The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Hunter Brown Opens Up About His Return to the Mound

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

Hunter Brown Opens Up About His Return to the Mound

The ace of the Astros rotation, a man who is one of the greats of Wayne State University Athletics history. I say that because my mother went there and Hunter Brown now joins us here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Hunter, it's Matt and Ross. Thanks for joining us today. How are you feeling and thank for being a part of our program this afternoon? Yeah, I'm feeling good and thanks for having me, guys. How about you guys? I'm a little crabby.

I don't know that I'm doing fine, Hunter, but thank you anyway. Hey, is the bit about you going to Detroit and getting tickets for friends and family? Is that kind of over with or is that kind of still a pain in the ass for you? No, I mean, definitely friends and families show up and show out every time. But, you know, my dad does a good job getting tickets for his buddies and stuff like that. And then I kind of took my friends and family up, but it's nothing too crazy. You know, it's not a pain, not a pain at all. I'm just going to say, if it ever becomes a pain hunter, it's okay to lie.

We lie as athletes and celebrities and people all the time. Here's what you do. You say, look, I wasn't supposed to pitch this weekend, and Joe put me in the very last seconds. I'm sorry, I couldn't get your tickets. I didn't think I was going to go. So remember, small little lies will not kill you. Hey, in all honesty, though, you were gone for a while. We missed you terribly.

What was it like? Give me the down grumpiest part of the rehab, and then the moment you said, I'm ready to get my back uniform in a Houston uniform and get going here. Yeah, I mean, I think the worst part is completely shutting down from throwing, you know, it's the first time I've ever had to do that. So just like you guys, and I'm sure anybody else out there are the downsides to your job. And, you know, my favorite part about my job, which is throwing the ball, I couldn't do that. So I had all the other stuff that, you know, helps you be able to do that on a consistent basis that I had to, what I had to do for, you know, roughly five, five weeks.

there and then you know then you got to build back up and then that's the thing is you try to get your feel back you know once you get to a point where you're healthy and you know the velocity's there and you know you're not going to um what's the word I'm looking for like be timid to throw the ball as hard as you can or you know make it make a big pitch or something like that then you got to try and get your feel back and you know that's something that I'm still still doing right now you know I have a couple rehab starts and I've been back for a couple games, but, you know, things like that take some time. And it's one thing where, you know, the team and the league is midseason, but really it's still pretty early for me. So trying to

kind of navigate that and feel good about doing that. Yeah. Take us through that. You mentioned not wanting to be tentative or tentative and wanting to battle out there and be your full 100% self, kind of kind of the mental battle it is for you to kind of rehab from this and come back. Yeah, I mean, you know, our training staff did a great job and they got they got so many different You know strength tests and mobility tests and things like that to know You know how close you are to where you where you used to be and they got so much data when you pitch in the games and stuff like that So then you know you can kind of look at all that and see okay. Well my release points the same like Drive length this and this blah blah so on and so forth and then you can you know kind of kind of

kind of check the boxes of like, all right, well, I feel pretty good doing it. I'm in the same position, so I can trust it, you know, and then the strength there and the mobility's there, and then you just kind of just go from there. But, you know, pitching the big league is different. So when you go, you're on a minor league start, it's one thing, then you get back into the big league. And I got three of those. So trying to keep the ball rolling forward here.

Hunter Brown with us here on a sports talk 790. And take us through that. obviously, season not going the way you guys wanted, especially while you were out as you were just like a champion at the bit to come back, but also you don't want to rush. And then now that you're here, you don't want to put too much pressure on yourself to perform.

Yeah, I mean, I think there's always going to be pressure to perform, you know, just individually, you know, the standard that you hold of yourself and then obviously being an astro, you know,

we have very high aspirations as a club and, and, you know, the fan base and the city and how they view, view our team. what we want to provide on that end. And, you know, we're still, yeah, would we love to be 10, 15 games above 500 and absolutely rolling?

Of course, you know, who wouldn't? But we're in a good spot. You know, we're a couple weeks away from the break here. We're right in the mix. And that's all you want. It's down the stretch. You want to have an opportunity to, you know, make that push and get in the playoffs. And once you've got a ticket to the dance, you know, anything can happen.

So that's where our minds are and that's where our goals are. I'm a low-key obsessed about looking at the standings in the West and in the wild card. Am I the only person in Houston doing that or is there guys in the clubhouse going, all right, man, we're not at 500 yet, but look at how close we are to being on top of this division. I mean, it's not necessarily where you're keeping track every single game. You know, we have big goals of trying to, you want to win every series, you know, if you lose the game, you want to come back and win the next one, you know, avoid streets and once you're winning and keep winning and stuff like that.

But, yeah, I mean, we know that we know we're right in the mix. And that, you know, that's what you want, whether, and even if you are, you know, you've seen teams have huge leads and collapse, right? So that doesn't necessarily, you know, it's June, about to be July. So there's still a lot of baseball to be played and a lot of ground to make up and a lot of time to, you know, put whoever it is, you know, in your rear view mirror pretty good too. So, you know, a lot can happen down the stretch here. And there's a lot of baseball to be played.

Couple more minutes here with Hunter Brown of your Houston Astros here on Sports Talk, 790 with Matt and Ross. How much do you want to challenge a pitch? Tell the truth. I mean, I wouldn't say I actually want to challenge. There's just certain times where you throw a pitch and you're like, man, that is like you almost feel like it's right down the middle. Obviously, it's not, you know, when you get to look at the ABS.

But, you know, I think it's just like top rail strikes that on pitches that used to be strikes that are just auto balls now. You know, those are the ones that you kind of, that you would want to challenge. But, you know, you come to learn that they're just balls now. So I actually want to challenge? No. Let the catchers do that. Let the hitters in the box do that. But, yeah, there are certain times that they're like, man, that's got to be a strike.

But it just isn't. So you're telling me you've not given a death stare to either one of your catchers yet about them not challenging. Is that correct? Is that accurate? Yeah, that's accurate. No, not at all. They got the best view. I mean, shoot, half the time I released the ball by the time against the club.

I might be looking at the dirt still. I don't know. So they got the better view than I do and trust them with that for sure. Hey, I got to tell you this, I was doing the post game show the night that you pitched. I think it was against Toronto with three innings, 85 pitches. And I found you were not obviously pleased with your performance, but you were so refreshing in the in the clubhouse, kind of just saying what you really felt like.

Was that one of those nights you're like, good God, can I get out of an inning with like seven or eight pitches? Why is everything so laborsome? And then frankly, for your career, that hasn't happened very much. So that was kind of like uncharted territory for you having to just get so many pitches to get a single out in a particular game. Yeah, I mean, I feel like I got the, I got the two strikes pretty quick.

quickly on most guys. And then I just didn't really have anything to put them away that day. You know, even some pitches that I made that were quality two strike pitches, you know, they get a piece of it, it's just off. And then you mix in a couple, you know, not so quality pitches. And the next thing you know, you're three, two on everybody. So, yeah, I mean, sure, you're out on the mound and you're thinking about, you know, how to invite some weaker contact, but, you know, you're not trying to give in at the same time.

And then, you know, you're dealing with a lot of traffic on the basis. and, you know, as a starting pitcher, you really just want to not blow the game for the team, whether, you know, it's obviously you don't want to chalk up a start and say, you know, three innings that's not anything what you're trying to do. You know, you don't want to hurt the guys in the pen and for the next couple days, but at the end of the day, you just, you know, you try your best to not let it get out of hand. So, yeah, like I said, after that night, I mean, I didn't have really any of my pitches going, any of the five.

But if I look back, you know, I think obviously I have the start in Kansas City where I gave up about 50 runs in the first inning there. You know, that's also part of my growth as a player where I feel like, you know, that could have got away, but at least I was able to grind through it and, you know, it could have been a lot worse. So you've got to take the good with the bad. But for me, even in Detroit, too, it's just two strike execution right now. now I've got to do a little bit better job cleaning that up. And I think that just comes with feel and time, you know, being on the mouth. Hunter Brown will get you out on this.

So we do a trivia game on the show every day called Believe it or not. And you're the subject today. So I wanted to ask, is there any particular reason you wear jersey number 58? Well, there's, I guess you could say. So when I first got called up, Carl, the clubhouse manager here, he let me choose between 58 and 68. and my my uh so yeah those are my two numbers so my dad worked for local 58 which the union in in in Detroit so we had that ties and I used to uh you know be a little bit of fan of Doug Fister he wore number 58 for the Tigers back in the day I said you know what we'll we'll

take 58 I couldn't think of anything anything good to do with 68 so 58 it was it like electrician junior or what the yeah yep exactly okay Done deal. And last and very most important question from one Detroit guy to the next, are you a Lafayette Coney Island guy or American Coney Island? Oh, man. You know, I'm a Lafayette guy. I am.

My uncle used to take me there after the Red Wing game. So I think inherently, I think American might be a little bit better vibe, but there's something about Lafayette that draws me in. All right, very good on that. Thank you, friend. We really appreciate it. awesome commentary from you. Good luck the rest of the way.

We thank you for joining us on our show today. All right. Thank you. All right. Have a good one. Thank you.