The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Will Yordan Álaverz Be Back Tonight? Astros Start Their Series Vs Rockies, Joe Mixon Out Till Week 5

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

Will Yordan Álaverz Be Back Tonight? Astros Start Their Series Vs Rockies, Joe Mixon Out Till Week 5

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. O2 at H-town. Good morning and welcome to a Tuesday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. The Texans running on empty. And is your on back tonight? Two of our main topics on a Tuesday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Jonathan's our producer.

Jonathan. You know, I gave myself the title Mr. Texas because I love all things, Texas. I love-argible, but yeah. I love Galveston. I love McAllen. I love Amarillo, Wichita Falls, El Paso. I can even tolerate Midland Odessa. When you walk on these streets of mine, you say, that's where Mr. Texas hung out.

I'm also the Texans insider. And we're claiming it for real. I need it. I need my flowers. And so today, if anybody calls. calls the show, Jonathan, between now and two o'clock. If anybody refers to me as Mr. Texas early on, please put him at the top of the list. Okay.

Because that's the proper credit I should get. Why do you say? Because there were so many water carriers for the Texans that were saying, my sources say he'll be just fine. Remember how grouchy D'Amico Ryan's got when somebody brought him up? He's fine. I want people around here care about it. our people. Right. Respect my team. Respect my team. Respect my players. We respect your team. I sure as hell respect to Beiko Rines. I think it's a good football coach. He's got a number one

running back. It's out. And when Nick Chubb signed here, I was like, okay, lightning in a bottle. It happens a lot of times. Hell, the Astros have been trying to catch lightning in a bottle with about 10 different players this year. So it happens. But It's not going to be pretty. At least early on. Texans have four weeks where he must miss. Then there's a buy. I think shortly after that.

So we're thinking maybe week six or seven. But remember this. When you want Texans news, you come to me. When you want it accurate, fair, and balanced, you come to me. if you want someone taking pictures with the owner of the Texans, there's other places for you to do that. If you want somebody cooking burgers with him, you can do that. You want the information.

You want it right. You come to Mr. Texas. Or Mr. Texans, if you want to, whatever you want to call me. Just don't call me late. 107, it is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Ross is still out in West Texas. Now, again, I don't know if he's alive or not. His Instagram is just full of.

of various critters he's sleeping with, to each his own on that. And hopefully he'll be back in a couple days, and hopefully there are no serious snake bites. If there is that, it's the case. Maybe the venom is out. Our buddy Cole Thompson is going to hang out with us for a couple hours today between 11 o'clock until 1.

At 1130, we're going to have gut feelings where you guys call to make your predictions. And that's where you just simply make sports predictions. We could get your predictions on Yordon Alvarez and how he's going to do. once he does in fact return to the Astros lineup, which could be tonight against Colorado. We get your predictions on what the Astros are going to do as a group when they get ready to play the Colorado Rockies for three games tonight, and then three games over the weekend against the Anaheimers,

and then the Yankees are in for three. We get your predictions on what the hell's going on with the Texans' offensive line, as apparently they're trying to trade Ken Robinson. They've already made one change today in their offensive. offensive line. And today is the day where all the cutdowns come into play. Somebody asked if Kenyon Green could come back.

I highly doubt that. But yeah, there are lots of different things going on when it comes to offensive linemen that are leaving. And the reality is either it's a deeper group than I think that most fans think it is or

we as observers or the Texans earn a world of hurt. And we'll run through that for you on the radio show today. But today, I mean, look, if you think I'm going to get into four hours of offensive line, who stays, who goes, stuff, that is as boring as it gets. Now, granted, we don't have a game to chew on from last night. Although the Padres didn't help the Astros out at all. The Mariners won that game.

So the Mariners are a game and a half in front of the Strow starting the series tonight. But we can certainly get into what Yordon's going to bring to the table. And Joe Espada will join us at 1232 to discuss. Also today, Willie Fritz is on the radio show at 130 to give us his look at his team for 2025. And what will be happening hopefully on Thursday night inside TDECU Stadium as the Cougars start their season against, I believe it's DeVry Technical College or one of those Bassie Business Tech schools. I don't know which one it is. I can't remember which one it is. We're playing.

but it's obviously a very I'm not even saying I'm just letting that pass you're letting that pass? I mean I could have said a visible change is university you would just let that go too no I was just waiting

I was waiting for my moment to I just want to make sure I was trying to see how far you're going to dig your hole and now you know what I mean you know you're right you're right because let me tell you something again if the lumberjack somehow pay the officials off and win the game

oh we already starting that oh okay okay it's fine then I'm going going to be having to take a sick day on Friday because I have worn you out for what two months now on this basically? You can't tell you. No, I got to, you got to be here because if you're not here, I'm going to be talking mess with the callers with you. With Ross. No, the two of you will be fair and balanced.

Even when I call it in sick. You got to defend Cuckerman Nation if you lose. Now, it's not happening. I'm not sitting here saying that as a face, no, blow a U of H out. No, no, no, you didn't say that. You said they were going to win, though. Yes, no, no, of course we're going to win. Of course. Go Jax. Go Jax. Okay. And you got how many people come in the game?

750 maybe? You know, now I'm thinking about it. I think it's going to be close to a thousand. I'm seeing this in post. I will shoot a photo of and take it for you to see exactly where they. How many people are there? I need multiple photos. You have to take good photos. You can't just be like the start of the game and take it empty.

And what's the clientele like at old SFA? Just asking for a friend. Not for me, obviously. Is it mixed? No, it depends on what. If you're into the... Into the what? The country.

country bar, like country dance line, blondies. Are they physically fit? Okay. It doesn't sound like a, that doesn't sound like a huge endorsement? One at ten, I'll give you a, I'll give you a five point, six point five. Six point five. Okay, that's, you know what?

Let me tell you something, Jonathan. There are a lot of guys that listen to this show right now that aren't six point fives. That would love to be with a six point five. Nacadocia is where you go. Nacadocia is where you go. It would be Lufkin, but... Is there like a rivalry between Lufkin or Naccadoches? Well, like high school, yeah.

Oh, I see. If you're from NAC, you don't like Lufkin people, and then Lufkin people don't... I didn't get into that. I don't really know. No, I don't worry about that. All right, so the rule of thumb today is, if you want to get in on Joe Mixon being gone for a month, and you're wigged out about that, I'm here for you. If you want to get into Yorda Nalbarez, probably.

In the lineup, we'll get that confirmed today when Joe Espada joins at 1230. We'll get into that. Here are the phone numbers. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. I have a poll question up about Yordon Alvarez that I want you to answer, and I'll give you the question and the early results when we return. 7-13-212-57-90.

7-13-212-5-79. For you Texan's fans, when you heard about Joe Mixing, were you wigging out? Were you like, this is no surprise that he hadn't even taken any practice, any snaps, any workout during the off-season? And I guess now the bigger question is going to be And whether the Texans tell us the truth or not What remains to be seen is Is this something that's going to linger beyond the first four weeks of the season?

1013, it's a Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. Trent Brown was hurt during all the Texans training camp. You got released today. So I guess the rumors are If you want to trust the people that do cover the team legitimately, John Alexander, saying that, and I think Adam Schepter saying the same thing,

and maybe Cam Robinson, who the Texan signed as a free agent one-year deal, good money. Maybe looking for a place for him to play because Ariante Ursary has assumed that left tackle spot. That is a conversation piece. The Texans, as a general group, about who was it going to do?

Running back, do they keep everybody that's still around? That would include Nick Chubb, Damien Pierce, Daria Gumbawale, Woody Marks, that's four. Is that enough? I mean, gang, Texans fans, are you all ready for this defense to carry the team's heavy lifting for the foreseeable future? I mean, look, Stroud should be better, provided he's held up right. He's got good receivers.

He's got young guys, Nico Collins in his prime. Jaden Higgins is a good acquisition so far via the trap. Jalen Newell, same kind of thing. Christian Kirk, I think it's going to be a very good number two or number three receiver. the tied-in battle is going to be interesting between Dalton Schultz and Cade Stover who gets more of the past catching duties and how much run blocking plays into that.

But this offensive, I mean, all I kept hearing about how is much Blake Fisher sucks and I think he's going to make the team. Blake Fisher, by the way, a second round pick of of 2004. Somebody's calling right now and asking about another member of the Texans and we'll get to that in a phone call right now. 713-212-5-790.

23212-579. It says, Terry, you're calling us from Ohio. Where in Ohio are you calling? Cleveland. Cleveland. What's going on in Cleveland today, Terry? Are they trying to buy out Deshawn Watson? Oh, okay.

Well, I wish them the very best on that. I got a question for you. Yes, sir. I used to love an Ashtabilla. And where? The Jews, I... Ashtabilla, Ohio. Oh, okay.

Yeah, I just wondered, because I've watched Juice Scruggs when he was playing for Lakeside. Mm-hmm. He's still on the team? He's still on the team. He's a backup right now. Okay. So I've wanted to know. Sure.

Appreciate you. So the show got started today right there, gang. A little Juice Scruggs call. Remember, to our previous caller, even though you live in Ohio, you have the great fortune speaking to Mr. Texas. 1020 on Sports Talk 790. Why are you cackling back there? I can't even see you, by the way.

I'm laughing because you're going to be doing this all day. I already know. What? You got validated with this. Now you're going to run with this rest of the week. Oh, are you kidding me? And Ross is going to give me no flowers. I told you all for months that he wasn't going to be ready to go.

What was the other two that you? Oh, the other two, again, I told you all, and I got another one for you. And I'll tell you right now. I told you that this whole talk of Laramie Tunsell being a team leader was bogus. I got that one right. I can't. Jonathan, please explain to all your friends and neighbors what a real Texans insider is, and that's me. Okay?

And I also told you that Stefan Diggs was going to be one and done with the Texans. You weren't even here when I said that. And I got a new one for you. Gardner Johnson's a one year and done too with this team, too. you're going to put your name on it? I'm not stuttering now. You heard that right. All right, I'm the only one here that's listening.

Well, it feels like you're the only one listening because there's probably no listeners out there. You're probably right about that. That was kind of rude but accurate. Meaning as I'm going to have to remember when you try to deny it when Ross Smith's on it. No, we got people listen, I think. A couple.

Yeah, CJ Gardner Johnson's a one and done too. So everybody else has their fake. YouTube pages with nine subscribers. You come to this radio show 10 to 2 to get the Texans Insight you desperately need right here from the Texans Insider. Sports Talk 790. All right. I did put up a poll question today

and I would love for you guys to answer the question. You can follow me on Twitter at SportsMT and the question is this. Tell me how you're feeling about Yordan. And here we are again, assuming that he is going to be ready tonight.

And I'm going to poke the bear right away. I said, Joe, how are you? He's going to go, Matt, I'm fine. How are you? Is Jordan playing? Let's ask. Question is, how are you feeling about Yorda? A, your options are

so excited, I'll wait and see or very low expectations. Right now, I'll wait and see comes in at 48%. That's almost like the nice neutral answer, don't you think? So, so excited it's 43%. Don't want to be too negative. Don't want to be too

Right, right. You're just, you're, you're, you know what you are, you're measured. That's probably the term I would use to mention middle, that middle answer. And the last one only has 9% has very low expectations. So there you go. Get your vote in. We've got the poll up for another nine hours or so. 710 first pitch with Astros on deck at 6 right here on the sports talk 70. Now the Astros are going to have to make a roster move with this too. So be very curious to see what they do on that. If somebody gets sent down, Could Cam Smith get sent down?

I don't know. You have a little bit of a log jam in the outfield. Could somebody find themselves on the injured list with some sort of ailment? You don't know. And you also are going to put yourself in a very peculiar spot because of the fact that, I'm going to presume, is going to be playing a lot of DH. But your primary DH over the last couple of months has been your favorite all-time player and the greatest astor of all-time, Jose Al-Tuve.

So another thing to kind of wiggle for the manager of the Astros. And I'm sure he's got a plan. I mean, a smart guy. But do you really move Cam Smith down after all he's helped out with this season? That's a great question. The question is, what does a stint down at AAA going to do? Now, he can be playing more, right? That's the obvious thing.

Right. As he can go down there, get his mojo back. The pressure wouldn't be as anything as compared to. what it is in a major league level. But do you, what does that do for his psyche? If all of a sudden you have made the team coming out of spring training and you played in March and you played in April

and you played in June and July and you're about to hit September the most important part of the year and the asteros have said, we're bringing in this new guy, Hesu Sanchez, has been with us since the trade deadline. And because of his performance, not because there's personal favorites, but it's just because of the performance,

we're going to give him the opportunity to be the day. every day right fielder. You know, this is a, in some respects, it's a good problem to have. But in other respects, you really wish that Cam Smith would be able to be so good that it wouldn't have even been a conversation piece. Problem is he not been that good. And he's really struggled the last, what would you say, 45 days, give or tank. Yeah, yeah, like lots of months.

Yeah, not been good at all. And I like Cam Smith. Y'all like Cam Smith. He's easy to root for. Young kid, I mean, remember, year plus ago, he's playing college baseball, Florida State. Now he's playing in the big leagues trying to make, you know, here's a guy that was a third baseman, the presumption was when he was with the

Cubs organization. He comes here and Issaic Brady is already here, so you don't need a third baseman. And then you trade for Carlos Cray, who moves a third base. Cam Smith has been playing right field and I mean if you would agree his work as a third baseman, as a

right fielder this year, if expectations were zero, he gets 100 for me. He's been absolutely fantastic. He's making his cutoff throws. He's not taking bad routes. He's made a couple of nice grabs, but it's only half the game. And right now, his bat, or lack thereof, has hurt him in terms of playing.

Plus, Sanchez's fielding is what position well. Think about all the home runs he saved in Baltimore just alone over the weekend. 713-212-5-790. 713-212-5-7-90. So the two main topics on the board today. And again, our buddy Cole Thompson's going to come in in about a half an hour from now. What are your expectations of Yorraise? And even though I'm Mr. Texas, Mr. Texas can be wrong. Mr. Texas did not believe that Yardin Alvarez is going to hit a home run for the local nine between now and the year. And remember, if I give it, I must take it as well. I fully expect you and Ross to not have him. me my flowers to give me old, old, musty, disgusting flowers that are old and smell and have

mold on them when he goes deep for the first time. My Twitter account better be inundated with, oh, Mr. Texas, you got it wrong. I hope I did. I hope I'm wrong that Yorna is impactful whether it's tonight or the next three days or, for that matter, any point over the next month. Staying healthy and lengthening the Astros lineup is the most important thing. 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-21-2-5-790 1032 Sports Talk 790

I'm Matt, Ross is off today if you would like to follow me on Twitter I greatly appreciate that at SportsMT If you want to follow me on Instagram You can do that as well Oh, Jonathan, your screen is back. Nice to see you knew it was working. Man Technology here at the old 790 is amazing

All right, Cole Thompson's going to stop by hang out with us for a couple hours, 11 o'clock until 1, and then we've got Willie Fritz at 130, we got gut feelings at 1130, and Joe Espada at 1230. So we have a very busy show today. We want you guys involved, though, because I do like talking to you. 713, 21, 212, 570. Now, we don't always agree, but I like talking to you. You always seem like effable nice people. 7132-1-790. Roger, 1033 on 790. Roger, good morning. Good morning, Matt. He's got a concern about Yordon.

Not really concerned. I believe the guys brought him in here today. I think I was a pretty nice strategic move, considering that the competition isn't very far from what he's seeing now in the Colorado Rocky, so that kind of puts him inside the pool via the steps instead of jumping all the way in. So I think that's a nice way of introducing back into the NLB. Well, here's the thing, Roger. If it was the Yankees playing today, I'd still want him to start.

I don't think there's, it happens to be a nice segue, but it's just purely coincidental because, you know, they need him back in the lineup for sure. Hence what I said. That's what they were thinking. Me and you, we wanted him back in there two weeks ago. Right. We wanted him back in there when he started swinging,

which we didn't think we're ever going to see it because we just like to vote. We don't believe. anything we hear and only half of what we see. So that's what you've got to do. How you got to take it with Gord on. But, you know, the result I'm really concerned about is not really how it goes today. I'm sure he'll get a couple of swings in here and there, make some nice contact hopefully. The result is how he feels the next day.

That's what's what I'm going with. And that's really how it's going to go, how he feels the next day, probably until, you know, the end of the playoffs. So they'll just have to see. The odd man out, not very much of an odd. Melton's got to go. Oh, it's Melton for sure. Yeah.

That's right. You're right. You're right. Yeah. I forgot about Jake and Mount. I was just thinking off the top of my head. Again, I don't think they want to move Cam Smith. I don't know how much good he would actually get out of it.

But Melton's the easy call for sure. Yes, sir. All right. Have a good one. Thanks, Roger. Appreciate you to listen. 713, 212-5-790. 7-1-3-1-2-5-79.

Yeah. Mel, now, you do lose a center filter in the mix. Now, remember, things could get even a little more interesting if Jake Myers is back in, say, the next 10 days of two weeks. Speaking of that, of guys coming back. Jonathan, I need your help on something here because I didn't know how to interpret this. I didn't know that ESOC Paredes had an Instagram account. me either he doesn't follow me

you should at sports mt but he put up a what do you call it a reel and he put up a real and I don't even know if he runs his own account or not okay I couldn't even tell you

some guy named jet dot Leo 8802 put up a Instagram photo it said out for season with a photo of him underneath it it said coming soon, exclamation point, exclamation point, stronger, dot, dot, dot.

Would you like to try to interpret that, or is it not worth even bother interpreting? So he said that he's out for this season. That was the post. And then he said, coming back stronger dot, dot, dot. Yes. This is Issaac Peretti's. This is this guy, jet. Dot. Leo.

When someone says coming soon, that means that that would be the opposite of out for season, correct? Right. And saying coming back stronger as in like anticipate because I'm going to get back for a playoff season type of thing. Or I'm not even reading that. I'm just saying some dude named Jet. Dot Leo 8802 says out for season and then down below it says coming soon, exclamation, exclamation,

stronger, dot, dot, dot. I'm going to have to, I don't know, I wasn't going to ask. skip about it but I kind of want to is there anything about that hamstring pull whatever it is that remember he took that that shot instead of having surgery yeah so that's the thing

because I mean I've I've known even just in track I've seen people to take that shot and be fine the next couple like just for how long does that shot take to kind of start to kick in it's like a week or two because after you get it's very you're very sore you're out like it's it's gonna mess up your body a little bit

then you, that pain should go away after a couple days or so. But we don't know how bad it was still, right? We don't know how bad if we. That's right. You know, we don't know if he strained it, tear it. So I don't, I'm not too sure. Okay. So you're as confused as I am.

That's fine. I can live with that. But I mean, we're so close to a pennant race. I mean, it could be a possibility he's really trying to get back before. Well, I think he took the shot for that only, for that reason and that one reason only is that he's thinking if I have a chance to try to come back and play for this team this year, And I know that surgery won't allow me to do it, but this shot might. I mean, his bat's been missed.

There's no if-ans or butts about that. But the problem is you've already got a third baseman. Right. And I guess you could bring him back and he can play another infield position, but that's not something I would think a guy that's been gone for a while would want to do, especially since he's been playing third base. I don't know. I'm going to have to inquire from the skipper to see if I should read anything into that.

Let's say hello to Gary on 790 at 1039. Gary, good morning. Hey, good morning, guys. Good show as usual. Hey, I wanted to mention when you opened the show up, I think you did a little foo pie, of course, who among us is perfect. But I think when you were talking about the Astros and Mariners, you mentioned that the Mariners were a game and a half up in the race.

Oh, well, I think, yeah, that's a step up. Okay. I've been known to mishears some things, but anyway, I just want to. and bring that to your attention. Have they announced that Alvarez is back on in the squad? No, not officially. Okay, yeah, I just don't understand that so long. That's really stupid, dude.

I don't foresee any reason why they wouldn't. And they don't have to because, remember, he played on Sunday, and, you know, he had yesterday the entire organization a day off. So if they were going to do something, they probably would do it before today's game. So I don't necessarily think it's an indictment. Remember, also, he could also have woken up. Monday and said, oh, my hands heard, I'm not ready to go just yet. So they didn't say how after playing Sunday, how his recovery on Monday was. No, they had no media availability at all yesterday.

Wow, that's insane. What were you asking earlier before the last commercial about when he comes back, how many home runs will he hit or what were you asking? Well, I had no expectations about his return at all this year, so I'm going to be wrong about that. The question was, how many home runs is he going to hit between now and the end of the season. Nobody knows that. How many games?

I think about 30. How many games are left? I think 30 or so. Let me look at the numbers here. They are at 100 and 30. They're 31 games left. Okay. I predict barring any swelling of the hands or anything else, I predict he'll hit between four and

six, so somewhere around five. Hmm. Well, if that's the case, I would take five home runs. Thank you for the phone call. I would absolutely take five home runs. And here is the crazy thing about it is, gang. And we get caught up in this a little bit. I certainly do, and everybody else does.

It's not even really about what he does with his home run numbers. It's does he get hits? Does he drive the ball to the alleys? Does he get, does he hit doubles? Do the ball, I mean, does he hit for slug? Because adding him to the lineup and the heart of the lineup, instead of those runners on a base hit going from first to second to second and third, maybe one of that runner and second base scores every time.

Or maybe if there's a double that with a decent guy with decent speed at first base, he scores. That's the thing. That's the most impressive thing about him is I don't need him to hit a bunch of home runs. I just need him to get on the base. First of all, get hit. That's the most important thing. And two, if he can deal with some power, that'd be even great. Now, he did have a bunch of doubles at Corpus Christi over the last handful of days.

but again, that was against double a pitching. But my guess is a fastball is a fastball. It's the off-speed stuff that separates what a major league pitcher can do as compared to, say, a double-a pitcher. Sliders, breaking balls, chain jumps, that kind of thing. But just do something in terms of slugs so that heart of that order becomes a more of a threat than it has been at times. I mean, moving Christian Walker back a spot is going to help the cause.

Moving Yarnier-Diaz back a spot is going to help the cause. And, you know, if it draws some more walks from other people, if the way the world is not on Christian Walker's shoulders for the last month of the season, that would be a good thing. If Yarner-Diaz is a better six-place header than he has been, is either a four or five. That's a win-win for us as well. And ultimately, as I mentioned brought up yesterday,

I was looking about that lineup, one to six. Pretty good. Actually, really good. most teams don't have great 7 through 9s, and if you do, you're probably winning 110 games. But it feels like to me, 1 to 6, if Yoron is playing on a fairly regular basis, that's as good as this lineup has been this entire season. 10-4, especially with some of the guys the way they're playing, the way that Christian Walker has swung them about the last month or so,

and the fact that Carlos Corrie has been a huge asset offensively as well. 713-212-5-790. 713-212-5-790. It is cut down day in the NFL. You've got until 3 o'clock. I don't know if any of you are sitting there staring at your Twitter accounts to see who's getting cut, who's sticking around. But the big news for me was about what happened yesterday when the announcement was made that Joe Mixen will not be available for the first four weeks of the season. Is that a precursor to he just needs some additional time or is it a situation where it's going to be longer than four weeks?

and the Texans have just not wanted to tell us that. Remember, the sports organizations, I'm talking about football, basketball, baseball, have done a remarkably good job in the last 10 years or so in particular by not telling us Jack Squat and having us guess. Because I guess they're trying to hide intelligence. I don't know how much different the Rams game plan is with Joe Mixin as compared to Nick Chub.

Be safe say there's a fair amount. But I think the Rams, when they knew that Joe Mixon wasn't taking part of any training camp activities or any offices and training activities, they had a pretty good feeling that Joe Mixing wasn't going to be around for game one in Los Angeles. 713-212-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. If you want to react to the Texans releasing guard Lederius Henderson, you may do so. 7-13-212-5-7-90. For those of you that are playing at homegoing who Lerius Henderson was, he was a...

a seventh round pick of the Texans in this draft. No, 24, excuse me. So bouts and prayers of the Henderson family. Hope he can find work somewhere else. Ladarius Henderson is out among the Texans' cuts. I have no idea what the possible say, except, again, we wish you the very best Henderson family. All right.

So you guys know that I've listened to the show for any length of time that I unfortunately spend too much time on the 4U tab. It's in Jonathan's dinner shaking his head and I'm like, you're right. You should be shaking your head. It's embarrassing. But I can't, I don't want to follow a lot of people because there's a lot of junk and it just muddies up my timeline for people that I do actually want to follow in terms of

news headlines and whatnot. And so the 4U tab for the last 36 hours has been about Chidor Sanders. And today is 10 at 1051 on Tuesday the 26th of August. August, would you say we've spent, I don't know, in the last, since training camp opened in the NFL, maybe a minute and a half on Shador Sanders? Maybe two. Maybe two minutes. Again, we're barely at NFL town when it comes to the Texans.

To get into a deep dive about the quarterback depth chart in Cleveland doesn't necessarily make the needle move for this radio show, at least in my opinion, it doesn't. the reason why i bring it up is as we have found ourselves going to the national narrative way too much on stuff and they're they're just pushing stuff down our throats and that's why i

you know i used to be a big big watcher of ESPN in the morning to kind of get the vibe of what was going on in terms of hey what is this a talking point is this something of interest and then i and then i one day about a month ago said what am I doing here? Because I feel like we're a family on this show in our little 10 to 2 spot. I know that we are heavy about the local teams, especially the Astros, and to a lesser extent, the Rockets and the Texans.

And hopefully the Rockets will be more of a note if they really play well this year. And obviously with my affiliation with them. But I would catch myself turning on the four-letter network or Fox or FS1, whatever it is. And it's the regurgitation of Jerry, Jones, Micah Parsons, Dak Prescott, Aaron Rogers, Shador Sanders.

And I thought to myself, and I've told us other people before on the show before, that's why I don't want to do national talk radio. That's not any fun to get into. That's just, that's exasperating. So if you were looking for a deep conversation into Shador, I do want to apologize.

Because I'm not here for it. I'm not here for a one-hour visit with you about whether or not a fifth round draft pick should be the starting quarterback of a team that's a thousand miles away from us. What I'm here for is, did Nick Casario really let his quarterback down by bringing in these lines? I mean, Cam Robinson, he paid a lot of money for Cam Robinson. And are we really sure that Ed Ingram and Titus Howard are going to be able to protect his strong side?

Are we really sure that Ariante Ursa, a second round pick about to make his first NFL start is really going to protect the backside at left tackle? That to me, my friends, is if you're a diehard Texan fan or at least a mid-Texans fan, forgetting about who's up front of that offensive line, is that collective group going to be able to keep your quarterback alive? Add on top of the fact, you've got a run, I mean, did Nick, the Nick Chubb edition was okay, but it wasn't necessarily a one-two punch. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't, Aaron Foster to Alfred Blue, going back about 10 or 10 years ago with the Texans, right? And that was a decent good one-two punch, right? I don't think Joe Mixing to Nick Chubb was the big one-two punch that I think any Texans fans would be excited about.

And now that first half of that punch is going to be gone for the first month of the year. Did the Texans not treat that running back room with enough love? Did the team spend too much time grabbing wide receivers in the second round or the third round and they could have gone after more offensive linemen or maybe another running back. Now, this is always hindsight here on this. I'm not going to tell you that I knew the answers to this, and I never would try to tell you this. But the question marks about this team going into the 2025 season,

the offensive line is even a bigger question mark, even though Laramie Tunsell is, I didn't think it was a great player, but he was a good player. He was best with the head. You're replacing him with a rookie who has never taken a real NFL snap. before. And your starting center from last year has now been benched. He's a swing. You've got Jake Andrews coming in. Lakin Tomlinson. I mean, it's not giving me a whole lot of confidence. No one is going and saying, wow, love with the Texans in on the offensive line. In fact, Adam Schefter said just the opposite. He's like, what is going on with this Texans

offensive line. Add on top of the fact you don't have your number one running back. Now, if you're just generally excited about the start of the season, I understand that. But how you could be excited about the offensive maneuvers that have been made here

with the core parts of the offensive line still a huge question mark and who is going to carry the load at running back after Joe Mixing was so good last year? That to me outweighs the excitement of, wow, I can't Can't wait to see what Jalen O'L does or Jaden Higgins or Jaden Higgins or what Christian Kirk could be as a number two receiver complimentary Nico Collins.

Because my guess those old guys can run routes. They've done very good in Rook so far in training camp. In the limited time, we've seen them play in preseason games. They've been good. But it's about to get real a week from Sunday. And I don't feel like the number one thing we were worried about before the season even began and talking about an offseason has been a addressed, especially when you spend all that money on Cam Robinson who's an unrestricted a free agent signing him in a one-year contract to come here to Minnesota, and you're trying

to ship him off because a rookie who's never played left tackle before at the NFL level took your spot, took your spot. Are you, our Texans, are you all winging out a little bit? Or you're like, man, we trust Amico, we trust Nikki C. And as long as this offensive line is just decent, CJ is going to have a bounce back year in year number three. The receivers are going to do a great job and we're going to catch lightning in a bottle with Nick Chubb or Damien Pierce if he's on this football team is going to be the guy that he was of a couple of years ago. I don't know.

It feels like there's just as many questions about this squad as there was before the draft even took place and free agency began. All right. Second hour, we've got gut feelings coming up in a half an hour from now. If you have any gut feelings about anything in sports related, we want those for you in a half an hour. We have Joe Espott at 1230 and Willie Fritz at 1.30. It's 1059.

It's the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Our buddy Cole is going to stop in for a couple hours and hang out with us next here on 790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. So a lot of people on social media call when somebody returns or somebody pitches, happy whatever day. I haven't said happy your honor today once. Hope you're okay with that, Cole. Why would I care? Well, I don't know.

I don't know. It just seems happy. Happy Yordon Day, Matt Thomas. No, don't do it. I just told you not to do it. No, you said you're not going to do it. Oh, you are. Okay.

Happy 44 day. You excited? I got Cole Thompson fanboy in here. All right, that's fine. Why not? Listen, we get to see hopefully a healthy Yoron Alvarez. Yes, sir. Come back into the lineup.

Yep. Provide evidence that he has turned the corner. Yes. Against the worst team in Major League Baseball. They're awful. That is going to break the record that the Chicago White Sox set last year, which I'm excited about because my dad's a White Sox fan. So now that tradition is going to come right.

Wait a minute. Your dad is a... Tommy's a White Sox fan. Yeah. For those who don't know, his dad flies around on the Rockets plane, which is really cool. Yeah, nepotism right here. Exactly. That's fine.

Whatever. Wait a minute. How do you... Is he a Southside Chicago guy? He grew up in Northwest Indiana. Okay, so that counts. Yeah. So he would take the train in from Gary every single weekend to go to Chicago White Sox game with his dad.

Yeah. It is funny. If you are usually a fan, depending on... two things, what your dad was, or what part of town you grew up in? Yeah. So there you go. We grew up in Houston, moved here when I was two. Been in Astros lifelonger. It's one of the only few teams that I openly allow my fandom to take over. I do not allow anything else to kind of weigh it out. If they stink, I'm in a bad mood. If they're great, I feel awesome. Like that, that's me. And they're going to feel awesome

the night when they obliterate the Rockies. And hopefully... Now, you know, their record against Sub-500 teams isn't spectacular. I also know that the Rockies are a dumpster fire with pitching, regardless of whether they're at course field that is a joke of a stadium or on the road. It's not a joke or a shutouts. It's a fantastic stadium. There are shutouts being thrown in that facility. I watched Greg Maddox or a complete game shoutout one there one time. Right. And he was with who? Atlanta.

There you go. Exactly. All right, fair enough. But maybe this will be the Uron Alvarez that we want to see. And hopefully when he comes back, we'll see Joe Mixon do the exact same thing. Not miss a beat. So you basically segue Yordon and Joe Mixon in one sentence there. for you. Listen, I'm learning on the fly. I'm able to pick up some stuff. How do you feel? And physically, I'm okay. I can get a lot of sleep last night. That's fantastic.

Oh, you're asking about other things. I think I'm asking about the Texans right now. Well, see, how do I put this? When the season, I make predictions every year about things, and I think I make the same predictions about them every single year. 10 and 7 win one playoff game out in the second round. I probably said that six months ago when the season ended last year. I probably said that three months ago. And even though the situation is not great with Joe Mixin, even though the offensive line is certainly a work in progress,

even perhaps more so than it was in the end of last year because at least you had Laramie Tunsell. It feels like to me it's not 10 and 7 because they're 10 and 7 good. It's because the division in which they're in is atrocious. And they're going to probably win five of their six games against division foes, which puts them at five and one, and then you're going to win five more among the rest of the teams you play. And you don't think that that's possible.

And if you don't think that that's possible, then I don't know what to tell you. Because this team, in my opinion, and I said this when they hired Nick Cayley, the offensive line is going to be better. Something else is going to be a liability to where they finish 10-7. I don't know what that is. Maybe it's the wide receiver spot. You have Nico Collins. He's awesome.

Top five player at the position. The contract every single day looks better after seeing what Terry McLaurin signed for yesterday, which, by the way, this is why Nick Casario is smart to get ahead of the curve when it's time to pay these players to guarantee that the contract always looks beneficial. But maybe you don't get that with Jaden Higgins. Maybe it's a year of rebuilding with Christian Kirk. Maybe you don't get that for the tight end spot. Even if the offensive line is better, what are we going to see from a full Nick Chub?

Because, again, he looked great in those five carries for 25 yards. what are we going to see now with 20 carries in the game? Is it going to be 4.4 yards of play? It's going to be 3.3 yards of play. What do you feel about Damian Pierce? How do you feel about Daria Gumbulli? I just feel like that even though I do have a lot more faith in this offensive line, I'm looking at 10 and 17.

And you said it. It's because the division. Five wins automatically. And maybe even six because you got Daniel Jones as your starting quarterback. Cam Ward, who I never believed in when he was coming out of Miami. Wow, you were a tough critic guy. I didn't taking a snap yet. You're already condoning him. I didn't. Listen, first overall quarterback taken, that was cool.

He is the least talked about number one overall pick for a reason. There's a reason for that. He is not meant to be a number one overall pick. The Titans just need a quarterback. They got Trevor Lawrence, which we have no idea what they're going to be down in Jacksonville. You can be 6 and 0 in the division, win four more games. They were going to be four and one, three and one, in my opinion, going into that week five matchup, regardless of if they had jumps or not.

So it's like, that doesn't change. change my opinion. And honestly, if you're worried about where the Texans are right now without Joe Mixon, you had to be much more worried about where the Texans were with Joe Mixing, because in my opinion, I think the running back room will be fine. If you still think that Joe Mixon was going to be the backbone of your team, you had major issues surrounding this Texan's organization going into 2025. But that's crazy because Domingo hasn't changed his tune about how important running backs are and he still would like to be a run first offense. Now, that could be lip service, and clearly it's going to have to be.

The last time that Nick Chub carried the ball 20 times in a game, you rush for 59 yards. I don't think he rushes 20 times in a game. That's my thing. First, let's start off with that. I think that you're seeing 15 to 17 at most. So then does Damien Pierce, if he makes the team, I'm going to presume he's making the team? I would assume at this point, the better question is,

do you carry five running backs or four? Damian Pierce is one of the four. It's do you add in like a British Brooks because of what he offers on special teams. But no, Damien Pierce making this. team. Yeah. And who is that second running back? And does he offset, is there any explosiveness to that? Because look, I do not want to bring up what Nick Chubden is one preaches in game. You don't want to overreact to that one game against the worst events in the NFL from last year? Well, I mean, no, I'm not going to do that.

It's fun. That's what we did. I know. No, no, no, no, no, no, not this one. I'm not Mr. overreaction. I'm Mr. Rational. That's why they come in Mr. Texas, because I'm coming up with a rational conversation. So there you have it. And from Cole's thought is, again, and I don't want to be 10-and-7 guy. But they were going to be 10-7 with Joe Mixing.

They're going to be 10-and-7 without him. Or are they not? I mean, because if you're asking CJ to throw 28 times a game, 32 times in the game, and you are not on the, and you are having to find yourselves in third and long, you are then asking Ariante Ursary, who, again,

and people cannot brag enough about. He's got the moxie. He looks the part. He's been awesome. He has. He's a lot of growing pants. He's allowed to give up a sack. Problem is,

he learned from it. My guess is yes. He seems like a smart kid. Understands a sport. But nobody goes from being a high-end college player to leading left tackle the most important spot on the offensive line. And there's no, and there's seamless transition.

Let me push back just a little bit because if I agree with you, there's reasons to allow him to grow and flourish and have those lumps in growing pains. There are. The thing that I worry about more than anything else, when you're the best offensive lineman as a rookie on a playoff team, that's a problem. Ariante Erisbury right now is the best offensive lineman on a playoff team going into week one, and he's yet to play an actual professional snap that has counted towards his NFL career. And if they move Cam Robinson, because they don't want to carry a guy who's making $12 million this year not to play.

What's your thought about that, actually? I meant to ask you. Well, part of me goes, I appreciate nobody looking at the contract. Yeah. Part of me does that. The other part of me is like, who signed off on him making $12 million for one year for a guy that didn't even make the team? He made the team, excuse me, that is being thought about it being traded and on top of it not going to be in the starting lineup on opening night, presumably. I appreciate the fact that Nick Casario is willing to move off of a guy to where he can get that.

draft compensation so long as the money works for it. Because of what it's saying is you have faith that Ariante Ursary, if he's healthy, is the best option for you at the most important position on that offensive line. The thing is, is that what is going to be the most valuable asking price to give up on a player who, yes, is very expensive, but is certainly an upgrade over what you have an offensive tackle waiting behind him. Now, can the NFL players, can the Texans pay part of his salary? Yeah, they can. Because there's no way in the world that. any NFL team is going to take a guy that is presumably past his prime making double-digit salaries for one season.

No, they'll take that price for a seventh round pick. But what's the point of taking on a seventh round pick for a guy that may need to start in a couple of games for you this season? That's right. That's where I'm at. Because if Hercry does have Deer in Headlights moments, you just can't be stuck. Plus, again, your backups are either hurt or not very good. You're scared to death about the depth.

And you just cut Trette Brown. So that was already announced today that he is. not going to be a part of this team. So your next backup is Blake Fisher and Jalen Thomas at this point? You're asking the wrong person. Well, my point being is like, it doesn't matter who I say. That's a problem when you don't have Arionte Ursary out there to begin with. So you better get something in return that is worth moving off of Camp Robinson. Because yeah, $12 million for a swing tackle is ridiculously expensive. It's probably the most expensive swing tackle in the history of the NFL. But when you're a playoff team in a winnable division that you have owned the last two years,

I'd much rather feel confident in paying that $12 million if I'm only getting a six-round pick and return. Well, you need depth. And that's why I do not suggest I'm moving Robinson. I mean, I can't look, this isn't about Cal and Hannah going, you can't be paying this guy this money to send the bench. This is about his finangling of the salary cap to maybe have some room later in the year, right? I think if you want to make a trade or, because this is what happens every single off season. that we didn't expect to get cut, gets cut, and they go through the waiver wire. If they do well enough in that first game, you assign them to a one-year extension

afterwards and they're part of your long-term future. And oh, by the way, Thomas Howard doesn't stay upright for six, 17 weeks a year per se. He hasn't stayed healthy his entire career since he's been here. So now you're putting a lot more pressure on having Arionte Urstri, not only be the guy, but let's say you do keep Cam Robinson, what is your next plan? Are you going to move Cam to the right side or Ariante Urstery, who going into practice was viewed as a right tackle? So there's a lot of different moving parts of it. If you get a third round pick, which would be a

duty. That's not happening. Matt Thomas, if they gave up a third round pick, whoever is the organization, I would like to get on a road trip, drive to that city, shake their hand, and let them know, I am here to help you pack your bags for giving the Texans a top 100. Yes, I am. Because that's how, but that would be

the liability of where you can make that move. If it's a fourth round pick, are they also taking on all $12 million of the salary? Then yeah, you make that move. If not, if it's a fourth round pick and you got, eat up $6 million, maybe make that move, if it's a fifth round pick or lower, keep them on the team. It's better to have a backup that is going to provide experience and versatility and flexibility if need be, then over splurging and going out to bring in a guy that is going

to maybe hinder your offensive line long term. All right, we just discussed the Texans offensive line for 12 minutes. Did we lose any remaining audience we had left? I hope not. I made it fun. You did. I said, I made it fun because offensive line. You bring fire and brimstone to offensive line talk.

I think that's a good thing. I'm not sure. I don't even know what brimstone is. It's a cliche term. Of course it is. I'm sure it was back in your time. Okay. I'm back in a time. Yeah, I don't need the one of you jumping in on that. Hey, he makes me feel old. How does that make you feel at least?

That's true. Exactly. So let me just check. Y'all out there? Gut feelings bottom of the hour. Not your fault, mine. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-70. Do you want more Texans offensive line talk, or are we getting to the Astro?

and I'm sick of looking at Cal Raleigh highlights Guy pissing me off First boy's got a horrific nickname I'd be embarrassed by that name He's smacking home runs Who would ever go by Big Dumpur willingly? He feels like he's doing one

He's got an endorsement out of it Yeah and guess what? He got the wrong endorsement Dude's White was right there And say he's doing a porta potty Oh no, you got to do depends You got no you Oh God 713

2-1-2-5-7-90 All right Gut feelings are coming up in 10 minutes Colling will be losing your virginity on gut feelings Am I right? Am I right about this? Yeah, what was it last time that I did?

With Sydney-Sweeney-Bathwater? I just don't get it? I just don't get us. That was it. There we go. You know what I just don't get and what we're doing this on Thursday? I actually know because we're are going to do it on Thursday.

I don't get top 100 NFL player list. Oh, it's dumb. It's very dumb. And people are like arguing about it? I'm like, first of all, these players were probably given this thing and said fill this out, which their buddies did. Secondly, if C.J. Stratt is number 90 or number 71,

does it make you feel better or worse? I just don't get it. Well, okay, I just don't get that we actually have a long list and an actual hour dedicated to seeing a player who took four snaps in 2024 and then say he was a part of the top 100.

That's why I stopped losing, that's where I lost complete and total respect for it. 2023, Aaron Rogers comes on out. American flag at Monday night football. He appears at number 86. Four snaps. Like, dude, what are we doing here? If you've ever wanted to know that nobody cares, including the players about this list,

that was it. Because it's that season. It's not, oh, Aaron Rogers is a top 100 player in the NFL. It was for every season. And that's what I can't stomach about it. But, I mean, first of all, there's so many different positions. And to be able to say that, I mean, Again, arguments, what it is for me is it's just offseason fodders.

You're trying to create some sort of conversation. But the list is out in the last couple of days and everyone's running, oh, how does my player wind up at number 19? Or how does it? Maybe it helps your fantasy football a little bit. But if you're a fan boy, you don't really care. As long as your team is doing well and how they make a top hunter list to me just doesn't feel like it's that important. I mean, I can give you another hour and a half of offensive line talk if you would love to do that.

No, no, no, no, no. But my point being is that, okay, the flashy players always get the accolades. Yeah. The best players, in my opinion, are on the offensive and defensive lines. They're the most impactful, and they never get the credit where credits do. You never see a list of Lane Johnson or when he was here, Laramie Tunsell, inside the top 25, despite the fact that they are probably one of the top 25 best players and most impactful players. Right. But here we are arguing about Derek Stingley Jr. coming in at number 18 when he should have been. at number 12 or he should have been at number 17 or he should have been at number 8.

Like, can we grow up and realize that it's people picking randomly? It's players. And it's players who are looking at it from a probably blind lens and also a little bit of favoritism. You got Tyree Kill. You think Tyree Kill is going to say Derek Stingley Jr., who shut me down belongs at the top five? No, I hate that guy.

I'm going to put him at number 80. And that's going to mess up his rankings. It feels like to me it's just a lot of, hey, I don't want to fill this out. hey my buddy can you fill this out for me kind of thing hey Dave go on to madden and just list the top 100 players based on what the madden rankings are that's how we're going to turn it was just like college football coaches when they try to fill out the coaches poll in college football every week no that's 100% factual that's it's not the plate coaches doing it it's their s IDs there's their media people it's maybe the executive operations director or the general manager so you're telling me that willie fritz doesn't sit down in his office after every single game and fill out that bracket of the top 25 now willie is god's gift to college coaching so Maybe he would be a little bit different. By the way, he'll be with us at 1.30 this afternoon. Shameless plug. There we go.

It's not shameless. My bad. Sensational plug. Oh, okay. Sensational plug, yes. Shameless is no. No, because when I do my podcast, every single time I mention, whenever I'm on someone else's show, I go shameless plug.

Go ahead and do your shameless plug here now. SEC unfiltered. Shameless flag. Go ahead and give me a follow on. So is your podcast better or worse than Gordy's? Ooh, I like my job. I'll say Gordy. I'll say Gordy.

So you're lying, basically. Yeah, 100% of lying. But you guys are in competition. with each other, correct? I think it's friendly competition. I listen to Gordy's podcast more than I actually listen to most other people's, because he has good guests on all the time. Okay.

You got, you SEC boys are a different breed. Yeah, because we're awesome. It just means more. It means men y'all, but a little dorkier than the average person. Okay. I will take being a dork and finishing with a 10-and-2 record in route to a college football playoff appearance. They go on 6-6 every year.

Now, why are you ripping on Texas Tech people like that? I am not ripping on Joey McGuire. I'm actually ripping on Kansas State people like that, because they already have enough problems going their way. Oh, my God. That, first of all, Avery Johnson, I didn't even really know his name until you knew his name. And then dad and older brother are fighting outside double,

which again, my guess is alcohol was involved in it, right? Did you not see the video of earlier in the day where Avery Johnson's brother down to Guinnesses before he walked in the stadium? That was part of the pregame. That's a lot of rich beer. You a Guinness guy? Yes. I can drink it once in a while

but I would never just intentionally go up to a bar and go man I'm looking forward to a really dark beer I can do a Guinness I can have one Guinness so when I go out I will have one and that will be the way I close out my night because if I start my night with it my night's over it's like it's like the people

who decide to go ahead and peruse and gardening when they wake up it's like how do you function for the rest of your day that's me if I start my night with a Guinness I want to go home sleep it off and come back because you're constipated basically Basically. Yeah.

It's going to lead to everything that is coming on and afterwards. Just sit behind me. Jonathan, it's like, what the hell did you just say? Jonathan, I promise you, if you ever tried Guinness, you will not feel anything in your bowels for the next like 48 hours. Yeah, you're stuck. I know what I'm doing today. No, you're not.

No, you're not. No, you're not. You have to work tomorrow, sir. I'm not filling it twice for you. Hey, is it actually good though? It's good, but it's super dark. It's really, thick is not the word I would use. It's rich.

It's very rich. It's very dark. it's like it's not like drinking tar but it certainly has the same kind of consistency of motor oil. It's got to yeah it's got to be the darkest spirit out there right? It's up there. So compare it because I just had Carbock for the first time and like how come? Not even not even you're not even in spitting distance of it like we're in different continents when we talk about that level of beer.

Like when I go to Talley and I'm like give me a Pilsner because I'm a girl. Like okay um you've had Fat Tire before right? I am. Okay it have you ever do you even know what Fat Tire is Jothin? Not at all. Okay well it's a really good beer you should try it. It's got that same bitter taste is the way I would put it. It's something you, it's not a normal drinking beer. It's a one in Rome kind of situation. Like if I went to Ireland, I would be knocking back Guinnesses because I want to say that I was in Ireland heaven. I went to the temple bar and I had four Guinnesses in one night.

And that was again because of I was in Dublin. I was not going to go anywhere else and not get a Guinness. What was the worst thing you did in public during that event? I peed outside. Did you unzip your pants? Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

I went around the corner, went behind a, went behind old trash cans, by the way, and went right back in the bar. And what was funny is, I was not the only person back there. So you walked back there, dropped trial, and somebody else was doing the exact same thing. Oh, yeah. Multiple. So it was like the trash can said, please pee here. It was literally like having an extra trial in the back of the bar. Exactly.

They knew what was going on. It was a random Saturday night. They understood. Great live music was going on inside. How much separation was it between you and the other person? It was at least two stall lengths, as it's tradition, as it is supposed to be. Okay. Things you learn about Cole Thompson.

See, that's why you don't get this on the A-Team. You don't get this kind of material. No, they have to keep me censored because they already got one wild card, and then we don't need to have two of them. So, Wex has to keep the show going in some way. You know what? I'm sleep-deprived. You can talk as much as you want.

1128 here on Sports Talk, 790. Hey, it's time for some gut feelings. Make some predictions about the Astros, maybe Yordon, maybe about the Texans, maybe about the Texans running back room. Maybe about college football this weekend. By the way, I bought my son yesterday a ticket to see UTSA A&M on the secondary streets. 90 bucks a ticket wasn't terrible. For an A&M, UTSA game?

Yeah. Really? That felt a little high, actually. I think that's high. Yeah, and I looked upstairs, and there were worse sections that were like $350 a pop. Okay, that's a deal. You Aggie fans are crazy. You love your Aggies.

Yeah, they love Texas 8 and 4. Here that Aggie fans. He's coming after you. Why do you say, I guess eight and four begins that. Okay, because here's why. Here's why. Since they joined the conference in 2012, what do you think is their average win total per year? Eight.

It is 7.9. It is 7.9. They have one 11 win season since joining in 2012. They have more eight win seasons than they do with nine win seasons. But they have a lot of championships, banners or signs are wrong in Kyle Fears. As a tradition, like the 12th man. 1130. Got feeling time.

Come and give us your predictions. at 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-2-5-790. Girls and boys, they've been so appealing. God's Ross and Matt Thomas. Yo, they got a good feeling. This is their gut feeling on the Matt Thomas show. All right, 1135 on 790. Here's how it works.

And Cole is hanging out with us for a little while. He is a producer in the A-team and doesn't get to talk very much, so we're giving him an opportunity to say what he wants to say within reason. 7-13-21-2-2-5-790. 7-190-7-1-3-2-1-2-5. We make predictions. If you get them right, we brag about them later. So if you say anything today that hits, come back in next week and brag about them.

Oh, I'm going to. If they're wrong, we won't hear from you unless they're so preposterousers, we'll make fun of you. Either way, listen, I can't lose. I got to come back in here and you get to make fun of it. That's right. Or I get to come back in here and I get to gloat in front of Rossville. We tease because we care. All right, 713-212-5-790.

Boys, here we go. Jonathan, you're writing these down. I will start with the Astros. They have nine games coming up. This is the homestand. This is a very, very... This is the second and the last homestand, I think, of the season, right? Three with Colorado.

Three with the Angels. Three with the Yankees. Six and three. Where are the three losses? Okay, better yet. Are any of them a sweep? Well, what would have to you, wouldn't you think? No, I'm saying.

No, you could actually lose one. You could lose one. No, because I don't think we're in a world of sweeps anymore. Okay. I don't hate that. I'm going six and three, write it down. I'm not putting my name on it. It's just a gut feeling.

If they do anything less than six and three, I will be a ridiculously nervous now like going to that Seattle series when they come back after their next long road trip. Because they probably will either be tied or a game back of Seattle. You know, again. You never know. You never know because, again, just because you go five and four, if the Mariners were all of a sudden going to go on some long losing streak,

doesn't matter. You don't have to put absolutes in baseball because you are the lead dog and you have a game and a half lead over the Mariners. So it depends on what you do and what they do is not necessarily about directly how you perform. They are playing the Padres, which is a good sign for me to say openly, Fernando Tatis, if you have to juice up this weekend like you did back in 2023. Oh, look at this. Nobody's going to care in this city. We welcome you with open arms. You're openly endorsing cheating by the San Diego Padres. If it means the Astros but a four-game lead in the division, I'm not complaining. Yeah, but they're fighting for a wild card spot themselves. Right.

So why not give it to somebody else who's more deserving, like Kansas City, not Seattle? By the way, just because you off, it's a 10-game homestead so that... Oh, who am I forgetting? Angels is a four-game series. Oh, that's right. It's a Monday wraparound. I'm working Labor Day. Are you? Yes. Are you really?

So are you going to be at the draft afterwards? I don't know. Really? We have a fantasy draft. It's kind of late. What is it? Like 7 o'clock? 7.45.

Okay, that's fine. I'm going to work. You guys are going to be sitting at home relaxing. No, we're going to a place that we know very well. Big City wings. There we go. All right, we'll see. Your Don's coming back tonight.

All right, hold on, and I've got to redo this then. Three? I always think about that Monday Rapper on because it's very early. Okay, so we got three with Colorado, four with the Halos, three with the New York Yankees. Seven and three? or six and four. Can I pause for like another hour?

I can't. No. It's live radio. Five, four, three, two, one. Six and four. Really? I'm a dirty whore. You are a horrible individual.

Shame on you, Matt Thomas. Dirty whore. I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. I can't wait for you to be wrong. Please let me be wrong. I cannot wait to come back in here tomorrow morning and talk to you. Let me tell you something.

If they lose to any of the Colorado, I'm going to be flipping out. Oh, you have every right to. The entire city has every right to. Burn down every crevice of this town if you lose to Colorado. I wouldn't do that. Burn down Dallas. Continue on. Sure.

Actually, you know what? Burn down Austin, too, if you want to. I was in Austin last week. It wasn't bad. Trivics kind of sucks, but, you know. You're on Alvarez guns back tonight. Yes, he does. He is.

And? I have a gut feeling. Yes. First pitch, Homer. Okay, shut up. First pitch Homer. That's a Jonathan take. That's first pitch Homer.

Why not? and then he doesn't get another hit for the rest of the game. One for four. Oh, this is awful. Why is this? Write this down and we're going to make fun of him tomorrow. It's going to be awesome. Everybody needs to send tweets at Mr. Cole Thompson

and rip on him when Yoron to, first of all, Yoron's going to take the first pitch. Okay. First swing homer. No, no, no, no, you can't change. First swing. No, no, no, no. But it's okay for you on your show to change it from six to three to six four.

Because I forgot about the extra game. Oh, but I forgot that he was going to take his first pitch. Very first swing, he swings at a bad. He gets contact. It's a home run. Home run. I'll take it a step further. Right field. Second deck. So he's going to upper tank?

Upper tank. First swing. Home run. I'd have had more. I'd have respected you more for you to say he's going to oppo to the Crawford boxes. No, I want to go big. Go bigger, go home. All right. Because either way, you can make fun of me tomorrow, or I can come in here at some point and just scream at you, pay up. So either way, I win.

You will get your flowers for me tomorrow, but that's it. And then you're going to be ridiculously embarrassed tomorrow as well when I make fun of you. Okay, let's put this down again. Cole Thompson says, first time Yordon swings. It's an upper tank home run to right field. Sounds like a good take. Are you sure you going to work for some Astros fanboy website? No, I'm actually not working in that juice box.

All right, very good. Can I change my mind? Can I go six and four? No. No. No, seven and three? No. No.

I don't want to say six and four. Six and four sounds plain. It sounds mid. Oh, it sounds mid. But then again, you're making fun of me for saying upper deck Homer. All right. Stay on business, Matt, Thomas. Staying on business, Matt.

Is that what the kids say? Yes. All right. I think. Jonathan, is that what the kids say? That's a nice man. Okay. I'm staying with six and four and I hope I'm wrong.

I can't wait until when you were wrong. All right. Other gut feelings. I already mentioned us on to tell the truth yesterday. if the Texans win the game in Los Angeles, CJ is going to have to throw for more than 250 yards. I just think that that's a given. I don't even think that's a gut feeling.

I think that's a fact, if I'm being completely honest with you. Okay. Now, you could have a game of futility because Stafford's on 100%. Sure. You could have defensive scores in play. I don't think it's a... I don't think it's...

I mean, I'm going to say that my point is the running game is not going to be the... the Texans best friend in Los Angeles. That's why I think it has to be $2.50. It's because of even if I do believe you will see Damian Pierce and Nick Chubb, and I'll throw in Woody Marks, make up for the lost production of Joe Mixen while he's out. Okay. It's not going to happen in week one.

It's going to start in week two, week three, week four. That's when you'll see. You won't get in week one. So I agree with you. 250 yards is fine. All right. I think gut feeling when we wake up on Sunday morning, the longhorns will be sitting at 1 and 0 over Ohio State

because their defense gets a game-winning pick 6 against Julianne saying and Arch Manning does not meet the expectations set by the media. You know, because you're a Texas hater. I am not in Texas hater. I can hear it in your bones. Really? Really. Okay. Why do I hate Texas so much about Thomas? Who is this Dylan Delgado dude?

He is a aggregator on Twitter. The Texans released offensive linemen Ladarius Henderson. fan favorite cut Oh yeah Have you not heard about the love that Laderius Henderson got all off season? I have not Oh, it's been fantastic What makes him so lovable?

Because of Nick Casario liked him as a pick And because of, oh, St. Nick can't do anything wrong in this city Fans brought into it If you and I went to a bar right now and said, Hey, what are you all thoughts about Laderius Henderson I promise you there would be one Texans fan somewhere Out in the middle of whatever someone But I'm not going to every bar in town

One to one bar. No, no, no, one bar, there'd be a Texans fan who would sell you on the idea that Laderius Henderson needed one more offseason to prove he wasn't all pro. Well, that person needs to get laid. That person needs to find a life. I don't even think that. Offensive linemen are not fan favorites. Oh, they're my fan favorites.

That's because you're a dork. Exactly. That's 100% right. John, then what do you got? Oh, okay. I'm going to college football. Yes. Yes.

I'm taking Clemson over LSU. Okay. No set score. And then I'm going for the upset since we got a rolling tide in here. Oh, you are an evil. Upset. Florida State You are a dirty whore. They won two games last year, right?

Yes. They look promising. I'm just saying. They look like nothing. They look enough for an upset. That's all I'm saying. Okay, write this down, by the way, too. U of H covers a 22 and a half against SSF.

Covers, covers. I didn't swear. I didn't, yeah, covers. Notre Dame beats Miami by 10 points. Where's the game? In Miami. Oh. You got a Notre Dame

winning by 10 in Florida? Why not? It's got a feeling. All right. I want to give you one more. Auburn wins at Baylor. I'm going to do you one better. Baylor wins the Big 12. What? After beating Auburn.

What? Baylor behind Sawyer Robertson, the most underrated quarterback in college football. Oh, here we go. Josh Cameron, one of the best wide receivers. Kobe Prenton's coming on in from the University of Alabama, because we didn't need him anymore. So guess what? We set him down to Baylor to save Dave Oranda's career with having Bryce and Washington,

the best running back in the Big 12, not only puts belt to butt on the Brazos this weekend to Auburn, who will fire Hugh Freeze after losing to Diego Pavia a fourth time. They go 11 and 1 during the regular season, 12 and 1 and punch their ticket at the college football playoff. Baylor is going to the playoff? Baylor. Jake Spavittal, top 25 scoring offense, a revamped defense with Dave Oranda.

They find a way to dominate not only this, matchup. They beat up on SMU next week. They find a way to take down Arizona State. They run their way to Arlington and back into the college football playoff, which would actually be a first time for them. Auburn 2.5 point favorite in the game, by the game, by the Auburn is going to lose by at least a touchdown in the game

probably. Welcome to the Hugh Freeze experiment. I got a headline for you. I feel like I'm talking to sizzle over here. I got a headline for you that we will read on Sunday morning. That is? Auburn football stuck in a rut until Hugh Freeze is over. Who's writing that headline?

Me? On SEC Unlimited? Get it right, Matt Thomas. SEC. Yeah, I'll filter it. Sorry. Check your stuff before I call now. I get unlimited, unfiltered, all big stuff.

All right, our buddy, James and Garden Oaks is going to come in. If you don't like James and Garden Oaks, which some of you don't, I don't understand why. He's an apple of a fella. You may go to the top of the list at 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-5-7-90. It is 11-45-5-5-0. It is 11-45-5-5. feelings. If you want to get yours in, do it now

here on Sports Talk 790. I'm going to call Sal and let him know that his job's on the line now for you. Who's Sal? Sal Likata. Who's that? I don't know where that is. It doesn't matter. You just name drop a person I didn't know. You know what? I named up anybody at WFAN at this point. You don't know him probably. I don't

think I know a single. I think I've introduced myself. Oh, Michael Kidd hasn't even worked for WFAN. He works for the ESPN affiliate, yeah. That's, that's, welcome to WFAN in Circault 2225. You don't know a single personality. How bad it's gotten.

Yeah, Mike and the Mad Dog, there ain't been anybody good since. Hello, Mac, you're on 7-90. Mack, what's going on? Trying to figure out the most likely date that Jake Myers returns to the lineup. How do you find that information? When do they post their lineups for each date? Well, he's got to come off the injured list first. Yeah, and they're saying that's going to be late August.

Well, who's saying that? I don't, I, nobody's saying that. Mack, who is the insider that you have spoken to that Matt Thomas? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that's a, that's a, not a presumption. That's a hope. I don't, I don't know. No one has said there's a definite on that.

Maybe not. That's the only thing I can find on the Astros' website when they talk about injury update. Yeah, I know. They're trying, it's a guessing game. Sorry, Mack, I don't have an answer for you. Are you a big Jake Myers guy? My wife is. She's the biggest fan.

And she just, she just got sent to bed with. COVID. So when she gets, we're hoping that she gets healthy before he does. Seems like a pretty good debt, right? I would hope. Are y'all sleeping together? Are you at this point? Well, not tonight. You know, it's funny. Thank you for the phone call. Ironically, I've gotten COVID, I think, three times in my life, maybe even four. My wife has slept with me every single time and she's never gotten it. Curesan had COVID over the summer and I slept with her, never got it. Do you cuddle? No. Hell no. King size bed, two dogs in the middle. I had a good bear. You caught with the dogs?

Oh, hell yeah, I did. Hell yeah, I did. Why? What are you laughing at? Nothing. What? Call you a funny guy, man. I know. You are a funny guy. I am fantastic. I look like James McIvoort. Hi. I'm funny like Will Ferrell. My name is Cole and I call with my dogs and with my wife.

I do. Guess what? I've not, I have no, I have no shame. Clearly. I have no shame. Not my dirty laundry on air. You know, it'll only get worse. You hang out with us. Trust me. I'm going to sleep on the couch at some point. this week. Yeah. All right. Stena. Stunna, what's in your gut? What's going on, Matt?

What's you got? What's that, Suna? First of all, I just got to say what thing. Coles, I think you're a cross between Charlie Polillo and Adam Klan. Because, man, he... I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. Sonna, I need you to continue. Is that a good or a bad thing?

Stata, hold on, Sonna. Stena, I do not want you to explain it because I totally get it, so don't explain it, so Cole doesn't have to figure it out. It's 100% I completely 100% agree with you. This is going to be on my brain for the rest of the day. Don't do it. Don't answer it. Don't answer him. Don't do it.

Fine, Stunner. Just let me think. But my take is that Seattle is going to split with the Padres and they get him. So we're going to that meeting with them. will be three games and my last take is the horns will win and the Cowboys will win

on a field goal 50 yards plus by Aubrey Wow and by the way I think that series with a pottery is only three game series I thought it was a four I'm looking at Thursday's schedule I don't see them on there They're not on there are they?

No I don't think so So you can't split a three game or stunner You know better than that Well okay maybe he's saying He splits the next two series And they go three and three Yeah. There we go.

See, son, and look at that. I'm on your side here. Hey, hey, man, that's an Adam Plano. That's an, that's an, that's an, that's an, that's an, that's an, that's an, that's an, that's an, what is this. What is this? No, no, don't tell him. Don't tell him. Don't tell him.

ACP. Is that my new name? All right, fine. You are Adam Polillo. That is hysterical. That absolutely hits. And I know, because I'm an OG. I know exactly what that is.

I genuinely are going to be sitting here thinking about that for the rest of the show. Don't do it. Don't do it. I don't do it. All right, you like Jackson Brown? Yeah. You know the Texans are running on empty, don't you? No.

They are. You'll hear it next. Plus the news at noon. Joe Espati in 35 minutes here on Sports Talk 790. It's a foot race now with Hawkins. There he goes. Downfield. And a burst by the Texans running back of 67 yards.

Tonsle the block. Nixon touchdown. And just like that, two. possessions two touchdown passing. Dexons aren't spending a lot of time at the line of scrimmage once they get up there. And the Mixon cutback. Joe

Mixon, goodbye. Touchdown Texans. 82 yards on the ground. Here's more chunk yards. Big block by Dick. Down. Jackson Brown. Very underrated. All right, Jonathan. This song was also in

Forrest Gump, by the way. Was it actually? Yes. I was running away from the horror Jenny She is the villain of that movie She's the what? She is the villain of that movie Yeah, I hate her What?

No, she is one of the worst cinematic villains in all of the movie history Correct. She is, I'm sorry I put Jenny won Dard of Vader 2 Okay That's valid Well, for starters, Vader had a redemption arc

I don't think of there ever was a redemption She gave force She gave Boris of a neereal disease that you had to carry her around along with a child. Is that what you get? And what is his reward? Oh, she dies right afterwards. Selfish.

That's what Jenny is. He knocks the house down. That was nice of him to do that too. Yeah, it's very nice of him to do that. With all the money that he provided that he gave to her child. That was his child that she convinced him quite literally without him knowing that he was going to be a father. How dare she? I made me mad on a completely different subject, Matt Thomas.

That's why I got mad yesterday. I've already said what I want to say by Jenny. By the way, which one of the two doesn't like Jackson Brown? I like Jackson Brown. I know, but one of my two guys don't like Jackson Brown. Oh. Is it Wex or is it? I don't know.

I don't listen to your show, so I don't know. Wow. I appreciate it. I hate listening between two and six. See, exactly. He hates it. Of course you do. I listen to a bunch of crap.

I like Jackson Brown's really good. I think it's really, I think he's really good. I'm trying to think. We have no topic for believe it or not that I don't think I'm going to do Jackson Brown, but I'm just thinking about it. We've got to think of something. Believe it or not, Jenny is the single worst human that has ever existed. That's a believe it.

That's a hell of a believe it. Who's the other worst character that you... In that movie? No, just in general, that people love or they don't give enough credit to for being evil. Oh, see, I'm not a super big movie goer. Are you TV? I do like TV. Okay.

I need your example to help me out here. Okay, perfect example. For me, personally, I don't think Ross is the worst character in friends, number one. And I don't think that Ted Mosby is the worst character in How I Met Your Mother number two. Okay. How I made your mother never watch one episode. Why? It's fantastic. It looked like it would take me years to laugh at one.

Ross and Joey were both highly irritating on friends. I hated both of their characters. Okay. Chandler was so much funnier than the other two combined. Now, Chandler was the comedic relief, even though Joey was pegged to be the comedic relief. Joey was just stupid. No, that's the thing. He was stupid.

But I didn't find his character endearing or anything. I couldn't stand Monica, personally. Phoebe to me was the least attractive. It wasn't that Phoebe was the least attractive. It was that Phoebe, they tried to make outside nonsensical stuff really funny, and it didn't work because she's not hot. There's the hot crazy skill that you can go balance on. And if you don't go, if you're not hot enough, then unfortunately the crazier you are,

I was team Monica. I'm going to be honest with you. Really? Oh, yeah. Team Rachel all the way. Well, of course, Rachel's the goat. But Monica was not a far behind second. Top five 90s trick of all time?

Rachel Green. Oh, yeah, for sure. Is Monica in your top five or she had honorable mention? I don't know. I haven't thought about this. I don't have these deep thoughts. Believe it or not, Matt Thomas does not have deep thoughts on a Tuesday. Oh, look at that. About women too mad?

I don't know. You losing your basketball. You know what? He's got too much caffeine over here. He's throwing too much stuff at me. This is right in your ballpark. This is, I'm supposed to be the wild card today. You are the wall card. I'm apparently out of Perillo.

So I'm coming in with factual. I got Adam Pulillo with me here. I have factual information and good takes. Or very terrible takes. They're not horrible. I haven't heard anything something's terrible at this point. Let's get you the news at noon.

Way, in 22 minutes from now, you will be hearing from Astros manager Joe Espada. The presumption is that Yordon Alvarez will be starting and playing his first game since early May. Astros opening up a three-game series with the, I would say, hated Colorado Rockies, but that wouldn't be very fair. Astros will start in this game.

Close personal front of the show. Jason Alexander, who is 4-1. He's going against, you ready for this call? Antonio Centazela? Zenta Zela? It doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter. His record is 4 and 15 with an ERA of 7.15. Okay, so a win.

Okay, if you're the Rockies, do you owe that guy an apology? Why? Why would you send somebody out there with a record of 4 and 15? Because you're not at course field. He's pitched 112 innings and has given up 170. 71 hits. This season. That's embarrassing.

He's not a course field. Maybe things will go better this time around. Remember, Brandon Taylor came on in here. You know what? That's not right. I give you wrong information. I looked at the wrong day. Okay. I owe you an apology. No, I owe you an apology.

No, I owe the city of Houston apology. You don't know the city of Houston apology. No, I do. You owe him an apology. He still sucks. Of course he does. He's going to suck tomorrow. All right.

Here it is. It's Hunter Brown today against Tanner Gordon. Gordon is 4 and 5 with an Ernie of 7-11. Hunter Brown is 10 and 5 with a 236 CRA. That makes me feel very good. 16.6% chance for the Colorado Rockies to win according to ESPN and analytics. Now tomorrow, Framber, you got some pressure on your friend.

You have not been the same pitcher for a better part of a month. You will be on the mound on the game on Wednesday. And then, friend of the show, Jason Alexander pitches on Thursday. Who pitches against Framber tomorrow? Do you know? Do you have it pulled up? Is it Dolander the rookie? I don't have it pulled up.

Oh, well. I already saw it. I don't want to hear it. How many? How many? You know what? You know what? Gordy, are you back there?

How many? He's doing it to piss me off. I know he is. Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married. Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift. Oh! Oh! Sounder again!

Sounder again! Sounder again! Keep hitting a sounder. Why? Endless. Shut up. Endless sounders. Is...

What's I like to do? One more time for just all fun. There we go. Do you know where the instapole music is? Maybe. What do you mean maybe? You've been on this show like seven or eight months. Matt Thomas, we have bad blood now.

Yeah, but we can just shake it off. I don't think we can. Because are you going to have tear drops on your guitar? I'm out after this. Thank God. It's time. for an Insta poll. Is Taylor Swift making the right choice by marrying Travis Kelsey?

Yes or no? 713212-5-790. I think I phrase it that way, don't it? Is Taylor making the right? Because she can pick anybody she wants. The ring is. You guys see how big the ring is he gave her. Is Travis making the right choice?

No, the question we're going to do into poll one quote, which we're going to go, is Taylor making the right decision? It doesn't matter. She's going to write a song about her divorce in five years, so problem solved. All right. Is Taylor doing the right thing? Yes or no? For her music career, absolutely. This is the instipole. 713-212-5-790. I don't remember the screen in the calls. You come in, 7-13-212-5-7-90. Is Taylor Swift making the right decision yes or no on whether or not she should be marrying Travis Kelsey?

to line number one. Brandon on 790. Is Taylor making the right call? Yes or no? Yes, as long as she makes him find a pre-no. Oh, I had thought about that. Thank you very much, Brandon. 7-13-212-7-9.

Line two, insip-pull. Is Taylor making the right decision? Yes or no? Hell no. Thank you. Oh, one vote for no. Remember, it's first to four in the instapole. Okay, I like this.

We're at 7-13-21-2-5-790. 7-13-1-2-1-2-5-7-90. Line one, is Taylor making the right decision marrying Travis? Yes or no? Line one. Three, two, one. Okay, silence is golden here. I'm going to take that as a yes for me.

No, you cannot take that anything. Because people have to call in. He did call in. He was so shocked that he was so shocked that it couldn't happen. Joan, right decision, yes or no, on Taylor Swift? Absolutely. Oh, love is, Joan knows about love. She's a great parent, great grandmother.

She knows everything. Fantastic. So two votes. Taylor's making the right decision. Can't wait to go ahead and prove that that would be the only two you have. There'll be more. I guarantee you there won't. Line two.

Is Taylor making the right decision? Yes or no? No, she's not making the right decision. No, they haven't been together that long for a future, yes, but no way. Wow. All right. That's a second no. Remember, the instapult doesn't lie.

Exactly. Line one. Taylor Swift making the right decision, yes or no? No. No. Wow. What are we doing, Matt Thomas? You sit down.

What are we doing, Matt Thomas? I don't know what you're doing, but get away from me. You're intense. Line two. Taylor Swift, right decision, yes or no? As your resident Swiftie, absolutely. Oh, I know who that is. All right.

Hey, we got a moment of truth here. Three votes yes. Three votes no. The marriage of Taylor Swift is relying on our last call. Alder. Line four, is Taylor making the right decision? Yes or no? The insombole is it lie?

I'll see myself out, Matt Thomas. You have a good rest of the time. No, you're staying at 1 o'clock, then you have to go. And that's the news. The show has shifted. Exactly. They realized that I... You know what?

I don't... Let me tell you. Listen, me stay around. I do not care about the Texans' offensive line. I seriously don't care. I don't care about cuts. So me. Go to interstation.

I don't care. I don't care. I care about Taylor. I care about Yoran Alvarez. I care about the Rockets. I don't care about the Almanzum line. I don't care about the cuts. I just don't.

But besides that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? That is a Polo line, right, the way. You are, Jesus, you are Adam Polo. I'm working with Adam Pulillo here. All right. More, what do you give them for a gift? And who goes to the wedding? Do you invite the entire team?

And if you don't invite the entire team, Does that make them look awkward? Like if you invite like some guys on the offense, some on the defense, but don't invite everybody? Well, yeah, I think you have to invite the entire team at this point. Well, how about they just go, they have a little, what, a lope? I will tell you just right now, as somebody who has recently gotten married in the last five years, if you have the opportunity to, elope. I stand on that. I was given the option of having, not me, my wife.

Your wife. My wife. You have no option. The dream wedding, or here's a big lump of money. and go put a down payment on the house. You chose the dream wedding, didn't you?

I didn't choose anything. She chose the dream wedding, did she? Yep, exactly. Jonathan, just remember, sums of money may come and go, but so can marriages, take the money.

Yeah, our wedding's worth it? So that's the courthouse? I loved my wedding. It was the greatest event of my entire life. I'm already planning my first divorce. It was fine. Life is a breeze.

Kirsten, if you're listening, I'll talk to you tomorrow. She's not listening. Of course she's not. She hates me. No, she doesn't. She barely tolerate you. All right, there it is. So we have now jumped the shark from Texans O'Line, talk to Taylor Swift's getting married to Travis.

1216 on Sports Talk 7'9. OMG. Did you hear the wonderful news? What now? No, honey. What is it? Your gym teacher and English teacher are getting married. Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point.

I'm so happy. I'm crying through tears down my face. Kirsten Thompson, 12-16. She's listening to show? No. She just found out about the engagement while at work and decided to take time out of her day knowing how much I hate this woman to text me. Wait, wait, there's nothing to hate about her.

There's a lot to hate about her. What is she done that she is so hateful? She is not a good singer. We over-in-er. This song's a buffed up. I do not say a good songwriter. There's a giant difference. if she was not a blonde chick from Nashville,

she would have just been a songwriter, and we all would have heard her music through the sweet, sultry tunes of Ariana Grande, Sabrina Carpenter, Otto and Duolipa. They all would have taken over, but she was a blonde chick that was able to go ahead and get her break at 16 years old,

and because of that, we treat her like she is royalty. She's an average singer and a great songwriter. She will be the most successful singer in the history of the world when it's all done. It will. I agree with you, but she should be the most successful songwriter in the history of the world. All right, I'm putting up a poll question. More Texans Cuts Talk or Travis Taylor

engagement conversation? I will make sure that every single person I know votes for Texans talk. Well, we'll see. We're going to find out right now. I would rather talk about 1980s movies with you than anything else. Let's see here. I'd rather quiz Jonathan on his knowledge of the 1980 theme song. I'm going to put this poll question up for, I'm going to put this up for one hour and 30 minutes. We'll see what people say. One hour of 15. I'll put that. Let's take a look. So there it is. Your options are

you have the options of Taylor Swift engagement talk or Texans cuts. Jesus, have you seen this ring? That's what I was saying. Oh my God.

It's huge, which is massive. That's more than a Super Bowl ring. Like, he would have to pawn off multiple Super Bowl rings to afford this ring. I understand why that one guy

who called in and said, get the pre-knup. So what's he, he's worth $50 million. Give or take, right? I would say more than that. I would say closer

to $100 million. And she's worth a couple a billion. Billions. Yes. Like, let's say this. Remember when they started dating and people freaked out that he made a comment about her music and the Swifties tried to cancel him and all of the NFL? Like, her audience is so much bigger than the NFL. It's crazy. Yeah, the ratings of games went up when she was in the stadium, period of the story. For literally a screenshot. Not even for her to have the tape. The Super Bowl is smart this year and somehow Kansas City is able to defy the script

because I've already read it. They're not going this year. They have to go ahead and set up one more year, let Travis get married, and then we'll find out next year that she's pregnant at the Super Bowl. So then he retires because if he becomes a father, if they're smart and somehow they defy the odds this year and beat the script, they need to have a Taylor Cam.

Inside of the stadium, inside the box. That cam will get more views than the Super Bowl itself. 13 votes are in. Texans Cuts talk leading 54 to 46. I appreciate that. It's closer than I thought it was going to be. It shouldn't be.

It shouldn't be at all. You gotta talk about the Texas's old line, man. No, I'm not. I told you I've done. Well, I'm pissed off. The Texans' old offensive line? No, you're not hear the news? What? Daniel Jackson got cut.

Why are we not spending more time on that, Matt Thomas? I don't know. Can you tell me one thing about Daniel Jackson? The parents of Mr. and Mrs. Jackson? So you're sorry, Ms. Jackson. Okay, I see what you did there. I kind of like that. Fan favorite.

All right. Fan favorite. like Taylor engagement combo is losing bad now. It's 59 to 41 in favor of Texan's cut stock. I mean, so there is some sanity out there. I hope so. I mean, I'm going to have to, I just want you to know

I'm going to have to deal with more Taylor talk when we get on at 2 o'clock. Because the other one is going to piss off this one that's in this chair to make sure that he has to go ahead and deal with this for at least 20 minutes. Wex is not going to have that happened. Wex is going to derail the show for this specific reason. Wexen is going to give you a too deep on every

position of this team over the next two months. When the 3 o'clock hour starts on Space City Network, yes he will. I 100% agree with you. But when it's 2 o'clock, we can play Taylor's songs. We can play Taylor's songs. He is going to require that we play Taylor songs to piss him off. Who sits in this chair? All right.

So there you have it. Oh, by the way, the Astros, 2006 schedule is announced. I love how baseball gives that to you even before the 20, 25 years done. They're going to open up the year with a homestand, which will feature four. Four against the Angels and three against the Boston Red Sox. So if you are a big Breggman fan, you're going to see him pretty soon. Actually, you might even see in the playoffs. You never know. Why is ESPN fantasy app saying congratulations to Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift?

Because they know it gets clicks. I know. I hate this. I hate this so much. Let me ask you this. Okay. We got to get quickly to a Joe Spott. If you are the 6 o'clock news tonight, how many stories, I'm talking about the local, not the national. How many stories does it get before we find out that? Travis and Taylor are engaged.

One. They're not leading with it. No. Not in Houston. No, no, no, no. You're saying somebody died in a car wreck today. Somebody died. A major wreck.

Something happened in Third Ward, whatever it is. By the way, let's bring you back to some positivity. I'm going to give you, here's how it's going to go. First minute of your local news tonight. Somebody dies in a car crash. Quick weather check. Then the Taylor and Travis.

Okay. I will do you one better. I think that they will be somewhat of a transition into a happy moment to where they talk about the bad blood that happens out on the streets that turns into a love story that is Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey. That's deep. That's too deep for local news. Why?

It's very punny. It works. All right. Let's talk to Joe is spotted next. And I promise you, we're not going to ask him any questions about Taylor and Travis. 1227. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Cole is in for the next half hour hanging out with us.

Come on and join our conversation. If you would so choose at 713, 23, 212-790. While we wait for Joe to call us, just look at the 2026 schedule. I mentioned. Four with the Angels to open up to see the series. Oh, there's Joe. Three with the Boston Red Sox. And then they go west right away with games at Sacramento, Colorado, and Seattle.

Look at us, man. We're already looking forward to 2026. We've got to worry about 2025, first and foremost. And, man, that help us by that is the manager of the Houston Astros, Joe Espada. Skip, how are things on this Tuesday? How was the off day? I'm doing well. Off day, which is fabulous. Thank you for asking. Hey, a lot of excitement around these parts. A certain DH, a slugging left-hander,

had a nice trip down to Corpus Christi. Have you filled out your lineup card just yet? Yes. And is there a certain DH in that lineup tonight? Yes, there's a DH in that lineup. You know what I mean, Skip. Come on, now! We're better than that!

All right. Is Jordon going to play DH tonight? Your Don is. going to walk in here. We're going to talk to him and see how he feels and if he feels good, we'll wait and see, see what happens, guys. We all, you know, looking, looking forward to coming in here today and tell him how he feels. Okay, that's good. I'm glad to hear that. How much recount were you getting from your folks in Corpus, Christi? Did he get, I'm assuming he got what he wanted to accomplish in terms of playing, day off, a little bit of outfield,

running around the bases a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He did all those things and he came out feeling well. You know, the abats not only there, but the abats in West Palm Beach. I think he's in a really good spot mentally and physically. And, you know, you mentioned outfield. He also plays some outfield. He came out there about feeling

good about that. So, yeah, he's in a really good spot and, you know, really, you know, really excited of getting him back. You know, I guess the number one question is beyond his playing is the fact that you've used Jose a lot at DH spot over that time and not a lot of left field in the

last couple of months. From a macro view, not necessarily about tonight or tomorrow, but from macro, how do you see things playing out if those guys are available to you healthy, trying to give them days off, but also trying to keep them in the lineup every single day as you fight to win this division? Yeah, you know, so the DH spot will help us with that. the both can play left, the both will DH.

You know, Jose can also play second base. So that will be a way to keep everyone in the lineup and healthy. Also, you're done. We have to see how he feels volume-wise, how we get him going. You know, he has him play in almost three and a half, almost four months. So we have to see how he feels as he, you know,

gets back to the everyday, you know, line up and playing every day. We have a, you know, a stretch of 13 games, so we have to be smart on the volume, not only with him, but the rest of the guys. Have you, in your conversation with Yordon, are members of your staff or the training staff? Is it literally a wake-up every morning, how are you feeling?

Or is, are we a little bit past that point where he has gotten up five, six, seven, ten days in a row and said, hey, my hand's feeling pretty good. Yeah, no, he's, and he has been feeling pretty good. Like, you know, every morning, well, we'll check in and he'll check in with us. And, you know, the excitement and how he's feeling is very encouraging. And that's the most important thing. We know that, you know, how good he is when he's healthy.

But for us, it's just more how he bounces back from the workload. And so far it's been good. Talk a little bit if you can about, we've had some folks ask about Joe. Jake Myers. I know that Dana brought him up a little bit on Sunday. What do you know about him at this point? And where is he and his recovery path? So the plan is for him to start tomorrow in Sugar Land. So that will be, that will be great to also get him going and getting, get him ready to get back here to us and help him with some games. But he's also gone to a point where he's recovering very well. He's pushing off that leg, doing all the drills that we need him to,

get done and check some boxes that we need to see from him. And right now he's in a really also in a really good spot. It feels like things are coming together from the positional standpoint. You've got quite a few of your pitchers back. It felt like to me the Baltimore series, obviously the bats were fantastic, Joe. You certainly want to start to get some length out of your starting pitching. And I thought perhaps the brightest spot of that group was even though Spencer got in some trouble with pitch count early in the game, he was able to give you a five and a third. And so I think we're kind of looking for that same kind of thing, maybe, especially with a guy like Lance McCullors.

Yes, that will be, that's an area where we, we know that these guys are capable of doing that. It hasn't been the case here, the last few outings, but we know those guys, once they get settled, you know, some of these guys are coming back from injuries. So it usually takes a little bit of time to get them, for them to get settled. And, and I think we're getting to that point where we saw like Spencer did where he stuff was in the zone. Aside from that first inning when he threw 20-something pitches, he was efficient after that, no walks. His stuff was really good.

And we're going to need some of those guys to help us out so we can not have to lean heavily on our bullpen so early in the game. Ashton manager, Joe, spotted joining us right here on Sports Talk 790. Joe, I want to get your opinion on the bullpen right now, especially after what we saw this past series. your willingness to go to them a little bit earlier knowing that you have some starters like Christian Javier, Spencer, Lance coming off of injury.

When you have the opportunity to trust in guys like Framber Valdez and Hunter Brown over these next two games of Colorado, what is that balance of making sure that you don't lean too heavily into the bullpen early on and let these guys kind of work themselves out jams? Well, you know, that's the key. You know, we getting quality starts from Hunter and Valdez

and Alexander, who's, throwing the ball really well taking us deep in the game is that's the key right if they come out set the tone early and they could keep their pitch counts low and those guys have shown that they could pitch out of trouble that's the best way to you know give our bullpen an opportunity to sit in and watch the game from from the pen but if if we don't get those quality innings those quality pitches just quality big outs early in the game that's when we are forced to use some of our guys in the pan. But, you know, having Hunter and Valdez and after an off day,

our guys should be rested and ready to go. Joe, how important was it to see Jesus Sanchez get off to a hot start out in Oriole Park at Camden? Just after what he was doing over the last several weeks and his kind of finding his moment in his stride here to be able to get seven hits in the first three games, how important is that coming home to a 10 game homestand? Yeah, big, because, you know, he finally, You know, he's been hitting the ball hard, but finally see the ball hit, you know, hit the ball in the air in the gaps.

It was very encouraging, the home run that he hit. And, you know, on that first pitch, it was like a breaking ball, and he was able to keep it in the air, stay through it. And that's just a Susentius that we went and got from Miami. That's the Hsu Sanchez that he's been able to, you know, hammer right-handed pitching in his career. Very encouraging. We need that bat in the middle of a lineup to produce, to drive people in. I mean, you know, we saw him and Christian Walker really put some big swings in that series in Baltimore. Visiting with Joe Espada here on Sports Talks at 90. Skip, when you lost Josh, I think the transformation moving a bray to the ninth inning was going to be an easy one.

It was going to be who's going to pick up that seventh and eighth inning? And I thought Ben and Sousa would have been the great example for that. Fortunately, he's now down a little bit. What is the mindset when you talk to your pitching coach about getting some time with those relievers and you talk to them yourself about you're now being asked to go into a spot that you maybe weren't asked to do, you know, two or three or four weeks ago when you kind of had 7-8-9 basically set up for yourself? Yeah, you know, those guys, you know, the Brian Kings, the Caleb Ford, the Brian Oker, those guys have been throwing leverage. innings for us, you know, either in the fifth or the sixth. They've been in, they pitch some big moments throughout the season. So they're not completely new to, to these new roles. For me, it's just more for them just to be themselves, you know, trust the game plan, their conviction

behind their work, behind every pitch, just like they've done the whole entire season for us to demonstrate, you know, trust and confidence in them, because they've been really good. We, we, we, We couldn't be in this position if it wasn't from our entire bullpen. My conversations with them, it just continues to be the same. Hey, we trust you. I want to hand you the ball in this moment in this spot, against his pocket, because I trust you, you're good enough to get these people out. And we need them to step up.

And they've been stepping up the whole entire season. Our bullpen has been really, really good. Talk about a bullpen. You added a new arm to it in Craig Kimball. We got to see him a little bit work his way out of a jam on Sunday. What did you make of him? what went into the signing and do you expect him to have a bigger role moving into this series against Colorado?

You know, we like, obviously, we like the experience. This guy's pitch and big games for his entire, you know, his entire career. I like his demeanor. You know, he has this presence about himself. He still got some power in his fast, but we like the way he spins the baseball. So those are the things that we saw out of him when we sign him that we liked and we can help him. you know, be better and be more consistent in the strike zone. And just like any of these guys, any moment, they're going to be pitching, you know, any time during the game,

depending on who's available, depending on who we like. I don't want to sit down and assign innings for any of these guys because it's all hands on deck. If you're available and this pocket, it's a good pocket for you, trust me, I'm going to give you the ball. Going back to the injured guys a little bit, again, that they were all, I think a lot of folks are energy and excited about. How long do you anticipate Jake being a AAA? Any idea in terms of number of games you think he'll need down there? You know what? I don't know the number of games. I just really want to get him going and start getting some feedback from him. So, you know, his performance and how he feels determines how many games will leave him down there. So, you know, just to get him going and getting started and the fact that he feels good about where he's at, you know, that's a win for us right now.

And lastly, provided that you do put your honor on the lineup tonight, he gets off the injured list, he has not seen a major league game since early May. Not getting too much into coach speak or manager speak, but what is the message to him? I would presume A, glad to have you back and B, let's not try to reinvent the wheel here. We know what you can do when you're healthy and playing for this team. 100% I don't think you know I don't think Yordan needs a motivation speech from me he knows exactly where we at

he's he's playing big big games in here in Houston he he knows exactly where we are in the season he knows exactly what he will bring to our lineup I'm just gonna see him give him a hug and tell him excited to to see him back here with the boys and you know we have we have a job to do

and our goal is to win this division and he's a big part of what we need right now. He brings that, you know, that he provides that injection of energy that our offense needs and, you know, excited to have him. And I would presume, Skip, really without saying that he's, the lines of communication to be super honest, if the hands aren't feeling great, a particular needs a day off, he's going to have to be really forthcoming with you on that, correct? Correct, correct, you know, he's, you know, he needs to be, and he will,

be he will be honest and who will let us know um you know how he feels um you know because that's that's important for us to keep them in the lineup for the next 30 plus games and you know this month of september we have a lot of games in a row he means he he will be honest and let us know how he feels skip thanks for the time as always best luck tonight against the rockies and it was good to see you guys bounce back in baltimore and look forward to you that lineup card when it comes out in a few hours. Bye, man. Thank you.

You got it. Joe Espada with us here on Sports Talk 790. We'll chew on the things he said next. 1244 here on Sports Talk 790. All right, so Joe wouldn't give it up, but that's okay.

What was more shocking to you that he didn't give up the information or that we didn't ask him about what is his favorite Taylor's first song? No. What do you think he is? Oh, I'm sure his kids are. He's got two daughters.

Exactly. That's what I was thinking. Yeah. I don't know. You kind of have to wiggle your way through. He seems like a wildest dreams type of guy. I will say this, and I like Joe a lot. He answers the questions.

He does a really good job and very thoughtful. But my favorite all-time master interview, and I've done general managers and managers, would be AJ Hinch. He was just awesome, and I miss him. He was just the best. He probably would answer that question, too, about what is his favorite Taylor Express song?

Yeah. Yeah. And he gave you little things here and there. And he got it. He's very, very media savvy. So when you see the lineup come out tonight and we'll say around 340, well, to go with that. Give or take, yeah. You're on Alvarez in the starting lineup?

Yes. I believe so. Yeah. Again, boy, if he's not, people are going to be really wicking out. It's going to be because of what else do you need to see? What else is there that needs to be proven over the span of 48 hours for him to get back? And honestly, if this was even the Angel series, Maybe I could understand not bringing them back today.

Wait for the right lineup. Wait for the right pitcher to go up against. It's Colorado. Every single pitcher you will face over the next three days has an ERA higher than five. Yeah. This is the spot to do it. It's pound for pound the worst pitching staff in baseball. Really is.

I don't even think it's pound for pound. I just think it straight up is. Factual information. Yeah. And also it doesn't matter that they're playing away from course field. Your lineup right now is getting hot at the right time. He's a left-handed bat that you would love to be. be able to put in the two, three, or four hole adding in more validity and allow you to spend

your lineup and kind of get created with it and figure out what is going to be the plan when he gets to October. Because he's going to be back for October. So let's do this. Let's do the lineup now. All right, cool. Pena. Pena one. Correa. You go Curia two. Altuve three. Okay. Yordon four. Okay. Walker five. Okay. Dias six. And then the other three spots moving around, right? Pena one. Correa. two. Yeah. Don't do it. Don't say it. I know. I don't want to. Stay with what I stay. I know you don't want to agree with me. I'll two-way three. There you go. I'll make a switch here. Hazer Sanchez-Sanchez four. You're on five for tonight. Ooh, to kind of not put as much pressure on him?

Oh, you know what? No, I don't like that because it's back, back left-handers. Yes. So there we go. You don't want Sanchez against a lefty. So then I would do, okay, so then, well, is it a left-handed pitcher? I believe so. I'll have a little double-checked. If it's a left-handed pitcher, then say, Sanchez isn't playing, you have Canstman bat in ninth. That's what you do. Alvarez is four. I don't like that because I don't think that he belongs in the four hole. Gordon's a right-hander, so we're good.

All right, so Alvarez four. I agree with you, Walker 5, Sanchez 6. Over Diaz? I will go DS7. Okay. You're kind of splitting hairs, but I can go either way on that. I think that you have to have a right-handed bat in between Sanchez and Sanchez and Alperes.

Yep, because you want a little bit that righty-lefty switch. I get it. The other thing you could do, and I think this would be wrong, do you bat out two-based second, do you about Yorda third, Correa 4th? I kind of like Correa, too, in the two spot. I like Korea too right now. And this is the problem

that I have, because I don't want Yordon in the forehole. I want him higher up if he's healthy. Oh, I don't think that's, and when we talk about this, we're talking largely in semantics. I don't think it's a dramatic difference between four and three, but I think for just the welcome back to the big leagues, you know, maybe if the team goes unfortunately one, two, three in the first, there's not any sort of super big pressure on him to provide some big punch right away. I mean, again, if there's such a thing as a dramatic difference between four and three, I'll need to see that. But I think there's a very subtle little change you could put in there. And that's why I think clean up for him, at least for now makes the most sense now. If he comes back and start slugging an OPS on over a thousand, you can certainly make the change on that.

If he's going seven to 12 over the next three days and he has two long balls and an extra base hit, I think I want him higher. But Altubi is all Al-Tubei does is smack. Right. His Ops is above 800. He gets multiple hits per game. He still leads a team in home runs. I mean, all this, all the good stuff.

This is the worst thing I will have before I got to get on out of here and get ready for my show. If you had Al-Tubei in the nine hole, it'd be stupid, but it also would be really interesting because of all he does is smack. So it gets you right back to the top of the lineup and you guarantee to time base. Yeah. Again, these are wonderful problems to have. Exactly. Because certainly, and you always say when you do this,

when you say certainly no disrespect, something you're doing disrespect. You're 100% saying, but trying to figure out where to Maricio DuBond fits in best, Taylor Tremel fits in best, Jacob Mountain fits in best. Cam Smith, if you really want to at this point. You're really saying 7-8-9, is what you're saying. You're trying to figure out what is going to be the rotation

of right-right-right-left or left-left-right or left-right-or-left for that order of 7-8-9. That's all it is. It's the six guys that you have ahead. Yeah. All right. So there will be a D.H. According to Joe Espada, he would not tell us who it was.

But again, and then Jake Myers being at AAA is a huge sign of positivity. Okay. So he said AAA, he did not give us a date. Does he return for the Yankee series or will he return for the Mariners series? Because that is when I think the arrival is. Does he leave Dikin Park with games under his belt or is his first game back out in Seattle? The road trip is not Seattle. It is Rangers, Atlanta, Toronto.

Arlington, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he will at least make his debut in the state of Texas, I think. Well, my guess is this. I mean, how many days does he need? Does he need a series? Does he need a week? Hamstrings are weird, though.

That's the problem. Lower body injuries like that, you could snap it immediately right after. So is... And remember, remember how even the organization admitted as much they brought back him to early a couple of years ago with off the shoulder situation and he was affected by that. So I think Jake's probably got a few more belt, you know, not just now. He's a veteran. He kind of can say, look, I'm ready to go or I need a few more days. I think at this point, you allow him to make the call while also getting as many reps as possible

underneath him. So let's just say he's back tomorrow. He ends up getting a couple of good swings. You keep him back for another day. You get him ready for the upcoming weekend. And then by Monday, he says, I'm ready to come back, but I think that my body just needs a day off. Cool. You'll wait to go ahead and bring him back on Tuesday. I can see that. I see him playing in the Yankee series. I agree. And that means you're now probably, again, presuming that Jake Myers offensively is the same player he was before he got hurt.

You're not talking about a seven man. Really good, deep line. So think about this for a second. Now you know that you have your top seven. Your question is, what do you do with the last two? And who are the last two? Areas, Dubon, Cam Smith. And let's just say,

Jacob Melton for right now. It may end up being somebody else, but Jacob Mountain for right now. That's a very good problem to have going into these last stretch of games. So long as your pitching prevails enough for you to continue to win. We haven't said seven deep in the Astros lineup in...

This season? Maybe it's a remember about this? When Yorda was with the team in the first month of the year, it wouldn't hit very much. But also, we didn't know what Cam Smith was going to be. And then Cam got hot. Right.

We didn't know what we were going to get from Jake Myers at the time because we were still banking on it defensively. No one thought Jake Myers would be an Ahern OPS guy. Because Ross Villarreal thought it was going to do it. Because Ross Villarreal thinks. Yeah, he's the president. I'm talking about logically thinking people. We still didn't know what Victor Keratinny was and he had a big time role. Jeremy Pena and the leadoff spot was very impressive in its own right. So this is probably the first time. And again, it's on paper, not on field, because we still got to see this version of Christian Walker, this version of Yaino Diaz, this version of Hazu Sanchez.

and a healthy Jordan Alvarez all in the lineup. But the reality is all those guys you just mentioned and out down a spot in the order, which means not necessarily less pressure, but more too applicable of what their level of batting excellence has been this year. What I'm saying, though, is that we have to see it off paper, but if it continues a trend in that direction, we're having a legit conversation about how good is your top seven in a lineup,

which is good. Feels great going over the last month. I haven't said that since really opening day when you think about it. All right. Thank you for coming in hanging out with us. Appreciate you. We've got the head coach Willie Fritz to join us in one half hour. We've got your phone calls coming up.

And again, it's, I mean, without giving away too much, he did sound rather optimistic. About this season? No, about bringing Yordaim back. Of course he did. Your Don's playing tonight. Can I give a shout out real fast before I go? It depends how long it's going to be. Five seconds.

Go ahead. Congratulations to my brother and my sister-in-law, Scarlett, on your first baby. Cannot wait to meet her. What's Scarlett's name? Daughter's name? I'm not allowed to say. I can tell her... Wait a minute.

Her nickname is Pieces. Wait, wait, wait, you just gave a shout out to then, but you can't say the name of the child? I don't really care, Emily. What's the problem with that? Emily's fine name. Emily's a fine name.

I wanted him to be the one to announce it to the city of Houston, not me. Well, what is he doesn't do? Working Media, does he? No, not really. Well, then you did it. You are the segue for him. Emily, welcome to the world. And Pieces is the nickname?

Reese's Pieces. Her middle name is Reese. Oh. My middle son's name, middle name is Rece. Reese. Congratulations. Do you want a medal? Man.

End of the hour on such a bitter note. That is our buddy Cole Thompson. He'll be producing the team coming up at an hour from now. All right. I've decided to do half Taylor Swift and half Travis Kelsey and believe it or not. I'm not proud. And these things are terrible because I'm trying to do this show and we've had Colin for a couple hours. We had Joe.

So it's not my best work. But here's the good news today. We are giving away prizes for one correct answer. We have so many prizes in the prize vote. We've got to take care of those folks. So get ready for your chance to win some amazing prizes. You will not be winning Taylor Swift tickets, but you'll be winning other nice things if you know Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey

Conversation. And that is coming up today on, believe it or not, at 150. Willie Fritz with us at 130. You may join us right now at 713212-5-790. 2-1-2-5-7-90. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. No, Ross. We thank Cole Thompson for hanging in for a couple of hours.

And now it's you and me for the next 45 minutes. We got some folks that are anxiously waiting online. Jordan Alvarez, who I could not get it out of the manager if he was definitively starting, but it's not very optimistic if I can put that in a way. And hopefully he'll be in the D.H. role tonight as the Astro starts a three-game series with the Colorado Rockies. Jesse and the gallery is with his son, 7-90. Hello, Jesse. Hey, what's up, man?

Go Coogs. Thank you. I just wanted to ask really quickly if there's any update on Zach Dezenzo. I haven't heard anything on him. I have not heard anything more than a hitting. He's in some hitting progression.

Now, they will update the latest injuries today probably when they release their game notes, which will be in about an hour and a half from now. But nothing has at this point. Are you a big Zach Desenzo guy? I think he's pretty solid. I think he could help the team. I've kind of forgotten about him.

I mean, it's kind of congested in the outfield right now. Yeah, no, I don't think, like, you know, it's urgent to have him in the lineup. I just wanted to know, because I haven't heard on him at all. Yeah. As opposed to Jake Myers or any of those. Yeah. I promise you, Jesse, if you call the show, even if you call off air and just remind Jonathan to give you, I will have a definitive update for you on Zach Desenzo by tomorrow.

Cool, I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thanks for the phone call. Go Coogs, yeah. First call of the gate and 1 o'clock out, a little Zach Desenzo. I don't even remember much

about Zach DeSenzo. Isn't that terrible? There have been so many players that have been hurt this year and so many guys that have patrol the outfield. I forgot he was injured. Oh, I didn't forget he was injured.

I just forgot how he did. He was doing pretty good back then. Let me take a look at old Zach DeSenzo's numbers here. Yeah. I mean, Jake was doing great. Yeah, the last update on him, I mean, we're talking about, oh, it says, okay, I got something. This is something nearing a rehab assignment soon.

He's been taking part of hitting progression as he recovers from the left-hand inflammation. He's been on the injured list since June 1st. I mean, that's a long-ass time. Now, he was put on the 60-day injured list a month ago so they could clear a spot on the 40 man. Let me take a look at old Zach. Can you believe we're talking Zach Desenzo at 108 on a night before Jordan Alvarez? You know what?

We're a show of the people. You guys want Zach Desenzo. We're going to give you Zach DeSenzo. 98 bats for the Astros this year. 245 is batting average with 10 ribbies. I mean, it's fine. Got 62 at bats last year, bad at 242. He's got a career batting average on 160 at bats of 244.

So the sample size is remarkably small. So, yeah, I don't necessarily think it's going to be, he's going to be the difference maker, but you never know. Remember, if you're in the organization by September the 1st, you can be used for a playoff group in a series. Now, every time you play a new series, whether it's a wild card series, the divisional series, the AL series, CS, or hopefully the World Series, you can readjust your lineup. For instance, win the Astros, hopefully win the American League West, or worst, case earn the walled card, they will only need three starting pitchers. So I wouldn't be surprised of half the guys that are pitching right now in the sergeant rotation would not be eligible.

It wouldn't be on the 26-man roster. Now, you may be able to keep one of the guys to come be your late, your middle relief guy, long-inning guy, if one of those other guys struggle. But as I said yesterday on the show, I think when the dust settles, when the Astros play their first round series, you're going to see Hunter, Frommmer, and I I think Arrogated's going to get the nod, and I think Jason Alexander is going to be on this playoff roster for the first round series

as a long guy, would be my guess. I would be stunned if Lance McCullors makes the playoff roster in the first round unless he turns things around. That number three spot is wide open. Let's be brutally honest. I mean, short of the continued implosion of Framber Valdez,

he's going to be starting game two of the playoff series. And of course, injuries too, which is crazy. We don't want to presume injuries, but Lord knows his team has gone through quite a few of them. I really want Erigate to get going. I think Arrogati is a high strikeout guy. I think he's got the good ability to pitch in some big moments. And I think after, you know, throwing a bunch of pitches in that first game

that he had in Baltimore, he was able to settle down a little bit and give you almost six innings of work. So I was a lot more encouraged about Arrogati after, say, the second inning that I was when I saw him in the last. the first inning of that game. So there you have it. Again, the Astros, usually when they start a homestand or start a series, we'll give a full recap of everybody in their injured list. And as Joe Spotted told us earlier, you're going to see Jake Myers died in AAA.

It's a good sign. Really, really, really good sign. Then you have a legit center fielder who had a really good batting average, and obviously fielded his position well. Yeah, it's one of the crazy things about this season is that even though the team offensively has struggled, it hasn't been a defensive liability. That's the best part of this is that no matter what lineup has been put out there,

how many different guys have played center, how many guys, I mean, Cam Smith and Hesu Sanchez has been your primary right fielders this year. Even when Jose was out there playing left, I mean, he wasn't gold glove, but he didn't embarrass himself. He's done okay at second base. And Bryce Matthews, when the short time he was, you know,

the team playing at second base. He was a guy that could help out the cause there a little bit. And he's obviously with the team now, but not playing a whole lot because he replaced Trammell who got hurt last week. This team has been able to overcome numerous injuries, down years from some of their key guys, and completely different lineups almost every single night. And you know what they're doing?

They're still defending the ball very, really well. And that's what's been able to be, I think one of the most unsung things about this Astro run of the last 10 years as this team has never had a woeful defense. Did you watch a Baltimore Orioles series? The Orioles were kicking the ball left and right. That's a terrible baseball team.

First of all, their bad team as it is underperforming, but their defense was atrocious. Very few times if we ever had a conversation on this show in the last nine years going, what the hell are the Astros thinking defensively? They try to move Altuvae to left field. That was the game plan. But unfortunately, Yordon's injury

force otherwise in other changes. And that's why Al-Tube had to stay in the lineup and play second base a little bit and obviously primarily D-H. That'll be the most interesting thing for me to see what Joe does and how he balances. Altubi wanting to play every day. You're on hopefully playing four to five days a week. Who plays left? Who plays short and who's the D.H? And there are going to be some guys like Christian Walker who's going to want a D.H.

Yonair Dia is going to want a D.H. Day. There's only one D.H. in the lineup. These are little intricacies that I think Joe's going to have to really think about over the next handful of weeks. 113 on Sports Talk 790. 713212-5790. 713-212-579. Willie Fritz to join us in about 15 minutes. All things about Taylor Swift. And congratulations on her engagement.

That's today's edition, I believe it or not. It's 114 on 790. Trying to do Taylor Swift, believe it or not, while trying to host a radio show is difficult. I got to be honest with you. Isn't your wife and daughter a big... Yeah, but my daughter's in school and I can't reach her because her phones turned off. Phones turned off.

And Kim is having lunch with a friend. You know what? I don't get paid enough, honestly. Oh, all right. Let me check out and see if anything's going on in the world of life here. The big news, again, two big stories today. The Astro is starting a series of the Rockies. actually there are several stories tonight.

Jake Myers is going to start for Sugar Land. That's a very encouraging sign. Yaron Alvarez, the presumption is to be back in the lineup tonight. And, Jordan, and, oh, the Taylor Swift and is getting married to Travis Kelsey. What do you give them for a gift? You know what I would do, honestly? I'd probably make a donation to one of their favorite charities, right? Wouldn't that be the right gift?

I could even tell you, you can't give them clothes or anything. I mean, they have all the money for that, right? I guess it's a thought that counts. Some candles. You can't go wrong with candles. Yeah, you're not bright. Candles? You know, just, you know, some good, not the, you know, the wrath and wadi works.

You got to. Oh, you don't go wrath and rottie works. No, you don't get a little more high end, you know, something, you know. No, no, no, no. I think if you're worth combined $2 billion, $100 million. I don't think you do gifts. What do you do?

First of all, are you doing a destination wedding? Are you paying for everybody to go? I would hope they're paying for everybody to go to their wedding. There's no, there's no way. Jonathan, if I ever get remarried again, which the chance of that is zero. Yeah, if you get, if you're carrying that kind of money, you are, you are basically,

you're chartering a plane, right? but my guess you're also inviting people that are of all I mean like if you're not asking Pat you can ask Pat Mahomes to come into the wedding and he can afford it Right It's gonna be more of his teammates though

Definitely I mean how big is the bridal party gonna be I mean how many girlfriends she have And does she invite any of the ex-husbands The ex-boyfriends I mean basically her success is Off of her their ex-boyfriends right I know all those songs about him

All right we're done I'm sorry Low-hanging fruit I apologize. I didn't mean to get into Taylor Swift's archive of lyrics. 713-212. I'm writing Taylor Swift, believe it or not. That's the reason why I was doing that.

It's terrible. 7-1-3-212-5-7-9. We're only asking for one correct answer to win prize. We've got a bunch of prizes giveaway coming up, and that'll be doing in about 30 minutes from now. We've got Willie Fritz coming up at 130. Looking forward to that. All right, what else is going on?

We mentioned the Astros. We mentioned that there's Texans cuts today. honestly, I don't think you know who many of these people are. Trent Brown is going to probably go to the practice squad. He was an offensive tackle. He never actually took part in anything because he was hurt the whole time. Is there anything else that I should mention? I'm trying to think of who's here and who's not here.

Yeah, I don't. These people I don't even think you guys care about. Oh, Joe Mixon's out. And that kind of happened. It's funny. It happened again as soon as the A team started. every time they go on the year, they get some kind of juicy little news tip

but they can run with. So the perfect time for the... Meanwhile, I'm catching her sloppy seconds. I mean, you got to tell us whipping Travis Kelsey today, though. That is true. That is, I did get that. That's true.

That was a four news sounder, breaking news sounder, I think, on that one. But yeah, Mixing's out four weeks. Now, the Texan schedule goes like this. The first four, I think I said about a month ago, may have been a little bit sooner than that. I think the Texans are going to go three and one in their first four games.

It goes like this. They open up on the road in Los Angeles. Then they're home for a Monday night game against the Buccaneers. Then they go on the road to Jacksonville and then home for Tennessee. Then they play at Baltimore. That puts them into five weeks. Then they get a week off. And then they play the Monday night game. in Seattle. I will go ahead and make, you know, I'm going to add to my gut feelings on this, Jonathan,

write this down. The first time we see Joe Mixen play at the very earliest is in Seattle. I don't know if I want, I don't want Joe Mixen playing his first game

in Baltimore. You know what I'm saying? It depends on what the record is looking like, right? Well, I mean, the Ravens defense is, I mean,

that's a Super Bowl contending type team. Yeah, Seattle, to me, feels like a much but more of a soft landing spot. That gets him to between, today is the 26th. That game in Seattle is just shy of two months away. That would get, I mean, now here's the question mark.

We don't know how severe the injury is because the Texans have not announced that. That's what I was just going to ask you about. I remember earlier that. If his ankle and foot are shattered or something where he requires multiple pins in it or whatever, then us even thinking about him playing in week seven is kind of presumptuous. Well, let's think about it. It's got to be major if you're already Pre-season saying he's not going to be back to

That's right, that's right. So even though I just try to predict that he's going to be ready for that game against Seattle, this could be a season ending type thing. And I guess the question I want to know is, when did this happen? How did it happen?

And it almost feels like it happened when Dimeco Ryan was upset with the media. You don't care about my players. It's like he knew. Well, he obviously knew stuff there. And that's the one, here's the one thing, John, that's part is that, and maybe it's because we just have so much more media today than we had, you know, back in the day. I hate to be back in the day guy, but I'm going to be back in the day guy for a second.

Right. It felt like that these teams were a little more, not peel behind the curtain, but were a little more forthcoming. Now we've got everybody's trying to be sly. Like, for instance, when you ask a coach about a player in his injuries, you're not trying to do it because you're trying to be in a gotcha moment. You're doing it because, like, for instance, I asked Joe,

is Jordan going to play D.H. today, and he didn't want to necessarily say it here on the show, and that's fine. I get it. Maybe he wanted to build the drama of having on the lineup card, and everybody going, oh, look at the lineup card, it's there. I mean, I get it. But there were people that were listening to our conversation that wanted to know.

Astro fans came to this radio station at 1230 to hear what the manager had to say about. it. They're going to go to the head coach and Domingo Ryans and say, hey, you know, what exactly happened? And I certainly don't hope, I don't anticipate him saying, I don't know what it went wrong, because that would be a lie. I don't think, I think Dimeke, there's a difference in not telling us the whole story and lying, but under no circumstance that I ever think that when he said, he'll be ready, you know, whatever, whatever D'Amico said that one day when he was kind of getting terse, that this was something that this couldn't have been in the possibilities.

When you don't take a part of mini-camps, when you don't take part in OTAs, and you're not ready for day one in training camp and you're not seeing wearing pads or in uniform, I mean, it didn't take a mental genius to figure out that there's something going on with him. And maybe it's because I'm on this side of the microphone and it's compared to the other side of the wall. I think sometimes transparency is a wonderful thing. I would agree with you. Again, if you're trying to hide a game plan,

for instance, for the Rams, the Rams knew that he wasn't going to be ready. The Rams knew, know who Joe Mixon is. So trying to say, you know, he may or may not be ready for the season opener. I guarantee you the Rams are not sitting there go well. If he's playing, we've got to figure something out now. They know who Nick Chubb is.

They know who him and Damien Pierce is. They don't know who would he mark. But I don't think Woody Marks is going to have a huge role in this game, even if Joe Mixa was ready. So transparency we're looking for in sports. And unfortunately, it's not just one team or one league. It's frankly all of them. Let's talk to Willie Fritz. He's up next.

Our time is 1-27. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. The Joint Chiropractic, the official chiropractor of the University of Houston Athletics. Joining us right now, courtesy of the joint, is the head football coach of U.S. your Houston Cougars. Season number two for Willie Fritz. Coach, it's Matt. How are things? How's practice and how's that new football practice facility?

Oh, it's something else. I appreciate you having me on that, by the way. Yeah, this, the Memorial Herman Football Operations Center just is outstanding. It's kind of pitch myself every time I walk in here in the morning. Great facilities for the student athletes. You know, we've got unreal weight room. I think our weight room is 27. thousand square feet. It's on the third floor. It overlooks the city. But it's got every piece of

equipment known to mankind. Great locker room, training room, you know, an academic center for the guys is where we eat at. So, you know, we spend a lot of time up here and the people who generously funded this. I really did a fantastic job with the design of the building. And the reality is, Coach, and look, you'd love to be able to say it's about school. It's about X's and O is about winning football games, but there's so many different intangibles, and we've certainly talked about those over the years, but the facilities where these kids spend so much time. I mean, it's like their second home besides their dorm room is where you guys are practicing right now. Yeah, we get up here early. We're a morning practice team.

You know, our guys take their classes in the afternoons. We find this is the most efficient way to do it here academically and also football-wise. So they get up here around 5.36 o'clock in the morning. And they're usually out of here by having to eat lunch and everything, one o'clock going to class. So they're here for a large portion of their day. Willie, your theme, getting to know the kids was year one, is there such a theme for game, theme two of,

and year two of the Willie Fritz there at University of Houston? Yeah, you know, we talk about, every time we break a huddle, we say Houston, we talk about 2020. I'm trying to get these guys to understand that we've got to develop these relationships quickly. And this day and age of college athletics, you know, you've got a lot of turnover with your team every year. We had a lot less this year than we had last year and hopefully have even less next year. And then, you know, the turnover, the majority of it will be incoming freshmen coming in high school guys. But I wanted these guys to, you know, establish relationships as quickly as they could.

And, you know, when you have that, you've got a chance to have that culture, which is so important in every sport or anything that you do. And, you know, I've seen that out of these guys. They seem to do a good job of, you know, wanting to hang out with each other. And, you know, they're trying to meet everybody on the team, not just their little click. And that's something we're working on trying to develop and just really just worrying about this team. I understand we've got to cook this like a microwave instead of an oven, you know, get it done. quickly if we want to have this success, I want to have this season. You went to go get an experienced quarterback.

I know Conner's time perhaps at A&M was not what he had thought in terms of performance. I know he was battling injuries a little bit. Take us through the quick 32nd run-through of how the relationship began between yourself and your new starting quarterback. Well, you know, a lot of it had to do, Sean Bell, our quarterback coach. I think offered Connor first, you know, coming out of high school. maybe a sophomore year or something like that. I had a little bit of relationship with him.

I actually coached his father at Sam Houston State back in 1991 a couple of years ago. So there's a little bit of familiarity there, but I think the big deal, he just wanted a fresh start. He wanted to do it in the city of Houston, you know, his family's here, his friends are here, and he just wanted that opportunity to come in and, you know, on the front end with the coach who just got here, you know, with a quarterback coach that he, you know, really likes and respects.

So it's been a real good situation for both sides. Not to age myself, coach, but Conner's dad and I went to the same high school. He was two years older than I was. So I know Chad quite well. I don't know. Which one was it? Chad, his, yeah, May Creek High School. The Harvard of Southeast Texas.

Gotcha. Gotcha. No, I'm, Chad was a tough old linebacker for us at same Houston back in the day. So what he put on tape as compared to what you wanted to see in front of you with his new teammates, how much of adjustment has it been for him? It's been a big adjustment. I think he went through two offensive systems at A&M. Obviously, I had a different offensive system in high school, and now we're throwing a different one at him.

So there's a lot of adjustment. You know, I've got a brand new offensive coordinator, a new defense coordinator as well. and, you know, so these kids, you know, had to, you know, this game has become very, very complex. You know, I'm actually setting the quarterback meeting this morning early, and, you know, there's a lot of things. It's not just call to play and let's go. You know, there's a lot of things involved with it. And, you know, when you have quarterback or really any position on the offense, defense, or kick game, guys got to have some intelligence.

I mean, it's, there's a lot of moving parts, and, you know, and that changes. from week to week based on who you're playing and Kair certainly is a sharp young man and he's able to process all that information. Where has been your biggest challenge and maybe it's a good thing determining your death chart

at one position both offensively and defensively. Where have been the biggest position battles? Oh, there's a bunch of them but offensive line I think we're going to go ahead and rotate seven or eight guys and this is I'm excited about the fact that we We do have competition.

We're going to play about six wide receivers early in the season. You know, running backs will play three or four guys. Tight-ins, we're going to play two or three guys, primarily linebackers. Probably three or four guys the first week. Front four will play about, you know, ten guys early in the season. And secondary, probably, you know, six or seven guys. So there's, you know, we're going to determine what our starting lineup is, and who's going to play the majority of staffs,

probably after two or three ball games. You do all this practicing, but you're not going against a different team. You're not tackling the ground every day and seeing guys making decisions and pressure-pack situations. So we're still going to be evaluating early in the season. But I like the fact that we've got competition.

There's a lot of spots last year. We just didn't have that. Willie, when you and I visited almost one year to the date, you said after the first game, you were afraid that moments in the game in your first game as a Cougars coach, the moment was the game was moving really fast for a lot of young men because there were so much transition, so many new positions and so many new guys. Is that just going to be a part of any team, especially in 20, 25 when you are using the transfer portal to move somebody guys, so many guys in, you obviously want to bring some more freshmen in and build a program, but is that for at least the next couple of years,

one of the things you try to coach up as best you can of, hey, we're playing a game on Thursday, it's one of 12, and let's not pretend this the first time we've ever played a football game in our life. Yeah, I tell these guys all the time. Each one of these games counts as one. None of them counts as half. Now it counts too, so you've got to put everything into it that you possibly can.

You know, we want to get to the point in our football program where we've got a lot of, you know, returning guys year after year after year, retaining them year after year after year. That's how you develop a guy and you get them better. But one of the things the NCAA has changed is they allow you to do a lot more in the offseason. You know, one time he really couldn't see the guys. You know, you go through the weight room a little bit, but you had to be lifting weights. Now they allow you to use a football a couple hours a week.

You know, you got spring football, obviously. We were able to do a lot of things. We have 25 practices here before the first ball game. So, you know, there's been a lot of work, you know, in meeting rooms, you know, spring ball, fall camp. And then also, you know, a lot more practices than what you used to be able to have, you know, spring ball, you got 15, you got 25 here preseason camp, you know. And then you are able to do what a lot of people do, kind of like copying the NFL's OTAs. You know, we call football schools here. We'll do that a couple times a week for an hour as well.

along with lifting weights and doing movement and running. So you get a lot more access to the guys and you were able to have 10 years ago. Last question. Give me a thought or two about SFA. You know of them from your days in the Southland way back in the day, but that's obviously we're in a different world now. And it feels like to me the differences between these FCS schools today

that maybe when you were first in the industry has changed a lot of it because they use the junior college route. They use the transfer portal. and they're probably a little deeper in terms of roster size and depth than maybe schools of maybe 10 or 15 years ago. Yeah, they've got a lot of returning players, a lot of returning starters, offensively, defensively. I noticed in the kicking game, had a couple phases. They had 9-11 starters coming back in the kicking game. You don't see that very often.

You know, Coach Carthel has done a super job there. They came within a whisker of making the NCAA playoffs this past season. returning quarterback, all their coordinators are back offense, defense, kicking games. So it's a veteran group, you know, without question that we're going to be playing on Thursday night. Can't wait for it. Coach, so happy to have you back with us on a weekly basis. Best of luck against the Jacks on Thursday, and we'll talk again next week, and thank you for the time as always. Thank you, Matt. Go Coos. All right, thank you. This is Willie Fritz.

Head Football Coach of your Houston Cougars with us here. And it's brought to you by the Joint Caropractic. All things about Taylor Swift. This is going to be probably the worst, believe or not, I've ever done in my entire life. Listen, Waxler and Clint just came in and said, hey, we really want to do a lot of Taylor Swift talk on their show today. So if you guys got any questions about their engagement to Travis Kelsey, let them know. They want your phone calls as many as possible, especially at 2 o'clock hour, right? Jonathan didn't call come in and say the exact same thing?

Yeah, no, he just on break was telling me, hey, we want the. those Taylor calls. He wants they want you to call in with what gifts that you should give them, where they should have the wedding, what kind of tuxedo he should wear, go tails or go zoot suit. Guess how much

he spent on that ring? How much he spent on the ring? What else they want to? Oh, what they should serve at the wedding? How big the wedding party should be? Where the engagement party should be? Where they should have the rehearsal dinner? That kind of stuff.

not enough time on our show today. Two to six, sports talk 790, plenty of time for that. They want that as much as possible. So inundate their phones with as much Taylor Swift conversation as possible because they love it. All right. On the show tomorrow, Gordy's going to hang out with us for a couple hours, 10 o'clock until noon. We got shut your bum ass up tomorrow on the show. We also have Brian Bogussevik with us.

And hopefully, what's a you know what let's get let's get let's get the cart before the horse here john then real quick what's it going to be a good walk do we go welcome back by john sebastian what's a good welcome back song it's got it does it depend on how he plays i think it does depend on how he plays then it depends on a sad welcome back or like a nostalgic welcome back i don't know that's a good question yeah we got to be ready for that so tomorrow it'll be an o'clock voted to Yordon Alvarez, provided he plays. I mean, gotta be terrible if he didn't.

Because remember what Joe said about when he was over the hour ago? He was like, yeah, he kept to the ballpark. What if he walks in and goes, my hands are throbbing? Like, oh, hell no, don't say that. And that would be the only thing because he did all the practice. I know. He did everything he had to. Five minutes left to go on the show.

What should we do? We should play America's fastest growing sports radio game show. we simply call it B. Believe it or not, and here's how it works. You call 713212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Today's edition of Believe or not is all things about Taylor Swift. And I'm going to tell you right now, this, this, believe it or not for me, sucks. It just does, but it is what it is.

I'm going to read your statement about Taylor Swift. Statements completely and utterly accurate. You'll say this. Believe it. Statements, erroneous, full of bunk and made up, you'll say this. Not. One correct answers are all you're going to need. And you can win either a 790 t-shirt, a pair of tickets to see the Cougars take on the SFA lumberjacks in the Lone Star Stampede at TDCU Stadium this Thursday at 7 o'clock,

or a pair of tickets to see the weekend this Sunday, August 31st at NRG Stadium, or a pair of tickets to see the fix at the House of Blues. Those tickets are available at Ticketmaster.com. If you want to go to the Cougars game, you can go to UHcougars.com slash tickets are called 713-go Cooks. Remember, only one correct answer necessary will give you a chance to win any one of those prizes. Kimberly on 790. Kimberly, you're ready to play Believe it or not? I sure am. All right, Kimberly, good luck to you. Taylor's parents named her after singer James Taylor.

Believe it or not? Believe it. That is correct. Congratulations. You know James Taylor is, Jonathan? Not at all. Oh, great song. We'll play him tomorrow.

Richard on 790, Richard. You're ready to play, believe it or not? Yes, sir. Believe it. Thank you. Richard Taylor has double jointed elbows. Believe it or not? She does.

Can you all imagine that for just a second and not be creeped out by it? Double jointed elbows. Eek. Move your elbows around right now and think about that. David on 790, David, what was your favorite part of? today's 10 to 2 radio show. Astro Talk. Taylor and Travis met in Kansas

City during one of her concert shows. Believe it or not? Not. No, they did. Sorry. Believe it. It really takes one to win. Chris on 790. Chris, you're ready to play, believe it or not?

Believe it. The female pop star in the song Bad Blood said to be as about Lady Gaga. Believe it. Or not? Believe it. No, Katie Perry. I know this stuff. I'm trying to give away prizes after one.

Joe and Deer Park on 790. Joe, what was your favorite part of today's radio show? All of it, Matt, and plus to talk about the Texans. Joe, Taylor's lucky number is seven. Believe it or not. Lucky number is seven. Believe it. No, it's 13.

Oh, on 790, Paul. to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Taylor's go-to drink is a tequila sunrise after trying one in honor of the Eagles. Believe it or not? Not. No, it's a Diet Coke and vodka. Congratulations.

Diet Coke and vodka? You ever tried that? Got the Diet Coke, though. John on 790, ready to play, believe it or not? Yes, sir. The official name of Taylor's last concert tour was fearless. Believe it or not. Not.

As the heirs tour, congratulations. Let's go to Greg on 790, Greg. You ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. It is estimated that Taylor has sold nearly 57, 57 million albums. Believe it or not. Believe it. There you go.

We finally got some winners. My faith in your Taylor Swift appreciation is okay. Now, remember, they're not in here yet. call him about Taylor's wedding dress, food for the engagement party, dress rehearsal, how big the wedding should be, should it be a destination wedding,

and what is the perfect gift to give the super couple? All part of the A team. I'll talk to you folks. Tomorrow at 10 right here on Sports Talk 790.