The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Rockets Fall Short vs Denver, USA Is Still In! Brian McTaggart Joins the Show

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Rockets Fall Short vs Denver, USA Is Still In! Brian McTaggart Joins the Show

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 10-0-1 in H-Town. Yes, the big voice man is correct. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross today without Matt Thomas on a sad Thursday edition of the program. Here's green at mid-court for he to end the ball game. It is up. It's an airball and the ball game is over.

Final score tonight here from Denver. All nuggets, especially in the second half. 129.93. Largest loss of the year for your home team. 36 points. Previous loss of 25 happened on Sunday in San Antonio. So two bad losses on the road in a row. Thankfully, the Rockets,

the five straight home games starting Friday. And against the Pelicans of time. You get blown out by the Spurs on Sunday, and you go up to Denver to take on the nuggets, and you get absolutely smoked in the second half of that game. And we got no food, and we got no jobs, and our pets' heads are falling off. And the rockets are 40 and 25 on the season. Hello, and welcome in to a Thursday edition of the Matt Thomas Show. show with Ross

without Matt Thomas. He, of course, is traveling back with the Rockets. They're back, but I don't know if he's a sleeper. He's awake by now, but he got in late last night as the Rockets came back with an unhappy flight with the 129 to 93 loss to the Denver Nuggets. So he is

off today. I will be joined by maybe an Adam later on. And right now, I believe, Chris Gordy. Chris Gordy, how's it going? How about them Rockets? Four for 33 from three. I mean, that's got to be an all-timer.

Is that bad? Is that bad or is that good? Yeah, I mean, that's, can you remember a game where they shot that point in court? I can't. That's, the good news, if I want to convince myself that maybe it's not going to be all that bad, is I want to say there were like eight of 28 or something. I can go pull it up against the Spurs, and the Spurs shot like 52% from three. and then, as you mentioned, four of 33 folks, that is 12% from the three point line.

12% and the Nuggets shot 53%. So maybe we say, all right, you know what? San Antonio Spurs shot hot from three. So do the Nuggets. Rockets, yes, I pulled it up, 8 of 28 from 3. That's 29%. So if you just get a bit of stabilization or regression in your favor with those numbers, maybe they can compete.

but you lost by 25 to the San Antonio Spurs and then you lost by, what was it, 30? I don't even, I don't remember what the final score is. Let me pull this back up. Excuse me, oh my God, by 36 to the Denver Nuggets. Yeah, what's the spin here? You know, the elevation, the overnight travels. Before the game, before the game, it was like, okay, back to back in elevation,

Nuggets didn't play yesterday. this is going to be a tough one. They were like six and a half, seven and a half point favorites. And you can make that argument because they were competitive in the first half and then the second half is when things got away from them. But I don't, if we want to spin that way, if we want to put it on our Rockets color glasses, but it doesn't feel good, doesn't feel right, doesn't feel fun. Well, since the end of February, what have they been doing?

Win loss, win loss, win loss, win loss. I mean, this is just they're going to play 500. I mean, look, it's not the end of the war. If they play 500 ball the rest of the way, they're still a playoff team. They'll still be in good position. But, yeah, this isn't exactly what we signed up for. I just can't get over how bad they are defensively, Ross.

Like, that's, I mean, the hallmark of what this team was since Imey Udoka got to Houston was toughness, grit, defense. And I know Dylan Brooks and Fred were a big part of that, and Dylan got traded. but, I mean, Durant's not, he's not a, you know, he's not terrible defensive. He's been a plus defender, really. Yeah, I mean, everybody, it just overall, this team has just gotten so bad defensive. I mean, night in and night out, how many times they give up like, you know, what was the San Antonio's square? They had at 1.45, 129 last night.

It's just like, too many of those high scores. Yeah, 145 was the most all season. 125 was not great either. You gave up 40. I mean, at the half, I was feeling pretty good. because things started to almost start to slip away and then it was 53 to 47. You're like, okay, we're good here.

They can maybe make a run in the second half, but then they just got the doors completely blown off of them in that fourth, excuse me, third quarter, they got outscored 40 to 22. And it just, it hurts. And it's earlier in the season, like when they were bad in December, they had played all the road games,

like, okay, whatever. Maybe they'll get home and they'll be fine. And they did stabilize some. Also, before the All-Star, All right, they're all tired. They've been playing a ton of minutes. 37-year-old Kevin Durant's playing like top five minutes in the league. Reed Shepherd hadn't played a ton.

He needs some time off. And he's been bad for a couple games recently now. Four of 12 last night, one of nine from three in elevation from him as well. And it's, I guess I'm just losing my enthusiasm for the possibility of a Houston Rockets deep playoff run. Well, look, the playoffs don't start today. That's good. It's still just over a month away.

So you've got plenty of time still to get this thing figured out. We've had good teams going stretches like this in February or March, where they're not playing great basketball and then, you know, kind of turn it on when they get to the playoffs. So, yeah, I mean, I'm not going to lose hope or anything like that. But, yeah, I mean, the writing's on the wall. If they play like this come mid-April into May, they will not have a very long postseason.

7-13-212-5-790 is the phone number if you want to get in. 7-13-212-5-7-90. So we have the Rockets, disappointing loss late last night in Denver. We can still get the Texans free agency stuff as well. How about we can talk about Tatuya I. and Mike Burroughs and how, along with Hunter Brown, you might have a very solid one. one, two, three, and this rocket's, excuse me, the Astros rotation coming up this season.

That'll make us feel better, right? Yeah, I mean, we're still a couple weeks away from that. I mean, I guess, you know, the Astros bats are been better. Yes, I went back to back. I mean, two updates from you, Gordy. How about them Astros bats? And, well, Rich, how's that Reechepard MVP campaign? Well, I mean, look, reach out.

I said in the next, like, five to ten years of Rechepard, so I still got plenty of time on that one. That's good. James Harden had some rough stretches early in his tenure. But, yeah, I mean, look, I'm not, but Astros are still, I mean, I got to look at the numbers. They're still one of the worst hitting teams in spring training. So it's not like it's been completely solved, but it's been better as of late. Yeah. So, I mean, maybe we can convince ourselves that the offense is going to just, it'll be okay.

The biggest thing for the Astros offense is going to be getting Yordon Alvarez in the lineup more than, what was it, like, did he even play 40 games last year? year was it like 38 or something like that like it's it's not good and that's not going to be any sort of recipe for for success with the astros we know what the injury issues were last year i'm sorry 48 games not 38 so 48 games for yorda on alvarez last year you get 150 you would imagine hopefully 140 plus at the very least and you have him as the centerpiece of your lineup in there every day and then i actually am becoming more and more bullish on this astros rotation talked about it in spring training about how I thought they were going to have some options.

They're going to have some guys they could go to. At the very least, they had plans in the backup plan and the backup plan to the backup plan. And now, Tatsu Yuma has been rounding in a shape. Mike Burles has been fantastic. We talked to Brian Bogussevick about him yesterday. And we know that Hunter Brown is going to be that ace and is your opening day starter. The Astros are dead last in home runs hit this spring, Ross. dead last in all of baseball. It's okay.

12. The Cincinnati Reds have 35. The New York Yankees have 32. The Oakland A's or whatever the hell they are have 29. You have 12. And that's with two yesterday from Zach Cole and Jose Al Tuve. Otherwise, you would have 10. You got Isak Paratus as well.

So you got three. Yeah, you get Paratus hitting a big blast. Zach Cole, okay, that's good. Jose Al Tuve, you want three of those guys to be effective in the lineup. It's going to be fine. I'm not worried about Jack's Biggers lineup and ride and unroll from

New Orleans, Louisiana, all right? I'm not worried about it, Gordy. That much. That much. They're second to last and runs scored with 70. That's good. They were last. It means they had a good week. They're running in a favorite form, baby. The arrow is trending

upwards. Here's the good news. They are first in walks with a hundred. See? Nobody walks. Nobody walks better than the Astros. Hell yeah. New hitting coaches are here. Everything thing's going to be great, maybe. They are second in the majors in strikeouts with 200.

All right. 200 strikeouts. I turn him off. Turn him off. All right. That's enough from you, Chris Gordy. It's just spring training. It's going to be okay.

I want them to be like, I'm not asking them to be top five in OPS like they were when it was like George Springer and Prime Carlos Corre, Prime Altuvae, Yorda, and all that stuff. Just get me like in the top 10-ish with a really good pitching staff and you can win with that in the season and you can win with that in the playoffs. All right, time for a break here. That was the first segment of the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

You guys want to get in, as I mentioned, phone lines are open. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. We got, I just don't get it coming up at 1130. We will have Brian McTagger coming up on the show as well. Matt Thomas is out. Chris Gordy is in. You guys want to talk about the Rockets.

How are we feeling about the state? of the Rockets right now after these big losses to the San Antonio Spurs and the Denver Nuggets. Sandwich in between a nice win against the Toronto Raptors. So maybe we can try to find some kind of silver lining. And I mentioned the three-point shooting extremely hot for the opposite side and not so much for the rockets. Maybe that will be better. How are we feeling about your Astros? Anything you guys want to get to, 713-212-5-790 is the phone number.

7-13-212-5-790. This episode is brought to you by Spreeker, the platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives, and saying things like, sorry, I can't talk right now, I'm editing audio. If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes it everywhere people listen, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and about a dozen. In a cousin apps, your cousin swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might

someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show today at spreeker.com. Sprinker, because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it. Yes, it is, the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Without Matt Thomas, he will be back tomorrow. He is off for today. You folks want to get in. Phone lines are open.

713-212-5-790 is the phone number 7-13-212-5-790. Chris Gordy is here as well. Rockets with the big loss last night against the Denver Nuggets. The good news, Gordy, if we're looking for some of those silver linings, is you have one of the biggest homestands of the season coming up after. It has been a weird, funky part of the schedule. You went on the road for three, then you came home for a quick back-to-back. Then you went to San Antonio.

Then you came home. you went to Denver. Now you're back home for five games. You've got the Pelicans. You've got two against the Los Angeles Lakers. And then you have Atlanta and Miami. I'm not saying they're going to win all those games, but they're going to be favored in all five of those games. So this is a good opportunity to try to get some confidence back, beat up on some teams, get some wins against the Lakers who are in the fourth spot right now in a virtual tie with you or the three spot in the West, and all is not lost. Yeah. And you'll look at what you and the Lakers. have done in your last, both of your six and four in your last 10, the difference is the Lakers

have won three in a row. So they're starting to put something together here. I mean, look, if we're talking realistic, at minimum, you have to split those two games against the Lakers. And by the way, like, dumbass West Coast L.A. market, we got to play both those games at 8.30 Central all because of we're appeasing the L.A. market. They're in national television, yeah. I get it, but these games are in Houston. 8.30? Come on. I know. Guess who's working those pre and postgame shows?

Yeah, I mean, we've had a few of those this year, but I just hate that. It's like when we got to the East Coast, they don't appease the Central Time Zone. They put those games at 6 Central. That's fine. I like the earlier games, but I just, I hate that. But no, your points are, I mean, New Orleans has won two in a row, and they've beat the Wizards and the Raptors, so two of the worst teams in the league. Raptors are good. I don't think the Pels are starting to put something together here, but don't lose them. They always seem to get the Rockets.

It's a weird thing. As bad as the Pelicans have been for several years now, they always seem to get one or two on you every year. But I'd say you've got to win Friday, at least split with the Lakers, hawks you've got to beat, and then the heat are pretty damn good. Let's just hope Bam out of bio doesn't play 20 plus a good.

Hope he doesn't drop 83. All right. We'll get to Gary real quick because he wants to talk some Rockets. And I do want to talk to you about the Bam Otobio thing. I'm just curious, your opinion. I don't think we've gotten the Gordy opinion on that. All right, 713-212-790 is the phone number. Gary's been waiting patiently.

Gary, go ahead. The Rockets. Alfie. Did anybody talk about him playing all year, basically, without any breaks? Didn't he go play overseas all summer? Yeah, he played in Eurobasket. then he played in this season and then he had that ankle injury that he rushed back from and he just hadn't felt right since then he had a couple of good spells but yeah he it's it's not

been a great run for alpi shingoon overall okay and then the rest of the court are they all within four years of basically rookies the basketball i grew up on it took a little time for you to become michael jordan you just didn't come michael jordan overnight the learning process. I think Michael Jordan won rookie of the year, but I understand what you're saying, Gary. There's some young guys on the team, and I appreciate you making the call.

713, 212-5-790 if you want to get in. But I don't know, Gordy. I mean, Alper and Shingoon, I'm not putting it on Eurobasket. Kevin Duran is 37-year-old. He's been their best player all season long. Jabari Smith Jr. is, they're all young,

talking about he, Tarii, Sinam, and Thompson, and Alpern-Changoon is young too, and Reed Shepard. But these guys have been in the league for a couple of years. For three, four years, their body should be ready to take on the rigors of an 82-game season. So I don't know if I'm going to go with like they're just tired and getting worn out in a game, 65 games into the season. Yeah, I'm trying to look at the numbers. So go back and look at Shingun the first two, three months of the season and look at his numbers the last couple of months.

It's night and day. I mean, he's not been the best. He's not been as high impact as he was earlier in the year. Yeah, I'm curious his numbers after that. They were like, oh, it's going to be a two-week injury with the ankle. And I think it was like five days that he missed. And he came back. And you appreciate somebody who's a gamer who wants to be out there and who wants to play.

But it just feels like since he missed those few games, yeah, I'm trying to pull it up. That was at the beginning of January with that ankle injury. He just hasn't looked consistent. There's been nights when he's been put up some big numbers, like against the, what was it, against the Wizards, where he scored like 30 or something like that, and they refused to double-team him. But he's just not looked himself.

And then the turnovers have been bad, too. Yeah, turnovers have been up. He had the six turnovers against Portland, five against the Spurs, eight against the Wizards. Yeah. And then it's still, the free throw is still perturbed me. I mean, he's been better, it feels like this year. But O for fourth the line last night,

to just, those kill me. Like, NBA players missing free throws, bro, you've been doing that since you're 10 years old, and it's a rhythm thing. Like, how professional basketball players consistently miss free throws just boggles the mind? Yeah, it's crazy. I feel like, and this is something we've seen for,

I mean, years and years and years, and there's many examples that we can point to, but it feels like you should be able to shoot, like, 75% if basketball is your job. And I understand it's different. it's difficult, but he's somebody who, at the beginning of last year, do you remember, Shingoon was shooting like 80% from the free throw line, the first half of the year?

And those are uncontested in-rhythm shots. It's not as much as, like, you get variance right and regression and stuff like that when it's three-point shooting because some days you got guys draped all over you. Some days, they just rim out. It's the most controlled environment in an NBA game is sitting at the free throw line. You get in rhythm, you get your dribbles, and you get your dribbles, and you get it up, and then you just should make the shot if you're a professional basketball player. And also, somebody is good and is skilled as Alper and Shingoon is.

With the feathery touch you, we can see on a lot of the shots that he makes. Outside of the overtime lost to Golden State where they just, they blew that one. I mean, that game should have, they should have won that one. But all the, I mean, like, the other wins lately have all been at home, you know, getting blown out at San Antonio, getting blown out of Denver. I mean, do we just chalk that up to the tough road environment in the NBA? Like, are we making too much of this overreacting, Ross? I think it's kind of a couple different animals.

Maybe on the San Antonio one, again, both games, the opponent shot over 50% from three, and you shot over under 30%, 29% and then 12%. You're hoping for some stabilization in future matchups of those caliber. So that's one thing. And the other thing is, though, I think it's two different. cases. I think the nuggets the rockets the rockets could possibly hang with, but they're very good, and they have a great roster. But I just, I think the spurs are a different level. I think the spurs are closer to the thunder than they are to really the rest of the pack in the west. And that's talking about the timber wolves, the nuggets. I think there's, there's like basically three tiers in the west. Thunder's on their own tier. Then it's a little drop off. It's the spurs in their own tier. And then it's tier three. And that's where the rockets are. It's you, the Lakers, the nuggets, and the timber wolves.

three through six right now, all within a half game of each other. And that's kind of where the rockets are right now. I was hoping preseason they'd be up to where the San Antonio Spurs were and ahead of the Spurs. But they're in that third tier right now with those other teams I mentioned. So if the playoffs started today, who would they play? They would be taking on in a seven-game series the Minnesota Timberwolves who have lost three in a row. It's been up in the West is tough. The NBA is tough.

I mean, you've lost games to like the jazz, the kings, the pelicans. Anybody can get anybody on any given night, unless you're just that upper echelon, which is thunder and the spur. I think they're the two best teams in basketball. I like the pistons, and maybe the pistons warrant some conversation. But the rockets are just in that next tier, and they can be beaten by anybody, and I think they can beat anybody and hang with anybody, too. A few weeks ago, we were talking about them playing the Lakers,

but I guess the Lakers have gotten hot, and they've moved up here. But I'll tell you this, I don't, I want no point. part of Denver. I mean, if you could avoid Denver. Lakers, you're not afraid of. Timberwolves, you're not afraid of. They could lose to any of them, but you're not afraid of them, right. Yeah, Phoenix. I mean, Phoenix, the clippers still scare me a little bit just because of the talent they have. Yeah. It feels like a light switch could be flipped. But, yeah, I mean, I think in a perfect world, what you want to avoid is, you know, any team that's super dangerous, I'd be fine taking on the Timberwolves. the problem is potentially getting the spurs in the next round.

I mean, spurs or thunder, there's really no avoiding them. You'd have to go through one of them. But, yeah, I just feel like the Rockets, and when we get to the playoffs, the Rockets have a tremendous home court advantage when that stadium, that arena is rocking and packed. So I'll take my chances. But, yeah, I mean, to me, the key is, you know, try to lock in that number three spot over these next couple weeks and let the chips fall how they may.

Yeah, and the West is just tough. You just mentioned the Clippers. They're in the eight spot. They've won six of their last seven games, or is it seven of the last eight, something like that. And Kauai Leonard is playing like a freaking MVP. He just scored 45 points and they dropped in four quarters. They dropped 153 on the Timberwolves.

Like, that's the eighth team in the West. The West is just insane. This episode is brought to you by Spreaker. The platform responsible for a rapidly. spreading condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives, and saying things like, sorry, I can't talk right now, I'm editing audio. If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Sprinker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Sprinker distributes

it everywhere people listen, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and about a dozen apps your cousin's swears are the next big thing. Even better, Sprinker's. helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show today at spreeker.com. Sprinker, because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it.

All right, we're going to take a quick break here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Roger, we see you on hold. We'll get to you. Still curious, any of y'all's thoughts on the BAM Auto Bio, 83 points, and Chris Gordy's as well. We have Brian McTagher. coming up. We have not to tell the truth. What was today Thursday,

Jonathan? I just don't get it. Yeah. I just don't get it. I'm locked in. All right? I just don't get it coming up at 11.30. You guys on the phone line, 713, 212-5-790. Tweets to at SportsRV at Chris Gordy as well. And you can also follow me on Instagram at SportsRV. I would appreciate it. All right. Quick break here. We'll come back and we'll talk some more Rockets Basketball and get you guys on the phones at 713-212-5-790. Yes, we are guaranteed human.

Hi, I'm a real human being. So is Chris Gordy. Matt Thompson is also a real human being, but he is not here today. He is off. He was traveling late last night with the Denver Nuggets. You guys could still hang out. We got a great show for you. We have, I just don't get it coming up at 1130.

We have Brian McTaggart at 11 o'clock, I should say. We have Jonathan Allen bringing us the news. at noon. I'm getting a nod. Coming up at noon. And, well, we also have you folks. 713, 212-5-790 is the phone number. 7-13-212-5-790. Gordy, did you go to Creed last night at the rodeo? I did. I knew it. How was the crowd? It was a great crowd. It was a little weird, though, because it's a rock show. And most everybody was sitting in their seats. Like very few people were standing. But I will say like you looked over at certain sections and you saw our heads,

heads bobbing. Like people were moving their heads. To toe tapping. It was just a lot of people. It was a lot of people sitting. It just felt like at a certain point I looked around. I'm like, should we all stand? I feel like we should all stand for Creed.

But that was good crowd. Is there an opener? Like I haven't been in the rodeo in a long time. Like literally like maybe Beyonce 2003 in terms of a concert. Is there an opener? No. Why have you not been to the rodeo? I go multiple times every year.

A concert. Usually the acts don't interest me that much. But like there are some people who just go for the rodeo. Like you don't enjoy watching the... No, I've been to the rodeo, but I haven't been to the concert at the rodeo, I should say. I've been to the cookoff. I've been to the actual rodeo. I've been to, you know, that type of stuff.

But like a concert concert, it's been years and years. But I'm just saying, like, it's the rodeo and the concert. It's two and one. Yeah, well, I didn't want to see. Creed. I'm sorry. If that's me, that's fine. You didn't you have to go to Creed? I'm just saying you can go to any act. Houston Rodeo lineup.

There hasn't been one act that's intrigued you over the past decade? Uh, Shibuzi. I'm good. Chris Delflin's fine. I'm not going to pay money for that. Let's see. Okay, but you say pay money. You know the tickets are like 40 bucks. It's all general issues. Yeah, but you're like

7,000 miles away from the stage. There's like you in 600 yards of dirt between anything else. In a bit, I will tell you, though, there's those big, the big screens. Yeah, you're paying the seat on a big screen. Exactly. No. You get to binoculars out because you're 600 yards of dirt between you and the in the, in the act.

It's not my jam. I'm just saying. I know I'm in the minority in Houston. That's fine. It's not a bad view. Like anywhere you sit in the stadium, it's not a bad view because of the rotating stage. I have an important question, though. You know normally when you go to the concert, you like start belting out the song.

Now do you sing like this when it's creed? Do you find yourself, you sing like Scott Stapp when the songs come on, right? I did, absolutely. Yeah, I feel like you can't help it. We're at home, right, whart home. So like the whole stadium is singing like that. Yeah, crank this up a little bit, Jonathan. Yeah.

Is everybody around you sing like Scott Stapp? Yeah, we had two ladies next to us that were, I mean, They must have been, I don't know, early 40s. So this was their wheelhouse. I mean, they were a hooting and holler in the entire. Oh, okay. So were they standing? Oh, my God.

Were they standing? Oh, they did. Yeah, for a couple of songs. Now, Chris Daibleton's got the talent. I'm not a Shiboozy guy. I mean, does he just go out there and play tipsy six times and leave? Like, what does he do? Yeah.

Kelly Clarkson is talented. Oh, she's got. She's got the hole. I'm not a cross-Canadian ragweed guy. Tim McGrath still going? Yeah, I'm not a country fan. So, I mean, Cody Johnson, Riley Green, I don't know who these people are. Oh, Lizzo?

Yeah, I didn't go see Lizzo. That's on me. I will say I saw somebody post that they have ushered or volunteered at many concerts over the years. And they said they thought Creed last night was one of the best things. Oh, really? Creed blew the top off of N-R-R-Draft. the rusty the rusty dilapidated top nice maybe you didn't hear this ross but nostalgia's in now a nostalgia's been in revisiting the 90s i know we we don't like to we like to think about the future

in the past we don't like to be in the present that's that that's uh that's how we roll that's fine i can't believe you're anti rodeo i'm not see see that's the thing anti rodeo would be saying like oh i can't believe you went to creed in the rodeo last night you're an idiot like no i'm not saying that i'm just saying it's not my jam i'm saying it's not for me We are taking you out of the running for Mr. Texas. That's great because I'm not going for Mr. Texas. And I just know. See, I'm not running for Mr. Texas.

I am not declared myself, Mr. Texas. The only thing I do know is that Matt Thomas is the worst possible candidate for Mr. Texas. That's all I know. His only qualification is that he's been to Lubbock a couple times in San Antonio and Dallas. Like, okay. Anyways, I digress. All right. Well, Roger, we'll get to you in a second.

We do have to get to another break here on a sports talk 790. You know what? If you want to yell at me for my rodeo takes, you can do that too. But we're talking some rockets. They had a bad loss last night against the Denver Nuggets. This episode is brought to you by Spreaker. The platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need,

explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives, and saying things like, sorry, I can't talk right now. I'm editing audio. If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes it everywhere people listen. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and about a dozen apps your cousins swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones.

Start your show today at spreeker.com. Spreaker, because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it. Astros continue to be in action in spring chaining. Tatsuya I'mai with three scoreless innings and I believe three perfect innings for the Astros yesterday. So I'm feeling pretty good about the starting rotation. Bats need to hit some. It's going to be the formula you were hoping for last year. Good pitching and enough hitting.

We'll see if the Astros get that. Anything you guys want to get to, 713, 212-5-790 is the phone number if you'd like to get in. 7-13-212-5-790. We got Brian McTagger coming up at 11 o'clock, so make sure you keep it right here on Sports Talk 790. Brian McTagher coming up at 11 o'clock. 1130 will have I just don't get it. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross without Matt Thomas. Chris Gordy is here hanging out.

You guys are on the phones at 713-212-5-790. Have been waiting patiently 7-1-3-212-5-790. So let's go to Roger real quick here on the phones. What's up, Roger? what's going on man I can't go to the rodeo because people suck

and they want to fight I'm just kidding so yeah about the rocket such as unforces of circumstances we had the injury off the muscle with Van Bleet and then Big Adams went down

and our defense is suffering because of that but there's a national regression because you don't know what you have until it's gone and, you know, we really do miss. I'm sorry, what's his name? Steve and Adams? Fred Van Vleet?

No, no, the other guy with the corn rolls. Come on. Oh, Dylan Brooks? Dylan Brooks. We really miss him. He was like, I guess you were a pretty good enforcer in the locker room. He really wasn't got a people's ass and when they mess up defensively. He wasn't really been that guy because, man, the level of defense has taken a

significant blow. And yeah, just stuff like that. I do have to set a little bit of blame aside to the GM for not addressing. I know he didn't make a trade, but he gets paid to do stuff like that and pivot, especially when he knew in such an advanced time that we weren't going to have Van State all season. So he got a little bit of blame to do with that for not doing anything. I mean, you can always say that, hey, it wasn't there, but, you know, he goes on the podium.

This is the thing, Roger, and this keeps coming up for people for some reason. They had no room to make any moves. Rafael Stowe didn't say, you know what, man, this roster's great. This is an awesome roster. We can win a championship with this roster. I'm not making a move. That's not what happened. They had like a million in cap space.

They had to trade away some of their assets that they wanted to get anything back. They wanted to keep Tari Easton. They wanted to keep Jabari Smith Jr. And they had no room to do anything because of the way that the roster was constructed and how capped they are. Now, you can get mad at them for being capped out because they went for Kevin Durant. They side Fred Van Vleet to another deal. They gave Jabari Smith Jr. an extension and stuff like that.

But they didn't make a move because they really couldn't make a move. Yeah, okay. Well, that's understandable. But, yeah, signing Jabari kind of put him under the gun right there because I think Javari, you know, the progression thing, too, that's another thing too about this team. The youngsters haven't really added to their game, like from last year, the Golden State Warriors.

and they didn't really add too much. I'll give, I'll give Thompson to credit. He's got a better little mini-game. He's got, you know, but he's his three-point shot needs a lot of work. Alprey, Alphan, Shangoon. There's no jump shot. It's horrible to see him do it so slow and just dysfunctional. I mean, you can't even watch him, really.

Other than his crab dribble inside the lane and spin moves, you know. But you can only do so much of that. Anyway, under the baseball, the Astros, they got a, they've got to have a, nice three-man rotation and then not so shabby four and five guys but any combination of burrows umi and and brown man they stay healthy look out man i mean i know the offense is the offenses the offenses you know it needs work and hopefully it gets better but man those three guys that's a nice start i mean i'm i'm pretty psyched about that yeah all right thanks a lot roger i appreciate it um yeah let's do the rotation thing first there gordon how we feel like

Do we, do we, we, we're saying it's just, it's just spring training when it comes to the bats. Okay, I'm saying it's just spring training when it comes to the bats. It's also just spring training when it comes to Mike Burroughs, but he's been spectacular. How are you feeling about him? No, I feel, I feel great about the pitching. Pitching's going to be fine. It's the, it's the bats. And this is where the frustrations will be.

The pitching could be as good as you want it to be, but when they lose games three to one or two to one, guess what we're going to be talking about on the past? post-game shows. It ain't going to be about, man, Mike Burroughs gave him six shutout innings today. It's going to be about why can't we score a run? This episode is brought to you by Spreaker, the platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives, and saying things like, sorry, I can't talk right now, I'm editing audio. If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process

Simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes it everywhere people listen. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and about a dozen apps your cousin swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show today at spreeker.com. Spreaker, because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it. And, you know, again, we can do the whole, well, it's a whole... spring training guys i mean let's not over it it's not it's not over it you're okay but

everybody else is it's spring training for everybody else too right and they're all hitting you were batting one eighty nine as a team ross that is worst in baseball you are dead last and slugging at two ninety seven care to guess team ops ross 620 dead last i mean that is that is incredible second elastin strikeouts with 200 i'm not that worried Dead last at home runs with 12. These macro numbers.

Go through the individuals. That's bro. Yeah, you're talking more like this. Like what Riley Unro and Jack's Biggers and those guys are doing. And actually some of those guys are some of the best hitters. I know, yeah. I was going to say those guys are making the numbers not look as bad as they should be. It's your starters that have, I mean, like, oh, God awful.

And those are the guys who got, Jose Al-Tube is going to be fine. He's going to hit. I'm not worried about him. Essoc Perez is hitting over 300. Correa has been fine. I think Yordon hasn't been very good, but Yordons gonna hit. Like, oh no, Yordons won for 11 or whatever this spring. That isn't really necessarily concerned me.

The guys, you want to talk about like Zach Cole and Cam Smith and Joey Lopofito and those guys, I'm down. But Joey Lopofito hasn't been terrible. Zach Cole had a home run yesterday. Camp Smith has been, he's been heating up a little bit in spring and his numbers have gotten better as well. So the overall macro like numbers that include, I don't know, whoever Pasconel Ferraris is, I'm not necessarily worried about those. So you think, I mean, you're saying,

I mean, okay, you're on terrible in the spring, but you think opening day against the Angels he's going to come out and go three for four with two home runs? Absolutely. That would shock you? That would shock you? You would be surprised if you're on Alvarez. Like, why is he me doing it in the spring?

This is the easier time. Your face is terrible pitching. Dude, he's got like 17 ABs. Jordan Alvarez is one of the greatest hitters on the planet. Absolutely if he can go three for five with two home runs in the first game of the season, and it wouldn't shock me. It wouldn't be shocking at all. All right now.

I'm just telling you right now, we're going to have a ton of two to one, three to nothing, four to nothing losses in the first month. They're not going to have a bunch of big boppers in the lineup. They just don't. I mean, it's not the murderer's row of like 2019. That's just the reality, and that's the way the team's constructed right now. That's just how they are. They are going to have to win with pitching, and they are going to probably not score enough runs overall.

But you can win with that in the long term. You can win with that in the postseason. It is going to put a strain on your leverage guys, which we've seen in the last couple of years, where you've needed to use Josh Hader so much that he unfortunately had a shoulder injury. Thankfully, Brian Abrae, to this point, has been healthy, but you've been pitching him like, you know, 70 plus games, if not 80, I think two years ago. He pitched in like 81 games or something ridiculous like that. So that certainly is a concern, but I'm not super concerned about where the Astros hitters are right now. Real quick, because you mentioned the rotation.

Hunter Brown 1. Yes. Javier 2. I guess so, just because of the proven track record. Tatsuya Mai 3. Okay. Mike Burroughs 4. I'm feeling great about that, by the way.

And then I'm going to go Spencer Orgetty, 5, Lance McCuller, 6. McCullors, by the way, was pretty good the other day. He gave up a two-run homer, but that was kind of, he's talked about it after the game. He's like, I messed up on that one pitch, but he had strikeouts,

his swing and miss stuff was good. So I think he's going to be fine. And how about yesterday, Ross, in my three hitless innings with no walks, no hits, four strikeouts. Three perfect years. And then Aaron Getty gave up a solo bomb,

but had six strikeouts in three innings. I mean, he was really good. So I like that rotation. Go ahead. Yeah, it's strong. It's strong. And, yeah, McCullors is going to get a shot because of the money he's making. Just go ahead and get used to that, folks.

I mean, that's just basically how it's going to be. All right. David has been holding quickly, David, ahead of the top of the hour. What's up? Oh, hey. Primarily, I want to talk about sports, too, about some things you just said. But as far as the rodeo, you guys were talked about the rodeo earlier, I won Rascal Flats tickets on the A-Team a few weeks back,

and my wife and I went last Wednesday, and we just had a fantastic time. And I know you're far from the stage, but there's an experience there, and Rascal Flats sounded better than his original recordings. And you might know some of his music. Life is a highway. Yeah, I know that one.

It's a jam. So he was fantastic. in concert. I heard music that he had, that was older music that I loved. Yeah, it's a band, but Resco Flats is the lead singer and has most of the original

players, and they've been around for 25 years, and when you go to the concert, sometimes you hear music you don't normally hear, and you learn that you really liked it, and that's the experience with Rascal Flats. And so I just want to

call him because you all I think you were saying you didn't want to go because you're far from the stage. But there is something you get out of these in-person concerts. Saw Willie Nelson nine years ago. Oh, wow. Before COVID, saw Kid Rock a few years before that. And you get to hear some music. You don't always hear on the radio.

So that was my comment about that. And as far as the Astros, I'm with you on the pitching rotation. except I put EMA second and all the others the same. And then the issue with McCullors and also with Yordon is they're just fragile.

And so yes Yordon can hit the ball out of the universe but he's got such issues with being injured and when he gets injured it's serious and when McCullors gets injured it's serious and so those are

the things that kind of concern me about those guys. I expect you're going to hit, but if he trips, springs his ankle. All right, David. Yeah, that's why I appreciate you. No, thank you. Thank you. We got to get to the top of the hour, man. Thanks. I appreciate it.

Rascal Flats is not a person. It's the band, by the way. Yeah, I was, did he have any more rodeo reviews we could get? You know, when I was a kid, I thought Steely Dan was a guy. I was like, man, this Steely Dan can sing. I'll say Gwen Stefani was pretty good. couple years ago. That was a really good one. Okay. All right. Well,

thank you for the take there, David. Unfortunately, we got to get to the top of the hour because we have to get to Brian McTaggart. All right. Quick break here. Those you on hold, I see you, we'll get to you as well. I just don't get it coming up at 1130. We have Brian McTaggart coming up in just a second.

This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Welcome back to the Matt Thomas show with Ross without Matt Thomas. should be joined shortly by Brian McTaggart here on Sports Talk 7-90. He is our weekly guest and always have a good time talking to him about the Houston Astros as they are in this spring training action.

And hopefully we'll get lined up for him momentarily. We got eight, no, no, I'm sorry. Hold on, hold on. I just don't get it. That's what's coming up at 1130 here on the program. And, Gordy, I must ask, what is your second favorite Rascal Flat song? Oh, man. Love Me Do. That's a great cover.

Hmm. All right, you talk. I got a, I mean, when you talk about a band and their best hit is a cover of another good person song. By the way, Tom Cochran had the big hit life as a highway. So when your biggest hit is a cover of someone else's song. Wait, I don't even know that. Are you serious? Yeah, you don't remember that?

No, no, no. No, I didn't know that. I thought that was a Rascal Flats song. No, they did the cover for like the Cars movie. Oh, really? Okay, hold on. Let's do this because we're trying to get to, we're trying to get Brian McTaggart.

I just texted him. Okay, I want to, okay, play the Tom, thank you. Oh, this isn't Rascal Flats? No, that's the original. I had no idea. Wait, this is interesting. I didn't know this again. Yeah, thank you, John. Well, Jonathan's like 23, but...

This song's a jam. I know it from cars. Yeah, I know this from the office. And they're listening to it on a road trip the entire... Yeah, now play the... The Rascal Flats one. Okay, it sounds exactly the same. They just did a straight cover?

Yeah. Okay, what's Rascal Flats' most famous? second most famous song. Rascal Flats don't got the hits, yo? They had to play a whole rodeo show. Oh, what hurts the most? That's that depressing song. This is like a, this is just a straight,

you know what I don't like? I like when somebody does a cover and they kind of make it their own, they put a little twist on it or something like that. Okay, Brian says he's ready. Go ahead and call him. Okay, he's calling us now. All right, there we go.

I did not, dude, that sounds like the exact same song. I hate when they cover a song, and it is the exact same thing. That's ridiculous. Come on, Rascal Flats. They don't make them like they used to. Come on, Brian McTaggart,

he could school us on some George Strait and some real country music. No, I want to know your second favorite Rascal Flats song, Brian. Rascal Flats. Don't get me starter on Rascal Flats. My favorite song is none of them. Okay, we got a lot of stuff to get to,

so let's get serious here. Brian McTaggart, MLB.com, Astros.com, our weekly guest here on a sports, Talk 790. We've been talking about that, like I said, a million things to get to. Let's start with Tattoo EMI. I looked pretty good yesterday. There have been a lot of talk about not necessarily the velocity of his fastball,

but the shape of his fastball. How do you think that's looked so far in spring? And obviously, the results were good yesterday. Yeah, he looked really good. I mean, face nine hitters and what he struck out for, I believe. Yeah, I mean, he's looked better than I probably had anticipated. And I know the Astros were sort of, you know, trying to get a feel for him and his routine and, you know, all that stuff. But, you know, I think they got to be very happy.

It's going to be really fun to watch here as he gets stretched out, you know, last couple of weeks of spring. He gets up to five and six innings to see what he's capable of doing. But he's got a lot of weapons, you know, got the reverse slider, which, you know, drew raves early in camp. And it certainly looks like they, you know, might have really done a really nice job getting this guy and getting this guy and get it. him in the rotation because it looks like he's going to be a big, big part of that rotation this year. Yeah, and same thing with Mike Burroughs, just your thoughts on what we've seen from him and then the follow-up to that, if you had your crystal ball out just at this moment, how the rotation would slot starting opening day.

Yeah, Burroughs has been great too. I mean, he's looked better than I thought he would as well. I mean, he works at a really good pace. He throws strikes. And I think he's going to be fun to watch because the defense has to be on their toes. I mean, he kind of reminds me of Oswald, you know, back in the day at the pace that he works at. So, yeah, I mean, I think they're close probably to setting the rotation. We all know Hunter Brown is going to go game one.

I still don't know if they're going to go with a four or five, I mean, a five or six-man rotation. I know they will do six for a lot of April, but I think for the first week or so they might be able, they won't need a six starter for a while. So, I mean, I guess it will probably be Emi in the second game. McCullors game three or Burroughs. I'm just sort of guessing here. But I guess a better way to put it is, there's four guys that are locks in the rotation right now,

and that's Eme, Burroughs, Brown, and McCullors and Javier. So I think those five guys are locks in the rotation. I think Erigetti, even though he pitched really well yesterday, is probably not guaranteed a rotation spot yet. And, you know, if they go to six-man, he's probably the six-man. But they have to feel really good about their start. pitching depth at this point. This episode is brought to you by Spreaker, the platform responsible for a rapidly spreading

condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives, and saying things like, sorry, I can't talk right now, I'm editing audio. If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes it everywhere people listen, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and about a dozen apps your cousin swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads,

meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show today at spreeker.com. Spreaker, because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it. Yeah, it's crazy, Brian, and I know everything we say here is with the caveat of it's only spring training, but I mean I don't remember a spring where you've had this many good arms just putting up goose eggs and you know am I with the goose eggs yesterday but ergetti yeah it gives up the home run yesterday but six strikeouts over three innings I mean you know even Jason Alexander had one bad outing but then a really strong one and then they already sent them to the minor leagues like are you're

going to be one of the best arms in Sugarland so it's it's crazy how this competition is shaping up and you know I think we all thought okay you know we're going to be optimistic about this pitching staff, but I mean, I've been wild, but what they've done so far this spring. Yeah, that was their goal in the offseason was to go out and add pitching depth, and they added, you know, six or seven arms and the fact that they were able to send Jason Alexander to minor league camp, you know, three weeks before open a day, despite him pitching really well in a couple games in the spring. I mean, that's what they wanted. They wanted that quality of starter at AAA that they can bring up. And the same with Colton Gordon,

another guy who pitched pretty well. He was among the first cuts of camp, so he's going to be in the AAA rotation. So there's two guys right there that you feel good about that they can call upon. But, yeah, they really did a nice job adding even some of the guys that we don't talk about, but a non-raster guy like Peter Lambert has really put himself in position to make the team as a long reliever. You know, they added Tang who is going to get the start on Friday, and he's in position as well to give them multiple innings out of the bullpen. So they've got a lot of arms, a lot of quality arms.

And the important thing is they have a couple of guys in the bullpen who can pitch two or three innings. They're also optional. Guys, they can move back and forth between the minor leagues all year without any problem. Brian McTaggart, MLB.com, Astros.com with us here on a sports talk 790. Let's go to the position player side with the outfield. Now, three weeks into games, you got a lot of questions about how things would possibly slot coming into spring. and I just don't know, how does it look to you, Brian? Because it doesn't seem like a lot of those questions are really getting answered.

Yeah, I mean, you know, the outfield is still a mix of guys. And I think that's probably the area on the club that's probably the biggest unknowns. I mean, there's still a chance Jake Myers could get traded. And that's why Joe Espada hasn't yet saying, hey, Jake Myers is my starting center fielder because he might not be. And then beyond the end, you know, you got the young guys. You got low perfido. you got Cam Smith, you got Zach Cole, all three of those guys can play all three positions. And then Taylor Tremel has had a really nice spring as well, swinging the bat, running the basis.

So he's put himself in the mix. And I think if they broke camp today, Tremel probably makes the team. So, you know, the injury to Pena probably opens a roster spot maybe for Bryce Matthews. You know, he can play some second and some outfield. But, yeah, I mean, I think the outfield is just we're going to take this down to the wire. And, you know, you got to remember, they still could make. another trade if they trade buyers, you know, they still would like to trade Paredes. And if they do, they'll get a left-handed bat, which is going to be an outfielder.

So this roster can still look different here in a couple of days when they get to open a couple of weeks when they get to opening day. How concerned, Brian, should fans be with the overall spring numbers? And I get it's small sample size. You're talking starters playing, you know, half the games, guys who are going to be working at Target in a year, you know, coming in later innings. it's not a full easy samples to look at, but I mean, dead last at home runs, worse than baseball batting average 189, slugging 297, OPS at 620. I mean, it's some ugly offensive numbers. How concerned should we be?

I don't think very concern or all. I mean, these guys are down, the established players are down here working on their swings, tinkering with things. So guys, I know Alvarez has struggled in the spring. I mean, I would not be worried. The guys that the guys that need to hit a little bit in the spring are the, you know, the youngsters competing for spots. And we've seen the bats come around a little bit. We know Cole hit a homer yesterday, Loper Fito's wanting a little better.

But the position players, Walker, Alvarez, I mean, Jordan Alvarez could go low for 30 in the spring and have four hits on opening day and everything's right. So, yeah, these games are so weird. You're facing pitchers late in the game who are in class A ball. So, I mean, half the bats are going to guys from minor league camp. So it's not anything to worry about it. I mean, if you want to worry about, you know, maybe some of the younger guys competing for a spot that aren't hitting, but the overall numbers mean nothing.

And the star players, if they're not hitting, you don't worry about that. They'll be ready to go, you hope, on opening day. Obligatory in-field question. What's the latest on Jeremy Pena's status and just the logjam we've been talking about for months now? Yeah, status quo. and, you know, it's sort of resolved itself a little bit here for the short term because Pena is going to open the season on the IL.

I mean, they haven't announced that yet, but, I mean, you know, it's going to happen. So they'll be able to put Paredes at third and Cray it's short for opening day. And Cray has been playing short here the last couple of days in Great Fruit League play. So Pena is, you know, he suffered the injury a week ago. So he's a week away from getting reevaluated, which I guess would mean another X-ray to see where he's at. So, but he's out there on the field doing all the drills. I mean, he's out there with the short stops, fielding the ball and flicking at the second base with his glove. And the only thing he really can't do is get the ball and throw and swing a bat, which are two major things.

But it certainly looks like this is not going to be a long-term injury that goes deep into April. I think he'll be back sooner than later. And, yeah, I mean, I don't think this changes a whole lot. They still, if he comes back healthy, they still have one too many infielders, and they still need a left-handed bat because their lineup is so right-handed. And so I think that's still going to be something to watch is that, you know, I think we'll still could see a trade here in the next two weeks on the infield. And quickly, Brian, with the hater news,

that he's going to open up on the injured list. Give me your, you know, opening day, let's say they're up three nothing heading into the seventh. Who's your seventh, eighth, ninth inning guys? Yeah, well, I'll go backwards. I mean, obviously, a bray who's going to be the closer because he's, you know, he's your best reliever. You know, Brian King did a really nice job in sort of a, you know, seventh inning setup role.

So, you know, I think he's in there as well. you know, seventh inning might come down to matchups. You know, you got, you got Stephen O'Kirk, Benet Souza, a pair of lefties. You know, if Peter Lambert makes it, he's a guy that can come in and throw really hard. You know, Tang's going to be in the bullpen as well. Is Eniel de la Santos going to be in the mix? So I think, you know, I think that ninth and eighth inning roles are pretty set. I think beyond that it's going to come down to matchups where they are in the game.

And there's a lot of different ways they can go because they have, you know, have a lot of versatile arms down there and guys that can throw multiple innings. Great first meeting with Brian McTaggart. We're going to have him every week here throughout the Astro season, bringing you coverage. You like nobody's business. Brian, let the folks know what you got going on on the website. Yeah, a lot of good stuff on the website. I'm going to have an opening day roster projection coming tomorrow.

So, you know, keep an eye out for that. And that always gets a lot of click. So it's something that changes daily. and yeah, so yeah, just go to astros.com, and, you know, we've got a lot of good stuff on there. All right. Thanks a lot, Brian. Appreciate it. And we will talk to you every week throughout the season. You're welcome. All right. Thanks, guys. All right, there you go. Brian McTaggart, Astros.com, MLB.com. Great with stuff with him as always. All right. You want to react to anything he had to say about the Astros? We just have so much to get to in terms of what's going on over there. We also, of course, have the Rockets losing last night to the Denver Nug.

We have anything else you guys want to get to on the phones at 713-212-5-790. And I just don't get it coming up at 1130. The news at noon coming up, of course, at noon. It is The Matt Thomas show with Ross without Matt Thomas with Chris Gordy here on Sports Talk 790 with you until 2 o'clock. Interesting from Brian McTagger. Just a crystal ball and he's just thinking about it. as far as the we were talking about

the ordering of the rotation Gordy and he has EMI second I mean hey it was three perfect endings yesterday so hard to argue with but it did I don't know if they're going to go with the six man as McTagra was talking about it seems like that's what their idea was even though they don't necessarily

need to do that but they're wary of all the pitching injuries that were last year and maybe trying to at least limit guys workloads to start the season so if you went Brown, Imai, Javier Burroughs,

or whatever order, and then you throw in McCullors and Araggetti in there. That's a pretty solid six. I'm still high on and bullish on Spencer Araggetti. And maybe I'm just biased because he's such a good interview

and he's so thoughtful. But that's part of it. He's so smart. He gets it. He's got good stuff. He's learning. He's a big analytics guy, but also learning that you just got to be a pitcher

and go out there and pitch. as simple as that sounds. And I just, I'm rooting for him, and I think he can be good for the Astros if he's able to crack the six-man, if that's how they start the season. Yeah, I'm kind of looking at the schedule. So obviously, opening days on a Thursday. They play Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. So they play a, they go a full week before an off day on the 9th of April.

Then they play, you know, same thing. they get the next, or no, they go Friday, Saturday, Sunday, so they play basically from April 10th all the way till, I mean, they go like two straight weeks without an off day. So, I mean, yeah, a six man may work. I mean, they only have a couple off days in the month of April. So I don't know. I mean, I could see them doing that.

You know, and look, I know guys are creatures of habit, but remember Justin Verlander and he was here? it was like written in stone like I must go every five days. I mean, you know what? Maybe it's not the end. Like you look at Hunter Brown, you're like, man, get an extra day. It's, you know, I don't think it's the end of the world to give guys an extra an extra breather day, especially early, early in the season.

But I don't know. That was interesting too. I mean, look, I think Amai's been, you know, he's looked great so far, but this spring. Let's see how he does against a big league club when he faces, you know, Mike Trout and the Los Angeles Angels in that first series. But I will say that there are some people a little bit skeptical of Javier right now saying he's not looked like his old dominant self since coming back from that injury. So, you know, there's some questions around him. Yeah, I'm just looking at last year.

Like all the, it's crazy looking at the starters. Two years ago, you had 10 different guys make multiple starts for the Astros. Last year, it was 13 guys make multiple starts for the Astros. for the Astros. Do you remember Luis Garcia starting two games for the Astros last year? Yeah, and then he got hurt again, right?

It was 31 for Framber, 31 for Hunter Brown. You're missing 31 Frommber Valdez starts, and I understand people hated him and want him out and all that stuff. The ERA was under 4 for 31 starts. Like, that has a lot of value. Yeah. Then you're next, it's Gusto at 14,

and Colton Gordon at 14. And then Jason Alexander at 13, Lance McCullors Jr. at 13. That's your guy. after Frammer Valdez and Hunter Brown. How did they win, how did they even win 87 games, actually? I almost like, I couldn't, when you said the name Ryan Gusto, I was like, wait, who was that? I was like, as soon as I saw his face, I was like, oh, yeah, that guy.

Yeah, that, no, I mean, that's, I think people don't realize Colton Gordon really did eat up. Like, he ate up some innings for you last year. I think, you know, I think he's going to get brought up with the Key and Jay Sons and are going to get brought up. I mean, injuries are going to happen. You have guys missed time, but I think the big, and by the way, my guy, J.P. France, not having the best of Sprig training, so I don't know what's going to happen to him. He'll probably be in Sugar Land after it got cut already and then basically signed to a minor league deal. But this episode is brought to you by Sprinker, the platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as podcast brain.

Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives, and saying things like, sorry, I can't talk right now, I'm editing audio. If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes it everywhere people listen. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and about a dozen apps your cousin swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show today.

at spreeker.com. Spreaker, because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it. You talk about the other guys like Ryan Weiss, Nate Pearson, who's been a little bit slow to come back from his offseason injury. You know, A.J. Bluebaugh, another guy, we're very high on that, that we haven't seen, you know, that could be in the mix. So they're going to have some options.

I'm telling you right now, if you live in Sugarland and you get season tickets for the space cowboys, you're going to see some strong arms down there because they have a lot of those what I like to call 4A guys. The guys that are too good for AAA but not quite available for the big leagues. We've been talking about this, yeah, on this show. The Space Cowboys are going to, how many games do they play in the PCL? I don't know. If it's like 140, they're going to win 120. They're going to be like the best PCL team in history.

It's not even those guys. You could end up with like a Joey Loporfito down there. I don't even know if Nick Allen has options. like you have some guys in the position player from from that standpoint they're going to be great and that pitching it's going to be like the best triple a uh triple a starting rotation of all time down there well while hitting i'm going to give you your your trio maybe we'll go one two three at the top of the order bryce matthews zanzo shane whitcomb that's your yeah that's your three-sum this murd to get the murderers row down there and then it's going to be the pitching staff yeah

you know what i'm going to go see i need to see some space cowboys games i still haven't made it down to Constellation Field actually. Oh, can I, can I admit something to you? Yes. I, uh, I've gotten on board with Team USA here this last week. Oh, that's good. I've gotten into the World Baseball Classic. Last night at the rodeo, I was streaming it on my phone.

How about everybody in our brother thought Team Italy was going to be, was going to suck? I mean, we literally went into that game deal with the United with the USA. Oh, we got a buy week. We don't, you know, we don't even need to do anything against Italy. We'll show up one hand tied behind our back and beat them. And they beat USA. People were like, that was one of the greatest upsets in the history of the world baseball classic. Only to come back to, yes, last night, and see them do the same thing to Mexico.

Everybody thought Mexico was just going to beat Italy's brains out. And Italy got the Paizons. They got it done. Yeah. Our brothers, I think, I believe, I read this on Twitter. So don't quote me on this. But I read it on Twitter that like half the team hasn't even been. to Italy.

Yeah, I mean, Zach Dezenzo, I don't, you know, he's had pizza. Hey, Vinny Pasquitino, hey. That's all right. I'm sorry. It's too easy to do the Italian.

It's low-hanging fruit to do the Italian accent. But yeah, Italy beat Mexico. They go four and oh in pool play. They beat them nine to one. So the United States is on to the knockout rounds in the WBC. Who's my guy, the pitcher from LSU that's with the Phillies. Aaron Ola.

Yeah, Aaron Nola. Aaron Nola is Baton Rouge, Louisiana, born and race. No, he's from Baton Rouge, Italy. It's near Forrest. He's Mr. Ohio. He grew up in Ohio and went to Ohio State. Hey, Zach, Zenzzo. That's kind of the fun part of it, though.

You have a bunch of guys who are not major leaguers, and they go four and O in pool play. I mean, I think that's awesome. Shout out to Italy, though. Because of the win last night, it put USA in. There was a chance for USA to get oustered. Yeah. Well, USA is in, baby.

All right, we're going to take a quick break here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Is there something you don't understand, something that's popular, whether it be in sports or your life, things that you see, you just don't get it. You just don't get it. 713-212-5-790 is the phone number if you want to get in. 713-212-5-790. What don't you get? We'll get to that next here on Sports Talk 790. All right.

Is there something you don't understand? Something you don't get. Something that's happening around your life, day-to-day, or in the sports world. I don't understand it. I just don't get it. 7-13-212-5-790. The phone number, 7-13-212-5-5-3. 790 and fellas I will start.

And this kind of ties in to the Bamatabio thing. And I don't want to be smirched to dead or anything like that. But Bam Atabio, I get why some people are trying to discredit it. He took a ton of free throws. They were fouling at the end of the game. But that was also because the Washington Wizards were double and triple and quadruple teaming Banam Atabio. Say they were going outside of the bounds of a normal game and to try to stop him. so the heat went outside the bounds of a normal game to try to get him there.

But I understand why some people want to discredit. That is something I get. But what I don't get is why people are all upset about Kobe Bryant getting passed because of it. Kobe Bryant, if you look at that defense that was played by the horrible 2006 Toronto Raptors, he was playing outside the bounds of the game too. And he pushed for the record. And that's fine. And nobody talks about that.

And I also, as a further of that, people who think Kobe Bryant is the greatest basketball player of all time. Like, he was great. He was awesome. Top 10, 15, five-time champion. But he's not better than, he doesn't have a better career than Michael Jordan. And that's the easiest comp because they're both shooting guards. Didn't have a better career. I'm sorry, four MVP's to one versus LeBron James.

Like Kobe Bryant is very clearly not the greatest basketball player. of all time, I don't get people who try to make that argument and who are all upset about his 81 getting past. Well, there's some big, there's some diehard Kobe fans out there. I know. If you're from L.A., like I think a lot of it is

people from L.A., but outside of that, come on. Yeah, it's different out there. I mean, there was a while on our, you know, our national website, you know, Fox Sports Radio and all that, like they were posting Vanessa Bryant's stories constantly and I'm like, no one, like, large,

actually cares about, this is years after his death. We were still getting Vanessa Bryant stories. I'm like, they just must adore Kobe out there still in L.A. I mean, more than anything. So, anyway,

yeah, I mean, I agree. Look, I think it's much to do about nothing. It was, I'll give the guy credit, too. People were saying,

you know, all he made, majority of his points came off free throws. What was he, like 36 of 43 at the line? That's pretty damn impressed him. I don't care. I don't care of half the,

points give it the free throw line. You still got to go earn it. Al P. Shangoon went 0 for 4 at the free to line last night. That's true. Yeah. Credit where credits do. You got people like, O'Shea Jackson Jr. Ice Cube's son is like on Twitter saying the NBA rigged this so he could pass Kobe. Like he's got his full 10 foil hat on.

Kobe's the greatest of all time. They rig this for for Bamadabio. I don't get it. Jonathan, do you? No, you know, when Kobe passed, I was in, I was junior year in high school, something like that. And we had one, like, a couple guys that I'm saying for like a full week and a half in tears after he died. Like, he just had, I get where you're coming from.

I don't get it either, but he carried weight, like, Kobe carried weight to these guys, like, no other. I've never, I've never seen anything like it. It's crazy. And Stroze, Stros is tweeting in, greatest basketball mindset of all time, not even a close second. I would say he and Michael Jordan I would put in the in the same boat in terms of that but yeah people get caught up with the Mamba mentality

stuff like that oh like the guy was a jerk and punched his teammates yeah Mamba mentality okay I guess I heard a story the other day that the rapper Jazzy Faye was playing was shooting pool one day with a bunch of people and played Michael Jordan and beat him and they said Jordan was fuming

after that he lost in pool like you were talking about the competitive dude yeah I don't go be at it but like nothing nothing tops Jordan as far as just like competitive attitude. Yeah, Michael Jordan got into like million dollars of debt with his competitive gambling. He there was, I can't

remember who the player it was like in the Bulls in the late 80s or something like that. He lost to the guy in a game in ping pong. He bought a ping pong table and practiced all summer so he could beat the guy in ping pong. Like Michael, it's saying there's not a close second to Kobe Bryant's mama mentality. I don't agree with that at all. And you can read some old stories about Bill Russell and how badly he wanted to win.

Like, he befriended Wilf just so he could trick Wilton to being his friend and take it easy on him on the court and stuff like that. Bill Russell was a crazy psychopathic winner as well. And, oh, by the way, he has 11 championships. Well, still got the record. I mean, the 100 points. Oh, yeah. Stupid. The, the old, I was reminded of the old Adam Sandler, very early standup bit he had on, it was, you know, during timeout, what's, what's, what's, Wilts teammate saying, hey, Will, I'm open, dude.

I know you're been scoring every time down the court, but I'm wide open over here. And then the discussion on the other side line was, hey, who's guarding Wilt? You know, as he scored 100 points. Yeah. Here's Wilt to his teammate. Shit so bum ass up, man.

I'm Will Chamberlain. Give me the Rock. Let's go. Time to get 100 points. All right. What don't you get, Gordy? This episode is brought to you by Spreker. The platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as

podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives, and saying things like, sorry, I can't talk right now, I'm editing audio. If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes it everywhere people listen, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and about a dozen apps your cousin's swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show today at spreeker.com.

Spreaker, because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it. Oh, man, where do I want to go here? I was going to talk about the mayor, or rather the county judge and the rodeo, but I'll stay away from that one. Oh, no. How about this?

Joe Lannardi and quote unquote Bracketology I've been following it kind of like the SEC teams and who's on the bubble and all this. Auburn has been a team that has been on the bubble for basically two months now. They lost eight of their last 10 coming into yesterday.

And yet Joe Lannardi has continuously insisted that they are in. He's had them in their last you know, he does the last four in. He's had him in his last four in for weeks and weeks. And last night, they beat Mississippi State. they're going to play Tennessee today in the SEC tournament.

And then already says, yeah, to me, they've got to beat Tennessee to get in. And I saw somebody say, I just don't get this. This team has been losing left and right for weeks, and you still keep putting them in. But now you say if they don't win this game today, they're out. It's just the funniest thing. Why have you been putting them in for weeks when they keep losing? And now today they lose and now they're out? Like it doesn't make any sense, the whole bracketology thing.

Yeah, the bloom is coming off the Lannardi Rose a little bit. There's a lot of people who have been attacking him and talking about how inaccurate his bracket predictions have been over the last years. Like he's not even like, there's some website that ranks accuracy and he's like not even in the top 100 and stuff like that. But he has been having my Texas Longhorns in, but they have really screwed the pooch. They're the last four in group right now. They lost their last. They were like 96% in or something like that. Then they lost their last three SEC.

games and lost the first game. I'm sorry, last couple of SEC games for their last five SEC games, and then they lost it to Ole Miss in the start of the tournament. Sports Talk 790. You're home of the Longhorns and the NIT. All right. Shut up. You'll shut your bum ass up.

All right. We'll get to Jonathan in a second here, but we do have to get to a break. A couple of you on hold. I appreciate y'all. We'll get to you as well. I promise, what don't you get? You can also get in with that. 713-212-5-790. Back in a second here on Sports Talk 790. All right, Jonathan. What don't you get?

You know, I was just, scroll on TikTok the day. Uh-oh. And me and my girl had an argument. Like, she was, you know, she wanted to go to a rodeo, she figured out what we want to go to. Okay. And she was looking out, like, for outfits. Like, you know what girls do trying to figure out what they want to wear.

Oh, dude. And so. It's the Olympics out at the rodeo. I'm just saying. That's what I'm into. She was showing outfits and she was kind of talking down. I was like, there was nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong.

And then I keep saying more. Man, what's up with all the cheeks outside on the rodeo? I'm like, I didn't. I didn't know. Yeah. I just don't get that. I don't know. I guess I don't get that either.

It just seems like it's gotten more and more over the years. I mean, the rodeo has always been the Olympics. But like outside of like Halloween, at least you're in costumes. No, that's worse than Halloween. Yeah, maybe it's even worse than Halloween. I don't know, Gordy, you've been out of the rodeo a couple of times. Tell me what you're, what are you seeing out there in terms of cheekage? There should probably be a little bit more of a dress code.

See what I'm saying? There's so much. You're just trying to walk in the concourse and all you hear is... Gordy couldn't look though. He was his wife. Yeah, you got to look away. You got to pretend it's the, you're looking into the eye of the sun. you look away like it's like there's a solar eclipse

yeah I guess I don't get it either I don't know I'm not complaining uh yeah maybe I maybe I should get to the rodeo more often I don't know but I'm good all right there you go uh that's uh that's I don't think either of these caller are going with I just don't get it but let's go to Alan Katie holding longest here on the Matt Tommy show with Ross what's up Al

hello hey Al go ahead Well, no, you know what? There is one thing I want to get off my chest that I just don't get, man. It's Dinor Diaz, our catcher. Last year, especially in the second, I would say the third, third of the season, every damn pitch that the pitchers would throw that were balls, two, three feet outside the plate, you know, of course, it's an oh and two count, one and two count.

But he's always tipping the glove back at the pitcher like good pitch. Dude, that was two feet off the freaking ground into the dirt. And he kept doing it all game long for the whole last third of the season. And you could tell him it was pissing off everyone. I mean, the pitchers are like, bro, okay, you don't have to validate every damn pitch I throw. That's a ball. You know, I get it. It's off.

It was probably on purpose or I just missed by maybe a couple of inches off the play. But he's just too positive for me. To me, that's probably part of the reason why Frumber was always. Thank you, Al. I appreciate you getting it. It's okay. Now he said, like, I don't remember him like dirt. Like a pitcher's dirty balls like 54 feet and yiner.

He does do the like till. Yeah, all right, nice pitch. Yeah, that's kind of what we're looking for. Yeah, you're close. A little off the edge. Good pitch. He does do that encouragement stuff. But it doesn't bother me, Gordy.

I don't think it bothers the pitchers. You know, I saw in the World Baseball Classic the other day, Dusty Baker managing the team Knicker. Nicaragua, I was reminded of when he told us, you know, one day, y'all are going to thank me for how I managed Yonair Diaz early in his career. And as each year goes by, I don't know if we're going to be thanking him anymore because the productivity continues to drop off for Yiner. Yeah, I think this is a lesson for everyone. And always thinking we are smarter than every single manager and coach, and self-included. I mean, I come on here in four hours and I disagree with

moves the coaches make and managers and stuff like that. Yiner Diaz has gotten progressively worse. And sometimes guys thrive in roles because they are good in that role. And I talked about this with Reed Shepard. Alperin Shingoon is somebody, look at Rockets' Twitter from last year to this year. They hate Alperin Shingun. Two years ago, he was going to be first team all NBA, MVP. He's the greatest thing.

He's going to pass the Joker. Look at his career trajectory. He ain't anywhere close to Nikolokic. I'm sorry. And that's bearing itself out. Time reveals all truths when it comes to many things in life, including sports. And so everybody wanted to call Dusty Baker an idiot and all that type of stuff. And like, Yiner Diaz, the more he's gotten involved, the worse he's gotten.

He's gone from OPS Plus with 100 being league average, 128 to 116 to 92 in the last three years. And this is a big year for him coming up this season as well. So I think it's the other way. I think we say he peaked his best years where his first two years he should have been playing more, Dusty. That was his, that was when he said his best. Yeah, you could argue that the more work that he's gotten in, that maybe the legs have been wearing on him. Maybe he's more fit for a DH, but there's no room for him there here on this roster or as a first baseman. But you've got to ride with Yanar Diaz right now because your only other option is Cesar Salazar,

and you've just signed Christian Vasquez to a minor league deal. and he's been horrible for a couple of years. But is it the catcher position these days in Major League Baseball? It's kind of whatever you get at the plate is great, as long as they're great defensively and catching the pitcher as well? I mean, I guess it depends. I mean, Cal Raleigh would disagree with his 60 home runs.

He's obviously... The big jumper was loaded up on something. Alejandro Kirk was good for the Blue Shield. Jay's who I'm trying to think I don't know the top catchers in baseball but it's you can get some production from the guys you're not asking them to be no like a prime buster posy or anything like that but a little bit of production from yinerdi is at least close to what you got two years ago in 24 where he had OPS of 766 16 home runs he did have 20 bombs last year but he was just swinging to everything average went from 299 to 256 so it'd be nice to get a little bit of something all right

kj ahead of the top of the hour quickly what do you? you got. Okay, I hate you got me in at this point, man, because I needed to go on a rant. I remember, I called it a change station a while back when we first made the Kevin Durant trade and mentioned to you and Matt at the time that Kevin Durant, as beautiful of a shot as he is, as prolific as score as he is, he doesn't play winning basketball. I mentioned at the time that he's the Dominique Wilkins of the modern era. He scored a bunch of points, but he's not a winning player. He won two finals

MVP's. Bro, come on. He won two finals MVP. He's a front runner. He was the front runner on that team. Let me finish. Go ahead. Well, if you say something that's completely

off base, I have to stop you in your tracks. If you say a guy who's a two-time champion and a two-time finals MVP is not a winner, that's ridiculous. But go ahead and make your ridiculous point. Rose, Rose. Hey, hey, hey, you got all these. My time is limited.

I said some of you disagree with. I didn't say something that's off base. He went to a team that won a championship before him and after him. And again, my point is saying is this. He's the front running in the sense when the Rockets are winning in a game, if the game is going good, the Rockets don't believe. He's good. When the minute adversity kicks in and the team starts beating us in,

there's no toughness. People want to criticize you email saying the team isn't tough. He's telling the truth. It is not necessarily the gift is how you're rapping. I'm not even upset that they lost to Denver. I'm not upset that they gave them comeback win in New York. I'm not upset that they got lost to San Antonio. What I'm upset about is the fact that they're consistently getting blown out by elite teams.

This isn't what a championship level player does. Am I saying that he doesn't lose? No. What I am saying is you don't get blown out by 20, 30, 40 points by other contending teams consistently. And that's what's happening down the stretch. He's turning the ball over at an alarming weight. And at the end of the day, no one just Rockets envisions them being a better team than they were last year.

At best, their first, maybe second-round team. Oh, and by the way, the team that he was on last year, that he was the man off for the past three years or four years past the coming year, they have a better record without him right now. My point for saying is, is Kevin Durant, as good of a player as he is, and he's a phenomenal player. I'm not begrudging you that. What I am saying is Kevin the Red is a guy who wants to be an alpha but just isn't.

And as long as we continue to assume that, this team isn't going to purge to wear it. We're trying to put the team on the back of somebody who physically is capable of it, but mentally it's weakly and wet toilet paper. And the team, as by my intention, are emulating the exact tendencies of their leader. When they go against stuff, they crumble and fold. All right, I got to let you go, KJ, because we're here. hitting the top of the hour. Meek, a week, softer than tissue paper, an MVP, a two-time champion. He's the best player on the Rockets right now. You want to call him a frontrunner or what, like,

he is their best player. Offense, he's their highest scoring player, and he's been very good for them defensively. And he made the finals as a 23-year-old with the Oklahoma City Thunder. So, and they played very well in that Thunder series, and they lost a 3-1 series to, what, the 2016 Golden State Warriors who were 73 and 9 that year. So I get it, but also when he went to that Warriors team, he was the alpha dog. He won both of those finals MVP's there. He was the big dog on that team. That's just a fact.

So calling him a loser or anything like that, I think is just ridiculous. And we can argue some of the other points, but we've got to get to the top of the hour. Gordia, I'll let you have the final word as you step out here. Yeah, you know, until Kevin Durant scores 82, 83 points in the game, I guess he's just a prerty a loser, right? Yeah, I guess. I don't know. All right, Gordy. Thanks for the time. I appreciate you hanging out.

All right, see ya. All right, there you go. Chris Gordy, appreciate him. We'll have Adam Wexer coming up at the 1 o'clock hour. I'm flying slow in the next hour. Those you on hold, I promise we will get to you. We also have the news at noon to get in as well. 713-212-5-790 is the phone number.

7-13-2125-790 tweets to at Sports RV. Hour number three of the Matt Thomas show with Ross starts next with the news at noon. This is the Matt. Thomas Show with Ross. This episode is brought to you by Spreeker. The platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives, and saying things like, sorry, I can't talk right now, I'm editing audio.

If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes it everywhere people listen. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and about a dozen apps your cousin swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show today at spreeker.com.

Spreaker, because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it. He elevates one here. Cole, a good highball hitter might do. Looks like Nuggets are going to go zone defense leaving a Kogi open left side from three front rim miss baseline rebound to Capella Back out the Sheper for a three ball that is off the mark the follow-up dunk is not that's gonna go down as joshoggy crashes the board for the two hands that are down the only thing that's yokech baseline right behind a johnson bounce past left side christian brown again three-pointers swish time out houston Christian Brown has taken 10 shots He's made eight

Three and from beyond distance And a 22 to 8 run All away But I remember Everything Yokets for the handoff The Bruce Brown near the logo To his front and left to Yokitch

Back out left side Hardaway Three-pooner up's good Tim Hardaway Jr with his third triple 11 off the bench for him Here's green at mid-court. We're heath to end the ball game. It is up.

It's an airball in the ball game. It's all. Final score tonight here from Denver. All nuggets, especially in the second half. 129. 93. Largest loss of the year for your home team. 36 points.

Previous loss of 25 happened on Sunday in San Diego. Antonio. So two bad losses on the road in a row. Thankfully, the Rockets, the five straight home games starting Friday. What a depressing final call there. You're making fun of Matt, really?

No, I'm not making fun of Matt. No, Matt's, it's like, no, everything he's bringing up. Oh. It is depressing. Oh, we got a ass kicked by Spurs Sunday. And, well, came to Denver and got ran in the second half year. Well, things aren't going so hot in the Western Conference. At least they're still the number three seed.

With the absolute loser that Kevin Duran is, they're the three in the West. Who's their second best player? A regressing Alper in Shingoon? Yeah, unfortunately. And then Thompson who can't shoot? Reed Shepard, who was one for nine from three last night? Who's their second best player?

Who's this great all-time roster that Kevin Duran is submarining and running into the ground if he's the Houston Rockets. Jabari Smith Jr.? I like Jabari. Not an all-star. Alpern-Shingoom was an all-star replacement. Amin Thompson wasn't an all-star. There's one true legitimate all-star in this team.

His name is Kevin Durant and they're third in the West. But he's a loser. And he wiltz. Okay. Give me the news of dude, Jonathan. I'm still upset. I'm sorry. That's okay.

We've got to still touch upon. All right, Rockets lose 129 to 93 last night. I got him. Yeah, if I heard, it went four. I heard. For 33 from three. Is that bad? Ah, just went out to...

Four for 33. I can't believe Kevin Durant, that loser, didn't make the team go better than four for 33 from three. He went 0 for two. Okay, everyone else went four for 31. Kevin Durant, you loser, how'd you let them go four for 31 from three, everybody else? You should have lifted them up. up to victory in that game.

I'm being sarcastic because I understand some people cannot pick that up. It's called an intelligence test. Go ahead, Jonathan. I'm about to warn you. It's okay. No, look, since you were talking about the second best player of team, here's you know, Emey talking about our man's shank. He got some great looks earlier that he missed

and then got more aggressive as it went and we were in the bonus. He was getting downhill instead of kind of settling for that mid-range floater. He really got to the basket and made good passes as well on the double teams. But I think he you understood and you get frustrated at times you miss some shots you should make but

he stayed the state of the course, played high level defense and it got more aggressive as the game went on. Yeah, that was at Toronto game when he was better. It's okay. But I mean, still. I thought that's still implied. I mean... Go ahead. Did you watch the game? Because I turned it off the third quarter. I'm going to be honest here. I, okay, it's one of those things where we have

something on, but you're not really watching it. I was probably more on my phone. I was brushing my teeth because it was late. I'm going to be honest. I've been dealing with like some sinus pressure and stuff like that. Once the rocket's gotten, once that third quarter happened, I popped a pseudofed to go to bed. No, it's okay. I was like, okay, you know, it was funny because I was stressing out about it.

I was like, oh, you know, I don't like to take medicine more. I like to give yourself like an eight-hour buffer so you don't feel groggy in the morning. And I was like, oh, man, I don't want to take the pseudofed. And I was like, all right, just got outscored four. to 22 in the third quarter. Here comes sleeper time. Here comes my pseudo fed. So I had it on in the fourth quarter,

but I was kind of on my phone and winding down for sleep. I was brushing my teeth. And like, I didn't really watch the end of the fourth quarter. I'm going to be completely honest with you, folks. It was like, once I saw, who's that human, Isaiah Crawford. Isaiah Crawford is the human white flag for the rockets. Once I saw Isaiah Crawford and his rec specs,

I was like, I'm good. I'm good. Well, I guess you guys, let's just move it on to the Astros. I mean, there's some good news here. I know we're all worried about the bats and all that stuff. Still 4-1, still getting the groove in. Zach Cole hit a mean home run last night or last afternoon. Ross, I know everybody's worried about it, but I don't know, man.

Gordy's very worried. Gordy is like, but I... He's in panic. He's in full-on panic mode. Can Yorda-Avarez bust out an opening day? Of course he can bust out in opening days. Jordan Alvarez. People in NFL, you don't...

trip about the preseason in the NFL. I mean, this is the No, no, it is. Now, I would say it's a case-by-case basis. Look, if Jack's Biggers isn't hitting for the Astros in spring training, I don't really care about that. Zach Cole has been scuffling

a bit. Cam Smith, at least to start spring training was, but he's been better. Now he's up to an OPS of over a thousand, so that's good. Jake Myers, of course, is only hitting 11. Maybe we can be worried about that. It's case-by-case. Christian Walker's been bad. Okay, we can

worry maybe a little there. I'm not worried about Yordon, not worried about Altuve, Paratus has been good. These guys can turn it around. It's the guys with track records. The guys without track records are the ones I'm watching the most. Loperfito's been decent enough. He's got seven hits in 10 games.

Cam Smith, as I just mentioned, he's hitting 318. He's OPSing over a thousand in spring and Zach Cole just hit that home run even though he had been scuffling there. So it's a case by case basis. I don't care that the macro numbers are bad. I just don't in terms of the hitting.

All right. We'll see in the last couple of weeks. Hopefully you keep that same energy. Yes. Positiveity. You know what? In life, there are many cases you can choose to be positive or negative. It's all about framing things mentally, Jonathan.

This is my advice to you as a young man. I'm here. I'm listening. You try to make lemonade out of the lemons and just try to see the positive in everything. Just try. It really will improve your life. life. I promise. Go ahead. What else you got? For you guys that don't know

about the WBC, TNSA is still advancing. They're not going to take it out because Italy beat the rocks out of Mexico, okay? Dang. USA! USA! There's some petri-pad in here. What is the, do we know what the

knockout matchup is? For the quarterfinals? Yeah, they're taking Oh, it's a border war. Exactly. Uh-oh. America's hat. 7 o'clock on Fox Friday. baby. Got to keep an eye on that. Keep up with that.

I mean, you say right there, that's the new... Do some big matchups. Korea versus Dominican Republic's been crushing. Venezuela, Japan, Puerto Rico versus the underdogs, Italy.

Okay, yeah, this elite eight is looking pretty good. All right, I'm going to be honest. I don't know why, for whatever reason, I didn't really get into the WBC last time. But I'm enjoying it. Maybe it's because the games are somewhere

here in Houston, but it's been fun, and it's, USA? This episode is brought to you by Spreaker. The platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives, and saying things like, sorry, I can't talk right now, I'm editing audio. If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes

it everywhere people listen. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, In about a dozen apps, your cousin swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show today at spreeker.com. Spreaker, because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it. All the way, baby.

I'm ready for that. All right, is that all you got, Jonathan? That's news at noon. Thank you. That is the news at noon. Okay, those are you on hold. I promise, promise, I will get to both of you. in the next segment. You know why I promise? Because I'm hosting solo this hour. So you want to co-host for a couple of minutes. Stay on hold. I will get to you. We got Adam Wexer coming up at 1 o'clock. Anything you guys want to get to. Phone lines are wide open and available. 713-212-790 is the phone number if you'd like to get in. 7-13-2-790.

All right. Rolling along here on Sports Talk 790. Rosvier, we out with you. Phone lines open at 7-1-3-212-5. 790. I was just going to you, Adam, but that's okay. He had to go. I understand. You got real lives. It is the middle of the day. 713-212-5-790 if you want to get in 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. So, yeah, the Rockets, it was a disappointing game last night. There's no two ways about it. You can't go up there to Denver. You're down sixth to half. Then you just get completely handled in the third quarter. You get outscored 40 to 22. And by the four, quarter. Like I said, that was no disrespect to Isaiah Crawford. I like his game actually and some of the energy that he

shows on the floor, but if he's out there, that generally means the rockets are down big and looking for some kind of random spark or they're up big and the game is over. So unfortunately by that point after that third quarter where they just

got waxed and couldn't knock a three down. They went 0 for 8 from three in that third quarter. You're not going to beat anybody going 12% from three. And maybe if we're looking for some sort of silver lining and some solace in this bad loss to the San Antonio Spurs and to the Denver Nuggets, it's that both the Nuggets and Spurs shot over 50% from three. They're not going to do that every single game. And the rocket shot 29% and then 12%. So on average, they're going to be better than that. So maybe that gives us a little bit of hope. But neither

the games are close. You lost by 25 to the Spurs. I think they got down 30 at some point in that game. You got down by 39 to the Denver Nuggets in an NBA game. 39. So if you're looking for silver linings, you can use the three-point thing and second half of a back-to-back in altitude. But I'm looking at the basketball on the floor, and it just wasn't good enough. And as I said earlier in the show, like earlier in the season, when it was the December games and the lulls that they were going to, it's like, hey, you know what? they've, it was a, what was it, like,

26 out of 39 games on the road or something crazy like that. And more games on the road in this, this point of the season. And NBA history, they're road weary. They're going to be fine. They're going to get home and stabilize. And they did. And oh, the, here comes the, the All-Star break. They're tired.

Old man, Kevin Durant's been playing too much. And Reed Shepard's played more minutes than he ever has in his career by double. they need to stabilize after the all-star break. And they did to some extent. But now I don't know. I don't have excuses for you. I just have watching the Rockets get smoked for a couple of games. And I'm not feeling great about it.

But the good news is they're coming home for a big five-game homestand. And they are still the three-seed in the Western Conference. 7-13-212-5790 is the phone number if you want to get in. 7-13-212-5-790. I don't think we normally take 40-9ers phone calls, but Darrell, you want to talk some Niners? You know you call the station in Houston, Texas, correct? Yeah, I know. Good morning or good afternoon, gentlemen.

I know. I've been here in Houston a long time, but I originated from L.A., so I've been here a long time. But I've been a NINS fan since the 80s, so. But I'm an Astros fan. I mean, that's good, right? Yes, that is good. It's been a frustrating time to be a Niners fan. I would say, like, I mean, it's been good, it's been good but not great.

Yeah, too many injuries, man. You just can't survive with your lead guys out constantly like that. You know, we're getting healed up, though. We're going to have a lot of guys back. You know, Warner should be back pretty soon. I know that Kittle won't be back for, gosh, I don't even know if he'll be back this whole year. George Brittle. We're getting guys back, you know, but I wanted to talk about OSA.

Man, we just got this defensive tackle OSA. what is his last name? Some crazy Odeizua? Oga de Guzua, yeah. Let's go with that. What do you think? I think seems like a beast. What do you all think? Yeah, cost a third round pick from the Dallas Cowboys. I'm going to be honest, I haven't been watching a lot of Osa-Oazua tape, but the pressure rate was high. He had three and a half sacks.

John Lynch talked about wanting to improve the pass rush. Because Nick Bosa is going to be back next year, right? Yes. Okay. So, yeah, you had Nick Bo, man, it was a lot of injuries. Nick Bosa was out. George Kittle got hurt a lot. You missed Trent Williams for some of the time.

Christian McCaffrey's getting longer in the tooth. That's something to keep an eye on. But I digress on that. But, yeah, the pass rush should be better. Apparently, Oda Zua is a pretty good pass rusher. And Nick Boas is going to be back. So maybe that 49ers, and Fred Warner was out for the season last year, too. Yeah, it was a lot of injuries.

Poor Niners. Yeah, we were down to our seventh linebacker. Wow. This is crazy. Yeah, we were like pulling people off the streets almost. Yeah, I don't know, but I mean, I'm high on a bounceback for the 49ers because I love Kyle Cannonhanan. I really believe in him as a head coach. I think eventually he will win a Super Bowl.

Mike Evans is there now. We'll see what happens with George Kittle. They had so much uncertainty with the wide receivers, so maybe that's going to be stabilized. I think the 49ers are definitely a team to watch in the NFC. And that's your Niners talk today, Daryl, on the show. I appreciate you. Yeah. Awesome.

Thank you very much, sir. Have a great day. All right. Let's see. Do you want to talk about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers tight ends? 713-212-5-790. We just talked about the 49ers pass rush. So anything you guys want to get to, I don't know.

How about the New York Giants running back room? How much will Camp Scadaboo factor in next year? 7-13-212-5-790. Also, the Viking Secondary, we can talk about, 713-212-5-790 or if you want to talk actual Houston sports that'll be good too. Rockets with the disappointing, disheartening loss last night to the Denver Nuggets, but they're coming home for a five-game homestan. Tatsuya Imi was spectacular for the Astros yesterday as he was perfect in three innings.

How are we feeling about that Astro starting rotation? Are you worried about the bats? Chris Cordy is a little bit, or a lot of bit. I am maybe a little bit. We can talk about that as well. And of course, we know the Texans and the moves they made on the offensive line and free agencies. Anything you guys want to get to, 713-212-5-790 is the phone number. 7-13-212-5-7-90.

Going back to I just don't get it. I was checking the news wires as I do during the show. Ross Vue Rial with you, Matt Thomas Show with Ross. We've got Adam Wuxer coming up at 1 o'clock. We got phone lines open for you. This episode is brought to you by Spreker. platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives,

and saying things like, sorry, I can't talk right now, I'm editing audio. If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes it everywhere people listen. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, in about a dozen apps your cousin's swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show today at spreeker.com. Spreaker, because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it.

713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. Jonathan, do you deal with anything in terms of, I know people do Pokemon cards, trading cards, baseball cards, There's like, I don't even know, like, magic the gathering or whatever. I don't know what kind of cards the kids are playing with these days. Nah, I mean, it's still, it's still Pokemon, but I think that's amazing. Can you explain this to me like I'm five? Is this just like a trading card thing?

Like people open up these Pokemon cards and then sometimes they get ones that are worth like hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more? Yeah, so it's like more for the rarity of the card and like the original edition. Like I know like a famous people like Eminem have bought. a card for like 500,000, like framed it. It's like a collector's thing because it's only like one of a one of one or like one of three or whatever. Like you know how some type of watches have like, oh, it's only been made.

Yeah. One out of three times. It's like that, but for cards and people take this very, very seriously. They do take it. That's crazy kind of you can manufacture a thing. And I guess I just, I mean, I get it to an extent when it comes to like, because I used to collect baseball cards and basketball cards when I was young. but an Aaron Judge card,

a 2013 Aaron Judge Bowman Chrome Draft Super Fractor, one of one, just sold for $5.2 million. Yeah. And what I'm saying is like trading cards is fun. I guess I get that. But if let's say I'm a billionaire,

I'm going to win the Powerball tomorrow. And I'm like, man, I got hundreds of millions of dollars. I can spend this on charity. I can get vacations in, I don't know, Fiji and the Bahamas and I can buy my own private island. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to buy this little piece of cardboard signed by Aaron Judge for $5.2 million. But you got to think about it also too.

It's like another form of a different type of hobby that makes you money. So like instead of going knitting and like, you know, playing chess something, oh, let me collect cards. Oh snap, I get lucky. I collect some more. I make a profit. Yeah, but he's going, you're going to auction. first of all, I don't know, $5.2 million you pay. And then whenever you have to sell it again, you probably have to pay taxes on that.

Right, right, yeah. I don't know, man. That's just kind of wild to me. I mean, I get it, but I don't. It's just not something that I can conceive doing. If I had infinite amounts of money, I don't know that I would just spend money on a bunch of cards. But that's anything. I know, you're right.

There's other stuff that people spend a bunch of money. People spend money on like $500,000, oh, Richard Mille, watches or whatever. Well, change your perspective. Like people like us, imagine you go to the Kroger, the Wager over there, and if you pull out this a limited edition Chrome card, hold a snap. I made $400,000, whatever. Yeah, I would like that. I would like to sell the card.

See, exactly. I would like to sell the card. I don't know that way. You purchased the card. So you're banking on those rich people that are bored to just like kind of fuel that in that community. You know what? Thank you, bored, rich people. You guys are great.

$5.2 million for an errand judge. card. The previous that's the most ever paid for a modern day baseball card. It's a million point two more than a Mike Trout card that was basically the same kind of card, a one of one. And in 2009, oh, it's a 2009 card in the record that was sold for $3.9 million. All right, well. Well, so flip it real quick. Hold on. People, I'm not spending $5 million on a card. No, not a card, but like people, let's flip it for sports. Like people get a football signed by Lamar Jackson. Yes.

Wouldn't you say the same thing? I'm not going to spend as much for somebody that just signed a football or does it? Yeah, but that's like, hold on. Let me go to eBay. I'm going to Lamar Jackson signed football. Yeah.

Like if I love, look, if you love Aaron Judge and you think Aaron Judge is the greatest thing of all time, you know, let me go, ooh, do a Lamar Jackson rookie card on here. At 30 bucks. Yeah, I'll spend 30 bucks

on a Lamar Jackson rookie card. Let's go. But I'm just saying, like, people who like spend, so like my dad, he, he has, uh, Patrick Mahomes, Texas Tech helmet signed by him. Like in case. So, but like he's,

He spent a whole lot of money on that? No, no, no. I don't want to get in your pop's business. No, no, it was in a raffle. So, but like, he's saving it. So like, I'm telling him like, dude, go sell it. And that's your inheritance. You better save up.

But you get, that's the same point with these fucking cards. Like, who's spending all that money for a signed helmet? You know what I mean? Right. You can rationalize. Things only have value because we put value on them. And starting with like a brick of gold. Like a brick of gold isn't going to feed your kids.

But a brick of gold. Gold has value because we put value on it and stuff like that. So I understand to an extent. But when you get into the $5 million for a card, like I said, I could be worth, you could wave a magic wand and give me Jeff Bezos money. Okay, you know what? If I had $200 billion, maybe I'd do it. Just as an asset investment.

But okay, up to it including $1 billion, I'm not spending $5 million on a trading card, no matter how good of an asset is that. I would spend $500 million on gold bullion. It's been $5 million on investing in stocks or something like that. That's just, I don't know. It's kind of wild to me. All right. Anyways, 713-212-5-790 is the phone number if you want to get in.

7-13-212-5-7-90. I meant to talk about the rockets coming into this segment, and I'm going to do that now. All right. Lost last night to the Denver Nuggets, 129 to 93. I mean, those are the facts, right? That's where we stand. That's the past. The question is, what does the future hold?

for the 25-26 Houston Rockets. It feels like a disaster. Feels like they've been getting just beat up by the spurs and the nuggets. And it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. They've lost three of their last five games. The Warriors' loss was just massively disappointing because that wasn't even a good team. You lost to them in overtime. And they were down Jimmy Butler, down Seth and Steph Curry.

And it didn't feel great. Then they bounced back with the win against the Blazers. But if you watch that game, It wasn't like they were lighting the world on fire. They won by seven points, got out on the road of the spurs, got destroyed by them, came home, Raptors win was good. They locked up in the fourth quarter.

They locked in in that four quarter. I think they outscored the Raptors like 27 to 16 in the four quarter of that game. That was a nice win against a good Raptors team that has some good players and they're like the fifth seat in the east. And you go on a back-to-back and you get smoked by the Denver Nuggets last night, outscored 40 to 22 in the third quarter. And now we just, and we have to have to have the aftermath. We've collected the data and we have to say, what is our prediction?

What's going to happen now? You're 10 and a half games behind the Thunder. You're seven and a half games behind the Spurs. You're not catching either of those. We're 65 games into the season. You're tied right now with the Lakers and who are your third, they're fourth. You have two big matchups with them coming up. And then the Nuggets and the Timberwolves are at five and six.

And they are a half game behind you. There is a half game separating third and sixth right now in the Western Conference. Big five game homestand coming up. Can they get fat and happy? Pelicans, you're favored. Lakers, going to be two tough games. You're going to be close favored in those. You would like to get at least a split and then beat Atlanta and then Miami,

the Miami Heat are playing very well. They've got to do dropping 83 points. Okay, he's probably not going to do that against you. They're 37 and 29. They're around where the raptors are. So that's still a winnable game, especially at home. But you've been having all these back-to-backs and this run of the schedule to where you get these five games at home now, Friday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then Saturday for a back-to-back. So the back-to-back at the tail end of it, but you get days off in between.

You will be home. Then a big four-game road trip. And then they are going to close the season three games at home as well. I would love to see them finishing the third seed first round series is going to be tough no matter who it is I mean unless somehow the sun sneak up I think that's more winnable for the rockets Clippers are honestly a little bit scary

I think the rockets are better than them but Kauai Leonard has just been torching folks including the rockets right before they went to the All-Star break there's no easy out in the West it's just tough but I think the tier is in the West thunder in their own tier

Spurs, a little bit behind them, and then the third tier contains the Rockets, Lakers, Nuggets, and Timberwolves any way that you want to shuffle those around. So we'll see how it plays out in the West. 65 games in, 17 remain for the Rockets. Where are they going to end up? I hope in that three spot, especially so they can get home court. They need it in that first round,

and you want to avoid the Oklahoma City Thunder for as long as you can, even if that means the Spurs, who aren't that much worse. If not better, if you go terms of head, to head. All right, 713, 212-5-790 is the phone number if you want to get in here on Sports Talk 790 and the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 7-13-212-5-7-90.

You can also send tweets at SportsRV. You can follow me on Instagram at SportsRV as well. I would appreciate it. Quick break here. We got Adam Wexler joining at 1 o'clock, and I want to hear from you guys at 7-13-212-5-790. Welcome back to the Matt Thomas show with Ross. without Matt Thomas. He is out traveling late night.

I mean, how about that? Not only do you have to try to come back in the middle of the night from Denver, which actually, okay, they get five-star accommodations. They take a nice coach to the airport, and then they get on a private plane and come home, so it's not that bad. Plus, the flight's probably short. You're coming west to east, catching the jet stream.

Maybe things are all right there. But you also, 129 to 90, That's two unhappy flights for the Rockets. Coming back from San Antonio on Sunday. And then last night, the 129 to 93 lost to the Denver Nuggets. So Matt Thomas out today. He will be back tomorrow, as we'll have a full four-hour show for you there. Adam Wexler is going to join us at 1 o'clock.

You guys can get in if you'd like at 713-212-5-790. So I was talking earlier with the Chris Gordy was on, and we're talking a little bit of college basketball. He was talking about Auburn. I think Joe Lenardi has as a last four in. My Texas Longhorns have to be firmly on the bubble. Lannardi has them in and not in Dayton in a first four. This episode is brought to you by Spreaker.

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But they have lost their last three games in the SEC. But now an interesting story. We've been talking about this, and I kind of assumed that Miami of Ohio was just going to go undefeated because they're in a terrible conference and lose. You said you were watching the game a little bit, Jonathan. Apparently Miami of Ohio, they lost to a bad UMass team, okay, or not very good UMass team yesterday.

in the Mac tournament, and now their tournament hopes hang in the balance. Their non-conference game was horrible. Their schedules, I should say. And then they played in a weak league. But 31-0 is 31-0? Even if you lose to UMass, I guess we have to argue that they're probably going to deserve to still get into the NCAA tournament. How could you leave a 31-1 team out of the tournament?

But we know how NCAA those. They don't care about any conference that's not powerful. I know this from experience. What conference are the Hilltoppers in? Hilltoppers were a conference USA. I think they might still be. Okay. And then SFA was whack.

Now they're back to Southland. Back to Southland. Okay. Thank you for keeping an eye on all of this. Okay. So at 31 and one, I don't think you can keep. And I know it's just, look, I'm going to be honest. I haven't been breaking down a whole lot of Miami of Ohio tape.

But it just doesn't seem like, even if maybe they aren't the best team in the world, that you cannot allow a team that is 31. and one out of the tournament. They lost 87 to 83 to UMass. UMass is 7 and 11 in the Mac. 17 and 15 on the season. And Miami, Ohio doesn't have a quality win basically all season long.

That is part of the problem. And they have a lot of close wins. Like they barely beat Toledo. I'm just pulling up their schedule. Like Western Michigan, they had a ton of close calls. You know what? Maybe you just let them in the tournament

for the fun of it and watch him get beat up by a real team. Maybe that's what you do. I mean... So I like Kim Palm. Do you know Ken Palmeroy in the Ken Palm website? No, no, no. He does like a...

It's like an analytics website. They do adjusted net rating, so they base things off of your opponents. And generally, I found it very helpful when I fill out my brackets and stuff, I like to look at Kim Palm and just see kind of how he's getting a feel for it. You never know, because anything can happen

in these March Madness games. You have like top five teams who can lose, you've had one seeds lose, two seeds lose, and stuff like that. But right now, they're top six, let's go there, Duke, Michigan, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Houston.

That's like a lot of the best teams in basketball. They have the Texas Longhorns. This is their net adjusted ratings at 39th. That's not great. They have the, now this is adjusted for opponents. Opponent adjusted results. For example, if you beat, you know, Houston by 15,

that's one thing. if you beat, I don't know, North Dakota State by 15, that's another. So in these adjusted ratings where they have Miami of Ohio, 93rd. Yeah, they're not getting in. I'm scrolling down trying to look for them. There's no way. Oh, you pulled it up? Yeah, there's no way.

There's no, I mean, and that's with the loss. Hey, dude, they're behind Stephen F. Austin. Well, is Stephen F. Austin good? I know, I don't know. I like to be honest. Jack's got a squad this year or what? I think so. I just don't know if they're 28 and 5.

I think they're still in the conference time, but I don't know. They're 91st. In yeah, the, I guess it's the south one. Miami of Ohio is rated 93rd. I'm curious now where UMass is. They have, oh, they only have UMass low in here. Do they just have them listed as Massachusetts? Ah, oof.

All right. Don't even look, Jonathan. Guess where they have UMass? I'm going to give you a hint. It's over 100. Well, over 100. 170. 195.

Do you just not let Miami in? Okay, you know what? On the merits of this, I'm an analytics guy. If you go by the ratings, I'm actually, I'm putting my foot down. All right? Sorry, Miami of Ohio. You need to schedule a better non-conference, and you need to win your games if you want to get in there. If Kim Palm has you as the 93rd team in basketball, I'm not going to shed a tear if they don't make it in.

So no disrespect to anyone No disrespect to the Miami of Ohio players And all their great players And I'm sure they're coaches or whatever I don't think they deserve to get in And I'm just going to go off the analytics on this Because like I said, I'm a big Ken Palm guy If they have you as 93rd

Any team that is 93rd in basketball Does not deserve to Or I'm going to say it's not a big snub It's not something you're going to get really angry at And start yelling about I'm sorry Not good enough Schedule a better non-com

Conference. Tough, you know what, Miami of Ohio. I guess we'll see if they make it in. I'm going to imagine they still are, because if you just look at a team that's 31 and 1, how could you argue that they would deserve to be in the tournament? But interesting. And Jack's lost to McNeese in the tournament.

The championship game. McNeice? Well, Will Wade's not over there anymore. What's going on with that many McNeese Cowboys basketball? Come on, dude. You lost to a bunch of guys who were at Daryls earlier in the evening? You know Meek Slander is like warranted

I've been there one time And that is not a pretty place to be I'm sorry Do you guys had a track meet over there Back in high school man It was like a you know You go there for a little indoor track They have on the top of a Janet

Yeah It's bad And they had a pot of gumbo waiting for you At the finish line I imagine yes Yes It was kind of like that And they were running Sack lunch

I like that Okay on that note We are going to take a break here On the Bad Thomas show with Ross. Phone lines are open if you guys want to get in. 713-212-5-7-90. 7-1-3-2-5-7-90. We've been talking a lot about the Rockets and their disappointing loss to the Denver Nuggets. They've got a big five-game homestand coming up. How are we feeling about that? We've been doing some Astros talk. I am feeling really good about the top four in the rotation, at least top three. If you put Mike Burroughs in there, I know it's just a few spring training outings, but it's the Astros and it's pitching. It's going to be good. It's going to be fine. We've got Adam Wexer coming up at the next hour. Anything you guys want to get to.

Phone lines open, as I said, 713, 212, 570. 713, 212, 5, 790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. That is correct. And I am the Ross part of the show. Hi. Matt Thomas part of the show is off today. He will be back tomorrow, traveling late last night,

with the Houston Rockets as they lost the Denver Nuggets. Chris Gordy, joined me for a little bit earlier. Now pleased to be joined by Adam Wexler. Wex, thanks for hanging out. Appreciate you. Always. That's what I like to hear. That's what I like to hear.

Okay, well, as I mentioned, unhappy flight for the Houston Rockets last night, a horrible game. I don't even know. Did you bother watching the fourth quarter of that game? Of course. Pretty late off. Really?

Don't get to see Isaiah Crawford all too often. That's what you were in on? Okay, you were Isaiah Crawford scouting. I had it on, but I wasn't really paying much attention in the fourth quarter. I think in general, once you see Isaiah Crawford, I think things have either gone very well for the Houston Rockets or very poorly. I mean, where are we at right now? You got a big game, five-game homestand.

Things can turn around, but it's not easy to be super optimistic the way that they got smoked in San Antonio, beat a good Raptors team, but then in the second half of that game last night, the Denver Nuggets just ran away from them. Couldn't make any shots, and they did not defend very well. And it was a carbon copy of the Spur's game. This episode is brought to you by Spreaker.

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Four of 33 from three-point range. Right. And those are, we've talked about Russell Westbrook, Janus, and some other disastrous three-point shooters over the years. When they take a three, it's like a turnover. They're not going to make it. And now that the Rockets aren't an awesome offensive rebounding team, it truly is a turnover. And in the case last night, someone would shoot it.

and the other player on the wing would watch, and the player who shot it would watch, and the Nuggets player was just run down court. And when Yokic or Johnson or anybody else grabbed a rebound, they would just throw it down. And you have layups and runouts and two-on-ones and three-on-ones. They just made it far, far too easy for Denver to get easy points. And then on the half-court, Denver's the best offense in the NBA.

They move the basketball very well. That is very similar to the spurs. Teams that move the basketball well against the Rockets right now are killing them. Yeah, it's interesting because as the season has gone along, you know, every game to me, it's almost like you collect data. Not just box score. You got to watch the games, of course. You got to see how things are going. That's not going to tell you everything. But start of the season, I was feeling pretty good about the team. And then as we go along and we collect more data and we see more games and we see Alper and Shingoon continues to regress for whatever reason. I mean, he's been playing a lot better offensively the last several games. But still, I mean, even preseason, we're like, hey, maybe he's.

will develop a jump shot. He was knocking down some threes to start the season. Alpern Shungoon was knocking down some threes to start the season. And you get more and more and further into the season. And you're hoping for leaps from some guys. You've gotten a big leap from Reed Shepard as well, but it's not like he's an all-star player. It's been Kevin Durant. And as I said, like a disappointing Shingoon and a men Thompson who has evolved somewhat in his offensive game working more in the mid-range, but still nobody's stepping up to that elite level that we're hoping 65 games into the season. Yeah, and even those comments are, I think there's like parts of them and caveats to them. Like Reed Shepard's taking a huge jump forward

offensively. I guess he's made an improvement defensively, but he certainly hasn't made a big leap last night, every night. Same thing every night. They attack him. A team has to help him out, ruins their defense. And then when he's out there with Shangoon, it's a total waste of time. You just can't do anything. Total waste of time is a pretty good thing. The defensive numbers with both them on the floor are horrible. And not only that, guess who opponents like to run pick and rolls against? I mean, the two of them. Yes. We got a guy dribbling. We got a big to set the pick and we're good to go. And then similarly, like with a men, like will he develop a jumper? I'd like to amend that to will he develop a three point shot. In my opinion, his jumper's fine. If he's

inside 15 feet, if he's in the painted area, if he's within 10 feet, if he would choose to be more aggressive with his own shot when he drives into the paint, picks up his dribble and turns his back to the basket and looks for one of his four teammates. I wish he would just stop doing that. Right now he's playing the best offense of his season. He needs to be even more aggressive. He needs to take the ball to the basket more. And I think why he's playing his best offense of the season is because he's handling the ball less. Reed Sheppers playing more. So he and Kevin Durand are handling it more. So he's in the dunker spot where he's always belonged and where he almost always will belong. If you got a guy that can get 22 points a game without having a three-point shot on 14 to 16 attempts a night, that's a plus-level offensive player. He is a plus-level offensive player who cannot make a three consistently. That's totally fine. These things aren't holding them back. I thought one thing that Eme said last night was probably true.

And usually it's, even when it's a big negative about his players when he does that at the podium quite a bit, I do think the team got down on themselves in the game. I do think all the missed shots. it did affect them on both ends. The effort and intensity that they had to stay in the game in the first half, while missing shots, it just was completely gone on the second half. They didn't play any different, or their shots weren't any different

in the first half to the second half, the three-pointers were talking about, but their performance clearly was. I mean, it was a wide-open shot after wide-open shot for the nuggets, and this really had no answers. These are two good teams that have handed them to of their worst losses of the season in a span of a week that are right there with them in Denver's case or well ahead of them

in San Antonio's case in the standings. The standings are one thing. The Rockets, as we sit here today, you woke up today, where were they? Third of the West. That's great. Do you believe they're the third best team in the West? Would you give them the third best chance to win the West?

At the moment, I would say, they're third-ish. They're in the pack. Thunder in their own tier, spurs right behind them, and then there's the glob, or the blob, whatever you want to call it. It's the three through six.

I would put the Rockets maybe second or third in that much depending. And it sounds like to me, you agree with me. They're saving grace for being in that group and for you not to immediately say, no, they're not going to win, is because each of the other teams are also going through periods of we're not sure exactly what we can do. I think Denver is about to pop out of it. I think Denver's going to finish third. I think what Johnson did. Well, they're still awaiting the return of Peyton Watson, which will happen.

They've just gotten back, Aaron Gordon. I think if Cam Johnson is who he was last night and he actually talked about it after the game, he just played like Jabari Smith Jr.'s been playing recently. Oh, I have the ball and I'm open. Well, then I'm supposed to shoot it. I need to play aggressively. Even though I'm playing with team guys are going to score 20 plus, they need me. And I think it's taken them a long time to get it figured out.

So not real happy about that. Minnesota's performances recently suggest they are the Rockets. They're still struggling to figure out exactly what they're going to be. and they have guys that disappear on certain nights. I kind of think Julius Randall is there, Alperin, Shengoon. Some nights you're like, yeah, 28, 14, this is great. Other nights, he goes six for 17, and you're like, who is this guy? So probably because of the other teams that are with them, you're right on any given night,

maybe four times out of seven you can beat them. But this deep end of the season, I guarantee you everybody inside the Rockets facility, locker room organization, wants them to be playing a whole lot better than they're playing now. They're playing like it's the first 10, 15 games of the season. Yeah, that's just where I am right. It's like it's hard to inspire confidence. And with, of course, there's the always the underlying asterisk or whatever you want to call it. Like Fred Van Vleet.

We're going into the band out of bio conversation? No, not that. No, he doesn't deserve an asterisk. Read the history book. There's no asterisk on the 2017 championship. There's no asterisk on the 83. It's in the history books, folks. It's written down.

No. with Fred Van Vlead and Stephen Adams, like if they had them, I'd feel maybe a little bit better. But I think a big part of this too is that like going into the season, I'm feeling like, okay, you're chasing the thunder. And this team is built for the playoffs. They're a slow pace. They're 29th in pace in basketball.

They generally, maybe not as much recently, play pretty good half-court defense. So if you're making your shots, if you're making your threes and you're slowing things down, and you can get back on defense for the most, part, the Rockets can still be a very good half-court defensive team. And that's playoff basketball, where they can be physical without fouling. In general, although there has been a lot, I don't know what the numbers are exactly.

I think it's a little bit of a cliche that there's not as many fouls called in the NBA during the playoffs and it has been in years past. But still, it suits the physical, slow it down Houston Rockets team. But that was like in the preseason, I'm thinking, okay, maybe they get in a knockdown, drag out seven game series with the Oklahoma City Thunder. But oh, by the way, the San Antonio Spurs have left you now. And that's a problem. Yeah, it's just to who they are.

And three straight drafts of success. They got back-to-back rookies of the year. Dylan Harper is an outstanding player. The other players that are with them now fill their proper roles. Do you want to trash Wemby so you feel more at home? No, I like this style of discussing a player for, you know, for who he's been and what he's done. I mean, you don't have to go Tim McMahon. and say, I like Wemby's 39-point performance more than BAMs 83.

You don't have to do that. That's stupid. But anyways. They just, the things that they do well, and I hate it that it's true, and I'm not sure what they could have done about it. Last year they had an identity or two. Their identity was a physical bully basketball team. You're not going to push us around, and that's how we play.

That's our intensity level. That's what we do. That's who we are. And similarly, a second identity was, you're not out rebounding us. We're the best rebounding team in the end. NBA, we're the best offensive rebounding team in the NBA. And both of those things are gone. And that's what is, I think, the biggest problem on this team.

Playing the type of basketball they want to play is not something they're capable of doing right now because the three most important players to both of those two things combined were Dylan Brooks, Fred Van Vleet, and Stephen Adams. You clearly, I think, could have accomplished those things if one of them is not here. And you knew one of them wouldn't be Dylan Brooks. You didn't know the other two weren't also not going to be a part of what you're building around Kevin Durant, which you'd already built before he had arrived. They don't push teams around. They don't out-rebound these teams at all.

They're an average rebounding team now since the absence of Stephen Adams. And defensively, since the post-all-star break, their defensive rating is 15th in the NBA. They were in the top six most of the year while Stephen Adams was healthy, even without Fred, even without Dylan. but that has gotten significantly worse and it's it's easy to see numbers like that it's only been a handful of games since the all-star break 12 of them when you have a game where he gave up 145 and you have had multiple games where the other team is shooting 50% on all of their shots from the field behind or in front of the three-point line it's just not who they intended to be and they're trying to figure out a way to turn into something else and i think that's why reed shepherd's playing as much as he is even the last two games where he can't can't buy a basket. They know they have to score more. And he is an offensive player. So he's playing more. And unfortunately, they're defending worse. All right. We're going to take a break so I can go cry. Thanks a lot. Thanks for coming in. Right. Yeah, you can leave now. Actually, okay, maybe you don't have to do that. Please stay. All right. They got New Orleans, a couple with the

Lakers, five straight at the Taurus Center. Yes. And Reed Shepard's going to start eating threes again. And Kevin Durant's going to be good. And Alperin Shingoon is going to bully some people around. and we're going to Washington, D.C. to take back to White House. This episode is brought to you by Spreaker, the platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives,

and saying things like, sorry, I can't talk right now, I'm editing audio. If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes it everywhere people listen. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and about a dozen apps your cousin swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads,

meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show today at spreeker.com. Sprinker, because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it. All right, we're going to take a break here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. I'm going to be more optimistic about. the Rockets when we come back or maybe not. I don't know. We can get to Astros and some other stuff. Also, phone lines open for you folks

if you want to get in. 713-212-5-790 is the phone number. 7-13-212-5-790. The Matt Thomas show with Ross. Without Matt Thomas with Adam Wexler continues until 2 o'clock here on Sports Talk 7-90. All right, we'll spare you the Longhorn basketball talk we had during the break here between myself

and Adam Wexler. They're going to get in the tournament. They're going to not probably do much, okay? Okay, like I said, I was going to spare you. All right. Back here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross here, all out of sports talk, 790. Phone lines open at 7-1-2-5-790 if you want to get in.

7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. The thing is, like, if we, the poor play lately of the Rockets, it's been disappointing. And it's been concerning. and I'm going to continue to be concerned. But as I said, I'm going to try to be positive about them a little bit in this segment. You have the five-game homestand. You can get fat and happy off the Pelicans.

Okay, Miami, as long as Bamadabai is not dropping 83, that's a winnable game. Atlanta's not trying to win. You split the games with the Lakers. At the very least, go three and two in this homestand. Four and one is very doable. Five and O is probably not going to happen the way that they've been playing lately. I'm aware of that. But you're at home.

It's not a back-to-back-to-back. until the end of the homestand. When you look at the players, like they have in this team, like if I'd have dropped you out of a coma from last year, it's still, like, Kevin Durant, it's good. Barrett's a good player. Tari Easton, unfortunately, has been regressing from three, but in theory, pretty good player.

And then Shinggoon and Thompson. And then Reed scoring off the bench. They should be better than this, I think. I know what you're trying to do, but you brought me in here. So the Rockets last 10 games. Oh, no. They're six and four. Oh, God.

They got four teams coming out of here. They got four teams coming in. on this home stand. The Lakers twice and the other three. I'm just going to bury my head in my hands. The Lakers are six and four in their last ten just like Houston. Okay, that's good. But the Pelicans are seven and three. The heat are eight and two. The

Hawks are eight and two. Oh my God. All these teams are playing some of their best. They're not. And I think the pelicans are clearly going nowhere, but they're healthy. And Dejante Murray and Trey Murphy and Zion Williams. They're just flat out playing they're playing their best basketball

of the season. Four and one. Okay. I'm down. That's my hope. That's my hope. I mean, I just had so many,

just so many high hopes. Well, why did the Rockets clobber the Lakers on Christmas Day and why can't that happen again? Stephen Adams was healthy? That's one thing.

Okay, they can do it again. You know what? Yes. I'm buying it. They can do it at least one of those times. Luca and Austin, we don't even know if LeBron's showing up at Toyota Center for those games. He might. He obviously has been... LeBron jerseys are showing up for those games.

They'll be seen, unfortunately, late-night tips for both of those. But at some point, the locker room's also got to realize where they're at. You know, there were 18 games, now 17 games left in the season, and it's less about, we need to finish third, we've got to finish fourth, we've got to have home... And more about, we've got to play better basketball. We've got to be playing the type of basketball that suggests four, five, exceed, it doesn't matter. We can actually win because we've figured a few things out. We've got

a little bit more rhythm. We're putting guys in better spots on the court to do things. And, you know, I know Jabari was in foul trouble last night, but the last two games, if he continues to play like that, he's the guy that's probably going to have the best opportunities to score. Opposing teams' defenses do not keep him off the board. They're not focusing on that. They're focusing on the other three guys, and we'll get to Tari, I guess, in a minute. Because this is, you know, above all these other things, when, you know, people want to fire him. Is he healthy?

He looks healthy to me because every other part of his game is fine. He was rebounding like crazy last night. He was out jumping people, tipping baskets in, the same stuff he's always been doing. I'm not a shot doctor. And I haven't studied it like I would if I wasn't also working and had another job here. But his shot doesn't look correct anymore. If what he was doing at the beginning of the season from a shooting technique and how it's leaving his hand and the lift on his shot,

it doesn't look the same. What he was doing at the beginning of the year, obviously it was working. He was hitting it a 50% clip. Imagine this, he's still shooting 40% on the season, and he's just spent the last 13 games shooting under 20% as a starter. So the volume is there, and he just cannot put, it's not EMA's fault. Tar needs to play.

Tari's helping this team in every other area. But he's also open for threes. They're running the offense, the way it gets guys open threes. Do you think they took open threes last night? It seemed like it. They didn't make them, though. I personally guarantee you they're going to shoot better than 12% from 3 over this homestan. Go back to Jabari real quick.

He's an interesting case to me because the offensive game, it's not like he's got, as the kids say, a deep bag. But that pull-up mid-range shot, I just pulled up his shot chart from the season. And I actually did this earlier this year. It's that little blob around the free throw line where he can pull up, he can rise up, and he knocks that down with regularity. he's shooting 55.7% from that area. Like that would be, that's like, okay, maybe not for a big man, but decent enough paint numbers that that would be. So that shot for him, if he can just more consistently be a three-point threat,

and then that little shot, I would just call it like his pet pull-up middy that he has, he's been knocking that down in a very high clip the last, I don't know, 10 to 15 games. You have to find more players than just Kevin Durant who can give you more consistent offense. I'm not saying he's got to score 20 points a game. He's got to score his 16 to 17 in an efficient fashion. And maybe that does open some things up. Maybe it creates more of a threat to, well, we got to get out to the elbow. We got to get him out to 16, 17 feet.

Well, now there's less congestion in the paint. And since we're, you know, equal opportunity wet blankets today, Alper and Schengun might consider not posting up and asking for the ball when the basket's 22 feet away. And if he does, they got to stop passing it to him. You got a five second violation. I'm five second violation last night. I was like, what? He's, if you can't get position, well, then reposition and then go somewhere else and move back.

Don't let the guy just push you out to beyond the three point line for an awkward bad angle bounce pass with, you know, nowhere to go even if you get the basketball. It's not a post-up position. That's not helpful to the offense. And I think his personal offense is showing that. He's not playing well right now. He's not playing well right now. It's just too many rockets. And as I said, I want to be optimistic.

You know what? Yeah, I'm going to be optimistic. They can turn it around. They are some winnable games. They're going to be favored in all, I would say, in all five of these games coming up, at least by the Vegas odds. But Vegas odds don't mean everything.

That doesn't mean they're going to win every single game. But show me something. That's what I'm asking for. Show me something. Because as I said, we're gathering more data. The data right now is bad. And you keep pointing out a number since Stephen Adams has gone down, Offense has gotten worse, rebounds gotten worse,

defense is gotten worse. But he was a guy off the bench. The guys who are on this team can play better. That's what I'm hoping for. And that's as simple as it gets. I guarantee you that message has been shared. And I'm looking at you guys, and you guys are the ones that need to look in the mirror.

There's only something that coach can put you in better positions. I absolutely believe they could be running a more effective offense if they were doing things a little differently. And you see that every night with their opponents doing that, and they don't. But who they are and what they have, there's more to be done with who they are. And it's on them.

It's on them to go out there and have the ability to, we don't expect perfection on the shots. Okay, well, be in position to either rebound those misses or prevent the other team from turning around and getting an easy basket or get more of your own. All these runouts for Denver and San Antonio, well, where are the Rockets runouts? They've got to defend better.

You can't let teams, you're always taking the ball over the basket. Complenary basketball, as Bill O'Brien would say. That's what they need to do. A play caller at BC? Yes. All right, we're going to take... He just took over play calling duties. Oh, he did?

He did. I thought he already had them. No, no, uh. Okay. He was just the head coach. Just the head man in N.I.L. Bringing guys in and putting the roster together. You know, like the personnel guy and the head coach, because he has experienced...

Does Doug Flutie have a grandson who's ready to come through and matriculate through BC? Doesn't, wouldn't his sons have sons by now? I don't know. That's what I'm asking, grandson. All right. All right, we're going to take quick break here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. We're going to... And that's enough Rockets therapy for now.

We're going to go into baseball mode when we come back. Conversation with Brian McTaggart. Tatuya I Mai was great in his start. Yesterday, Astros in Action, 450 start here on Sports Talk 790. So we'll go into baseball mode coming up next here on Sports Talk 790. Computers froze for a second. It's all good. Yes, we're on the air.

Matt Thomas Show with Ross here on Sports Talk 790. Matt Thomas will be back. He was out late traveling with the Denver Nuggets. I believe he had to show for a couple of the players home. Okay, I just made that up. He'll be back tomorrow here on the show. And it'll be a great one. Friday edition, always great here on Sports Talk 790.

In the meantime, been hanging out with Chris Gordy and Adam Wexer. Also hanging out with Brian McTaggart. He is going to be our weekly guests throughout the season. Been having him for the last couple of years. Always great stuff with Brian McTaggart covering the squad for Astros.com. So here is that conversation covering a wide-rinketzer. of Astros topics, starting off with that dominant Tatuya Emi start yesterday. Yeah, he looked really good.

I mean, face nine hitters and what he struck out four, I believe. Yeah, I mean, he's looked better than I probably had anticipated. And I know the Astros were sort of, you know, trying to get a feel for him and his routine and, you know, all that stuff. But, you know, I think they got to be very happy. It's going to be really fun to watch here as he gets started. stretched out the last couple of weeks of spring. He gets up to five and six innings to see what he's capable of doing.

But he's got a lot of weapons. You know, got the reverse slider, which, you know, drew raves early in camp. And it certainly looks like they, you know,

might have really done a really nice job getting this guy and getting him in the rotation because it looks like he's going to be a big, big part of that rotation this year. Yeah. And same thing with Mike Burroughs. Just your thoughts on what we've seen from him. And then the follow up to that. if you had your crystal ball out just at this moment how the rotation would slot starting opening day.

Yeah, Burroughs has been great too. I mean, he's looked better than I thought he would as well. I mean, he works at a really good pace. He throws strikes. And I think he's going to be fun to watch because the defense has to be on their toes. I mean, he kind of reminds me of Oswald, you know, back in the day at the pace that he works at. So, yeah, I mean, I think they're close probably to setting the rotation. We all know Hunter Brown is going to go.

game one. I still don't know if they're going to go with a four or five, I mean a five or six man rotation. I know they will do six for a lot of April, but I think for the first week or so they might be able, they won't need a six starter for a while. So this episode is brought to you by Spreaker, the platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives and saying things like, sorry, I can't talk right now. I'm editing audio. If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple.

You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes it everywhere people listen. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and about a dozen apps your cousin swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show today at spreeker.com. Sprinker, because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it. I mean, I guess it will probably be Emi in the second game, McCullors, game three or Burroughs. I'm just sort of guessing here, but I guess a better way to put it is there's four guys that are locks in the rotation right now, and that's Emae, Burroughs, Brown, and McCullors and Javier.

So I think those five guys are locks in the rotation. I think Erigetti, even though he pitched really well yesterday, is probably not guaranteed a rotation spot yet. And, you know, if they go to six-man, he's probably the six-man. But they have to feel really good about their starting pitching depth at this point. Yeah, it's crazy, Brian. And I know everything we say here is with the caveat of it's only spring training. But, I mean, I don't remember a spring where you've had this many good arms just putting up goose eggs. And, you know, am I with the goose eggs yesterday?

but Aragetti, yeah, he gives up the home run yesterday, but six strikeouts over three innings. I mean, you know, even Jason Alexander, he had one bad outing, but then a really strong one, and then they already sent them to the minor leagues like, all, you're going to be one of the best arms in Sugar Land. So it's crazy how this competition is shaping up. And, you know, I think we all thought, okay,

you know, we're going to be optimistic about this pitching staff, but I mean, I've been wowed, but what they've done so far this spring. Yeah, that was her goal in the offseason was to go out and add pitching depth. then they added six or seven arms and the fact that they were able to send Jason Alexander to minor league camp three weeks before open a day despite him pitching really well

in a couple of games in the spring I mean that's what they wanted they wanted that quality of starter at AAA that they can bring up and the same with Colton Gordon another guy who pitched pretty well he was among the first cuts of camp so he's going to be in a AAA rotation

so there's two guys right there you feel good about that they can call upon But yeah, they really did a nice job adding even some of the guys that we don't talk about, but a non-raster guy like Peter Lambert has really put himself in position to make the team as a long reliever. You know, they added Tang who is going to get the start on Friday, and he's in position as well to give them multiple innings out of the bullpen. So they've got a lot of arms, a lot of quality arms. And the important thing is they have a couple of guys in the bullpen who can pitch two or three innings.

They're also optional. guys they can move back and forth between the minor leagues all year without any problem Brian McTaggart MLB.mastroes.com with us here on a sports talk 790. Let's go to the position player's side with the outfield. Now three weeks into games, we had a lot of questions about how things would possibly slot coming into spring. And I just don't know how does it look to you, Brian, because it doesn't seem like a lot of those questions are really getting answered.

Yeah, I mean, you know, the outfield is still still a mix of guys. And I think that's probably the area on the club that's probably the biggest unknowns. I mean, there's still a chance Jake Myers could get traded. And that's why Joe Espada hasn't yet saying, hey, Jake Myers is my starting center fielder because he might not be. And then beyond the end, you know, you got the young guys. You got Loporffito. You got Cam Smith.

You got Zach Cole. All three of those guys can play all three positions. And then Taylor Tremel has had a really nice spring as well, swinging the back. running the basis so he's put himself in the mix and I think if they broke camp today Tremel probably makes the team so you know the injury to Pena probably opens a roster spot maybe for Bryce Matthews he can play some second and some outfield but yeah I mean I think the outfield is just we're going to take this down to the wire and you know you got to remember they still could make another trade if they trade buyers you know they would still would like

to trade Paredes and if they do they'll get a left-handed bat which is going to be an outfielder So this roster can still look different here in a couple of days when they get to open a couple of weeks when they get to opening day. How concerned, Brian, should fans be with the overall spring numbers? And I get it's small sample size. You're talking starters playing, you know, half the games, guys who are going to be working at Target in a year coming in later innings. So it's not a full easy samples to look at. But, I mean, dead last in home runs, worse than baseball batting average. 189, slugging 297, OPS at 620.

I mean, it's some ugly offensive numbers. How concern should we be? I don't think very concern or all. I mean, I mean, these guys are down there, the established players are down here working on their swings, tinkering with things. So guys, I know Alvarez has struggled in the spring. I mean, I would not be worried. The guys that, the guys that need to hit a little bit in the spring are the, you know,

the youngsters competing for spots. And we've seen the bats come around a little bit. We know Cole hit a Homer yesterday. Loper Fito swaned a little better. But the position players, Walker, Alvarez, I mean, Jordan Alvarez could go low for 30 in the spring and have four hits on opening day and everything's right. So, yeah, these games are so weird. You're facing pitchers late in the game who are in class A ball.

So, I mean, half the bats are going to guys from minor league camp. So it's not anything to worry about it. I mean, if you want to worry about, you know, maybe some of the younger guys competing for a spot, that aren't hitting, but the overall numbers mean nothing and the star players, if they're not hitting, you don't worry about that. They'll be ready to go, you hope, on opening day. Obligatory in-field question. What's the latest on Jeremy Pena's status and just the logjam we've been talking about for months now? Yeah, status quo. And, you know, it's sort of resolved itself a little bit here for the short term because Pena is going to open the season on the IL. I mean,

they haven't announced that yet, but I mean, you know, it's going to happen. So, so there'll be able to put Paredes a third and Cray it's short for opening day. And Cray has been playing short here the last couple of days in Great Fruit League play. So Pena is, you know, he suffered the injury a week ago. So he's a week away from getting reevaluated, which I guess would mean another X-ray to see where he's at. So, but he's out there on the field doing all the drills. I mean, he's out there with the short stops fielding the ball and flicking at the second

base with his glove. And the only thing he really can't do is get the ball and throw and swing him back. All right, there you go. Payne, you're doing some drills. What a great way. What a great way to wrap up that interview. The only thing he can't do is, you know, pick up the baseball and swing a bat. Yeah, other than that, he's ready to go, all right?

What sports does he play? Well, if he's doing drills, look, it's a ground ball that got him. So if he's taking ground balls, it can't be that bad. Looks like Jeremy Payne is going to be the opening day shortstop. Hunter Brown throws the pits. A grounded or short. Jeremy, a great diving stop. Runner safe at first.

He doesn't make the throw. He'll run. He'll run the ball. He's very fast. He could run the ball over there. So as Brian did say, he can slide, make the catch, flip it with his glove to Isok or Carlos, and have them fired on over to first. Yeah. All's well. He can run there.

Which was the baseball movie where the guy had to run to outrace the other guy to the bag? I can't remember. Let's just say it was rookie of the year. Sure, why not? Let's go with that one. He did say something I thought was interesting. We'll have Chandler Romo on this afternoon. I'm curious.

Oh, what time? he will be on at four o'clock. Yes. I'm curious if he will say the same. He's basically telling us that Jeremy Payne is starting the year on the injured list. Now, we're two weeks away

from the season opener, exactly. It's two weeks from today. The injury is just a touch more than a week old, so we're within a week of them re-evaluating it. Is the expectation just it's a broken digit? So, of course, it's not going to be healed in three weeks. That sounds like however... It's a tip.

It's fine. You tape it up. If this is a World Series, you'd be playing. But you got a soccer. That's what we were saying last year at the end of the year. Hey, if this is the World Series, he'd be out here and he, and none of them were out there. Ultimately, what it sounds like from Joe announcing it earlier this week and I think reporters making it obvious this week, Josh Hader and Jeremy Pena are going to start the year on the IL.

Well, that'll be fine. You got Brian Abraeu and you got Isak Paras and Carlos Crea. Those are perfect things. They're totally set at those two spots, but as you move Abraeu up, okay, well, now what do you have? and 7-8-9. Brian King, baller. Stephen Oaker. Bennett-Suzza,

locked down. Now that you said, Bennett, I'm good. I love the Seuss. I'm a big Seuss fan. Was that a prize whore calling in, Jonathan? Yeah, there was one of the... We plan, believe it or not.

Prize whores. Terrible. I liked when we did the impromptu 1030, believe it or not, the other day. That was nice. Did I miss believe it or not today? What happened? Matt's out.

I don't do believe it or not. I go on strike when Matt's out. I don't bother writing the questions. Okay. takes a lot of mental energy and I don't expend it when Matt's out because I try to expend it carrying the show. All right, anyways, we're going to take a break here on the

Matt Thomas show with Ross. Matt, we'll be back tomorrow. Adam Wexler's hanging out. Of course you're going to stay tuned. He's coming on at 2 o'clock. Astros, 450 first pitch. Chandler Rome, 4 o'clock. There's no reason to turn it off. Sports Talk 790. 1.50 in the PM here on Sports Talk 790. Ross, Vier, we're out with you for a couple of more minutes.

On the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Adam Wexler here as well. He's going to be here for more than a couple more minutes. Three more hours. 4.50 for Astros Baseball Cup. 4.50. I like that.

I like that. I'm glad you guys are getting a little early day off because we've been getting a lot this week. So I appreciate it. We're almost two weeks from being, well, really just a week and a day.

Oh yeah, you guys are going to be joining me because Matt Thomas, of course, you know, his primary job with the Houston Rockets, he's going to be out of town with that. So his second job, he can't make it here with us. So you guys will be with me. We're going to be out of Street Fest for opening

day, right? 26. You're not wait to be out there. Make sure you come out. It's coming back, baby, especially where the rockets are going to flame out of the playoffs. I'm feeling good about the Astros. Let's go. Well, not necessarily, but also it's feeling like a first or maximum second round exit, but that's okay. Maybe they, like I said, okay, they're going to turn it around in this homestand.

Tar Easton's going to knock down threes. Alprenching goons, going to be flexing his muscles and somehow all of a sudden stop turning the ball over and so is Kevin Durant. And the rockets are going to be fine. Perfect. Okay, good. We didn't talk much Astros, so we just heard from Brian McTaggart there.

So I'm trying, it's one of those things where you say it's just spring training, it's just spring training. I'm trying not to get super excited about Tatsuya I and Mike Burroughs, but it's kind of like, how do you not?

The Astros, and one of those things we talked about, when it was the names, like, okay, yeah, Mike Burroughs, yeah, you had some decent seasons. Okay, Tatsuya Mai is coming over from Japan. You get him in house, Astros pitching can fix just about anybody. My confidence is growing more and more

in those guys, and then you throw Hunter Brown in the mid, and then a couple of other guys in this rotation. I mean, this is how they're going to win ball games if these guys can be as good as we're hoping from what we're seeing from them in spring. And in the case of what you said, you know, the Astros bring guys in,

they can fix guys. Those two guys at the top of the rotation, you should be excited about. They didn't need fixing. Tatsuya Emi is a professional baseball player, not a minor league baseball player. I think what you see is what you get and obviously the velocity in things yesterday

really should have people excited. His ability to miss bats isn't new to him or anybody that's followed him. And it looks like it's something that you might see more of here in the major leagues. He's a frontline starter for this team. They didn't spend $21 million on Tatsuya Emai so he could watch three or four other guys pitch before he gets the baseball. And in Burroughs case, he was a rookie last year for the Pirates and throws a pretty, it throws a lot of pitches that miss bats. He had a 394 ERA, made just 19 starts, it basically matched his FIP.

the pirates would have expected him to be in the rotation this year and maybe deliver a three and a half year a a a something like that there's no reason the astros can't expect the same which would put him as a front line starter those are the three best starters they have and i'm totally down for that and i think the other three starters are in place i can't imagine them having a six not having a six man rotation and not having spencer arragetti as a part of it that's what it seems like to me as far as leader in the clubhouse which i like spencer ergetti i'm still a believer in him as I said earlier on the show. Maybe it's just because he's so nice and he's such a good interview, but he's got a great head on his shoulders. And he's got great stuff. And you put those two things together. It's a guy that I'm having confidence in.

They can go out there and be an effective. I'm not saying he's going to be a Cy Young candidate, but for what you're asking for him, fifth or sixth guy, I think he can more than fit that role for the Stroes. Of those guys, those three guys, Lance McCullors, Jr., Christian Javier, Spencer Arigetti. Those are the other three guys in the six-man rotation, presumably.

Who do you have the most confidence in as they get close? to coming back to Houston. Of the which guys? Of those three, Lance, Christian, and Spencer. Cool. I'll go Christian. I'll go Javier. I'll go Javier, Spencer.

And to me, one, two, is close. Three is, if, look, if Lance McCullors, Jr. weren't making $18 million, I don't know how much of a factor he would be. Although he's been, he's shown some flashes in spring. And these are the guys that round out your rotation. As long as the front three are fine, that's as good a back end of a rotation as most teams could hope to have.

Are you with me on the Space Cowboys over win total? Whatever number it is, yes. Dude, they're going to be insane. It's going to be Blue Ball and Jason. Hopefully, of course, barring health. I think we looked at, I looked at it was. It was like at least 12 pitchers had more than one start for the Astros last year or something like that. Well, I mean, look at how much pitching Colton Gordon did for the Astros.

In 14 starts, I think it was third on the team tied with Gusto. It was Gusto? Yeah, it was 31 apiece from Brown and Frommber. And then it was, next was 14 Gusto and 14 Colton Gordon. And he and Jason Alexander probably start the year in the rotation. I'm not sure what to do with AJ Bluebaugh, because I think he's too good to not have here when the season starts. But if Tang takes over that role, I don't know where they are with De Los Santos, although it doesn't seem like he's going to make. I don't know that it'll be ready because of his health situation, but they have more than enough arms to fill the gaps.

I mean, sometimes you have more than enough people to handle the workload. Yes. Like you got a two-person show, but maybe three people are here today. Should be fine. They got a backup plan to the backup plan to the backup plan. So that's good. Wex, thanks for hanging out. You got it.

I appreciate you. Thanks to not Adam Clanton. He didn't hang out. Reverse thanks to Adam Clanton. Thanks to Chris Gordy for hanging out for a couple hours. Thanks to Jonathan Allen for being here the entire show. Thanks to Brian McTagher for joining us as well. Thanks to all of you for listening, calling, tweeting, getting involved in the show.

I do appreciate it. Matt Thomas back tomorrow at 10 a.m. but don't go anywhere. It is the A team starting up at 2 o'clock here on Sports Talk 790.