Tatsu Emi? You got to get him to college station. That's what you got to do. We have a little bit of breaking news here on the Matt Thomas Joe and Ross at 1221. Maybe one more?

Oh, now my interest is peak. Local or national? Local. Sport. Football. Football. You won't get it. Keelan Rutledge has agreed to his contract.

No, that wouldn't be two. Nope. Oh, God. I don't know. I'm scared. Nobody's scared. It's the Texans giving up more money. Okay.

Al-Z's Al Shire, three-year extension. Ah, okay. His contract was set to expire after next season, but now he's there until 2030. Love it. He's going to love operating behind Caden McDonald. Yeah, you know, I don't really know the inner workings of contracts in the NFL because, first of all, there's so many players to worry about.

and you know and you want to try to get ahead of the game and some of it's guaranteed and some of it's not and some of it's you know um you know front loaded and some of its back loaded but it feels like that the texans do a pretty good job of taking care of their own generally speaking right yes that if you were to criticize the astros for not keeping some of their own the texans do an exemplary job of trying to keep their own. Yes, I think that's, especially, of course, when it comes to, I mean, DeNeil Hunter got a deal. Obviously, Will Henderson, you had to pay. I mean, that was a no-brainer. You got Nico Collins got taken care of last year. Nico might want another deal.

Well, I think Nico's going to want another deal. I'm just... Nico's underpaid now, but I mean, that's what happens when you bet. When you bet on somebody, they paid them early. By the way, did you know, what did you think of when, Nicky C. basically roasted the report out there that Nico Collins was being talked about in trades.

He said Jordan Schultz, shut your bum ass up, man. Jordan Schultz. I don't know. How does he keep getting jobs? Fox figured it out. I mean, when's BleacherPoor going to figure it out, report figured out too? The guy just makes stuff up. He just does. Some of it sticks. I don't know, though. In this particular case, and I think he's an ultimate douche, I do. He is an ultimate douche.

but I think there's lakes of this one. I really do. I mean, people, teams calling? Sure. Hey, is Nico Collins available? No, thank you. And I guess that counts.

But no, no, Jordan Schultz has been wrong on a number of stuff. He has, and that's the thing is that it's hard to give him the benefit of that when he's been wrong on so many other things.

I know, you're right. And wasn't he trying, was it he and even Rappaport they were getting in fights or something like that? All those NFL bros get into fights. Yeah, Jordan Schultz verbally accosted Ian Rappaport. ahead of the combine last year.

And then there was talk of, well, you know, Adam Schaefter and Ian Rappaport have a cool relationship. Who cares? Yeah, they have a quiet rivalry. They're foils. Yeah, I mean, that's exactly, I mean, that when Shams and Woge were battling each other out, I don't think they were breaking bread on a daily basis with each other.

Yeah. Here's the reality. If you're going to be one of those personalities, you're going to have limited friends, you're going to be on your phone more than, even a 17-year-old, you're going to give up social events. You're going to give up spending time with your wife. You're going to give up movies.

You're going to give up television because you're going to be addicted to your phone, and you're going to be addicted to sending out text. And if that's the life you live, that's your choosing. No one's going to feel sorry for you. You're going to make a lot of money. A lot of money. But that's what your life is. Jordan Schultz just plays reporter.

Because Jordan Shultz gets to because he's got Starbucks money coming his way. Yeah. that's nice you know what good on him for trying to have a job having some ambition but i mean is somebody paying him i believe he's he was with he got picked up by fox he was when we first heard from him as we've talked about before he was with huffington post and he told us that dwight harold was going to the mavericks yes he did and you gave him an opportunity to get out of saying that he's like i'm sticking with my sources yeah he's going to the mavericks and then it was wrong he blocked me And then he blocked you.

Yeah. Then he blocked me. You were, you were. I didn't say anything. Well, I mean, I said stuff on error bottom. Yeah. I don't know if he heard that and that's fine. You caught the bullet.

It wasn't really meant for me. I don't care. I didn't say anything that wasn't wrong. I already had hit. The funny part is he blocked me. I already had a muted because he puts out so much misinformation. Yeah. So if I already got you muted and you blocked me, I mean, whatever.

It's funny. Reporters, and I'm sure it's the same way in the political world. We don't talk politics. But we're a pretty. petty bunch, right? Generally speaking? I think so. I mean, media people. There's arguments about who has stories first.

There's arguments about where the source came from. At the end of the day, the people that want the information, just want the information. They don't care who gets it first. They just want to make sure it's accurate. And unfortunately, accuracy in sports media, because that's what we follow, is it's taking a downturn. It doesn't have to be accurate anymore. I mean, it's baked into the job in media these days.

I mean, look, and I'm talking about all of us. Self-included. If you want to work in media, there's a little bit of, look at me. Give me attention in you, right? Yeah, except for me. Thankfully, you don't get that from him. Don't laugh that loud. Jonathan, quiet him down, please.

He's not totally laughing that loud. All right, that's enough. Okay, okay, really, that's enough. now he's just trying to embellish this it's a terrible look for you I got you Matt shit your bum ass up man thank you Jonathan very much

I'm sorry what were we talking about tattoo Emi's performance in corporate's christi yesterday self included there's going to be a little bit of look at me which means there's going to be some ego which means there even insecurities

and all those old things that go into each of it baked end of course I want to say my look at me quotient is probably about 30%. You're not willing to accept that as a decent number. So, would you stop laughing? I sit my tea. It turns a little scratchy.

Let's get you that Tatsu Emi report. Instead of you laughing at me. Jesus. Something was on the TV. No, it wasn't. It was you were laughing at my direct statement. Roddy Dangerfield special. Okay.

You really think he's that funny. huh? Apparently he doesn't get respect. Look, there are way worse people out there. That I would agree with. Go to their Twitter accounts and shoot. I'm not even going to mention her name. All right. Let's move on. It's fine. Man, I'm just messing with you, Matt. Thank goodness. All right. I don't feel so bad now. All right. We promise you Tattoo Emi's report from Corpus Christi. Do we have a Corpus

Is there a song about Corpus Christi that we can play when we come back? I think, yeah, there's a couple of Corpus. Corpus Christi Bay. What is that that, is that for somebody, one of those? give us a Corpus Christi song we come back that's what I want to hear 713 Whatever I don't care You choose what you want

Okay 713212 570 713 212570 If you want to visit us through Twitter You may do that as well At SportsMT At SportsMT At SportsCoviev

By the way Ross Have we told the world How great my Instagram account is At SportsMT Please follow the man At SportsMT It is absolutely phenomenal

It's great unbelievable stuff let's go let's get you at sports mt on instagram if you follow me on instagram oh here we go you said stop with the false promises the rockets

will give it their all tonight and it will rain and if you like rain it's going to rain in baltmore if you follow me on instagram at sports empty let's get that number up let's get let's have let's have an instagram party it's a much more play place out there tat sui emai report from corpus with a corpus

Christi's song after I tell you about Big City Wings. Are you hungry? This is what you chose for Corpus Christi? Someone tell me this was a jam over there. I love the jam. You know I love me some Chris Cross. Is he from Corpus Christi or something?

No. Oh. Sounds like he's from like New Jersey. Is this yacht rock? Yes, this is a yacht rock. It's a wonderful genre. Ladies gentlemen, Mr. Chris Terrible.

All right, so Selena is the most famous person from Corpus. Who's number two? Oh! Wait a minute. We might have a believer or not going here. Is this person from Corpus? No, Selena questions and Lou Diamond Phillips.

Lou Diamond Phillips is from Corpus? Yeah. This is a jam, by the way. I mean, this is fine For what it is. It's not my favorite Chris Cross song. I mean, you never, literally never listen to this unless you're on a boat. All right, you ready for the list of people from Corpus Christi?

Yes. Farah Fawcett may she rest from Corpus Christi. Is that true? Eva Longoria. Oh, I forgot about that. Okay, people from Corpus questions about people from Corpus. That's believe it or not, yeah. Eva Longoria.

she's she's 51 and she's still a smoke show i mean my gosh uh baseball people uh jose trevino yankees catcher i don't know who that is okay yeah i don't know it's not a huge list of celebrities from corpus christi evil angoria and uh phara fosso the two number ones in the list for sure okay jeremy jordan is an actor on broadway sure why not oh i loved him in rent you did not roger Krieger's from the Corpus Christi. Roger Crager? He sucks. I just made some people mad.

Wait a minute. What if the Kregor family's listening right now? That's not very nice to say. Okay, it's fine. It's fine. Bob, a pair of NASCAR legends. Bobby and Terry Labonte are from a Corpus Christi.

Are you serious? Yeah. There's no way. Why not? Bobby and Terry Labani are born in Corpus Christi? Sounds like it. Wow. Did they grow up there?

I don't know. I was running through the list here. This is great. They went to Mary Carroll High and Corpus, that's legit. Like if you were just born there and went to high school there, we're doing famous people

from Corpus Christi and believe it or not today. You've got the topic. Bobbe Labone. Corpus, you got to say Bobby Labone like that. He's not from a... Lafayette.

Like you're calling a NASCAR race. I never got it in NASCAR. Doesn't it sound? Oh, my body, man. If I'm called him to Texas now. No. Doesn't fit. Bobby Labone.

You're trying. You're telling me Bobby La Bono. body doesn't work. You hear this, folks. When y'all don't call the show, Bobby and Terry. This is what happens to the program. You don't call and interact with us.

This is what happens right here. Bobby Labani. You're going to tell me that doesn't sound Cajun. Shut your bum ass up. I just love Cajun period. So, Terry Labani, come on. All right, I'm going to the Tatsui I. Tatsui Yama report.

Fanboat sales. That doesn't fit. Come on now. Yeah, all right. Tatsuui Emai, two innings. six hits five runs all were earned rossi three walks two strikeouts one home run allowed 59 pitches only 31 were strikes and remember if you ball is hit it's a strike one wild pitch and one pitch time violation you don't have to throw in if a ball is hit it's a strike well i had to tell the audience for accuracy we know the rules of baseball now i don't

everybody does. You have to just rub that in. I don't know that. How many of them were hits? How many hits? Six. Okay, only six of those hits. Good God, he sucks.

I mean, who, oh, God. How do you go to Dykin with that meeting and say, hey, thanks for opening up the international waters for us. You sent us a guy who hasn't pitched anywhere in this country except West Sacramento, California with any success. Oh my God You know what Frumber

Go to Detroit We don't need your Mental Issues on this team We don't need you to Throw out the chest Asesar Salazar We're bringing Tatsu Emi in

Strong as nails Tough Resilient It's a bad Rehab start It happens It's fine What does he do

doing next. They said they were hoping he'd only have one rehab. I believe Joe Spada said, oh, they're hoping only maybe one restart, rehab start and get him back in the fold. You can't put him back in the fold after this. Do we send him to Sugar Land first? Maybe Fayetteville.

To be a woodpecker? Florida, it feels that this might have Florida complex league gritting all over it. Oh, wait a minute. He's not going to extend his spring training again. Jose of Bray, who's still there? No. He could get him out. And you're the one getting mad at me for bringing up.

He should opt out after the next year. He's, I'm not getting mad. You just told your own self to shut your bum ass up because you know he's not opting out. That maybe he's fair. Well, you know what? He might, he like, I want to go back. Scott Boris's like, no, you're not going back.

But I really want to go back. I don't care. Yeah. I own you. Come on. That's relax. Well, man, but if you sign with Scott Boris, you, You went to go get the hired gun, right?

Yeah, of course. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, no, he's signed with the best agent in baseball. Why would he do that? What's the problem? What's the problem? Yeah, he could. Or you could pick the guy if you think you're talented enough and good enough,

which clearly he did. Now it's not working out now. Yeah. I don't fault anybody. Oh, no. You mad at Hunter Brown for getting Scott Boris? Yes, because he's not going to see with the Astros. Yes, I'm mad at him.

Yes. Okay, we were mad at El Tuva. He's here. And he's been the exception rather than the. rule. That's a one-off. Yes, but also the player makes the ultimate decision. Jerry Pena. Yes. And then, uh, Garrett Cole

with Scott Boris hat. Alex Breggman. Okay, he's Boris Corp hat is very stylish. Nobody else wears him. I'm sure somebody else has worn the hat ever. You know, I'm going to walk around Beverly Hills. I'm going to go for a walk after the show. Okay. You're going to count Boris hats? All right. All right. Shut up.

If you go to a, if you go to the Dodgers clubhouse, you might be all right. That's true That's true Might see four or five You may see In the front He says Scott Boris

In the back It says deferred payments Might be called Boris Stadium God I wonder what made him so good I mean everybody's Everybody's got a little ruthless in them right

But what made him more ruthless Than anybody else I don't know I don't I mean there's got to be a best At something And he's obviously The best has ever done

In baseball Joe Rosenhouse Probably the best ever in football In terms of a number of athletes I mean, now, Lee Steinberg back in the day, was he good? Lee Steinberg was the quarterback guy. He got you the quarterback money, and obviously Pat Mahomes was his last big one, but why can't we have nice things?

It's going to turn around. Why have the Astros be in first place in a mediocre division? In Emi, we trust. He's going to turn it around. Why can't the first international persuasion the Astros have gotten to on the Far East been successful? We're created a pipeline where people cannot run to Houston fast enough. He said one of the reasons he came to Houston is because you say Kukuchi pitched here.

Yeah, why couldn't we give Captain? the Kikuchi. No, Kukuchi was already integrated. He'd been in Seattle and Toronto. But it took the money to go to Anaheim. He was going to finish in the last place there. Oh, no, he took money. Athletes never do that.

That's true. All right, 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. I'm here in Los Angeles getting ready for hopefully a rocket's win tonight to extend the series to a 6 game. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Ross and I don't tell you this enough, but we do love you very much as an audience. It means a lot. Some days are easy to call in and talk.

It's true. But we always, sometimes fail to realize y'all are always out there listening. And for that, we thank you. And I have more examples of that right now for you. A lot of people are tweeting, Ross. Yes, from Lake Jackson Bureau. Yeah, you're getting Selena slam because she was not born in Corpus Christi. She grew up there.

Yes. She grew up in Corpus. Yeah, she first, I don't know, six, seven, eight years of her life, apparently she was in Lake Jackson. Okay. I'd heard that, but I forgot about it. I also heard about her getting accepted at LSU. I forgot about that, too. Did Gordy tell you that?

No. I was reading more about her. Her father opened up a Mexican restaurant in Lake Jackson. That went under, and then they moved to Corpus Christi when she was young. Okay. There's another interesting one from our listener to the slowly astral hole. Okay. Careful.

That's why I was careful. My dad went to high school with Farah Fawson and Corpus Christi. She was almost my mom. I don't think you can say that. I don't think that's possible. Different eggs? Correct. Different.

Different what? Sperm. Yeah. I mean, it's a scientific term. and then our listener, Stephen, sent me a message, says that Dabney Coleman was born in Austin but grew up in Corpus Christi. Who? Daphne Coleman. Comedian.

Comedic actor. Not familiar, I don't think. Or am I? I would say his best role was playing? Yeah, Dabney. D. Dabney? I guess I was thinking of like Daphne.

I thought it was. No, no. Dabney Coleman. I want to say Dabney Coleman's most famous role. He had two of them. He was in. He was in. the director in the movie Tootsie,

based off a soap opera. Okay. And he was also the boss that was sexually harassing all the women on the movie 9 to 5 with Dolly Parton and Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. Okay. So I just gave you two randau 80s movies that were both very good, by the way. I actually have never seen either. You know what Tootsie's about?

Yeah, it's about a crossdresser. Yes. Who winds up falling in love with Jessica Lang. Okay. I mean, Tootsie's on my lip. I wanted to see Tootsie because didn't Dustin Hoffman win best actor for that? I think he did. And it introduced us to a young Gina Davis wearing very little underwear.

91% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Oh, Tootsie is fantastic. Okay. Fantastic. Now it's a comedy? Comedy, yes. Okay. It's about, and I don't want to give away too much here.

Dustin Hoffman is this starving middle-aged actor who can't get any roles. The only role he can get is he's playing a secretary on this soap opera, but nobody knows he's really a man. He dressed up like a woman. He wants up falling in love with Jessica Lang, and then during the movie, well, people find out he becomes a man. So it was interesting. It's just a funny story. It's got a lot of stars in it.

But Dad Nick Coleman was in it, and he was also in 9 to 5. So there you go. Speaking of IMDB, by the way, you were talking about Michael? Yes, tell me. It's got 97% on the popcorn meter, which is the fan vote. But that also could be getting interview bombed by Michael Jackson fans, people think. So who knows? But 37% by critics, 97% by audience score.

Like I was saying. You are more of a movie goer than I am. So who do you put more faith behind? I generally, when it's skewed one way or the other, it's probably good. When the critics hate it and the people love it, it. When there's a consensus, I trust more of a consensus. Does that make sense? If the

critics love it and the audience hates it, I probably am still going to like it. If the audience loves it and the critics hate it, I probably will still like it. And of course, obviously, if both love it, probably pretty good. Now, when they're both bad, that's what you look for.

I would have you watch it. I should see over 9 to 5. Okay. If you're in an 80s movie movie move this weekend. Okay. So did you go see the Michael movie, Jonathan? No, not yet.

I wanted this to happen. I wanted this, the more people to see it for the ratings. I really wanted to see before I was it on my mind. It could be Michael fans in Malaysia, like interview by review bombing it too. As God is my witness, if Jonathan, if you go see Michael and you give it an thumbs up, I'll go see it. Okay. I'll only go off of your record. I thought you knew some people that'd seen it, Matt.

Yeah, Peyton saw it. He hated it. Mixed bag. He hated it. Really? What did he hate about it? Because he wanted it to be a true biopic, and it wasn't a true biopic. What does that mean?

Apparently, there is a sequel, by the way. You're right, Jonathan. See, okay, okay, so this makes more sense. The sequel got greenlit. Okay, yeah, but I don't know how much you're going to get into. I'm very curious, because this has to be approved by the Jackson estate. Correct. But there's so, because isn't his autopsy out now, too?

They can't really deny that stuff. Michael Jackson's Bobby would happen when he was taken and all the medicines and all that stuff. Yeah, he was taking like, he was, they were putting him under anesthesia. so he could sleep. So if that's all public knowledge, there's no way they can just make a movie and not hit those hard needles. I don't know. They've already made one movie about it.

All right. Let's go to, we got a Dadney Coleman comment. Oh, my God. You and I have been doing this show for 16 years. We've never had a Dabney Coleman comment on the show until now. Hi, Dave. Matt, I'm practically as old as you, so I can think back on a number of Dabney Coleman glory moments.

And I'll tell you, a movie that he was really good in, if you remember, it was on Golden Pond, with Henry Fonda, where he plays Jane Fonda's boyfriend when they go to the cabin and stuff. Yes, hilarious, man. He was a very good comedic actor. I agree with you. I mean, the younger generation won't remember him, but he deserves to be remembered.

Thank you very much, Dave. Ross, if you go look at a photo of him, you would recognize him. Yeah, I did. Okay. It looks familiar. Dabney Coleman. Dabney. I mean, if you did famous Dabneys, I'd go Coleman 1 and I'd be kind of stuck after that. Frederick's.

There's no Dabney, Fredericks. Yeah, he was in the Continental Congress. That's a lie. All right, I made that up. Brian and Parenthland on seven on a, hello, Brian. Hey, what's up guy? Yeah, of all the years I've listened to you guys, this might be the first Dapney reference. I think I've ever, I do ever recall.

But, Ross, I'm going to bring something out with you, and you're the only one who's been around long enough to understand. this, but do we seem to think after y'all stint in West Palm Beach, plus you'll stint over at Rockets Media Day, that the sports M.T. person might be making its way back with all these injuries. I was hoping

you would be good enough to upset at some of this, but you'll interviewed Hunter Brown. Look what happened. Y'all interviewed Kevin Durant. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on, Brian. We interviewed Christian Walker and Spencer Arrogatti. How are they doing? two who are doing well but but the majority more negative than positive over the years so

I'm just saying I was hoping you would help offset some of that and maybe those are the positives that you're bringing but if mac can be claimed to be Mr. Texas then the sports mt curse is still still live and yeah hey Brian Ryan run him Brian may interrupt for one second I love you I have at it empty shut your bum ass up man Shit your bum ass up, man. Thank you, Brian. We'll see you later. By the way, for those of you, the kids out there listening?

Yes. Dabney Coleman. Dabney Coleman was Kevin Kosser's dad in Yellowstone, for those of you that... Oh, he's still acting. No, he's dead. That's from our buddy Jay. Well, okay, he was in Yellowstone and then he died. Well, I would assume so, yes.

Okay. It's like not related. It's not like he got like mulled by a bear in Yellowstone or anything. By the way, Stephen just texted me again. Dabney Coleman, University of Texas alum. Oh, there we go. Hook him horns, baby. He's an Austin native.

Yes. Not Corpus Christi. Colonel was also in war games. Damny Coleman. Which was, who was that? That wasn't Michael J. Fox. That was Sarah Jessica Parker's. Matthew Broderick.

Matthew Broderick was in war games. Would you like to play a game? Yeah, Daddman was in that. Dan is a star. All right. Stop, he's not a star. He's not a star. Does he have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?

Or does he? Oh, you want to do, Danny Coleman, believe it or not now? I don't know. He's not from Corpus. Did he live there? How did this come up? No, he was born in Austin, but grew up in Corpus, apparently. Yeah.

And see, do we have to educate Jonathan on the lore of the sports MT curse? No. I get, I will. I will. So we built, there was now, it started with Lance Zerline. I'm sorry, Mansmarline of NFL. And like it was Matt would talk about stuff and then the person would get immediately hurt. Like we had JJ Wad on and out of nowhere Matt asked him about like if he's healthy and how he's feeling.

He's like, oh, I'm feeling great. And then he got hurt like two weeks later. So every time Matt talked to somebody got hurt and we built them to Matt Thomas Kurt. It was a bit, Jonathan. It was just really a bit. But the bit got out of control. I'll tell you why. Apparently we had players on week.

We had players, of course, like we do now, weekly players of the Astros. apparently they caught wind of it and they were getting scared, so we had to, we had to drop the back. Yeah, that guys were telling us no to the show because of the curse. Yeah, literally Evan Gaddis came on our air. He's like, I'm not scared of the curse. He's, unprompted, he was like, I'm not scared of the curse. And we're like, oh, and then that's when I was like, oh, this bit needs to die. And then, the bit needs to die.

This is too much. We didn't have sports empty blessings. Yeah, but those were pretty short-lived. Pretty short-lived. Okay. Final hour, Matt and Ross. Rockets, getting ready. They're on.

They're finishing up, shoot-around here in Los Angeles. Astros, Orioles game two. More your phone calls and more Dabney-Colman conversation. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. The Matt Thomas show with Ross here from Los Angeles. 713-212-5-7-90. Tomorrow, Ross and I will do a 30-minute show. It's either going to be 30 minutes of full optimism,

Rossi or 30 minutes of what do the Rockets go next? Are you still going to surprise? Go ahead. Are you going to still won on the show if they lose? Yeah, I got to do the show. Yeah, I know. Can do the show. It's fine.

It's fine. And then I'm going to go to Reno to feel sorry for myself after that. Or you can go gambling. Yeah, but why Reno? Why are we doing volleyball on Reno Nevada? Hard to get to. It, hmm. You got a theory?

No, but I mean, couldn't this have been opted out of? That's true. But it's her last club volleyball tournament. Okay. With the girls. Memories for life. Oh, yeah. High school graduation's coming up next month.

Then she's going away to college. There'll be an empty nester. Want to spend some more bro time with you. Get a nice high rise in downtown. Oof. Thoughts. The engines rolling on that one, by the way. Sports RV.

all right I've been involved and planting that seed for like eight years I know you have because you're frankly tired of me bitching about the traffic

yes I am every day that's fine it's absolutely justifiable for sure all right Rockets and Lakers play game five

we don't 740 for sure probably 790 as well for the broadcast by the way Vanessa Richardson's going to join me as our silent reporter

for the game tonight oh wow I noticed that Cleveland and Denver do this with their radio broadcast. I asked the Rockets if it would be okay in Space City, and they said, sure. So Vanessa is going to work. The sidelines for me give us a different perspective of what's

happening down there during the game. It would be kind of cool. Sounds awesome. We're going to try it out. On News Radio 740, KTRH. There's that KTRH. Four is coming in again. Can't help it. Do you think I should call the game differently on KTRAH and I went on 790? Hmm.

I don't think I can do that. And the woke liberals at crypto.com are in disbelief. Like that? Ramon, hear him into crypto.com. Ramon, do you believe in crypto?

This crowd is as raucous as the L.A. homeless in the soup kitchen line. Ramon, you know the gas prices here in L.A. are expensive. I can do a Michael Barry voice for four hours. That'd probably would be appealing to the 740 audience. And Jabari Smith Jr. makes three. Jabari.

Jabari over to a man. Can I get an amen? No, I mean, I'm in. It actually works. It's pretty good. It actually would work. The things we think about on this radio show are incredible. Let's talk to our friend, Dave, in Las Vegas.

713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. David, good afternoon. Thanks for holding. Gentlemen, I am not wearing my handicapper hat or my degenerate gambler. hat today. I'm wearing my Rockets fan hat tonight. I just

something about the idea of Game 5, Rockets at Lakers brought back a memory. And I think you know where I'm going with this, Matt. I do. 40 years ago. 40 years ago, have you talked about this today already? I have not, because it's not really, a lot of

our audiences don't really remember, but 86 the Rockets lost. First of all, it involves one of the greatest plays in the entire history of the Rockets franchise. But it also was game 5 versus the Lakers. And I remember so well because I remember where I was. I just started a new job. I was on a business trip in San Antonio watching late.

And it was like 12.30 at night or one of the morning. The game is as tense as can be. Elijah Juan, who's leading all scores, gets kicked out in the fourth quarter. And all of a sudden, it's coming down. And I've got an important business meeting in the morning of breakfast. I got a host at like 7.30. It's already really late. and I shouldn't be up that late.

I shouldn't be drinking. But all of a sudden, the thing goes, 112 to 112 with less than other, like one second left. And I said, oh, my God, this thing's going to overtime.

I pick up the phone, and I call hotel room service that you could do back of the day. And I ordered a double-checked Daniels on the rocks. Anyway, no sooner had I ordered that, then I hang up the phone. And, of course,

Ralph Samson takes an inbound shot from Rodney McRae, turns around, without even looking over his shoulder from the free throw line, drains the basket. Rockets advance to the NBA finals. And I call up with that. I'll cancel that drink. I don't need it anymore. But one of the great moments in Rocket's history,

so maybe it'll bring back some good mojo for tonight. That's right. The last time, thanks, David, for the phone call. I said the Rockets put a game five in a series here. The Rockets won the game and won the West. It was on CBS late night, too. That was when CBS used to carry the games. Tommy Hineson was doing the color commentary.

Tommy Hinesson was a former Celtic coach and a player and broadcaster, Ross. He was so biased towards the Celtics that eventually even CBS is like, yeah, we got to let you go. And yeah, that's the thing people can forget is that, I mean, that was like prime showtime Lakers. And even though they won on the incredible shot, like it was five games. There was no fluke. That 86 team was insane. Yeah, it was Jim Peterson. It was Rodney McCray, Ralph Samson,

Akeem Elyjean, Sweet Lou Lloyd, Mitchell Wiggins. I don't know if Alan Levin was on the team or not. I don't remember. Yeah, Alan Levin was. I have it pulled up now. But Hakeem averaged 31 and 11 in that series. Ralph Samson, 20 and 9, and then injuries and drugs.

Yeah, injuries and drugs usually don't help. But I mean, yeah, on the other side, Abdul Jabbar, Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Byron Scott, Michael Cooper, Mo Lucas, Kurt Rand. Like, it was legit, healthy, Showtime Lakers. Yes. And that 86 Rockets team crushed him in five. Yeah. Do I want to, am I right?

Did the Rockets win four straight? Yes. They lost the first game and they won the next four. Yeah. that was when I became an over rocket fan. I mean, I sort of liked him when I was here,

but I really loved him when Ralph and came with the Twin Towers. Yeah, I mean, I was an infant, so I don't really remember, but I remember reading about it and reading about,

you know, you see the shot, but you don't realize like that was game five. Like, the rockets were hand on their business against the Showtime Lakers in the heart of their prime.

And the greatest part about that shot is, not only did Samson make it on the turnaround, but I want to say, Mitchell, Wiggins was coming from the weak side, was ready to tap it, and he had to actually stand back and not do it. Then we lost to

Larry Bird, Robert Parrish, Kevin McHale, and Bill Walter. I mean, yeah, people who call the greatest team of all time. Unfortunately, Rockets run up against the greatest team of all time, 86 Lake of Celtics. Greatest team of all time, 18, 17, 16, Warriors.

It's great. Fantastic. We got two championships, so. We do. I'm happy. It's been a while, but we took out. And then people put asterisks on them, even though they don't belong, especially the second one. Jordan played. Yeah, no, you don't get an asterisk. No, I'm sorry. He came back. Yeah, he wore 45, but he came back.

Yeah, nobody made him retire and go be a Birmingham baron. Yeah, nobody said take care of gambling debts for a year. All right. You know I'm right about that. No, you're not. All right. You know, come on. That's been roundly dismissed by all. You don't think David Stern told Jordan to take a year off to get his gambling that's under fixed up?

Anybody who's done any digging is no. Well, I'm going to be right about that. No, you're not. And I'm going to write about Joe Mixon's leg or foot. Oh, that he shot himself? Yes. Okay. You're going to be right about Yordon never playing 130 games ever?

Hopefully not. Hopefully I'm wrong about that. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212. 790. There is something in sports that was really good that we're trying to expand and make it worse. We'll discuss that next. 1121 at Pacific Time, 121 in the Central Times zone. We're going to hear from Brian Bogus. I think you miss our conversation a little bit earlier.

That always is a great visit with him on Wednesdays. Brian McTaggart will be a part of the Astros on-deck show tomorrow. Ross and I will have just a 30-minute show because we're going to celebrate Rockets basketball for 30 minutes tomorrow. as the Rockets will hopefully beat the Lakers tonight. Jabari Smith spoke yesterday about the confidence level he has and the things that Kevin Durant told him by getting ready for tonight's game 5 and here's what Jabari had to say. Stay with it.

You know, just stay with it. BS, be aggressive, play free. You know, we're obviously the better team I feel like. So just knowing that, being confident, trusting our work. He's just telling us to BS. you think of a better team in the series? We? Us? I just feel like from top to bottom.

You can say that's an opinion. You can say I'm biased, but I just think we're the better team. Yeah, he is biased. Supposed to be biased, right, Ross? Yeah. Yes. You know, I think the Lakers are better than us, but we're going to try to give it our all.

No, nobody wants to hear that. Yeah, it's like, you know, of course, our friend Indie Kalu, former Houston Texan, Philadelphia Eagle, was on the show for a long time around here. He told us, like, when he was, they were rice and they were going to play up Powerhouse, Ohio State. They believed they were going to win. Now, when the game started.

Yeah, when a kickoff started, it was a different attitude. When they're down 21-0-0 in like five minutes, it can change a little bit. But you go out there and you believe you can win. Yeah. I think Yalperin Shingoon backs up this. Here's a little bit from out yesterday, too. This morning at just the overall mood, cutting his game on. I mean, the mood is good.

You know, we got one, but, you know, we're not happy with it. And going back to L.A. for a fight again, you know, no matter what is the, you know, win or lose. But we're going to win, and we're going to get the fight in there and come back home after that, hopefully. Yeah, question to answer. Ask and answered. We want to win. Very, very simple. Oh, he said we're going to win.

Why is he not getting no, he either? I don't know. I guess he's got a better Twitter backing. Well, you know, Turkey's like, yes, we believe in you, sir. People are running with the Jabari Smith Jr. quote, which, by the way, Adam Wex are getting accreditation from some of the aggregators on that. Well, at least I gave him some credit. Yeah. It's good.

Yeah, I, um. Such a non-story. You know what? This is what sports is. Yeah. You know, and look, let's call ourselves out. If we, have we run into other cities that we hear what they say about our teams and we crush them? I don't remember much about that, but I mean, I could be wrong.

I mean, I'm trying to see the other side of this. Like you were talking about, like if we're on L.A. radio, I'd probably be like, yeah, Jabari, we'll look at the results. But also, as I said, like, they are Vegas favorites in all four games so far. They're not favorite in this one. Austin Reeves is coming back. They're on the road. and there's for sure no Kevin Durant. The hypocrisy probably, if you really, really wanted to dumb it down,

if you think about the hypocrisy with Houston sports teams, would be probably the cheating scandal. If we're any other town, and we're talking about the Astros, we're crushing them for the trash games. We would be. Absolutely, we would be. And now, thankfully, you and I have put it in its proper perspective. one they did it

two they were frankly lucky they didn't get any more severe penalties and three in my mind in some respects 2017 doesn't act or two it it just does and I don't want it to but it does

but the number one thing I said was during all this was it was just the Astros getting caught other teams had their own ways of cheating as well cheating has been rampant in sports forever the Astros had a snitch that was a difference. And if the Red Sox had a snitch or the Dodgers had a snitch or the Cubs had a snitch,

we just got unlucky that the snitch was the guy that was unhappy because the Astros were not bringing him back. And the Astros players wouldn't have spoken to Rob Manfred and the investigators if they had known that everything was going to take a life of its own and that they were going to be the fall guys for this. As you mentioned, I mean, the Yankees letter thing happened, the Red Sox thing happened. There's rumors about the Dodgers, others like the Brewers. a lot of other teams. And I think the Astros were like, oh, well, everybody else is doing this. Yeah, we'll just talk about what we did.

And then they just became the fall guys. Literally, Carlos Beltran came over from the Yankees and said, you guys cheating is out of date, basically. And at Major League Baseball gave the Astros terrible advice because the Astros could have just said, no, we didn't do it. Prove it. Yeah. Your word against mine.

Everybody would have been tightly. So there are layers to it. But that's what I'm saying, though, and I'm trying to just localize it back to the rocket side of things. Yeah, well, if we were doing Laker Talk 7-90, we'd be like, Jabari, shut your bow mess up. We'll go beat you tonight. But this is just competition.

I promise you, somebody is as skilled as LeBron James and Marcus Smart and Luke Kinnard and Rui Acha Mura and Austin Reeves are not going. Oh, yeah, Jabari. Is that how you're going? we're going to show you what we're all about tonight. That ain't happening.

Yeah, the Blazers probably thought they could beat the Spurs. The Suns thought they would do better against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Dylan Brooks probably wanted to beat them. They didn't. They're just not good enough. And we'll see. But they also, I mean, the flip side, of course, I'll go back to is the rockets have been favor in every game. Like, this is supposed to be a closer series than 3-1.

They choked away game 3 so bad. Let's not talk about it. Let's think of a possible game six. Okay. All right. Brian Bogusevick is our Wednesday featured guest at 11 o'clock on Sports Talk 7. If you missed the conversation, we're going to give you a good chunk of it next here on Sports Talk 7. Ross, do we ever figure out what it definitely believe it or not is today?

I thought we were doing Abner Doubleday. What was that guy's name? Davney Coleman. Yeah, okay. Abner Doubleday. Dabney Coleman. Same thing. What's wrong with you?

Okay, well, I thought we were doing people from Corpus. But does Selena count? She wasn't born there, but she kind of grew up there. You know what? She is Corpus. Corpus recognizes her. Does it? Well, Lake Jackson says, hell no. Lake Jackson says she's ours.

Lake Jackson ain't got a vote on this. Lake Jackson was wrong with you. That was Matt. That was Matt Thomas who said Lake Jackson. I'm a stutter in Lake Jackson. You can't claim her. And she was born there and lived there her first like seven, eight years. That counts, kind of.

But they didn't support the dad's restaurant, so shut your bono ass up, Lake Jackson. Maybe the food was no good. You don't know that? He was a musician. We have breaking news on the Matt Thomas show at Ross. That's one. That's funny. Okay.

I keep worried. I get worried about Astro's injuries. Nope. I do not know what it is. Today. Okay, good. Oh, the game's been banged as they say. The game's been banged.

That is a technical term, folks. It is Jonathan Yeah we don't make up terms like that Straight double header tomorrow right here on 790 Oh wow starting when 1135 first pitch tomorrow So same same half hour show for us Wow

Well let's play two tomorrow That's cool Yeah I'm sure the Adams are thrilled Oh they get a full day off Yeah we work 30 minutes So we get a day off two, basically, Matt. I know.

30 minutes to celebrate a Rockets victory. Tomorrow. 10 to 10.30 right here on Sports Talks. Yes, sir. Right now, Brian Bogusevich joins us, or he did earlier today, and if you want to catch part of that, well, guess what? You get a chance to do it right now. We talked about yesterday's game.

The Astros is losing, and unfortunately, a lot of men on the base paths, not a lot of run scoring for the local nine. Yeah. You know, we saw a lot of that in the last couple of years, the way the offense has been this year. We haven't seen quite as many of those. But it's still going to happen. Honestly, a lot of it has to do with the opponent that you're facing and what they've got. You know, Shane Baez is a big swing and miss guy.

And it happens. I'm at the point with this offense. I'm pretty confident, even though there has been a little bit of a lull and drop off recently. They're going to score runs. They're going to be fine. Yes, games like this, it kind of shows up bigger when you don't get it done. But a couple of times this year when we've said, oh, you know, they had this basis loaded opportunity. They only got one run out of it or whatever.

It almost feels like you're being a little greedy and asking too much of the offense at times. It's going to happen. So, yeah, it got them yesterday. But I think overall, more often than not, we should be. okay with the way the offense goes. Let me ask you this, and I've never been one of those that worries too much about having enough left-handed bats, enough right-handed bats in the lineup. But case and point in a couple of times in the game yesterday, the Orioles could go to right-handed

relievers with the so-heavy right-handed side of the Astro lineup. Obviously, that's a construction. That's obviously about who's healthy and who can go. But do you sometimes worry, even before the start of the season, bogey that maybe this team was too right-handed dependent because Dana-Bron has mentioned on numerous occasions. He's always been looking for a left-handed bat. No, absolutely. You need balance.

You need guys that hit from the both sides. You need guys who are contact hitters. You need guys who are power-h headers. You need guys who work at bat's different ways. And for me, it's not necessarily a left-handed, right-handed for you. We can't get a gun if we're all right-handed or left-handed. It's about what that poses to the other side. It changes a manager's ability to play matchups coming out of the bullpen

or target certain parts of the lineup with certain guys. It also from a starting pitcher who's got to go through that lineup two or three times, they're going to go through long stretches of seeing righty, righty, righty, righty, and they can pitch the same way. The more you make a pitcher have to do multiple things, you know, he's got to pitch in, he's got to pitch out, he's got to go up down, He's got to throw changeups to this guy, but he's got to go sliders to this guy. It just seems like there are times when, with a right-handed dominant lineup,

specifically a right-handed pitcher, can just fall in love with fastball the glove slide, slider off of it. And they just fall into a rhythm, whereas if you get them off their spot, it's like a shooter who's hot from a spot. If you, you know, get them off of that spot, maybe you just break that rhythm a little bit. And when that rhythm gets broken, they become successful to mistakes. and if you just let them stay in that groove over and over and over again, you don't get the mistakes to hit.

All right, so if you're Joe Espada, how do you manage around a lineup where you're just don't have that kind of selection available to you? You have what you have, and you try to find other ways around it. You know, look, I'll take best nine over best five righties and four lefties. You know, I'll just give me the best overall in general. but understanding what individuals do differently, you know, if you have a guy who, like Parades, a guy who's looking to pull versus maybe a Cam Smith

who likes to use the middle of the field and the other way more. You can kind of play those off of each other in your lineup construction and try to get the most out of what you have. It was like, you know, it was like when Hector Nerris would come out of the bullpen. Yes, he was a right-handed pitcher, but he had that split so it made him an option against left-handed hitters, try to find things like that, try to find guys who are, you know,

reverse platoon types. But, you know, at the end of the day, you've got what you've got, and you've run out the lineup that, you know, you just take your best guys versus trying to match up at certain spots in the lineup. Brian Bogusevich with us here on Sports Talk 790.

You mentioned Cam Smith, and I do want to ask what you're seeing from him, but also I'm curious, if you can give us some kind of insight into the cat and mouse game when it comes to a guy like him who's changing his approach, it's working to start the season, and then things kind of go south a little bit to where he's now hitting eighth in the lineup. What is that like from a hitter standpoint of trying to figure out what you want to do and then kind of readjusting when other pitching staffs are readjusting? Well, hitting is fluid. There is no destination in hitting.

Even the best hitters in the world, you know, the guys who are in the Hall of Fame over time, their swings were tinkered with, their setups were tinkered with, their approaches change, and it's all kind of based on how you're feeling and how the matchup is from day to day. So that's something that as you mature as a hitter, you know, I think young hitters are often trying to figure out what is it that's going to click and then I'm the hitter that I'm supposed to be. And at prime goes on, you realize you're never actually there. You're just always working and you just get comfortable in that. And it's kind of just something that comes over time.

And, you know, Cam's a very mature kid and he's got a lot of veteran hitters around him who, you know, can make him understand that. And he's just in one of those points right now where it's a readjust. And timing is so important for time. cam and it was something that he was trying to get on last year. It's something that we saw at the beginning of this season working very well for him and kind of his start and his load and getting in a position to hit early. He can get a little stale at times. And even when he's doing that little leg kick, his hands can get a little stagnant to where his body's drifting back, but he's not

getting his hands back. His hands are kind of getting stuck at his shoulder so that when he goes to swing, he's not actually in that ready position that he's trying to get to. And it's just You know, he's in one of those spots now to where he's trying to get on time and he's just not on time. And then you overcompensate, you know, you start pushing forward. You start trying to get a little rotational, trying to make up for what you didn't get in the back of your swing. And, you know, it's just, it's something that every hitter goes through over the course of the season. You have times when you feel right when you don't, especially young hitters, it comes and goes quicker and it can take a little bit longer to find. But, you know, it's, it's one of the reasons why they were.

okay with him making the team out of spring training this year and him trying to go through all of these growing pains at the major league level because they felt like he could handle it from a mental standpoint and be able to work through it here a little bit more on the positive side nice game from bryce matthews he had three hits so what did you see from him last night um you know a guy who's getting a little bit more playing time and getting comfortable um it's a really difficult thing to do for a young player to go into a part-time or, you know, at one point this, beginning this year, it was less than part-time role where you're not getting regular at bats. His entire life, he's been an everyday player and he's gotten every day at bats and he's always had the rhythm of being an everyday guy and he's always had the timing of being an everyday guy. And then, you know, all of a sudden you sit for four or five days and they say, hey, you're in, you're in today.

try to hit this 100 mile an hour fastball and don't swing at the slider in the dirt. And it's like, oh, man, I haven't seen the pitch in a couple of days. So I think a guy who trying to adjust to that for the first time, but now based into a more everyday role in the outfield looks a little bit more timed up and looks like the swing quality is a little bit better. There were some times where he was just off. When he was coming in, you know, not sitting pitching for a couple days, he was late, he was jumpy. His head was

flying as he was trying to generate the bat speed to catch up, and now it just looks a little bit more smoothed out and a little bit more on time. All right, that again. Brian Boga-Septic with us every Wednesday at 11 o'clock here on Sports Talks. If you just have not heard, the Astros game today with the Orioles have been rained out. Devil header tomorrow. Peter Lambert will start

game one. Lance McCullors will start game two is back-to-back double-heder. They'll have 30 minutes in between the two games. Believe it or not, is up next. We're playing for Dave Matthew's tickets all straight ahead. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-2-5-790 if you want to play, believe or not. It's next here on Sports Talk, 7-90.

All right. Rockets, definitely on 7-90 now, and I don't know if it's going to be on 740 still. I think Gordy's working on that, but keep it on 7-0. Simulcast, yes. Okay, so we got a full show tonight on the Rockets. And again, Vanessa is going to join me on the sidelines, as I call the game from My Perch.

At crypto.com arena, rockets will rot you, you'll have the launch pad at 8. Yes. And the rockets wrap after that. Yes. And per the case, you go as long as callers call in, so it makes me happy. Yes.

Especially if it is the last game in the season. Whoa, hopefully it won't be. Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We should play America's fastest growing sports radio game show we simply call it B. Leave it or not and here's how it works. You call 713212-5-790.

7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Today's edition of Believe or not is all things about people that are associated with growing up or born in Corpus Christi, Texas. I'll read you a statement about one of those folks. Statements completely utterly accurate. You'll say this. Believe it. Seamins' erroneous full of Mank and Mankhamka made up, you'll say this. Not.

Two believer in a row when you appear. pair of tickets to see the Dave Matthews Band live May the 8th at the Woodlands Pavilion. Tickets are on sale now at Ticketmaster.com. That's May 8th for the Dave Matthews Band. 713-2-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. Gilles is with us on 790. Are you?

Are you ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. At the time of her death, Selena was in contract negotiations with Virgin Records for a multi-album contract, all to be done in any. English. Believe it or not. Believe it. No, Ross made that up, but thanks for playing. You tried to get me on her last name, didn't you?

Didn't you, Rossi? No. That's her name. I don't know how to pronounce it. Kentilience. Kintania. Come on now. You're, you know what? You're ejected from ever calling yourself Mr. Texas again. I'm not Mr. Hispanic last names. There's no Hispanics in Texas.

Kevin, Ken, on 790, ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. After earning her high school diploma, Selena was accepted at LSU but did not enroll. Believe it or not? Believe it. That's correct. Statement number two in 1965,

Farah Fawson enrolled at the University of Texas as a microbiology major. Believe it or not. Believe it. That's right. Congratulations. Nice to go. Jesse on 790.

Jesse, what was your favorite part of today's 10-2 radio show? All that aster is talk. In 2009, Lou Diamond Phillips was given his own exhibit in the Hispanic Heritage Museum in Dallas. Believe it or not? Not. That's right. He's not Hispanic.

Statement number two for the win. Lou Diamond Phillips worked at Waterberger as one of the first jobs, even the reaching the title as shift leader. Believe it or not? Not. Believe it. Believe it. I know thousands of shift leaders at Waterberger. Anthony on 790 Anthony ready to play believe it or not

Believe it Both Bobby Labonte and Terry Levanti are alive Believe it or not Believe it That is correct Statement number two for the win Eva Lungoria was named Miss Corpus Christi USA in 1998

Believe it or not Believe it Believe it There is another winner Congratulations Last one belongs to Scott in Jersey Village. Scott on 790. What was your fair part of today's radio show?

Brian Bogussevich talks about a bad baseball team way better than he talks about a winning baseball team, my friend. Evan Lungoria was named Gloria Stefan as her biggest, named Gloria Stefan as her biggest inspiration to get into performing. Believe it or not. Believe it. No, Jennifer Lopez. Ross, final score for tonight's game. do you really want me to answer that do you really want to answer that

uh 110 10 104 that's all you want to do that's fine I just don't have a good feeling I hope I'm wrong I've been wrong all the time all series I'm totally biased on the voice of the rockets rockets by four

108 104 that said it okay Jonathan you want to break it for us here what do you got he had the a men game winner on Tuesday I know but gut feelings change it's going to be 106 to 104 in favor of a man game winner

oh you got a man with a game winner love it I like it too all right now listen Rockets coverage and then remember tomorrow we're only on for half an hour so it's either going to be a festival of excitement or a half hour of sadness?

A funeral of non-excignment? Yeah, that's right. Up next, four hours of incredible excitement. Adam Wexler, Adam Clinton. They are the team. Talk to you for Rockets Basketball this evening, here on 790 and not a clock.