The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - The Matt Thomas Show 11-01-19

Episode Date: November 1, 2019

The Matt Thomas Show w/ @SportsMT, @SportsRV, and @ProNickLow 11/1/19Good Morning Strippers! Anything Goes Friday! (0:00)Dr Roto (23:52)Joel Klatt Joins Matt Thomas Ahead Of NCAA Week 10 (39:21)Beat The Schmoes (1:03:48)Brian T. Smith Discusses The Disappointing End To Astros Season (1:22:22)

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers. I'm on my way I'm making you. Is the Matt Thomas show. 12 H-town. And welcome to a Friday edition of the Matt Thomas show from New York City and Houston. Right here on Sports Talk 790, I'm Matt.

up here for the Nets versus the Rockets game where hopefully one team will line out to score more than 150 points to win in regulation, so thus I can actually get a sip of water and breathe. Rossville O'Reall is back in our Houston studios, as is Nick Lowe. Gentlemen, how are we on this Friday? It's a little chilly. Other than that, I'm feeling well, and I'm upset that you didn't say you're a humble man that lives in the Kingwood area. Well, it just doesn't make sense when I'm 1400 miles away. Where are you now?

New York City. And then where are you going to be Monday? Memphis, but I got a trip to Miami in between. Oh, wow. You were just all you were just jet setting all around town, aren't you? So you're not going to be back in studio for like two weeks? Next Tuesday, I'll see you. I'll see you next Tuesday.

Okay, great. Yeah, that's not the way. I really wanted the way that to go, but it went that way. So you're saying you miss me is what you're trying to tell me. Not at all. I'm just wondering when, you know, you'll be back. It's like when your parents or it's like when your teacher's out of town and the subs are in, you're just hoping that they stay as long as possible.

Wow. Okay. I feel the warmth. You all hear that, Houston? My partner, my co-host, my friend of a decade, just likes it when I'm not here. Fair enough. It's a little break. Well, you're going to see, this NBA season means a lot of the time of the road, my friend.

You're going to be just fine. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, as we've done each and every Friday for a better part of a decade, I've asked you to call 713212.5.790. 7132.1.3-1-2-5-790. Because today, like every other Friday, is that Anything Goes Friday. Anything goes. All right, Rossi, let's get to it. It is Anything Goes Friday.

Please explain the essence to our audience what Anything Goes Friday is all about. Well, Matthew, here on the Matt Thomas show, we have the longest leash in the biz on our phone lines. It's 713-21, 25. 7.97-13-1-2-1-25-7-90, and you can talk about anything that is on your mind. Under anything goes Friday, if you're still wanting some Astros post-mortem after losing Game 7 of the World Series. We can definitely get to that. You got the Rockets, of course, tonight in New York City. Well, yeah, Brooklyn, going up against the Nets in beautiful Barclays Center.

We can talk about that. You got the Texans across the pond in London. Matt, did you hear Rage Against the Machine is reuniting if you want to talk about that as well? I didn't really broke up. Yeah. Are you devastated and now happy? Name your favorite Rage Against the Machine song. I'll go killing in the name, I think.

Okay. I was going to go to that one too. Yeah. Sleep now on the fire is pretty good as well. Wait, so who's singing? Bulls on parade, I think. No, Zach Del Roach is like it's actually, yeah. They're all coming back.

Do you like them? I like rage. We should play a couple of bumps today in honor of them. Oh, boy, yeah. All rage all the day. It's going to be the Matt Thomas' favorite song. Matt Thomas's top 10, rage against the machine songs. That's exactly what I'm thinking about it.

All right. May I go off sports to start anything goes Friday? Of course. What happened? Who wronged you in a bodega or at the airport? I had a restaurant, actually. Okay. See, I was close.

I went to Italian restaurant with some friends. A little local bistro called Olive Garden. No, no, that's actually in Midtown Manhattan. That's right. I went to a very swanky Italian restaurant. Bucca de Beppo. Okay, what happened? Okay.

The pizza de hut. And I had an iced tea. And it was about eight ounces of iced tea. It was not a large... Eight ounces? Eight. Yeah, maybe eight ten. Topps.

Okay. Thin glass. Yeah, that's not a lot of tea. With a lemon wedge on top, you know, adjacent to the glass. I'm a no-lemon guy. You don't know where those lemons have been. I'm pro-lemon. Okay.

I work in a restaurant. Avoid the lemons. That's see? I've worked at a restaurant. Avoid the lemons. I'm pro-lemon, and now I'm anti-lemon at 12-07. And it goes Friday. Hashtag it.

So I have another one. And as you know, Ross, in the audience, says, I do love my tea. So I probably at the end of the day, and I know it probably, I did have four glasses of iced tea. Wow. The bill came, and I saw that my steak cost this, and I did not get an appetizer or a salad, so it was just the entree. I did have one beer, and then I had the four iced teas.

Steak was $39. The beer was an Italian beer, $9. Dang. Ice teas, $5 a piece. Wait, no refill on tea? You spent $20 on ice teas? $20 on four tea. adding the ounce equivalence plus plus plus plus maybe 34 ounces of ice tea now we should

also next tell the audience what it costs to make a glass of ice tea for someone probably less than a penny per glass yeah I was going to say maybe a nickel if you add labor to it not even nickel the washing machine uh that I mean the dishwasher the actually people humanly walking to from a location to put the iced tea into the little thing and get it for you yeah I'm thinking Okay, four cents maybe. Yeah, but they make like five gallons at a time. Well, this is, I don't think they do that in New York.

They do this, and maybe in Texas, but not in New York. And look, I will be honest with you, I had been burned once by the iced tea, no refill rule. So I was under the position of, well, all right, stupid me, I should have asked, I'm in New York City. Well, another friend of mine who was with me decided this is unacceptable. So she said, excuse me, is there on the menu where it says no refills? And the waiters said, no, it's not. But we just charge $5 per glass. She was unhappy with that.

She went to the manager of the restaurant and said, there is nowhere on this menu that you are charging per glass on the iced tea. And he hemmed in a hall and he says, all right, we'll take it off. Point being is this. Texas Nice can't. work in New York. Rossi, I reek of Texas nice. I was about to bite the bullet and pay the $20 for the IST because I'm in foreign land, so to speak.

Yeah, I'm like that too. I don't like to cause a ruckus. I'm anti-ruckus causer. Here's a little tip for you. The squeaky wheel gets the grease anywhere. At all times, I know that. So this friend of mine who is not from here has lived in New York for approximately three years. And she says, when you come to New York, you've got to be aggressive, whether it's on the

train in the streets at your workplace or when you're fighting for a friend's $5 per glass ice tea and she won. So the story I want to tell you here on anything goes Friday is if you drink tea in this part of the country, please ask ahead of time, are there free refills? Because $5 per glass for about a 9 ounce glass of iced tea ain't worth it. And that's my story. Wow. A harrowing tale.

from New York City. Now to the important news of the day. We're going to make some football in on the conversation. Dr. Roto's with us at the bottom of the hour. We normally have them on Thursday, but since yesterday was a factory of sadness for us, we decided to push him back a day. Our buddy, Joel Clatt will be with us at 1 o'clock

to get us a little college football fix. And then we have Brian T. Smith at 2 o'clock today. And I believe Brian T. Ross was at the media availability today for one, Jeff Luno and A.J. Hinch. So we'll get his perspective on that. And speaking of that, let's let you hear some of the sound bites. We'll actually play them in this segment and in next segment to kind of give you a recap of what exactly was said today over at MinuteMade Park as the general manager and the manager of your American League champions. That's right.

American League champions, not World Series, but still sounds pretty good. American League Champions spoke to the media. And I want to give you two little things that obviously was among the topic of conversation. And it was Garrett Cole. Here is AJ first on explanation number one about, again, the decision not to use Garrett in game seven of the World Series. You know what I wish we would have done is win a home game. That would have changed everything. And we couldn't do it.

And that's because of the Nats. You know, I think this World Series is, it's tough to put it all on one thing. But I think the Nats outplay. us and at the worst time for us. And you go back, I can, it's funny. I don't really want to get into every single decision. There's hundreds of decisions that go on, and 100 non-decisions that go on,

and the what-ifs are endless. I mean, there's so many scenarios as of, most people don't even ask me about the decision I'm the most upset about any given day. And that's no disrespect to your guys' questions. But it just, there's just so much that goes on, and so much context that's long. much context that's lost. I don't know what Garrett Cole would have brought in game seven.

Maybe he would have had his moment where it was exceptional. Or maybe he would have given up runs and it would have been I overextended him. When you're a manager and it's my job to take the bullets, it's my job to wear the decisions and the non-decision and the, I made the decisions I made when but I'm not going to I'm not going to second guess you know the process that we had in place we had a really good plan more on that with AJ and exactly what he and a what Garrett and him discussed before the game about the scenarios in which Garrett would come into we'll also hear from Jeff Leno as well and we will hear from you at 713 212 5 790 713 790. Remember to anything goes Friday here on the Matt Thomas show. I'm here in New York.

We're tonight if you want to talk some Rockets basketball. We will do that as well as it will take on the nets in a battle of the top two scores in the NBA. Kyrie Irving and the Nets and James Hardin of your beloved Houston Rockin. Ride. Half the workday is done. Celebrate with Matt. Hey Matt. Love your show. Look, what was he talking about? By the sound of it, some of you started the party at breakfast. Matt Thomas on Sports Talk 790 All right, Dr. Roto's going to be with us in about to 12 minutes from now for some fantasy football advice.

Ross, we've got to get into football mood, which you know what? I don't mind the little 830 kick time in London. I know it'll be early for you, but we get three football games. I actually get four on Sunday if you count the night game. I will anticipate I'm going to be watching on DVR. Unless I get up early, I might get up early

and make some chilly on Sunday. Well, why don't you give the address for people to come by and taste your chili? It is actually quite delicious. Going to make some three meat chili? It's going to be quite spicy and amazing. Would you please bring some for Tuesday on our return? You really want me to bring you some? I will.

Yeah, I usually make it like a whole vat of it so I can bring you some. Yeah, chili, onions and cheddar cheese on top of course. I put a lot of onion. I actually get offended when people put cheese on it because I feel like you're bastardizing my baby. Okay, I will not bastardize your chili. Thank you. No one else has ever said that to you in your line. Back to A.J. Hinch, he explains what he and Garrett Cole had agreed upon before the game.

Garrett and I met the day of game seven, and as I talked about, we wanted him to gauge his physical capabilities. I wanted to talk to him a little bit about a role if things turned in that way. He went out and played catch. He did his normal pregame routine, came in, said he was available. At that point, we talked about him pitching in a win. And as I told him, there's a lot at stake here, right? There's a lot of stake personally. There's a lot of stake as a team. I wanted to be pretty clear with him.

He'd never pitched in relief. He'd never pitched on two days' rest. And I was very aware that I wanted to be very fair to him and make sure that not only was he able to do it, but he was good. There were a couple kind of couple rules that Garrett and I agreed upon. One, he wasn't going to come in the middle of an inning. and two, he was going to pitch if we had the lead. And things changed quickly in the seventh.

We went from getting in the middle of the inning to losing the lead pretty quickly. At that point, you know, I brought in Harris, I brought in O'Suna. If we had regained the lead or gotten a tie, Garrett was going to go in for potentially the ninth or tenth. And that never came to be. All right. So there it is. And again, my guess is if you hate Hinch and you, despise him and you want him fired.

Hearing that is not going to make you change your mind. As Ross and I alluded to yesterday on the show, it wasn't like, hey, Jay Hinch said, I'm not going to go with Garrett Cole. I have a feeling that Hector Rondone's going to get these outs. He went with his two best relievers, and it didn't work out. Will Harris ends the World Series on a down note after having basically a 99.999% amazing season for the Houston Astros.

And that's how it ended. And would you have liked to have seen Garrett? Is that going to be the big mystery, the big unknown? Well, of course it is. Yeah, he's basically confirming what we had all thought and heard is that he didn't want him to come in. He wanted him in a clean inning and he didn't want him to pitch him in a loss. Basically, Garrett Cole was game seven's closer, right? And that makes Osuna and Will Harris expendable setup.

And that's the way he'd be basically game-planned it if you look at it that way. And my guess is the time as he's running through the different options he may or may not have, he's thinking, we get this game tied or be able to lead. I'm going with Garrett Cole. But I don't want him in a situation where the Astros are losing, and then if all this when we come back, then I've already burned through Osuna, I've already burned through Harris, and I've already burned through Cole. Look, we're going to spend a lot of time revisiting this,

and maybe even AJ's doing the same thing. It is one of the most important storylines, but I'll say this, like I said yesterday. To me, the Astros bats, as highly inconsistent as they were throughout, really the entire postseason Ross when you think about it, but especially the World Series, that to me will be the one that will sting more than whether or not Garrett Cole pitched in Game 7. That's just the honest truth on my part. Yeah, you had what we talked about as being the best lineup in the history of the team and the depth that it had.

And you have Carlos Correa, who, I mean, was an MVP. candidate two years ago batting seventh and then robinson trinos and whoever josh reddick and ninth who was a solid proven major league hitter at least to be good and maybe not great yeah and you couldn't get runs you couldn't get runs the entire playoffs if they could if the if the if the bats got hot at any point the astros would have been blowing a lot of these games out in and basically winning not in even not in five games and six games but like in four and five I mean, in the extended series. It's just frustrating.

They couldn't get it going because the opportunities were there. That's the thing as well. They got people on the base paths. They had traffic. They just couldn't bring them home. Let's go to James and Alvinan seven on a hi, James. Hello, James. Rossi is James there?

I think our phone is. Hold on. It's the phone system. A reminder, Dr. Roto coming up at the bottom of the hour. I'll let you handle if you want to punch. about. Yeah, it's, well, okay, now I can. All right. Can you hear me? Hi, James.

Yes, sir. Thank you for accepting a call. Can you hear me? Sure. Oh, okay. So I wanted to talk about game six. It's unfortunate that the whole conversation is surrounded by game seven. Game six to me was the must-win game. When the nationals pull that stunt, we're going to pull Max Surgia from game five because he got a injury. We all know that was a strategic move. My thing was, wasn't nothing wrong with what the Astros did itself.

AJ Hinch, game six, was the must win because it was a psychological thing for the Nationals if they can get Max Serser to a game seven. It shouldn't have been a game seven. When Burlander was struggling, he refused to pull him out. then he pitches to Juan Soto with the game tied to two, two. He then gave up the league and tied the game.

And with the base open, he could have walked him. Then he could have pulled. Then he could have pulled Burlanda. It was a whole lot of mistakes made by AJ Hinch. I thought AJ Hinch, hopefully he can add this to his resume to say how not to fail in the future. I hang up and listen. Matt, we still got you?

Yeah, I'm here. Let's go to Larry and Galveston on the Matt Thomas show. Hi, Larry. Good, buddy. What's up? I'm with you. The previous caller right in front of me. You know, I think he needs to just sit back and take a look in the mirror and see who he really is.

because, you know, our skipper, AJ, is one of the finest skippers in Major League Baseball. And anybody that wants to come up and keep throwing rocks at him and question this, question that, then they need to go out and step up to the plate and say, you know, well, the guy's done an outstanding job for five years. He continues to do it. He knows how to handle our players. He knows how to lead our baseball team. And he's a wonderful manager.

Now, the only thing that I have a question about, and I'm not being critical. He was going to be coming out of the ball game. we've kind of put in Yep Larry I got a roll over a break I appreciate it Look it's okay to be critical No one's asking no one's asking anybody

To put up this wall of No coach is perfect no manager It gets everything wrong I mean it's okay to say hey I would have liked to have seen this I don't have zero problem with that You know All you're asking for

Is the right moves we made And sometimes they're just not But there was a spot where you had a 2-1 game, right, Ross, 2-1, runner at first after the walk, and you're asking to go to your bullpen, to go to people that have been in the position with runners on the base paths, in troublesome spots to get key outs. And Ross Will Harris has done that except for the last time you pitched for the Astros, right?

Yep. When Grinky was getting pulled, I was like, wow, it seems a little early. He's only 80 pitches. And then you say, you can argue that point for sure. There's no reason why you can't argue that point. Of course. And you say, but it's not like some huge crazy blunder, a fireable offense like people are acting like.

It's just a, I would call it a head scratcher. And I'm not, I would say my attitude to that is, hmm, I'm not so sure about this. Not, this is the biggest error he possibly could have been made. A.J. Hitch needs to be fired. Like, there's a difference. Yeah. There's a difference.

And that's when you, uh, you just, You don't, everything is not either one extreme of the other. Right. You know what? Honestly, Ross, if this was a one game world series, then maybe you would have that kind of approach. But this was seven games of a knockdown, dragout series between two excellent baseball teams.

Not one move was going to determine anything. Because let's say that he went with Erkiti and he got the final two outs. Then do you bring Arquit back? You're going to try to put him again? Or are you going to Garrett Cole? Because under the rules of what Garrett and he agreed, agreed upon. They were going to come in in a clean game with the lead. I mean, everything was up for conjecture. And the move that AJ wanted to go to was what he thought was the best was,

I'll go with a reliever who has been there and done that in this situation against another guy who's never been in the situation. Now, this other guy happens to be fantastic. This other guy was ready to go and got in the bullpen and started throwing. But there were no guarantees that that other guy, meaning Garrett Cole, former Houston Astro, would be able to go in there and get the job done. have been. I would have loved to have seen it. I do think in hindsight it was a mistake that we didn't at least to get an opportunity to see what he would have been able to bring.

But at that point, all the air was let out of the balloon when that pitch was hit. And I mean, a tough pitch, if you go back and look at it. Will Harris threw it to the spot he wanted to throw it to. It wasn't like it was a hanging curve ball. It wasn't like it was something that had no movement to it. It was a

pitch that Will Harris has been able to use to dominate American League hitters this year. And yesterday, on two days ago. Didn't work out. Those of you on hold, we'll get to you in a couple of minutes. We're going to get some football chatter going and we'll do that next with our good friend, The Good Doctor, Dr. Roto, here on Sports Talk 790. If you have a question for Dr. Roto, shoot me a tweet right now at SportsMT, at SportsMT, and we will get you an opportunity to go to visit and hear from The Good Doctor as he goes

through the fantasy football perspective, especially what's happening with the Texan Jaguars this week. It's to be very curious how things go. This is All-Pro running back, Ricky Williams. Stay connected to Houston Sports, even when you're not in town. Listen to Sports Talk 790 on the I-Heart Radio app. Give me the news, I really. Let's get with a good doctor with us here on Sports Talk 790. Doctor with us normally on Thursdays, and we appreciate the flexibility.

You understand, good doctor, we were having to mourn the Houston Astros losing last night, So I appreciate you moving to Friday. How are things? I'm sorry, M.C., that was a great world series. Can you imagine not one home team winning a game? I mean, that's got to be unheard of. Sorry, it worked out the way it did, but you guys read back next year. It is literally unheard of.

It's never happened in any of the other sports, including basketball, baseball, or hockey, where a road team has won every single game. Let's get to the NFL slate. Kansas City situation involving whether or not Pat Mahomes, starts. Where are we on this? I mean, again, it's not up to us, but from a fantasy perspective, how much do things change if there is a quarterback change? Well, I mean, Matt Moore can't throw for 300 yards as much as you want him to. I mean, he's the definition of a jag, just a guy, right? I mean, he's better than some backups, worse than others. I like Sammy Watkins this week.

Trey Wayne's not a great cover guy. I like Tyree Kill this week. I think Javier was a little bit overrated. It's the running game that's been a problem, and they can't stop the run. How are you going to stop? How are the Chief's going to stop Dalvin Cook? I don't see it possible. How the chief's going to stop Step on Diggs? I don't see it possible. So I think the Vikings could go in there and win, and that's a little shocking, but it's true. All right, there have been some backup quarterbacks that are doing quite well, including what's going on in Carolina right now. What do you like in this Tennessee-Carolina matchup? Well, look, I mean, Samuel is not 100%. Cam Newton just got a vote of

he's still injured, he's going to see Robert Anderson. He could be done for the year. I mean, there's a big problem. Kyle Allen has been okay. The last couple of starts, though, not nearly as good. Look, Christian McCaffrey is great, and you play him all the time. After that, do I feel good about DJ Moore? A little bit, but I don't feel great about Samuel.

I don't feel good about Greg Olson. For Tennessee, it's all about Derek Henry. I mean, he's the star. You play him every week. All right, Indianapolis at Pittsburgh. The Texans a couple weeks ago saw some really fluid passing, moving down the ball, moving down the field where the Colts with Jacoby and then they kind of got stuck a little bit

despite they got the win at the very last second. Mason Rudolph, how much are you gaining confidence if you are at all with him in Pittsburgh? Those two teams meet on Sunday afternoon. Yeah, I think this is going to be a better game than most people think. I think it's going to be a higher scoring game than most people think.

Mason Rudolph is not a bad player and he will be the starting quarterback for the Steelers one day when Ben Rothersberger is finally done with this game. I would love this kid Deonté Johnson and I just am not sure about Juju Smith, and I think we also need to worry about James Connor. Is he going to play? Betty Snow is out for two or three weeks.

Jalen Samuels is back. He will play this week. For the Colts, last week I thought it was a Marlon Mack week. This week I don't. I think the Steelers will stop Mac. I actually like to Kobe Berset. And take a look at the tight end. Ty Houghton, dealing with a calf injury.

He's very questionable right now. I like Jack Doyle or Eric E. Brom, one of the two finds the end zone. All right. Levyon Bell was unhappy about it. touches he received for the Jets. They go to Miami this week and by far the worst game of the week. If we have Levi-on-Bella,

are we hasn't going against them, or is it Miami so porous that he should explode this week? No, no, you've got to play Levy on Bell. I mean, firstly, as much as I hate Adam Gase, and I do, you know, he knows that he messed up by not playing Bell nearly enough against the Jaguars. Bella's going to get 20 to 30 touches this week. You start him. You start St. Donald.

I mean, he won't be seeing Ghost and Gobblers. and ghouls in this one. You're looking at the Dolphins where their best cover guys is now out on IR. I like Robbie Anderson to make a play this week. For the dolphins, I don't know, maybe Mark Walton is interesting. He's their new starting running back. If anybody needs a running

back, Kenyon Drake, obviously, he's now with Arizona. Walton's there. And maybe this kid, Preston Williams, who continues to look good. All right. Detroit and Oakland meet. I don't think either defense can stop anybody. So can we just pick up every available Detroit and Oakland skill position player in Lodam on a

rosters this week, especially with teams that have some buys? Yeah, I really like this game for fantasy purposes. So firstly, for Detroit Stafford, it's a much different team right now without Carion Johnson. When Carion Johnson was there, there was a one first team. Now it's a past first team. So I don't really like Ty Johnson this week. I would stay away from him.

Love Kenny Goladay. You want to start him. You want to start Danny Amandola. The Raiders are very bad against slot receivers, and you want to start T.J. Hawkinson, the Raiders are really bad against tight ends. Look what Feld did last. week. For the Raiders, Derek Carr should have a good week.

Josh Jacobs should have a good week. Tyroo Williams should have a good week. Hunter Renfro might even surprise because the lines are terrible against flat receivers. And finally, Darren Waller, who is an absolute star. All right, one more game in this early segment. Cleveland at Denver, again, not very sexy record-wise. Cleveland has been a massive disappointment. And Denver's out with Joe Flacco for a significant period of time.

with two dog teams, with a quarterback gone. Who is playing this week for our fantasy squads? Yeah, in Denver, look, you can't trust any of the receivers. And I like Cortland's son more than the next guy with Brandon Allen there. What is he going to do? So I think you start Royce Freeman, I think you start Philip Lindsay. For the Browns, I mean, look, how good is Nick Chubb? The Patriots couldn't even stop him, so you start him for sure.

I worry about Beckham. He's going to get covered by Chris Harris. He's going to get frustrated, which means to me, I think Jarvis Landry should have a week. I still don't like Baker Mayfield. He looked terrible right now. I think you need to. I mean, I'd much rather Derek Carr this week than Baker Mayfield. Now, is he the fantasy dud of the year, quarterback-wise?

It's pretty close to it. I mean, it's not that he's so bad. I mean, he is bad. Don't get me wrong. But it's bad in relation to when you took him. He was going as like the fifth and six quarterback off the board, and he's probably been like the 22nd guy. And that's the problem. If you took him in around 16, you'd say, all right, I expect

them to be garbage. But when you took them around six or seven, you weren't expecting him to like literally hand the ball to Lawrence guy on that stupid interception last week. Sounds like something personally happened right there. Just saying. All right. Back with details on the Texans. A really good Sunday night matchup featuring New England and Baltimore. And we'll get Dr. Roto's lock of the week as well. Rockets PA announcer and sports talk show host. One might get the impression Matt Thomas loves to hear Matt Thomas' voice. Go ahead, Matt, talk for us.

1247, Matt Thomas from New York. Trying slowly but surely to get ourselves in a football mood again. We'll get some college news with Joe Glad at Fox in about 10 minutes from now. Brian T on the Astros Press Conference earlier today, and your phone calls all in between at 713212-125-790. Let me tell you, we just got word, good road, doctor, that T.Y. Hilton's out three to four weeks. What's your first blush thought about that? I expected it.

I saw the, you know, he was dealing with a calf injury, he had to been practicing all week. Look, a lot of people are going to panic now and not want to start to Kobe Brissette. This is when you have to embrace the crazy, and I think it's a contrarian play, especially in DFS. Hilton makes them better, but they've got a lot of guys, Kairis Campbell, Zach Pascal.

Chester Rogers, Doyle, Ebron. So it is a big loss, but if there's any team that can handle it, it's the Colts. They are. Honestly, I think they're the most well-coached team in the NFL. Outside of Bill Belichick, right? Outside of Belichick, Frank Reich might be my second favorite coach. All right, New England and Baltimore. I think this is a litmus test for anybody that's trying to figure out if the Raiders,

if the Ravens are for real. That New England defense, and again, it hadn't played a bunch of great competition, but they have really kiboshed anybody from being competitive. Can they do it this week on the road? Well, we may have seen a chink in their armor. Like last week, Nick Chubb ran really well against them. If it wasn't for a couple on timely fumbles, it might have been a different outcome of that game.

The question is this week, can the Ravens take advantage of it? You know Lamar Jackson's going to run. Will they have Kyle Van Nuys spying on him? I'm not sure. Is Mark Ingram going to find running lanes? I think he's important. Mark Keith Brown is terrifically important to the outcome of this game. As is Mark Andrews.

The last time we saw Mark Andrews, he was dropping easy passes that he should have been converting the touchdowns. So I think it comes down to Brown and Andrews, and I think Jackson will play well. I think that, look, if the Patriots are going to lose, this could be the week because they are going to run the ball. The Ravens are going to run the ball very well against them. Yeah, I guess, you know, I think most people want the Patriots. to lose, I just want to make, if you have Patriot players that aren't your fantasy watch, you want them to still get the numbers. So, well, yeah, Julian Edelman is a guy that you must start.

I think James White is a must start, right? For sure. Tom Brady is always a must start, right? After that, though, do I feel great about Sony and Michelle? Probably not. Do I feel great about Mohammed Sunil? I mean, 10 points good, but, I mean, Edelman and White, you start every week. Are you all in on this now fluid Green Bay offense that go to the Chargers on Sunday?

Well, the charges have been a turnstile on defense. The Steelers ran against them. The Titans ran against them. And you saw what David Montgomery did against them last three hundred and thirty-five yards and a touchdown. What makes you think that Aaron Jones and Jamal Williams won't run against them? They will. They will run against the Chargers defense. It's not very good.

So now you've got Aaron Rogers and you've got a run game that's going to be good. And now you've got play action passing and Devonthe Adams back. I think Green Bay walks in and absolutely wins this game on the road. All right, let's get to speaking on the road. The Houston Texans and Jacksonville Jaguars are in London. Jaguars go every year, so they're very familiar with it. We got Deshawn Watson wearing a mask because he got kicked in the face last week. I don't think I've ever asked you in the history of you and I working together

whether or not a quarterback's numbers can be depleted because of a said face mask. What do you think the Texans can do against the Jaguars who, you know, again, they played the sucky Jets last week. But Mitch who's playing really well. And as I've told Ross a number of times, I think everybody in this AFC South beats each other over the course of the years. With that being said, could the Jaguars put up some numbers against what is a banged up, literally banged up Houston Texans defense? Well, you know, it's interesting about the mask. In basketball, one of those guys were masks to cover their broken noses and stuff.

You know, you ask yourself, does it affect them? A lot of times it does. So we will know very early on how it affects Watson. him. Let's just assume that it doesn't affect him. You've got to like DeAndre Hopkins this week, okay? You've got to like Darren Feld this week. And I think Kenny Stills was such a monumental disappointment last week. I think he rebounds and has a good game. On the opposite side for the Jaguars, man, Minchew, Fournette. And remember, I don't think D.D. Westbrook is going to play. I really don't. So you have DJ Shark and you got a guy named Chris Conley. Don't overlook Chris Conley. If you're desperate for a wide receiver and you can't pick him up, get him. He has performed very well when he's had the opportunity. I think this is going to be a very high-scoring game with two teams right now with a lot of injuries on defense. All right, for we wrap things up, let's remind folks, the one player we ask of you every week that's going to be absolutely without a doubt a 100% big lock to score us in big points.

It's Dr. Roto's lock of the week. I don't know if this is too big or not, but Dalvin Cook running against the Kansas City Chiefs. Are you kidding me? I mean, nobody stopped Dalvin Cook. entire year, and the Chiefs' run defense has been a sieve. If Dalvin Cook does it, you know how good Cook is going to be? He's going to run for so many yards. They're going to be bringing Alexander Madison, who's going to run it for another 50 or 60 yards

himself because Cook is going to be tired from running for about 180. So start Dalvin Cook, whatever you do. All right, and that is Dr. Roto's lock of the week. Let's get one call before we say goodbye to good doctor. Brian and Mission Ben on 7-90. Hello, Brian. Hey, how's it going, guys? Good.

Cool. So I had a quick question. I'm wondering if I should start Melvin Gordon or Devin Singletary this week. I'm not too sure. All right. There's your running back battle right there. Oh, we lost Roda. Do we lose him? Oh, no, we lost Roto. Oh, Nick, you got to call Roto back. I think I dropped him accidentally. So we will try to reestablish the good doctor here to finish that point off. Singletary or Gordon was the guy.

he was going to. That was totally my fault that I dropped Dr. Roto. I didn't mean to do that. Not at all. All right. I want to remind you that Joe Clatt's coming up in about five minutes from now, and we will get some college football conversation going because frankly, we've been so overwhelmed with baseball for all the right reasons. And we'll get more on the A.J. Hinch, Jeff Leno press conference. They had it earlier today. Some of the sound bites coming up in just a few minutes. All right. We've got to get to Dr. Roto quickly before he runs. Dr. Roto, Singletary or Gordon this week from a caller. Say it again? Singletary or Gordon?

You know, it's funny. I think this is the week that Singletary is going to have his opportunities. I think Frank Gore is slowing down, and he is the next generation of that Bill's offense. I like Josh Allen this week, and I do like Singletary a lot this week. All right, remind folks where they can find you before now in Sunday's games. Yeah, absolutely. You can find me at full-time fantasy.com and to the promo code Roto 50 for 50% off your first two months. You can find me at SI.com, that's Sports Illustrated.

s.i.com backslash fantasy and of course at Twitter at DRROTO. Great stuff, my friend. Thanks for the combination of moving around. We'll do this again next Thursday. You got it. Talk to you soon. All right, there you go. The Good Doctor with us here on Sports Talk 790.

Let's go! And now we're talking college football with Joel Clatt. Brought to you by Dos Ekes, official beer sponsor of the college football playoff. And we will get to Joel coming up in a couple of minutes. he is moving from one location to the next. You're finding a good spot to join us for a weekly business. I don't know with this on Wednesdays, but we had the World Series on a brain. Ross, how are we going to handle the next six months?

Are we going to spend six months figuring out what could have been? I mean, is this what most – is this what Dodger fans been dealing with for, like, the better part of three or four years? Is what could have been? I guess Ross's – I think we're going to be focused on this Houston Texan Super Bowl run, Matt. And the Rockets winning 60 games. You know, they are playing 750 basketball. And they've got a lot of kinks to work out still as well. I watched NBA last night a little bit of each of the games are in T&T.

I don't know if the NBA is playing any defense at anywhere at this point, right? Honestly, the league is really, really fun right now. The league is fun. Again, granted, I don't know if I want to call every basketball game that I'm calling that it ends up 159-158, but I don't mind 125. I can tell you right now, fans were clinically depressed in the 90s when it was 94-83. I'd rather have this. Yeah, think back to those like the 2005 finals where it was the San Antonio Spurs and the Detroit Pistons.

Those games were ending like in the 70s, like even in overtime. Oh, yeah. Yeah, just to think, I called the game that had the most points for the rockets on their side in regulation. They shot, Washington shot 63% for the floor, 43% from 3-point, and still lost the game. And tonight may not be any different. The Nets are averaging giving up 122. Kyrie's second league in scoring at 35.

James is Thompson in the league at 37. So yeah, maybe first to 1.30 is tonight's rocket's key to victory. Let's say how to our good friend, Joel Clyde, from Fox Sports, who has been nice enough to accommodate the moving to switch to today because of the Wednesday Astro Madness. I got to ask, Joel, you're doing the Oregon-USC game. Do you at least get mileage from Fox for this long travel trip you've got coming up? Yeah.

Yes, I expense them the 22-mile drive from Newport Beach. It's good to be home. I've got to tell you. It's good to do a game on the West Coast. I haven't done a Pac-12 game and a Pac-12 venue for a couple of years now since USC hosted Texas a couple of years ago. So I'm excited about it. And I think that this Oregon team specifically, they're starting to get the attention of the country.

I don't know if you guys feel that down in Houston. I know that you guys have been indicted with that amazing rocket game that you were talking about against Washington and the series. My condolences, by the way. Thank you. It was a phenomenal series, but I'm sure that that was super painful for the game seven there at home. But I don't know if Oregon has kind of raised eyebrows around where you're at,

but I think that this is a really good team that likely should get at least pretty healthy consideration for the playoff that they continue to win. Well, I do actually have some friends when I used to work to do the University of Utah games that have been asking me, hey, when you have Joel on, can the Pac-12 sneak into the final four this year? Is there any hope of that? I think that there's hope. I don't know if it's a large window of hope, but I think that there is hope. obviously the Oklahoma loss helps them out quite a bit. I know I was just telling you about Oregon,

but I actually believe that Utah probably has the better shot. And it's not because they've got a better non-league win or anything from a resume perspective, as much as it is just they don't have the loss to Auburn. And as you guys know, like, if LSU loses to Alabama, LSU is going to be like, well, we beat Auburn and you didn't. same with Alabama. If they were to lose the LSU and still beat Auburn and the Iron Bowl,

they would have kind of that head-to-head direct matchup when over a team that Oregon lost to, albeit in the first game of the season. So I think that Oregon's going to have an uphill battle with that one-loss, non-champ, potentially out of the SEC West, whereas Utah, they continue to win. If they continue to dominate, and if they were to win the Pac-12 championship,

I think people might look out there and say, you know what? I think Utah could have a better argument as a champ than a non-champ from a different. Visiting with Joel Clyde here on the Matt Thomas show on the Sports Talks. I'm in Los Angeles where he'll be on the call of Oregon versus USC. I'm here in New York with the Rockets and Nets. Joel, last night, and again, I'll be honest, I didn't see much of it, just saw some highlights. But Baylor is undefeated. Yeah.

We've mentioned a little bit about them. And as I talked with you a couple weeks ago, we had some pretty good debate around these parts of whether Baylor football is going to ever come back. I would think being a top 15 team undefeated this late in the season puts them in their back category. Oh, there's no doubt. And listen, this is way earlier than I expected. I had done some interviews, you know, right after that all went down. And right when Matt got the job. And I thought, you know, with this program's history, this is not OU.

this is not Texas. This is not even, you know, like a Nebraska that can point to some history in their past. This is Baylor. And their most successful history was exactly what they were coming out of. And Matt Rule has done an outstanding job. I said that it would take them a decade or more. And here they are three years later, and they're doing it. And this guy is going to get not only consideration for national coach of the year,

which he should get consideration for. in strong consideration, but also, I think he's going to get real strong consideration for any job out there, not only at the college level. I think that he could be staring at a potential NFL job. And I'm not suggesting that he's got to leave. If he wants to stay at Baylor, more power to him. He's got something going there. And this is one of those teams that, along with Minnesota, they're just creeping, right?

They're just like moving along, moving along. And then all of a sudden, what we're going to see here in the next few weeks is their ability to jump up there and really make it legitimate, right? Minnesota's got Penn State. You're going to have Baylor-O-U. You're going to have Baylor, Texas on back-to-back weeks. If Baylor gets through those, I mean, my goodness, they're not only in the Capbird seat to go to the Big 12 championship game, but then you're going to have to start considering them a real bona fide playoff contender. So not only are they back, but this is, you know, they're playing at the top end to college football right now and more power to them. You and I have discussed in the past about whether or not Lincoln, Ronnie, would ever want to leave Oklahoma for the

NFL. So we'll forget about him unless you want to drop the name. But give me one coach you think would be the first to leave college and go to the NFL. Or do you think at this point that's just, it's just too many speculative things even to throw a name out? Yes, it is. But I will tell you that the names that the NFL has most interest in. And I think if you start there, then you can kind of get to a point where you're like, all right, one of those guys will be the first one to go. There's two that they always have interest in. That's Matt Rule and David Shaw. David is an interesting case because it seems like he's running into a bit of a lull right now at Stanford, and it might be the case, whereas his kids have grown up a little bit, and maybe it's time for him to move on, but I think Matt Rule

or David Shaw would be the two guys that I put at the top of the list. And then here's the next one that I think is sneaky. Brian Kelly at Notre Dame, guys, and Brian Kelly at Notre Dame, he might be thinking to himself, is this ceiling for Notre Dame currently? In particular, after last week, when they got their doors blown off against Michigan, he's been to a national championship game. He's been to a playoff.

He's trying to recruit at the highest level in a tough academic institution in the northern part of the country without a great local recruiting base. It's hard to do. That might be a sneaky one that could get some interest from the NFL crowd I could see him specifically doing well, fitting in Atlanta if they change.

And so that's just something to maybe hold in your back pocket. I'm going to be in Miami tomorrow, Joel, and I'm going to a Miami Hurricane Watch Party against Florida State. As a kid and you and I are comparable in age. Without having a dog on the fight on either side, you wanted to be in front of a television for Miami and Florida State. What the hell? Oh, my gosh, it was the best game. It was the best game of my childhood. What happened to this series?

Well, you had, listen, rivalries, and that one I wouldn't say is historic necessarily, like a Michigan and Ohio State that can kind of survive, but you got to have good competitive teams. And right now, both of those schools are in a spot where they're not doing it. They're not recruiting very well. And you know what's interesting about Florida State? And I think this is a tough indictment on Willie is that when you look at the 24-7, seven composite rankings. So what that is is that you take every team in America and you basically look at their

roster and then you look at what those kids were when they were recruited, four star, five, star, three star, whatever it is. And then you can come up with a composite score of like, well, of the current construction of rosters, who's the best team in the country as they were recruited? What you'll see is Florida State is supposed to be in the top five this year. that is not a good look for Willie Taggart. And I know that they've had some defections and everything, but it's not about where the kids came in.

It's about your current roster and the stars that they had attached to their name coming out of high school. So they have not developed well at Florida State. Miami is certainly in flux. I don't think it helps Miami that they're playing at the Dalton Stadium. I think part of the mystique of the hurricanes was the old Orange Bowl. and now without a real true home, I don't know if they can ever get back to what we saw

from them during the 80s and 90s and even early 2000s. Last question, if you had to hand in your Heisman vote today, who would you give it to? You're not going to like this now in this part of the country, but mine would be Chase Young by a hair over Joe Burrow.

And Joe Burrow is going to have a chance to, of course, put his name right at the top of that ballot. when he faces Alabama. But, you know, from what I saw and I got to see the entire Auburn game, and he was good. He wasn't great. He was good. Chase Young's the most dominant player in America, and he's got a lot of factors working on his side as far as a defensive player potentially he went in the Heisman Trophy.

But, yeah, and mine would be Chase Young right now. All right. I love it. We can ask that almost on a weekly basis and maybe even get a different result. Joel, again, thank you. I think that you might. Yeah, you know what? You're right.

You're exactly right. What are we going to get 300 points tonight? Well, let me tell you something. And by the way, I got to tell you, I peeked into the Fox baseball booth when the Astros were playing in Houston last week before I got on the road. Y'all have like 900 cameras, 600 audio. I mean, there is no way as a play-by-play guy you could possibly screw up because you have more cameras and whistles. I'm assuming the college football number one broadcast has the same sort of technological advancement. So you guys are in a perfect spot to call this game.

Me, I'm in the second deck of an NBA arena, losing my breath. I didn't call a single miss for like two and a half hours. It was 317 points among friends. It was a great day. Listen, I'm not saying that it wasn't. I can help you out here. Even if you don't see anything, like if it's like vague to you and fuzzy, if you're getting tired, if you haven't had any food,

just be like, James on the left wing, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, step back, three. Good. Harton with a three to win it. And he's got 59. See? Made it.

You and I are a great team. I could just figure that out right off of that last 30 seconds right there. Back next Wednesday, my friend. Thank you for the time, as always. You're the best. See you. I will see you later. Joe Clyde.

Fox Sports here on the Matt Thomas show, a resident hater of all things, James Hardin. And that's fine. He also hates your puppy, too. Other than that, Joel's great. All right, back on the baseball beat next as we continue to have a little left of the hangover of a World Series loss. A.J. Hinch and Jeff Luno spoke to the media. We'll hear some of that coming out of the break.

115 is our time. It is the Matt Thomas show. If you want to get in, you can do so right now. It's 713-212-5-790. The morning sports show for those who partied in Midtown way too hard last night. The Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. Our work is just starting. We're going to go to the GM meetings in a week.

We're going to go to the winter meetings in December. And as you know, a lot of the signings don't even happen these days until February or March. So we'll be working hard and keeping you up to date as much as we can. We're not going to tell you blow by blow who we're talking to and what's going on. That's not allowed and nor is it our style. But rest assured, you know, we got within eight outs of our goal this year. And we're going to try and take it all the way. next year.

All the way next year, Ross, you ready? I can't wait. It is painful, isn't it? To get within eight outs. Eight outs. World Series championship. Banners, parades, rings,

vomiting, alcohol, women taking their shirts off. Traffic. I don't think a ton of women took their shirts off during the last. last parade, at least to my knowledge. Hugging.

It probably should have hugging. Yes, high-fiving. Man urinating on the streets. Clydesdales. Also urinating on the streets. Everybody's saying go asteros to each other, follow about urinating on the streets. Maybe.

Remember that guy, somebody lost their hat or something like that? And then everybody tossed it up the garage so there's, so someone can get it back. That was cool. I told you this right before. The safest day in the Houston, in the city of Houston, maybe in the history was when the Rockets won their first championship,

June 1999. Nobody, nobody, everybody just wanted to hug each other, and high five. No robberies. There's probably at least one murder. No violence, relatively speaking. Didn't someone punch a horse, or is that before the parade? Isn't there a song called Punch a Horse,

Rod a Cowboy? No, that's not how that goes at all. Oh, okay. Yeah, we're a safe community. We know how to party properly as compared to everybody else who just likes to take cars and mattresses and couches and set them afire? No, we haven't found nothing happened in D.C. yet, right?

When's their parade? That's a great question. Does the president get to go on the parade? Yeah, we get Sheila Jackson Lee and Sylvester Turner. Does Donnie do you go up on the parade? You know what, Tony, he would have to have probably, he'd have to have one of those Pop-Mobile things where they put them in a glass case? That's how you survive that kind of thing, right?

Yeah, that's probably a good idea. 713-212-5-790. Now, Jeff Leno was asked a variety. Game 7 of the World Series was one of the greatest baseball games anybody has ever seen. He's 0-4-2 on saying that now, right? Yes. And by the way, if the nationals don't go see him,

that'll be a huge insult because the ride's like 20 minutes. They could all Uber to the White House. Don't meet with Trump. It's bad politics. and see. If Ivanka wore my daughter, perhaps I'd be dating her. We're going to talk sports now. So Jeff Leno would not give away any secrets about who he wants to resign, not sign, trade for, whatever.

But one of the questions that was asked today about if the Turinos Maldonado combination is good for 2020, here's a little glimpse into that. It's got to be. I mean, at this point, you know, we have Garrett Stubbs. We've got some other guys in the system. But with both of our major league catchers becoming free agents, that's, clearly something that's at the top of our list. So we'll be working hard to resolve that.

You know, I'd have to look at the Frangy Fremacy list when it comes to catchers. It feels like Ross, the last five years, I haven't been a whole lot of guys to go to. Like, I think Robinson Chorinos was like one or two on free agent catchers in the off season last year. I mean, when's the last time the Astros had a real? I mean, even when they were making runs in the early 2000s,

it was Brad Osmus. Yeah, I mean. You know what? I got one. the great Tony Eusebio and his 24-game hitting streak over like six years. And he slugged. I think every one of those hits were singles. Hey.

24 singles in a row. BMI of 32 and slapping singles into left center. Slugging 500, maybe. Tony Usabio, one of the greats. One of the greats. Rank your catchers. For me, it's, you know, number one. No, it's number one for me, Tony.

No, it's number one for me is Alan Ash because he was my Astro Buddy in 19. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Then I'm going to go with a young Craig Bigio. Then I'm going to go with, um, hmm. Paul Baco. No,

I want to go with Paul Baco. Scott's service. Oh, man. Carlos Corparon. Corp. Oh, man. I remember it being a shock to my system. When I was like 12 years old and I saw Tony Usabio get, uh, interviewed and he was

speaking Spanish, I thought he was just a black dude. well he knows he knows what he's talking about he's Dominican yeah I don't well I mean I just remember as a 12 year old I was like wait why is this black dude talking speaking Spanish it was very confusing but there are there are people to consider him a cult hero I'm not even kidding yeah the the Astro Clipper Tony Usabio my old radio partner is a name what rhymes with manse Merlin loves him some Tony Asabio I love to and Tony Usabio yeah but there's The goat is Alan Ashby because he actually hit a home one once in a while and he had a great rock and stash for decades. You want a little Ross trivia? Sure. My poker screen name was Tony Usabio online. Is it still that way?

I don't play online anymore, but it was. What is your match.com nickname a name? I don't think you do a nickname on there, do you? Your name is like, if your name is Steve, your name is Steve. Oh, okay. You can call yourself Tony E? Yeah. You don't call yourself like Magic Stick 69-69 or something like that.

You just use me? A little rough there You don't call yourself Love Bucket 1337 You just Yeah By the way

If you ever see SportsMT on a match.com That's not me Oh man I should Well speaking of Mance Merline We made We did a great bit We made a match account

With his Or a Tinder account And then I would just And then when I would match With somebody By the way Single Moms in their 40s Loved Mance Merline's pictures

I would just send them tweets of his. Remember that? And then it started bringing up like football stuff and they were confused. Yes. They would be like, oh, so where are you from? Like what high school did you go to? And then it would be like the Texans offensive line just really needs to improve.

Well, here's what I've been doing. You know how bored I get sometimes? There are bots on Instagram, right? Uh-huh. Like anywhere else. Sometimes these bots on Instagram send me DMs. Mm-hmm. Same.

Oh, I've messed with them before as well. And they're like, how are you, babe? And I write back, I am gassy. And then they respond, I'm actually doing pretty good. And then I send back, I need $15,000 as soon as possible. That's the crazy thing. I want to get mad at the bots and for this happening all the time because I probably get, my DMs are open.

So I get at least probably a couple of months. Right. But there has to be somebody who is stupid enough to be sending these people money or else they wouldn't do it, right? Otherwise, it's a huge waste of your time. I just try to see if there's any human element to them, and there just never is. Let's go to line one and say hi to Anthony, North Houston on 790 at 126. Anthony, what do you got today? Oh, what's up, y'all? So I was just wondering, you know, I know Luno said that they aren't going to talk about what they're doing, and I'm sure haven't really thought all that much

about moves this offseason, but I was just kind of worried about the bullpen. You know, know, so many guys are, their contract is up this offseason. And so do you think that they'll maybe be able to sign, resign Harris? I know he's going to probably go for a lot of money and maybe, you know, I don't know if Framber, Valdez is going to make it off the big leagues. Like, he's kind of shown that he can, but at the same time, like, I just don't trust him. So, you know, I was maybe thinking that they could deal him and get something back for him. And I think Redick's time is done, especially with Tucker getting a lot of ad bats just postseason.

I just think that they should probably trade him. And the last thing, you know, do you think that there's any possibility of, you know, I'm probably going to get crap for saying this, but trading Carlos Crea because he can't stay healthy. You know, he struggled pretty bad in postseason, especially in the World Series plate. You know, he had a few big hits. but other than that, he had a lot of big strikeout. Well, here's what I'm going to tell, Anthony. Thank you for the phone call.

Anthony, and Ross, you can agree to disagree with me on this. I believe that Jeff Leno will take a phone call from someone outside of the Astros, another team, about Carlos Correa's availability. And I believe that Carlos, that Jeff will know will listen to the conversation. Do I think it's a strong possibility that a deal gets done? No. I put it in the 10% category. But there are conversations that Jeff will know has had in the past about asking about Forrest Whitley and asking about Kyle Tucker that have gone, stop, I don't want to hear this.

I believe Jeff will listen to a conversation. Agree or disagree. No, he's not going to trade him. I mean, he'll listen, I guess. If somebody wants to call and say, hey, we'll give you this for Carlos Correa. I just don't think there's going to be anything coming up to the value. I mean, because of the ceiling of Carlos Correa and what he can provide and under team control for multiple. multiple years, I have zero expectation of him getting moved. All I'm going to do is this. I don't think he's going to get moved.

I'm not a proponent of him being moved, but I think they'll listen. Way more than they would say a year ago at this last juncture. Well, if Astros fans on Twitter are right and you can get Francisco Lindor, they're not right. Then they would listen, but other than that, Carl's Coray is not going anywhere. Yeah, I agree.

But sometimes you just get foolish phone calls, and then sometimes you get phone calls, they go, all right, what are you offering? I think they would, Astros would take it. But the upside, as Ross alluded to, still is very, very, very high. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for one lucky listener to beat the Shows. In your dreams. Even if we had our contestant-lock and load, unfortunately, We're having technical phone problems. It's just, this segment has so many pratfalls.

So we got a number of you guys trying to get in and play Beat the Shmows for that. We appreciate you, and we thank you. But now apparently we're trying to get our contestant Ben locked up, and we can't make phone calls out with our phone system for some reason. Let me tell you something. As those of you that are familiar with the show, we are a billion-dollar company. Let me try on my end, Nick. Let's see.

Oh, there's a deadline. Okay. Hold on. Oh, no. I'm pulling a Matt. I'm pulling a Matt. Thomas. We don't need you to win.

I'd tell you about the five glasses of tea I had, or four glasses of tea I had yesterday, $5 a lot. Yes, you did. And how a friend of mine just said, I'm a New York resident. I will make sure this is, you don't pay for this. And they didn't. I didn't pay for it. Dude.

So sports empties. Yeah, it's not letting me dial out either. That's fine. Forget what the? Let's just make a little. our picks. Ben is our contestant. He'll just email our picks.

Well, yeah. I mean, just a bunch of, just, oh, I don't care. At least the show is going beautifully and well and moving smooth. Yeah, hey, ratings are up as well. Yeah, there are. They're going to well. Thank you all for listening to the show. It means a lot to us.

All right, Rossi, I will go first. We bet four games against the spread. Minimumum bet is $1,000 M. Max bet is $5,000 empty bucks. We must bet the Texans among our four games. and Rossi, the person that you can know that can email you, we'll just make them a de facto contestant. They need to send your picks to you and we'll go from there.

If they tie or beat both of us, they get $50 worth of gift cards from our good friends at Papa Johns. If they tie or beat one of us, they get $25 at Papa Johns. And if they tie and beat none of us, they get nothing and like it, right? Yes. So with that being said, I will go first. I believe the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to defeat the Indian Apples Colts. I don't need a stinking point or to give one up. I'm going to take Pittsburgh over Indianapolis for 2,000 M.T. Bucks.

My second game, my friends, will feature a game featuring a team from Tampa that has to travel 3,000-plus miles with a sucky offense against a Seattle offense. It's doing really well this year. I like Seattle minus the four. It should be a lot more. But Seattle minus a four over Tampa Bay for 3,000 MT bucks. Next, what's the matter with you? Nothing? Well, a lot of things, but that's a different conversation for a different time.

Next. I think the Baltimore Ravens give the New England Patriots their first loss in season. Ooh, spicy. Baltimore plus three over New England. I'm not super confident over it. I'm going to take it for 1,500 M.T. bucks. My U.S. Math says 3,500 M.T. Bucs, Rossi. and the Jacksonville Jaguars, I'm staying consistent, I'm staying true.

Everybody beats everybody in the division this year, I think, for the most part. And that includes Jacksonville who likes to play in London, who knows what's like to play in London, and I'm not a fan of Deshaun Watson wearing a mask. I will take Jacksonville plus one over Houston. Okay. 3,500 MT bucks. And for you Texans fans, know that I have not picked the... Texans right once this year.

That's a good point, Matt. All right, I'll go ahead and make my pick. You know what? I'll start with that one. I'm with you, Matt. I haven't picked the Texans correctly all season. My gut tells me the Texans are going to win. Therefore, I am pulling a Costanza.

I'm doing the opposite of my intuition. I'm going with the Jacksonville Jaguars plus the one for 2000 M.T. Bucks. Next, I'm going to go with the Carolina Panthers. It's not necessarily that I'm super. confident in them, although their defense has been playing well. It's just that I think Tennessee and Ryan Tannahill suck. I'm going to go with them at home, getting the three for being the home team for

2,000 MT bucks. And next I'm going to go with a pile of mediocrity versus a pile of mediocrity. Detroit versus Oakland, a very uninteresting game. I think they're very evenly matched. So you give the home edge to the Oakland Raiders. I will take them. for 2,000 M.T. Bucks. And that leaves, holy smokes, $4,000 on one play.

We are heading from Locktober into L'Vimber, Maddie. The Buffalo Bills are an absolute fraud. They're 5 and 2, but they've beaten the Jets, Giants, Bingles, Titans, and Dolphins. 9 and a half is a little much, so they got another cupcake and the Redskins. I think it'll be closer. Actually, it's 9 on our spreads. I think it'll be a little bit closer than that. they will win the game and be the worst six and two

a team ever. So I'm taking Washington plus the nine for 4,000 MT bucks. Whoa. Oh, you got a lock sound effect on that top of that? Lock Vember. Man, I'd have people calling

at 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-0. Give us your thoughts on the Washington Buffalo game, but since our phone system doesn't work, that would be impossible. Well, we just can't call out. I think people can call us. But we can't answer it. No, I think we can answer it. We just can't call people out.

Call out. We can take phones in. We just can't call out. So 7-13, 2, 1-25790. We're like in prison and basically. Yeah, the calls can check in, but they can't check out? Correct. Okay.

It's like Hotel California. Let's test this right now. Okay. If you would like to have a little, if you have an Astra hangover, we can help you that. By the way, I had Long Island teas here in New York. I feel like that's the drink of choice when you're in New York, right, on Halloween? Yeah, I guess if you're looking to get absolutely smashed quickly. I had two felt delightful.

Okay. Wait a minute. That's why you kept getting charged for teas. You're ordering Long Island teas, Matt. Oh. No, in eight-ounce glasses, they were still $5 a pop? That seems a little excessive. That's cheap in New York.

Beer's going to run you like $12 in New York City. And all honestly, the teas that I was drinking were of the regular nests tea variety, if you will. The ones that were significantly more expensive did have a variety of alcohol in them. But when in Rome you must drink as a Romans do, right? Okay. When in New York, you must drink Long Island teas. Thus, the reason why I was in a good mood until about two hours ago when my phone systems dropped. 713-212-5-7-90.

Come test our system. Come be a part of the Matt Thomas show and anything goes Friday. 7-13-212-5-7-90. 7-1-3-21-5-7-90. Our time is 143. It is an anything goes Friday. We got Brian T. Smith coming up in about 17 minutes

right here on Sports Talk 790. Good news. It's the Matt Thomas show for lunch. Let that boring brown bag lunch rot in the employee refrigerator. Oh, what's that smell? The Matt Thomas Show on Sports Talk 790. Is anything going to go sprighting the Matt Thomas show?

Ross, I got a question for you. You never see a watch a TV show and you see a girl? You're like, man, she's attractive. And is it appropriate for me to be thinking, man, she's attractive? What do you mean? Well, like, Jody Sweeten is on the talk. I happen to have it on my TV for some reason. Okay.

And I'm like, that's the girl from full house. That was the middle child. and she had kind of a rough life after she left the show. Yeah, a little meth addiction. I mean, meth. I never heard anybody. Yeah. Who doesn't have that?

Yeah, it happens. And she's obviously rebounded. She looks great. And I'm thinking, well, how old is she? And is, is it okay for me to say that she's an attractive woman? She's in her late 30s. Yeah, she's only 10 years younger than I am, so I'm well within the range. Yeah.

Why would you, I don't understand? Just double checking. Okay. I was just saying, just double checking, making sure I was all right. You can, so you're telling me you're sweet on Jody Sweeten. Yes. I really think there's probably some other ways I could go with it, but for the sake of being a PG family-friendly radio show that we are,

PG is perfect. Sweet on Sweetin. By the way, our good friend, Bianca, listens a show all the time. She sent me a message and says that her dad's legal name, first name is Yusabio. I don't think there's a lot of Yusabios running around this country. Is his middle name Tony? I don't believe that to be the case. Here was the thing, and I'm going to go with some phone calls in a second.

When I used to live in Utah, this was the time where Stockton and Malone had just finished within five or six years of retiring, okay? And I was getting involved in the community a little bit and doing the few things. I was in an event with some listeners. I think I met in the same day two kids that were probably about eight or nine years old at the time with the first name Stockton. Oh, really? I'm telling you the God's honest truth. That's disgusting. And so you don't, and when you live in Salt Lake City, you don't even have to ask the question, is that a family name?

You just know that Stockton was named after what's his face. You think there's a bunch of little Elijah ones around town or Bagwells? Well, I mean, I'm telling you the truth. Elijah one Thomas. That's got a nice ring to it. It does. Hakeem Thomas. Now, you know my oldest was named after a sports arena,

Cameron Indoor Stadium. And my middle one. Think about that sentence you just uttered. What? What did you name a kid after a sports arena? Well, I mean, I love the name Cameron, and I just had to convince Kim that, hey, since you're such a duke fanatic,

let's go with Cameron over Cameron Indoor Stadium. Oh, so really you just kind of made that up because you like the name. I see that is the truth. I really love the name Cameron. Okay. And so that was easy way. And all the by the way, it does open up some avenues.

It does open up that, you know, like when I saw Grant Hill and I had him wish him a happy birthday or happy anniversary or whatever it was. It was I said, hey, Grant, I'm serious. My wife's a diehard Duke fan so much so we named our oldest son Cameron. And he goes, oh, that's great. And then he just started talking. So it opens me up to Duke All-Americans. That's great. So you can rub elbows with famous people, as you love to do.

I mean, it's part of my charm, right? I mean... And my middle son's name is Peyton. Or my middle son's first name is Peyton. I mean, you just look to get pictures with him for Facebook likes. He is straight up Peyton Manning. Straight up for Peyton Manning. That's, that's...

As all of you listen to show. And then Carly is on her own. We just love the name Carly. So that's the reason why with that. I don't have a problem with naming your kids after athletes, but pre-19-8. 89, Ross. There was not a single human being alive named Stockton.

So you're being a hypocrite is what you're saying. Duh. Correct. So Bianca, tell your dad, Usabio, we sent our best. Let's go to Ryan and Katie at 153 on Sports Talk 7. Honey. Hello, Ryan. Hey, Matt.

Thinking about when it comes to the future outlook of the team, and I wanted to get your thoughts on where things are going for potentially the next couple of years, because I know this is this is. kind of like the time frame of things starting when, you know, everyone knew that we kind of true colors, I guess, to an extent of, of Luno and Crane because this is when you have to start figuring out, you know, contracts and money and all that because, you know,

all the, all the key guys on the team that we've had for several years, they're starting to run into either late arbitration or free agency time. You know, we've tied up, We've tied up Bregman already. George is going into his last year of arbitration. McCullors are in Correa are in year three of arbitration. It is somewhere over 200 million, from what I can see.

So they're going to be running it. I mean, I think even without coal, they run into luxury tax problems already. You know, my general question is, you know, they've been giving up prospects over the years. You know, they're going to have Forrest Whitley, but when it comes to cheaper type guys to come onto the team, you know, how much, I'm kind of seeing it to where they might not be making any more of these bigger type trades in regard to trading prospects for guys to come in at the trade lines, potentially. You know, what are your thoughts on that? because, you know, we're getting at to the point now where, you know, we've made a lot of these trades over the years giving up younger talent that potentially could have turned into, you know, cheaper type guys on the roster to levy what you have

of more expensive type guys, you know, like, you know, your Burlanders, your Coles, your what potentially, what now are going to be out two days, kind of Bragman and things like that. I mean, do you feel like you're not, I don't think that there's, you're going to really see a granky-type trade to happen for this next season. Do you think that we're going to see something like that again? Well, let's, okay, you give me a lot to chew on here. So let me just run through a few things and hopefully I answer what you're looking for. As you mentioned, Bregman's locked up. I think they're going to do everything in their power to lock up George

Springer for the long term. I think they will wait on Correa until he can prove that he can play a full season. You have Verlander locked up for two more years. You've got corner outfield spots that have to be ultimately figured out for the long term after next season because you got Brantley done after next year, Redick done after next year. You do have Whitley coming up. You do have McCullors coming back. You do have Kyle Tucker coming back. Altube is locked up.

Gueriel's got to make a decision on that. You got to go find yourself another catcher for sure. It's not abnormal the amount of decisions have been made, but I do think Ryan the Astros have done a really good job. of locking up what they wanted to do, so this season wasn't nearly as much to handle on that. Really, George, it's got to be the main go-to guy they've got to think about this year.

From a pitching perspective, you have at least two-fifths of your starting, well, actually, four-fifths of your rotation already locked and loaded at least first from a salary standpoint. And as far as trades are concerned, Ryan, I can't predict that because it takes two to tango on that, and you don't know where the payroll is going to be before the start of the season.

So there isn't a lot of way. work to be done, there is going to be probably as much as any other normal offseason would be. I just think the number one thing we'll be thinking about is can they get George locked up long term? So this next season doesn't become the season of, well, is George going to stay here or move on? And I think they would like to keep George here. And I think that will be everything of their main focus. I think getting a catcher will be of a main focus. I think adding one more starting pitcher will be in focus. And then, you know, retaining most of the guys in a bullpen that were your high leverage guys. So I don't think it's any more work than previous post seasons or after seasons.

I just think it's one of those situations that you just don't want George going into spring training or the start of next season wondering about where he's going to be in two years. Well, like, the other thing is, you know, the big thing that you have is, you know, Gurriel isn't your prototypical type, you know, you have a new guy come in and the first several years or whatnot he does this and then you offer him a new contract. You know, he came on to the team, I'm already at age 30-31. And I'm not dismissing anything on the quality of Gurriel. He is fantastic.

His offensive capabilities are, and he's got a sneakishly good defensive capability. Right. But, you know, I have to say it, but he's in his, he's what, not in his mid-30, what, is he, like 35 now? Or? I can't remember his age because. Yeah, I have to look it up, but by no means, this. he has spring chicken baseball-wise. He is, he will be next season.

He will be 36 years old, so he's 35 right now. Jeez. And so, yeah, I mean, is he a guy? I mean, you know, Seth, Seth Beer was our, to be potentially, you know, next first baseman. But he's now with the Diamondback. We can potentially get somebody like that, but that's also a position for years,

the team had tried to find somebody to fill and just couldn't. Let me let you go there because you're making a lot of good points. Thank you, Ryan. I do believe, and Ross, jump in on this. I do believe that the first base will be something they attach. I don't believe that they're going to sign up. They're going to look for yearly guerriel to sign a five or six-year deal. I think as long as offensively he's productive, I think they will certainly think about bringing him back in.

I think he's very comfortable where he is. I don't think he's going to go try to collect one major big check because the Astros. Yuley's under contract for one more year, isn't he? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. After next year, I don't know if that's, I would expect them to treat the first base spot like they treated Marwin Gonzalez. Yes. Is the Matt Thomas Show. Here we go, the final hour, the Matt Thomas Show from New York City, where tonight the Rockets will take on the Brooklyn Nets.

We'll have the Rockets launch pad Rossi. Is that at 5 o'clock? Is that correct? Yes, sir, with yours truly. You mean to tell me that Adam and Adam are going to work two hours again today? It's going to be a tough haul for him, Maddie. I'm doing three hours with you and then pregame and post game, and you're calling the game, and look at these idiots. You and I, I mean, you make like three cents on the dollar with what those guys make,

and they're working three, like, they're not even working. It's just, it's embarrassing how much money they make for the little work that they do. Agreed. Sports RV, follow them on Twitter. Let's get him a 10,000 Twitter party. Maybe you have a GoFundMe account. Hey, we're closing in. I'm almost at 9200.

There you go. Hey, our good friend, Brian T. Smith is with us from the Houston Chronicle. A Friday contributor to the show. BTS, you were at the press conference today with A.J. Hinch and Jeff Leno and take us through your observations of what the experience was like. Some of the questions that were answered and asked. And you're just general interpretations of the event earlier today. It is very clear that A.J. Hinch is still dealing with. with processing in the second stage of the game seven hangover.

You know, and it's going to last, Matt. We'll get into free agency, and things will start to move, and optimism will return, and everyone will remember that this core isn't going anywhere, that you still have Burlander, very 99% likely have Grinky. But it's going to take a while. There's no hyperboleability. no exaggeration historically

and in the just the overall sense that was the most painful the most heartbreaking the most disappointing playoff run in Astros history and more importantly

that's the toughest loss this franchise has ever been through I mean I was speaking with several people before the game about what was at stake and they can recover they will win another world series

in the next few years I have no doubt. But when you think of the fact that this would have been two championships in three years, when they would have won it at home, they would have had the start of a true dynasty on and on and on. And the flip side is not just losing the World Series, but the way they lost it, pulling Grinky, being in the seventh inning up to O at home, and then that's celebrating your own field. And I think ultimately the kicker of all this is they lost every home game during the World Series, and this was the best home team in baseball, it's still hard to process that.

So it's going to take months for them to get over it. And I think for A.J. Hinch, more than anybody, more than the fans, more than the media, it's going to take A.J. Hinch a while to let this one go. Yeah, I totally agree. This is one of those situations. Yeah, when you think of the all-time hurtful moments in Astros history, you think of the 98 series against the Padres, 86 with the Mets, with Mike Scott and unable to throw in game seven.

That trumps it because this is 107. I mean, that's the thing is that we don't tend to look at that right now because we're still staring at the bitterness of a game 7, but this is 117 wins between regular season and postseason. And an American League pattern is a wonderful thing, BTS, but the difference between that and raising the banner and having the commissioner's trophy here, it feels like it's 1,000 miles away.

Yeah, it really does. And I'm not trying to be rude here. I have respect for everyone's opinion. This is America. I laugh when I see people say or write or tweet and they'll compare it to, you know, 05 or 86 or 80 or they'll say that Jose Al-Tuvres, you know, game 6, ALCS walk off with the greatest moment. Like, whatever it's going to be, this is the World Series. This was a 107-1 team.

This was the best Astros team in history before game seven. You cannot compare the division series to anything that happened in the World Series, especially when you have home field advantage and you won 107 games, and you have Verlander and Cole and Grinky. It doesn't mean doom and gloom. It doesn't mean they won't mean they won 108 next year and win the World Series. But Matt, they more than the media, more than the fans, they've created this. And I don't mean that in a bad way.

they've been so damn good. So when you're that good and you rebuild that hard and you make Blockbuster trades for Verlian and Grinky and coal and you do all these things, there's only one way else to go. And this is the same way it is in Boston and this is the same way it is in New York with the Yankees.

And this is the same way it is with the Dodgers. I will always say, why should the Astros be any different and they aren't any different now? I like it. And it takes a while to get over it. Yep. And by the way, I don't know ever, ever, and at least in baseball,

I'll never, Brian, ever bring up home field advantage again because we've just seen it how it doesn't make a difference. No, and, you know, the one thing, other than, you know, the fact that they lost and it's incredibly painful, the one thing that I'm going to hate dealing with moving forward is every time

we're in April or June or August and we're talking a hitching in the dugout or it's posting, whatever it is. Like, there's going to be the home field advantage question and the best record in the AL and all these things. And man, like, there's going to be another filter to this now because it doesn't matter. They had it and it didn't do a damn thing for them. All right.

So what about Jeff Leno, anything out of his mouth today that struck you as, oh, that's interesting? I mean, he wasn't going to say a whole lot because obviously they keep things close to the vest. Anything that just kind of caught you off guard at all by one thing he said today? Absolutely nothing. Look, I mean, when you're at this stage, there's nothing. There's nothing that I can say. They're not going to tip their hand. They're not going to say, especially this organization with Jeff running things the way he does.

And they've been as successful as they have. I mean, nobody was saying the day before they're going to trade for Garrett Cole. They were going to trade for Garrett Cole. Nobody was saying the day of trading for Zach Grinky. They were going to trade for Zach Grinky. I mean, yes, he mentioned we want to upgrade a catcher, not a knock on their current catchers, the fact that both of them will be free agents coming at us all the season. So whether it's Will Harris, whether it's Garrett Cole, whether it's kind of,

Kyle Tucker and Wright Field, whatever, you know, maybe finding a way to pull off another major trade and to replenish the rotation, Boris Whitley, Lance McCullors, whatever it is, they didn't say anything today that was newsworthy. They're just processing the breach. Were you in the clubhouse when Garrett, as a contractor, decided he wanted to speak to the media. Yes, I can't be everywhere, but I try to be everywhere as much as possible, and I was there. Yeah, I just thought it was, I don't want, an ugly would be too strong of a term. But everybody was hurting, and I just think it was just a kind of a way for him to walk out of that clubhouse, because I'm convinced there's no chance to come back.

It was – look, Garrett – Garrett, it's a damn shame, and we've all made mistakes, right? You have – I have – Ross makes a lot of mistakes. Ross makes a dozen mistakes. A lot of mistakes. Nick Lowe makes – Nick Lowe makes no mistakes. But we've all made mistakes. That was a total mistake by Garrett Cole, and I believe he knew it that night. He obviously knew it yesterday when he issued his social media statement.

You can say you've worn a Boris Hap 4. Of course, no one cared or noticed before. You've got Jose Al Tuvei basically rolling around on the ground. Michael Brantley was inside a locker, Matt. He wasn't inside his lock. He was inside somebody's locker sitting down like a five-year-old who just found out that, you know, blah, blah, blah, does the Easter Bunny? Kids aren't listening. Or, you know, somebody, some fictional figure, doesn't exist.

Alex Bregman was a freaking zombie, and Cole was put in a weird spot, and maybe it wasn't handled that well by multiple people. But ultimately, he's a big guy. He knows what's going on. He's making $13 million a year. Garrett Cole was fantastic to deal with this year. I actually thank out of everyone in that clubhouse. He may have been the best considering everything, but it was very poorly handled.

It was a mistake. And if he leaves, Astros fans aren't going to remember the statement. They're going to remember they lost game seven, and Garrett Cole was wearing a Scott Boris hat and he said he was no longer an employee of the team, that's not going to sit very well at all moving forward with Astros fans if he ends up leaving. Yeah, it will sting. I'm not going to let one poor George of PR relations ruin what I thought was an amazing season for him. It's just going to be an, it's going to be something that's going to stick for a little while,

especially, Brian, if he starts pitching for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim coming about six months from now. Could you imagine if Garrett Cole had done that in Yankee Stadium, you know, or, you know, the Yankees lose the walkoff to the Astros and Garrett Cole's pitch up for the Yankees and he's wearing a Boris hat and he says, I'm not employee for the team. It would have been front slash back page news across every paper and it would have been blown out for two weeks locally on SportsCenter, right? So he screwed up. I believe that he knows it. It should have been handled better by multiple people. But Garrett Cole ended up as the best pitcher in baseball, other than Strasbourg this season. In October, he was absolutely fantastic for the team.

It's a shame that that had to happen, and that's probably going to be the last that we see if Garrett Cole, unless something miraculous happens with three agency. All right. Last question. We've got a short time here. I don't like the fact that Deshawn Watson's going to wear a mask, and I'm more importantly way more concerned about that Texan's defense against Jacksonville offense that got their mojo back last week. Yeah, it's a rough game.

I mean, in many ways, the Texans are absolutely banged up in the secondary. I mean, J.J. Watt being lost for the season for the third time in four years, is completely somehow falling on the radar, thanks to the Astros in the World Series. Deshawn Watson is, he's not the leading MVP candidate, but he's an MVP candidate right now. You're having to fly to freaking London, which just feels like a waste in so many ways, and it's all about the NFL and not about the Texans of the Jaguars. This is a rough game for them. So, you know, if you can be six and three, Matt, and going into the bottom,

and get healthy, and then you've got a really big game of Baltimore after the bye week, no matter how they get it. It can be as ugly as time management plague. Watson can get scratched on both eyes, whatever it is. If they can find a way to win this game in the land of Boris Johnson, you know, in Brexit, kudos to the Texans. They will be six and three, and they've dealt with a lot this year. If they lose it, they're, what, you know, five and four, and we feel a lot different going into the bye week. Have a great weekend, my friend. We'll talk to you next week. All right. Take care, Matt. Thank you.

You got it. Brian T. Smith from The Chronicle with us every Friday on Sports Talk, 7.m. Matt Thomas, we'd like to thank his parents for only giving him two first names. Because who would listen to Billy Ray Thomas talk about Houston Sports? The Matt Thomas Show on Sports Talk 790. All right, AJ Hitch, as we talked about with Brian T earlier today, met with the media, and so much, as Brian confirmed, and was something we'll all wrestle with is what if in game seven,

and here is more on AJ today talking about that what-if factor about Garrett Cole and whether or not he could have been used in the game two nights ago against the Nationals. And I just know what ifs happen whenever things don't go here. Anytime as a manager you make a decision in the seventh inning or later, and it doesn't work. the assumption is that the other side would have worked out great. If I leave Granky in and Kendrick hits a homer off Granky, then I over-extended him. If I bring in Will Harris, as I did in game three, and he got us out of a huge jam,

and say he strikes out, Kendrick, it was a brilliant move. Like, results are all that matter. And so if I look back at, do I wish we had a little bit better opportunity with runners in scoring position, and do I wish that things would have gone perfectly with the pitching stat? I do. But that's not because Will Harris failed or Joe Smith failed or Roberto Osuna failed or me as a manager failed. Like the game beat us.

Howie Kendrick hit a pitch that never gets hit off the opposite field foul pull? Like if you look across the game, it just doesn't happen until it does. When it does, it feels awful. So, you know, I can play it back and forth. I could have done other things or I could have made other moves that did or didn't work out. What's brilliant in game three is idiotic in game seven. That's just the way it is as a Major League manager, and I'll wear it.

And I'm proud of the effort, try to put the guys in a position to be good. And the fact that we'll never know what other is the beauty of sports. That's just part of the game. Ross, I want to get your thought on this. He did a great job of justifying it. Preach. AJ Hinch.

Yeah, he did a great. Her reach. It's still going to wear on him. It's still going, even though in his mind, and AJ's not a person that's going to go in front of a microphone and lie to you and just try to sell you on something. He's pretty genuine. You've heard him weekly on this show. I think he speaks from the heart.

I don't think he's full of a lot of coach speak, so to speak. But it doesn't matter if everything he said is right, the unknown is, is there any point in the game where Garrett would have turned the events of the game around a little bit? That's ridiculous. Not good. That's on me. Thanks, Bill. I don't want Bill involved in this because Bill can't.

Bill's never related to the Super Bowl. So that's just, it's a mood conversation that Bill involved. I need to do better. We know. We know. What do you think? Do you think he's still, do you think at 30 days from now when he is taking some downtime, he'll be able to shake it or do you think it'll, not a haunt is a strong term?

No, I don't think so. I mean, I don't think it'll haunt him any more than any other decisions. I think it's not going to, like, ruin him or anything. But, yeah, at some point, you know, in 30 days, he's going to be getting him off the couch and heading to the fridge to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and it'll hit him. And he'll say, man, should I have pulled Grinky? Yeah, maybe here and there. But I think what he said, though, is absolutely dead spot on.

Whatever decision I make, if it doesn't work out, I'm an idiot. If it works out, I'm great. And you kind of have to just make the right decision that you think you're making at the time and live with the results. Because here's the thing. If he goes to, if he goes to Garrett Cole and Cole gives up the home run, then the first thing is, what are you doing with him on short rest? When you've got Will Harris, who has been in every one of those situations before, runner at first in a one run game, coming in middle of the inning, that's what Will Harris has been compensated for. He's the guy to do it. Why are you going with Garrett who's not done it before?

It's about the athletes. Especially when you are in a situation where you can comfortably justify either decision. That's why I said. Anybody that has gone to social media and asked for AJ to be fired, I just have zero respect. Yeah, that's out of control. To me, when it comes to... Or this, or this, Ross, that AJ costs the Astros of World Series. That's the one I just, those two are the ones that just make me, you know what, you have no credibility, I don't value your opinion.

Yeah, AJ did not cost the Astros the World Series. To me, it's you go to, did the manager ask something of them that they couldn't, that there wasn't going to be possible or that was very unlikely? And so maybe we can second guess the Justin Verlander on three days rest back in the ALDS because maybe that wasn't likely that he was going to ever be able to do that. But it's not unlikely that Will Harris can get a couple of outs in a jammed up. Not even jammed up. One runner on base. On first base isn't necessarily a base's loaded one-out situation. Can you get two guys? Can I get Will Harris to get two guys out?

He asked that of himself and he said yes. And it didn't happen. Damon and Humble on the Matt Thomas show at 226. Hi, Damon. Glad to be on that. Yeah, this was a rough one. but I mean, I think it was a lesson learned. Just like in 2017, we went through the Red Sox, the Yankees, and the Dodgers, the

three-stoyed franchises. I just honestly believe, you know, self-consciously with Washington having no stardom, that some of the players maybe took them a little light. And when they didn't win game six, I just had a feeling we were in trouble. You know, no starting with Bryce Harper being. gone from Washington. And they just outplayed us. You know, they were hungry and they wanted it.

They just wanted it more than we did. You know, I just think that some of the players took them light. I'll see this. Damon, I disagree. Nobody took anybody light. Thank you for the phone call. I know you're going with this. There was no assumption of victory.

The Nationals just played a better game. I do not believe anybody wearing an Astro uniform, whether it was orange, White or gray took the Nationals light under any circumstance. I can't give you a chemical formula to prove that to you on a piece of paper, but I've watched these baseball players all year long. I watch them in the postseason on television and in person. There was not an ounce of, we got this,

especially when they came back to Houston knowing the Nationals had won the first two games in the building. So, yeah, I don't agree with the subscription. to they wanted it worse. The Astros wanted it badly, very, very badly. The Nationals just were better in execution and better than one of the biggest moments. Freddie on Seven Ony, go ahead, Freddie.

Hey, good. How are you doing, man? How are you all doing? We're doing great. Thank you. Hey, hey, thank. Hey, I'm at work and I'm on my, I'm on my phone, listen to you guys. I got a couple questions. I would like it for y'all to let me stay on to hear your answer because I'm on my phone. By the way, this is my first time calling this year. I listen every day to your show.

Thank you very much. Hey, hey, good point right there, Matt, with that guy, you know. It's weird for someone to say that the show didn't want it, man. The guys wanted that so bad, man. I tell you, them guys got to sleep with that for a whole year. So, you know, go back to AJ, and you all tell me this. I would like that for y'all. Let me stay on to hear your opinion.

When it comes to numbers, and I've been a baseball player, watch baseball all my life, and I love AJ Hint. I mean, the guys in the top one of the top two manager, of course, in the lead. When he brought Will Haring, I was like, oh, man, I know Will Herald did a great job all postseason, but I don't think this is a good move. Not because the game before, you know, he gave up a home run and a couple of hits. But I was thinking about, like, Odie, what's his name? The guy who pitched that awesome game five, game four, something like that.

For the Astros? Right. Right. What's his name, the guy, the first time? Jose O'Eucati? In the world. Correct. The guy pitched a great game.

Yeah. Okay. And you tell me, if I'm right enough, if you get him warmed up in the bullpen and bring him in, would that be a better shot because the guy got fastball, he got a good change-up or great curveball? I don't think the Nationals was hitting curveballs or change-up. And that's just my opinion. You know what, Freddie and I got a roll-to-a-break. I appreciate your call.

They were hitting everything. That was on a team. That was just, I mean, look at the pitch that left the yard on the Will Harris pitch. I mean, that was lower third of the plate inside and Kendrick gulfed it out there. That wasn't a case of the Astros. not mixing up pitches. But I understand. Freddy, look, we're going to second guess this for a long time. That's what we love sports radio. Hey, it's Eric Gordon. Gordon for three in the lead. Matt Thomas is my favorite voice in

Houston. EG for three. You're listening to the flagship. Sports Talk 790. Home of the Rockets. And I will be hopefully calling a bunch of EG3s tonight from Brooklyn at the Barclays Center. We'll have Rockets Launchpad with Sports RV at 5. The network pregame with Adam Clanton at 530. And then I'll have the call here from Brooklyn shortly past 6 o'clock tonight here on Sports Talk 790. Before we make you some money, let's go to the phones and say hi to Lee in the Med Center on Sports Talk 790. Lee at 2.35. There we go.

Hi, Lee. What's up? Hey, Matt, how's going? Good. Hey, hold on one second. I got you on speaker. I want to take y'all speakers, so I can hear you clearly. All right.

Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, great. Hey, so I know that AJ is your guy, comes on the show. He's a great guy. He does show all year. He's a front, you know, stand-up guy.

But AJ costs us a game. And I say AJ costs us a game because he fell in love with his security blanket. He said, even at a press conference that Will was his game. his security blanket, he feels comfortable going to him. And why is that, Lee? Lee, why is that? Why is he comfortable with Will Harris, Lee? Why is he comfortable with Will Harris? Yes.

Well, because he's been able to count on him before. But if you saw Will give up a home run and a game before, in my opinion, Will was overused. Now, to me, it's similar to if Bill O'Brien went for it, on fourth and a half inch, and instead of giving it to his best player or his best running back, he tried some little fancy play. Who was the best reliever? No, no, no, no.

You're going to hold on while I ask a question, because your statements are making no sense. Who was the best reliever for the Houston Astros in 2019? Best reliever? Best reliever. Okay. Okay. Let's go. Let's say that this is like... No, no, no. Answer my question. I'm going to answer you a question, Matt, but let me also make a comment.

Okay. Let's say that it was Will. Let's say that it was Will that was the best reliever for him all year. Now, but you have to put yourself in a situation as in there is no game eight. So at that point, you look at it. Not who was the best reliever all year. You look at it, who is my best pitcher? because this is it. I don't have another game to go to.

I don't have to worry about it after this. This is the final one. So you look at Will and then you look at Garrett Cole. And 10 times out of 10, anybody with those two choices would say, give me Garrett Cole versus Will Harris. Who's never pitched in relief in his life, who's never come in the middle of a game with a runner already on base, He's never struck out as many people as he has all year either, Matt.

That's not a fair argument. You're talking about a status compared to a scenario. Please, come on, Lee. In that scenario, you want your best final bullet. That's my opinion. That's what Scher did for the nationals. That was their best bullet. And that's what Clayton Kershaw has done for the Dodgers.

And look how that's turned out. I mean, it's not a guaranteely. He was also on short rest as well. But you put your best player in that position, in my opinion. And he did. He put his best reliever in that position. Lee, I can't go on with this. We're going to argue for now.

We're not going to argue for now. No, I'm sorry. I got to get to other things. You and I are not going to agree on this. We're not. I would have, and just as so I'm very abundantly clear, I would have loved to have seen Garrett Cole in the game. It was a mistake that Garrett didn't get an opportunity.

But the option B was the team's best reliever in the highest of levered situations. He went with that guy. AJ didn't try to get cute and go with Josh James or Hector Rondone. he went with his best high leverage reliever and the pitch was a mistake and it went left the yard because here's the thing you can't guarantee that Garrett Cole comes in

with a runner at first out of the stretch and goes you know what this is my jam I've never done this before but I can do it I would have loved to have seen if he could and that's what's going to haunt this team is the unknown but this notion of it was going to work out 100% is just not true it's just not

Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. Machine Friday here on the Matt Thomas show. Sports Talk 790. Matt is out. He's got to catch the team bus to go to his Rockets. Duties they take on the Brooklyn Nets tonight. Coverage starting at 5 o'clock with yours truly here on Sports Talk 790. Just had to let Zach speak for a second.

All right. A couple of you guys on the phone lines. Let's talk about it. Let's hash it out. I know a lot of you are upset. and you're angered. I just want to give you a hug. It's going to be okay. Time will march on. The Astro is going to play next season and they're going to be pretty darn talented. 7-13, 2-1-25-790. Victor in League City. What's up, Victor? Hey, young man. You know, AJ Hinch is, in my opinion, is a

manager, a Hall of Fame manager in the Macon. He's going to go down as the greatest astro manager and is going to be one of the best. I should have one of the the best winning percentage in baseball. You know, he's the captain of our ship. I totally respect. I'm not happy with the decision he made, but I totally respect that. But what I wanted to call you about is, I haven't heard anybody talk about this. When he went to talk to Granky there, Alex Freigman and Korea were laughing.

Now, I've never been at the, you know, at the pitcher's mouth talking to a pitcher, but I've never seen that. Have you guys seen that? And I'll hang up and listen. I haven't seen that they were laughing. I don't, but that wouldn't bother me at all. I mean, these guys are loose at all times. You look at Correa and Bregman, and that's one of the beauties.

The beauties about this Astros team is that they don't get, they don't get scared. They don't get the pressure that the moment is never too big for them. So I don't know exactly what your point was going to be there, Victor. I didn't necessarily see that Bregman and Correa were laughing when A.J. Hinch came out to pull or talk. to Grinkier or anything like that, but I wouldn't make anything of it. I wouldn't want to read into it either. 713, 2, 1,257.90, Brad

and Katie here on the Matt Thomas. Hey, what's up, Ross? How are you? I'm well, sir. What do you got? Good. So this coming from an unbiased fan, right, between the nationals and the Astros, but I'm a huge ton of a Cubs fan. But, guys, the stat that they had

now going into game sick, which is it blew me away, was the nationals are batting 500 with two out and runners on base, right? But no one wants to talk about that maybe that's just baseball. Like the guys were just seeing the ball better. It had nothing to do with Hinch's decision as far as who he was putting in there. He's comfortable with Harris. He's been comfortable with Harris all season.

I don't think, I think what his plan was, have Harris come in there, and then he's going to finish with Cole in those last two in a because I don't think he felt 100% comfortable with Osuna. I would go Cole over Osuna, right? So I should have going to go two innings. But they just hit the ball better. They came out with better hits, better runs, and Ashles left way too many guys on base.

That's how they lost the game, period. All right. I don't know what your name is off my screen. Brad, I think it was, or something like that anyways. Yeah, look, that's one thing that we're forgetting to do here in Houston because we're here locally and we're only focused on Astros, Astros, Astros. That's why everybody thinks that Joe Buck hates the Astros because he praises the other team, and that's why we're only focusing on AJ Hinch making mistakes and Zach Rinkie and our hitters and stuff like that.

The other guys are getting paid too. That home run that Howie Kendrick hit on a spotted cutter from Will Harris, low and outside, exactly where he wanted it, it was just, it was a good pitch, it was better hitting. and it was you can call it a luck factor or whatever you want. He hit it out to the right field foul pole. Like basically the fence over there is like 325 feet. He hit it like 326. That's just 325 and 2 inches. It's just sometimes these things happen.

The national stepped up in big moments. The Astros didn't. And that doesn't mean the Astros are horrible. That doesn't mean AJ Hinch needs to be fired. That doesn't mean nobody knows what they're doing and they have to change their philosophies. and this whole thing needs to be torn down, et cetera, et cetera. This means the Nationals were better over the course of seven games.

The Nationals had opportunities and they couldn't get it done. All right, we're going to throw to the A team in just a second here, but let's go ahead and get Andy on the north side here ahead of getting out of the show. What's up, Andy? There you are. Okay. Yes, here I am. I'm just a little frustrated with some of the callers because, you know,

I sit there and listen to the Fox Sports guys, and I'm not a a Joe Buck fan because again it seems everything is pro against whatever Houston team is out there but that said

all right Eddie I got to put you on hold for a couple of reasons number one we got to get out of the show number two Joe Buck doesn't hate Houston he can't be a he can't Joe Buck can't be a fan of every single

team that the Astros are playing every single series he can't be a we've heard how he's a huge Dodgers fan in 2007 Now he's a huge Yankees. Go ahead, Adam. What do you got to say about Joe Buck?

Is Joe Buck a huge nationals fan? I just didn't know this. He grew up in the D.C. area. That's a ground ball right side. I could do it. That's all I got. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Look. All right, let's get out of the show on that note. But Joe Buck isn't a huge nationals fan. Joe Buck, Joe Buck, in Garic Cole's second start of the World Series, he was all over Garic Cole. And then all over the, in the ALCS as well. It's like, Okay, whatever.

Let's get out. It's time for the A team now. It's Adam, and it's the other Adam. Matt Thomas is gone. My name is Ross Vieerial. Thanks to all of you for listening. Thanks to Nick Lowe for producing. Doing a great job.

These guys got a long haul of a show all the way for two hours. I'll talk to you guys at 5 o'clock here on Sports Talk 7.9.