The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Imai Struggles, NBA Stunner, and the Grossest Thing Matt Has Seen In the Press Box

Episode Date: July 2, 2026

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers. Matt Thomas. Ross v. Real. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Yeah. Welcome to a Thursday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

This is Sports Talk 790. Final decision is a potential game-changing moment. The number 20, United States Committee, Sirius, Fall. Yeah, it's going to be a red card. The final decision is red card. Wow. I mean, he's bewilder and shot. Probably Rossi had asked for more highlights,

but this song is such a jam. You just got to let it play out. folks, we often play songs. I mean, every day almost at this point. I guess it's a fun to introduce the show. It's open the 10 o'clock hour. In the noon. And we have speakers here in the

studio. Yes, we do. And normally, Matt doesn't touch them, hardly ever. Ever. Because our equipment is not the best here. But this morning, yeah. That Thomas crank these speakers, full blast so he can get an earful of John Denver.

In America, Never change, Matt. Oh. So all you folks that want to make fun of John Denver, it's become the anthem of the U.S. men's national team. Yes, it has. It's also the theme of West Virginia athletics.

Okay. But who cares about that? Nobody really cares about the mountaineers. It's really the only cool thing about going to a Virginia, Western Virginia game, frankly. I imagine they still got a rifling dynasty going, so good for them on that. And lots of coal miners, I'm assuming, right?

Yeah, cigarette smoking. Yeah. So I have never. been to West Virginia. Now, I know there's a, the, what do the Texans practice a couple of years? The Green Bar. The Green Bar. The Green Bras is in West Virginia. Now, great friend of mine, Mike Dantone, is from the great state of West Virginia. Yes. It says the Green Bar is awesome. But, uh, I just don't know anything else about it. But that's neither here nor there. We are here to celebrate. Yes. Tatsu.

We are here to celebrate Tatsu Emi's almost two innings of work last night. All right. So I'm going to be real with. Matt, this is a rarity for me, but I didn't pay attention to the Astros at all. Well, nor did I, and I was working on the 10th inning show. Oh, okay. No, can I tell you how I spent my night? Go ahead. This is going to be once again the evolution of sports MT.

Mm-hmm. And I won't do this again for another four years. Okay. But the reality is, last night, Emi was awful. You sucked Emi, and look, everybody sucks. Well, this show sometimes sucks. No, it doesn't. Very rarely, but sometimes it does.

It never sucks. Maybe you suck. But he, okay, that's fair. I'll judge my mom sometimes sucks. That was a sucky performance from Emi. Okay. And the Astros' offense just couldn't put much together. Mm-hmm. And the bullpen.

Blue ball was great. Everybody else? Eh. So I put the game on my computer, the soccer game. You did. Yeah. I'm so proud of you. Now, I don't know any of the players.

Polisic is the one guy now. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And there's some dude that got a red card. Everybody's pissed off about. Yeah. Flo Balogun. It's not good.

He's been squorn. basically all their goals all tournament and now he's going to miss the next game. Okay. So the crowd obviously was doing the exact same thing I was because my computer was about I think 30 seconds behind everybody else's. Oh, really? The crowd that was in there, those that were there. And it's probably 22,000 somewhere in that range.

You could hear USA. It's robust. You could hear a, because it was here, here's what it was in the, in the Diken Park last night when EMA was on the mound. Okay, so you're hearing that for a while, right? Okay. And then in between all that, I didn't hear any retching, so that's good. In between that, you'd hear, oh, ah, USA!

Now, the first goal was this allowed because of an on-side call. Yes, that is correct. So everybody was winging out about that, and then they got the two more goals. And so that's how Houston fans enjoyed, Astro fans enjoyed last night. watching the Astros get their ass kicked and watching Team USA win two nothing. So people brought their phones or their computers or both

and enjoyed a little baseball soccer devil hudder like I did yesterday. Suck it, Bosnia. Now, I did, I left the Astros game early because, again, when it's 5-0 or whatever it was, I was like, I can watch the rest of this at home. And I did put on the Fox feed of the game and trying to listen to a TV broadcast.

It's not great. I had no idea what the hell was going on because, first of all, the crowd noise was way over the top of the announcers. Yes. It's been unbalanced. And the TV announcers aren't doing a radio call, so it's a TV call. And that's why you always need a radio of your biggest sports events,

whether it's an NBA game, a baseball game, a football game. You just, radio is theater of the mind. And I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. Because they were just, the radio fee was just frankly just the TV side. Not frankly, it was the TV side. And it's not the TV guy's fault, but it, you just couldn't figure out the hell what was It was literally theater of the mind. You had to imagine what was going on.

Maybe they're kicking the ball right now. Here's what I was imagining. USA. U.S.A. 20 to 25 seconds of nothing. Well, I was out at a local drinkery. Yes. Was it soccer friendly or just right?

It was very soccer friendly. And it was a massive crowd and it was a great atmosphere. We were all chanting USA. singing Take Me Home Country Roads. Like at halftime, they were playing all the U.S. hits. Sweet Caroline, stuff like that. It was a great atmosphere. It was a good time.

And, of course, most importantly, the United States won. If you went to a bar last night and the place was not full and everybody's cheering for Team USA, your bar sucks. You might have been in Bosnia town. Yeah, is there a Bosnia spot here in this city? Probably not. That would have been full, too, I guess. Oh, yeah. Then they would have probably dissipated about the 90th minute.

Yeah. It's called Tadiches. So I'm always learning things about soccer, a little bit, the hydration break is funny to me. Oh, they just wanted to sell commercials. Right. But then I thought, well, that does that take away from time? So it means there's automatically three minutes of stoppage time in every half. I didn't know.

Like, does that include it? They stopped the clock, whatever the case. So I just learned that yesterday. There you go. Then I learned about red cards where if you get a red card, not only do you get kicked out of the game that you're in, you're also kicked out of the following game. Yes. Imagine the NBA did that with technical files.

Yeah, if you got ejected. Flegger and Fowles would be way down on the old NBA. Mm-hmm. Of course, you have nobody playing left, but, you know. You'd have people play. It's fine. It wouldn't be, Wimby wouldn't be playing, and maybe Marcus Smart would miss some games.

Dylan Brooks would be missing a boatload of games. Yeah. Or maybe he would call him down. Well, so I think USA fans are pissed off about that. Would that be fair to say? Yeah, I mean, I thought it looked a lot worse in very, uh, super slow motion than it was in real time.

Josh C is our producer today. He is actually the real, you were calling me the World Cup expert. He's the actual World Cup expert. Josh C., good morning. Say hello to the Houston audience. What's up, y'all? It's been a while. It has been a long while, actually.

Joshy is a good friend of ours. Yes. Josh is our Astros and Rockets producer. So I work with him, I think I worked all 82 with you last year plus in playoffs. Did you even miss a game? No, I don't think I missed a game. He is, he just takes care of me. When you're a play-by-play broadcaster to have a producer that you completely

100% trust, it is good. And someday I'll get one of those. For now, it's Josh. He's the best in the building. Come on now. Now, Josh has been amazing. Matter of fact, he's going to be with us in Vegas for a little bit. That's true.

If you know Josh is on the game, you know things are getting done and it's going to be done right. So we appreciate Josh. But he is, he's the resident at World Cup. I'll give my opinion. I'm curious Josh's. To me, it was like, I wouldn't even call it 50-50. You knew that kind of they were going to call a red. It was unfortunate because it looked bad.

He was challenging for the ball. he wasn't even like trying to kick the ball he was positioning for the ball and once they pulled it down in slow motion i'm like oh god he's going to get a red card was it deserved in in terms of intent no but the letter of the law is like a potential injurious uh basically kick which it was so it didn't feel fair but it wasn't shocking that they called the red card and i'm not going to call it like a great robbery i that's kind of i felt too but i will say to me intent does matter yes it should matter it should be it should It should. It should have been a yellow because of the recklessness of it.

Yeah. But intent is why I think should make something a red. And there was no intent. He's trying to play the ball. And the worst part is you've seen, I don't want to be what about, but. Oh, messy and others. And there's like four of the guys who have raked down on guys' caps and ankles, which is really the big issue.

The stepping on the ankle is the worst looking one because his ankle bends. Yeah. But he was putting his legs out to position. He wasn't really kicking out the ball to me. mean exactly and the other ones you're it's guys going through the back of someone they see the ball they're trying to get the ball and they get the guy's leg balligan just putting his foot down doesn't know where it's going he rakes a guy's achilles so i mean it looked bad and so they gave him the red it wasn't shocking so the balance of the show today if you have any soccer questions it's

josh and ross yes if it's astro related because i did work the on deck yes you did 10th inning show in the game i can handle that what the hell's going on em i he was terrible was he was he just giving up rockets and less than two inning Five walks? Five. Did he even have five walks in like his last three starts? So is it fair to say when he's really good, it's fun to watch and interesting? Like even Mike Burroughs, even when he sucks, he only sucks to like one inning.

And it's like, man, if you just get past that one inning or that one at bad, you're that much closer to being a guy we can rely on. When EMI implodes, it's a full implosion. There's no middle ground. Yeah. There's no quality start light as the kids would say. Yeah, I mean, because he's primarily, I mean, he's primarily, I mean, he'll mix in what he calls his splitter and he's

primarily fastball slider and it feels like if those are both working for him and especially the slider getting a lot of whiffs, he's good but just from kind of pulling it up it looks like a lot of the walks were him him throwing the slider for balls

so if he's not locating his slider then he's going to be toast and that's look like that's looking like that's what happened. Well the reality is and Joe Spott has mentioned him multiple times he needs to be a strike thrower when you are not a strike thrower you are a walk provider and that's exactly what the twins is in and by by Josh bell get out of our town for the love of God I mean he is like the TY Hilton for the

Astros oh really was he doing the TY celebration when he's rounding the basis I think he's I think I heard this on the game broadcast eight career home runs maybe against the Astros something like that I mean it's nuts so he's getting Poo-holes level well pretty much by the way really quick on the splits for Tatsui Imi in the month of Remember, he does have a couple of double-digit strikeout games. In June, he was 3-0 with an area of 5.09. Kansas City game in the mix. Yeah.

Take the Kansas City game out, Matt. He's been decent. And take this game out now, too. Yeah. Two of the last four. All right. 7-13-21-2-5-790. 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-790.

It's our last day of the week. We are off tomorrow, so we need you guys to jump in today. Brian McTagger with us at 11 o'clock. I just don't get it at 1130. I have a World Cup fan related. I just don't get it. All right. We get the news at noon.

Will Guillory. Athletic NBA writer covers the rockets from Norlands. Okay. Got a strong 504 area code. Really good dude covers the rockets now. He's going to join us at 1 o'clock. And then we've got, believe it or not today, the village people, the lead singer the village people died yesterday. Oh, no.

Was it the Indian? No, the black guy. It was the sailor for a while. He was a police officer. He's, yeah. Oh, he's like a chameleon. Wow. I mean, I guess, yeah.

He's like the Daniel de Louis. of the village people. He was the most versatile of the group. Yes. And apparently I think he was the only one that was straight. I thought that makes a difference. But he... Is that going to be in the believe it or not?

Well, no, because he was talking about it and there was like a behind the scenes of the village people. He had to dress separate rooms. He was very much excluded from the rest of the troops of the group. So I don't know why. I saw it this morning, so I thought I'd bring it up. And then at 10.50 this morning, I teased this on Twitter yesterday.

At SportsMT. I saw one of the grossest things I've ever seen in a bathroom in my entire life. And I'm here to tell you about it at $10.50. Okay. I'm sorry, Ross, but sometimes you just have to tell people your life events. You should apologize. You should get a preemptive Friday. Sorry for mentioning this already, I can tell.

All right, 10, that's coming up. 713-212-5-790. Tim says Astro fans need to relax. What are they all angst in an angst about? We'll discuss that next here. after I tell you about the Shell Federal Credit Union, banking but better available for you at Shell FCU. They have expanded fields of membership.

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That's MORE to 713-84-1100. You can find out things about getting a great auto loan. A superior checking account of the one that you have right now, or perhaps the financial partner for life's moments. It all starts with Shell FCU. Text more to 713-844-1100 for the Shell Federal Credit Union, banking, but better. Federally insured by the NCUA membership loans and services subject to eligibility requirements. This is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross on Sports Talk 790. All right, so Tim and Katie said Astro fans need to relax.

But he hung up. So now it's panicking. We do it calm down H-town? We've done that before. No, Tim says, now help me out here. Nick, Nick, Josh, whatever. Yeah, Josh. We had Nicholas yesterday.

Yeah. So tell me, if he told us to calm down, he hung up. Now we still be back in panic mode, Josh? What happened to the phone caller? Yeah, honestly. I don't know what he was even really saying. It was kind of. And let's babble?

For Astros fans, calm down. good luck with that calm down age town telling rockets fans to be smart that was that was sports rvy on that one not me I could say that I'm a lifelong rockets fan rockets are my favorite team in town it is what it is rockets twitter you know who you are you know what you are so here's what rocket's Twitter's been telling me the last 36 hours the rockets are stupid because they could have had a better given the Celtics a better deal than what the Celtics got for,

we do have to talk about that at some point. For sure. That Kyrie Irving is definitely coming here. Mm-hmm. And what else? Fred Van Vleet hates the Rockets. Yes. And what else have I seen that was crazy?

Wow, Raphael Stone is the worst general manager in sports history. That could be 12 months a year. Oh, that's true. All right. Again, 713-212-5-79. If you want to chime in, 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. I don't really notice much to say on the Astros front, except that Tatsu Uymi was just terrible. Astro bats were not great.

Yordon, save Yordon. He got three hits, right? Yep. Oh, that Christian Javier is going to the bullpen? Yes. And can I get myself credit on that? Didn't I not say that, I think? I think you did.

I really do. I mean, I can get myself some false credit. I'm guilty of that. I believe you had, no, you had Javier and McCullors. And we'll see on that. And what's the deal with Christian Walker? I don't know. But he left the game, but it's fine.

Okay. Yeah, bruised back of some sort. But, you know, again, they have an update today. My back is broken. He didn't drop a Mike Tyson. My back is broken on it. I don't think they did. I don't think he's a kind of person.

It's spinal. And then also when Kauai Tung comes back from the, he got transferred from the going to the triple A to the injure list. When he comes back, he's also going to the bullpen. Oh, okay. And again, it's going back. So everybody's in the bullpen. Well, the reality is this, you need five starters.

Yeah. So you need extra arms. Yeah, but what if none of them are good? Well, Nate Pearson's going to go back to Sugar Land. My assumption. Oh, man, come on. And my guess is Uliolo is doing the same thing, although Uliola pitched good again yesterday. Yeah.

Two outings. I mean, limit a sample size. It's good. It's pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Nate Pearson, I would be looking for real estate here.

He throws 100. Who? Nate Pearson. Yeah, but it's hitable. It's fun to have a guy that throws 100. Oh, Brian and Bray, who too, another home running aloud yesterday. Oh, okay. Did go two. Good God.

So the ERA would be four and a half. So I didn't miss much when I was watching Team USA. Okay. Asho scored three. USA scored two. Plus one called back. It was pretty close. This place you went to, don't give any free plugs.

Of course not. We don't do that. Were you able to sit or were you standing the whole time? I was sitting. I had a friend, thankfully. the game started at 7. He got there at 5. I got there about 520. And you pre-gamed properly.

What do you mean? Yeah, I know what you. Everybody knows a pre-gaming means. Well, there was a certain major servesa company handing out free servaces. So I drink. Did you eat it all or no? Yeah, I had, um, I had like some popcorn chicken bites and, uh, some sliders, fries, bar food.

Yeah. So it soaked it in the booze a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I took also in my old age, this is a tip for you people getting old or maybe for you young. I took a liquid IV when I got home. That'll help you in the morning.

So how long do you stay after? I'm left immediately. Okay. Hopped on 30. This is also a note. I'm just handing out free pro tips here, Matt. Head to the light rail. Get on the light rail.

Go down a couple stops so the Ubers will be cheaper and it's easier for you to get picked up and then call your Uber a couple of stops down the light rail. So I'm presuming you were in downtown, correct? And which direction did you go on the metro? Towards third ward. Hmm. So if you'd have gone the other direction, you would have been headed towards where?

Like downtown, I guess. Okay, so you're saying the further away from downtown, the easier. Yeah, you could have gone, or you kind of gone deeper into downtown? I could have gone either way, but it was just the one that was close. All right. 713. I'm hanging out with third word, homies. And they're lovely people.

They were. I went to school not far from there. Absolutely. I mean, I know Scott Street as good as anybody. Shout out Scott Street. I thought they were going to change Thomas Street. Uh, that, I mean, I do what, when TEDECU's stating was. was built, I did ask for a drinking fountain.

And I believe they gave you a urinal cake. I was offered a urinal, and I respectfully declined. I said, thanks for the effort, but I'm going to pass on that. I thought they were going to put your face on the urinal cakes. That doesn't feel great. I was to honor to honor you. For someone to urinate in my face? I don't think so.

Oh, well, I guess you were, what do you say it that way? It sounds bad. That's exactly how I would interpret it is. That's what urinal cakes are. What do you go to the urinal and try to avoid the cake? I thought they smell pleasant and they keep. things off of you. Take the L.

Sheridan on 790 and 1027. Sheridan, good morning to you. Good morning, Matt. Hey, you guys said you're not going to be on the air tomorrow, right? That is correct. All right, so my favorite signal to show is when you do to wake up the strippers at noon on Friday. So since you're going to be off tomorrow, would you mind doing it today? I like that.

Rossi, I need a ruling. It's up to you. how's your throat feeling? Are you mid-throat, Thomas? No, you're full-throat, Thomas. I'm full-throat. I did not have to call a game last night, so I'm full-throat. Sheridan, I will put it out to a Twitter vote.

How about that? Is that fair to do? Okay. Oh, what do you think the Twitter is going to say? We had 99% yes. All right, Sheridan. Thanks for calling, my man. Have a good weekend.

How are your votes on the sports MT? What did I do? I don't know. Hey, should I get verified? How's verified life? It's not great. I have a, um, I had a tweet that got 22,000 likes. I'm not going to make any money off of it.

No. Damn it. No. Yeah, I'll put a poll question up to see if I should do it. Because, I mean, the ladies need one night to sleep in, right? They got a busy weekend coming up. It's July 4th. I'm expecting they're going to have, what do you need to sleep in?

If I wake them up at noon, that means they don't, they don't get to get their extra hours of sleep. Yeah, they normally do. They got a four-day busy weekend coming up. Probably not waking up to about 3.30. I had a joke. We had an email or I said, hey, I used to work in a strip club like, man, they ain't waking up until 2, 2.30. I know. Well, we used to do it at 2.

Right. That's when the bit was originated. Yeah, yeah. The 2-4 show. It's a different time. We've had a variety of time slots in this little career of mine. We are the Jason Voorhees of this station. Keep coming back, maybe.

You can't kill us. Well, they've tried. Thank you all for supporting the show. Thank you to do so. And remember, at the end of the day, I'm just an employee number. 713, 212, 790. 713, 212, 570. There was a hellaciously huge, surprising, shocking.

Anything else you want to add to the trade in the NBA yesterday? It was shocking. We were all at the sports place I was telling you. Like, what? That's it? That's what we'll discress with that. It is next. It's 1030 on 790.

We don't run on 9. algorithms. We run on Altova, Durant, and Stroud. Sports Talk 790. Guaranteed human. All right.

Twitter poll is up and running. You have until about 1155. I've only put an hour on it. This is going to be 100% yes. No, it's not. What's wrong with you people? 9% have already said no. Yeah, there's trolls.

Trolls and losers. Although, no, you put let them sleep. That makes sense. Yeah, 91% say yes. 9%% said no. If you want me to wake the surpers up at noon today, let me know. I'll do it only at the audience ask for it. All right.

So yesterday in the NBA. Where was I? What time did it happen? Four or five o'clock somewhere in that range, you said? I think around there, yeah. You were asking Joe spotted about it in the dugout. Yeah, we were talking World Cup. We were talking about the NBA.

We were getting to some WMBA draft. of course, bringing up was CJ Stratton and elite quarterback. Do you think we're going to get at the end of the day more is C.J. Stratt and elite quarterback or more is Matt Schaub and elite quarterback calls? I think a match, we had that for a good five-year run. Well, yeah, you just had to get the fifth year option. But who is saying C.J. Stroud is an elite quarterback right now. It's not a debate. Well, the Texans truthers and the water-carrying media.

I mean, Matt Schaub led the entire NFL in passing yards one year. So that was good. but in your mind because you've done we've done two talk two different runs of radio involving both those guys it feels like to me shop to me still gets more of that i think we kind of knew who shop was though yeah yeah cj stroud hit the scene you traded him for what was it like a second round pick for shop and then he was good i think couple second round yeah we kept on talking about the kubiq system cubbyc system nobody's talking about like this the nick cayley system it's it's it's j stroud who hit the ground running bobby sloak is the greatest offensive

ever like well okay and then well so we'll say we got some summer we got all-star week Bobby Slokes I don't even know where the is he still in Miami I let go on Miami yeah we look really quick so we're going to be curious where is Bobby Slok right now did he go did he go to the charges he's still he's still with the Miami so they got rid of McDaniel and they kept him he was like an assistant to an offensive coordinator one the offensive coordinator was he all right so in the NBA yesterday and I we need a comp on this because this is stunning for many reasons. Yes. Jalen Brown is a

Boston Celtic. Jalen Brown is a guy that wakes up what 27, 28 points a game theory, 6, 7, 8 rebounds, 4.5s defense, pretty good. Apparently is a pain the ass, but who isn't an NBA player that's not a pain the ass, right?

Well, he had heard his name being talked about in trades for Janice at the Kumpo that ultimately went from Milwaukee to Miami. And we were talking about whether or not the Celtics are like, hey, man, consider this an honor that we were thinking about you because Janice is a generational type player. Apparently, Jalen Brown, either the Celtics were like, if we ain't sending you to Milwaukee,

we're going to send you somewhere. And that's exactly what they did. They had no intention to keeping Jailer Brown on their roster. Yeah. Because they treated him to the Philadelphia 76ers, who is in their same division. You're saying, well, Matt, divisions don't count in basketball. You're right about that, except for two things. One, they're in the Eastern Conference.

Yes. And number two, you do play teams in your own division four times. He is going to be front and center right in front of your grill four times a year, provided he's healthy. Yeah. And then on top of that, the 76ers are sending off and hurt, I mean, Ross, often hurt, right? No really another way to say it. Uh-huh.

Paul George, two first round picks and two second round picks to Boston. Now, I don't care about second round picks. If they make rosters, they make rosters, but they're really just goofy trade chips. Two first round picks, okay, depending on what you think the 76ers are,

but I'm going to presume that if Jalen Brown stays with the 76ers through 28 and 31 where the draught those are, that Philadelphia will not be a lottery team, which will make them not very sexy first round picks. But you just sent a bona fide guy who was your team's MVP, was a top five MVP candidate until Jason Tatum came back from injury, who carried your team to being one of the surprise teams in the NBA to a rival.

Boston Philadelphia is one of the great NBA rivalries in the history of its league. It's like sending, what was it, did Johnny Damon get traded for the Yankees and a Red Sox or did he sign a free agent? It might have been a free agent signing. I can't remember, but I know what you're saying. That's a Yankee going to a Red Soxon. Right. That's a cowboy going to a commander. That's, well, I mean, Seyquan Barkley, that's going from the Giants and the Eagles. Yeah.

I mean, there's some crazy. And Astro going to the Rangers. In a trade, that's right. In your division, you see them all the time. Now, you are competing against everybody else in American League, but you are going to ultimately have to face the Rangers. Yeah. It's just bizarre. Yeah, my initial reaction was like you and like everybody.

Like, what the hell is this? And I guess you try to kind of see, I'm trying to see the other side. It's very difficult. I mean, Paul George is a very good defensive player. And I mean, he can get you. He is a stretch five who can low block defend and score. He can pop a three. He's a special player.

He's more of a wing player. Yeah. But he's old and hurt all the time. 37 games played last year, 41 before that. He also has a PED suspension, by the way, on his resume. Part of the reason why he played 37 this year. Yeah. I mean, 39% from 3, 38% career. Like Prime Paul George, I think actually Paul George is going to go down is underrated. Because Prime Paul George was excellent.

Like he was in the defensive player of the year discussions. first team all defense, and then he was a guy to get you like 23, 25 points a night efficiently and a great three-point shooter. But he's 36 years old. And not only that, he's making, and I was like, okay, well, maybe if Paul George, his contract is done, he's got a player option for $57 million next year.

I imagine he's going to opt into that or you're going to have to pay him around that long term. And see, the thing I thought of when I first hard to thought it was, is that you have to make the deal compatible because Jamlin Brown is still owed a lot of money until I found out that Paul George, in theory, a year for now can make $57 million, so you're not really saving a whole lot of money. Yeah, you're really not saving anything, at least in the interim,

unless you think Jason Tatum off the Achilles is going to be the alpha dog, and he just can't coexist with Jalen Brown, Paul George, more of the complimentary piece and three-point shooter, and, I mean, a superior defender, but maybe even slightly at this point in their careers. Well, again, when these crazy things come out, you have agents and you have players whisper to media. And the common thread, I don't know if you've seen this or not, but at least the common throw that I have seen from basketball reporters

is that the biggest detriment to Jalen Brown, and this is something that can cause issues, like with any sport or any team, is that Jalen Brown thinks he's the best player, he's also the best coach, he's also the best general manager, and sometimes that can fatigue an owner. I think he's the alpha dog, yeah. Okay.

But, man, you tell me that's the best deal? they could get. It sounds, it looks like to me, just looking at it, they just wanted to get some bunch of draft picks and get a decent player in return. And as soon as somebody did that, we'll take the deal. Yeah, this is scrambling. It's panicked. So it's, yeah.

This is at 2 a.m. You were going for Janus. You were going for the 10. Now you got to scramble to the six and a half, five. Down. Oof. No, no, no. Paul George is at least a five.

May I try this count? Paul George is at least a five. Go ahead. She used to be an ape, but she's 40 pounds heavier. That's not bad. I mean, it's not the best thing I've ever thought of. It's not bad. But by far not my worst.

And she's just coming off a PED suspension and an ankle injury. And eating a lot. She hadn't been able to hit the gym. The wedding photos. The wedding photos don't lie. All right. Aaron, if you're listening, exactly what I'm talking about.

All right. We've got phone calls to get to. We've got JR calling us from Oklahoma and wants to talk some Corporate's Christie Hooks baseball. Oh, love it. I didn't think it would ever be on my radar. Wonderful. But shout out Wodeberger Field.

Rutter Ruger? I'm sorry, Rutter Ruger Field. Up next, a very disturbing moment of my life took place in the press box bathroom at Diken Park yesterday. Okay. And I'll tell you what it is. Press box bathroom. It's usually pretty chill in there.

Far from it yesterday. Hmm. All right. Not great. And I want to preface. It's not... I'm really scared. On a scale of 1 to 10, it's about a 7 disgusting.

It's not a full 10. But just want to give you a little heads up that there are some people that you think you trust in the small fraternity that is media. These are credentialed media. Well, it could be, it also could be employees at Dinkin. Yeah, that's true. It could be. Or also people. and who come on stadium tours, depending on what time.

Well, you know what? We'll get more into this. It doesn't really matter. 1044. I don't even told you. That's part of it. 713-212-5-7-90 with a word for Sethi's Fine Jewry. S-E-T-H-I-S.

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whether it is gold or gemstones, they've got the best collection of jewelry in the city of Houston with outstanding customer service and they've been in that same location for 25 years. S-E-T-H-I-S-E-T-H-I-S. Set These Fine Jewelry. Set These Fine Jewelry.com Tuesday through Saturday, 10 o'clock until 6. Boss Road between San Felipe and Westheimer. Matt and Ross, return. Return on Sports Talk 790. All right, 1050 on Sports Talk 790.

And very easily, I could have just skipped this conversation. But sometimes you have to act as a public service advisor to the great people of Houston and around the world listening to us. iHeart Radio app. Okay. So I am getting ready for the on-deck show, which I did for the ballpark yesterday, which hopefully many of you listened to. And it was about 545, and I thought, you know what, I'll go to the bathroom, maybe get a glass of water, I see something, but I'll go to the bathroom first. Okay. I'm scared. You should be.

I go into the mail's mail restroom at the press box of Dinkin Park where there are two urinals and there are two toilets. Yes, and I will reiterate, normally very chill. I like using the bathroom. It's comfortable in there and it's usually credentialed media members and people carry themselves well. I did not need to use a toilet. Okay. One or two.

Okay. There was urinal one and there was urinal two. Okay. I chose urinal number two. Okay. Why didn't I choose journal number one? Who's to say? Because somebody manscaped on urinal one.

What? Yes. There was full trimmed. So I was horrified for it by. Cupid hairs? Yes. What do you have a big date tonight? What?

So the variety of things went through my mind during this. Number one, should I take a picture of this so people actually believe this what I'm about to say is the truth? I chose not to. Another member of the media who is not Chandler. Romer Brian McTaggart, just somebody else. You guys don't know who it is. Sent me a text of that urinal with what was on it. Because he didn't know I was there.

He said, you wouldn't believe what's... Okay. So he shows me the photo. He sends me the photo up. I'm like, yes, friend, I am here. Okay. So that was disturbing note number one that somebody was already thinking about taking a picture.

And went in and did it as I decided I was not going to. And sent it to you. Please, just in the future, don't ever send me a picture of a uniron. You're going to see it during the brain. Okay. Number two. Manscaping to me is very important, clearly. Okay.

But I've never done it in a public restroom at all. Well, who's bringing the clippers? Number three, before I let you finish with your questions. Number three, public is a strike one. In a press box is number two. And then strike three is, if you, You really feel the need to manscape. There were two toilets available to you that you could manscape into your heart's content,

or your such work could be flushed on the toilet, and no one would think twice about it. Now, if we heard the... Zzz in there, it would be a little weird. Yeah, I'm confused. I don't think it's much confusion to this. Did he just have, like, barber's scissors? I don't know who this person is.

There was a running joke in the press box as to who it could be. It doesn't make any sense because you got to drop like full trowel, like cheeks out. You can't half step that. You're going to end up with hair all in your underwear and your pants. That's fair. You got to drop, unfurl, and get to work. So because this is live radio. This doesn't make any sense.

Yeah. I'm going to show you said photo. Why are you doing this? Okay, well, I can't... This is a prank. No, this is a prank. No, this is a prank. This is not real.

Okay, okay, so if it's a prank, no, it's too much. That's a prank. If it's a prank. Uh-huh. Why in a major league baseball press box? Nobody is that. Unless a silverback gorilla came in to the urtall, there's no way.

that one person has that. That's a fool. That's not a bush. That's a hedge maze. I'll let you ask Brian coming up in five minutes. Okay. It's got it. It's a prank.

It's probably it was Brian. Well, we'll ask you. All right. We are your Corpus Christi Hooks leader. I don't want to possibly you could be asking you about this, but J.R. is joining us here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross at 1055.

J.R., good morning to you. Hey, good morning, guys. How are you? Good friend. How are you? right hey yeah i'm great you know it's a day before holiday i was fortunate enough to uh go and see the cox christie hooks in tosa uh last saturday night and i tell you what there are two two young men down there that houston can be very intrigued and excited about first one is will bush first baseman

catcher d h but i tell you it's six one 21, 235, he engulfed home plate, and you could barely see the home plate umpire, and I was sitting directly behind home plate. I mean, this kid is huge. Swings the bat very well from the left side. And, you know, he's got a lot of pop, a lot of, a lot of power, opposite field, dead pole, center field, very, very intriguing young man. And the second one, he needs a, this kid needs the nickname, but Jason Chironi. I saw him hit at every, it was solid contact

and to the wall every single time. Either he took the outfielder all the way to the wall to make a leaping catch, or he hit the damn wall and you heard it from behind home plate. So Houston, those

two guys, let's look out for him. Thank you, J.R. for that. I like reports like that. I like the Corpus Christi report. Well, he was doing it from, he was doing it Oklahoma style. Yeah, Oklahoma, the Corpus Christi style, I'm very confused. But in Houston. What does behind home play, you know, let me see if J.R.'s row back there.

J.R., did you pay for those tickets or did you buy them? I mean, did you get them for free? No, I paid for them. They were like 30. It was one ticket was, it was directly behind home plate. I mean, I was able to touch the screen. Oh, was it, like, food and stuff, too, or is it just the ticket itself? No, just the ticket itself.

Okay. You said $38, right? Yeah, it was. 38 bucks to get behind home plate? That's not bad. That's insane. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, it was great. I'm going to Corpus Christi. No, no. This is in Tulsa. He was in Tulsa. Oh, Tulsa. Sorry. He's living on Tulsa time.

Yeah. I'm confused. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, J.R. for the up there on that. Thank you. Well, I'm not going to Tulsa.

I like Tulsa. I'm sure you do. You're Mr. Oklahoma. I'm more of our state, but I like Oklahoma, too. Okay. All right. Brian McTaggart up next. Look, the minor leaguers have, there are some players.

We got one kid that's going to be in the futures game. Yes, that would be Kevin Alvarez, the top prospect of the Astros. He's number 76 overall, I want to say, by MLB.com. Yes, that's good. Hopefully he can climb. He's only 18, so he can climb. Yeah. Yeah, it's got.

about about 265, good OPS, a bunch of doubles, few home runs, and the saving, not saving grace, but the future hopeful for the Astros organization. Yes. At just 18 years of age. Yeah, along with 9. Chivoni has been climbing up the ranks as well. Hopefully he can show something. But I would say neither one of them will be on the radar until baseball resumes maybe in 2029,

somewhere in that range, 2030. Yeah, Chavoney's 23. Oh, they're going to get him up. Kind of a late bloomer. Mm-hmm. And I believe they like him at Catcher. Wait, there's opportunities there. Wait a minute. What about our from Mr. Yannick?

Walker Yonick. Is he playing anymore? I think he's still hitting horribly. Last I checked, he was hitting like 157 at double. Oh, God. All right, Brian McTagger, to start the second hour of the Matt Thomas show with Ross, this is Sports Talk 790. It's the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

We spend 10.4 minutes every Thursday on the Matt Thomas show with Ross with our friend Brian McTaggart of MLB.com. On the Astros beat, fresh off of his trip to Paris, where Ross, it was, I believe, 151 degrees every single day. Brian McTagher was there. Brian, we'll get to your Paris trip in a moment. But first, I did tell the story about 15 minutes ago what I saw yesterday in the press box bathroom. Ross thinks it was a prank. Do you believe that or do you believe that was authentic? Yeah, I think my first thought when I saw it was like,

I thought it was like maybe a hairnet. Then I thought it was like part of a wig or something. And then when more people started asking about it, I was like, oh, okay. So I don't think it was, I think it was something synthetic. It just couldn't have been real. That's what I think. Yeah, that's what I said, unless the silverback gorilla was in there, Brian. It was pretty shocking.

Pretty shocking is how I would describe it. All right, before I get to baseball, you were in Paris last week, and every day when I was watching my morning news, they kept saying European temperatures were ridiculous. Explain the audience what it's like to be in Europe with air conditioning not being in a premium. Yeah, it was very uncomfortable. Every day, it was over 100 degrees, at least first four. I was there five days in Paris. It was over 100 in the first four days. And I was waiting outside to go to a Starbucks or something.

and I looked and there was like a neon sign that flash that said 40 degrees Celsius. I was like, I'm going to put that in my phone and see what that is. It's 105. And the thing is, there's very little AC over there because the buildings are so old. They don't, I guess there's no infrastructure for it. Or a lot of them are historical, so they can't put like AC units out the window. So there's only 20% of the country. It has AC.

So everywhere you went, there was no air conditioning. So as soon as I stepped out of the hotel, it was sweat for, 12 hours, go back to the hotel, which thankfully the room was cold, but it was hot with, it's not like I could go get a big tall glass of ice either with water because that doesn't happen either. So it was a little rough. And you basically snuck away with zero Astros chatter for a week. I mean, you could check the internet and whatnot, but there were, you weren't bumping around a Paris sports bar looking for the Astros game on the MLB extra innings package, correct? That is right. There was one night I woke up in the middle of the night and I was still kind of

jet lad couldn't really sleep so i pulled it up on my phone it was a game in detroit which they they won on a double play at the end like christian walker snagged and but uh there was also a day game uh over the weekend that was on like at six or seven so i was kind of following but i did go to a an irish bar in paris to watch uh france playing the world cup but as soon as i walked in there it was so hot there i had to go out and stand outside and watch it through the window because maybe i would have at least a chance for a breeze so god that's crazy not the most comfortable four days. All right. Now that we got Brian McTaggart's thoughts on the European Travel Tour, let's get to what we look forward to having him on with every week. So I think it's

an easy description. When EMI is on, he's double-digit strikeouts, fun to watch, and man, great value. But when he implodes, aka last night and the game in Kansas City a few weeks back, it's an ugly sight to be out there watching and throw. Yeah, and it seems like there's been very few games where he's been in between. It's either he's going six innings and striking out 10, striking out 11, allowing any runs, or he can't get out of the first or second inning. I've never seen, I've just never seen a pitcher be all or nothing. I mean, he's had a couple of starts probably in between there,

but he's either on or he's not, and it was pretty clear last night that he wasn't. I mean, five walks. I think he faced 13 hitters, walked five of them, give up seven hits, I believe. I mean, just not good enough. And, I mean, he knows that. And he taught after the game, something about his feet, foot positioning. I mean, we've heard, you know, a lot of things, you know, from EMI about, you know, things he's trying to work on. But just when you think he's about to get some momentum, get, you know, three solid starts under his belly.

He takes a big step back. So not much they can do, but work with him and then, you know, try to run them out there again, which I guess will be in Washington, D.C. next week. Another place he has a pitch before, another new mound. So you just, you never really know what to expect. The good news is the Astros are getting healthier on the pitching front, Brian, but just it's particularly with EMI. I mean, I know it's obviously hard to predict even from start to start what it's going to look like for him. But could you see a scenario where he gets shelved to the bullpen and Javier or any of these other guys coming back, get some cracks at some starts?

I don't see that yet. I mean, I just find it hard to believe with all they invested in and they would move him to the bullpen. But like you said, you know, the guys got coming back. I mean, McCullors is, what, made two rehab starts now. Blanco made his third. So he's, both of those guys will probably be back by the end of the month. And, you know, Hayden West Neske's starting to throw in games. So, I mean, that's a good problem to have is more pitching depth.

You don't know how effective these guys are going to be. And you don't know what's going to happen between now. And somebody else might get hurt. Trade deadlines coming up. So it's hard to say what this roster will look like. you know, a month from now, because I think the trade deadline is one month from today. So they just have to hope they can find five healthy starting pitchers. Some of them are throwing well and try to keep this rotation together.

And that's the key to me, Brian, is some of them throwing well because, I mean, Eragetti is regressed somewhat. Peter Lambert, I don't want to call him regressing or anything like that, but I just, I still find it hard to believe that long term he's going to be a lockdown guy or anything like that, or even though he's done a pretty good job with it. Hunter Brown, obviously, we're safe. but then it feels like it's like pick somebody and I can tell you a way in which they're struggling and it's hard to rely on them.

So figuring out who's in the bullpen, who's in the rotation, how much of a look everyone gets. It just seems like Joe Spott and Dana Brown, I don't have a lot of question marks. Yeah, they do. I mean, Ergetti had the great May, but I think he had, what, a 90 or 8 June. So he's going to get the ball tomorrow to try to, you know, maybe flip of the calendar, start fresh. But it certainly looked like for a while there you were going to have Brown and at the top and feel really good about that. I mean, Lambert, Lambert's a fifth starter guy who's done his job. You know, you can't complain about that.

Burroughs remains an enigma. You know, he gave up the runs in the first inning the other day, and he was saying, I thought it was interesting. He thought that he felt kind of rushed in the first inning from his pregame bullpen to the game starting. He just felt that that was all rushed and he just really never could catch his breath because after the first inning, he was okay. So maybe there's some timing things they can work on that. But it just certainly seems like there's this fine line. Each of these starters have to walk. If everything's not perfect, then it really goes off the rails quickly,

except if you're Hunter Brown, you can count on him. And thankfully from that, so. But like I said, they got more guys coming back. They're going to have more options. So maybe a couple of these guys are going to get healthy and come off the aisle can provide the boost. Brian McTagger with his MLB.com on Sports Talk 790. I think the three of us collectively talking about the asteros are Jeremy Pena fans, was a hero of a world series,

a really good defensive player. The bat's been improved the last few weeks, but this will be his second trip to the injured list this year. He's missed a little bit of time here and there. And I don't want to say injury history, but I think there would be a few people that would be thinking about a shortstop, whose mobility is everything, having these issues in the leg quad area

and is determining whether or not does that concern you for a long-term conversation about a contract? What are your general thoughts about Pena's injury history and whether that goes into the thought of Jim Crane and whoever runs his baseball administration for the foreseebo future trying to decide to lock him up long-term or not? Well, I'll say, I don't think he'll be locked up long-term. I mean, they've made an offer to,

them and it's not happening. Unless Pena changes his stance, I mean, it's just not going to happen here. So I just think that's sort of something that's out the window. So, you know, he's going to be a free agent after next year. But yeah, he certainly is a guy who's had some soft tissue injuries now the groin and now the calf kind of back-to-back injuries. But what he's out, you really see how much he means to this team because they are a lot better when he's in the lineup. I mean, I don't have it in front of me, but if you look up their record when he's in the lineup, when he's not, it's pretty drastic. He just not only defensively,

but just what he does in the top of the order. I mean, he's probably their second or third best offensive play. Maybe their second best behind Alvarez, because, you know, Walker slump in a bit. So you lose him. That's a big hole in a lineup that typically has three or four, even five big holes in it every night. So his value to this team is clear when he's playing.

But, yeah, he, you know, he also had the freak thing in, in spring training that he kind of didn't play every day, to start the season. So that's, and that's really not his fault. But yeah, the soft taste of your injuries. And he's a guy who's really prepared. I mean, we've all seen Pena. I mean, he's a physical specimen.

Sure. I think these things just happen. And I know he's frustrated by it. But he was already out on the field yesterday, running and fielding some balls. So it certainly looks like he will be back at the end of the 10 days, which would be maybe in about a week. We're certainly not discussing a trade possibility for him,

because I think if this team's going to make any sort of run, he's got to be a part of it. But let me ask you this. The streets have shown that, and I, I've talked about with Ross. If you have too many pitchers, now it's clearly Hunter Brown and friends, more as compared to the Astrol's rotation

of five or six years ago when you had Vernalander and you had coal and you had Grinkin and all that. But my point is, you do have a lot of arms. Can one of those arms be used as a possible maneuver for a trade? And I think our friends of the athletic have said that there are on the streets,

there's a little bit of conversation about A.J. Blueball being a candidate. And it kind of makes sense because A.J., at least early on in his progression was considered a guy that may be a starter. Right now he's thriving in that middle relief leverage situation. And as you know, when you're a competitive team and starters are going through the dog days of July and August, you need one of those guys that can be a bridge to your late inning guys. And AJ so far has done that for the Astros.

Yeah, he's pitched really, really well, especially since I think it was when they were in Colorado. And he got knocked around. I mean, he's a guy that comes in and throws 97, 98 and really competes me. he's going to have value. I think a lot of their young arms will have value. There's going to be teams interested in Eulola. I mean, maybe now that he's moved to the bullpen, you know, maybe there's a team that will value him a little bit. I mean, I think, you know, a guy like Limbersanta, even going into the minor leagues, you know, Ethan Pecco, who's pitching really well. They need to be their next prospect starting pitcher to come up. Is he a guy that you end up dealing?

I mean, there's no secret. They need a left-handed bat for the outfield. They could use another reliever. So, and they, you know, they have some depth now, I think, with Uola pitching well, although he's probably going to get sent down this weekend when Javier comes back. You know, Santa's first look was good. I think you could feel, if you're the Astros, maybe you feel a little bit better about, you know, dealing one or two of those younger arms to try to get maybe a more veteran arm or even as a package to get that outfielder that you need. Would you see a possible move for a leverage reliever as well? And how do you feel state of the bullpen? Obviously, Josh Hayter's been excellent.

You know, Brian King and Oaker, pretty good as well. But do you think they would try to beef up those cores? Yeah, I certainly do. I mean, your number one need is left-hatter hitting outfielder. I think number two, if you can get another relief pitcher, you do that. But this bullpen has pitched really, really well since, you know, after probably mid-May when the, you know, the starting rotation was a wreck and the bullpen was having to cover seven, eight innings, which is, you know,

no bullpen can really do on a night-in-night-out basis. but now that the rotation stabilized somewhat and guys have found their roles, you know, the Kings, the Oakirts, you know, haters back. You mentioned blue ball. I mean, this is a very, very good bullpen, but you can never have enough bullpen arms. And I think at the trade deadline, you can go out and find a reliever pretty easily, certainly a lot cheaper than trying to get a starting pitcher or even a starting position player.

Tags were great to have you back in the United States. Great you're back on the Astros B. have a good weekend. I look forward to hearing you with Wex tomorrow on the On Deck Show before the Razor in for a weekend set. Thanks for the time as always. All right, thanks, guys. You got it. Brian McTaggart, MLB.com, our international travel and a man who was trying to dispel the ugliness that was the Dyken Park Press Box Men's Bathroom. 104 in Paris.

It's funny because you plan this big European trip. Was this supposed to be 85? Yeah, I think so, yeah. Probably. I don't think 104 was in the forecast. Paris average weather, June. Usually 72 to 77, average high. Like,

average a low 54 to 59. That's perfect. Yeah. Carly, where my daughter's going to school in Rhode Island, it's going to be 101 degrees there today. In Rhode Freakin Island. Getting hot. A lot of record highs, folks.

Everywhere. Everywhere. All right. Bottom of the hour, I just don't get it. And I have one about people's eating habits. Hmm. You just don't get it World Cup style, correct? Yes, I do.

It's about World Cup fans. Okay. Now, what are you all doing? Josh, you are new to this program, at least since we've been doing, I just don't get it. This is something in your life that Josh, you just don't get. And we're here to help. You could be sports or it. It can be non-sports-related.

I got one already. Perfect. We have Josh here with us. 1116 on Sports Talk 790. 7-13-212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-1-2-1-1-1. 125. 790. It's Matt. It's Ross. It's you and me on Sports Talk 790. Matt and Ross with you on 790. Good morning to you. What made you chuckle?

Staying in Paris, this song. You don't see what you did there, Josh. See? We should also, beyond Josh being a great producer and a great friend of ours for many, many years, he's an Alabama Hawk, which is not a great thing. But that's to each his own. He also is the guy, for those of you that listen to Astros broadcast, he always puts music to match the team or the what just happened. And that's what I, and I basically bit stole off of you, Josh, because Monday through Thursday, I try to find a song that matches the highlights of what happened in that particular game. I mean, I appreciate the homage, but I will also say be careful

because there's times some people think things mean one thing that they don't mean. People are like, wow, you're calling out this player. I'm just like, I just chose a song there. Like when you put, when you use the Beatles song, I'm down, you don't need to put up Taylor Tremel at the play, is what you're trying to say, or Bryce Matthews. Yeah, saying like last resort and having some random guy who's not a good hitter come up to bat.

Oh. Didn't think about that one. There is, I mean, I've known you for it. You've been with us almost 10 years, right? Yeah, 10 years now. Yeah, I mean, you are as nice of a person as I know. You don't rip anybody. I try not to.

I am just the opposite. What was that? Hmm. You don't think Josh is a nice person you know? When's the last time, Josh, did anything bad about anybody? Oh, all the time. Oh, really?

Okay. Well, Josh, you don't need to talk after the show then. Just kidding. Point being, is it Josh? His heart of gold? It's usually just soccer players. Oh, yeah. And probably Auburn players.

We're talking shop. Auburn LSU. Yeah. That kind of thing. All right. 713-21-2-5-7-19. It was when I brought up, it was Channel Rome's article that said

AJ Blue Ball is getting some people checking in it. If channel says it, it's true. I mean, it kind of just perfectly makes sense. Young Arm hasn't been worn a lot. Kind of embracing his new role, can pitch and start if needed to. A lot of control. A lot of team control, but that's also the kind of guy you would want,

but you also have to give something to get something. Now, I don't think you're going to get everyday left field or as part of an AJ Blueball trade, but it might be as part of a piece of it. That is interesting. And also, how much do you pair that with? the talk from Joe Espada, who Christian Javier was at 85 pitches in his rehab start. In Heating Care. But As Spada says, he's going to be a regular reliever.

As in, as in, we don't think of him as only a long guy. If we need somebody for a leverage inning or whatever, one inning three outs, then we're going to, we can call on Christian Javier. So let me tell you how I interpreted when he said that, because I was right there when he said it. I think it's for this year.

I think Christian Javier will have every opportunity next year to be in the starting rotation. But this season's already kind of put together. I don't think you're bumping Lambert unless you move him. No. You're not bumping Mima. You're not bumping Burroughs. You're not bumping Brown. That's four.

Who am I missing in that group? Erigetti. You're not bumping. So where is the- Burroughs is a potential bump? Bullpen or and he has options. See, you keep bringing up the options thing. I would be astonished if he got demoted.

I don't mean like long term. You'd throw him down for a couple weeks. They put him in the bullpen literally like two weeks ago. They put him in the bullpen. Yeah, but I think there's a difference in a bullpen for a, a handful of days. Now, as I say that, Emi had option, or a tongue had options. And so I didn't think he would be shit down either.

Although that was kind of a faux quasi send down because he wound up being on the injureless. Right now he's got a knee sprain. Wank, wink, and they don't have to option him. But you could option, but it would be the same thing. Just let him go and lighten his workload for a little bit because he's already, he's on track to pitch more innings than he ever has in his major league career. So while right now, it sounds like the bullpen could be congested. It can't be congested from too much longer.

Yeah. Meaning Pearson's gone. He's going back to AAA as soon as somebody's coming back. Yeah. I would assume that Uliola might go back. He might, but he's been good. But he's been giving a six-out with strikeouts. You do have other guys at a pitch for you, Van.

Why is sitting at AAA going on what else am I supposed to do? Well, I mean, I'm saying. It would only make sense. Even Rossi, if the Astros made a super, super minor deal, you've got live arms that are just kind of, you get too many of them. Can Brian and Bray wake up? We're talking about any kind of run where we want to find some kind of magical run

into the playoffs and then a magical run in the playoffs. He's not a part of it. He needs to be. If you're telling me Brian or Bray, who separates the Astros from making the playoffs and not, then they're not going to make the playoffs. The script is written on him. He's having a terrible season.

And you know what? It doesn't mean he's going to have a terrible rest of his career. But what he has not been the same since September of last season. He just hadn't been. Yeah. And I mean, I guess we're seeing enough of a track record the last couple years from Brian King that we can just say, all right, he is going to be like a reliable leverage guy. But I don't think he was, he.

He's not striking. the fear got into people. Well, put it this way, you want, you've been asking for, now the rest of us have, for Brian O'Brien Brady to be the eighth inning guy. And right now, by default, it's Brian King, and King doesn't come across to me is the kind of stuff to be the anything guy. But he's not going to blow you away, right? Like,

okay, I like, Brian King's walking out the pin, I'm like into eighth inning and it's a two-run game. I'm like, all right, yeah, I'm feeling good. But it was Brian of Bray like he was striking fear into the other teams. Or how like second and third, two outs in a tie game. Well, Brian King be that guy that's going to go, oh, Brian King's we're toast. No.

No. Right. So maybe it's just a feeling because the results have been really good with Brian King. And for that matter, Oaker, too. If you take away the first month of the year. All right, ladies and gentlemen, the next half hour of the show is an opportunity for you, whether it be sports related or non-sports related, to ask three different bright minds. Well, they're not in here, so it'll be the three of us instead. We'll take what we can get. It's Ross, Josh, and myself. We like to call, I just don't get it. What don't you get? 713-212-5-790

7-1-3-212-5-7-90 What don't you get? We'll try to help you answer them next year on 790. We run on dingers, dunks and drives. Not code. Sports Talk 790. Guaranteed human. Something in your life

that's just don't get. No need to worry. No need to fret. the topics to see if we comprehend the things that may confuse our friends, it's time to say, I just don't get it. Thursday feature on the show. By the way, the decision's been made.

We're going to wake the strippers up at noon, so don't only forget, Rossi. What did you get, like 95-5? You know what, let me check. A few more minutes for you to vote, and let's take a look here. The poll, 7921. What?

Yeah. Well, some people want them to sleep in because I'll be going later tonight. I want him to get nice and rested. Yeah, you get them up now. They're going to be about 7.38 o'clock. They'll be dragging a little bit. Yeah, exactly.

They need some kind of pick-me-up. Got a double Red Bull. I don't know what a stripper would do for a pick-me-up. Oh, I don't know. Which I'll envision that. All right, I've got a small one, and I get it, but I still want to bring it out. Okay. So Taylor and Kelsey are getting married this weekend, and they're having the rehearsal dinner tonight.

Is he going to take her name? Is he going to take it? There's no chance. Travis and Taylor Swift. That's beautiful. Travis Swift would sound roll off the tongue better than Kelsey. That's a different issue for different time. I understand that Taylor, anything she does, the world stops.

Yes. But you have a 250th July 4 celebration coming up. Is she getting married on the 4th? She's getting their rehearsal dinners tomorrow at the MSG and the weddings on the 4th. They're doing a dinner at MSG? Yeah. About 100 people. Are we getting tenders and nachos?

What are they serving? No, no, no. I'm just saying this. I know she's powerful. I know she's got more money than God. Yes. But you have World Cup. You have 250th anniversary.

I'm sure Times Square is going to have a big celebration on this. You're going to be taking some people that are working as police officers and protecting that community. And they're going to have to work security for this halaciously big wedding. Okay. If I was MSG out of said, I'll let you have the building, but this is a bad weekend to do it. I say I just don't get it. I don't think the streets are going to be of her own with crime because Taylor's having a wedding.

No, I'm not saying crime. I'm saying that you are taking people away from areas that could be potential crime areas or just crowd control for that matter. I guess. That's all I'm saying. It's not a big deal. I'm just saying, apparently July 4th, my daughter says July 4th is a big holiday. That is her.

That's Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift big, big, big deal. Oh, was she born on the first? Fourth of July or something? No, she just loves it for some reason. I don't know. But that is the least of my concerns is that the...

I just think it's hiring security. Not security, but it's just the overall congestion of an already crowded Midtown Manhattan. To have three blocks in and around MSG separated by security and police and cutting off because of VIP entrances and all these celebrities are going to get in there. I imagine she's paying the people this. security in all of them. Yeah, again, July 11th would have been much better. That's all I'm saying. She disagrees.

What Taylor wants, Taylor gets. Yeah, Taylor's got more money than God. So I say, I just don't get it, and you say you get it. I know, I say I don't care, really. Okay. I mean, I didn't even realize she was getting married. I wanted him to take her last name. That'd be really fun.

That's not going to happen. I hope they make a State Farm commercial where he does that. Oh, really? Isn't that Pat Mahomes bit? Well, they did one where Kelsey had his last name. I can't remember what they call it. Mahomes an auto. That's right.

Okay, I got you. All right. Mago is my second one. Go ahead. And again, if you got something you just don't get in your life, 7-1-3-2... By the way, can we make an over-under bet on how long this marriage lasts? Well, the last time we did that was an over-under, we lost. Yeah, I mentioned that, by the way.

He was not happy. Did you really? No, I mentioned that I bet. Okay, don't throw me in there. I mean, I'm enjoying you, but don't say that in there. Because they're hitting 10 years. And Matt's talking about Adam Klan. I bet that it was, I think, I can't even remember what the years were, five or something.

Six. I remember. Under and they are hitting 10. So congratulations to the Clantons. Yes. We love them. I love the Clantons. I love their life. They crack me up.

Yes. And their trials and tribulations. I think their reality show would be really good. It would be. Yes. She works a lot and he doesn't. That's a reality show. That's not true.

Okay. All right. Back to what I was saying. He's got a second job in the GTA universe. They'd have to get some OJ documentary rights around me. Yeah. Yeah. That's true.

All right, my second one, there are some places, restaurants that typically with outdoor seating say, hey, bring your dog. Have a great time. Yes. We are very pet friendly. And that's what a restaurant owner chooses to do. That's well within their rights, and that's great. My wife went to a Kingwood restaurant two days ago. Okay.

where they don't ever bring up the dog, bring your dog to this place. Okay. The dog comes into the restaurant and sits next to the table next to where my Kim and her girlfriend were having lunch. Indoors? Indoors. Is it a service dog? So the dog, so the manager comes over and says, is that dog a service dog?

And the woman says, no, it's not. The manager said, you're going to have to leave. We do not let pets inside of our restaurant. Which begs the question. Why would anyone, unless you're going somewhere where they do say we are dog friendly and presuming that it is outside, why would you ever think bringing a dog into a restaurant would ever be a good idea? I just don't get it. Well, they're an insane person.

That's the only thing I could get. Okay. I have never, who's bringing their dogs to the inside? Somebody in King Ward two days ago. Your dirty dogs dandered. Correct. All up in my nachos. Correct. That's a Shetjo.

bum ass up. And ain't nobody got time. Ain't nobody got time for you bringing, you know what, there's some people that are way too dog dependent. And I love our dogs. We understand your dogs are part of your family. They are part of a family. But we're not taking them to the grocery store. No. We're not putting them in the car. The grocery store has been way too much. Dude, there's there's produce in the meat market and like, come on, man. You know what? The dog needs separation time just like all of us do. I love my wife. I don't mind coming to work occasionally. Okay. I love my dogs. They want to be left alone so they can sleep in their dog bed.

Yeah. Stop bringing your dogs to restaurants unless you are going to a pet-friendly restaurant where they say pets are welcome. And again, the assumption is that's outside. You don't bring yours. You're not going to Rortons or to Rastros. Well, actually, Rastros. What is Rastro?

The dog from the Jets. You're not going to Rorough. You're not going to Roperitos. With your dog. Some Jets is comedy there for those of you playing at home. So guys, I say, I just don't get it. We're crushing it in 60 plus. We are getting it.

I don't really get that. And people keep asking, Jonathan's on vacation. He's back on Tuesday. He'll be back on Tuesday. I know we're worried around these parts. I know. Lord knows it. Jonathan will be back on Tuesday.

Yes. And it's a credit to Jonathan. People love him. That's right. Because he usually gives us a lot of crap. Yes, he does. And we make fun of his school. I love his.

He's got a good perspective as a former college athlete because we talk a lot of college. litigation. But right now he's kissing his future in-laws' ass. Yeah, he's on a trip with the girls family. You better be on your best behavior. So we will be asking questions. Whether he gives us answers or not, I don't care. We're still

asking. Yes, Matt, the prior. We're going to call you prior, Thomas. Yes, my favorite comedian was, of course, Richard Pryor. All right, Rossi, what don't you get? Okay, so now this happened when I went to go watch the Mexico versus Korea game. And it really didn't happen a lot in the USA game, but it happened. a little bit, but I still don't get it.

Matthew, you know especially in this economy, if you want to buy a beer or a Cervesa, whatever you want to call it, especially at stadiums, it's going to run you about 18, 20 bucks. It is. Even at bars, last night where I was, it was like six bucks a pint.

That's not cheap. Or even for a regular beer. Some of them were they were like eight bucks, depending on what kind of craft or whatever you wanted to get. When the team is scoring goals, These people are spraying and tossing their beers into the air. Number one, you're lighting money on fire. Number two, ain't nobody want to walk around smelling like stale beer that you're spraying on everyone.

So I just don't get it. Why are we spending our hard-earned cash on beers and people are tossing them up in the air because goals are getting scored? You can celebrate. clap, yell, scream USA. Literally do anything, but spray other patrons with beer. I don't want to go home

and heaven forbid I'm sober and I haven't had a drink of alcohol, a drip of alcohol and I get pulled over and the officer's like, hey, you've been partying tonight? You smell like a 12 pack of beer. I don't get it. Why are we spraying beer all over everyone?

Because gold got scored. Josh explained to Ross, y'all are a bunch of hooligans. It's all the way around it. To be fair, I get it if it's in your hand and you're just, oh, wow, we scored. If it's an accident. Exactly. But people are doing, yeah.

Picking it up just the, that's. People are going double fist, stone cold Steve Austin, spraying in everyone and smashing them together. There's too much. Real right. If it's a natural, visceral reaction of excitement, I get it. But people are doing it on purpose and too much and you're just wasting money. I totally agree. I don't get it either.

By the way, I want to clarify one thing. Our official Swifty of the Matt Thomas O'Ross, Grace, sent me a message, and I double-checked with AI. The rehearsal dinner is tonight with about 100 people. The reception wedding is 1,000 tomorrow. But still July 4th weekend. I mean, I think most of America's off tomorrow, which kind of helps Midtown. Well, maybe they're getting overtime. Or maybe it's a swift time and a half.

Maybe they're getting downloads of her new records. as payment. And you could always tell, you probably get some points with your, I don't know, daughter or whoever say, I was at Taylor Swift's wedding if you're working security. You get a selfie? Yeah, I don't know about that.

Yeah, probably not. It's probably doing it. All right, so you're asking soccer fans to stop throwing beer up in the air. On purpose. I get it. On purpose. All right, Josh, welcome to,

this is your version experience, and I just don't get it. What do you got? So this is more of a kind of niche people. I don't think many people have this issue. But I, I like to keep updated on all NBA news, Emily B news, whatever, right? I like following shams.

I would like to have notifications on so when things like the Jalen Brown trade go on. Yep. I can get it immediately. All right. I am tired of every time any sort of trade happens, he posts four separate tweets with a link to an article, a video to him discussing it, the tweet, a discussion about the trade, a discussion about the trade, why it happened, just give me one. Retweet articles from the main

ESPN account of you on SportsC and your article. I do not need to hear every single thing and get a notification on my phone every five seconds. If he did that, I would actually have the tweet notifications on, but because I get spam by him, I don't dare do that. Guess what happened?

Well, I get out. He threw out the fishing pole and the bait and you got hooked. I'm going to tell you, I get it. I totally get it. 50 million impressions. 7 million impressions. He probably has it somewhere like in his ESP and contract. If he gets a certain amount of impressions, he gets a bonus or something like that. 7 million impressions for this, for the Santi Aldama trade.

He's tweeting like a mutter. If you are getting 7 million impressions for Santi Aldama, you're winning. Exactly. You are winning. Unfortunately, I get it, Josh. But even though you might go more, I ain't go by anybody got time for that. Josh, I'm sorry, but we get it. Yeah. I mean, it's just I feel like I would be even more engaged with his tweets if it wasn't spam.

You know what you do? You know what I did because he was tweeting so much? I turned my notifications off on him. He said, shut your bum ass up and enjoy this X check I'm getting. All right, Brian and Kyle, we are, look at where they're calling from, both from Pearland. We crush and Pearland. We are the number one sports station in Pearland. Love it. 10-8-2-P. We'll get those calls next. 1146 Sports Talk 790 where the message for Uptown Appliance Repair. Uptown appliance repair says, hey, you're going to have a July 4th party at your house,

but you don't have an ice maker that works? You're going to call 281-758-9-9-78. You're going to have your nieces and nephews come in for a long weekend, and they're like, hey, do you mind if you wash our clothes and dry them? And you're like, of course, be happy to. But your washing machine doesn't work, and your dryer's not working properly. You're embarrassed by that. I get it.

That's why you call uptown appliance repair at 281-758-9-9-78. 281-758-9-9-78 and online. And Uptownappliancerepair.com, that's Uptownappliancerepair.com for all of your appliance needs. 100% customer satisfaction. 281-758-9978 for Uptown appliance repair. More Matt Thomas Show with Ross. Now on Sports Talk 790. I swear to God, my phone knows exactly what I'm doing.

I just got a tweet in the 4U tab that says, that Taylor Swift, we were just talking about him, her, and Travis Kelsey donated $26 million in charity to 20 different charities, nine of which were in the New York metropolitan area. Okay. So we're all good now. No, I'm saying, I think no one questioned her generosity and no one's, I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying that it's interesting that all things are coming together that my phone knows that I'm talking about Tatea. I believe I have the word Taylor Swift muted on my for my timeline.

Okay. I mean, she doesn't bother me. I'm looking at my muted words. Huck Tua. Haley Welch. Impeachment. Lovar. Nick Wright.

Oh, no. I guess I didn't add Taylor Swift. I thought I did. There's one word I added. The Rizzler. I got one here. It says, in the category of please add more.

one is shihadi. I have a, here's one, Republican, Democrat, Republicans, Democrats. You're losing. You're still getting it. Democrats with an apostrophe. Republicans with an apostrophe. Let me ask you this. I've given political parties.

I've given your phone number of political parties around the state. Have you ever seen more text? I have all those. I have all the, I have been getting, did you really do that? You know, I've been getting a lot of political texts. From who's that guy? Palomino. Who's running?

He's this, he is going against Pax. Tala Rico? Tala Rico against, not Palino. Palino, whatever. Calamino versus Paxton. Okay. For the Senate spot. One of the two sentence spot.

Who's our other senator, you know? Yes. Edward Cruz. I guess he's Edward. Is he? I think he's Eduardo. He could be Theodore. You don't know that either.

I think it's Eduardo Cruz. Kyle on 790. Kyle, what don't you get? You know, Matt, and you are number one show in Paralyam, by the way. Thank you, friend. Thank you, thank you. You know, you talk about dogs at restaurants. Two things get me is dogs and little kids in the casinos, especially at night. Hmm. Which casinos are you going to?

In Vegas, you go by and you see them dragging their kids around at midnight and the morning. Yeah, correct. I completely agree with you on that. Now, if you're at Circus, Circus, that comes to the territory. But if you're like MGM or Mandalay Bay or any one of the high-endor ones, do not bring your kids to. First of all, don't bring your kids to Vegas ever. They're not going to have any good time, and you're just being selfish.

And don't bring your dog out there and take a piss on the machine while you're playing. You know that? Exactly. That happens all the time to me. He must be at Western Station or something. Dogger at a... And Vegas? slot machines.

I've been to Vegas over 40 times. Is your dog running up the wheel of fortune slots? I don't know. Does he bark at the wheel when it turns? We should clip that for next Friday. Josh,

put a note for our friend. Are we going to get our Friday open? Are you serious? Hold on. I'm watching these spots for a local lawyer. He's kicking the ball. Free kids. Ah!

Do an AI bicycle kicks? This is absurd. Well, you know what? World Cup fever really is spreading, Matthew. It does make you remember what it was. All right, we are your Pearland sports leader, Brian, on Seven ony. Brian, what don't you get? Matt, you are, not only are you, Mr. Kingwood, you are Mr. Pearland as well.

Thank you very much. I know you're also Mr. Marfa. But, you know, you're definitely huge in parallel. But I don't get three things. One, I don't get why in all this construction we have going on. Let's say you're doing a project from I10, from the tollway out to Fry Road. Let's say you're repaving all that. Why, when you finish a section, can't you open that section while you finish the rest of it?

Why does the whole thing have to be shut until it's all ready to open? If it's open, it'll help leave a little bit of congestion. Open it. Like, if it's paved and solid and ready to go, I don't get that. There's so much construction in this city where areas are done and they're just sitting there because there's another little small section that isn't open. And if it's, but they won't open anything until it's all done, but nothing's been done for months.

So I don't get that. Second, I don't get these people who push their dogs around in strollers and that. The dog has legs. Let the damn thing walk. I mean, look, I love our dogs. We'll hop up in the bed sometimes at night or they'll hop up on the couch. But other than that, we let our dogs walk everywhere they go. I don't care if they're a little yorky, whatever. They have legs. Let them walk. If you need to carry them somewhere, you know, real water puddle or something, fine. But other than let them walk, these strollers are ridiculous, especially when men push them around. And last, I don't get how in the, especially in the World Cup, there's no appeal system. You can appeal a red card any other time in FIFA play, but not for the World Cup. In the most critical of situations, you don't allow there to be an appeals process to get it reduced. Whatever you can do that in any other sport, you can even appeal it. They may not hear it.

They may not rule in your favor, but you can at least appeal it. I don't get how there's not won for the World Cup. So those are the things I just don't get. All right. There it is. You want to rule on that? I don't get it either. Like you can't at least appeal to try to get him in the next game.

There's no appeals in the World Cup for Red, Red Cuff. FIFA rules suck. First of all, they're corrupt. This is purely outsider. They're corrupt. I don't trust them. I don't trust the replay center. I don't trust the guy on the field.

They're not enough officials. They have awkward timing rules. It is a beautiful sport. It's got tremendous history. I get all that. It's time to get into 2026. It just is. Well, they've curbed a lot of the time wasting this time around.

I really like all the rules that they put in. They felt like to me there was quite a bit of flopping last night. Would you agree with that? Or was it pretty clean? Towards the end a little bit. Yeah. I mean, it was about a normal amount of flopping. There's a lot.

All right. The decision's been made. I will wake the strippers up. Yes. And now here's the thing. We have never gone. We're going from a stripper welcome to a rocky to a country roads. This is going to be an odd transition.

It's not quite a stripper song. Have you ever gotten a dance from a stripper would take me home country roads? To a John Denver song. To any John Denver song. I mean, you could say, thank God I'm a country boy. That would kind of work. Some days are diamonds. Some days are stones.

I would say this. If you're going to get a strip dance at a club, thank God I'm a country boy probably is the number one on the list. Any song would not be what I want to go with. with. Okay. And I'm tapped out on John Nimburs songs. I've got, I was done after country roads.

I will wake. I will wake the strippers up. Take me home country roads after that, plus some soccer highlights. After we tell you about speaking of soccer, you know, the World Cup has been so much fun. Woo! And if you're trading on Kalshi.

USA. 53% right now to advance over Belgium. And that's a gut feeling you had earlier this week. Just saying, but also they're missing Balagoon, who's scored. three of their eight goals in games they actually cared about. So it's not good. And you don't want to miss out on winning, right?

No, you don't. And you don't want to miss an opportunity to win signed jerseys from football's biggest stars. Excuse me? Through July 7th for the folks of Kalshi, every entry that you make on Kalshi is going to give you another shot at the grand prize, which is a L-Messie, game-worn jersey. What?

From the match, he scored goal number 800. All from K-M-M-M-S-H-E. So if you want to get in the predictor market, go to K-A-L-L-S-H-I. Use a promo code 790 and for a $20 opportunity for you to trade on 20, you'll get $20. That's K-A-L-S-H-I. Download it and use that promo code 7-9. Yes, code 790, 20 when you trade 20. The beauty of Calci is you can get in and out of the game as well.

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Golden Boot, you can do props, you can do anything like that in Calci. That is the beauty of it. You can also do other sports as well, but of course you can trade the beautiful game. USA right now, 100 on them will get you 179 because they are slight favorites in that one. K-A-L-S-H-I is the app. Cal-She. use that code 790 to get 20 when you trade 20. Again, that code is 790.

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The Astros. The Rockets. Rockets. Basketball. Your home for your home team. This is Sports Talk 790, an I-Hard radio station, guaranteed human. Yes. It's the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. 1205 in H-Town.

Thomas Show and Ross, this is Sports Talk 790. Close heaven, West Virginia. Final decision is potential game-changing. moment. The number 20 United States Committee Syria sales foul. That's going to be a red card. The final decision is red

card. Wow. He's bewildered of in shot. Right side of his goal. And you've given her her appropriate wages. May you enjoy this other great John Denver music in this trip club.

I mean, think about this. Do you, is there a single strip club in this country of ours that was watching the World Cup? Because there's a lot of, a lot of TVs, right? I'm sure the World Cup was on. And do you think the DJ put a little John Denver on to everybody sing in the club? No. Maybe in Chattahoochee. Or Chattanooga.

Or in Morgantown. You know, those college girls are going to make a living somehow. I guess. What are other cities that are in West Virginia? Charleston, West Virginia, yes. Yes. Where is Marshall? I don't know.

It's in Marshall. No, it's not Marshall. I was going to try. No. Yeah, the capital is Charleston. Yep. The population is only 50,000 there. Charleston, West Virginia.

West Virginia. No, it's bothering me where Marshall is. Charleston also known as Charlie West. Really? Yes. The great next statement is from Fairmont, West Virginia. There you go. Fairmont.

Okay. Now I'm looking at where Marshall is. It's going to bother me. I'm sorry, folks. You should be. Let's just hit the news at noon. I know it's Thundering Heard. It is in Huntington, West Virginia.

Oh, of course. There you have it. All right. Let's get to the news at noon, please. 12.10 sports talks. I mean, we get to the Tom Llamas of sports. I'd like to rather be Lorenzo Lomas. Okay, very good.

What was that show he was on? Renegade or whatever. Anyways, yes, Matthew, the top news item on the day is the USA, USA, USA, as they defeat Bosnia and Herzegovina. Suck it, Bosnia. Two goals to nil. The United States advances to the round of 16. Well, they will take on Belgium Monday, July 16th. That game will be at Lumen Field in Seattle.

There's a big soccer-loving population there, too, Matt. So I expect a raucous crowd. By the way, our friend Softie put up an early ticket price to get into the building. Who can I guess get in? $1,600. $3,100. $3,100. Yeah.

What the hell? Now, that's just one set of tickets. There could be others. For a pair? Okay. Or that's for one ticket? My God. All right.

So, also, you had a flow ballagoon or a foreign ballerun. with a red card in the game as he will miss the next matchup. It was a tough call, as we said. He was kind of biding for position, but happened to step on the Achilles of the Bosnian defender. $3,0,0,000 to get in. 3,0. Yeah, you're a way off. Come on, man.

Sorry. Belgium with a big comeback win over Senegal. They were down 2-0, won that game 3 to 2. So they will be matching up with the United States. On Monday, July 6. 7 p.m. start in Seattle at Lumenfield. Get your tickets now. I'm good. Don't use a flight up there too.

Don't use, don't use Stubhub. They're printing up those fake tickets. They're getting sued right now. Good for them. Stubhub is getting sued for the tickets that they were not fulfilling. So, yeah, be wary of them. Elsewhere, of course, the Astros got shelled, or I guess you'd say Tachi I'mai did yesterday in his start.

As he gave up five earned runs in an any. and a third four hits five count them five walks just 57 pitches a couple of strikeouts a couple of home runs given up as tatsu y imi did not pitch well for the stroes a j blue ball came in like a saint got you eight outs three strikeouts didn't give up a run as he continues to be good rest of the bullpen was not piercing giving up runs brian bray giving up runs the only bright spot in the offense. Three hits again from Yordon Alvarez. As he is scorching hot, he is six for his last eight, average up to 319 on the season. But the Astros lost a series to the Minnesota Twins before the off day today. All right. And the lead singer of the village people passed away yesterday.

Okay. Yeah, there you go. There's a nice news and note from Matt Thomas, but also a blockbuster NBA trade. Yes. Jalen Brown. is headed to the Philadelphia 76ers. Celtics agreeing to send the former NBA finals MVP in a trade on Wednesday, sources telling Shamsherania, Paul George, and two first round picks coming the Celtics way as Jalen Brown is unloaded to Philadelphia. A divisional opponent, which is for scheduling wise, four times.

But the bigger issue is you didn't get good value for it. And you made the Philadelphia 7th and 6ers significantly better. And they're in the Eastern Conference. I'm willing to maybe believe the more I think about this financially, the situation, the contract. And Brad Stevens has to know something we don't know, right? Because everything he's done in his career has touched, turn to gold.

He's won a championship. Good coach. As the GM of the Celtics. I mean, he got Butler into relevance multiple times as a coach. He was a good Celtics coach. Uh-huh. Maybe he just knows more than we do, and Jalen Brown is a limit, and he's not exactly selling high.

No, far from it. Maybe Jalen Brown's going to turn into a pumpkin, and Brad Stevens knows something we don't. Can we buy that? No. Okay. Because the same thing was being said about the Dallas Mavericks and Nico Harrison. Nobody said that.

That deal was way more universally paying than that. this. By the way, speaking of general managers, Stephen A. Smith is not a fan of Rob Polenko's work as a general manager of the Los Angeles. Rob Plinko? Palinka. Okay. Did you find out, do you hear what he said? I was talking about them accumulating a lot of white players. Somebody has to say it, says Stephen A, so I'm saying it. Your three top players are white dudes. Really, this ain't golf. This ain't baseball.

Hell and ain't even soccer. We got a bunch of brothers on Team USA. What y'all think of this is? It's basketball. all. Is that an exact quote? We have the audio action. You want to hear it? Not really. I don't like Stephen A.

Audio on here. Okay, we won't do it then. Stephen A's a loud mouth who's going to try to get incendiary reactions. I mean, this isn't new. They signed Colin Sexton, right? But they got Walker Kessler, too. They get Quentin Grimes. So you're trying to play balance white versus black.

They got Brony James. Oh, they did sign and they guaranteed Bronny James contract. Yeah, Brian James and they got. Yeah, Brian James in the squad. All right, and there's your news at noon. Look at Donch. It's good. Austin Rivers. I mean, Austin Rivers. Austin Rivers. Austin Reeves is good.

And Austin Rivers was good. Kelly Kessler's pretty good, too. Yeah. Oh, as long as he says, healthy, he's really good. Yeah. All right. Yeah, Walker Kessler. What did I say? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter either.

Yeah, you're right. All right. There's your news and news. Yeah, it was a good job on the news. Thank you. Astros fall. We'll get to that. By way, Will Gillary of the Athletic and a Rockets. He's like, he does mostly rockets, but he does other NBA

stuff too. We'll talk to him come up at 1 o'clock about all the craziness that is around the NBA. Okay. If you missed our Brian McTagger conversation about an hour and plus ago, we'll have that for you at 1.30. And believe it or not, it's all things about the village people. Are you writing that? No. Do you mean to help you? Oh. Okay. Yeah, I get on that. Yeah, but you said it like you were writing it. I didn't know. No, I'll usually tell you in a dance. You're the resident village people expert. How many village people songs will I have in my phone? 17.

First of all, they don't have 17 hits. You got the deep cuts. I do not have the deep cuts of the... Are there such a thing as a deep cut of the village people? It's got to be village people. Deep cuts. Okay, you get one guess and one guess only. On what?

How many songs of the village people are on my phone? One. Zero. Okay. I mean, YMCA's catchy. Macho man is pretty good. It came out with... Oh, they came out with a village people Christmas in 2018.

Or did they? believe it or not at 150 here on Sports Talk 790. Back to Matt Thomas and Ross Villarreal on Sports Talk 790. All right, we're going to get a little rocket chatter in bottom of the hour because people are losing their mind about Fred Van Ville going back to Instagram again. Gee, many Christmas. What happened? We're bottom of the hour.

What is he? Bottom of the hour. Okay. I mean, do you realize these athletes like to play with y'all's emotions? Did you put a pay me, Raphael? shirt on or something. He already is getting 25 milly.

Yeah, I know. Remember he opted in, so that's guaranteed. He's opting in. He wants to world to know that he's opting in. See, we finish each other's sentences. I'm opting.

Tatsu you, my. He's opting in. You know what we ought to do this once a month. Okay. If the season ended today, what's he doing? he's opting in okay

now I'm going to refuse the notion that he's doing it because he wants to go back to Japan I moved off of that okay good I'm glad you're not shipping him back to Japan but I wonder if he's thinking it under new rules of baseball where teams have got to spend money and I'm assuming that

when we come back we're going to have some sort of floor right I mean right is that a same presumption on that so that maybe a Pittsburgh or a Miami or maybe somewhere that's a little more lower key will on to overspend for a guy that at times look, I mean, generally speaking, he's looked better today than he did 30 days ago. He looked better before the 30 days before that.

But there's still, it's still a lot of up and down. Yeah, I mean, he's making a huge leap. It's been, what, four months? He's making a huge leap in competition. And, of course, he's outlined in quite in detail all the issues he's had adjusting to the American game and how to pitch here. We've seen some flashes. We've seen some ability.

So hopefully, it'll be all right. Is there any part of him that thinks going to a smaller market might be a little more of a benefit? I mean, do you think? Because my thought is if you're living in downtown Houston, you're living in downtown Cincinnati, is that a whole lot different? I was there when he was like getting shelled and he was spoke in the dugout. There was like five of us there. He's okay. Yeah, my lean and we can obviously change just almost by the week or almost by the start.

Uh-huh. is that he's not done enough that Boris is going, man, we got to put your name out there in those for Agent Waters. Yeah, he can opt in for $18.6 million. So he's got to opt out and then he can opt in again. So he's got two opt-ins.

This year he's making almost $17 million. Next year's $18.67 And then $18.67 out of that. He can opt in for any of them. We should explain. That's not the Astros option. That's the player option. Yes, his options.

and let's see he gets escalators based on innings pitched that won't be an issue 80 90 inning 100 innings pitched up to or 2 million each oh wow oh he's softed it in oh because if he has a better year next year he's going to easily raise those million for 80 innings pitch he's got to be close to that see at 80 innings pitch this year I'll be I'll pull it up right now I'll do it okay go ahead you read because I'm always in the 90 he gets another two million a hundred He gets another 2-mill. Woo, he's hopped it in.

He's opting in. Unless down the stretch, he is just like complete nails and has an ERA of like two the rest of the season. He's opting in. All right. Emi on the year has pitched a total of 48 and a third. Oh, okay. So you said 80 you said? He can get there.

It's July. if he doesn't get there, bad things are happening. If he doesn't get there, two things have happened. Either he gets shelled on the regular, three things. He gets moved to the bullpen or he's hurt. Right. And none of those three are good. So we're actually rooting for him to make an additional two-milly.

Okay. I mean, if you're the Astros, you've kind of budgeted that already. I don't imagine. You have to do that. And you're not going to be, Dan Brown's going to be like, what? We put escalators in this deal? It'll be fine. I'll figure it out.

No, I mean, look, everybody knows about this. Jim Crane knows about the escalators. Scott Boris definitely knows about the escalators. The Astros know about it, and Dikin knows about it. Okay. So, you know what? If you happen to be buying some air conditioning units and they go up like $49 in the next couple of weeks, next month,

blame Tatsu Emi. Well, I'll go in a different direction. Competition, I got you. By the way, we've not done a standings update today, and I feel like I've let all you down as my friends of the show. And I'll pull up the playoff odds. By the way, we'll have a new sounder next week for Standing 790. Love it.

Yeah. The Astros find themselves in third place, American League West. God, it's better than fourth where they were. Just a poultry. Two games back of the tie between Texas and Seattle, both teams on a 44 and 43 record. The Astros are 43 and 46. And if the season was to end today, Texas would be your division champion. Seattle would be the wild card because of head-to-head matchups.

And if season into the day, the asteros would be where? Two-back. Now, you're saying, how's the wall-card looking? Glad you asked. How's the wild card looking, Matthew? They're also on Standing 790. They're also two-back of the final wild-card spot owned by the Seattle Mariners. They're out of the playoffs as of today.

Yes, but they're only three out of the second wild card. Oh, baby. And what's the reward for playing the second wild card? walled card you get to go an all expense pay trip to New York to play the Yankees at Yankee Stadium where Jose Lube loves playing is that right? Yeah because

the worst koal card plays the worst division winner and then the two wall cards play in the I can't keep track of this anymore yeah so nobody gets a buy right no the number one and two seats do the top two records okay the top two do get buys yeah see I'm confused I'm stupid and then the third division play I got to

in the NBA no one gets spies Okay. In the NFL. Sorry, I'm tired. Only number one C gets a buy. I was celebrating USA with whiskey yesterday. That's my bad. So whiskey river was on your mind.

Yes. Doesn't like the memories tortured you. I didn't. It was a good game. Use whiskey neat or did you go with a little whiskey and branch? It's on the rocks. All right. A little ice in there.

Let it breathe. Big one chunk of ice or do you go with the crystals? I prefer the one chunk. Last long or less surface area. Science. Plus it looks classier. It does look classier. last year, especially if they get them crystal clear.

Yeah. But you were in an area yesterday where people, they couldn't, you were like in a line waiting to get your drink, right? No, it wasn't bad. That's good, because usually I go into that place you've been to, and it's a long-ass line. I don't believe you. It was packed, and it was fine. But you had to go get your drink, correct?

You didn't they come to you? They had a waitress, too. Yeah. She was nice. You tip her well? No, I didn't use her. I just went to the bar. You didn't use her.

Don't use your waitress like that. Okay. Got you. All right. 1230 on Sports Talk 790. There's a weird NBA rule that's going to be used in the summer league. Okay. It might be a Thursday I just don't get it.

Well, we should have did it an hour ago. Okay. Matter of fact, Josh, we're going to let you do it because you're the one that brought it to our attention. It might be a Thursday I need it to explain to me. Me, Josh can do it for it. But okay. When I heard it, I said to myself, I just don't get it. 713-1-2-5-790.

Will Gilry from the Athletics is going to join us in a half an hour to talk about this crazy role that we call the NBA. At 1.30, we'll replay some of our conversation with Brian McTaggart and the village people on today's edition. Believe or not at 150, this is Sports Talk 790. Real takes, real reaction. Real Houston. Sports Talk 790. Guarantee Human.

All right. Normally, I just don't get it to 1130 on Thursdays, but we're going to do a little bonus edition of it. Josh is producing today. By way, everybody asking about Jonathan. Jonathan is, A, employed with us still. We're glad to have him. We're very happy to have Josh with us. He's one of our favorite people in this building.

He does a great job with our Rockets and Astros producing coverage. But Jonathan is trying to meet the potential future in-laws. So he's, you think he's getting browbeaten or think he's being treated well? Like, what's your, son, what's your future? What are you going to do for a living? How are you going to supply for my lady here, our daughter here, our granddaughter, our niece, our nephew? I think it's probably a pretty casual summer vacation. I hope so.

I hope he's not filling the heat. Okay. All right. So the NBA has a summer league. And in fact, next weekend, I'm going to be going to Vegas as well as Ross for a little R&R. But we're going to do the shows for me. We're not taking any time off because, okay.

Frankly, I don't want to hear it replaces. But that's another issue for another time. But I'm going to go to the summer league. And they're enacting a new, is it a new set of rules? Or is it just a new single? rule, Josh, the way that you're reading it. I believe it's just one singular rule that just applies to many aspects. So calmly and slowly explain what we're going to potentially see in these summer league games.

All right. So the overview is the one free throw rule will be tested at the upcoming NBA summer leagues. So what is that? Basically, when free throws are awarded, one free throw worth one, two, or three points will be attempted. Standard NBA free throw rules apply in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter and during overtime. This rule has been using the G-League since 19-20 season to improve game flow. 19-20? Yeah.

First, I've heard of it. 19-20? 20. Oh, phew. I was a little nervous about that. But basically what it means is say there's a person fouled on a two-point shot, one free throw will now be worth two points. If a person is fouled on a three-point shot, one free throw will now be worth three points.

So it's basically just trying to get rid of the pass-it-back, everything like that, trying to speed up the game a little bit. But it really doesn't say more than, what, 15, 20 seconds? How much time are you shaving off the games? I hate this. Free throws. Now, let me explain my thought. Free throws are a component of the game.

Yes. Now, mathematically, I mean, it's the same. You're going to shoot what you're going to suit. The points per shot, it's going to be the same. But I understand it'll be interesting. And they're going to keep it. They're not going to do it in clutch time, right? Yes.

the final two minutes of the fourth quarter and during overtime. So it's just the end of the game. Only the fourth quarter? Hmm. They should do like the five, five minutes, final five minutes of the fourth quarter or something. My big thought is they need to start calling lane violations with real scrutiny if they're actually going to do this. That's a good point. Now these are worth way more points than they are.

Yeah, that's true. And that's a good point. And how much time is this shaving off the game? Is anybody even sitting around saying these NBA games are taking too long? I mean, there's what, 15 freethos. we say a game and we do 10, 15 seconds between free throws. So that's 150 seconds. So I'm trying to in my mind and Jonathan and Josh, you don't know this,

but I'm a horrible when it comes analogies. So I'm going to keep whatever is in my mind to myself. I'm kind of curious though. Now I'm morbidly curious. But you don't have to say it. I'm not going to say it. But my point is I'm sorry. Free throws are a, I'm just saying it.

think they're a huge component. Part of a player's ability to be a really great player is how you perform at the free throw line. And if you can concentrate and you are able to get to the free throw line eight times in a quarter, you are expected to make all eight of them. And if you don't make all eight of them, you only make six, maybe those one or two points, whether it be in the third quarter, the second quarter, those miss free throws compile. There have been games, Ross, I've called, that said the Rockets were 21 of 32 for the

the free throw line. If they hit five more of them, it's a different ball game. I don't like this at all. And again, I'm not ready to draw a line in the sand and say this is the most ridiculous thing I've heard of my life. My first gut feeling is, I don't like it. I think in five years we won't be talking about

it as much if it gets implemented. Now, this is just in the summer league. It's puzzling because I don't know how much time they're saving, but I mean, it's not unprecedented in a way that they're changing. Remember, Mac in the day, as you know, Matthew, it used to be you get three shots make two. Mm-hmm.

Now, that to me was time-consuming. Yes. So you would get three chances to make two shots for your two free throws, which was they backed off on that. So this is a furthering of trying to speed up the game that I just don't think last too long. What is the average game? Two hours, two hours, ten minutes or something like that?

Game will start at ten past the hour. Usually you're out by 23, so it's two, 12, two-13 somewhere in that range. That seems about right. I mean, don't you want people in the arenas longer? you want free throws opportunities or times to go to the concession stands time for advertisers time for a little they do a little box in the box advertisement here's a quick moment for rack and a rocks and it's like a five second spot they do that during free throws

this is hurting advertising I don't get it overall I'm not worried about what the timing of it I to me this is the integrity of the game you are if you're basketball player part of being a good basketball player of completing your job is depending on your positions whether you're considered a jump shooter or you are a guy in the low block but all of you have a responsibility to be able to make free throws when you get fouled.

Well yeah, you still have to make free throws. Just not as frequently. I feel like this also would make the hacker whatever strategy more viable because I feel like when guys like say Mitchell Robinson goes out there and shoots a free throw the first one is usually off more than the second one because they're finding the range. Maybe.

Yeah, I'd be curious data on that. I'm Googling it right now. Yeah, that's just a feeling. I can't say that it's proven by. So if you miss the first one, do you get another chance? I don't believe so. It's just the one free throw. Period.

Okay. It looks like you're right, Jonathan. I'm not Jonathan. Sorry, Josh. This says, well, this is from Reddit. So I don't know how accurate this is. 76% on first attempt, 81% on the second attempt. Hmm.

Okay, then yeah, this is changing the scope of the game. Interesting. So let's put this again in perspective for those that are listening. In an NBA game, if you get fouled, you get two free throws. You are now, again, this is Summer League only. If you get fouled, you get one free throw. And regardless of whether it was for a two-point shot or you'll get it for two or for three points, depending on the shot you took,

but you only get one chance at it. According to some research paper from like 2010, it's 3 to 4% better. So you're going to have scoring go down with this now. Let me, not backtrack, but let me say, let me watch some of this and see how I feel about it. Doesn't it feel like the NBA's taking the wrong precedent or understanding why people don't like the frito's wrong? It's not the fact that they're missing them or taking a while. They're just being called so often. Yeah.

Hmm. I don't. I don't like gimmicks. Now, let me tell you, now, to be fair, I do love the man-for-man rule at second base and extra innings. And that could be considered gimmicky. Yes. So maybe I'm talking out of both sides here.

I mean, I think it depends on the situation. I think overall it's not a big deal, but the big thing is, as the difference of percentage is kind of interesting. It would, I'll tell you what? what it would speed the game up. Yeah. But does the need, does the game need speeding up?

Maybe they want you out in two hours. I don't know. You know, maybe they want the guys off their feet. Where it's just, I mean, I guess if anything, it's less opportunity

for more additional contact. I don't know. I mean, in theory, it would be less contact. Mm-hmm. Or less standing around? I don't know.

Does the game ever, you know, you know when the game slows down to me, Ross, is when they go to these long instant replays. The reviews that take forever. All right, let me, let me, I got to chew on this little bit, if you will. Okay.

1244 is our time. Will Guillory from the Athletic joins us to start the final hour of the show. 1.30, a replay of our Brian McTaggart best up and 150, all things about the village people, believe it or not. Only takes, by the way, Josh, and I hate to do this to you, but we didn't get away any prizes yesterday. One correct answer wins you a prize this week on, believe it or not. 1244 on 790. Oh, Ross.

Ross. Yes, Matthew. You got games all this weekend. And you also have a World Cup. You got baseball. You got anything you want to watch. And you know what? Your girl or your friends are like, man, you know what? I really want a nice dinner tonight. I want to catch the game too. Don't compromise. Go to On the Curb. Five locations. Midtown, Upper Kirby, Greenway, Katie, and the Woodlands. It is the elevated sports bar experience. Serious good food. Great game day vibe. as well. If it were just a restaurant, it would still be one of the best restaurants in the city, but also it is a sports bar with wall-to-wall TVs with every game you're looking at, are looking for, and it's an organic eatery with a great menu. They also have your favorites like burgers, pizza, wings, but also elevated options. 100% grass-fed beef and steak, organic chicken, wild-caught fish. Trust me, when I say, order the grill board and get the whip fed of time as an appetizer. and you can go ahead and like text or tweet me or whatever.

That is not going to disappoint you. Also, craft cocktails, mocktails, ton of local brews on tap as well. It is the place for any occasion from casual hangouts, lunch meetings, corporate happy hours, big celebrations, daily specials, happy hour, and brunch on the weekends as well. Onthecurb.com on the k-irb.com. Five locations, Midtown, Upper Kirby, Greenway, Katie, and the Woodlands on. The curb. Yo, this is Bunby. And my wife is the biggest fan of the whitest man in America.

Matt Thomas. Reckless, ratchet, and don't give a fuck. 1250 on Sports Talk 790, 713-212-5-790. A lot of our listeners said that the reason why they're getting rid of the free throw is to shave 30 seconds off the games. They can add 30 seconds more commercial inventory. I guess that would make some sense. What, makes the breaks instead of two minutes, two and a half? Yeah.

You know these NBA games on Prime and on NBC and 80s? There's like three out, 340. They're crazy. Long-ass breaks. Yeah. That makes more, that would be, and I get it. They want more money. Anything that had dirty.

Well, you could also value add too. But they do, don't they do those little, you know, breaks within the break during free throws? Yeah, well, they're going to get... This is just a sample. They're sampling this out. They're not doing this to lose money. Let's put it that way. You know, folks, we like to put those little 15-second vignettes in,

and we think that you've been irritated by them, so we're going to eliminate them. We're all about the fan experience rather than the money. Okay. Sure, why not? Ross, if the money makes the world go round. That's okay. It is what it is.

It has been for a long time. We have to squeeze every single nickel out of everything. Yeah. This is a hypothetical, not hypothetical, this is a rhetorical question to you. When's the last time we got value back in a sporting event? Not necessarily. Now, we've seen deals in sport, dollar dogs, and reasonably priced concessions. And discount days for midweeks against Minnesota, Cleveland, and Oakland or Sacramento.

But, yeah, I mean, when the team's bad, they did like $5 tickets to the Astros and stuff like that. Yeah, and there are some opportunities. It's when they suck. Yeah. But normally. World Series. It's not going to be a ticket night. You can't get a buy one, get one free to a next game. Hmm. Even when they're terrible. But what's, but how about this? How about the biggest value in television? Over the air TV is free. I mean, like NFL. NFL is the best value. Most

games are on CBS or a Fox. Then the night games on ABC. I'm sorry, ABC and NBC. You do get three free games every Saturday. Sometimes you get double-headers on both networks. That gives you a total of five. Yeah. And then you get some, your Thanksgiving Day games are free. Those are ABC CBS.

Usually one will be on Prime or Netflix or whatever. So, yeah. But it's funny, though, Congress went to, had meetings not too long ago and said, hey, we're seeing too much sports going to the pay sites.

In the streaming, yeah. And I think probably, generally speak. Peacock cut us a check, so we're good. Does the peacock cut the center to check? I don't know. Probably, oh, NBC Universal. They're probably in the pockets of all 100 centers. It was almost like lips like because they brought up Clay Travis,

who does the middays on national and premier on KTRH. You know, Clay's been outkick and he's done sports and now he does politics. But he was brought to Washington to talk about the fact that, generations of sports fans, unless you have streaming services, you're missing a lot of games. Yes. My argument back to them is, and it's not a good argument, but it is the argument, it was, well, 40 years ago, you had no opportunity to see the Ravens play the Steelers. Now you're given an opportunity. Now you have options.

Exactly. So that to me, I think, is a very valid argument. It's like, well, you got to do this, this, this, and this and this. Yeah, but you still, you can catch every game. college football remember Matt, how many games are we watching on college football Saturdays?

We basically had like a couple games on that was that. You can catch every single division one game I can find somewhere. ESPN Plus, ESPNU, whatever, ACCC network. Yes. Any division one game that I want to find,

I can find it somewhere. Yeah, when going back as far as say maybe 20 years ago, they would have four regional games. Yeah, it was whatever you want to watch. and you only got the game in your area, meaning let's see if you had Texas, Texas Tech for the South, you had Florida State versus North Carolina for the East Coast,

you had a Big Ten game, and you had a Pack 10 game. You couldn't buy the opportunity to go watch your Pack 10. Yeah, that was that. Now everything is national. Now some of it's on streaming, but everything in theory is available to you now that, so instead of watching the ability to watch eight college games a week, say in 1997, you can watch $154.

college games a week. Yeah. It doesn't make it right. But it's with the expanded opportunity does come across. It's better. Yes. Overall. And I think what the folks in Congress are saying is, well, if we are subsidizing these NFL

stadiums and we're giving these sweetheart deals of these NFL owners, the least they can do is give us more opportunities to watch these games. It'd be nice. It is funny. Because, you know, we were talking, we're going to get to a Guillory, but just second here. But, you know, the halftime highlights with Howard Kosal, I was a kid. That's the only time you saw highlights of other games. Yeah.

You want to watch Miami Buffalo highlights. You had to watch Howard Goselle because you couldn't get Miami Buffalo on your TV at home unless you were in that area. We're all tuned to Sports Center every night too. Yeah. All right, real quick, before we get to Will Gillery, our next guest, to Koso with us. What's your Chile King question, Koso? Hey, guys. I wanted to talk about the Marcus Smart signing real quick.

I like the signing. for one reason is if Mark is smart is our backup point card. Now, can you guys remember, did he start for L.A. last year? Yes, he did. At least in the playoffs, he did. Yeah. Well, Matt, unfortunately, I know that. But this is a bank on if Fred Van Blyte stays,

that his knee is going to be fine. That's a very scary ass. I know a lot of Rockets fans think Fred might be on his way. out. So then that way when Smart becomes a starter, I'm kind of skeptical on this. Unless they can replace the Fred Van's lead minutes with someone else,

I just kind of wanted to get y'all's take on it. And yeah, they've got a great day. Thank you very much. I mean, I imagine if Fred's gone, you're going to have somebody who coming back who can ball handle. But how do you, and it's the question I was having with some friend yesterday, and we'll get to Will Guillory from the athletic here. If Will is, if Fred is indeed on the trade block and he's not

ready, who's going to pick up a guard who's not ready and pay him $25 million. Where has it been reported that he's not ready? We don't know. He should be fine. There's a lot of, no, I don't think you can presume he's fine, and I don't think he can presume he's not fine. Okay.

I think it's a mystery. I think by that started next year, he'll be ready to go. ACL is about a year. And they remember he was even talking about how he's healing fast and trying to make it to the playoffs and all that stuff. So how he's ahead of schedule. But there was a story last week that said that they... We had a setback?

Underreported how bad that... than he was. It was an ACL and a meniscus. Oh, okay. He was basically shattered. Okay. Well, ask well, see if he knows. He can dig on those NBA streets.

Okay, good. Will Gellery Athletic joints and start the final hour next on 790. It's the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Well, Rossi, we get a chance to meet new people all the time in our industry and a new friend of the show making his first time appearance. He's got a 504 area code. You know where that is, don't you? That would be New Orleans. No Orleans.

He's like, I am tired of talking Pelican basketball. That's good. I'm coming to the big time. Will Gilleri, the athletic, with us here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Am I true on that, Will, or am I lying to the audience right now? Now, listen, man, it's just a true honor on my part to be a part of the show. This is the day I've been waiting for. I think my whole life, I want to say.

So I'm truly blessed. the highly favorite will gillery replaced kelly iko who's now working for that other group we want to mention we want to just love on the athletic because you get my money will you are a new orleans guy through and through correct yes sir born and raised all right so if that accent starts to kick in you know you're always welcome to bring that accent out of the show then listen i can't control it so every now i know it'll jump out of me what i don't even controlling it so i got you y'all don't judge me no we will not judge my favorite accent on the planet yeah we love it so just if you want to talk in pure New Orleans a whole time. Absolutely. So let me ask you this. You've been on these NBA streets for a while. Freddie Van Vleet, who I love and is an easy guy to cover, an easy guy to root for.

You didn't get to cover much of him last year because obviously he was hurt. He goes to his IG and scrubs a bunch of things. And you've been talking to athletes for a long period of time. What is your take on not only athletes that use their Instagram to send cryptic messages, but are you hearing anything about maybe the Rockets using him as a trade chip at all? What are those streets selling you right now? Yeah, I think, you know, it is a hilarious part of the job matter. We need to evaluate, you know, Instagram posts and what are guys secretly saying on their IG stories to try to deliver a message to us.

And like you said, I didn't get a whole lot of time around for it last year, but just the little bit of time that I have been around. I mean, when I have heard him talk, he doesn't seem like a guy that would go about, you know, delivering messages cryptically through Instagram, especially when it comes to his business. But I mean, you know, in today's age, you've got to pay attention to all of that stuff, especially when a guy's going into the final year and his contract. And I think, you know, to talk, you know, throughout the past couple weeks for a lot of people is what's going on with Fred's knee. How healthy will he be at the start of the season? How much is the potential market smart signing, you know, a sign that, you know,

the Rockets are telling us how they feel about Fred Van, I believe, his future in Houston. But I think, you know, as far as we know now, it seems like he's progressing in a pretty decent fashion and we'll know more as we get closer, you know, to Summer League and all that kind of stuff when we get to be around the team and talk to some of the staff and stuff. But I think the one good thing about the Mark and Smart signing is that it really gives you coverage both ways, right? You don't have to really play him over for example if those guys to play together. If things aren't working with Fred, you can move Marcus Smart to the point. So that's why I think it was a really smart move.

And I think the one thing about it is that you don't really have to be in a rush to make a move of Fred. You can kind of give him time to figure it out, see what he looks like going to. in the training cap and if it's not right, then you could progress and figure out the next step. But it was a smart move by them just to get that market smart piece as insurance for either way it goes. Were you surprised that he picked up the option? And I don't know if you had heard because, look, I'd love to go and build a text for fail, but he's like, Matt, I'll talk to you in the fall by. Now, were you surprised that there wasn't any thought of maybe trying to extend Fred a little bit

or maybe you think the Rockets from their perspective were saying, hey, I don't want to extend you because we don't know exactly what you're coming back as. Yeah, I think that has to be part of it, especially, you know, for coming out and letting people know that it was more than just a torn ACL to be also tore his meniscus. And what was the word he usually said, he blew up or something like that? So I think that's something that you have to factor on when a guy, you know, going into his 30s, wanting to give him additional years on his contract. And of course, you know, with the Amman Thompson, you know, extension looming, you want to be able to maintain as much flexibility as possible, especially in that backcourt. So I think, again, that's why the market smart trade is so great because it's a short-term deal. It's a small dollar amount.

So you have the flexibility to make additional moves. And I think that's something that this team has to factor in whatever they're doing with some of their long-term contracts is the fact that you're going to be paying Alper and Shangoon and Amman Thompson big money moving forward. And you have to be able to move accordingly to build out the rest of the roster. And that's not even factor in, you know, KD and his future money. You want to sign Tyree Ethan to a new deal. You already signed Jabari Smith to a new deal. So this roster is going to get real expensive really quick. And you don't want to, you know, have.

all of that additional friends, lead money on the books. If that knee, is it going to be right, you know, a year or two from now? Ross, with you here as well. Will Gilleri joining us from the Athletic here on Sports Talk 790. And so you have these moves, and there has been a talk about, of course, Jalen Brown has now been traded. Janus has been traded. So does it seem like the most likely scenario is the rockets,

kind of keeping the core the way that they have it together and not making any kind of earth-shaking move? Yeah, I think that's kind of been, you know, the mindset throughout all of this, because all we heard throughout, you know, those trade talks with Janice and Jill and boundaries, that the Rockets weren't really involved. They weren't really trying to throw their hat in the ring, and we know, you know, what the assets they have. They can be in these talks for any of these guys,

or the draft picks they have with some of the young assets they have, they're a fact that whenever the one of these big-name guys come up, and I think, you know, it allows them to feel free that if another one of these guys pop up out of nowhere because they always, you know, a new guy always comes up. every couple of months. They have the ability to kind of get to go after one of those guys rather than invest in a max contract and a young to come to his mid-30s. The Jalen Brown situation is

very confusing right now. The whole NBA world is kind of reacting to that package that Boston accepted for Jalen Brown. So I think you want to have freedom of to if another guy pops up that you still have all your assets in place, you're not kind of pushing your chips in so early. And I think you know, a lot of the rocket trends don't want to hear, but I think a lot of people in that Houston front office feel like if they were able to maintain some better health last season,

that they do believe these young guys would have been better off and they were able to win more games. So you want to see them have that year of continuity coming back and understanding how to play with KD, you know, getting Fred back in the mix. They feel like they can make some noise and use that continuity as a weapon rather than, you know, starting all over with the Yonis, the way they had to start all over with KD last year. What did you think of the Bruce Thornton pick as it was made and his potential fit with. the team. Yeah, I think it's a great fit. I think, you know, in this year's draft, they had so much value with guys like Bruce Thorden with three, four years of college experience. He came out of,

you know, Ohio State's all-time lead scorer, a guy who's proven can put the ball in a basket, guy's size, can shoot the three ball. You know, with last year's team, we were talking so much about, you know, EMA, you doke, looking at that bench and really not having a whole lot of options, you know, when they were struggling, it was like, do we throw Aaron Holiday in there? J.D. Davidson was getting minutes. We saw Jeff Green get. getting minutes, you know, in the playoff series against the Lakers. And now, you know, coming back this season, it feels like that group

was just so much more fortified. But obviously Stephen Adams coming back healthy. You got Bruce Thornton, Marcus Smart, Bogdanovich. So it just says that they have a much more well-rounded group and they won't have to depend on their starter so much. I mean, you think back to last year, what Amman Thompson was number one

in minutes, KD was two, Jabari Smith was like four. They were playing all of those guys such heavy minutes. And I think the goal this year, especially with KD, is the reduce those minutes, reduce that burden during the regular season, and leaning a little bit on that bench. I think Bruce Thornton is going to be one of those guys that definitely gets thrown in the fire early on,

and it helps that he's got so much college experience, and he kind of understands where Roly has to play step in it from day one. All right, two last questions. Will Gilleries to joining us to the athletic here on Sports Talk 790 with Matt and Ross? Tarisen, what's the market looking like? Some teams that may want to make an offer sheet, and I guess I'm presuming the Rockets are going to wait in C-mode based on what he gets, correct?

Yeah, I mean, it's always difficult for restrictive free agents because teams have the ability to match. And I think the good thing with the Markets Mar-Smart deal that they did sign, they gave themselves the freedom to basically be able to match whatever offer that Tarifacian does get. So now it's kind of at that point where it's that stale mate, where, you know, everybody's kind of staring each other down, we're waiting to see what the figure's going to be because ultimately the Rockets

don't have to be in a rush to get this done. They know whatever offer Tari gets, they're going to be able to match. so it's just about finding a middle ground for both sides. I don't think it'll probably have any time soon. We're probably going to wait through Summer League. I think the one goal for the Rockets has to be that you don't want us to kind of get, you know, hostile or where the two sides are kind of going back and forth. And Tar is kind of unhappy about the situation.

You want him to come back and still feel like he's an important part of the team, Ruffel Stone. Whenever he's talked about Tar is very complimentary of what he believes Tari can be for his team and the roles he can play. So you want to find a deal that makes him happy, but you also have the ability now where you don't have to kind of go over the top to get him back because you have that restricted free agency as a weapon that you can use. All right, well, I got LeBron going to Miami.

Ross has him going to Golden State. What say you? I got to go to State. I'm a little skeptical about the AD LeBron package deal going to go to State. But, yeah, I believe LeBron wants this thing, Cali. He's always had the fascination with stuff. and, you know, Draymond loves him like he's one of his family members.

So I think we'll definitely see LeBroner and a Go to State jersey. That'll be my bet. And we could just see, you know, if any of those guys are last until April, that'll be the one thing watching GoTo State. I mean, maybe AARP would like to get a gold membership sponsorship of that team, correct? I can get the Jersey sponsorship.

Yeah. Listen, if you own a Piccadilly's in the Bay Area, you'll win a big time once LeBron comes the time. Go-to meal in New Orleans. Fire away, please. Oh, my God. You're talking spot or a specific meal? I don't know.

Just let's say that. A spot. Like next time I go to New Orleans, which would be for, Rockets, Policons, where am I eating? I can drop your name and get a free appetizer out of it or something. I'm telling you, go to Dragos downtown, get the chargill, oysters. You chew some gumbo. It'll change your life, I promise.

That's all I can ask for. Will, you're a part of our family now. I owe you a beverage on a road sometime this year. Thank you for the time. Are you going to Summer League? Absolutely. I'll see you in Vegas. I'll be there for a few days myself.

So, Ross, we'll chase you down and see who you hanging out with. We'll see him at the tables. Yeah, we'll see you with the table. 3-2. Thank you, well. Appreciate it, buddy. We'll see you. Thank you.

That's a good good good dude. And does nice work with the athletic and you guys need to check him out on that. You say, Golden State. Golden State. I love that. I give him so much crap about New Orleans. Why? Because I just think it's funny.

I love New Orleans. He loves New Orleans. He loves New Orleans. But the career's like, man, he used to go and, you know, because let's face it, the Rockets have a little more, I mean, you go and get read by more people in Houston stories and you will be Trey Murphy the third stories. Yeah, it's a bigger beat. Yeah. I can't believe Zion Williamson is still a New Orleans Pelican. Now, I'm going to go one for two on my.

Oh, he played 70 games. No, he did not. You said he could be out of his, he said he's going to be retired by the time he was 30. I'm going to lose that one. But I'm going to win the 70 games one. I'm not counting the playing as a 70th game. I'm sorry. It ain't out.

He played 70 games that year. just a fact. You just like to mute me when I say these things. I'm not muting. I'm just, look, I'm on basketball reference. Games played 70. Games started. 70.

I didn't write it. How many regular season games they play that year? I don't know. I just see 70. Maybe it was 70 regular season games because that would be postseason, right? How many games did he play last year? 2024. He played 62.

Okay. Okay. I could be over to. You never go. A little John on us. I could be over to. You never know. 713-212-5-790. If you want to chime in anything that Will had to say,

come on in and be a part of the program. It's a Matt Thomas show with Ross at 115 on 790. Matt Thomas, Ross via real. It's the Matt Thomas show with Ross on Sports Talk 790. Oh, this is the remix. Wow. Mix, baby. Let's go.

Extended house mix. I have never heard this, but I like it. 790. KBL. This is they playing the clubs today. Yeah? You think they have, do you think the line dance of this? Two step. Isn't there a line dance?

Isn't there a YMCA line dance? I'm sure there is. You can find this, Josh. It's in the system. There is a 32 count four wall beginner line dance to YMCA. There you go. The crucial part of the YMCA using your hands is the quick, why is okay. It's the CA you got to go quick.

Watch this. Y. M.C.A. See that? See how shifty I am? Oh, it's so good. Dance lessons from Matt Thomas. Never thought I'd see you the day. You're taking dance lesson from Matt Thomas.

Okay, shut up, Josh. Hey. I mean, it's not really a dance. You don't know this because you weren't alive. Okay. This song, people lost their minds on for about a year and a half. Well, this was like the P.E. banger. Oh, yeah.

When you're playing the P. we would learn like an achy-breaky heart. This was the shortlist, PE banger for people my age, about 40, I'm 41. YMCA, yeah. Akey-breaking heart. Like footloose. Yeah, these were the PE,

these were the PE bangers back of the day. One thing I've noticed from NBA games, there's certain cities that will play YMCA more than others, a.k.a. Utah. Oh, the arena? In the arena? Okay. No, I...

Utah, it's all over the place? I've seen it at a Toyota Center too, and that's a very much a diverse crowd. Yes. I don't recall it recently, though. No, I mean, I would say this is to the back, but to your point, Utah's going to play it a little bit more. This is a funny tweet. What? Tatsu you might need a hydration break.

That's funny. That's a good one. For me. Yeah, I could. Just dropped a like. How about a retweet? I'm shocked. Retweet is 12 hours.

hours ago. That's true. It just popped up on my four U-tap. Victor Willis, lead singer. Man, I'm shocked. About this Wimbledon result. Victor Willis passed away, lead singer of the village people 74, and he will be among the rest of his teammates. Yes. The village people, believe it or not, today coming up at about 30 minutes. Now, he was the construction worker? He was, um, he was the cop. He was also the

sailor, lead sailor too. Oh, he was the number one sailor. Yeah. He was first mate. When they were in the Navy when he was swabbing the deck as first mate. It is really a catchy song. I'm gonna down the catch as hell. Macho man also catchy. I don't think I like you in the Navy over Macho man. Oh, really?

No, no, no, no. Macho man. No, it's 2A and 2B. They like him, but YMC is definitely number one. Now, YMC was their biggest hit. Macho man was their first hit. Is that I believe it or not? That's believe it. Okay. Do you want to use that one? Nah, that's it. That's a little minutia-esque.

It's not minutia. It's true. Am I crazy for by name at least, not knowing in the Navy? In the Navy is their third most famous song. You can sail the seven seas. Right? That's all I got. And then the next would be in the Navy after that. In the Navy.

Yeah. That sounds like the exact same cadence as YMCA for a second day. It's very similar. I'm sure they, they're not going in the songwriters Hall of Fame. Put it that way. It's fine. It's fine. I love the names.

The village people, the names are albums. Macho Man, Cruising. Go West, live and sleazy. Can't stop the music. And of course, this is a question. I will go ahead and give it away. Their last album, 2018, A Village People Christmas. Dang.

So does everybody at some point sing Christmas songs and put an album out? I mean, are they loudly singing, O Bethlehem? Well, you know, President Trump. Oh, Bethlehem. Oh, Bethlehem. Oh, Bethlehem. You're going to add to it. Oh, Tannenbaum.

I like that. So President Trump was using their song. Yes. And then they said stop. And then they changed and said, well, they cut the check. And then we're getting all these airplays and people are playing it. So they said, okay. So then he went up going on tour with them.

Yeah. Donnie T. was getting him beef with a lot of people playing his music, right? Bruce Springsteen? Bruce Springsteen. Well, that was never going to change. Bruce hates him. I'm trying to anything else. Well, Fleetwood Mac.

I don't think they were big fans of him using Don't Stop. Okay. Which Bill Clinton used back in the 90s, too. Okay. What about Don't Stop Believe in by Journey? That I don't know. Okay. By the way, what is being served at the Taylor Swift wedding?

I'm seeing videos coming in. You'll be able to get lobster. Okay. You will be able to get French fries. That's for Travis Kelsey and his bros. Well, I'm at MSG. I want like cotton candy. No, no.

and there are trucks of Krispy Kreme donuts arriving as well. Really? Yeah. Are they being warm? I would say a day before the wedding? No, unless they heat them up there. A little too much icing on the Krispy Kremes for me. I like them.

I will eat Krispy Kreme. I'm not a Krispy Kreme hater. I'm not one of those, get out of our town because we got Shipley. You can enjoy both the things, folks. It's okay. I can eat a water burger on Wednesday and it in and out on Saturday. It's fine. I do like Kris Cream.

I do like Shipley. I do like Southern Maine. Thus my at times portly figure. Duncan's mid. The only Duncan Donut that I like is the coconut toasted donut, which, by the way, the Duncan by my house in Kingwood does not serve it anymore. Apparently, none of the people bought it. Well, you didn't clear them out for a couple dozen. But Duncan of those groups, I just mentioned, the most mid of just good old-fashioned regular.

The donut holes are good. Yeah. They call them Duncan. Munchkins. Munchkins. Duncan Munchkins. Say that five times fast. Also, lobster, highly overrated.

Too much work. They used to give it to, well, they usually, they crack it for you. Normally, right? Are they going to crap? Is somebody being cracking lobsters over there? If you are having a wedding in MSG, don't you want the lobster cracked? Yeah. I like that.

I like lobster. It's good. Oh, I do. I think the lobster's great. It was prison food. It's among the many things that was like throwaway food. Yeah. That was what they said back in like the 1800s in London.

But I will put on the short list of seafoods of work. That's too much work. Crab legs too much work. Okay. Crawfish, way too much work. Crap that snow crab and like king crab is delicious, though. It's got a sweetness to it with the drawn butter. Oh, come to Papa.

Yeah, I like some lobster too. But I just don't want to spend 20 minutes on my dinner. I don't want to spend $50 on a lobster tail at a nice steakhouse. You go buy one for $10, make it at home. actually not that bad. Now, when we get them on the Rockets plane, as you have some kitchen. If you have some kitchen shears,

it's pretty easy to make a lobster. Yeah. Okay. Just saying. All right. We just killed a segment. Just a little tip for you guys. YMCA, his tree.

Crawfish, no thanks. All these nasty dirt foods that people are trying to up-sale. You know, just give me shrimp and scalps and I'm fine. I'm looking at you, fajitas. Inside skirt. $60 a pound.

Shut your bum ass up. It is ridiculous. What happened to our 1995 for a full pound with all the trimmings? It used to be 99 cents a pound at the grocery store to buy a brisket and go smoke one yourself. Somebody the other day was... Now it's like four, five bucks a pound.

Somebody was bragging the other day on Twitter, $3.99 a pound brisket. Yeah. That was a bragging point. Yeah. 99 cents. Well, used to be like, oh, okay, fine. Yeah, you just grab one for 18 bucks.

Have a bunch of beers. Smoking for 12 hours. It comes out all right. It's not. You just chop and put some barbecue sauce on it. It's fine. And call it chop beef. All right. Up next, Brian McTaggart on the Astros.

These men has knocked back some brisket in his day. Oh, hell yeah. Brian. Not in Paris. Yeah, on the unfortunate work of won Tatsuwee Imai, 128 on Sports Talk 790. Oh, but we cannot forget about Kalshi first, Rossi. Let's go, baby.

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download in the Kalshi app, trading on your favorite events and using a promo code $7.90 to get $20 when you trade 20. But you've got to use a code, 790. Yeah, you can use that code. I'm going to be honest with you. I've been trading on CalSheet. We've been talking for them about a month. I've been doing it for almost a year. Just because it's fun, you can use, of course, the percentages.

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prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see calci.com slash regulatory. We don't run on algorithms. We run on Altovae, Durant, and Stroud. Sports Talk 790. Guarantee Human. I'm downloading three songs. I'm putting it in.

Got to add you musical collection. You're going to download some? All thought free. That's a hit. Navy, macho man, NYMCA. Okay, so I didn't realize this. Yeah.

I don't want to give away too much for, believe it or not. One correct answer, by the way. Victor Willis was doing all the singing and the other band members, they just kind of scared up out of nowhere. They were more like characters. Yeah. It was like a studio band that it happened to make hits and they're like, oh, crap, they want to book concerts for this.

Let's get a band together. And let's put up five different occupations. Yes. Construction worker. Yeah. I think there was an Army guy in there. Alex Briley. Yeah.

What else was there? Cowboy. Oh, the Cowboy. Dave Forrest was a cowboy. Lee Mouton was the leatherin. Slash biker. Okay. Well, this is so 1978.

They were like American bandstand once you guys on. Like, we got to figure out, come up with some kind of thing. Put five rows on there. Yeah. And so, yeah. So Willis was the lead dog So basically with Willis passing out, there is no more village people.

You can't send four village people out there than none of them can sing. Well, he is one of the 20 people on the Wikipedia page listed as a past member. Oh, so they've gone deep to the list. So he was on lead vocals on everything. But they could probably replace it. They can clearly replace it, but it won't sound the same.

But the guy was 74 years old. So it says current members. They got five dudes listed. Javier Perez is the Indian? Nicholas Manilich? Uh-huh. Are you serious? His name is Nicholas Manilic.

Okay. We're going to go to Brian. I didn't. Shh. Shh. End it there. It's his name. You know he was trying to tell me to calm down and take a step back?

I'm going to tell you to take a step back. I'm so calm. Let's hear for Brian McTaggarty joined us earlier today to talk all things Astros. My God. And a little bit about the trials and tribulations of the Astros number two or. or three-starter Tatsui Emai. I think it's an easy description. When Emi is on, he's double-digit strikeouts, fun to watch, and man, great value.

But when he implodes, aka last night and the game in Kansas City a few weeks back, it's an ugly sight to be out there watching him throw. Yeah, and it seems like there's been very few games where he's been in between. It's either he's going six innings and striking out 10, striking out 11, allowing any runs or he can't get out of the first or second inning. I've never seen, I've just never seen a pitcher be all or nothing. I mean, he's had a couple of starts probably in between there, but he's either on or he's not, and it was pretty clear last night that he wasn't.

I mean, five walks, I think he faced 13 hitters, walked five of them, give up seven hits, I believe. I mean, just not good enough. And, I mean, he knows that. And he taught that for the game, something about his feet, foot positioning. I mean, we've heard, you know, a lot of things, you know, from EMI about, you know, things he's trying to work on. But just when you think he's about to get some momentum,

get three solid starts under his belt, he takes a big step back. So not much they can do, but work with him and then try to run them out there again, which I guess will be in Washington, D.C. next week, another place he has a pitch before, another new mound, so you just, you never really know what to expect. The good news is the Astros are getting healthier on the pitching front, Brian. But just as particular with EMI. I mean, I know it's obviously. obviously hard to predict, even from start to start,

what it's going to look like for him. But could you see a scenario where he gets shelved to the bullpen and Javier or any of these other guys coming back, get some cracks at some starts? I don't see that yet. I mean, I just find it hard to believe with all they invested in and they would move him to the bullpen. But like you said, you know, the guys got coming,

they got guys coming back. I mean, McCullors is, what, made two rehab starts now. Blanco made his third. So he's both of those guys will probably be back by the end of the month. And, you know, Hayden West Neske's starting to throw in games. So, I mean, that's a good problem to have is more pitching depth. You don't know how effective these guys are going to be. And they don't know what's going to happen between now.

And somebody else might get hurt. Trade deadlines coming up. So it's hard to say what this roster will look like, you know, a month from now because I think the trade deadline is one month from today. So they just have to hope they can find five healthy starting pitchers. Some of them are thrown well and try to. keep this rotation together. And that's the key to me, Brian, is some of them throwing well because

I mean, Aragutti is regressed somewhat. Peter Lambert, I don't want to call him regressing or anything like that, but I just I still find it hard to believe that long term he's going to be a lockdown guy or anything like that or even though he's done a pretty good job with it. Hunter Brown, obviously we're safe, but then

it feels like it's like pick somebody and I can tell you a way in which they're struggling and it's hard to rely on them. So figuring out who's in the bullpen, who's in the rotation, how much of a look everyone gets it just seems like Joe Spott and Dana Brown, I don't have a lot of question marks.

Yeah, they do. I mean, Eric Getty had the great May, but I think he had, what, a 90-R-A June, so he's going to get the ball tomorrow and try to, you know, maybe flip of the calendar, start fresh. But it certainly looked like for a while there you were going to have Brown and Erigetti at the top and feel really good about that.

I mean, Lambert, Lambert's a fifth starter guy who's done his job. You know, you can't complain about that. Burroughs remains an enigma. I gave up the runs in the first inning the other day, and he was saying, I thought it was interesting. He thought that he felt kind of rushed in the first inning from his pregame bullpen to the game starting.

He just felt that that was all rushed, and he just really never could catch his breath because after the first inning, he was okay. So maybe there's some timing things they can work on. But it just certainly seems like there's this fine line. Each of these starters have to walk. And if everything's not perfect, then it really goes off the rails.

quickly, except if you're if you're Hunter Brown, you can count on him and thankfully for that. So like I said, they got more guys coming back. They're going to have more options. So maybe a couple of these guys are going to get healthy and come off the aisle can provide the boost. Brian McTagger with his MLB.com on Sports Talk 790. I think the three of us collectively talking about the Astros are Jeremy Payne fans, was a hero of a world series, really good defensive player.

The bat's been improved the last few weeks. but this will be his second trip to the injured list this year. He's missed a little bit of time here and there. And I don't want to say injury history, but I think there would be a few people that would be thinking about a shortstop whose mobility is everything having these issues in the leg quad area and is determining whether or not does that concern you for a long-term conversation about a contract. What are your general thoughts about pain?

Kenya's injury history and whether that goes into the thought of Jim Crane and whoever runs his baseball administration for the foreseebo future, trying to decide to lock him up long term or not? Well, I'll say, I don't think he'll be locked up long term. I mean, they've made an offer to him and it's not happening. Unless Pena changes his stance, I mean, it's just not going to happen here. So I just think that's sort of something that's out the window. So, you know, he's going to be a free agent after next year. But, yeah, he certainly is a guy who's had some soft tissue injuries now the groin and now the calf kind of back-to-back injuries. But what he's out, you really see how much he means to this team because they are a lot better when he's in the lineup.

I mean, I don't have it in front of me, but if you look up their record when he's in the lineup when he's not, it's pretty drastic. He just not only defensively, but just what he does in the top of the order. I mean, he's probably their second or third best offensive. have played maybe their second best behind alvarez because you know walker slump in a bit so you lose him that's a big hole in a lineup that typically has three or four even five big holes in it every night so his value to this team is clear when he's playing but yeah he you know he also had the

freak thing in uh in spring training that he kind of didn't play every day to start the season so that's and that's really not his fault but yeah the soft taster injuries and he's a guy who's really prepared i mean we've all seen penny i mean he's a physical specimen so i think these these things just happen and I know he's frustrated by it, but he was already out on the field yesterday, running and fielding some balls. So it certainly looks like he will be back at the end of the 10 days, which would be maybe in about a week. We're certainly not discussing a trade possibility for him, because I think if this team's going to make any sort of run, he's got to be a part of it. But let me ask you this. The streets have shown that, and I've talked about with Ross,

if you have too many pitchers, now it's clearly Hunter Brown and friends, more as compared to the Astrol's rotation of five or six years ago when he has. had Verlander and you had coal and you had Grink and all that. But my point is, you do have a lot of arms. Can one of those arms be used as a possible maneuver for a trade? And I think our friends of the athletic have said that there are on the streets. There's a little bit of conversation about A.J. Blueball being a candidate. And it kind of makes sense because A.J., at least early on in his progression, was considered a guy that may be a starter.

Right now, he's thriving in that middle relief levered situation. And as you know, when you're a competitive team and starters are going through the dog days of July and August, you need one of those guys that can be a bridge to your late-inning guys, and AJ so far has done that for the Astros. Yeah, he's pitched really, really well, especially since I think it was when they were in Colorado and he got knocked around. I mean, he's a guy that comes in and throws 97, 98 and really competes. I mean, he's going to have value. I think a lot of their young arms will have value. There's going to be teams interested in Biola. I mean, maybe now that he's moved to the

bullpen, you know, maybe there's a team that will value him a little bit. I mean, I think, you know, a guy like Limbersanta. Even going into the minor leagues, you know, Ethan Pecco, who's pitching really well, their next prospect starting pitcher to come up. Is he a guy that you end up dealing? I mean, there's no secret. They need a left-handed bat for the outfield.

They could use another reliever. So, and they, you know, they have some depth now, I think with Uola pitching well, although he's probably going to get sent down this weekend when Javier comes back. You know, Santa's first look was good. I think you could feel, if you're the Astros, maybe you feel a little bit better about, you know, dealing one or two of those younger arms to try to get maybe a more veteran arm or even as a package to get that outfielder that you need. That again, Brian McTaggart from MLB.com with us every Thursday here on Sports Talk 790. Believe it or not, it takes one correct answer to win a prize today.

We have the music festival giveaway. We also have a $100 gift card to the hat store. We'll tell you about how you can win either one of those prizes. One correct answer on how well you know. The Village People, 713-212-5-790 to join us to play the game. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Believe it or not, Village People, next on 790. This is Craig Vigio. Vigio, Vigio. Back to Matt Thomas on Sports Talk, 790.

Oh, we're having some fun. You're home with the Stroes. How to do that? Was this song commissioned by the Navy or was that a myth? I should have found out who made it a believe it or not question. I'm looking up real quick. This is the first time you've heard in the Navy. Is that correct, Josh?

Yeah, and definitely the first time. This is not... No, let it hit the chorus. Yeah. The chorus is pretty catchy. Oh, they use it in a recruitment ad, but I guess it wasn't commissioned by them. Nothing, Josh?

Definitely third place all the three songs. The Navy, it is. But this doesn't sound familiar now? Not one big. In the Navy. So it was not commissioned by the Navy. Dang, I could have used that as a not. Drop the ball.

Sorry. Instead, we got five minutes left to go on the show. Vacation mode. Bye. What should we do? Should play America's fastest growing sports radio game? Shall we simply call it be leaving or not? And here's how it works.

You'll call 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. Today's edition of Believe it or not is all things about. the village people. I'll read your statement about the village people. David is completely utterly accurate. You'll say this. Believe it. If statements erroneous full of the bucket made up, you will say this. Two believer in a row when you

won of three different prizes. Josh, see, what do we have in the prize vault today? All right, we are giving away tickets to the Outlaw Music Festival with Willie Nelson at the Woodlands Vavilion, July 5th, so need it quick. A $100 gift card to the hat store or a $7.90 T-shirt. Yeah, I would say probably the $7.08 T-shirts is the least attractive of the free prizes, but

each zone, right? Let's play, believe it or not. We'll start with a man who got in early. We'll say hello to Jimmy on 790. Jimmy, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Jimmy, good luck to you. Before crossing into mainstream, Village People lead singer Victor Willis

recorded albums with the gospel group, The Imperials. Believe it or not? That is correct. That was sneaky good. That was sneaky good. Oh, by the way, we were playing for one correct answer. That's a good job by you, Jimmy. Congratulations.

Yeah, that was pretty easy work. John on 790. John, what was your favorite part of today's 10-2 radio show? Tell him, he won our money bag. Victor Willis struggled with addiction throughout his life, even at one point being treated at the fame Betty Ford Clinic. Believe it or not? Believe it.

Believe it. That's true. Another winner. Andrew on 790, Andrew, ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. People lead singer Victor Willis married Felicia Rashad back in 1978. Believe it or not? Believe it. Yes.

Mrs. Cosby. It was also Mrs. Ramamrod Rashad. Her main name was Ayers, I believe. Her Ayers Allen, I think is what it was. Let's continue on and talk to Rubin on 790. Rubin. You ready to play Believe it or not? Believe it.

When their first album was recorded, the village people was not a real band. They had to assemble members when Dick Clark. requested they perform an American bandstand. Believe it or not? I'm a believe it. We just talked about it. Congratulations. Boston, we got a mini skunk working here. I don't know, a reverse skunk. All correct answers. Greg on 790, Greg, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it.

As a junior in high school, me, Matt Thomas, used the village people song YMCA to win the May Creek High School mascot competition. Believe it or not. That is correct. I use Zizi Top's sharp-dress man. The ladies love that boss, Ross, by the way. That was a good mascot. I'll just say that. Joe, on 790, Joe, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it, man.

The Village People's last album was a Village People Christmas back in 2018. Believe it or not. Believe it? Believe it. Our board is full. We cannot give away anything else. We had six correct answers today. You're welcome.

Josh, thank you for working for us. Sorry, Ross gave it to you. I didn't make it one, right? The other two. Boy, these are two good ones. I wish we had somebody to ask these questions, too. Well, we need Adam Clinton to get in here. What's he doing?

Tell the A team to come here. Where's Clinton and Waxter? Hurry in our ass is in here. These are really two, really good questions, too. One of my, I came up with. That makes it so good. All right, they're not going to come in here in time. Oh, well.

they didn't even listen to our show. We listen to their show, don't we, Ross. Every day. I don't. I listen every day two to six. I usually, I mean, no disrespect to anybody. I just listen to tended to. That's just, I try to keep my mind fresh. I don't want to steal anybody's opinions, you know?

But I'm going to listen to YMCA coming in, leaving the station. Are you going to listen to Village People's greatest hits? Which will take about 11 minutes. The A team is up next. Have a great Fourth of July weekend. OX is back. Okay, I got a terrible sunburn, too. What the hell?

happened to you. Got his kicks on Route 66. I like that shirt. I'll talk to you Saturday and Sunday for Astros baseball. I'm off all weekend. Get out of here. A team next. Bye.