The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Reid Ryan Joins Matt As The Astros Prepare For ALDS Game 5

Episode Date: October 10, 2019

Astros President Reid Ryan joins Matt as the Astros prepare for their Must Win Game 5 with Tampa Bay

Citizens of H-town! Welcome the president of your Houston Astros. Hail to the chief of Crush City. How about the Houston Astros? Astros, President Reid Ryan on 790 is brought to you by Expedity, The Future of Awesome. All right, here we go. 607, the first pitch time.

We'll be here till 3. Adam and Adam. We'll be over at home plate bar and grill at 3 o'clock, and then I'll join them at 4.30, taking you to 5.30 for the network join of game number 5. Read Ryan. How's the office today? Well, Maddie, I am talking to him from the cul-for box. I'm just kind of pacing around the stadium today, walking all in, almost waiting on the gate to open, nervous.

So, you know, it's right to go. It's that excitement, Christmas Day type of feat. here at Minamade today. You know what? You're supposed to be nervous, and I was telling us to Ross. Nobody likes Game Vives. I mean, we love them because there's great drama to it, but there is somebody's going home tonight.

It's crazy. And as I told the audience yesterday, look, the Astrobatts have not been great in this series. We all know that. But this Tampa Bay pitching staff, I think, frankly, hasn't gotten enough credit because, A, they've been accustomed to doing this bullpen-type game, and when they do it, larger, they're pretty good at it.

I mean, look, they won, what, 90s? six games in the AL East with the Red Sox and the Yankees in there. And, you know, Baltimore is rebuilding. So picked up a couple there. But, you know, had they been in our division? You know, how many do they win in that division? So they're good. They're really good.

And, yeah, it's the concern, I don't think, has been Cole, even Verlander coming in on short rest, heroic effort, you know, grind in to keep us in the ballgame where we have a chance in our final at bat. But, you know, we could have won that game. And, you know, it was a great series down there. I wish we could have come out on top and not had to play this game. But look, we had an incredible season. We've got a shot to win one ball game at home with a 20-game winner, 300-strikeout guy on the hill who's been as dominant as anybody in baseball. And if we win this game, we get to go play to go to the World Series. So it's exciting.

It's what we've been working towards, really, since Jim Crane bought the club. It's what the expectation of this fan base is, is that we play for championships here and tonight. We have a chance to play for a championship. And who knows, Matt, you know, last year we went through Cleveland real easy. Maybe this develops a little bit of grit for some of these guys that helps us, you know, win the whole thing. So I'm looking at it as a positive. I just am ready for 607.

No question about that. Any tickets available at this point or everything gone? No, you know, you got to go to the secondary market at this point. You know, stub hub or somewhere like that's normally the best way to get seats. You know, the deal today, gates open three hours early, so starting at 3 o'clock, we'll have the street fest going. You know, so get down here and get in the ballpark. We want to pack this place and really create that home field advantage. We got Bagwell throwing out first. first pitch at the Yordon Alvarez, so maybe a little bit of, you know, rookie of the year

foreshadowing as Bagwell was our first ever rookie of the year. And, you know, we think we've got the good vibes going here at home. So let's play ball. And it's been a great year. And hopefully we're playing the Yankees at home on Saturday. I love the fact you've been able to connect today's players of yesterday's players. What was it like with Billy Wagner and Roberto Osuna hanging out? You know, it was really fun. Having Billy back at the game, I set with him, and Vigion Bagwell down in my seat. When you get guys together, even if it's been 10 years since they've seen each other, they just pick right up where they left off with the stories and the memories.

And it was pretty cool. A fan walked up to me and said, do you know how many people would pay a lot of money to sit down there by those three guys and listen to them, talk, and watch this ball game? And, you know, it just – what people forget is we've had some incredible players here in the past. And, you know, part of my job is I want to try. try to highlight those guys, connect our new players to some of the history of this club, and let's try to build something great so that we become one of the storied franchises of baseball.

And tonight's one of those nights, Matt, that we can take that next step if we win tonight. Are you superstitious at all? Oh, of course. I've been in baseball my whole life, man. You know, it's like same ties, same, you know, drive the same way to work, the whole deal. But the problem is when you start getting too many of them, then you can't remember them all. So trying to keep it positive today. Was your dad any different in playoff games than he was during the regular season? Because I'm trying to, look, AJ's very level-headed.

The clubhouse seems to be about the same as it was when I was in Tampa. But I'm just curious when the doors are closed, do guys, and it's not wrong or right, it's just human because the intensity and the importance of these games are 50 million times more than they are a regular game in May. So I'm just curious what you've noticed in terms of mannerisms, demeanor in the last few days as compared to a midweek series against the A's? Yeah, it's ratcheted up a notch, no doubt about it. You know, in Tampa, Jose Cruz Jr., Chatho, works for the Players Association, and he and I and Garrett's subs were just kind of sitting around the food room

because we carry these extra guys, the guys that didn't make the roster, if somebody gets hurt, or if we need them for the next playoffs, series. And, you know, Garrett was saying, hey, this has been incredible for me to be around and be a part of, but like, I'm getting out of these guys way and letting them do their work now. And that's really kind of been the attitude of everybody is, you know, kind of respect the ritual, the process, the preparation, you know, the work in the video room, the work in the cage. And what's great about our players is, you know, we're five hours from game time, basically. And they can start, you know, they're busy. time is digging into the prep, digging into the reps, and in creating that focus. For the rest of us that's the work around the organization, we just have to hurry up and wait, and that's the hard part around here. Any ideas? Okay.

Do I even talk about, I was going to ask about the weekend series times, but you know what? Let's not do that. Let's just talk about tonight. Who's trying to jinx this over there? I got to talk to Eddie Martinez. You've got to run somebody out of here. I stopped myself in mid-sentence, so that's still a save on my part. I'm trying to think what else.

What do you think about the whole Tampa experience, St. Petersburg? Good crowds, but I felt like half the audience and they knew who half the players were. Well, I'll tell you what, it was a great atmosphere over there. You know, what's funny about Tampa is they put up really big TV ratings over there. People love the race. There's just an element of some older people. There's an element of some fixed income as folks have moved there to retire. And I spent a lot of time in our two days there just kind of talking, man on the street, as we went out to eat.

And what folks really say is that they lack a corporate base. There's really not, you know, the corporate base. And if you look around Minute Maid Park, a lot of the companies in Houston, you know, they take care of us by buying signs, buying tickets, getting their employees out, supporting our youth initiatives. And so Tampa is actually, I think, a really good baseball town. People love the sport. They follow it. It's just the price of poker and big league baseball is getting ratcheted up as, you know, the haves and the have-nots, the disparity kind of grows. And so the fact they're able to do what they do on their payroll, it's just incredible.

They have a great organization. They produce some incredible talent over the years. And they're a scary team, man. They're a really scary team. I will tell you, though, Matt, the highlight. of the trip to Tampa, which there weren't many because we lost both games, was I had dinner with Todd Callis and his wife, Michelle, and Duane Stats and his wife, Carla. And, you know, Duane was our broadcaster here in the late 70s, early 80s.

And it's so odd for those guys because they've worked 150 to 162 games. And then all of a sudden the playoffs come, and they're just sitting on the sidelines with nothing to do. And it's really, it was an interesting dinner just to get this. perspective on what it's like for them to go through this series and be taken out of their day-to-day responsibilities. I really mixed opinions about that because when I was a very, very, very young baseball fan, the team broadcasters would join the network broadcast.

But then there was all this talk of pro one side or pro the other. And then you get broadcasters that come in and do this series who haven't been around the team that don't know the team that mispronounce the names, but don't know who they are. So it's kind of a damn if you, damn if you don't, but at the end of the day, the folks at FS1,

MLB Network and ESPN and TBS are broadcasting to the entire country. They're not doing it to a Tampa Bay or Houston fan base. You know, you're right. And that's probably been the number one thing I've got on Twitter over this series has been people's disdain for the broadcast team and the fact that we've had different broadcast teams and different people on the broadcast kind of across

everything from MLB to FS1. One of the great ideas I saw on, and I've watched it in the National Championship game, before is where, you know, if you want Alabama or Clemson's broadcast game, they run it on one of the other channels. And so I think it's a great idea. I'd love to see it.

I don't know in the early rounds that that will ever happen, but what's really special is our fans are accustomed to our broadcast team. I think they do a great job. And the ratings have reflected both the play on the field and the connection with those guys. And so they're missed, but we had dinner, and it was a good dinner. And, you know, hopefully tonight we take care of business.

And we'll hopefully have another one somewhere. All right. Go find your office couch. Take a little nap. You may need it before 6 o'clock. Thanks for the time. Yeah, we'll be good. We'll be good.

Thank you, Houston for all the support. Let's get out early. Let's get loud. And let's get a win tonight. Perfect. And we're going to help that next. Thank you, Reed, Reed, Ryan, President of Business Operations for the Astros.