The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - The Matt Thomas Show 10-23-19

Episode Date: October 23, 2019

The Matt Thomas Show w/ @SportsMT, @SportsRV, and @ProNickLow 10/23/19Trying to stay positive after Game 1 (0:00)AJ Hinch : "Have To Avoid The Emotional Rollercoaster" (18:28)Howard Reynolds of MLB Network Joins The Matt Thomas Show (1:13:01)

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. 1202A Wednesday edition of the Matt Thomas show here on Sports Talk 790. Oh no, no, don't do this to us, Ross. The classic panic button music. You know what? We need to fight this.

This is not fair to the city. Getting 290 in nine games this post season. Don't listen to this next minute of the show. Here's the one oh. Don't. That's hit well and hit deep to left center field. Springer is going back and that ball is gone. Just in the left of the batter side.

Ryan Zimmerman with his second home run of the postseason. It's a two to one as he goes there. No. This music is not who this person. Okay, enough Steve. And cheated for a fastball and had the Had the what? You know what?

This is not the Matt Thomas show. Nick, you're my producer, you're my friend. Please don't do this to us. That's what well. Left center field. You know what? You leave the opening song to the co-hosts and producer of the show.

This is what you get in return. This is awful. Please stop this right now. That's lifted in the short right. That's going to get down for a hit. Suzuki scores. Robles stops at third. It's an RBI single for Adam Eaton and a three to two Nationals league. It's Adam like a broken bat. The slider got in on the hands, but Eaton strong. And that's line to left field. Brantley is going back. It's off the wall and then kicks in front of him.

Scoring is Robles. Also coming home Rendon. A two-run double for Soto and it's a five to two nationals lead. Okay. That's it. turn now now now don't let we could switch to taps if you're not that would have been five four there we're what are we celebrating we're celebrating the Astros are in the World Series

and it's just one nothing it ain't three zero it isn't a Nationals World Series crown it's a little bit of this and Yuley lines this one beat to left center going back as Soto's still going back looking up That is off the wall. Springer scores.

Al-Tube scores. Gereo in the second, a two-run double. Two-to-nothing Astros. And it off-defense in front of the visitor's bullpen. It is the fall classic. It ain't the fall one game. It's a World Series on a World One game. This is blasted, left center.

Before in a good moon, watch. In three, it's only one-night. Phone lines must not. Phone lines must not be working. I have a good time. I as a white man can dance of this song. I feel very happy about this song. Look at my grooves.

Are you having a seizure? You okay? It's only one. Have a celebration. Your voice is downright annoying now. You sound like every girlfriend I've ever had. Yeah. I'm not letting you get grumpy, Houston, Texas.

and am on my watcher now. You can go get grumpy on another show. There's a lot of, let me taste them. There's a lot of depressing shows in this marketplace. I've heard them. This one will not be one of them. At least you can be happy that Yordon Alvers' bat woke up. I mean, three times on the base pads yesterday, Nicola.

Just not while the bass is reloaded. Oh. What are you going to do next? Hey, Alex Spregman could be the MVP, except not in the postseason. I mean, is that what you want to do? Is that what you want to infiltrate? Is your little audio,

accomplishments and contributions this radio show. Is that what you want to do? Well, he's certainly not on pace for a World Series MVP. You're right, Matt. You know what I'm going to do? I'm not talking to Ross, and I'm not talking to Nick. I'm talking to y'all. Of course, George Springer wasn't on pace for a World Series MVP after game one in 2017.

There you go. Much better. Much better. Look at how he did. Two, three. You know he said home runs in five straight World Series games? A record. How filthy is that?

It's pretty good. I wish you would have hit one more. Okay, so here's the bed. If you're depressed, I am. Then get your ass off the show. Oh, all right. I mean, you could take a vacation day.

I'm not letting it happen. Now, if the Astros lose tonight, I'll, you know, I'll be right there with you. Because I'm not a big fan of falling down to nothing, especially when those two games are in Houston, Texas, especially because the Washington Nationals did that to the St. Louis Cardinals, like last week. They're good.

They're really good. We don't know enough about them. We do now. We know that Juan Soto is 20 years old and one of the youngest players ever. Victor Robles, also very young. Yep. They got good speed at the top of the order with Trey Turner. Did you know Anthony Rendon went to Rice?

Yeah. And that as a kiddie grew up being an Astros fan. Truth be told, I did watch the game at home yesterday. I did the Beyond Deck show with the boys and then went home because it was my wife's birthday is today. Really? I have to... Happy birthday, Kim. Yeah, happy birthday to my beautiful bride.

I have to do, I'm working clubhouse tonight. So tonight is just an S-O-Hill night. They got Matt Thomas out there, busting tape. Grindr. That's how I roll. That's how I roll right there. Wonderful. So last night it was kind of, got home,

brought her some flowers, and we watched the game and we just swore at each other because the game was going the way that it did. Max Scherzer, I mean, there were things in the game that were, and by the way, AJ Hinch will join us in 20 minutes from now. Spread that to your friends, please. Nick Lowe, do you have friends?

Ross, you got friends? everybody in the world tell everybody that AJ Hinch, the manager of a world series is going to join us right in the smack dab middle of the world series. And he'll be with us in 20 minutes or not. Tweet it right now. Tell everybody that you know. 20 minutes, AJ Hinch. So you got to Serser.

You got them out of their comfort zone, Ross, with bringing in Corbin as the first reliever, right? Everything was setting up. You got deeper into the Washington bullpen that you thought was not very good, but Doolittle did his job yesterday. The Nationals deserve the victory And I want my Alex Breggman back I'll just leave it right there, right?

Yes He slept with his bat last night Did he really? Yeah That's good, I think Have you ever slept with a sporting good? I used to sleep with my glove on sometimes Is that weird?

I'm trying to think what I Weird is that one to ten With the what? I said how weird is that one with my baseball glove? No, it's 0.5 Okay, good Especially if it's a new glove. You're trying to get it all working.

You put it under your bed too. You wrap it in rubber bands. Yeah, right. You wrapped in rubber bands. You put the lotion on it or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Point five.

Okay, good. I think if you sleep with your golf club or your putter, that's a little creepier. Hmm. I feel like there's been golfers who have done that, though. If you sleep, if you have slept with a baseball before that you threw. I think I've slept with a basketball. That would be uncomfortable.

Like next to me, not like on it. Yeah. Not like a princess of the pea situation. If you've ever slept with your ski. that's a little weird. Yeah, that's true. A bowling ball. A bowling ball would be bad.

Ooh. Very painful, especially if you turn over. Correct. But yeah, Alex Breggman said he slept with his bat last night. So whether that's true or not, we'll find out when everybody gets the ballpark today. Hmm. We'll ask Gage you about what he's ever slept with in terms of a sporting good. No, just, no, not like that.

Sporting good. Wonderful. And Garrett Cole, by the way, Ross, it's human. yes he is did he have to be human like start being human in the world series could we not have waited for him to be with the angel of the Padres somebody told me this is so funny but i was going to text her you know you know how people tend to be cynical and your team loses yes somebody texted me in this group that i was in this morning that uh garrett colt should throw 175 pitches in his next outing because it may be his last one ever

is he used at astro that's true and we're worried about his arm just wear him out don't don't Don't think that way. Please. Please don't think that way. Think about J.V. on the mound that I think about the Astros time the series at a game of peace and going to D.C., just like they did last week in the American League Championship Series, lost the first game, and went on to win in six games. A lot of positive things to be discussed. We'll do it today here on the Matt Thomas show.

713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. If you want to reach out via Twitter, at SportsMT, at ProNiclo, at SportsRB. AJ in just 15 minutes right here on 790. When I listen to the Matt Thomas show, I don't even understand the eclectic nature of the show, the dichotomy, the ostentatiousness,

the perfunctory that sounds about as smart as LeVar Ball. Back to the Matt Thomas show. Whoever he is. What a... This is the song we should have gone with, Nick. Fire this bad boy up. Woo-hoo. This is a classic...

This is a champ. AJ Hinch to the bottom of the hour. Today's trivia question, you win nothing. How old is Juan Soda? 44. No, that's not even close. 20. He's 20 years old.

I mean, look, he's really good, though. Glaver Torres is 22. We get it. There are really young players that are really good, and Juan Soto was really good yesterday. Like, too good. Like a one-man gang, so to speak. I mean, if Yordon Alvarez was clubbing like five home runs in a series, they'd be talking about how he used 22 every time he went up.

It just hadn't happened. Let me tell you. No, excuse me, not Yulele. If Yardin Alvarez gets three hits today, I want Joe Buck to tell the entire world how many, how old he is. Now, I will be in the stadium tonight, so I will, you'll have to kind of give me an update. We should set a drinking game on Wad Soto. Excuse me, Juan Soto age references. Every time it says a drink.

every time Anthony Rondone went to rice, drink. Let's do that. Let's do that at 1 o'clock. Let's set up Fox Sports drinking game questions for Game 2 of the World Series. You ready for that? We'll do that at 1 o'clock today. Harold Reynolds, MLB Network's going to make another appearance at 2 o'clock today. Wonderful.

He's got a new service that he's promoting. It's called Huddle. Or you can, if you have a son or a daughter who's competitive in sports like my daughter is, huddle will take videos of your team's playing. and then for a small fee, they will isolate your daughter or son's individual work. Yeah, that's been around for a while. It has, but we're actually huddle subscribers this year for the first time for Carly.

And so he's going to talk about a little bit about that, plus we get his thoughts on the World Series. Kids being in sports sounds expensive. Oh, you wouldn't know the half of it. Huddle, traveling, uniforms, fees, scrimmages, private lessons. $50 for, to stream the tournament. Well, I had to do that. That's a nice little scam there.

That was, you know, why didn't we think of that? Why don't we start up MTs volleyball camp or volleyball? Here's what I'm going to do. Prestige Volleyball. Now, you know, there's those Vimeo things. Is it Vimeo? I call it Vimeo, but I don't know. I have asked to become like a customer or like a, like, yeah, I will say your happy

birthday or I will do your announcements. Oh, the, no, those aren't called Vimeo. Those are called. What are those called? Whatever that service is called. Julia and a bunch of TV people do it. They have not gotten back to me. Maybe they don't think there's any value in me.

What? They haven't gotten back to you, Matt? So here's what I am going to do. Camio. Camio. That's what I'm looking to do. I'm looking to make a little side money. Okay. Because I can't, this Texas tech tuition ain't paying for itself.

So I'm thinking about, why don't I do, you know, we have remote for you. Dot biz, right? Yeah, how's that going? It's really well. Is it? Yeah. I mean, all the TVs yesterday in town were attuned to the World Series. Worked out and remote for you.

I'm sure they get it out. So I'm thinking play-by-play for you.Biz. Really? Well, I will come to your school and call the play-by-play of your son playing. Over the loudspeaker? No, well, I can do a private play-by-play. Again, this is because I have... How much you charge it?

I don't know. It depends on how much traveling I have to do. I have a lot of debt. I do. Yeah. And I'm trying to get rid of it. So play-by-playfor-you.biz is a sister company of Remotefor-U.com. And whatever Matt does it for, I'll do it for...

two-thirds of the price. So you're trying to, you're trying to undercut me here? You're the price line to play-by-play? Exactly. I see how you roll. Let's go to name your own price. Jimmy on 790 and 1224.

Hi, Jimmy. Hey, how are y'all doing today? Well, thank you. Quick question. How much are going to take you to come up here to Indiana with remote.biz to program these TVs because they're not watching the World Series here. What are they watching?

Like, uh, uh, what, It's not high school basketball season. What are people in Indianapolis or that area watching? Colt highlights. Well, why wouldn't you? You're in first place in the AFC South. No, no, no, no. I'm a Texan.

I'm not a Colt. I see. Question for you real quick. On the radio broadcast last night, I have an app that I listen to because I'm a truck driver. And normally I can pick up a radio station out of Orange or Livingston, and I can hear Bob Ford and Steve Sparks. Last night I couldn't.

All I can get was ESPN and radio people. Because a lot of cities during the World Series will not carry the network version. I don't know the answer to that if each individual market does it. But City Astros have 30 stations. Maybe all 30 of them don't carry the World Series playoff coverage. And that would be the big reason why I would think. But yeah, I would think from a national platform ESPN radio is doing all the games nationally. So, I mean, again, you don't care about the national version because you're not getting a Houston perspective on things.

But it's going to be much easier to find an ESPN national broadcast and it would be to find an Astros broadcast. Yeah, well, I'll tell you what, the announcer from that broadcast, every time Soto got up to bat or every time a ball flew his direction, we heard how old he was. Well, yeah, because it's an easy narrative. Yeah, we heard how old he was. And I thought when they announced the man's name, the kid's name, the first time, I kept thinking they were saying Juan Solo. You know, and all I could think of Star Trek, there are Star Wars. Hmm.

Or Han Solo. Han Solo. Juan Solo. Juan Solo. Yeah. The Hispanic cousin Juan Solo. Yeah. I get you.

All right. Right. Hey, they're going to win tonight, man. No problem. I hope you're right. Jimmy. Thank you for the call as always, my friend. I really appreciate it.

And Chui Skywalker. Ross is tonight a must win. because apparently some in the Astros Clubhouse believed it was a must win like Carlos Correa. Nope. You mean to tell me the city of Houston is not going to be thinking about the Texans game if the Astros lose tonight? It's a checkout. No. You'll be focused on Friday.

It's a must win. I always love whenever there's a Best of Seven series. Thank you. Because then I get to hear my favorite sports reporter question, would you consider this a must win game? You know, they always feel like they have to say yes, yeah, we want to win it. It's very important, you know. Got our uniforms on anyway. Anyway, might as well try.

But it's not always the right answer, man. It's a math question. Thank you. I wish I would answer that question. Honestly, it's a best of seven. You're down one game to nothing. Would you consider this a must-win game? No.

No, we can lose tonight. We can lose tomorrow night too. We don't want to, but that wasn't your question. You asked if it was a must-win game, and if you'd ever taken a rudimentary math class, you'd already know the magic numbers three. When you're down three, then you must win them or you're out. Thank you.

That is just amazing and awesome. A.J. Hinch is next on 790. This is 790 baseball. All direct. Direct from the ballpark. To your radio. Driven by Texas Direct Auto, powered by Vroom. Time is 1231.

It is our great pleasure to spend 10 quality minutes with the manager of the Houston Astros, AJ Hitch, here on the Sports Talk 790. AJ, you have done a really good job of telling the whole world, telling your teammates, hey, sit back and enjoy this. I don't know if anybody's told you this yet. I know what you lost last night and it sucked. It wasn't fun. but I hope you personally are having the time of your life because I as an astro buddy since 1979 am.

So with that being said, how are you this afternoon? You know what? I'm doing well. And I am enjoying. I mean, yesterday's game was incredible except for the result. I think we've realized and experienced over the last few years of playoff baseball and even World Series baseball that you have to take every game individually and try not to ride the roller coaster too high or too low. And, you know, look, we lost the first game of last series in the ALCS and came back in one. We lost the first game of the World Series in 2017.

And we also won the first game of the 2018 ALCS against the Red Sox, and all those had different results. So, you know, I think you have to avoid the emotional roller coaster during the wins and losses. and just keep plodding away, try to win the games that you're in position to win. We had a chance yesterday, didn't get it done. But if we carry that into today and increase our stress level, our panic, our sort of sense of urgency, I don't think that's productive to try to beat Steve Strasbourg in the Natt. So unfortunately, we lost game one. That's a reality.

And now we move on to game two and try to do better. Let me throw a variety of quick hitters at you. Will we see catchers interference be reviewed next year at this time? I don't know. I hope so, but at the same time, it opens up a lot of different things on foul tips. Can we review that, the video? I mean, when the egregious ones, you look at last night, you could, you know, you could really tell it was catchers interference.

There's probably a ton more that are in the gray area. I don't know what other plays that being reviewable would open up. I think that's the dangerous, slippery slope of like, if this, then we have to review that. But unfortunately, it was a miss. And on the stage like this, it gets talked about. But I just wish the egregious ones, like the ones you can really tell. Maybe 90% of them fall into this gray area. That one did not.

Yeah. I even think, and I, again, I didn't hear the with the sound up, but apparently Joe Buck even said he heard it from the booth, and that's, you know, midway to the stadium. Yeah, there were two. clicks. I mean, even Alan Porter behind the plate, who's a terrific umpire, and I have a lot of respect for him. He said he heard two clicks. He just thought he viewed it as, or heard it as the foul tip off the bat, then the ball hitting the glove. And I had him reversed. I had the glove

getting hit first and the foul tip being second. So obviously human error is part of it. And these are instinctual plays, but, you know, I wish it would have gone the other way. Two-part question on Alex Bregman. He said he was going to sleep with his bat last night. I would have suggested just snapping and having tried something different. So one on that. And two, is he taking too many pitches early in the count? You know, I know Alex is taking it hard and impersonal that he's not, you know,

dominating in the postseason. And certainly he's had some big at-bats and he's had some near misses. And I love the accountability that he creates for himself. and I mean, everything that Alex Bregman does is is legit across the board. So I appreciate his candor and him falling on the sword, so to speak, of our offensive struggles. But I, you know, as far as his approach, maybe a little bit. I mean, it's always hard. I'm not in the batters box and seeing the pitches that he's seeing.

And he might be waiting around a little bit for the perfect pitch and they're making tough pitches on him. But, you know, look, you can fail the other way and be over-anxious and swing at everything. And then you'd ask me, hey, is he trying to do too much to be the hero? So I think it's just about results. When he gets pitches to hit, you know, he's fouling him off or near misses. And when he's right, he's not doing that. So aggressiveness or passiveness, I think, is the nature of the results. We'd probably be talking about it the other way if he was swinging at everything and still making out.

Yordon Alvarez got the walk, a couple of hits, didn't come through. with the bases loaded, unfortunately, but you had to be encouraged with him getting on base a few times. Yeah, good at bat. The walk early, I think being disciplined, I mean, he's been chasing so much throughout the postseason. And I think for him to draw a walk against a really good pitcher to lead off the second inning, I was encouraged by that. I think the two base hits, one with the rocket almost hit Scher back up the middle. That was encouraging. He had a pretty decent at bat with the strikeout. The result wasn't, but the big swings were. He just, you know, he just, missed a couple pitches, but don't ask these guys to be perfect.

We do ask for adjustments along the way. And as we know, when he gets hot, he's going to have these big moments. And it's funny, you know, I get asked about these guys at the podium or I get asked about them on this show or other radio shows. And it seems like the game then turns to that at bat. Like, what's going on with Alex Bregman? He probably gets the biggest at bat tonight. It's just the way baseball works.

And that same thing's going with Alvarez. He's getting opportunities and he's slowly showing some adjustments that maybe today facing Strasbourg for the first time. He gets a pitch to hit and the building will go crazy when he does. I think part of that, AJ, honestly, is the fact that it's October that if this is a slump in the middle of May, we're like, all right, slumping, it's 162 game schedule. Everything is under a microscope. So I think that's part of the reason why AJ Hinchwood is here on the Sports Talk 790. So AJ Garrett proved that he was human yesterday, although we didn't believe it until the runs were given up. He does go seven for you.

So he saves your bullpen. And on the other side of things, your skipper counterpart went to a what we thought would be a starter. May indeed still might be a starter. They had to exhaust their bullpen. So if you're going to find a silver lining, you did take your shots and you did force Max Scherzer to leave the game after five. We did. I loved our approach against Scherzer. And we talked before the game that you've got to beat their stuff.

starter and make it difficult and make them make decisions. And they, you know, bringing in Corby, maybe it didn't help us yesterday, but it may help us moving forward. They, they have them penciled in in game three or game four. But that's been their blueprint is to use, you know, essentially, you know, five or six pitchers for 90% of their innings this postseason so far. They weren't tested in the St. Louis series from a, from a number of game

standpoint. And so the longer this series goes, the more likely that we are to see some of the ramifications for them having to use the same guys over and over again, you know, with Doolittle and Hudson. And then Rainey came in last night and he was a little erratic. So they have the numbers and they have just as many pitchers as we do. But how they deploy them is going to be important not only for each particular game, but as the series continues. So I don't know about silver linings. It's a race to four wins.

They have a one-nothing lead. But we had a ton of chances against their primary bullpour. And if the series continues to be close games like this, we're going to see that same group again. I want to ask kind of behind the scenes a little bit on your preparation. Most baseball managers and or players are diligent about how they orchestrate their day. How much did your day change yesterday, not having a real great feel of have the nationals? Because you haven't seen them in a few years, except for obviously spring training. I don't even think it counts.

Yeah, the advantage being we won in game six of the ALC. So we had a full 24 hours extra. So on, you know, we went on Saturday. I was at the ballpark on Sunday. We were going through a lot of information and into Sunday night and then and then into Monday. So the extra day did help us. We have some familiarity with these. We had our advanced team working on this as soon as we, we saw the NLCS.

We were, we had guys preparing for St. Louis and for Washington. And so the information was there for us, really the minute that we clinched against the I hadn't looked at it and we hadn't studied it. I hadn't watched any video or done my normal prep. So I, a little bit of crash course, but it's expected. It was the same way that way,

you know, in 17 with the Dodgers. And it's the nature of these series that come one after another when you don't know who you're going to play while you're continuing to play the previous series. So we feel prepared for these guys. We made pretty good, you know, pretty good adjustments.

And we were right on some of the style. thought they'd run a little bit. We thought they were going to be tough to strike out. We knew Juan Soto was a tough matchup for a lot of our guys, and he proved to be one of the most important players on the field yesterday. So no real surprises in game one. Is it weird or just coincidental that if I'm watching a team you're going against start to steal bases that you may be a tinge more aggressive on the base pass, or it's just one particular game that I'm looking at? No, one particular game. I mean, I think the combination is different. You know, tonight,

Strasbourg, he also has his challenges with, you know, with the running game. He's big and tall and long limb, like very much like Derek Cole. So I think it's still more about opportunistic and not, not reactionary to what they're doing. Or we take bases whenever we feel like they give them to us. And vice versa, they're going to run whenever they feel like they can put pressure on it. So that's their style of play pretty much every game. You know, our style of play is a little bit varied based on how they defend it. A couple more minutes here with A.J. Hinch. And Skip, you and I will not visit on air until

hopefully next week we celebrate a big championship. But I'm very curious. And I don't even think you have an answer to this. You're going to have National League pitching situation where your battle will hit. In theory, you might be going with a bullpen game in game four or something like that. Does that add an additional wrinkle about, oh, my gosh, I got to worry about arms, how many pitches I got going, how many guys I want to go to? And oh, by the way, he's batting second in the top half of the next inning. Yeah. I mean, I think. it just changes a little bit of, well, changes our bench. We'll have an extra guy on the bench, five instead of four. If we do a bullpen game similar to how we did the bullpen game against

the Yankees, you know, you got to be aware with where the pitcher spot's coming up and do you need a multi-inning guy or a one-inning guy if you're trying to avoid the pitcher's hitting. You know, and then on top of that, I might have six guys on the bench. Grinky might be a pinch hitter in the in the bullpen game that would be a game four. I think, you know, those decisions are going to be made based on the context of the game, not so much, you know, not so much like predetermined as to what we're going to do. I mean, if we, as an example, let's say I start Brad Peacock in that game similar to how I did against the Yankees, and we bat around in the first inning, like he's going to get an

abat. I'm not going to pull him just because because the abat came up in the first or second inning if he's still the guy that we have matched up to pitch against these guys. So we'll see. if I started Rikidi, I think it'll be more traditional, but I'm not sure that he's built up to go 90 to 100 pitches. He's more of a three-four inning guy right now. But again, that's game four. That's a long way from now.

And certainly we'll navigate the pitcher spot with Granky in game three as a normal starter. And then we'll see what brings us in game four and five. Well, it's your fault now that you mentioned Zach Granky and hitting. I'm going to go to YouTube for an hour and watch all of his highlights. Thanks very much for that, Skip. I appreciate that. He's pretty homers this year. to base it as an astro too. So he's good hitter.

So he's got good mechanics, right? I mean, it sounds like it. Well, I think he's just got good bat to ball, hand-eye coordination. He's been a pretty good hitter his whole career. So I made me good hitter, you know, as a pitcher. I still think he's, you know, we got a lot of guys that can hit his position players. But I certainly like that he's going to be the most comfortable on our pitching staff standing up in the battered box. All right. I was going to say, you should walk in today to lighten the mood up before we let you going to say, any of you sleep with a sporting good last night? And then Alex erase his hand. I mean, that's the way it's going to work, right? The light and things up

a little bit? I don't think it's that heavy, to be honest. I think our guys are completely in control of them. So they're a little mad that we let a game get away, as they should be. They know the importance of winning every single game you can. But the mood's not down. These guys will show up ready to play. I like hearing it. Thanks, thank you for the time, as always, friend. We really appreciate it. You got it. All right, AJ Hitch with us here on Sports Talk 790. This is Cougars head coach Dana Holgerson. Matt's kind of like Shasta without putting on a costume.

He's a big old... The Matt Thomas show continues on Sports Talk 790. Oh, you are spinning the tunes today, my friend. Remember, it's on a must win. Even if they lose today, tonight, it's on a must win. So says comedian, so says sports RV. But Carlos Gray said he was. So you take it for what it's worth.

It is the Matt Thomas show. Harold Reynolds with us. Can I just say some really quick? My dad is texting me all about this must-win thing. I just keep telling him, no, it's not a must-win. Read the thread. Well, let's get some read-thread music. When somebody texts a show and it's the father of the show, who's listening, we appreciate dad listening.

We have some read. Can we do sports? No, in a sports-empty theater. He says it's statistically a must-win. I'm not going to read all of it. He's just saying that the odds become practically insurmountable. And I'm just... I'm just happy he's listening because he usually listens to other shows.

I'm just being very short with him. Like, if they're not stopping the series, it's not a must win. Let me take something. You better not be short with your father. Why not? That man brought you in this world. You can take me out as he told me thousands of times. You are who you are because of him.

For better or worse? Yeah, that's true. I think I'm pretty great. We haven't done a sports empty theater in a long time. No, we're not doing a sports empty theater. Say that for later. I'm not reading out my dad. text. He's not cursing me out just yet.

He will later. Trust me. 1254 on Sports Talk 790. 713-212. By the way, we need to go back to Lake Charles with your dad. That was a fun trip. I want to go back. You know what I was thinking? Actually, this morning, I was like, man, I need a good old-fashioned game. I need a late Charles trip. Can we go there for like 14 hours? What's the next day we can go?

We're planning this on the air. Problem is I'm going to D.C. next week, and they have a casino in Washington, D.C. I need it overnight. I need an overnight, Nail C. I just need an overnight. Okay, we'll make it happen. Okay. All right, let's go to the phones. Say how to Mike in the Heights on 790. Hi, Mike.

Got a question for you. I was at the game last night. I haven't been able to see any post-game interviews. My big question is, has there been anything brought up about Springer's showboating down first baseline and getting only a double when he could have easily had a triple and the next hit was a fly ball sacrifice that we could have tied the game up with? You know what? I'm glad you brought that up.

I've got two pieces of audio, and I'm going to play them for you, Mike. And then I'll give you my two cents on that for that. Is that okay? Sure. Here's George on not running out of the box, as you alluded to, just a second ago. I was watching him the whole time. You know, that's kind of one of those things where I don't want to necessarily run as fast as I can because for some reason, if he tags or whatever the case and I run by him, it's not good.

So I just kind of watching the outfielder. I mean, he made an incredible bid on it. And, you know, I'm kind of lucky right there. But it doesn't really matter. I mean, they won the game and move on it tomorrow. Were you picking yourself at all that you didn't end up on third? Or was that not an option? Well, no, because I can't put a third right there

because the guy in second had gone back to tag. If I had gone to third, I'm out. I'm out for sure. Okay, so there's your answer. and Mike, let me add my own two cents to it. It was a perfect combination of a little bit of a base running mistake, a little bit of how the ball landed, and a little bit of the, I think George thought the ball left the yard.

Kyle Tucker went back to tag at second base. He didn't need to do so. And that's what George is going off of. So if Kyle doesn't tag up and just starts running, like he knows it's going to drop, then it's a no-brainer that he scores. easily, and then you maybe if you can think about George going for it. But I think George thought

he left the yard. It was a very closer play than I thought it was looking at the instant replay out in right field. So my opinion is it was a delightful combination of small little itsy-bitsy errors that ultimately kept George Springer at second base. But I don't

think it was one reason, but not the reason why the Astros fell short last night. Okay. All right. Well, I guess looking at all the facts, you can come to that conclusion. Yeah, I think so. I mean, again, the number one thing for me, and thank you for the phone call,

is that he said Kyle Tucker, he went to tag at second base because Kyle didn't know. And did you see the reply? I thought it was a lot closer than it originally. Yeah, I think it hit off the glove. Was it Eden or Robles, whoever was out there? It hit off their glove. Yeah.

It hit off their glove. Like, it was close. It was a lot closer than I first thought when I saw the great. I agree. So that's why. Because I thought it was off the wall. You know, said Robert Ford's call. he called it off the wall, but I think it was off his glove.

No, yeah, I'm, let me tell you something. If you think I'm going to criticize George Springer for doing what he's done in five straight games hitting home runs. Yeah, but I just, it was a mistake, but not a blunder. And again, I'm not going to kill. Kyle Tucker's hardly played. It's just, it's just, I mean. Kyle Tucker had to hold there, I feel like. He made it home.

He made it home. He didn't have, for sure, he didn't have to tag up because I think he was either in his, you know, he was either gone. He was off the guy's gloves. Sorry? I don't know. I looked at it and didn't think nearly as big of a deal of it as maybe some others do. But thank you for the phone call. Yeah.

Is the Matt Thomas Show. We're on Sports Talk 798 hour number two of the Matt Thomas show. We're today we'll talk to Harold Reynolds in one hour. And believe it or not, you prize pigs are going to just love this. What? We're giving away Rockets. Oklahoma City Thunder tickets for next Monday inside Toyota Center in the Chris Paul debut. James Hardin versus Chris Paul, the grudge match.

Now, I did postgame call-in show to 1230 this morning, so I saw zero Lakers and Clippers. Do you catch any of it? I caught most of the second half with Clippers and Lakers. Just two seconds on it. The Lakers have some issues that they need to work out. Danny Green was amazing. LeBron James is going to be really good. How much point guard did he play?

LeBron James? He's going to play point guard the whole time. He's played point guard since he was at Cleveland the first time. Everybody's making a big issue about that. He's led every team he's ever been on, he's led and assists. He does. He's been more of a point forward than ever Scotty Pippen ever was. But this is, I mean, it's like the Laker PR folks have been spreading.

He's going to play point guard. Going to play point guard. He's played point guard since he's been in the league. I don't have the numbers in front of me. I'm going to bet you. Every team he's ever been on every year he's led the team in a Do you think? Can't argue that?

I don't think, yeah. I mean, it's whatever. It's LeBron James. He's one of the greatest offensive weapons ever. How was Kauai in a clipper uniform? Kauai is really good. Kauai is really good. I'm more scared of the clippers I am the Lakers to be brutally.

Yeah, the clippers, I was more, I was actually leaning Lakers, but after last night, I know Paul George and Kauai, and then you had Lou Williams knocking down tough shots like he likes to do, Montres, Herald, Montres Harold. Matt Miv. Yeah, even you got Zubots out there making buckets. they got Patrick Patterson as well. They're a good deep team. They're deep.

They're really deep. But the Rockets, but watching that game, though, I was sitting there saying the Rockets can compete with both of these teams, no problem, even full strength with adding Paul George. As you say that, I'm thinking in the back of your mind,

Ross is probably not saying that a year ago at Golden State. You're like, you know what? Rockets are really good, but man, Golden State just in a different level. I thought to myself, the Rockets can be right there with these teams if things break their way. Okay, I like it.

That's optimism. Rockets and Millie Walker, tomorrow night. Yes. So you get World Series, World Series, and then on a World Series off day, you get the NBA season opener.

And you have HSMU. And you of HSMU. Timeout Sports Bar, Friendswood, tomorrow, 630. Friendswood? What's an Uber from Friendswood to Kingwood? I'll be busy.

I wouldn't be able to make it, but I'm just thinking about it out loud. Yeah, what's the Uber from Friendswood to where I live? Friendswood to wherever. Friendswood lovely part of it. You don't just go to Galvest and I'll hang out down there for a day. Maybe I should.

Overnight and Galveston. Justin? Midweek, low rates. Hit the, what's that cheap strip club that's right there by the seawall? The one on the left side of 45? Yeah, what's it called? I've never seen anybody walk in the place. I've heard of people going in there.

Is it once you go in, you don't come back out or what? Yeah, I think it's not the best. Now you're, you're trying to find out what it's called. Bliss Lounge, that's not it. No. It's kind of like a barnacle, Ocean Cabaret. You don't want to pick up a case of the barnacles over there. Send Ross a DM if you've been to Ocean Cabaret.

Thank you. At Sports Army. Gerard, Northwest Side at 106. Hi, Gerard. All right. How's it going, guys? Well? All right, right.

As far as the Astros go, man, I got to just feel you got. I think they got to get this game tonight, man. You don't want to go to Washington, 0,2, when you had your two aces pitching. You're going up there 0-and-2. I wouldn't say they'd be dead, but they'd be on life support if they lose tonight, man. You got to win this game and come up for the Washington 1-1 when you got the two aces pitching game one. and game two. As far as the NBA, man, I watched a lot of that Clippers game last night.

Man, the Clippers are going to be a problem just in the Western Conference, man. They don't have the best bench in the NBA, and I don't think it's going to be particularly close with Louis Williams and Montrez-Harris, and they've got Moe Harrow. I think it's going to be a steal off the bench for them, too. So once they get out of Paul George back, man, I think them and the Rock is, to me, on the step above, the Lakers, the Jazz, and the Nugget. I appreciate some teams probably about it for the third seat.

I think the home court advantage is going to come down between the Rockets and the Lakers. You know, you've got – I think James Harder is going to come into the season. As you've seen in the preseason, he's going to come out aggressive until Russell Westwoods gets up to speed. And I think part of that is last year they got up to a slow start, and it probably cost them a spot in the Western Conference finals as they had to play Golden State in the second round instead of the Western Conference final when everybody knew those and keep their teams in the West. I think James Hart will come out on fire so they don't try to board that slow start from last year.

And I think it's going to be between them and the clippers as far as supremacy in the Western Conference. So it's going to be very, very interested, man. But the Clippers are the real deal, man. They got two perimeter players on the perimeter and Kowah, Leonard, and Paul George, that play both in. The two-way players, they kind of remind me, I think it would be a little bit of hyperbole. But I think they kind of remind me of the Bulls' nice team with a bitch, you know, with those two players like that, two-way players playing on that perimeter. So that's going to be the team the Rock is going to have to deal with, I think, as far as coming out of the Western Conference.

Okay, thanks, Gerard for the phone call. Appreciate it. Did he just give us a complete NBA preview in one phone call? We get the whole thing down. I love Gerard. He just doesn't ever change. He's who he is. He just gave us a complete NBA synopsis in a minute and a half.

Thank you, Gerard. Appreciate it. Yeah, and we'll get to more on the NBA as a season progresses. But right now, I'm all in that World Series mode. As we should be. A little bit on the Texans. Locked in a Verlander Scher, game two. Okay, so.

I mean, uh, Strasbourg. All kidding aside, but I'm going to, I'm going to kid a little bit. Okay. How is it not a must win if your two best pitchers don't win the two games in your home stadium? Having to go with your third best pitcher, which is a dramatic drop from the second best, and then in theory, potential bullpen game. It's a very important game. It's a pivotal game. It's a crucial game.

Oh, I love it. Crucial. Crucial. Love it. Everything except what you really want to say. If they don't. Ross put it this way. Tomorrow's show.

It's either, all right, let's get on the road and go beat that ass, or it's, oh, no, are they even going to have another home game again? That's how sports fans work. It would be the most shocking thing ever if they lost tonight and then won four straight. Yes. Really? Yeah. I don't think so.

Especially because look what the nationals do. All they do is win games. They took on a St. Louis Cardinal team that was beaten the Dodgers down, had home field advantage, and they stole their souls. What's the biggest weakness of the nationals? The actuals aren't getting their soul still. Exactly. And I think you made a, the question you asked that you posed to Hinch was a very good one.

About basically chopping down the tree, as it were, of their bullpen and getting them to work a lot. If you do that again tonight, then I think the floodgates can eventually open in the middle of this series. Because not only are you playing the same team over and over again who will get familiar with those pitchers, but you're also doing in a short period of time. Yes. You know, if, if Mike Dan Tony goes to the starters in a bunch of minutes in game one, in any playoff series. There's three days off in between. Right.

There's not that. There are one days to travel, and that's it. So that's why I do believe there is a little bit of a indirect benefit of having to go to that bullpen as much as the Nationals win to. And again, one of a great bullpen to begin with. I think that's when the Astros will take over the series and when you start getting to the middle of it. 713-212-5-790. 7-19.

Let's go to Mark and West Houston on 790 at 110. Yes, sir. You're a very intelligent sports. Well, thank you very much. I play for Nigeria-Sophago. And then I called last time that we played New York and told them, let everybody hold on. We're going to win the game. I will finally won the game.

You guys owe me some tickets. And then they are now talking because they go made a mistake. last night, let's just slow down. Today is another day. We're going to win this game today. You know, let people just slow down and go and cheer their

team. That's how we're going to do. You know, you don't win every game. I'm a player. I'm a goalkeeper. You know, so let's people just slow down. We lost last night. We didn't think good. But don't worry. Yesterday,

Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mark. Mark. Former goalkeeper of the Nigerian Super Eagles. I feel like he's almost like a celebrity. If we were doing Nigerian sports radio, we'd be like, hey, buddy, Mark from the Bisson area is calling the show. Yeah, if you're the goalkeeper for your entire country.

Did we just have the, like the Hank Aaron of Nigerian sports on the show? More of the Tim Howard. Oh, you're going to full soccer. He was the keeper, yeah. Okay. I don't even know who the keeper for Team USA is right now. Is it still that guy that sucked at Ashton Villa? What was his name?

I think what Mark is asking you all to do is to slow down. And take it easy? And take it easy. I don't think Mark meant to say it that way, but he is asking you to do such a thing. Is it a slow ride? Brad Guzon. That's his name. All right.

713, 21, 2, 5-790. 713-2-1-2-5-790. I love our show. There's a lot of radio that I just hear out there that it's just, it's not fun, it's not light-hearted, it's not talking about the games, it's just really heavy. Okay. And this show will go down as no one will ever say, man, I was to clinically depressed. Listen to the Matt Thomas show. Do you want the, I'm getting a couple of Oceans updates.

Tom Halada says Oceans is a great B-Y-Y-O-B-C-Lub club. at least as of years ago. Yeah. David in Vegas says I used to be David and Galveston and had my bachelor party there. I've never been there. Me either. I've heard of people going there.

Honestly, I mean, truth be told not that I'm a prude as you guys listen to show you would know this. I've been the less than 10 strip clubs in my life. Really? I just have, it's just not more. I know. Every time we have a station event, I feel like I can catch you there within an hour.

That's not true. I've only been like once in the last couple years. Okay. They're just not my jam. There's just not. But that's, I'm not judge anybody that is. But ocean, but every, and here's the thing, every time I go to Galveston,

my eyes do peel back to that left side of 45. What's the name of that, it's the exit before you? No, what's the name of the exit? Oh. It's past Tiki Allen. I don't remember. Let's see wall exit or something.

Yeah, something like that. Yo, this is Bun B. And my wife is the biggest fan of the whitest man in America. Matt Thomas, Matt Troy. Reckless, ratchet, and don't give a fuck. She got me on the problem. about the show again? What?

That you're the whitest man in America? Reckless, ratchet. And don't give a bleep. Yeah. And pretty much, that is the show. 120 on Sports Talks. By the way, Joe Clatt normally with his on Wednesdays, we had pushed him to Friday because we figured today was a day

where people wanted to react to the World Series. And tomorrow, much the same. Okay. Short roto segment tomorrow. Wonderful. We will do, I think it's it. A lot of baseball. This is what you do.

When it's the World Series, you talk about baseball. Yes. When your team is in the World Series, a specialist. Yeah, if the Astros were on the World Series, we'd be doing long Dr. Roto segments. We'd be checking in with the enemy camp with the Oakland Raiders. By the way, I don't know how much y'all care about television ratings one way or the other. A ton. The ratings are nationally a million people down from a year ago.

That doesn't surprise me, right? Last year was Red Sox Dodgers? Right. Two super mega media markets. Not that Houston and Washington, D.C. or small, but they don't have the national cachet that the other two teams do. But again, it doesn't matter. In Houston, and again, this is, when you have meters, boxes that watch what the television, you know, every house, not every house, certain selection houses are metered to determine who the viewing habits. I mean, a couple thousand people do probably.

According to the metered markets for the game one in Houston, the ratings for game one had a 34.1, which is, a rating point, okay? And each point is worth a certain number of people. The bigger thing is 56 was the share. That means 56% of the homes that were metered had the World Series on. Wow. That's astonishing. That's great. I wonder where that is relative to 2017. That sounds like you asked. Oh, good. Up 19%. Wow. In 2017, the rating was 28.6, the share was 44. So if there are 2,000 metered homes in the Houston area, I don't even know what the number is. If there were 2,000, that means more than about 1100, 1,100 of them, give or take, had the game 1120. DC, just to show what they did this year,

last night, their rating was 23.1. So a significant drop-off. Yeah, I mean, a lot of them are probably watching Fox News or CNN. Or This Is Us. Well, their share was 42%. Those are still incredible numbers. Just to get into fathom. And this is what Nielsen goes off of is they think their small sample size is indicative of the marketplace. So if you believe how Nielsen measures, 56% of televisions in the Houston area at some point last line had the Astros and the Washington National.

Wow. That's awesome. That is, I don't know, the Texans would dream of that. Now, they might get 60 shares that they're playing for the Super Bowl. Yeah, if they were in the Super Bowl, it would be pretty high. I don't even know if a divisional playoff game has ever reached that kind of number for the Texans. We could find out. Oh, yeah, you could just call, you know.

AFC South Champions, three out of four years, Matt. AFC South Champions, three out of four years. Don't ever forget that. By the way, guess who was walking around the Astros game last night before, first pitch. Former Texans general manager, Rick Smith, was walking? Really? Yeah. Was he handing out resumes? I don't know what he was doing. Remember, as Rick said, it was a, it was a common on a period. By the way, somebody asked me in their day, is Nick Casario coming to the Texans next year? If you are a betting man right this second, is Nick Casario, the general manager of the Houston Texans one year from this exact point? Yes or no?

What do you think? No. Because why? Patriots give them a new title and more money in order to screw over the Texans. Because here's the bit, when you're the Patriots and you're accustomed to being so awesome, why would you ever want to go, say, you know, I'm going to downgrade myself? It'd be like Nick Saban going, you know what, I've done everything I can't hear in Alabama. I'm going to go coach Middle Tennessee State. I found the shares for Colts Texans playoff game last year. Go ahead.

Well, what did you have? Not the percentage. I only have the share. The share. 56 share for last year. No, I'm sorry, the other number, the rating. 34.1. Okay, 28.5 Colts Texans. For a wild card game.

Yes. So for AFC champion or Super Bowl, we'd probably see a little bit higher. A little bit higher. But again, it wouldn't be, if you're a Texans fan, you don't all of a sudden, you wouldn't say, I'm going to skip watching a wild card game. I'm going to save myself for the divisional playoffs. Yeah, but you're talking about fringe people.

That's right. The fringe would start to add up. You know who was the greatest fringe person in sports where he played and you watch regardless? was Michael Jordan. That's true. Every city, when Michael Jordan played, regardless of you were an NBA fan or not, people turned that on sports bars,

people turned that because he was the greatest of all time, still is. Yeah, and then LeBron James somewhat took over that torch, and people last year, the NBA ratings were down and the finals ratings were down, like it's the first time LeBron hadn't been there. That's right. Like a decade. That's why they're down.

It's not rocket science. Josiah on 798-126. Josiah, what do you have today? I want to talk about George Springer a little bit and how freaking amazing he is. and how the city, MLB.com, people need to calm down on him not hustling out of the box when he hit it to the stinking fence. I mean, he'd already dropped one ball in that game. What else do you want the guy to do?

I just, it blows my mind that people are putting any type of blame that we lost a run because of George Springer not running out of the box. I mean, that's just, it's ridiculous. I'll tell you why we lost runs. It's because Carlos Correa, Yordon Alvarez, and Alex Bregman went over with runners in scoring position. and that's why we didn't win the ballgame, fellas. Well, there's a variety of different reasons. I mean, let's, you want to be real honest with this? Yes.

We'll go through seven or eight reasons why the Astro has lost yesterday. And I'm not going to place little blame or more blame on others. I'm going to give you seven reasons why they lost yesterday. And that's next. 127 on Sports Talk 790. Yeah, we're going to do that. We're growing ass men. We're going to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of an Astro's loss.

And remember, it was just one game. Your Hoops. the Houston Rockets, your hits, and the Astros, and your honest opinions. All the Tickets Play. All in for Houston all day. This is Sports Talk 790. I hurt myself today to see if I still feel. Oh, geez.

Don't do this. I told you this show is not going to be this today. Do we need Walking on Sunshine? No. Yes, we do. Nobody needs that. Unless you're filming

like a Toyota commercial or something. This makes me want to go drink and sit by a train track and contemplate my horrible life. It's a 9-inch nails. I accidentally said it was Nirvana one time and everybody really,

like 20 people got mad at me. But it's a Johnny Cash cover, of course. There we go. There is a. This makes me want to hurt myself more than hurt. 78 glorious degrees in Houston, Texas. I'm going to get you out of this funk sports, Harvey. Are you?

Yeah, I'm going to. Let's see what I can do here. What could I do to get you all fired up? I think we could probably play this. That's driven. Deep to left center field. Gardner is going back. Like this?

And that's hit pretty well and pretty deep to left. Gardner is going back, looking up. See you later! A three-run home run for Carlos Correa. And the Astros go up six to one. That felt good. The second home run of the series.

Got on top of a fastball that was elevated at Correa. It turned quickly. That felt good. You hear this song. You want to go buy a convertible. It makes me think of Carnival cruises. That's a good thing.

I never been on a cruise before, but I'm sure it's... Never? Never. Okay. I don't think I ever will. It's good, but it's also kind of a scam. They keep you on the boat, so you have to spend all your money there. Again, this is going to sound like fancy, man, but it's the truth. Oh, boy.

I like large rooms. You can get large rooms. Yeah, but I don't want to pay five times what it normally would get cost, right? I mean, yeah, you can get the regular rooms in the bottom. But the regular rooms are really tiny, right? Nice room with a window. I got in a room, and it was fine. I remember I've been a regular.

I've been on a cruise twice. Get your convertibles out, drive around town and say, go Astros. I'm uncomfortable. And I'll tell you one of the cruises I did go on, they had a comedian there who was one of the, the absolute worst comedian I've ever seen in my life. Are comedians on boats funny in general? Not really.

This guy, there was two comedians. There was one guy, and there was an older guy who was kind of funny. And, oh my God, he was sweating profusely, and he just jokes were not funny at all. Hold on for this. This is better. A shallow five walls on the left field. Bratley comes in.

And he threw an absolute missile of first goodness. I'm doing the Ross computer robot dance. Wait. When do I robot? Every time you dance. If y'all want to see Ross robot dance, follow me on Twitter at Sports. Because we'll have our 30,000 party in Vegas, and we will dance a lot. Not that there's anything wrong with it.

I promise you. I will dance with you in Vegas. Oh, I don't want to dance with you. I'll be in the same floor. Okay. And I will also vomit. Yeah, okay. Is that fine?

Yeah. We've all vomited in Vegas. And then I'll swear out drinking for never again. I've vomited a nightclub in Vegas. Got kicked out. Yeah, let's do that. Vomit, robot dancing, and celebrating $30,000 $30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, Johnny, Roger and the RGV on the Matt Thomas show.

Roger, good afternoon. How are you doing, guys? Why is everybody so down because of the first loss? We came back against the Yankees. We came back against Tampa. Enjoy the ride, you know, guys? This is what I got to say. Last night, the National used almost everybody,

because I hear they have 11 pitches on the snap. But I think the Astros are methodical. They're trying to find out what they're pitching, what their strengths are in these first games. They did the same thing against the Yankees. I expect them to win the next four games and then knock it out. And as far as the Texans, you know, that trade for the first round pick, you know, they send a third round pick and then they get that guy,

what's his name, that cornerback? Gary on Conley? Yeah. What's your favorite Garyon Conley moment? Excuse me? What is your favorite Gary on Conley moment? I just like his, I just, I've seen him play in Oakland before, but I think he was better when he was in college than when it was in the pros.

I can tell you that he had, he had a good career in college. Thus being a first-round pick, yeah, that makes some sense. I get that. Go ahead. And, you know, but I just hope it pans out, okay? That's just my comment on that. But people, please, don't start jumping, you know, that the Astros here, the Astros here. Don't get so gloomy.

Enjoy the day and watch the game tonight and watch the players kick some butt tonight. Thanks a lot, guys. We'll see you later. Appreciate the phone call. Thank you, Roger. Real fast, seven reasons why they lost yesterday. Go ahead. In no particular order. Michael Brantley doesn't play the ball at the wall particularly well last night.

Yeah, it looked like he might have hurt his wrist, but I think hopefully he's okay. Alex Preggman's three strikeouts, 0 for 4. Let's go with catchers interference tonight. help the cause or non-call. Non-call. Okay. Let's go with, what's number four on the list? Oh, Garrett Cole was human yesterday.

That's reason number one, yes. Yep. What else we got? A lot of runners in scoring position. Not only pregnant with everybody, that's five. Number six, what else is on the list here? Can we get the six and seven? Yeah, probably.

Carlos Carras Gray, going one for five. Oh, yeah, Carlos Gray. And the one hit was an infield single. Yeah, striking way outside of the... And Jose Al-Tubei struck it a... swung at a lot of crazy pitch shots. He was swinging crazy. Yeah, breaking balls way off the plate.

Yeah. And number seven, the roof was close. Okay. They would have won if it were... Let me tell you something. Hey, maybe the wind could have blown that George Springer fly ball out. I have an emotional attachment to the Houston Astros because that's one of my teams. Yes.

As a kid. So I can say this. Same. The Houston Texans get crushed for not opening the roof. The roof should have been open yesterday. It was 75 degrees at first pitch. It was amazing. Hmm.

Not the end game. but it's just that roof is so infrequently used we needed to be open yesterday it'd be nice because God wants to watch the Astros beat the nationals you can't do it when the roof is closed I think he gets still he's got he probably has some x-ray vision I understand that so there's your reason oh by the way forgot about Kyle Tucker trying to tag up at second base

George Bernard didn't see the ball and again I looked at that thing last night I woke up this morning had coffee and I'm looking at it like you know what this is not where I'm going with I can't believe it's being made as big of a story as it is. USA Today did a thing on Springer. Yeah, it was really strange. Hmm. Did he look up and go, man, I crush that thing to Wright Center?

Yes. But he also saw Kyle Tucker going back to tag up because let me tell you something. I got, I got news for you. If the kid, if Eden and Wrightfield makes that grab Ross, and Kyle Tucker is coasting between third and home, guess who's getting crushed today on the old radio show? Kyle Tucker. Kyle Tucker is. He still scored. It was one less base.

but it was no, and as George said in the post game yesterday, it wasn't even a guarantee that he would, he says he would have been out. Yeah. It's not like he did a Sammy Sosa just hop into the first base pimp job and then it was a double, which Sammy Sosa used to do. Wasn't it Juan Soto who earlier this year got disciplined?

Who was it? Was it Soto, I think, early? He was pimping a home run and it didn't end up being a home run? And he got in trouble and disciplined by Dave Martinez? All I know is I'm learning things about Juan Soto every day. And the fact is he's 20 years. old. So 20-year-olds are going to make mistakes. They just are. This is Craig Vigio.

Vigio. Back to Matt Thomas on Sports Talk, 790. Oh, we're having some fun. You're home with the Stroes. About a Springer. Tell me if I am, Ross. Out me if I need to. Did he sit there and look at it too long? I'd have to look at it again. Most people are saying we're wrong.

I mean, I didn't really... I can accept being wrong. Yeah, he's wrong. Okay, you're wrong. he should have ran harder he's got to play harder he's got to look in the mirror he's got to do better so you think he was using Kyle Tucker tagging up

as a excuse if that's the truth I don't believe him I don't believe him when he says if I get to third I'm out I don't believe that but I have to see the play again but just on its face

I don't think so everybody go look at it and then call me and tell me if I'm right or wrong okay he's still at a home run he's still been very productive he does still swing

out of his shoes all the time makes me really nervous he's going to hurt his back. He ends up on the ground more than any other asteroid. And Jose is not far behind. Just one game. Just one game, it'll be fine. There's a lot of things.

I mean, we went through a bunch of them. Oh, by the way, it's Ronald Acuna who I was thinking of not one of the young young National League East phenoms. Stereotype. Is he 20? Juan Soto. How old is Ronald? He's like 20.

He's very young as well. He's a salty veteran. What is he? 22? Yeah. Let's go to Larry. Larry and Laporte on 7. Hello, Larry.

Oh, Matt, the top of the day, do you? Oh, hi, Larry. I was wondering, can you hear me? Yes. I was wondering, how do you hit a ball when you don't slap at it? Matt, let me ask you a question. Of the percentage of pitcher's phone on the outside part of the plate And off the plate.

What percentage of pitchers do you think the pitcher throw? 12.4. I'm going to go 37.9. Oh, okay. Well, it's kind of hard to figure out how we're going to pull all of these outside pitches. The Washington Nationals are playing us like we played the Dodgers two years ago. They're hungry. We were hungry.

You don't think the Astros were hungry yesterday? no not the way we were taking pitches not going with the outside pitch i know i know i know i know know larry i saw the guys in the clubhouse before the game they had forks and knives inside their uniforms they were starving yesterday starving and when the proof is in the putting matt larry what did you think about that walkoff home run that altouva hit on saturday

larry who won the american league that shows how many teams How many teams compete in the American League, Larry? The same number in the National League. Which would be a total of? We are playing the best team that came out of the National League this year. There's 30 teams. And how many are left? And they came in our house yesterday and drove the ball.

With the outside pitch. Those were not bad pitches that Cole gave up. Those were good pitches. But they went with the pitch. Well, I'm just wondering about that home run that Jose Altuve hit to walk it off. What was the location on that? Where was it? Where did he roll his throw it? It was outside.

And where did he do with it? He pulled it over the fence, did he. He's a grown-ass man. That's why I did it. He's a grown-ass man. Thank you very much. Oh, no, not the song that doesn't end. Some people started singing it not knowing what it was. Forever just because. Wow. This is a deep. Do you know this song?

No, I do not. This is from Lamb Chop's Play-Along. Very good, Ross. I used to sing. We used to sing this in the car and annoy the hell out of my parents. The song that doesn't end. So the narrative is he's...

When Larry calls, we know the outside pitch is coming in within about 30 seconds. You could have gone with the four tops. This is the same old song. This was my jam back in the day. I've never... I don't think I've watched one episode. You never watched Lambchop playing along?

That was my jam. Sherry, whatever. Sherry Lewis, may she rest in peace. And I'm assuming that Landchop is also dead. Sherry Lewis is very dead. Well, she was Lambchop. Yeah, so Lambchop's a puppeteer. Two deaths.

He used to love that. Charlie Horse. Oh, man, I used to love... All right. Unfortunately, that song did end eventually. Real fast. Did you watch Mr. Rogers very often? Yes.

I was no. I watched, but not a lot. No. I loved Mr. Rogers. I would watch Sesame Street. I'd watch Captain Kingaroo. No, I didn't got you. A little bit of electric company?

That's a teenage-mead Ninja Turtles guy. That's not the same genre. We're talking about Educate Channel 8. Channel 8. Yeah. Teenage Reindeer Tertles was educational. Yeah, man. It was not.

I learned about sewer living and how delicious pizza is. Gross. Let's go to AD on 790. Where are you been, my friend? I called in yesterday and called a sweet, Matt. Yeah. That's why I'm calling in. You can at least say I'm accountable.

Well, there's a lot of things I'd say about you, but accountable would. I'll call you accountable today to make you feel better. Today. Okay, today. But honestly, Matt, I mean, I understand everybody's angst because honestly, as a lifelong Houston fan, you have a bit of a PTSD syndrome toward your sports teams because they get you to the end and then they don't finish. So I completely understand.

But you know what? All that was erased in 2017. Oh, by the way, 1994. 1984 and 1995 kind of help me too as a young adult. Don't forget about that. Yeah, yeah, of course. But, I mean, I'm just talking about honestly just more with the Astros and more with the football situation. I love the Rockets.

But the Rockets, you know, playing in 1994-95, I don't give a damn if Michael Jordan was in the league or not. It wouldn't have mattered. So, I mean, it was just their time. And that's exactly what time it is right now for the Astros. It's their time. So I need everybody in Houston. Just take a deep breath. We've lost it.

game one several times. So it's not a huge deal. It's not like we don't know how to come back from this. You got Verlander, who's pretty much the best money pitcher of all time, not in the World Series, but at least in the playoffs. So let's just all take a collective deep breath.

Let's know that the Astros have at least six more games in front of them right now because you know it's probably going to go seven with the way that the calls are going, the way that the game flow is going, fact that you can't even get a damn pitchers, I mean, the catchers interference. I mean, give me, right, that's the easiest call to make if you're the umpire. And because it's the closest thing to him. So I think that we have a little bit of that going against us.

I think we have a little bit of a loss of momentum. But we were right there to win that game last night. So leaving 11 guys on base, all those things, just take a deep breath. Because guess what? One or two more pitches go the other way. Much like Larry says, they go. the other way and maybe we get the win. I like it.

Going the other way is the key to victory. Take that outside pitch, Matt, send it the other way. Like Jose Altova didn't do. Well, correct. And by the way, isn't the cropper boxes like 350 feet? Yeah. Probably want to turn on it. You can turn. It's okay to turn.

Let's talk to Harold Reynolds next. Those of you online will get to you as well. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-1-790. What is today's edition of Believe It or Not? Sherry Lewis. Sherry Lewis. Really? I don't know.

Favorite cartoon, our favorite Channel 8 characters of the 70s and 80s. I don't think so. All right, fine. David Ross got hired his manager of the Cubs. You want him? Okay, we can do that. Yes. Is the Matt Thomas show.

Here we go, the final hour of the Matt Thomas show. The last time we had this guest on, He said the only way the Astros, I don't think it was making it of the World Series or winning. I think it was winning was that they forget to get off the bus. Harold Reynolds, MLB Network, second time, long time, no talk. How are things? I'm doing good, man. How are you doing?

We're all right. The bus is still rolling. We've got a little bit of panic in the Houston area, but no surprise. Tell the audience just how good the nationals are, and this is no cheap trick that they're up here playing for the chance of the World Series. Oh, there's no doubt about it. I mean, look, they got a pitcher going tonight. Steven Strasbourg that I think right now you've witnessed with Garrett Cole for three or four months. He's right there step and step with how well he's going to ball right now at this present

time. So you're up against a tough one. The nationals are a great team. You watch it last night. They put the ball on play. They beat good pitching. They're not here by accident. And it's a very good ball club. Are you surprised the way Martinez is aggressively going to that bullpen? I mean, I don't know what Corbyn status is going to be for later if he's going to start. But he's not messing around. I think there's very few people right now he trusts in the national bullpen, and Corbyn certainly is one of them. Well, it's been one of their recipes to kind of go to Corby,

but he's going to start. If not game three, I can see him throwing game four. He's going to start. So the strategy yesterday, in my mind, I haven't spoke to Davey yet about it, but in my mind was they had such a long layoff. You know, they hadn't played in a week. So if Patrick Corbyn doesn't get in the game, he is not going to be very sharp when he pitches in three or four more days. That'd be like 11, 12 days since he saw a mound.

So to go get him right there was a sense of urgency. And it was as a lot of people like to say now is a high leverage situation. And I wasn't surprised to see him go get him. I thought he may go another inning come back because he threw the ball so well. But their bullpen has really been shaped up nice in the postseason, way back. better than the regular season and they've been throwing well. So I'm sure he's got a lot of confidence in those guys. What do you think Harold needs to happen with the Astros offense? Obviously, you're going up against great pitching with the Reyes and the Yankees and now the Nationals. Is it just that?

You just throw your hands up and say, you know what, we're going up against good pitchers? Or is there something these Astros bats need to do to get better? Well, I think you look at the names that they face. They face the top three staffs, really, in name recognition and stuff in baseball. So outside of their rotation, you can't think of any others that are better than the ones they're facing. But offensively, I think they've been a little tentative, certain guys, obviously very aggressive in Altuve's case. I always felt like when I was facing great pitchers on Nolan Ryan or somebody like that, the last thing I want to do is get to their secondary pitch.

If he's throwing me a fastball, I swing it. and I think they've been a little hesitant. I've seen them taking a lot of pitches that they normally don't take. And I think you'll start to see that their bats get a little more aggressive. But that's what you have to do against a good pitch. And you've got to be aggressive. Harold Reynolds with us from MLB Network. He's here today in part thanks to Huddle,

which Harold I know about because my daughter plays competitive volleyball. And this is a video system that is really going into that sport. But you're here more to talk about the baseball side of things. We've got a lot of parents that are listening to the show that like to see their kids showcase. and you think Huddle can help do that, correct? Oh, no doubt about it. I mean, baseball and softball, softball's one of the fastest growing sports in this country.

The girls are just getting scholarships like crazy. It's fantastic. But I think with baseball and softball, we're light years behind football, recruiting, and everybody else. And this isn't just recruiting, but as far as exposure, whether you're eight years old or whether you're 18.

And what Huddle will do for you, you build your platform, and now with the world of the whole, web, anybody in the country can go see you. And just a real sample, I grew up on the West Coast. I live out on the East Coast now, and my kids are going to be on this platform, and it allows my mom to be able to see them participate. What do they look like?

What do they do? She lives out in Oregon. So I look at it that way. But if it's a recruit or somebody who wants to be seen, you're going to have a great opportunity for that coach to invite you to a camp, get an opportunity to be seen. They get that quick snapshot a lot of times. this will be put your best stuff on there. There's a tutorial that tells you how to build your site.

It's going to be a game changer for baseball and softball. All right, huddle.com, huddle.com slash baseball. For more information, you can also do it for softball. Like I said, my daughter is using it for volleyball. So this national baseball team, let's get to Bregman for a second. He's wearing the weight of the world on his shoulders right now. And it's so hard for us to watch because he was smacking the ball all over the yard for about 99.9% of the season.

What are you seeing in him beyond just pressing? I asked A.J. Hinch this earlier today on my show if he's getting too deep in the cap before being aggressive. Is that such a thing? Oh, yeah, no doubt about it. I mean, you have a tendency to do that. Even Breggman said himself, but you know what? I think he likes being with his back against the wall.

People going, oh, I don't know about this Breggman guy. That's when you're in trouble. He's going to be fine. You know, he's not a guy that's going to sit there and go over. for the World Series. I can tell you that right now. He will come up with the big hit. He will hit a home run.

He's going to get things going. That's just who he is. But, yes, I think he's, like last night, he had an opportunity. It was five to three in the game, and he took a three-old fastball right down the middle. And now 3-1 is on the black, 3-2, they're walking. But I think you're going to see him swing at a 3-0 fastball that he knows is coming. That type of stuff will start happening for him. Error Reynolds MLB Network with us on the show.

Did you see any more positive signs out of Yardon-Alvarez? That's been really the one that has been the hardest for us to watch because his rookie campaign was so magnificent, and he just looked completely out of sorts against the Yankees. Yeah, the Yankees did a great job. I really thought he was going to break out of it. I actually did a breakdown on him how patient he was. He was actually seeing the ball well.

But yesterday he got two hits, and his first at bat, he was ahead in the count two and O. and I remember turning to the guys and going, I think this is the first time he's been ahead in the count in three weeks. You know, so that's hard to hit when you're 0-1-0-2. And he was in 2-0. He got another count where he's ahead, 2-1. He got a base hit.

So he's starting to come out of it. But for him, it's a matter of getting in good hitters' counts. And he just has not been there. Justin Verlander versus Strasbourg tonight, Harold. I'm not the Titans, man. How about this pitching match? These are great. Yeah, I mean, you're talking about a number of the best pitchers in the entire

both leagues in this series, definitely. But I mean, just what's your thought, if you're in the lineup and you know that it's going to be a pitcher's battle, what's your approach? How does it change differently than if you know if you have going up against maybe a softer starting pitcher or a softer matchup? Well, I think you saw it early last night. You know, Adam Eaton tried to bun a runner over to third base in the first inning, you know, second to bat after Turner had stole second.

second. You know, he popped up the fastball. That's what you try to do when you know you're up against great pitching. You try to figure out any way to move runners to peck away, you don't think you're going to sit on playing for three-run homers. You're going to try to generate runs. You watched last night, I watched guys steal bags, baths on balls in the dirt. It's a different type of game because those great pitchers are not going to give you opportunities to really hit a lot of home runs with runners on. And that's the, the difference when you face great pitching. What about Gary Cole?

Look, that's the first time he's giving up five runs, I think, probably in five months. So we're so out of sorts. I would think the positive from the Astro side is that, much like when Verlander lost his last start before the Yankee series, is that at least he went deeper in the game, so you were able to preserve the bullpen a little bit. Yeah, he preserved the bullpen. He didn't pitch great against the Yankees either. He was a little bit off.

Last night, the stuff was there. He just faced a club that really took it to him a little bit last night. But, you know, with the year he's put together, watching him throw, he right now is the best pitcher on the planet, the year he's put together and going into free agency and all that stuff. But the stuff is electric. When you watch him and you're down on the field, you know that with his stuff, it's not going to be prolonged slumps. He's not going to get beat many times in a row. And so clearly, I think he's going to bounce. back and be fine. All right. And lastly,

how do you see this the rest of the way? In terms of how surprised were you about the end result of last night? And what would you anticipate the rest of the way? Well, I was stunned. I mean, I think you peed it up, Sam, I thought the only way the Astros lose the World Series is they don't get on the

bus to the ballpark. And I still believe that they're the team to be. Last night, I was stunned. I really did not think with the layoffs and with Garrett Cole going that we'd be walking out of a minute made last night with an astro loss. But I still believe that there was a team to beat. Last night, though, for me, it made it a great series.

Now all of a sudden we got a series. I think if the Astros win last night, with Verland are going today, chance to go up to O, it's a bleak world series moving forward. But I think now we've got a series. All right. Huddl brings you to us today. Hudd.com slash baseball. I'm assuming all sports.

football, softball, volleyball can be helped out by Huddle, yes? Yes, sir. No doubt about it. And I appreciate you the plug in that. So thank you. Just go to huddle.com and tell you all about all this sports. Harold, great to your voice again. Love the coverage on MLB Network and we'll talk again soon. Thanks for the visit.

All right, thank you. You got a Harold Reynolds with us here on Sports Talk 790. He's got confidence. You know what it was? And it's maybe hard because we have such a bias towards one of the teams. That was a great baseball game yesterday. yesterday. It was.

A.J. Hitch said that. He said, except for the result, that was a great game yesterday. Yeah. It had everything. It had an early lead. It had a comeback. It had an astro comeback. It had a little bit of controversy.

Base is loaded drama. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to see things in these types of games that you normally wouldn't pay attention to or everything is magnified. Like Brantley. How many times did the left field wall at Minutemate Park? I mean, 80 times, right? Never take?

I mean, I don't think he played that very well. But that's something that you wouldn't expect for a guy that's played as much as he has out there. He realized too late that he wasn't going to be able to catch the ball. All right. Matter of fact, if you missed AJ, we're going to replay some of the best part of that coming up at the bottom of the hour. So if you missed the conversation with AJ, we'll give you a chance to hear some of that in about to 15 minutes. So right now is your last segment to talk with us. And if you do want to get into conversation, you can do so at 713-212-5-790. The Houston lunchtime sports conversation most respected by head coach Bill O'Brien.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Matt Thomas. In his career here in Houston. Of sorts. The Matt Thomas Show. Hi, it's 220 on the Matt Thomas show. We really appreciate our listening. Good energy today. We will promise if you're a Texas fan, we will get more on your football team as a week progresses.

But this is World Series territory. Trust me, the Texans don't mind us taking no time for them. and all about the Astros because they lost to Indianapolis. But they'll feel better when the Astro, when the Texans beat the Raiders this Sunday. Will they? By the way, that's a 325 game. That game got moved from noon.

Wonderful. So 325 Sunday, the Texans. The Texans will be done about, what, 630, 6.45. And then first pitch is 7 o'clock. What a day. The Rockets will already have two games in the books for the season. Thursday night, they open up with Milwaukee, and then Saturday, Oklahoma City will be in.

By the way, did Oklahoma – I'm so out of the interesting. NBA because of all this World Series stuff. Who won Oklahoma City, Toronto last night? I have no idea. I don't even know who won the Pelicans game. That's the Pelicans game. Oh.

You said Oklahoma City, Toronto. You know why I'm wrong. I'm staying corrected. That's right. Raptors beat the Pelicans in overtime 130 to 122. That means they could be tired for Saturday night. Fred Van Vleet. He's scoring 34 on them. No, Zion. I wasn't interested in that game.

Yeah, Clippers beat the Lakers last night. at 12 to 102. Tonight is a full slate, as they say, in the NBA. And then Thursday night, you have the bucks and the rockets to open up, and then you have clippers and warriors after that. Boy, did you hear Clay Thompson definitely done for the season. There's no chance he's coming back. Really? Yeah. Oh, wow.

Hate to hear it. That's unfortunate. Very, very sad. Miss Carroll, you feeling good about tonight's game? Listen, I'm feeling excellent about tonight's game, man. I mean, all this talk about all they need to, this one need to

step up and this one need to do this listen let me tell you something we got us a team here man and uh i'm all excited the shucks i mean look look when garico gets back on the mound again it's going to be a different story so now i mean come on i mean come on i i do agree with you i do agree with you miss carroll come on no sadness no sad eyes no sad eyes nothing but positivity. Granted tomorrow, if the Astros lose tonight, we'll be in clinical depression mode. Don't speak that.

But it's not going to happen. It's not. It's JV. time. You can't. Remember we said before all did JV and Garrett have to do is when there starts? Because the must-win questions are much easier to feel the down-01 than down-02. So you're saying

that you're going to get phone calls tomorrow if the Astros lose asking you, Ross. Is game 3 a must-winning? You're going to fall in. you're sore by saying, I must die on this hill. I will die on this hill. In theory, you're right.

But we don't deal in theories and rational conversation with our sports teams. Taking it too literal. I understand that makes people upset. Joe on a task of seat on 7-90. Hello, Joe. Hey, Matt. How you doing? Wonderful. Hey, Matt. I called you last night

in the post-game show. Yeah. I was the one on the edge. And what did I tell you? Ross, you'll love this. what did I tell you if you were on the edge? What did you to do? You told me to jump.

Yeah, I did. I did. And explain why I told you to jump. Because you thought that I should have more faith in the Astros. Correct. And I do have faith in the Astros, Matt. I do. I'm just a Houston sports fan.

And the Yankees, I was more worried about the Yankees series. And I didn't expect this, to be honest with you. thought Cole would go out and win the first game. And they hit him pretty hard. And I'm still nervous. I'm still nervous, to be honest with you. But my question is, I want to get your opinion and Ross's opinion on possibly moving Bregman to the two-hole.

During the regular season... First of all, regular season and postseason are two different animals. I don't think the last thing you want, Joe, is for your... MVP to feel any additional pressure that he's not already feeling himself. I think that would completely freak out Bregman if you move people around. But wasn't he struggling in the regular season, bad in around 260, 270, and he moved him to the two-hole, and he got hot? I think he got hot when he moved to the four-spot.

Yeah, that was the other direction. He moved down, and that helped him. I think. Oh, he moved down. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I just figured maybe with Al Tuve behind him, he would get more pitches to hit.

I think this is about, and thank you, Joe, for the phone call not only tonight but today. Ross, this isn't me about himself evaluation. This is not about what's happening in front of him, the responsibility he carries behind him. This is a guy that's in a terrible, terrible slump right now. And I would, the easiest thing for me to take my best hitter, or one of my best hitters, is to show him the scorecard for the next five days and say, you know what, you're going to get this figured out. Yeah, I think AJ Hinch is going to show confidence in him,

and that's what he does, and it's proven to work out most of the time. I mean, a lot of people want to Jordan Alvarez out of the lineup for the World Series. He kept with him, and he got a couple of hits and drew a walk. Now, he didn't come through with the bases loaded, but that's what A.J. Hinch does. That's what he's going to do. And also, on the see-better pitches thing, that's been largely misproven by the analytics community.

most pitchers are focused on getting you out. A lot of people aren't focused on, hey, I'm going to go ahead and get this guy on base because it's not that much different saying, I want to face Yule or I want to say, I want to face Jose Altova. Alex Bregman's not going to see a bunch of great pitches because of that.

You know what I can do? We can tell you, and we'll do this before we get to the AJ conversation. I'll put Ross in his case at computer whiz. Where is he, what is he bat in this particular spots in the order? So we'll look that up. I think we can find.

Yeah, Alex Bregman, I'm sure we can find. Yeah, we'll do that. Come back. Well, let you hear. that and then we'll give you to aid the best of a j if you're on hold stay tight we'll get to you as well 713212 5790 713 212 5 790 hi this is former running back of hersawker you're listening to matt thomas and sports talk 790 like this song it's quality stones it's early stones right yeah it's pretty early on their career late i mean like late 60s

right i look to be sure which album is we got eight conversation right now, but Ross, give the splits on Bregman real quick. Oh, crud. I close him. Hold on. Me, credit. Just how you're going to do it? I know. I close the tab. Oh, well. This is your fault. It is my fault. Oh, no, it's not really your fault. Believe it or not, by the way, we're going to have a Rockets versus Thunder tickets

plus U of H versus SMU to giveaway coming up in about 20 minutes from now. All right, so talk for 13 more seconds. Check out the What's on Matt's Mind Show page at Sports 790.com. do a post-show show, which is becoming quite a phenomenon in the Houston marketplace. All right. He eight games, he let off. Okay. He hit 172, OPS 816.

Okay. 36 games, he bat second. He hit 265 with an OPS of 918. And here comes the... 78 games. He bat third. Oh, okay. He hit 276 with an OPS of 949.

And then the cleanup spot. 405, and this is in 34 games, 405 and the OPS of 1.322. So the drop to four was the one, the spot. And fourth were the best. Yeah. All right. So again, we're just, we're looking at regular season semantics against really good pitching in a month of October. And not huge sample sizes.

Yes. All right, AJ Hinch with us earlier today. We got right to Alex Breckman. We got to Breggman, right on that, Nick on that? About the, I asked him, I said, what was it like hearing that that Alex was going to sleep with his bat and here's AJ talking about Breggman a couple of things about what happened last night you know I know Alex is taking it hard and impersonal that he's not you know dominating in the postseason and certainly he's had some big at bats and he's had some near misses and

I love the accountability that he that he creates for himself and and I mean everything that Alex Bregman does is is legit across the board so I I appreciate his candor and and and him fall on on the sword, so to speak, of our offensive struggles. But I, you know, as far as his approach, maybe a little bit. I mean, it's always hard. I'm not, I'm not in the batter's box and seeing the pitches that he's seeing. And he might be waiting around a little bit for the perfect pitch and they're making tough, tough pitches on them.

But I, you know, look, you can fail the other way and be overanxious and swing at everything. And then you'd ask me, hey, is he trying to do too much to be the hero? So I think it's just about results. When he gets pitches to hit, you know, he's fouling him off or near misses. And when he's right, he's not doing that. So aggressiveness or passiveness, I think, is the nature of the results. We'd probably be talking about it the other way if he was swinging at everything and still making out.

Yordon Alvarez, got the walk, a couple of hits. Didn't come through with the bases loaded, unfortunately, but you had to be encouraged with him getting on base a few times. Yeah, good at bat. The walk early, I think being disciplined. I mean, he'd been chasing so much throughout the, the postseason, and I think for him to draw a walk against a really good pitcher to lead off the second inning, I was encouraged by that. I think the two base hits, one was a rocket almost hit Scher back up the middle.

That was encouraging. He had a pretty decent at bat with the strikeout. The result wasn't, but the big swings were. He just missed a couple pitches, but don't ask these guys to be perfect. We do ask for adjustments along the way. And as we know, when he gets hot, he's going to have these big. moments. It's funny, you know, I get asked about these guys in the podium, or I get asked about them on this show or other radio shows and it seems like the game then turns to

that at bat. Like, what's going on with Alex Breggman? He probably gets the biggest at bat tonight. It's just the way baseball works. And that same thing's going with Alvarez. Like, he's getting, he's getting opportunities and he's slowly showing some adjustments that you know, maybe today facing

Strasbourg for the first time. He gets to, you know, a pitch to hit and, and and the building will go crazy when he does. I think part of that, AJ, honestly, is the fact that it's October, that if this is a slump in the middle of May, we're like, all right, slumping, it's 162 game schedule. Everything is under a microscope, so I think that's part of the reason why. Jay Hinched with us here on the Sports Talk 790.

So, AJ Garrett proved that he was human yesterday, although we didn't believe it until the runs were given up. He does go 7 for you, so he saves your bullpen. And on the other side of things, your skipper counterpart, went to what we thought would be a starter, may indeed still might be a starter. They had to exhaust their bullpen. So if you're going to find a silver lining,

you did take your shots and you did force Max Scherzer to lead the game after five. We did. I loved our approach against Scherzer. And we talked before the game that you've got to beat their starter and make it difficult and make them make decisions. And they, you know, bringing in Corbyn, maybe it didn't help us yesterday,

but it may help us moving forward. They have them penciled in in game three or game four. But that's been their, blueprint is to use, you know, essentially, you know, five or six pitchers for 90% of their innings this postseason so far. They weren't tested in the St. Louis series from a number of game standpoint. And so the longer this series goes, the more likely that we are to see some of the ramifications for them having to use the same guys over and over again, you know, with Doolittle and Hudson. And then Rainey came in last night and he was a little erratic. So they have the

numbers. And they have just as many pitchers as we do. But, how they deploy them is going to be important not only for each particular game, but as the series continues. So I don't know about silver linings. It's a race to four wins. They have a one-nothing lead, but we had a ton of chances against their primary bullpen. And if the series continues to be close games like this, we're going to see that same group again. I want to ask kind of behind the scenes a little bit on your preparation.

Most baseball managers and or players are diligent about how. they orchestrate their day. How much did your day change yesterday, not having a real great feel of have the nationals, because you haven't seen them in a few years, except for obviously spring training. Yeah, that was an advantage. Yeah, the advantage being we won in game six of the ALC, so we had a full 24 hours extra. So on, you know, we went on Saturday. I was at the ballpark on Sunday. We were going through a lot of information into Sunday night and then, and then into Monday. So the extra day did help us. We have some familiarity with these.

We had our advanced team working on this as soon as we saw the NLCS. We had guys preparing for St. Louis and for Washington. And so the information was there for us, really the minute that we clinched against the Yankees. I hadn't looked at it and we hadn't studied it. I hadn't watched any video or done my normal prep. So a little bit of crash course, but it's expected. It was the same way that way, you know, in 17. team with the Dodgers and it's the nature of these series that come one after another

when you don't know who you're going to play while you're continuing to play the previous series. So we feel prepared for these guys. We made pretty good, you know, pretty good adjustments. And we were right on some of the side. We thought they'd run a little bit. We thought they were going to be tough to strike out. We knew Juan Soto was a tough matchup for a lot of our guys. and he proved to be, you know, one of the most important players on the field yesterday. So no real surprises in game one. Is it weird or just coincidental that if I'm watching a team you're going against start to steal bases that you may be a tinge more aggressive on the base pass? Or it's just one particular game that I'm looking at?

No, one particular game. I mean, I think the combination is different. You know, tonight, Strasbourg, he also has his challenges with, you know, with the running game. He's big and tall and long limb, like very much like Derek Cole. So I think it's still more about opportunistic and not reactionary to what they're doing. Or we take bases whenever we feel like they give them to us. And vice versa, they're going to run whenever they feel like they can put pressure on it. So that's their style of play pretty much every game.

Our style of play is a little bit varied based on how they defend it. A couple more minutes here with A.J. Hanch. Skip, you and I will not visit on air until hopefully next week we celebrate a big championship. but I'm very curious, and I don't even think you have an answer to this. You're going to have National League pitching situation where your battle will hit. In theory, you might be going with a bullpen game in game four or something like that. Does that add an additional wrinkle about, oh, my gosh, I got to worry about arms, how many pitches I got going, how many guys I want to go to. And oh, by the way, he's batting second in the top half of the next inning.

Yeah, I mean, I think it just changes a little bit of, well, changes our bench. We'll have an extra guy on the bench, five instead of four. If we do a bullpen game similar to how we did the bullpen game against the Yankees, you know, you've got to be aware with where the pitcher spot's coming up, and do you need a multi-inning guy or a one-inning guy if you're trying to avoid the pitchers hitting? You know, and then on top of that, I might have six guys on the bench. Grinky might be a pinch hitter in the bullpen game that would be a game four. So I think, you know, those decisions are going to be made based on the context of the game, not so much.

you know, not so much like predetermined as to what we're going to do. I mean, if we, as an example, let's say I start Brad Peacock in that game similar to how I did against the Yankees, and we bat around in the first inning, like he's going to get an abat. I'm not going to pull him just because because the abat came up in the first or second inning if he's still the guy that we have matched up to pitch against these guys. So we'll see. If I started Rikidi, I think it'll be more traditional, but I'm not sure that he's built up to go 90 to 100 pitches. He's more of a three, four inning guy right now. But again, that's game four. That's a long way from now. And certainly we'll navigate

the pitcher spot with Granky in game three as a normal starter. And then we'll see what brings us in game four and five. All right. There you go, AJ Hinch from earlier today on Sports Talk, 790. We're going to be happy tomorrow, right, everybody? Yes? Please. Hopefully. Don't leave Matt Thomas in your car. Take him with you. Download the free IHeard radio app for your phone at sports 790.com. Just remember you'll have to feed. See, this is what Bregman's song should be in the walk-up tonight. Just get loose.

Like, he's just going to make sweet love to the baseball? Make love to me, baseball. He did sleep with his bat last night. Yeah. And now there needs to be sweet love between the Pintas and you. I need some more Barry White in my life. We need more Barry White, period.

Yeah, that's true, man. We should like a Barry White Friday one day. Five minutes. like to go on the show. What should we do? We should play. I thought I heard an echo. America's Fassus growing sports game show. We simply called it. Believe it or not. And here is how it works. You'll call 713213-2-1-790.

Today's edition of Believe it or not is brought to you by Houston Woodhouse Spas. Printout your gift card for the gift of re-laxation at Houston Woodhouse Spas.com. Houston Woodhouse Spaws.com. Category today is, do you know how old various members of the Astros and nationals are? I will read you a player and how old they are. If you believe

it, you'll say this. Believe it. If you don't, you say this. Two believe it or not. It's an age of players. Wins one of two amazing prizes, Ross. Yes, Matthew. We have tickets to the Rockets versus the Oklahoma City Thunder.

We also have a no, I think we're out You have H though. Let's just go with Rockets and Thunder. Nick and tell us. Do you feel the thunder? We have some Kansas tickets left, too. Oh, great. So 70s rock band or Rockets versus Chris Ball. Carry on my way, word, son.

But you must believe it or now. John on 790, John, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Annabelle Sanchez is 35 years old. Believe it or not? Believe it. That is correct. Believe it.

Statement number two for the win. Sean Doolittle is 32. two years old. Believe it or not. Believe it. Believe it. Belief. There you go. Congratulations. Easy, keezy. This is a highly Google boy and easy to win.

Danny on 790. Ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Juan Soto is 20 years old. Believe it or not. Believe it. Yeah, I was going to say you got that wrong at the show. Anthony Rendon is 29 years old. Believe it or not. Oh, believe it. Yeah, another winner.

How many Rockets to get through a giveaway? Let's get through a giveaway. Sorry, Nick. Line three, Taylor on 790. Ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Ryan Presley is 27 years old. Believe it or not?

Believe it. No, he's actually 30. Thanks for playing. Matthew on 790. Matthew, your favorite part of the radio show today. AJ Hinch interview. Ryan Zimmerman is 37 years old. Believe it.

or not believe it no it's 34 thank you but listening no it is a shame it is a shame let's go to line where we going next let's see john's a winner danny is a winner Corey on 790 core you're ready to play believe it or not Corey no he's not you ready uh Kurt Suzuki is 35 years old believe it or not. Believe it. Believe it. Martin Maldonado, 35 years old.

Believe it or not? Not. That is correct. A lot of Kansas tickets. A lot of Kansas tickets. Let's try one more contest in here. Let's go to line number four. Line four, who is this?

John. John, Chris Devinsky's 28 years old. Believe it or not? Believe it. Statement number two for the win. As Drewball, Cabrera is 28 years old. Believe it or not. Believe it.

Believe it. We're going up the stands with Rockets fans and Kansas fans. Wonderful. It was easy. Sometimes we're a challenge. Sometimes we just want to give the gift of listening to the radio show. Wonderful. Hey, I want to remind you about the different winners with TGS insurance.

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text right now. Save that money on your home policy with TGS insurance. A team is at the ball, at ballpark over at home plate bar and grill. I'm working clubhouse, so hopefully there'll be no champagne tonight. Hopefully some celebration at least as I'd get back in there as the Astros try to split this bad boy with the Nationals. For Ross, for Nick, I'm Matt. Thank you for listening. Do not go anywhere. The A team from Minute Maid next on 790.