Astros-O's Tonight, Lambert on the Mound, Gary Payton Calls MJ a Liar, Ten on the Texans

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Into a Friday edition of The A Team. It's Sports
Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Guess what, Wex, It's a Friday edition of The A
Team is.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
In Anything goes just kidding. But there's baseball tonight. I
am excited about it. You are like last night, No,
not Astros Bros.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Baseball. That's sorry.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
I must have not given that caveat Wex. When you
guys see at the top of the next hour, when
we start doing the simulcast, you will see Wex is
wearing one of the greatest logos in Houston sports history,
the Navy Blue late nineties, last several years of the
astronome astro's logo with the gold star. Very pumped that

(00:41):
he's wearing this, especially because I don't even think you're
the biggest fan of it.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
I am not I impressed.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
I'm impressed the that'd be like me rolling up with
the uh, the old Rockets.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Late nineties logo with also blue. Uh.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
I mean, I don't hate it like most people hate
that logo. You I'm just just would rate number one
on all time astros. But they're all good.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Astros Ow's tonight first of three. I like the fact
that as we get underway with the proverbial second half
the post All Star sixty four game sprint to the
latest Al West title that Hunter Brown's not on the mound,
Spencer Aarraghetty's not on the mound. No one else is
on the mound, but Peter Lambert. Yeah, the Astro's best picture.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Man winning his picture best picture with a butt and
five record, that makes him they're winning his picture.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Yeah, yeah, I I never thought i'd say that. That's
kind of the point I'm getting at.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Hey, the Astros have a chance to win the division,
make the playoffs, win the World Series. And it's July seventeenth,
and Peter Lambert has eight times as many wins as
Hunter Brown.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Let's go Astros. It's true, it is true. It's sad,
but it's it's sad but true. Good Metallica song. Yeah.
I like the fact that.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
And look, not only is Peter Lamber on the mound,
they're not exactly trotting out a world beater. In my opinion,
the o's what do you mean? Well, I just don't
think that looking at his numbers and looking at.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Dean Kramer, do that who you're referring to Dean Kramer,
which is spelled creamer.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Just keep this in mind when the Astros unfortunately, if
I'll be nice, it's early, it's Friday. If the Astros
come up a bit short tonight, then you can add
the Orioles to the team's list of teams. And there's
eight of them right now, there'll be nine that the
Astros are looking up at. Yeah, well, the Orioles move
past Houston and the American standings with a win tonight

(02:38):
or a series victory.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
That's so gross.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
That's how things are right now. The Astros are four
games under five hundred. The O's a couple more games
or a couple of wins behind Houston, one game technically
behind them. Dean Kramer has been okay. He's capable of
giving him seven innings or shut out baseball. He's capable
of getting hit around. And we'll see what the Astros
have in store for him. Imagine they will look very

(03:01):
similar to the team offensively that they did that went
into their break for four days. Their best hitter was
the only one that didn't have four days off because
he was busy scoring the first run of the game,
the game winning run in the first inning of the
All Star Game after he got the first hit of
the game, a yard on Alvarez, who, of course goes
into the second part of the season leading the American

(03:23):
League and two of the three Triple Crown numbers and
a host of other numbers. He's the best hitter in
the American League and far and away the favorite. Odds
makers at least also agree far and away the favorite
for MVP. Still am absolutely struggling with the names that
are behind him, especially when one of them is Bobby
Witt Junior. I just I don't understand it. I don't

(03:47):
disrespect the caliber of player he is, but this just
in this is one of my huge, huge pet peeves.
They give out this award and pretty much everything they
do in every sport every year. There's an All Star
team every year that gets voted on every year. MVP's
rookie of the years they get voted on every year.
That's because there's a new season every year. So if

(04:07):
you care what a player did at any point prior
to this season, and you're using that information when you
vote for an upcoming award, then you're a moron.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
That's worse than NBA voters.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
I'm not saying they are or they will. But if
you're watching the twenty twenty sixth season and you're thinking, well,
with sixty plus games to go and the Kansas City
Royal is putting up one of the worst seasons in
the American League, and Bobby Witch Junior has been certainly
for him and as it relates to the rest of
the league, pretty pedestrian, I should probably consider giving him

(04:41):
my MVP vote, maybe writing him in first. I don't
think the voters are doing it, but the odds makers
are making it look like that is something they will consider.
They won't have much of an issue with voting yourd
on number one and winning the MVP if he continues
what he's doing, and I do think that's regardless of
what the Astros will do. It's challenging and start for
the Astros coming out the break at least, if you
ask me, just based on the at least the first

(05:03):
two teams coming through, because while the Orioles are one
of the teams behind them in the standings, the Marlins
are not. They're not in the standings with them period
because they're obviously a National League team. But they've been great.
I've arguably been the best team in the National League
for almost half of the National League season. You have
the first place White Sox as the first trip for
the Astros when they begin the road portion of the

(05:24):
second part of the season, then they're back inside the division. Which,
while if that doesn't sound so daunting, when your second
leg of that road trip is in LA against the Angels,
you don't have a winning record against the Angels and
the division games. Again, it's really only matters about the
teams you're chasing and trying to get ahead of. You
got your last series of the season against the Texas

(05:46):
Rangers immediately after that back here at dyk In Park,
and that is the last series before the all start
or before the trade deadline.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
That's all the Astros have left before the final decisions
are made. BALTIMOREAMI, Chicago, Los Angeles and Texas. Five more
three game series and we're at the trade deadline. That
doesn't seem like a lot because it isn't. And I
think interestingly enough, especially in light of some of the opponents,

(06:16):
there'll be facing good ones. I mean maybe surprise, well,
definitely surprising, good ones, like we talked about yesterday whichever
way the outcomes go in these next two weeks worth
of games will I think have a large bearing upon
what they end up doing between now and the trade deadline.
I think they know what they're doing and they don't

(06:37):
expect to fall apart.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
Neither do I.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
They've been playing this caliber baseball for quite some time.
Remember they were five games under five hundred seventeen games
into the season. Started the year five and two at home,
went on a one to nine road trip, they were
six and eleven. They've played that was seventeen games. They've
played seventy seven games since, or excuse me, eighty one games.
Since they're a five hundred team, they're an average baseball

(07:02):
team for that huge chunk of a season, basically half
of a season. Nothing's going to change over the next
couple of days. Haven't changed the roster. The only way
to change, in my opinion, to change the outcome the
ability to sweep, the ability to win seven out of nine,
the ability to win fifteen out of twenty.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
Is changing the roster, and they may see that as well.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Sure, somebody, you know, Hunter Brown could go ace like
for ten starts and the bullpen could completely come around
and Brian a Bray could be unbelievable before they trade him,
but it's probably more about do they actually add something
that even lengthens the lineup by having a trustworthy bat,
not a great bat, but a trustworthy bat in one
of the bottom five spots of the order. Is it

(07:43):
Camp Smith or Jose Altuve or is it a newcomer.
More than likely it would be coming from a newcomer.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
A left fielder.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
I don't really care where he plays, but all of
the outfield positions are open.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yeah, that's I mean, that's probably a more uh. I mean, yes,
left field is completely open, and so center field. Cam
Smith's probably not getting supplanted as the right fielder.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah, the guy who's been playing it for not even
two years. Well, they don't. It's pretty crazy to think
about it. I don't think they're averse to adding a
right fielder. Remember when he was a third baseman out
they will not for this team. I know because he wasn't.
It's just it was like, well, we're gonna throw him
out there and see what happens. And all he's done
has been fantastic out there, Yes, out there?

Speaker 2 (08:22):
Well I'm as a defensive player, yes, yes, he has
been a very, very play, very good defensive right fielder.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
If you play any outfield position for the Astros, you
have to be awesome fielding because your bat is usually
not always great, especially if you play center field.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
I mean, when they made the trade to bring Jake
Myers up, was you know Miles Straw had just replaced.
They recently replaced a very good bat. Now George wasn't
a full time center fielder. Were less than two days
removed of watching Lance mccullors throw his final pitch to
the Yankees in that series that George Springer caught. I mean,

(08:59):
he was a pret darn awesome offensive centerfielder, but just
not a full time, multi year centerfielder because he was
hurting himself too much. So they stuck him over in
right field a little bit as well. But you don't
have to have a no hit all field outfield. It's
just what the Astros have. But that's what Cam Smith's
not going to be. I'm gonna say not going to be.

(09:20):
I know it's coming back at some point in Cam
Smith's future and the A team's future. The Cam Smith
hype train audio delivered by me is going to be
back a lot of numbers beyond. He's hitting two eighteen
with eighty seven OPS, plus a lot of other numbers
that are usually very good indicators of how things are going,

(09:42):
are very very good, and they're much improved over his
rookie season. Hard hit percentage, exit V low bat speed.
You know, there's four players in the American League that
can say they have a higher.

Speaker 3 (09:54):
Bat speed than Cam Smith. Yeah, no, I just four.
I knew that.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
There's twenty, you know, thirteen players, fifteen teams. Well over
one hundred and fifty players have taken it bats in
the American League this year, and or I should say,
in Major League Baseball, for several hundred players, four of them.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
He's fifth.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
He has the fifth best average bat speed in baseball.
Everybody on that list, basically but him is awesome. Is
having a good offensive year or has had very good
offensive year. So I don't really doubt that it is coming.
It's all little bit surprising that it hasn't come already.

(10:34):
His batting average with balls and plays where things have
unfortunately not worked out for him, and sometimes it's luck,
sometimes it's not. Last year was much higher and this
year is significantly lower. So his batting average is dipped
a little bit. His OPS is almost identical year one
to year two, but progress is actually being made. Don't
rely only on well, he's only hitting two eighteen, signed

(10:56):
nineteen seventy five, So don't look at the back of
his baseball card. We have it well, I don't know.
I haven't even looked at a baseball card in a while.
Do they have the better numbers on it? Are they
still have just the just the typical old school baseball
card numbers. I would imagine they've upgraded to ops and
some other numbers I know. Ask Jeff Bagwell, I'll find
one for you during the next three hours and forty
seven minutes of the show.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
And speaking of that three hours and forty seven minutes,
we are going to have a lot more astros conversation.
As WEX mentioned, Chandler Rome Steve Sparks will both stop by.
One of them will be live, another one will be recorded.
We'll let you determine which one is which. There's Tim
donnahey News. I'm looking forward to that. Wex probably isn't,
but it's fantastic. He's the gift that keeps on giving,

(11:37):
as is this fake ass lebron Watch and I tell
you why, that is the most uninteresting part of the
NBA offseason in an offseason that has been very interesting,
I might add. So we'll get to that in a
whole lot more, but definitely more Astros conversation immediately when
we return here on a Friday edition of the show,
the eight months away from Rob Logan's birthday. And nobody

(12:00):
knows who that is here on Sports Talk seven ninety.
I'm just kidding. It is the a team Wex and
ac with you on Anything Goes Friday. Clearly, all right,
Peter Lambert is going to continue his dominance tonight at
home against the Baltimore Orioles. Believe it or not, I'm
just stealing every bit from the Matt Thomas Show right
now in the first two segments.

Speaker 3 (12:21):
I believe it. I do too.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
All he's done is just be completely solid six innings
his last time out. It was the only game the
Astros won, and that ended up being excruciating series against
the Rangers. But as Wex said in the opening segment
and has been saying for a long long time, this
guy's their best pitcher. He's also their winningest pitcher. And
if you had told me that would be the case,

(12:47):
and you would give me the fact that Hunter Brown
did suffer his first major injury of his career. But
yet it feels like Hunter Brown's been back long enough
for that still to be a shocking statement, even given
the sheer amount of volume of games Hunter Brown missed.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
If you were watching the All Star Game, you saw
Cam Schlitzler, Dylan c Snick Martinez, Parker Messik, and Joe
Ryan five of the six pitchers who have a better
ERA than Peter Lambert.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
Only six.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yes, Sonny grad still can't figure out why you didn't
see him. He is the other one. But those guys
all pitched in the All Star Game and his three
fourteen ra those are the only six starting pitchers in
the American League that qualify that have a better ERA
than he does. He hasn't just been good or solid,
He's been exceptional. He's been among the best pitchers in
the American League since he came here. Had he been

(13:37):
here at the beginning of the season and gotten those
extra a couple of starts and innings, he would qualify,
and he soon will qualify as long as he continues
to pitch like he is, pitches deep into games, regularly
six or seven innings. He's given the Astros more seven
inning outings obviously than anybody else on the staff. He's
out dueled other pitcher pitchers of great consequence like he

(13:57):
did earlier this year with Shoheo Tani coming to Houston,
and the Astros have absolutely needed it. This is the
same thing you say about where would they be without
jord On Alvarez? Where would they be without Peter Lambert
is an absolutely equal question to ask about the pitching staff.
They would be sunk. I mean, I'm sure somebody else
could have given them starts. I just can't imagine they'd

(14:19):
be anywhere near these. This number of quality opportunities to win.
You know, quality starts is an interesting statistic, and that
all you have to do in that start is go
six innings and produce an ERA of four to fifty
or better. Three runs allowed, earned runs allowed over six
innings produces a four to fifty ERA. Four to fifty
era stinks. A four to fifty ERA is what Spencer
Araghetti has this season. That's not particularly good, but it

(14:41):
goes in the books as a quality start. And that's
what Hunter Brown did to open that series last week.
Against the Rangers, and it was good enough to give
you a chance to win. And that's really all a
quality start does. If you have twenty eight starts in
a year and you give a team fourteen quality starts,
well fourteen times that team had a chance to win.
When you do what Peter Lambert has done, the team
is going to be winning a much higher percentage of

(15:04):
your store starts, or at least they should be, provided
you get any kind of run support, and they have
and I don't doubt that they will. I think the
the Orioles, unfortunately, I think have some arms this week
because obviously everybody's been on a break and they can
set it up however they'd like.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
I would.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
I think they have a formidable group of pitchers to
go against, and then they'll get to their bullpens.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
Just things should be fine.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
Just to kind of lend to what you're saying, look
at the body of his work over the duration of
the season, and I'm not going to so much concentrate
on innings, although that has been more often than not.
He does have some, you know, four and a third
innings games in there, that kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (15:41):
But I two games stick out to me more than
any other.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
And I think if you're looking at his entire resume
for twenty twenty six, they probably jump off the page
at you. Their wins against the Dodgers and the Rays.
And the Rays game came on July fifth, so it's
very recent. He did not allow a run in that game.
He only allowed three hits in that game. That's the
best record in the American League Tampa Bay Rays. Then

(16:08):
go back to early May when he shut out the Dodgers,
he didn't allow a hit.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
Or Briana would say, I was there, yeah, exactly, Oh
were you I was, yeah, only three hits allowed in
that game.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
Now everything else in between, and I get it any
given day and pitchers and all that kind of stuff,
the variables in baseball. But if you're just as shrapolating, Okay,
is this a fluke? No, Like when we say he's
the best pitcher in any myriad of way.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
Hundred games into the season. He's been here for almost
all exactly.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
There's nothing.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
He might not continue it, sure, but there's nothing fluke.
You don't even have to back it up. There's no debate,
there's no other side.

Speaker 4 (16:43):
It is.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
And if you want to get really stupid and hokey
about it.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
This is a revenge game tonight because the last time
he pitched against the Orioles, he only lasted four and
a third.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah, that was more about It was early in the
season and they probably weren't sure that they should have
confidence in him. Right, he only lasted four and a third. Huh, God,
what did he do? Give up six runs on a
thousand hits? He gave up two hits and two runs.
But he was taken out after ninety one pitches because
he had not become He was still finding success. But

(17:12):
he's pitching much better than that since then. He doesn't
have those outings, and I know his pitch count has
gotten up in a few in the fact that he
had to go one hundred and seven pitches to finish
his eighteen out outing the six innings against the Rangers.
But you can that's the difference between what he did
in his outing on July eleventh versus his outing on
April thirtieth. The pitching coach Josh Miller and the manager

(17:37):
Joe Espada, they know a lot more about Peter Lambert
now and there wasn't much difference between those two outings.
The difference is they trust him. They know he's going
to make his pitches, they know he's going to execute
his pitches, and they believe he's going to figure it out.
He gave up three hits in his last outing. He
gave up three hits in the outing before that. He
has six other starts where he's going up three hits

(18:01):
or fewer. That's more than half of his starts. You
give him the ball and the other team's getting three
or fewer hits. That's insanely successful. He did come on
the show with us, right, yes, I felt like he
We talked to him. He's one of the several players
who spent some of his professional career pitching overseas.

Speaker 5 (18:17):
Well.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
I talked about how I was, Yeah, I remember that now.
He convinced me further that I wanted to go there.
I also hate him because he was born during my
junior year of high school. So I hate him for
that right now.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
And remember it can happen for some pitchers for a
variety of reasons. When the Astros were on this last
road trip, one of the pitchers they faced was Foster Griffin,
another pitcher who was overseas right before this year, but
like Lambert, he made his major league debut like a
billion years ago. Griffin had surgery and that kind of
stunted things. But he made his pitching debut in twenty

(18:50):
twenty and was a first time All Star this year
with the Nationals. He's been one of the best in baseball.
Peter Lambert made his MLB debut in twenty nineteen with
the Rockies, a franchise he spent nearly a decade with No.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
Wonder He hasn't been any good. He was pitching in
Colorado and he was essentially was He wasn't on the
roster of the entire year. But he made fifty three
appearances over two seasons with Colorado before he chose to
pitch overseas and then he came back, and obviously, by far,
this is the most success he's had really anywhere. It's
even more success than he had last year overseas. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
No, it's a good story and I hope it continues,
and I think it will tonight in the opener of
this three game set against the Baltimore Orioles. All Right,
it is time for the best of X's next segment.
And like I mentioned, WEX will probably not enjoy this
segment as much as I will, because, in all honesty,
what Tim Donnihey is saying isn't exactly that surprising. But

(19:45):
I got to give him credit, and I'll tell you why.
I'm going to give him a lot of credit when
we come back. It's the best of X Tim donnahe edition.
You're gonna actually hear from the disgraced former NBA official.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
When we come back. And when I came across this audio,
I could not help myself.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
When'd you come across this audio? Like nine oh today? Okay,
I'm not sure.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
I'm sure it's not completely fresh.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
It's not completely fresh if that is accurate? How long
ago we played some audio from CJ Stroud earlier this week,
Remember that I was only like two years old. I
was two years old. How was a March of twenty
twenty four?

Speaker 1 (20:26):
But said versus when it circulates are two very different things.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, this is even older than that. Yeah, so it's
almost three years old. Who cares, though, What's important is
that it's on the show today.

Speaker 3 (20:36):
Very important.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
Let's get to it well because there is there is
obviously reaction to it.

Speaker 3 (20:41):
That's what this segment is a little bit about.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
But you know when when Tim Donnie got popped for
basically attempting to fix games, or at least throw them
to go one way or the other.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
He was fixing games so he could make money on gambling. Yeah,
how surprised, were you? Really? I mean, after the initial
shock of hearing what that it was public? How really so?

Speaker 1 (21:05):
And I'm not even saying, oh, of course this was
going on with NBA officials.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
I don't mean from that standpoint. I just mean, like,
I definitely didn't think that.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
I mean, maybe I'm naive to think the ninety people
walking the planet that get to call themselves NBA referees
could manage to enjoy their professional wages without risking their
job by gambling on the games they were supposed to
blow their whistles.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
Well, But then yet it wasn't even the first time
somebody that decade had done something unsavory with their position
as an NBA official.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
Joey Crawford, Yeah, they don't make the kind of money
that Terry Rozier and Beasley make, so it's less of
a I can't believe they did this because clearly there
is much more money to be made for someone making
much less money from a percentage standpoint than what these
NBA players are absolutely throwing away for nothing.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, and there wasn't a lot of money being made
when Joey Crawford was pocketing the difference between first class
tickets and coach.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
That's not I mean, that's person I don't know. That's
that's different to me. It's cheating and it's sillylimy. Yeah,
but it's not. You're not taking your job unseiously and
you're not. You're just taking a benefit you probably think
you will deserve. That doesn't The refrigerator down here at
our office and taking eight celsiuses out of there and saying,
I mean they're there, I can take them.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
That sounds like an accusation, even though I have not
done that. But are there celsiuses in there? Because now I.

Speaker 3 (22:30):
Got to go said, I could have said eight root beers.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
That wouldn't do anything for me. Not my kind of
carbonation these days. Okay, So anyway, Tim donniey talking about
specific incidents has always been the most fascinating point of
this whole thing, because he doesn't just talk about I
mean he was on the floor for the vaunted Sacramento
LA Series in two thousand and two, and I just

(22:55):
think that anybody who is a longtime NBA fan that
watched that series knows that just there was some funny
business going on with the officials.

Speaker 3 (23:01):
You can't not watch that series.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
And specifically, I want to say it was Game six
and not think that, which obviously then forced a Game
seven at home for the Lakers, who went on to
win their third consecutive championship. So I say all that
to say that wasn't even the only time a Laker
game was involved that he would specifically point to.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, I left vlad In here for the questions so
you could kind of get a gist of where things
are coming from. This does come from a November twenty
twenty three sit down. Not that old, yeah, almost three
years old. Like I said, he was specifically getting into
some Kobe Bryant aspects of you know, would there be
communication between the league and the officials specific to this player?

(23:48):
And he sets it up this way and Tim answers
that way.

Speaker 6 (23:51):
Specifically, at certain times the NBA was favoring Kobe, So
what kind of message would they tell the refs in
terms of of, you know, make sure you call every foul,
make sure that he's always you know, you know, there
to shoot extra points and so forth. You know, like,
how how clear was the message coming from the NBA

(24:13):
to the rest.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
It was very clear.

Speaker 7 (24:14):
I'll never forget when Kobe was in a playoff series
with the Phoenix Suns, and I forget who the defender was,
but they called him the Kobe Stopper, or he referred
to himself as the Kobe Stopper. And they would show
us video of games previously of plays that fouls weren't called,
of this guy holding him or defending him too strongly,

(24:35):
and they wanted freedom of movement because they wanted higher
scoring in these games. So they would show you plays
and say this was a foul that was missed, and
these three referees missed this play.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
Make sure you don't let this happen tonight. Make sure
you call this when this happens.

Speaker 7 (24:51):
And that's how they would program and train the officials
in the next game to have more freedom of movement
and have Kobe Bryant have the ability to score more points.

Speaker 3 (25:01):
And do well.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
Okay, let's clean up a few things. The first and
foremost is not that important, but it's inaccurate.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Untill correct, himself coming up later with the name he omitted.
He remembers later, Oh okay, well, what was the detail
you were talking about.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
Well, he's talking about a guy referring to himself as
the Kobe Stopper. That was not this person he's going
to refer to. That was actually Ruben Patterson, who played
for Portland and then he became then anti Stopper for.

Speaker 3 (25:26):
Other reasons that are unsavory as well. I'll get into that.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
Let's get into the part why we actually played it.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, well, I mean who's you know how you always
say who are they?

Speaker 3 (25:34):
Who are these people you know in the league? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (25:37):
When he says they, I really do wonder who he's
I mean, I'm sure it's obviously the league he's referring to.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
Yeah, but who specifically said ahead of officials And they're
in communication with the league obviously every year, even throughout
the years, things like that. That's my assumption on who
they is, not like Silver picks up the phone or
his deputy commissioner Tatum picks up the phone. But I
do think there's constant communication. We know there's constant communication.
They're being graded throughout the year, they get directives throughout

(26:04):
the year. They get updates on their performances many many
times throughout the year. And it's not only internal with
the say the Union, but it also comes from from
the league and they're working together.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
M hm.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
That doesn't And I know, you know there's a lot
of comments we want to get to here, but this
is to me, this is what I heard, is what
I want to hear.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
That they are reviewing and saying you should call these
fouls more.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
No, they're not saying you should call them more. They're
saying you should call these fouls. Look at him, he's fouling.
You should call them. That's the wording he used. These
are officials who missed these calls. We'd like the officials
moving forward, whomever they might be. And that's what we're
talking to because you're in game three and you've got
game six, we want you to call these fouls. Guess why?

(26:52):
Because they are fouls.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
So then why would he completely dismiss any other player
and highlight only Kobe Bryant and say that's weird.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
The Vlad asked him specifically about Kobe, and I went
back and listened to some of the interview before that,
because he got into a conversation about Kobe Bryant. This
whole conversation makes two points one the league at this
point in time. According to doneghe asked the officials to
stop missing calls. And the other point is the other thing.
We all know their superstar calls exist. I mean he

(27:22):
could have he mentioned Kobe, He could have brought up
any number of superstars that were playing when Donaghie was officiating,
or if it was a current official.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
Why is the term even in.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
Existence because we all have eyes And by the way,
I wish it didn't exist, because there's ten guys on
the court, a referee should view them identically.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
Yeah, I misspoke.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
He did not ref a single game in that seven
game series between the Kings and the Lakers.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
But you know who did.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
Who is the guy that he accused of fixing, rigging
whatever that series, that game, Dick Bavetta, who's in the
Hall of Fame.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
Just want to point that out.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
He continued, after saying that as the again, the interviewer
continues driving the Kobe train, it's kind of making his
own points and then asking about them.

Speaker 6 (28:07):
As you'll hear, so they're basically telling you to give
Kobe an advantage and people that were covering him a
disadvantage in a way exactly.

Speaker 8 (28:15):
I know.

Speaker 7 (28:15):
I remember the guy's name. His name was Rajah Bell,
very good defender in the league, and you know, a
guy that would defend Kobe very well, and they would
just show you a lot of plays of him defensively
and saying these plays should have been called a foul
and they weren't. And these referees had a low score
officiating wise because they missed this call. So make sure

(28:37):
you call it tonight, and you as an efficient one
to get the highest grade possible, because that would mean
you would advance up the ladder and have more playoff
games and make more money, So you would go out
and call it.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
He doesn't really get into the only part of it
could leave a little cloud if you want to read
between the lines, you want to create a cloud of mystery.
It sounds like the NBA was saying, these are fouls,
we have rules, those are fouls. They were missed. You
need to call them. That's what it sounds like. I
guess you could if he's trying to spin it this way.
He didn't really say it this way. Is this this

(29:10):
act needs to be called but they're calling it a
missed call. They're not trying to give Kobe an advantage.
They're trying to give him the rule book definition of
that's a foul. You you deserve it. It's a foul,
and they're not giving the player a disadvantage. They're just saying,
don't foul him.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
But here's the thing, and a lot of the comments
are like, this isn't a big deal because yeah, you
should have been calling these calls. Yeah, except for what
you brought up. Is the problem here, He's not. They
are not.

Speaker 3 (29:39):
The officials are not calling it the same for all
of the quote unquote stars or just all of the players.
If you have an NBA officiating crew being told that
Kobe needs to get these fouls called because they're not
being fouled, fine, that in and of itself is not
a problem. But when Jeff Van Gundy points out with tape,
I might add that Yao, Ming's getting murdered and they're

(30:01):
not calling it fairly. And it's in essence been helped
along the fact that the MAVs have now taken a
to two tie in a series the Rockets led to
Oh and he gets fouled one hundred grand over it.
That's a problem.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
It's no different than the series we just watched.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
Hey, which one the Spurs and the Knicks.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
Do we think the officiating needed to be taken to task?
And the NBA at large with some of their post
game officiating, Yeah, of course we do.

Speaker 3 (30:28):
They talktically.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
The guy that would have been taken to task and
then it would have resulted in his suspension didn't get
taken to task.

Speaker 3 (30:35):
That's why I still have a problem with this.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
That's why I still bring this kind of stuff up
because even though nothing's ever going to be perfect, it
can't be.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
This woefully bad.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
Yeah, what he was getting into there is not a
you know, it got both sides. You know, clearly Ac
and I are describing two different points of view, and
the comments are right there with us. You got people saying,
so it's fixed because the NBA is telling the refs
to actually call the fouls that Raja Bell was getting
away with. And we saw a ton of that in
both the Western Conference Finals and the NBA Finals. Just

(31:06):
a holding fest. Yeah, over just NonStop. Well, this is
how they've decided to call it. We get to that
and then we say we'll just call it fairly, call
it evenly. If you're allowed to hold Jalen Brunson when
he's trying to get through a screen, well then you
better allow us to hold Victor wembin Yama when he's
trying to do the same. And for the most part,
I think they did. They did do that. But if
Tim donaghey again, I don't even think it's an axe

(31:27):
to grind.

Speaker 3 (31:28):
He did it.

Speaker 2 (31:29):
He's just he offers himself up a little less frequently currently,
but again, over the last fifteen or so years, he's
had a few interviews and they almost always deliver. See,
I told you, sos, the NBA's officiating is not as
cleaned up as Oh we fired Tim.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
We're good people would make it out to be.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
He does keep going around and getting a lot of run, though,
and we're giving it to him.

Speaker 3 (31:54):
I'll admit it. I gave it to him. I did this.
It's me I'm the problem. All right.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
We will wind down the two walk out or next
with yet another Houston Texan saying, hey, hide and watch.
CJ is gonna have a bounce back season. He's going
on the record with it. We'll let you hear from
him next. All right, this is something that's not two
years old, but it is two days old.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
I missed it yesterday. That's on me.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Talking about Xavier Hutchinson making some comments about at a
number of things as a matter of fact, because that's
what that's what athletes are want to do when they
go on podcast.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
He appeared on the NFL Networks Good Morning Football program.
Rather than as you're setting it up, like he sat
down with some Rando Rando podcast renegade somebody's basement while
Gilbert Arenas was yelling at everybody with a key to leave.

Speaker 3 (32:49):
And you know what's funny about you making out, you know,
pointing out this this distinction there is none.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
They asked him questions about the team, his quarter. He
had some really nice things to say about Janis McNair,
who unfortunately passed away earlier this week and the day
before he had gone on this interview. Who's in the
studio with Jamie and the crew. Yeah, very pleasant. But
he could have done that with anybody that also has
done with us, Right, he did it in the last

(33:16):
I don't think I did not talk to I don't. Yeah,
I did talk to Xavier this off season a couple
of times and many times throughout his four years here
and his three years with CJ, and in advance of
his two following the two off seasons with CJ. Let's
see what he says this year, right.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
Well, there is something to be said for teammates coming
out and supporting their quarterback.

Speaker 3 (33:39):
Happens all the time.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
I know people hate me, especially you, for this, but
I can't even not say what I want to say.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
Say.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
He's not coming out and saying anything. He's conducting an
interview where he's clearly going to be asked about his
quarterback play because that's what everybody wants to hear about,
because their quarterback play was atrocious in the postseason last year,
and he's his teammate. So he answers the question.

Speaker 3 (34:06):
You're right, I hate you.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
Hey, everybody else does too, all right, So however you
want to frame it.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
I could make it worse by saying, get ready for
this SoundBite from Xavier Hutchinson. He's going to shock you
with his support for his quarterback.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
Well, what you're supposed to say is shock you with
what he says and not listen to this.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Oh my god, that was your tease. You did a
great job. How you're supposed to. So you hear what
Xavier Hutchinson had to say about number seven heading into
his fourth year. Oh my gosh, don't go anywhere. We'll
be right back.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
You know what. This is why Ryan wrong corrects you
all the time.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
Well, he's usually right, that's why he so am he
just does Well, Yeah, I'm usually wrong. Nobody's right or wrong,
just as wrong in this seat as I am at
my house, good lord, my own chair, at my dinner table.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
Stupid Hutchinson's SoundBite that we have. What do you think about?
What do you think the CJ is going to do this?

Speaker 9 (35:00):
First and foremost, I think, you know, you win and
you lose as a team. You know, it's not all
along CJ. But also too, like twenty twenty six is
gonna be his time, and I'm excited to see that happen.
And you know, I think we're gonna get a good
year out of you know, it's football like not everything's
gonna bounce your way all the time. And that's life though, right, Yeah,
And I think with CJ, like his back has been

(35:22):
against the wall several times and we've all seen him
prevail through it. So I think this is nothing new
to him, and uh, you know, like I said, I'm
excited for him and I know that twenty twenty six
is gonna be a good year.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
You know.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
It makes it even worse now, why because it was
such a nice It was aowdesome SoundBite that we set
up with our minutia bs.

Speaker 3 (35:41):
It just fired.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
You could have brought it up right out of the
break without even us talking.

Speaker 3 (35:46):
Well, I'm gonna wait to hear what he has to
say about himself for these just as nice and happy
as yes he is.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
I mean, in all honesty, if you've been in that
locker room, and I haven't been in there nearly as
much as you lately, but I'll tell you this, I
have experienced just conversations with him, one of the nicest guys.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
You'll ever talk to.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
And he's he is super nice and he's very thoughtful
with what he's talking about his teammates with us time.
He's also lockering next to Henry totoa well, and it's
a it's like a contest who is nicer, who gives
more thought to the answers, who's smiling more often even
when they're talking to us.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
Well, there's a third contestant. Well, I mean these two
guys literally they occer next to each other.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
But I mean if you were going to talk about
a guy who you would never think that about, in
addition to that duo making it a trio, that'd be
Danil Hunter. This guy looks like a cyborg who's gonna
kill somebody, but he's a teddy bear.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
If you ask Davie Hutchinson a question you want to
get a minute's worth of information from him, it might
only take one question. If you want the same from
Daniel Hunter, it's probably gonna take four to five questions.

Speaker 3 (36:48):
Yeah, he is. Well, that's a mental that's the men
Thompson treatment.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Definitely the case. An hour in three to go. Half
hour from now, we'll hear from Steve Sparks on the
Houston Astros. We jump in on the activity today on
Major League Baseball and Triple Crown Watch at a fever pitch.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
I'll tell you why next the age on sports.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
If I told you that WEX became even more WEX
over the break between hours number one and two, would
you even be remotely surprised? I wish I could share
what you just said in a way that everybody listening
would understand, well you were doing.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
You're getting set for the Astros on Deck Show and
the tenth Inning Show this evening following their victory to
open up the second part of the season. And before
we continue this dumb story, we'll give you a real story.
Kaiwai Tang is back with the Astros. Kaiwai Tung is
back with the Astros, reinstated from the fifteen DAYIL. He
pitched on Monday, started their FCL game, gave him a

(37:46):
couple of innings, and obviously has been deemed healthy enough
to assist them out of the bullpen.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
Presumably.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
Remember Alien Bursanta was sent to Triple A following Sunday's game,
so there was an open roster spot. There became a
second open roster spot when Bryce Matthews today was placed
on the ten day IL, and his spot is being
taken by somebody set to make their major league debut
whenever it is. The jo Aspota asks him to Lucas Spence,

(38:13):
who's made an interesting rise through the Astros system here recently,
will join the Astros obviously over at the yard today
and we will talk to Chandler Rome about those items
when we get to it. At five o'clock when he
joins US Live in advance of this series. So those
are the new look post All Star Break Houston Astros.

(38:33):
A couple things before again we get back to the
stupid story. We've got three more hours to get to it. Obviously,
I mentioned the Triple Crown race was at a fever
pitch when the day began. Jordon Alvarez was the American
League leader in homers and the American League leader in RBI,
and he trailed Yandi Diez for the American League lead

(38:54):
in batting average. Well, right now he does not trail
Yandi ds in batting average, so he leads all three
Triple Crown categories.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
He's tied with Diaz.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
Diaz and the Rays were getting after it this afternoon,
not getting any hits against the Boston Red Sox. Well,
I mean they got a couple hits, they basically didn't
do anything.

Speaker 3 (39:15):
There wasn't no hit.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
Nobody's doing anything against the Red Sox. They did not score.
They were being one hit for most of the game.
They ended up with three hits, but Yandi didn't have
any of them. They now have identical numbers three and
forty nine at bats one hundred and eleven hits, so
there's no percentage points ahead of or behind situation. They
are each batting exactly three eighteen as both still have

(39:40):
a game to play today, the Raisin Red Sox will
play the second part of their day night doubleheader, their
first pitch an hour before Houston, so by the time
ard On Alvarez steps to the plate won't be tied
anymore unless two plate appearances happen for Yandi or one
and both of them are not at bats.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
Why are they starting off the doubleheader?

Speaker 2 (40:04):
Probably earlier in the season they needed to.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Make up something. Yeah, because there's no way they were
rained out on a Thursday. Nobody was scheduled to.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
Play yesterday except for the incredibly awesome We're gonna trade
everybody Mets.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
And I looked up last night.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
We were at a restaurant and that game was on,
and I was just like, they are actually scoring.

Speaker 3 (40:21):
It was hitting home run.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
I get the idea of why Major League Baseball did that.
It's unfortunate for the two teams, the only two teams
who don't get four days of rest that they are
asked to play. But you know you're coming back from
the All Star break you give them a marquee matchup
presumably Phillies Mets. Sounds like it on paper before the
year begins, and it's the only game, and it's.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
On national TV. It's great.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
The weather conditions were bad because of the wildfires, so
the game actually got moved up an hour. And some
of the players, they seem pretty I thought their comments
about it and after the game were very tempered, even
though they said it that some parts of the game
it tasted like you were breathing metal, but they weren't
like I can't believe we're playing in this game. But

(41:04):
it definitely was noticeable visually, and as you looked on TV,
you thought a huge storm was about.

Speaker 3 (41:08):
To go through.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
Much more noticeable when you're out there for I mean again,
they're outside for three hours, so they're breathing it outside
for three hours.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
Well, they're paying, you're being paid more to be so
than the fans. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:18):
I don't know what the Argentina and Spain's players are
getting played for Sunday's game at MetLife, but the air
quality conditions, there's no guarantee they're gonna be much better.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
Uh, And honestly, that's a way bigger deal in my opinion,
since those people actually use cardio way more.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Yeah, I mean most of the baseball players are standing
around most of the game. And I'm not even saying
it tongue in chic No, that's literally what's happening.

Speaker 3 (41:43):
Yeah, it's it's insane.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
All right, Let's get back to some football, because well,
we were talking about Xavier Hutchinson and how wholesome his
sound bites are for starters. He uh did not come
out and say anything about c J.

Speaker 3 (41:58):
Stroud.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
He was asked about cig Stroud in case you missed
that exchange last segment. Very important, but you know, not surprisingly,
he's backing his quarterback. He gave reasons why he's backing him,
not just because he's his teammate, but hey, CJ's had
his back to the wall many other times before in
his career, and he's come out swinging. And I think

(42:20):
he didn't go so far as some teammates have said,
where maybe you're gonna be surprised at CJ's twenty twenty
six season. I think some people have kind of said
some semblance of that within the Texans organization, and I'm
fine with that as long as that's what ends up happening,
but he obviously the focus turned to Xavier Hutchinson himself.

(42:41):
I think if the Texans are gonna be successful this year,
they're gonna need to have as many receivers have good
seasons as possible, especially if you're talking about a bounce
back season for your quarterback.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
Yeah, he's in an interesting spot this year with who
that's basically the same room they had last year, plus
some portion of Tank Dell. Maybe Lewis Bond is a
part of it, maybe Justin Watson is a part of it.
But he also was with the team last year when
he got into a conversation about how might things be
different for him as opposed to any other earlier year

(43:10):
in his career.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
He heads into year four thinking this.

Speaker 9 (43:13):
You know, honestly, I think it's just mental. I think
everything starts in your mind. You know, my dad once
told me that eighty percent of the battle is in
your mind. So if you can win it mentally, then
everything else will take care of himself. You know, God
gave me these gifted abilities, and I've also worked hard
for him. And you know, as long as I stay
sharp up here, then everything else will come, you know,
come together and I think that's the biggest thing that

(43:34):
I learned, you know, not to really put too much
pressure on myself. This is a game that I've been
playing since I was five years old, so you know,
to try and go out there and try to overdo it,
like you're just harming yourself. And so I think, you know,
just to be me every day, carry that confidence, you know,
on my shoulders and know that I put in the
work to be where I'm at is something that you

(43:55):
know I'll carry into my fourth year.

Speaker 3 (43:58):
What kind of football you think he's playing at five?
That was my first question.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
Same kind every other five year old plays.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
What is it? Pop Warner?

Speaker 2 (44:06):
Yeah, I mean it's probably the one where you aren't
wearing any.

Speaker 3 (44:10):
Football equipment of any kind. That's dangerous.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
You have a football, Brian, don't need a helmet, You're
not getting tackled, you don't wear pads.

Speaker 3 (44:19):
Yeah, some semblance of that. Yes, you're right though about
the room being the same.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
And we talked about Nico Collins's health or lack thereof,
depending on what season you're talking about, during his tenure
with the Texans.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
I really I know CJ is his own.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
Category, and I know that all this stuff is intertwined,
especially on the offensive side of the ball. But I
mean it sounds super, super simplistic and maybe even cliched,
but I just think that a healthy Texans team is
as good as anybody when it comes to winning it
all this year because CJ hasn't been healthy any of

(44:57):
his seasons in h in his brief tenure in the NFL,
you cannot say he's been completely healthy.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
Even his rookie year he got concussed, correct, right, what
about the year in between the concussions. We're not gonna
talk about that right now. He've played all nineteen.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
Games because he's coming off a year where again he
was concussed, and I think I do think both concussions
on either side of that year you're mentioning, I do
think they had some effect on how he just approached
any snap, any snap you want to. I just think
it was in his head a little bit, especially last year.

Speaker 2 (45:30):
Yeah, it's hard to say, and it's even hard for
him to answer those questions. He was asked about it
a little bit in the time that's come after his return,
because he perturned for the final six games of the
regular season last year, and then obviously the two postseason games,
so he continued to take many hits and continue to
play through that definitely saw a downturn in how often
he would take off and run, and clearly, if you

(45:53):
recall was hurt when he scrambled on the turf there
at NRG Stadium when he was tackled after as a
run was concut looting against the Denver Broncos has had
hit the turf as he was hit in the side
violently but cleanly, And it's hard to say it doesn't.
I don't know how it wouldn't affect anybody, especially a quarterback,
because they don't.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
They take.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
The percentage of hits that they take that are violent
are very very high, very high. When they're scrambling and
they don't get out of bounds or slide properly or
early enough, and when they don't necessarily see the sack coming,
or when they do see it coming and they're like
there's a play to be made, I'm going to get hit,
And that's just part of it. They take vicious hits,

(46:35):
the vast majority of them, and he's going to take
many more. And he took more after each of those
concussions and played pretty well in both instances, But is
there an impact from that mentally? Yeah, there probably is.
And are you over it because you've spent a whole
offseason away from it? Are you over it when you
get your first couple of hits of the upcoming season
and those are still far off in the distance. He
didn't get hit during OTA's or mini camp. He's not

(46:57):
going to get hit during training camp. He's not going
to get hit by the race or the Panthers during
their joint workouts. And I'm not one hundred percent sure,
but I won't be surprised if he takes virtually or
literally zero snaps in the preseason.

Speaker 3 (47:13):
He won't, And it's that's fine.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
We've gotten way past I've even gotten way past that
being an issue because remember his rookie season.

Speaker 3 (47:22):
I was like, I'd like to see the guy and
you were like.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
Why yes, And there are a lot of people fighting
that valley. You gotta get him out there. He hasn't
been an NFL player yet, get him some more reps.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
I'm like, why, By the way.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
The guy you were just talking about the Astros bringing
up and you said, whenever Joe's spot, I thinks it's
it's tonight.

Speaker 2 (47:39):
Yeah, he's batting eighth, he's in center field. As I mean,
that's look expense. It's why they're doing what they're doing.
There's no reason not to He didn't. I said this before,
and I can give you the numbers. I did not
know them off the top of my head, but I
knew he had not been at Triple A long nor
had he done anything of significance. He brings his six
to ninety nine ops from Sugarland down the road to
dyk In Park and he will be the starting center

(48:00):
field to sight and bat eighth in front of Christian Vasquez. Obviously,
with only fifty seven at bats at sugar Land, this
was a promotion from earlier this year. He had a
pretty good year going at Corpus. Nothing unbelievable. He really
hasn't had any unbelievable offensive seasons in the Astros system,
but he's been a steady player. He's been a steady
performer since they added him a couple of seasons ago

(48:22):
and made his way through the system. Figured there was
probably an opportunity and with Bryce Matthews getting Christian javiered
in the game on Sunday, he is now on the
IL with a left knee injury. He came down awkwardly
on his left ankle, looked like maybe it was an
ankle injury. He was feeling for his knee, which obviously
is the bigger issue, which is why he's on the il,
and which is why he did not bat when his

(48:43):
turn at bat came up. He stayed in the game
in the inning and then nearly had just made the
spectacular catch. But Bryce Matthews now out and they will
try yet another center fielder here in twenty twenty six.
You have the rest of what it looks like for
the Astros and the O's as a second part of
the season begins tonight here on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
To one of Wex's other favorite topics, we got Steve
Sparks and a portion of his visit with the station
earlier today coming up in the next segment. But I
gotta tell you, this Lebron James free agency watch is
by far the most uninteresting part of the NBA offseason
to me.

Speaker 3 (49:21):
And here's why. The only thing that is interesting about
this forty one year old soon to be forty two
year old choosing whichever team he's going to land with
is that in Adam Silver's admitting it, then we can
get the schedule. Are you serious right now? That's so
stupid And here's why the NFL absolutely schedules whatever.

Speaker 10 (50:01):
Ron.

Speaker 3 (50:03):
I apologize for stepping on the amazing.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
You step on it. I didn't know what we were
talking about Lebron or well, we had it ready to go.
It's right here in the rundown. Yeah, but that's not
I said. We were to talk about the Astros and
what they have going up against the Orioles tonight.

Speaker 3 (50:16):
Great, that can wait Lebron James. This is literally what
we're waiting for. It's not happening.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
What I mean, well, first of all, you said, are
you serious you're waiting on Lebron. It was just yesterday
where we both said, yeah, they're waiting on Lebron. Why
would the announce the schedule before they know who he's playing.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
For, Because unlike the NFL, they build their schedule around
one guy.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Essentially, it's definitely not they build their schedule around their players,
their star players, the players. There's other stars, yes, but
he's one of them, and he's like the one.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
And if you that that's just it's not. He is one.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
He is the one, and it makes sense to want
to have them on TV as a national product, just
as this has been the case for all twenty plus
years of his career. It's not like the schedule would
have been released a week ago. The schedule last year
got released roughly a month from now, which is probably
close to their plan. But if Lebron is not going

(51:17):
to make a decision today, is he going to make
a decision in a week.

Speaker 3 (51:21):
Is he going to make a decision in two weeks
or three weeks?

Speaker 2 (51:23):
At that point, you are really pushing up against when
the league would like to have released their schedule.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
And he knows this, he's doing it intentionally.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
He's going to I do think we're going to know
where he's going to play, and I do think we'll
have the schedule just as we normally would. But I
don't have any issue with Adam Silver answering that question
publicly because he had his address the other day and
get answers to a bunch of questions, expansion questions and
referee questions.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
Unsurprising question, unsurprisingly to you and everybody else listening. I
absolutely had a problem with it. This is the commissioner
of your sport. Listen to how weak and limp wristed
he sounds. I would like him to make his announcement
and already so we can finish the schedule. What you
can finish it anytime you want. Adam Silver, you can

(52:08):
flex his games in if you need him that bad.
If you need Lebron James at forty one to be
on Christmas Day, you can put him on Christmas Day
whenever you want.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
You're the commissioner. You don't come out and say because,
as you might imagine, teams are calling us, networks are
calling us, and everybody wants to luck in the schedule.
But it will influence how we set the schedule, how
we said.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
Opening week Christmas Day. Oh my gosh, I know so
tired that weak ass people running.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
Leagues this segment because you're gonna hate it.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
I'm not gonna hate anything.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
I'm right like Lebron's gonna play on Christmas, his team's
gonna play on Christmas?

Speaker 8 (52:42):
Right.

Speaker 3 (52:43):
Why is that so hard to understand? Why is that bad?
There's ten teams, not bad, but you're literally saying, it's
me finish and I'll tell you what I'm saying, holding
up the entire schedule for one guy so you can
make sure he plays on Christmas Day and coming. That's
one thing. If you want to do that, fine, don't
come out and say it.

Speaker 2 (52:59):
Publicly, not holding up the entire schedule. It was not
about to be released yesterday when he said this.

Speaker 3 (53:04):
Then why would he say it? So it doesn't happen.
So so it's gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
He's trying to prevent it from happening. He's probably have
already talked. I'm sure he and Lebron. He probably left
him a voice note and said, we would like to
have the ability to work our normal off season schedule,
and it will only happen if you can kindly choose
one of the five teams that apparently still wants to
sign you, and if you could do that in a

(53:29):
timely fashion, that would be very helpful. We've got a
lot of marque nights on our schedule or days. Christmas
is one of them. We'd love to have you play
on Christmas Day. You probably don't want to. So if
you want to use that as leverage and say, well,
I'm just gonna keep waiting and now you won't know
how to get me on Christmas Day because they're not
gonna move teams onto Christmas Day after he's chosen a
team that now isn't playing on Christmas Day. They're waiting

(53:51):
specifically for that, along with I'm sure plenty of other
games Lebron's team. What's ironic about all this and this
complete and total waste of time we're doing right now,
we're talking about it for no reason. We'll be on
the Warriors schedule. When Lebron plays on the Warriors and
they're on national TV, they're gonna be watching Brandon Pozemski

(54:14):
and I don't even know who else because Chris STAPs
and Lebron and Jimmy and Steph will be out because
it's inevitable they're gonna have to flex out some of
the games that Lebron's team has, especially if it's Golden State.
But I don't think again, another timing issue of all
this is just again a matter of you know, is it?

(54:38):
I don't know that the NBA is different than other leagues,
and they have to be. They have to do what
they're doing. There's no why were the Rockets never on
national TV Because there's no reason to put them on
national TV During the three years they were awful, just
like with every other team that's awful, the teams that
have the stars, the teams that are winning that how
many times you think the Knicks are going to be
on national TV next year?

Speaker 3 (54:59):
Just unbel leave as many as Lebron? Well they also
Jalen Brunson's not as popular as Lebron. Jalen Brunson doesn't
bring as many IOMs. Just answering your question. Good, I'm
glad you know the answer.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
The answer is Lebron is the most popular player in
the league still, So why would they not want to
schedule their games around having more people watch their games?
So they're partners that are giving them billions and billions
in TV money, will be happier.

Speaker 3 (55:21):
I never said they wouldn't. What I'm saying is if
you're the commissioner to recognize that, I mean, you need
to listen to me or not. All I'm saying is
the stupid statement that Adam Silver made the day is
just that if, especially if what you said is true,
well it's not going to stop it from happening. It
doesn't happen till August anyways, all the more reason to
not open your mouth and say something dumb like this.
Everybody's waiting for what. Nobody's stopping you from coming out

(55:44):
with the schedule. And if it gets to that point,
but you know what, what you know the answer to
your question, no, if it gets to the point answer,
if it gets.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
To the point where he's being held up by one player,
which is so god awful embarrassing, I can't even put
it into words.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
That's even worse by just he's saying it to prevent
that from happening. He's saying, we want to finish the schedule,
So if you would tell us where you're playing, we'll
continue with the process that we're already involved in, and
we have a handful of dates.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
Not so once, I would like you to admit that
both Adam Silver and Lebron James actually do a lot
of things that aren't great for the NBA. For a
casual viewer, I just once, I would like to hear
you say that. I know you won't, It will hurt
your head, but you won't, but you should, because it's
totally true.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
Lebron's not doing anything to help anybody except existing one
of the biggest things that happen to the NBA. He
doesn't really do something above that to help the league.
He could, he doesn't. Well, yeah, he just he's just
great at basketball. Most of everything else doesn't help the league.
He's good at basketball. I don't know if he's great anymore. Yeah, okay,
maybe anymore, but he's still That's the other part is

(56:45):
kind of what.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
This is about, Like, well, that's that's he'd already be
signed if he was great, in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
And that's again, that is something we have talked about
and we're probably gonna talk about it all year. I
think the perception of his basketball is way off base.

Speaker 3 (56:58):
You still think he's great, Well, they'll rank him in
the league and put him with everybody else he's up against.
He matters.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
Still, he's definitely he wasn't the best player on the
Lakers pretty much the second they're traded for Luca. He's
definitely not going to be the best player on the
team he plays for this year. He might not be
the second best player either. That's fine too, But there's
a lot of teams with two and three really good players,
and the team he plays for is gonna be one
of them.

Speaker 1 (57:21):
Again, writers like, what team could he because it has
to be realistic, what team could he realistically join right
now this offseason where he's going to put them over
the top to win the championship.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
A team that's i'll just say Philadelphia. It's like that's
their only one close. That's the only one I would
say of the ones that he's being tied to. And
it could be some dark horse.

Speaker 3 (57:42):
I don't know. He's not winning in Golden State, he's
not winning in Cleveland, Minnesota. A pact is there in
the West.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
I think they still have red, yeah, but there are
other things that they clearly are going out about it.
And the nas reed is a loss because of what
he personally provides, right, but they have something else there
that they didn't have before at a comparable level. I mean,
some people think LaMelo ball is more important than a
nas read. I don't think you do, and I definitely don't,

(58:10):
but we'll see.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
I just this is, actually, believe it or not, way
more about Adam Silver than it is Lebron James. I
just think he comes out sometimes and says some of
the most he's just.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
A bad that I haven't looked for it because I
didn't know this would be what turned out to be,
as usual, an awesome segment. I don't know what he
sounded like when he said it. I don't know the
question that elicited it, and I do have the transcript
from when I think he said it, so I'll try
to glean that because saying it again, can't you almost

(58:44):
hear like, are we going to get the schedule at
the same time we always do? And he gives that
answer because we are wait. I mean, we're making fun
of lebron watch pretty much every time I play the image.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
And the schedule doesn't come out till August for the record,
for those of you I've missed just.

Speaker 3 (58:59):
Fourteenth think was the date it was released last year.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
I admittedly fully expect him to be at least have
made his decision by the If he doesn't, what are
we waiting?

Speaker 3 (59:10):
You heard it here first? The decision is coming.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
If there's anything more nausea, can we get Jim Gray?
Is he still like functional Jim Gray? We hear him
every Monday night, but before football games. He had Max
Crosby all year long last year.

Speaker 3 (59:23):
Is he gonna sit down at some YMCA with lebron
leron my back gets broken? Where is he taking his
talents to this time?

Speaker 2 (59:33):
It's gonna be I hope he makes but he's got
to make fun of that, right, Yeah, Oh my goodness.

Speaker 3 (59:40):
So there you have it.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
The league is weak and Lebron just don't make us
wait any longer. Else you're going to keep hearing this
as we had to break for the rest of time.

Speaker 3 (59:50):
Ron and I didn't this fight. During the break you.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
Could hear how much we liked each other by the
end of the segment. It's not all for show, though,
you know, there are people I know that was for show.
I know, just like every time, there are.

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
People that think that, like people like you should you
should manufacture that kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:00:10):
We'll do that at three forty five.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
We'll come up with something during the break and we'll
decide at which side of the fight we need to
each have from a perspective, and we'll see how that
plays out.

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
There was a guy that made you spend any.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
Suggestions of what you want to hear us fight about,
and we'll pick sides. Well, the first time.

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Out here, there was a guy that used to manufacture
stuff on this station.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
It's radio, television, talk shows. People manufacture stuff all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
We don't, no, no, we don't. We do manufacture replaces Sparks.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
I'm gonna need you to say this, and Skip, I'm
gonna need you to say that, but I'm gonna sound
like an idiot. Okay, let's go perfect, great, let's do that.
What do you think Sparky's up too?

Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
Lately?

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
Steve Sparks made a special visit to the Morning Drive
this morning. Special for two reasons too. He normally visits
on Monday and will again next week. And the second
reason was he spent some time with both Dan Matthews
and our producer who was helping out on the Morning
Show this morning, Josh Jordan. So here, both of the
two of them firing questions at Steve Sparks. A portion

(01:01:08):
of that conversation for you here initially beginning with was
he surprised the Lance mccullors junior got dealt shocked?

Speaker 8 (01:01:16):
Not really, you know, just maybe in the sense that
Lance certainly had ten and five rights, so he had
the ability to veto the trade. So him going ahead
and opening up that opportunity for the Astros to free
have some space, I thought was very generous and I'm
glad the Astros were able to make that move and

(01:01:37):
give him a chance to with with a really good
team with Milwaukee.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
You just think back to all those things.

Speaker 8 (01:01:42):
I've ever watching him in minor league camp, you know,
Lance back in two thousand, maybe thirteen and fourteen with
Doug Brokale, his pitching coach in the minor leagues, and
watching Josh Hater and Lance pitch side by side on
the minor league mounds and spring training and just watching
those two guys, just saying, man, the Astros Master has
some guys coming, and just all the great moments he had,

(01:02:03):
you know. So you know, that's what I'm going to
remember more than anything, is how exciting he was when
he first got to the major leagues. And I know
things got curtailed many.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
Times and much to his chagrin, but I thought.

Speaker 8 (01:02:18):
You know, just the lasting memories with the Alds in
Seattle that game. And I remember a couple of different
occasions when the Astros got Brian McCann and the first
thing he told me was he couldn't wait to kind
of work with laf because the year before, the Yankees
all said in Unison that was the best pitcher that
they placed that entire season, and just different stuff like that.

(01:02:40):
Jim Palmer said something about him, I think it was
maybe Lance's third or fourth game as a major leaguer
through a complete game against Baltimore. Jim Palmer, their TV
broadcaster in Hall of Famer, of course, came into our
broadcasts right after that said, Mane, you guys got something
really special here. So I just remember those exciting times
and what what was lying ahead for Lance as you

(01:03:02):
get to the big leagues at such a young age.

Speaker 10 (01:03:05):
I'm of the opinion that they could use like a
Kakouchi type trade, a starter that could really stabilize this rotation.
I don't know if that could be a Robbie Ray
or somebody like that, but it sounds like the Astros
are kind of counting on Blanco West Nesky guys coming
back from Tommy John to be the pieces to kind
of strengthen this rotation. How much concern should we have

(01:03:26):
about guys coming back from these significant injuries because we
know Luis Garcia and there's been a lot of these
guys coming back for Tommy John where it just hasn't
panned out.

Speaker 3 (01:03:35):
Hose Erkidi another one.

Speaker 10 (01:03:36):
So what should be the concern level these guys can
come back and help you out.

Speaker 8 (01:03:40):
You know, Josh's funny you say that, because I was
looking at this stuff yesterday and early this morning when
I'm trying to get ready for this series and thinking
about what the Astros have lying ahead.

Speaker 11 (01:03:51):
So I came up with this thirty six games so
far this year, Josh, where the starting pitchers have gone
less than five minutes, and in those games they've had
in the ra ten of course, and they're ten and
twenty six in those games. So they're on pace this
year to have sixty of those sixty games where their
starters have gone less.

Speaker 8 (01:04:10):
Than five minutes, and that would be a record of
seventeen and forty three. That's the pace that they're on
this season, which would blow away any other season that
they've ever had. So I'm thinking, whatever you can do
to figure out how do we get guys to throw
five or six innings per start. That's what we need

(01:04:30):
more than anything else to be able to sustain a
proper bullpen and.

Speaker 3 (01:04:36):
To be in games and not have to get lucky.

Speaker 8 (01:04:39):
To overcome somebody's poor start. So I'm with you. I
think started pitching, whether it's a you know, a balcal
or it's somebody who can log me six innings a game.

Speaker 11 (01:04:52):
That's what I want, you know.

Speaker 8 (01:04:54):
And there's certainly guys in their rotation right now that
are doing a great job and they're getting deep into
the ball game Lambert whose pitch of the first game
back has been phenomenal. But I think they need more
consistency out of guys. And I think pitching has become
this pitch shaping thing and stuff in velocity and all

(01:05:15):
that stuff, which is great, that do you know how
to pitch when when you don't have your best stuff?
And can you change speeds and get easier out to
get deeper into the ball games. I think that's been
kind of a lost start.

Speaker 12 (01:05:27):
Hey, speaking of Peter Lambert's, I mean, I think we
can agree he's been the most consistent starter of the
Astros have had this year.

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
What's made him effective?

Speaker 12 (01:05:34):
What's what's what's made him work out there and been
able to put together the good stuff that he has.

Speaker 8 (01:05:39):
You know, I asked him three weeks ago, I said, Hey,
what did the Astros tell you when you got into
the clubhouse? And they said, you know what, they said
something to me that was probably the best thing I
could have heard in my entire life, And they said,
we like all of your pitches were like all seven
of them. We just want you to be unpredictable, and
he said that really freed him up to be creative.

(01:06:00):
He changed sides of the rubber. That's probably part of
what he's doing. He pitches inside probably better than anybody,
particularly against left handed hitters. And if you look at
right handed hitters or right handed pitchers this year and
their success rate against left handed hitters, there might be
one other pitcher that's as effective as Peter Lambert this year.

(01:06:22):
But I think lefties are hitting under one fifty against
Lambert this season within ops just north of five hundred,
which is extremely low. And I think because he's so
effective against lefties that makes him able to get deep
into the ball games really hard to plat tune against.
I just think he's been otherworldly from what they were

(01:06:43):
probably expecting when he got into spring training. But I
think pitching inside is effectiveness against lefties makes him stand out.

Speaker 10 (01:06:50):
We know Hunter, Brown and Lambert, what's your best guess
and how effective? Who do you think has the best
chance to be the number three in this rotation moving forward?

Speaker 8 (01:07:00):
The best chance probably probably Araghetty just from what we've
seen in the first half. He was the American League
Pitcher of the Month, so we know they're over an
extended period of time. We've seen stretches with arag Getty
where he's been great, you know, and unfortunately we've seen
a little inconsistency.

Speaker 3 (01:07:18):
The last five or six weeks. But I think he
can get back on track.

Speaker 8 (01:07:21):
And I think he's he's very talented, and he's got
you know, he's got all the pitches and the ability
to get right. He's had left he's out, So I
think I think him that. Of course, you're you're crossing
your fingers on a couple of other guys and and
hoping things work out in your favor. But that's where
I am right now.

Speaker 3 (01:07:39):
With that, hopefully you.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Don't have to cross your fingers on the pitchers being
able to get the job done. Some of the numbers
that he mentioned on specifics, it's a one forty three
batting average against for left handed batters this entire season
against Peter Lambert with an ops of five oh seven.
That is insane. Like I mentioned earlier, this is top
level stuff. This is front line of the rotation stuff.

(01:08:02):
This is as good as any other starting pitcher in
the American League type of stuff, not across the board,
but in certain areas. That's how good Peter Lambert has been.
And he will make the first pitch of the post
All Star Break portion of the schedule for the Astros
right here on SCHN and of course right here on
Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 10 (01:08:22):
The ad on Sporting.

Speaker 1 (01:08:26):
Real quick before we get to some reaction on some
of the things Sparky said.

Speaker 3 (01:08:31):
About and a half hour ago, Adam Schefter tweeted the following,
and it's like the least surprising thing I've Is it
even about football? Kinda?

Speaker 2 (01:08:41):
I know they signed him to an eight thousand billion
dollars trillion deal so he can continue to have nine
phones in his hand while he eats them. But I
could absolutely positively do without him doing anything but reporting
on football.

Speaker 3 (01:08:55):
Well that's what they don't want.

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
I'm talking about football on their television shows. Yeah, I
definitely don't want him hosting stuff on the X platform
about what he's heard about where Lebron James is playing
when he's doing radio interviews. Hey, you should really check
into this, Adam. I got a text, Oh, what's today's
chefty installment about? I mean, after all, honor, remember the

(01:09:16):
a team, Adam Schefter, What's he got for us today?

Speaker 1 (01:09:19):
He just happens to be a guy that's probably one
of many reporting on this story, or will be that
I happen to see. NFL has now confirmed the indefinite
suspension of Cardinals personnel executive Ryan Gold for violating the
league's gambling policy. The NFL statement reads, the NFL confirmed
today Ryan Gold, director of college scouting for the Cardinals,

(01:09:41):
has been suspended in definitely for violating the NFL's gambling policy.
This suspension is effective immediately. The gambling policy, which is
annually reviewed with all NFL personnel, strictly prohibits anyone in
the league from participating in or facilitating any form of
sports gambling and providing third parties non public information. The

(01:10:04):
league's investigation determined that Gold provided confidential, non public inside
information regarding the twenty twenty six draft selections by the
Cardinals before they were announced, and that mister Gold participated
in parlay bets on NFL and college teams. Although there
is no reason to believe the integrity of any NFL

(01:10:27):
game was affected, the league takes any violation of the
gambling policy with the utmost seriousness.

Speaker 3 (01:10:34):
This is my favorite part. Mister Gold has the right
to appeal. Do I get the cardinal statement reading? Go ahead?

Speaker 2 (01:10:41):
The NFL's policies and expectations for all employees are clear, comprehensive,
and consistently communicated. Of course, the four seas Yes, we
fully support the league's decision in this matter, which involves
a single employee. Our focus remains unpreparing for the start
of training camp next week and the twenty twenty seven draft. Oh,
I mean the twenty twenty sixth season.

Speaker 3 (01:11:02):
I'm sorry. That's so mean and accurate. They're gonna suck.

Speaker 2 (01:11:06):
This is unsurprising based on our conversation earlier about the
officials in the NBA. Oh the well, I'm gonna go
ahead and pocket some of this money from my airline tickets. Yeah,
I'm gonna go ahead and gamble on NBA games that
I can impact by keeping the score at a certain level.
And uh, there's a foul on him, doesn't impact who
won the game. I'll never get caught. This is, in

(01:11:27):
my opinion, probably as naive as I've shown for the last.

Speaker 3 (01:11:30):
All of my life.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
Isn't so directly related to the league being in bed
with gambling money and sponsors and additional funds coming in
from you name it, gambling entities or casinos. But it
is definitely related to how much more accessible gambling is
and the new parts of gambling, whether it's daily fantasy

(01:11:54):
sports or obviously the angle on props that's so clearly,
so clearly was going to present problems temptations. It's so
easy to do and seem so innocuous. How I mean,
we talked we haven't talked about it very much again,
but when the baseball coach at Bama is the way

(01:12:16):
that they did it got them caught, and it seems
so obvious they were going to get caught because of
what they did when they got caught. But some of
these other ones are like, is it flagged because there
were too many wagers right up until game time or
the size of them or where they were coming in from.
You wonder how it is that that happened. But the
fact you have the information he works for the team, well,

(01:12:38):
he's going to have information that isn't public and if
he gets to the right people or they've gotten to him,
and he doesn't make the kind of money that Beasley
and Rogier and these players we keep bringing up do
did he get himself in trouble? Did he find himself
in debt? Was he a gambler already? And now this
was the only.

Speaker 1 (01:12:56):
Way out even if what they're saying is true, which
is that we have no reason to believe the integrity
of games.

Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
Was telling us that, right, Well, that's number one.

Speaker 3 (01:13:06):
But number two is how long until that isn't the
case with this guy or anybody, because it's so like
you said, it's such a temptation and it is. This
is like gateway drugs.

Speaker 1 (01:13:16):
Right, So this part right over here is just some
inside information about draft picks that's not gonna really hurt anybody.
It didn't determine a game outcome and all that kind
of I'm just giving inside information signing pockets some money.
But that is the gateway drug to something much much
heavier when he finally gets to brick tar brick tar
heroin of gambling, which is I'm starting to fix games
with this, that.

Speaker 3 (01:13:37):
And the other. Like it's totally a gateway.

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):
There's you know, the fixing of the games might but
not but might not be directly impacted. But when blank
Receiver knows that he needs to have a day, he
knows what the game plan is, so it's okay, they're
they're probably not gonna look for me more than a
handful of times today, and then I can help encourage
the results of the game to be less than three

(01:14:01):
passes two and a half. Let's say, well, after he's
caught two passes and now they're driving for a game
winning score, Well, he can't catch that third pass, and
quarterback X throws a brilliant spiral just over the outstretched
arms of the corner and he drops it.

Speaker 3 (01:14:17):
Oh my god, how could he drop that? We wouldn't
even suspect a thing.

Speaker 2 (01:14:22):
People drop the ball, not at an alarming rate, but
in the NFL, with their unbelievably sticky gloves and the
thousands of balls they caught the jugs machine a practice,
and the elite skill level that this particular player is
at still drops the football. And in this case, he
was just trying to impact the I'm gonna stay under
the three. I'm gonna stay under two and a half.

(01:14:43):
But he would have put him in field goal range
had he caught it, and that would have also flipped
that number. So he he and the gamblers might not view.

Speaker 3 (01:14:51):
It that way.

Speaker 2 (01:14:51):
But if you're impacting what you're doing within the game.
From a prop standpoint, it could also stand to reason,
especially on the downside you're trying to play the other
under or the less. Then yeah, I could absolutely do that.
Every time we do this, it's always Blue Chips all
over again. Nick Nolty and Shaq and Penny and Mitchell
Butler and Bobby Hurley and Eric Anderson and all the
other cameos that were in the movie on Matt andover.

Speaker 3 (01:15:14):
But the guy who did it, the coach, this was
his guy.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
I brought him here. I've helped him with all of
his problems. I helped him when he's got his girl pregnant.
How there's no way my guy did this. And he
goes storming into his dorm room. He gets him in
the in the room and he's screaming at him and
he keeps telling him, no, coach, I didn't do it.
And he's about to leave and he gets in his
face one more time and he goes, just once, I
just did it once.

Speaker 12 (01:15:40):
Man.

Speaker 3 (01:15:40):
The spread's just for the gamblers.

Speaker 12 (01:15:41):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:15:42):
We still won the game, and they had already watched
the film of it with his other coaches, and he
was just making silly mistakes and turnovers things he'd never done.
What's he thinking there? Why through this pass? And then
this past year we were watching.

Speaker 3 (01:15:55):
NBA players dissecting the same types of what is he
doing there? Why is he dribbling there? Why is he
turning it over?

Speaker 8 (01:16:03):
He does?

Speaker 1 (01:16:04):
What the You know what's so funny about that is
that you say it all the time. I've said it.

Speaker 3 (01:16:10):
They're doing this for like peanuts versus what they're making right,
and it's so and they can't help it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:16):
Well, they've probably in Beasley's case, he got he was
in trouble, financial trouble and with the wrong people.

Speaker 3 (01:16:21):
I owe people the wrong people, and and Donnahey a
little bit like that for sure, but he had much
more pat well.

Speaker 2 (01:16:28):
So we don't know much about the gold story. That's
the gentleman's name here that was suspended by the league
for parlay bets on NFL and college games and inside
information regarding the twenty twenty six draft selections of the
team he worked for.

Speaker 3 (01:16:44):
Are's all the Cardinals, freaking gambling degenerates everywhere.

Speaker 2 (01:16:48):
They are they are There aren't a few places everywhere,
getting pretty close now, A few more things obviously two
more hours here with us. So look at what the
astros are throwing at Dean Kramer tonight. He's a major
league baseball pitcher. If you couldn't tell about that, lawyer
Dean Kramer, we'll talk about that next.

Speaker 3 (01:17:07):
The ad on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (01:17:09):
Eight SCN simulcast out there. If you're watching on camera,
both Wex and I got haircuts before the show today.

Speaker 2 (01:17:18):
You get one every day? I do, do you ever day?

Speaker 4 (01:17:21):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:17:21):
Not every day, but normally if that's the case, I'll
wear a hat because for whatever reason, my five o'clock
shadow on my head shows up on camera with these lights.

Speaker 2 (01:17:29):
Considering you and Matt share the same barber, and he
never wears a hat, doesn't go to the barber. Does
he shave more frequently than you do?

Speaker 3 (01:17:38):
Way less?

Speaker 1 (01:17:38):
Because matter of fact, this is gonna be weird. Too
much information, I don't care.

Speaker 3 (01:17:42):
Could already tell us where we're headed with the way
I said, I'll come in sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:17:46):
And because we have the same hairstyle, that's why I
noticed it immediately, because I I'd look at myself in
the mirror all the time. Oh yeah, well obviously, I
mean look at who I live with.

Speaker 3 (01:17:58):
So just spun that right on out. We're you know,
we're having a we're having a Friday.

Speaker 1 (01:18:03):
I'll look at Matt and I'll be I want to
hand him my handheld razor.

Speaker 3 (01:18:08):
That I use.

Speaker 2 (01:18:09):
Well, the funny cleaning up this entire conversation is it
was just yesterday or Wednesday of this week. Was out
there working as I usually do outside the studios during
the Matt Thomas show with Ross and Matt made his
way out to the the concourse and our building here.
He walked by it and he goes, you need a haircut.

Speaker 3 (01:18:28):
That's why you went and got it done.

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):
I was all retivated, planning on it for either yesterday
or today.

Speaker 3 (01:18:34):
It turned out it was today.

Speaker 2 (01:18:35):
But well, the reason he helped nudged me along because
apparently it must have looked awful.

Speaker 3 (01:18:38):
Well, I know it's been unkempt.

Speaker 1 (01:18:40):
The reason I vote I'm bringing this up partially is
because when I walk in every day. First of all,
of course I'm the second one to arrive to the building,
only two of us. Not even a question that I'm
going to always be later than wex anywhere.

Speaker 2 (01:18:54):
We are going to be together. Yeah, I don't have
any mat else to do. So I just come here.
You have a life, and it's.

Speaker 3 (01:18:59):
Not about that. It's that I have poor time management.

Speaker 1 (01:19:02):
And I always have the first view of Wex I
get every day is the side of his head because
of where I'm walking in and where he's sitting in
relation to that hallway when I get here. And sometimes
we'll say things to each other. Sometimes we'll just do
the nod. But I was like, oh, yeah, we's got
a haircut. I'm not noticed haircuts on people, guy, especially

(01:19:23):
other guys.

Speaker 3 (01:19:24):
Guy. Okay, got it, So there you go.

Speaker 1 (01:19:27):
Anyway, all of that is to say, we're halfway through
a Friday show and we still have not talked about
a number of things today. We didn't really get back
to kind of breaking down some of the things Steve
Sparks was talking about because we immediately got into gambling
talk with the NFL because it's a day of the week.

Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
I mean, when the NFL says somebody within an organization's
being suspended because of gambling in fractions, it's definitely a
worthwhile discussion point in the Cardinals. Hopefully it encourages others
with other organizations that might have done that and haven't
yet gotten caught.

Speaker 3 (01:19:57):
To maybe go ahead and stop. Here's the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:20:00):
Think about it, and I do you ever think about
how much is going on that we don't know? And
this goes all the time government, There's all sorts of
entities where but I'm like, man, if these are the
people we know about in pro sports.

Speaker 3 (01:20:12):
There's gotta be so.

Speaker 1 (01:20:13):
And that's why sometimes when like calls go certain ways,
I can't help it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:18):
Taking it that far as is usually where I want.
I make myself believe that's not the case.

Speaker 3 (01:20:23):
But you're suspending reality, I think.

Speaker 2 (01:20:25):
And what sports, especially this particular case, they using the
word he has confidential information, he has inside information. That's
what it's insider trading. All this sports, individual players or
members of the organization that are engaged in this that
are doing things, it's because they have inside information. It's
insider trading. It's why they have more knowledge about what

(01:20:47):
they're doing with their money in this gambling, I mean
playing the market, and so they have a higher likelihood
of cashing in. It's it's very very similar in principle.
It's very difficult to police, and you all often want
to come down on those who have committed the infractions
as hard as possible to prevent more from doing it,
because it needs to serve as a deterrent, and a

(01:21:09):
lot of times it just doesn't.

Speaker 1 (01:21:10):
No, I think that right there, and I'm talking about
a lot of areas of society, if we're being really
honest about it, is the problem because at least in
this country, the slaps on the wrist are a plenty,
and the real consequence type punishments, regardless of what you're
talking about, are just so few and far between, because

(01:21:32):
if they were, or if they weren't so few and
far between, if they were more you know, punitive, more
severe in punishment, the incentive to do this would go away.

Speaker 3 (01:21:42):
That's the whole point of a punishment.

Speaker 2 (01:21:45):
We talk about that all the time with the punishments,
baseball punishments, you know, hitting pitchers or hitting back.

Speaker 1 (01:21:50):
Go foul in the NBA, ooh five grand I make
seventy this year, seventy million.

Speaker 2 (01:21:55):
A couple things on the baseball front. So we had
talked about the air quality earlier, just as related to
last night's game in New York, the potential for the
game in Jersey well on a Sunday afternoon for the
World Cup, the Major League Baseball game that was supposed
to be played this evening between Cleveland and Pittsburgh postponed
for that very reason, citing the air quality is not

(01:22:17):
at a level they want their players out.

Speaker 3 (01:22:19):
This game was inclea scheduled for Cleveland. Good thing you
got out there when you did, exactly planning on a
split doubleheader tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (01:22:27):
So I assume they expect the air quality at one
ten tomorrow afternoon. Wins must be twelve ten our time
tomorrow afternoon will be better for their players and fans
to be out there for it.

Speaker 3 (01:22:40):
The Astros don't have any of those concerns.

Speaker 2 (01:22:42):
Even if we had poor air quality here, Daikin Park
could probably handle it with their roof closed, which it
would be the case Orioles and Astros tonight. Peter Lambert,
the post All Star Break opening day starter for the
Astros tonight, eight and five with a three to fourteen,
and every bit of those numbers says to how he

(01:23:03):
has pitched this year a bit remarkable in a bad
way that they've only won nine of his fifteen starts.
They're nine and six when Peter Lambert pitches, and his
three fourteen era they're eight and five when Tatsu emi
pitches and his era of over six. You can't love
baseball more than hearing that stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:23:25):
Or hate it it exactly. It makes no sense.

Speaker 2 (01:23:28):
They pitched for the same team, Jeremy Panna, jord On
alvareziz Okperetis, Christian Walker, Jose al Tuove.

Speaker 3 (01:23:36):
This is pretty standard now.

Speaker 2 (01:23:38):
If provided those players are healthy, those are most likely
going to be the top five in the order each
and every day. That is the case today against Kramer
Lamontway Junior, again a left handed bat they hoped would
give this team a bit of a jolt, and for
his healthy games, he had that short stint on the aisle.

Speaker 3 (01:23:55):
He has done that hit the.

Speaker 2 (01:23:56):
Grand Slam over the weekend, and he and the Astros
have him batting left. Playing left, he's sixth. Cam Smith
bats seventh. Christian Vasquez is doing the catching to night.
He bats ninth in the eighth spot in the order tonight.
Is the newest Astro who will be making his major
league debut. It's Lucas Spence. He's playing center field, another
left handed batter. Less than a month of his career

(01:24:18):
has been spent above double A, just seventeen games of
experience above double A. Those were at the Space Cowboys
the past couple of weeks been promoted from Corpus Christie
not been in the organization a tremendous amount of time
to begin with, he was their tenth rated prospect before
any of the draft picks get installed there or Jaden

(01:24:39):
Fielder gets installed there somewhere after the top thirty, so
that somebody I would say, this is like what they
did last year, was Zach Cole, And I bet you
they're hoping it works out that way.

Speaker 3 (01:24:50):
But Zach Cole came up.

Speaker 2 (01:24:52):
To the Astros last year after a promotion and absolutely
tearing the cover off the ball. Following his promotion to
Triple A, Lucas Spence has not done that. He's having
an okay time at Triple A.

Speaker 3 (01:25:06):
He's fine, as matt would say.

Speaker 2 (01:25:07):
Bryce Matthews was put on the il after hurting his
knee trying to run down a fly ball in the
Sunday game and the Christian Javier start, and so that's
where his roster spot come from comes from. And with
Santa going down on Monday, a roster spot was already available.
I'm on the pitching staff and Kaiwai Dung is taking it.
He is back with the team, probably gives them some

(01:25:28):
options on how they want to lay out the three
starters for the Marlin series Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the
six game homestand concludes with their visit three starters this
weekend Lambert, Raghetti and Brown, so Javier Dong and Imai
and however El and probably Renel Blanco are eating up

(01:25:49):
those starters innings against the Marlins.

Speaker 1 (01:25:53):
Going back to Peter Lambert and some of what Steve
Sparks had to say, I did like or I did
think it was interesting that he revealed with team said
to him, which is that we like all seven of
your pitches.

Speaker 3 (01:26:05):
Like you don't hear that very often.

Speaker 2 (01:26:07):
Very few pitchers have seven pitches, certainly not seven pitches
any team would like their pitcher to have. Some may
be more successful than others, and that's why you kind
of streamline things. But as Steve was indicating, it gives him.
It gave him tremendous confidence from the mental side of it,
but then on the literal side of it, confidence to
throw those pitches, to keep hitters off ballots, to have

(01:26:28):
that element of once I get ahead in the count,
I feel like I'm so far ahead because not only
am I in a pitcher's count, they don't know what's coming,
let alone, are they going to leave the zone for something.
They don't know what pitches are coming because his arsenal
is well, it's trustworthy enough that he his catcher and
the team has confidence in it.

Speaker 1 (01:26:47):
Yeah, that's funny about that. And I know you'll relate
to this because you're a huge video gamer. You know
you don't realize that kind of thing. I mean you could,
but a very good way to visually kind of actually
realize what you're just how intricate this is. Is if
you're playing MLB the show and you select any whatever

(01:27:08):
whoever your starter ends up being on whatever team, and
some of these guys you've got an entire wheel of
buttons to push for that kind of pitch if you're
throwing a pitch. And then there's other guys that are
pure power pitchers, and there's.

Speaker 3 (01:27:21):
Like two or three choices at most, And Billy Wagner, Yeah,
that's X, just smoke gas.

Speaker 1 (01:27:28):
That's the only choice. So do you hit X or
Y or a triangle square.

Speaker 3 (01:27:38):
As well? You can't handle it. There's different systems, different consoles,
they're all the same to me foreign language, making a
lot of people upset. Right now what they do now
it's no physical discs or oh yeah, we talked. We
managed to have a show together to talk about that.
In the last week.

Speaker 1 (01:27:52):
CEO's like, I'm going to sell about five million worth
and bail right after making this announcement.

Speaker 2 (01:27:57):
So he had the information from the inside about where
the company was headed, sold off a bunch of stuff
before that became public.

Speaker 3 (01:28:05):
Is that what you're trying to say, like what Congress
does in real life? Well, they're both in real life
Congress people.

Speaker 1 (01:28:11):
Uh huh, mostly one drunk one Grandma vodka, Nancy Pelosi
shut off.

Speaker 3 (01:28:18):
That's actually said it. Yeah, she's an insider trader. She's
like her look at her success rate, it's amazing. No,
she's a real Martha Stewart. She's a bad person and
so well, yeah, according to him, according to anybody who
with a how long is that list? Well, all depends
on who you're talking about him. How long is his
list of who are the bad people? It's exceptionally long,

(01:28:42):
per him, well, and per them. He's the only one
on it. Anxiety, I guess, So this is twenty twenty six,
not this show, though fair and balanced. No spend here.

Speaker 1 (01:28:55):
Yeah, huh, did you enjoy the last dance few years back?

Speaker 3 (01:29:00):
Did I? Ever?

Speaker 1 (01:29:04):
When the Major League Baseball season is inevitably cast aside
like yesterday's garbage and we don't get a twenty twenty
seven year, I sure hope there's something as compelling as
that was during COVID.

Speaker 3 (01:29:17):
It's gonna be a long time.

Speaker 2 (01:29:18):
If you have nothing from February to November, early November,
that's a whole baseball season. So I have zero doubt
that will be aired, That literal program will be aired
in its entirety, and you'll have you'll have basketball to.

Speaker 3 (01:29:31):
Get you through to the early to mid portions of June.

Speaker 2 (01:29:35):
Yeah, basically all of June, because you can sneak the
draft in there in free agency and say you're kind
of covered.

Speaker 3 (01:29:40):
Even it's not all games.

Speaker 1 (01:29:41):
The NFL will take care of things starting around two
weeks from right now, in a year from now, so.

Speaker 3 (01:29:46):
You're really just looking at July. No, I'm not gonna
go that far. There's game NFL games in August. There
are not games. They're preseason yeah games, those aren't games.

Speaker 2 (01:29:56):
And the players on the team tenth stringers if you're
lucky enough to go that deep.

Speaker 3 (01:30:01):
No starters.

Speaker 2 (01:30:02):
Yeah, so games in the NBA through June, games in
the NFL beginning in August. So just cover July. Just
air the last Dance in July and we're good. No
new programming needed. Well, okay, so the you've got a
minute to think about this as I talk about it.
The Last Dance was awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:30:17):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
It could have aired any time when we had tons
of sports going on.

Speaker 3 (01:30:20):
It still would have been. It's my second favorite sports documentary.

Speaker 2 (01:30:24):
So that's the question for you. There are a lot
of things that have happened in sports that have not
been taken to the documentary lab that you, being a
fan of those, would love to see. Does any story,
does any player, does any career? Does any team? Does
any event come to mind that you'd like to see?

(01:30:45):
In part over five weeks, a couple hours each week
of this documentary, which would have already been started and
prominbably finished well from the sports landscape over the last
you know, ten twenty.

Speaker 1 (01:30:56):
Years after the OJ and then the Last Dance.

Speaker 2 (01:31:02):
I still kick the OJ documentary. This is a Heisman
Trophy winning elite level NFL running back and the documentary
on OJ Simpson is about the murders.

Speaker 3 (01:31:13):
No, it's not. It's about everything.

Speaker 2 (01:31:15):
It's it doesn't exist unless he was on trial for murder.
There's no OJ doc if he's not on trial for murder. Hey,
here's what OJ did when he was in high school,
and then he went to USC. Then he played NFL
and Buffalo and San Francisco. But then as we get
to part six, he became a movie star. I mean,
there's no OJ documentary.

Speaker 3 (01:31:36):
And he retired and everybody lived.

Speaker 2 (01:31:38):
I mean, is episode eight the Nordberg years.

Speaker 1 (01:31:42):
That really deep into the series to be getting to
the naked gun films?

Speaker 3 (01:31:48):
Gosh?

Speaker 2 (01:31:48):
So, like I said, is there something that you know
would make for a great story, Yes, that maybe you've
thought about before, or somebody you know has maybe started
work on this or any it's not even close and
it is both local and of national interest.

Speaker 3 (01:32:05):
Would it be called Tiger on the Prowl?

Speaker 1 (01:32:08):
No, I've already seen the HBO documentary, and I know
way too much about his habits in the parking lot
of a waffle house.

Speaker 2 (01:32:14):
I mean, first less, I didn't need devilish and murderous reasons. Yeah,
it's the reason. I mean you could make a documentary
about Tiger Wood sports only if none of this stuff happened.

Speaker 3 (01:32:25):
No, his life is fascinating, Yes, his life is fascinating.

Speaker 2 (01:32:28):
He is, and Oj at a certain time in his
NFL life was the best running back in the league.
And Tiger's this whole sport for a portion of his professional.

Speaker 1 (01:32:38):
Only reason people cared about that sport for a long time.
So what's your doc. It's the astros cheating scandal, because
you have not only the cheating, but you have the winning.

Speaker 2 (01:32:48):
So you have and he's been on the show a
couple of times, wrote his book about the wrote his
book about some of it, and then I think it
was CNN or PBS that put together the doc Ben
right Ryder, who had written the article in twenty four fourteen.

Speaker 3 (01:33:06):
With George Bringer on the cover.

Speaker 2 (01:33:07):
About well, our twenty seventeen World Series champs will be
this team that's not winning any baseball games. So the
doc that we saw is like nothing at all what
you're talking about? Yeah, because this bat down for it right,
this has to wait, Like Tim Donnegey from today's show,
just non stop blabbering since he's been out of the

(01:33:28):
league and is never coming back. He can say all
he wants. He's not putting anything in jeopardy. No current
major League baseball players are going to do that. So
there might be a couple that you'd want to hear
from that have since retired and are not associated with
baseball and is not going to hurt them in any way.
But still, even today, the majority of people you want
to hear from about a scandal that took place somewhere

(01:33:50):
between twenty sixteen, seventeen eighteen, nineteen twenty and maybe a
little bit beyond, are at least active players, if not
actively involved in Major League Baseball. One of them is
going to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame this
go round with Carlos Beltron, Do you think he was
sitting down for this documentary yet?

Speaker 3 (01:34:06):
Well, that's he might not ever want to sit for it. Now,
that's the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:34:10):
You are not only going to want members of the
Astros team during that time period to sit down to
hear what they have to say. Even though Carlos Korea
is going to say, I already did this with Ken
Rosenthal interview, So if you don't know the facts.

Speaker 3 (01:34:23):
But he's there to sit down to give us the facts, right.
But you know who else needs to sit down for this,
people that they beat, the people on the other teams
that we're doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:34:32):
That's true, that's the same thing. That's what I'm saying.
The people that they beat were also cheating. All of them.
They beat the they beat the blue bloods of the MLB,
the Red Sox, Yankees, and Dodgers were all cheating that year.
I promise you, whether you want to believe it or not, idiots,
and I'm talking about the fans of those teams who
think that they're pure as the driven snow.

Speaker 2 (01:34:54):
Do you think twenty twenty six All Star Game MVP
is a cheater When he won the MVP of the
National League in twenty nineteen, Cody Bellinger.

Speaker 3 (01:35:07):
Of course, and also a prolific weed smoker.

Speaker 2 (01:35:11):
He as a rookie, he finished ninth in the MVP
voting in twenty twenty three. He finished tenth in the
nine other seasons of his career, and including those two,
he's finished in the top eight one time.

Speaker 3 (01:35:23):
That was the time and don't forget his awesome fielding
gaff last season proof that he is absolutely a cheater
when he's so.

Speaker 2 (01:35:33):
He was juicing to catch the throw the baseball. Yes,
to throw that he was taking.

Speaker 3 (01:35:37):
He was on the juice. He caught it to throw
the baseball. Can I get Can I give you an
audio impression of that throw? That's what it sounded like.

Speaker 2 (01:35:46):
Now, Mookie Betts has had a couple of very good
seasons since his MVP season.

Speaker 3 (01:35:51):
Didn't spike like it did in twenty eighteen.

Speaker 2 (01:35:54):
He's finished in the top of the vote many times.
A couple times before and a couple times after now
since he's come over to the Dodgers, and he was
still in twenty twenty three.

Speaker 3 (01:36:02):
That year he finished second for MVP.

Speaker 2 (01:36:04):
He put together a remarkable season nine eighty seven ops
for twenty four slug. He was one sixty nine an
ops plus. All three of those numbers very very good,
MVP worthy. All three of those numbers dwarfed by his
career best numbers when he won the MVP hitting three
forty six, he had a slug of six forty led

(01:36:29):
had ten to seventy eight ops, and his ops plus
was one eighty six.

Speaker 1 (01:36:36):
He's Gonzo in Arizona Highs. He's Gonzo in Arizona. That's
the same exact thing. The guy was juicing that year
they won the World Series and nobody cares.

Speaker 3 (01:36:44):
Here's the deal, though.

Speaker 2 (01:36:45):
So Mooki and Cody are definitely being contacted and seeing
if they have a little bit of time to offer
this documentary.

Speaker 1 (01:36:50):
While I mean, let's take it to today, you know,
present day. While you know Yankees fans are adorable because
they still that has never been said, Well.

Speaker 3 (01:36:59):
They're adorable in the you're just like, oh, bless your
hearts because they get all upset about this, but they've
never actually won anything. Meanwhile, over here, Dodgers fans employed
not only Bets, they also used to employ Joe Kelly,
and they currently employ a guy who probably should be
in prison for gambling. But the guy took the hook
for it in his what do you call him? His

(01:37:20):
translator slash bookie slash friend? Sure whatever. What about J. T.

Speaker 2 (01:37:26):
Watkins, You're gonna sit down with him, the sighted individual,
the scapegoat of the Red Sox, cheating for which is
just now, Yes, I mean, like, how did you guys
do it? Like you're gonna talk to the people that
played on the players on the Rockies. You're gonna talk
to staff members of the Brewers. You're gonna sit down
with some Indians from the time the Guardians now because they.

Speaker 3 (01:37:47):
Were about Alex Korov. Oh for sure, they managed one
team after helping the other one cheat. I mean, it's
just it's it's nauseating, slash hilarious how people want to
go with And by the way, this would be the
name of the documentary Orange Team Bad. That's what I
call it because it's it's a joke, it's tongue in
cheek and it's it's winking at the audience. Who some

(01:38:10):
of whom are going to be smart enough to realize
that's happening, and the other ones aren't. They're like, oh, yes,
let's get the astros all over again. Who was the.

Speaker 2 (01:38:18):
The Carlos Beltron relative that got embroiled knee post niece.

Speaker 3 (01:38:23):
Yeah, that's the one that John Boy made a career
out of. I mean, I used to diagram audio on
video clips. But once I called Jose Altuve a cheater
and said he was wearing a buzzer, then I became
really famous.

Speaker 2 (01:38:36):
And then you're gonna talk to the rat, right.

Speaker 1 (01:38:40):
Mike Fires has to be in this documentary or it's
not worth watching.

Speaker 3 (01:38:43):
I mean, I was the one that was making sure
the integrity of the game was.

Speaker 1 (01:38:48):
What a piece of getting a phone call. Oh, Evan's
sitting down not with me. He keeps saying he will,
and then he won't. Uh yeah, let's just set it
up and then.

Speaker 2 (01:38:59):
No, I'm gonna to suggests this maybe is not a
Major League basically almost to come on our show.

Speaker 3 (01:39:04):
Three times Major League.

Speaker 2 (01:39:05):
Baseball produced program that they would air as an alternative
to this season that is not happening. Probably needs to
come from somebody else. Let's start cracking on the production.

Speaker 1 (01:39:15):
You guys got to get these interviews knocked out because
that would absolutely get the attention of the baseball viewer
during a non season. The whole reason why I brought
this up. We didn't even get to Gary Payton's a
big fat liar this sum Sorry, this whole conversation was
about baseball. But the next conversation will be about the
glove that's next.

Speaker 4 (01:39:38):
The eight.

Speaker 2 (01:39:39):
That's two days in a row, thinking about something in
the future that we would prefer not to have to.
But the possibility that there is no baseball for twenty
twenty seven is definitely reality. CBA runs out on December one.
Negotiations really haven't produced anything constructive, nor do they normally
this far out from the actual dead line, and they

(01:40:00):
really won't do much about that deadline. They'll wait until
oh my gosh, games are in jeopardy, the seasons in jeopardy,
Spring training is in jeopardy, are money making time of
the year is in jeopardy, And then maybe they will
start moving along to the point where maybe it is
not an entire one hundred and sixty two game loss
of baseball in twenty twenty seven, but filling that time,
like filling the time when there was no sports or

(01:40:22):
much of anything during the COVID portion of our lives. Yeah,
we got to enjoy the doc the Last Dance, and
we have definitely fed off of that for the many
years that have followed. One of the greatest players in
any sport to ever play the game. We talk about
Michael Jordan all the time. Michael Jordan and the motivation
that he had. Once just sit him down and not

(01:40:43):
to mention he was in charge of the documentary, set
him down and break out the ipadch show him this video,
show him this interview, show this player talking about him,
and have him react to it, which he did many
many times. And then many players have reacted to that.
Teammates Steve Kerr, Scottie Pippen, and many many others, Grant Ku, coach,
you name it. A lot of them have had things

(01:41:04):
to say about what was seen there, both positively and negatively.
A lot of other players, specifically because it was a
lot less flattering information about them, have come to their
own defense over the years since the last Dance was shown.
One such player a little bit more recently that has
done that is Gary Payton, the Glove Seattle Sonics star

(01:41:27):
player and Laker briefly and NBA all theimer one of
the best players the league has seen, certainly as a
two way player. I think people forget how good he
was offensively because they're so focused on his reputation for
being so good defensively. And he definitely helped make the
fantastic career and highlight reel for teammates, most specifically Sean Kemp.

(01:41:48):
But when part of Gary Payton's career takes he and
the Seattle Sonics to the NBA Finals against Michael Jordan
and the Chicago Bulls, it definitely makes its way into
the document and a part of it where Gary describes
his ability to slow down Michael Jordan, or maybe more
specifically give him problems. Of course, that's what they're going

(01:42:11):
to show to Mike at his request as the creator
and end all be all final cut room decisions.

Speaker 3 (01:42:18):
Michael Jordan.

Speaker 2 (01:42:18):
Yeah, Yeah, showed me that. I got a great reaction
to that. This was both Michael's final reaction to seeing
Gary Payton talking about slowing him down in the finals,
and immediately into Gary Peyton reacting to Michael Jordan's reaction
about how he did or did not stop him in
the finals. This is Michael Jordan laughing. By the way,

(01:42:39):
as we continue.

Speaker 5 (01:42:43):
A little bit, the glove. I had no problem with
the glove. I had no problem with Gary Bayden. I
had a lot of the things on my mind.

Speaker 3 (01:42:57):
Is his documentary. You can say whatever you want to.

Speaker 4 (01:43:00):
But as we look at the numbers and that he
was action thirty and then he started action twenty three.
So if he had no problems with me, I surely
didn't have no problems with him because he couldn't guard.

Speaker 3 (01:43:10):
Me as well.

Speaker 10 (01:43:11):
So I like it.

Speaker 3 (01:43:12):
We're competitive.

Speaker 4 (01:43:13):
And he said what he said, that was his documentary
and that that's good.

Speaker 3 (01:43:17):
Fine, whateveryone.

Speaker 4 (01:43:18):
I wouldn't even respect him if he didn't say nothing
less than that. I'm gonna say the same thing. I'm
not gonna laugh because everybody know the upcome of that.
And it was funny because if you look at the numbers,
it did change after game three, So around no problems
with that.

Speaker 2 (01:43:32):
I'll go to the numbers because you're a numbers guy.
I can't do it without it. Yeah, but usually you
don't need to do. You recall the scenario that he's
talking about six game series NBA Finals. I suppose he's
also referencing, just to I'm sure it's accurate that he
became more of the defensive responsibility of Gary Payton once
they reached the game the fourth game of that series

(01:43:55):
between those two teams, three games four, three games after
when you're hearing him talking about it and recollecting it yourself,
sound right to you, Then he did slow them down.

Speaker 3 (01:44:05):
I watched that series.

Speaker 1 (01:44:07):
I first and foremost forget primary defenders on individual matchups.

Speaker 2 (01:44:12):
The fact that that, remember, well you're saying that, and
it makes me laugh because you're I feel like you're
about to say primary defenders. The Sonics, the team that
cheated and was playing a that's a very good point.

Speaker 1 (01:44:23):
But the other aspect of that, I'm actually going to
give them a compliment, and it pains me because if
you recall, they're the ones who ended the Rockets rain
earlier that spring when they swept them in the second round.
The latest defeat in the playoffs at the hands of
the Sonics, who always seem to have the Rocket's number.

Speaker 3 (01:44:41):
But I mean, that's the seventy two win Bulls.

Speaker 1 (01:44:44):
That's the standard as far as the six titles, even
though I think a lot of people probably look at
the second or third championship teams is maybe better.

Speaker 3 (01:44:52):
Seventy two win.

Speaker 1 (01:44:53):
Bowls and you beat them twice in that seven game series.
That's something too, because nobody beat them that year in
the regular season. Only ten teams did. So let's get
to the numbers. First three games of the series, Michael
Jordan averaged he shot forty six percent from the field,

(01:45:14):
and he averaged thirty one points per game, and they
went three And oh, I think you just said the
Sonics won two games in that series, right, both of
them in the games that the glove is referring to
when he slowed him down. So he went from thirty
one points per game on forty six percent shooting and
three and oh to twenty three point seven points per

(01:45:36):
game on thirty six point seven percent shooting, and they
went one and two, winning game six after losing games
for him and five. Gary Payton has always maintained that
if they had just done that at the start of
the series, maybe we'd have a different outcome.

Speaker 3 (01:45:50):
He says, maybe he never said it would. It's not
like Robert Rory, Oh, we would have beaten the bulls, Like,
what's what is the glove? A noted trash talker doing?

Speaker 2 (01:45:59):
Being Soon Hooper logical and respectful but smart, okay and
right and with what he just said islamatory and sendiary commentary.

Speaker 1 (01:46:11):
But here's the thing if and I think you can
say what you want about him personally, but I think
everybody pretty much would agree, at least who played for
or against him, that George carl was one of the
better coaches in the league at this time. I know
he's said some things and done some things that can
cloud all that, but he had what was his nickname again,

(01:46:31):
the glove, So you had the glove on your roster.
Who's Defensive Player of the Year candidate perennial and you
didn't start him on the greatest player of all time
at the beginning of the series. And I'm supposed to
feel sorry for anybody. Sorry, can't do it.

Speaker 2 (01:46:46):
Yeah, what he said I think is accurate. I do
think he recognizes dude, it's Michael Jordan, and we know
Michael Jordan now is better than we ever did after
all these years and everything he said and things about
his own career. Yeah, that's pretty rare. I think Gary's right.
I did have trouble with him. It was hard for
me to score against him. I definitely was not the
player I wanted to be on the nights he guarded

(01:47:07):
me in a million years. He's not gonna say that,
you know, Gardy recognizes that, but he turned it and said,
I mean he took shots at Michael's defensive ability. Michael's
a Perennial All Defensive Team player.

Speaker 3 (01:47:21):
As was Scottie. But here's the thing. It's funny you mentioned.

Speaker 1 (01:47:25):
That he's not gonna give that kind of credit talking
about mj.

Speaker 3 (01:47:28):
There's really only one guy.

Speaker 1 (01:47:30):
He's ever given that kind of credit to, like bona fide.
You cannot sugarcoat this. He is giving this guy credit,
and it's kind of out of character for this guy
who doesn't give credit to anybody, including his high school
basketball coach who he brought to the Hall of Fame
speech so he could insult him for cutting him. He
used to talk with like downs reverence about Hakim Elijuan.

Speaker 2 (01:47:54):
Gary Payton also did average more points per game in
the final three games of that series by a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:48:00):
He's amazing considering he was exerting all that effort on
the other end of the floor stopping mj It.

Speaker 2 (01:48:04):
Never not be fun, at least for the two of us,
and hopefully you guys are listening out there as well,
to talk about some of the great memories of the
that career, that era, and this again is right around
the era of the greatness of the Rockets.

Speaker 3 (01:48:16):
I just love the way he says his name with
such ill repute. The glove. I had no problem with
the glove.

Speaker 2 (01:48:21):
I just love this part. Mike Jordan, great gift, great stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:48:29):
Thanks love.

Speaker 1 (01:48:36):
You guys should really be aware of something another peak
behind the curtain and the show, so we have a
rundown of what we plan on talking about, or at
least it's just a loose it's just something that is
there that if we want to, we talk about it,
and if we go off the beaten path that never happens,
we can do that too. Well wex is wex. He

(01:49:01):
likes to file it all away. I'm one thousand percent
certain that somewhere in the depths of his laptop he
has a record of every show we've ever done in
seven years, with like all of the segments and what
we talked about.

Speaker 2 (01:49:15):
Well, hey, management just told us we have some really
a lot of people firing up the app on Monday,
May seventh at four o'clock. I'll know what we were
talking about. Unbelievab right, what reason? I don't know. No,
he's not gonna show anybody.

Speaker 1 (01:49:31):
And uh So, usually what he does is he makes
sure that we whatever we end up talking about, whether
it's scheduled or otherwise, is written. And for the four
and four seventeen segments, which happened the first two segments
of this hour, he has approximately twenty bazillion, thy eleventy
billion question marks in for those.

Speaker 2 (01:49:52):
We had written in there. I'm fairly certain we did
not address. So I've moved those items to elsewhere in
the show and noted that we talked about him here
or there sound bites we might like to play, like
fifty two seconds of Michael Jordan laughing and Gary Payton
taking him to task or Lebron watch. Thus, I need
to have the Lebron imaging ready. That's all in there,

(01:50:13):
and then if I want to go back and say, man,
that was really really good content. We really had a
good conversation. They had a great call. It was really
good conversation, a little back and forth between us. Ac
was making great points and I was being me and
people were listening to that, and I think they might
have enjoyed that. So maybe I'll just man, I'll go

(01:50:33):
back and it we'll have we'll get that pulled and
we'll post it on social media and we'll do this,
and then I will know exactly where to go if
I don't immediately think about it, which I wish I
did better job of doing immediately when it happens. We
got people that don't work here with us and do
a fantastic job of making a lot of that social
media happen and it helps them.

Speaker 3 (01:50:51):
Brett who went on vacation forever, Well, it helps them. Hey,
you gotta be gone three weeks. You need three months.

Speaker 2 (01:50:57):
I tell them not three hours after after the segment,
but rather three minutes after the segment. And I'm not
doing a very good job of that. So that's why
the question marks are there. I was hoping that somebody
could recall what exactly we were talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:51:10):
And as usual, I took something that should be kept
off the air and brought it onto the air.

Speaker 2 (01:51:14):
And we're at ten till five, So we have five segments,
including this one.

Speaker 3 (01:51:18):
Remaining one will be Chandler one.

Speaker 2 (01:51:20):
That's five o'clock we've got in case you missed it
coming up at five thirty. We will give tickets away
in the five forty five segment, as we do each
and every day, four pack of tickets to Hot Wheels,
Monster Trucks Live, or a pair of tickets to go
see the Big Three. So there are only a few
things left for us to get to today. If the
rundown is applicable to what we want to talk about

(01:51:40):
worst and best free agent NBA deals this offseason, Apparently
Jeff Passon did not take my advice to stop thinking,
did not take my advice that I gave to everybody yesterday. Yes,
didn't take my advice to stop thinking about the Major
League Baseball walkout in twenty twenty seven, because he is
writing articles about that.

Speaker 3 (01:51:59):
We're going to talk about that.

Speaker 2 (01:52:01):
But I also added to that because Ac and I
were talking about it yesterday and I'm like, why are
you thinking about this? We're doing a local sports talk
show here. People don't want to hear how much you
hate what's going on right now. There's four days of
no baseball games with your astros versus Sonny, and so
I added to the rundown after it says Jeff Passen
didn't take Wex's advice to stop thinking about the Major
League Baseball lockout coming up in twenty twenty seven dash

(01:52:23):
while doing his local sports talk radio show, which he.

Speaker 3 (01:52:25):
Does not have.

Speaker 2 (01:52:26):
Then we're gonna talk to chandeler Rome. We still have
installment number three of ten on the Texans. We got
to eight more shows until they have had training camp
practice number one. So one element of what needs to
be watched and then discussed and dissected at nauseum from
training camp. We'll get to that, and that's what we

(01:52:46):
have left for you here to here.

Speaker 3 (01:52:47):
There's one other thing. We're going to talk about. A
guy who lost his arm being a scumbag. Matt Miller
is kind of a scumbag. Comma, no question mark, And
there's a link to an article he is being investigated.
We have not.

Speaker 2 (01:53:01):
I have not brought that up, not during your absence,
and not in the days that you you're really lucky.

Speaker 1 (01:53:06):
You should you you being I'm talking literally Wexler and
everybody here that's in the Sports Talk seven to ninety
fantasy football league, which apparently was.

Speaker 3 (01:53:15):
Just activated again today.

Speaker 1 (01:53:17):
Here we go, yeah, that we don't have Matt Miller
as our commissioner because he apparently likes to steal the
entry fees and not pay out winnings.

Speaker 3 (01:53:29):
And Ross is the current commission I think he does
a pretty good job of who won the league last year?
I don't remember right him. It wasn't us, I'll tell
you that much. Neither one of us did.

Speaker 2 (01:53:40):
No, he has come under fire because after he had
his accident. I don't know why that kind of go Ross, Matt, Yes,
mister Miller, who covers the draft and has for years.

Speaker 3 (01:53:50):
Ross has both of his arms and pays out winnings.

Speaker 2 (01:53:52):
And didn't drive into an oncoming semi. I mean, have
you seen the video? Yeah, it's it's very unfor I'm
glad there was no loss of life, but he obviously
was hurt very, very badly and has had surgeries, and
we'll have surgeries on the way.

Speaker 3 (01:54:08):
But yes, at the end.

Speaker 2 (01:54:09):
Of the show, we will address the fact that he's
being investigated. And I did actually move one other item
that is right below that in the final segment look
over some of the umpiring work that's been done leading
into the second part of the baseball season. The bad
umpiring that's been done. Also never talked about the seven
umpires who are accepting retirement after this season. Means several

(01:54:33):
of the names you would want to be on that list.
Zebe Buckner, He's on the list. Ron Kolpa also on No,
not on the list. I'm sorry, oh man, what about
jin Paywall. I don't think a rookie umpire is accepting
her buyout package for retirement, but she should.

Speaker 3 (01:54:50):
She's just like every other bad umpire except for one thing. Yes,
you're not allowed to say it. No, I mean she's
a bad umpire. See how easy that was.

Speaker 2 (01:55:01):
We have data on this, I know, but we're not
talking for you, Like I don't know if she's as
bad everywhere else. I really don't have much data on
her worship.

Speaker 3 (01:55:11):
That starter. I can't help myself again the semantic.

Speaker 2 (01:55:13):
We keep saying bad umpires every time I said, I
pretty much mean calling balls and strikes. Yeah, Now I'm
not sure if she's also bad at determining whether they
bad or reached first base on the run first before
the throw got there, because Angel Rnandos was equally bad
on the base paths as he was calling balls and strikes.
Many umpires aren't. Most umpires are unbelievably good, and that's

(01:55:35):
why it's so difficult to get calls over turned on
the other on the three pillows, because usually they're correct.
But elsewhere and behind home plate, that's where we have
the most angst. And in her brief time three thousand
plus pitches behind home plate, she does not rate particularly
well in terms of accuracy. She's in the bottom five
of the ninety one umpires. That's really bad. It's really bad.

(01:55:58):
But several of the umpires, and that tiny group of
four or four but worse than her, or four better
than her, are among the group that are walking away.

Speaker 3 (01:56:05):
Las Ds is one of them. Cool Brian o'norra les
Arksdale they're all definitely retiring after this year. Accepting buyouts
exist there last year.

Speaker 1 (01:56:14):
I know they know that next season's not happening too.
See what I did, I brought.

Speaker 3 (01:56:19):
It full circle and interesting thought.

Speaker 1 (01:56:21):
I mean, it's a good time to take a buyout
if you're already old and suck and not in that order, right.

Speaker 2 (01:56:26):
And we've brought this up a couple of times on CB.
He was hurt at the beginning of the year. He
has two games, barely been out there this season.

Speaker 3 (01:56:34):
What's the injury. He hasn't had a concussion. Oh, that's right.
I forgot. He's still out because of that. Man, that's
a long protocol. It might be that.

Speaker 2 (01:56:42):
I hope it's not, but there might also with so
accepting a buyout and us having more replacement umpires or
Jen Powell level umpires to replace you with, maybe it's
it's best that you don't return.

Speaker 3 (01:56:53):
But I don't. I don't know that.

Speaker 1 (01:56:56):
It's Actually I had not been aware that he had
only done two games. I knew he had gotten hurt
because we talked two games behind the plate. Yeah, that's
what I mean. He he because that happened relatively early
on in the season.

Speaker 3 (01:57:09):
Did it not. Yes, very early, very early, maybe even March.
But he's been awful for a long long time.

Speaker 2 (01:57:17):
At calling balls and strikes. You brought up the name
ron Culpa with the retirement of CB. The next worst
umpire calling balls and strikes is ron Culpa. But he'll
be back in twenty twenty, whatever next season is.

Speaker 3 (01:57:34):
I thought he was on the Oh you said he's
not on the list. That's right. That's unfortunate for everybody involved,
including him.

Speaker 2 (01:57:39):
Hopefully not a huge concern tonight.

Speaker 3 (01:57:41):
Why would you want to go out there and embarrass
yourself more.

Speaker 2 (01:57:43):
But he does appear for Pete and Dean the pitchers
tonight over at dyke And Park. We'll have baseball beginning
for a few teams in a little bit for the
Astros at seven o'clock over at dyke In Park the
first of their six game homestand to begin the post
All Star Break portion of the schedule. And in light
of that, we will open the five o'clock hour with

(01:58:04):
a discussion about the Astros, Major League Baseball, the trade deadline.
Lance mccullors Junior with Chandler Rome of the Athletic That
is next.

Speaker 8 (01:58:13):
The eighty.

Speaker 3 (01:58:15):
It's a five o'clock hour on a Friday, which means
for most weeks during baseball season.

Speaker 1 (01:58:20):
Chandler Roome of the Athletic joins us. I think we
have Chandler Rome back here on the phone. Apologize for
the technical issues, Chandler, but yeah, as you were talking
about both the pitching and then look, Jordan Alvarez, I
feel like every single time we talk to you, it's
you know, the superlatives are endless and there's really nothing

(01:58:41):
else you can say. But he actually acquitted himself nicely
in the All Star Game. On top of that, Wex
was mentioning earlier in the show there he is the
clear cut leader in the clubhouse, not only for MVP votes,
I would think, but the triple crown is absolutely a reality.

Speaker 5 (01:58:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (01:58:59):
I saw Welex's tweet that Yandi Diaz went oh for
four today, so now they're tied in batting average. He
already led the American League at home runs and RBIs
if he wins a triple Crown, I think it's it's
state accomplete. He's gonna win the al MVP, right, Like,
there's only been sixteen other guys in history that I've
ever won a triple Crown and no one's done it
since Miguel Cabrera in twenty twelve. If he wins a

(01:59:21):
triple crown, he's the MVP hands down. But yeah, he's
just I mean, you run out of adjectives, you run
out of superlatives to describe what you're watching him do. It's,
without a doubt, one of the best seasons in franchise history,
and it's not even close.

Speaker 2 (01:59:39):
I'm not sure what the numbers will end up being,
but all those things are certainly true. They'll matter more
if what happens around him in the lineup comes through.
We know what the top four, probably five almost every
single day will be, but it's really after those top
four do you get a feeling for what we might
see from the rest of this group. Is there the
likelihood or do you feel any better about you know
how two the rest of the season. He clearly had

(02:00:02):
his home run bat with him on this last road trip,
but overall it's been the same cam Smith's peripherals and
I've pointed him out a few times. Bat speed, elite,
hard hit percentage way up. His strikeout numbers are still down.
There are a lot of reasons to see what progress
has been made, but the production, the actual concrete results
aren't there. And then anybody else you want to suggest,

(02:00:23):
anybody else, they should feel like something's coming from them
over the final sixty plus the obvious.

Speaker 3 (02:00:29):
How about Lucas Spence. Yeah, they they hope.

Speaker 13 (02:00:33):
And I don't know if I mentioned this on the
air with you guys a couple weeks ago when they
promoted Lucas Spence to triple A, but they kind of
want him to be the Zach Dezenzo of this year,
to kind of be the Zach Cole of this year
as well, guys that I mean, he's been their best
hitter in the minor leagues for the last two months
and they're just hoping and Joe spot us at it today.
They need him to provide a spark. They just need

(02:00:55):
to come up here. He's fast as hell, he can
run balls now in center field. The bad is not
ready yet, probably, but look they're riding the hot hand
and they don't really have any other options. I thought
it was quite the indictment on the off season on
the roster construction that when Bryce Matthews goes on the IL,
it's Lucas Spence coming up instead of Joey Loperfido, who

(02:01:19):
is the only major league outfielder acquire this offseason. It's
Lucas Spence coming up over Jake Myers. It's a pretty
telling indictment of where they are and just kind of
really accentuates that they don't have time to be patient.
They don't have time to see if guys can play
and work it out. Like they've seen what they've got
to see from those guys and it's not going to happen.
So they're trying anything they can right now before they

(02:01:41):
maybe go to the trade deadline and get someone here externally.

Speaker 1 (02:01:44):
Is there any reason though, and I say this because
it's just I just don't see that they have the
at least minor league prospects that you would even if
you wanted to make a deal. I don't know if
you want to do it that way. So my question
would be, you know, is is there going to be
a It's not a seismic move, but you're pretty confident

(02:02:08):
they'll make a move, right.

Speaker 13 (02:02:11):
I feel like unless they just completely fall on their
face out of the out of the All Star break
and fall way out of it, I feel like they're yes,
they're going to you know, Look, it seems like we
say this every year, right, like they don't have the prospects,
they don't have this and that to do a big move.
But Jim Crane has made his name as one of
the most aggressive owners at every trade deadline, and somehow

(02:02:33):
they have found a way to reel in a big
name every year. I don't know if that's possible this year.
It doesn't seem to me that it's possible, But don't
I wouldn't rule it out because he's he's the guy
that he's made his name as the most aggressive owner
at every trade deadline. But what are they gonna have
to do? I think the most straightforward way to do this.

(02:02:53):
They don't have to be one of two things. They
even have to trade off of their major league roster
to another contender. Do like a buyer for buyer trade,
because there's going to be so few sellers that it's
a seller's market, and I'm not sure that they can
just go straight to the sellers because the sellers are
gonna want prospects and the ashers don't have prospects. So
maybe a buyer for buyer kind of trade like that,

(02:03:14):
or they're gonna have to take on a bad contract
they're gonna have to take on the rest of they're
going to They are going to have to have salary
dumped on them, as opposed to dumping salary on someone
else like they did with Lance mccullors, like they did
with Hayesus Sanchez. So now getting part of Lance's money
off the payroll will help them be able to take

(02:03:35):
on maybe a bigger contract from another team than doesn't
want to pay it anymore.

Speaker 2 (02:03:39):
A Lance mccullor's junior, as you brought up, has made
his way to Milwaukee, has met with media there. Obviously,
he's met with his team and his manager Pat Murphy,
who said today he'll pitch out of the bullpen to
begin his Brewer's tenure, something that he indicated he was
willing to do here in Houston. Just tell us a
little bit about how kind of the week unfolded, I
guess Monday through the trade and how it all happened

(02:04:01):
Crane and Dana and Lance's involvement in it all, and
ultimately the situation they're in now is he will in
fact pitch for another team during his major league baseball career,
something that I don't think he envisioned ever happening.

Speaker 13 (02:04:14):
Yeah, this goes back a while, and as I reported
at the Athletic, he was in one of the packages
that the Astros would have sent to the Cardinals for
Nolan Arnatto last year. They have been trying to trade
him for a good while, and I think just as
the games ticked off and as the contract became a
little more palatable to take on, I think there were

(02:04:34):
more interesting teams. The Brewers are desperate. The Brewers are
desperate for it. Sounds like Brandon Woodruff is going to
be out for a very long time. Jacob Mizarowski has
some arm fatigue, They've got other guys that are injured.
They needed bodies, they needed depth, and the Milwaukee Brewers,
of all teams, were willing to absorb a little bit
of salary, which you never hear so. But I think

(02:04:57):
it was a noble way for them to end Lance's
tenure here because I think it was going to end
here pretty soon. Whether it would have come in the
form of a DFA, whether it would have come in
the form of a release, I think that's kind of
an inglorious way to end what was a good tenure
in Houston and I know the last four years have
not gone well. I understand that, but just it was.

(02:05:21):
He will go down as an indelible face of this era.
His fingerprints are all over this. They do not win
the twenty seventeen World Series without him, They do not
win the twenty twenty two Alds without him pitching as
well as he did in Seattle. So a very fine
career for Lance in Houston that I give credit to
all parties that they found a way for this to

(02:05:43):
end amicably and with everyone leaving on good terms.

Speaker 1 (02:05:47):
It's actually interesting to think about, you know him in
another uniform, because he is such a he seems like
such a lifer.

Speaker 3 (02:05:53):
But if there's been no.

Speaker 13 (02:05:56):
And ac he is a lifer. I mean he told
me on he told me on Wednesday, like him and
care are going to live here forever, like they're not
selling their house, Like they're coming back here, like he loves.
And I want to make that point too, that like
that's not normal, Like you don't see a lot of
professional athletes really embrace the city that they play in
as much as Lance does. Andy Houston's been spoiled a

(02:06:16):
little bit by how two days like that, Like you've
seen guys. But that's not that's not real. That's not common, right,
Like how many Texans like throw up the hs except
for cow Like Like is KD gonna like say he
loves Houston and Houston so like, no, Like, that's not
what most professional athletes do. I think that's rare. I

(02:06:37):
think that something needs to be appreciated.

Speaker 3 (02:06:39):
Yeah. Plus, Houston women aren't bougie enough for CJ. Stroud.

Speaker 2 (02:06:42):
No easy there now. Andre Johnson is an example of
last year colors.

Speaker 1 (02:06:48):
That is true because he is a Miami guy and
he has completely adopted Houston.

Speaker 3 (02:06:53):
So I will give you that for sure.

Speaker 13 (02:06:55):
Like, doesn't JJ Watt. Doesn't JJ Watt just hang out
in Wisconsin.

Speaker 2 (02:06:58):
Though he's spent there's a lot of time in several places.
Arizona's one of them, Wisconsin is another. And occasionally he
drops by Utah.

Speaker 3 (02:07:05):
Yeah, he goes to real Salt Lake, which you better
recognize his wifey.

Speaker 13 (02:07:09):
Oh, I read that thing. I was like, Oh, who
got some important turn got fired?

Speaker 2 (02:07:16):
Do you have anything else for our listeners? Since it
was All Star week and you know we talked to
you last Friday, it's been a week. Anything just our
listeners might be interested it could be any subject.

Speaker 13 (02:07:26):
Do you like the Derby?

Speaker 3 (02:07:28):
Yeah? Did you like the new format of the Derby?

Speaker 13 (02:07:32):
I prefer the time limit. I prefer that because I
think that's cooler. But I think the way it transfired,
like it could not have ended better. And I think
it was good for baseball that Jordan Walker won it,
that it was a different face, that it was like, Look,
if Kyle Schwerverer would have wont it would have been great.
Like he wins it in Philly, it would have been awesome.
But like, I think it's good for baseball that there

(02:07:52):
is a fresh face, a new face, energetic, great. Probably
his parents were great, His grandparents were great. Like, I
really enjoyed that, and I thought that was good for baseball,
and that was good for baseball that ord and Alvarez
went up there and got a single off a lefty.

Speaker 3 (02:08:05):
Well, I was just happy. I was just happy that
Kyle Schwarber didn't bunt.

Speaker 2 (02:08:10):
Now, I want to add something to a lot of
what you said, just specifically to Walker. There's eight guys
that are competing and there were several fresh new faces.
Caglione could have been in a similar situation working with whomever.
That's throwing their pitches. But Walker is a star in
Saint Louis. He was supposed to be a star immediately
after he got to the majors and wasn't last year,

(02:08:32):
and it's completely turned it around. And I think the
fact that he's winning the award and then he's sitting
down on set with Barry Bonds and Albert Poohols and
Anthony Rizzo. But these guys were really good with him.
You brought up the family, the Walker family, his mom
and his grandmother's dad. That's what That's how you build
your sport. You have more people for fans to know

(02:08:55):
and know about than just guy who comes to town
every once in a while or maybe you see him
on TV here. It helps grow your sport when you
have things like that happen and you put it on display.
And I thought handle it very well. Happened to be
a first go round for the streaming service that did it.
But I don't know if everybody else agrees. I thought
it was all fantastic.

Speaker 13 (02:09:14):
Yeah, And I don't want to compare the two directly,
but Jordan Walker is proof that player development is not linear, right,
like you mentioned it, WEX like first round pick has
every tool in the world. Was supposed to be like
the next face of the Cardinals, and he really struggled
for three years, like really struggled get optioned just was
they were labeling him a bus But it takes a

(02:09:35):
while sometimes, And you know, when I look at you
mentioned Cam Smith earlier, like I don't want to compare
those two guys directly, but it just goes to show
you that player development's not linear, and it takes it
takes time sometimes, and I think Jordan Walker is a
great example of that. And I think he's someone that
I think a lot of fans can look at him
and see a player on their team and put him

(02:09:57):
from their perspective.

Speaker 3 (02:09:58):
If you see what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (02:09:59):
Jordan Walker first overall pick in his draft handful of
years ago and camp Smith was fourteenth. Last year, camp
Smith's ops plus was eighty seven, which isn't good, and
Jordan Walker's was sixty six. And this year Jordan Walker
is every bit the All Star he was selected as
there's one player in the major leagues with more RBI

(02:10:19):
than you ared on Alvarez, it's Jordan Walker. I'm glad
you brought that up the Derby. I thought was very entertaining.
We'll see if it plays out as entertaining under these
rules if they remain unchanged next year.

Speaker 3 (02:10:30):
An extended visit with the.

Speaker 1 (02:10:32):
Chandler Rome of the Athletic for stopping on by we.

Speaker 3 (02:10:36):
Ran out of time.

Speaker 1 (02:10:37):
I wanted to ask him, Mike, if you would be
enjoying the Last Dance again next summer when he's not
covering baseball.

Speaker 2 (02:10:42):
Yeah, I'm glad there's compelling Astro's conversation to continue to
have even though they're forty seven and forty one taking
on a forty six and forty one fifty one forty
seven and fifty one. I'm taking on a forty six
and fifty one team tonight because this the last year
was like this, and a little bit of Joe spot

(02:11:02):
his first year was kind of like this, But all
these other Golden Era seasons of Astros baseball really weren't
like this at all.

Speaker 1 (02:11:09):
Well, they were way further behind the eight ball last
year than they were this year.

Speaker 2 (02:11:12):
Ever, they were twelve and twenty four last year in
what I considered in the worst spot they were in.
Still thirty six games into the season, they were still
twelve games under. They've never and that awful of the spot.
I go back to when they were six and eleven.
They were twenty and thirty one, which is close to
twelve games under. But that's I'm looking forward to them
finishing their one hundred and second game so I can

(02:11:34):
point out how much different they are. First fifty one
they went twenty and thirty one. Well, they've already won
twenty seven times since then, and they haven't even played
off fifty one of the second set of fifty one games,
and there are three sets of fifty one games and
then some over the course of a season. If they
repeat this one that they're currently in, they're probably going

(02:11:55):
to win the division.

Speaker 3 (02:11:55):
Yeah, and I think that's what's going to happen.

Speaker 2 (02:11:57):
And maybe in all of those fifty one games. Unlike
either of the first two sets, Josh Hater's healthy for
all of them, Hunter Brown's healthy for all of them.
Jeremy Panya could be healthy for all of them. Clearly,
any other scenario could also play out, but we already
know for the first two sets of fifty one none
of those things were true.

Speaker 1 (02:12:16):
Well, and hopefully the other guy, who we will not
mention because we're not putting out in the universe will
stay healthy for all of them.

Speaker 2 (02:12:22):
Yeah, there are some Astros season numbers that should also
go by the wayside. There's never been a fifty home
run hitter in Astro's history.

Speaker 3 (02:12:29):
That's crazy to me.

Speaker 2 (02:12:30):
And Bagwell's number since he just hit home run number
two hundred for his career during this last road trip,
they don't have any more trips to Arlington, so he's
going to hold at nineteen home runs at globelpe Field
for a little while.

Speaker 1 (02:12:43):
Still third best, as the graphic this season put up.

Speaker 2 (02:12:49):
Yeah, he's hit nineteen home runs there among visiting players,
that's clearly number one. Right behind him at eleven is
Jose hal Tooth. Yeah, well does that Okay? I always
forget this. Do they count postseason in these numbers? They
usually don't, but I couldn't say for certain that they
aren't in this case.

Speaker 1 (02:13:07):
Which is stupid to me because those are much harder
to hit, and he hit you think so ginormous one. Look,
we were there, that series was freaking over. He hits
a three run bomb and the play you could hear that.
It was that sound. It's the same sound you heard
here when Pooh Hooles hit the home run. It's this
very distinct Actually it wasn't as distinct because half those

(02:13:30):
fans were Astros fans losing their minds. But like they
he took the air out of that building. You had
two games coming home with a three to two lead
after that, and you just it ran down your leg.

Speaker 2 (02:13:44):
Twenty runs allowed in those final two games, with Fromber
and Javier making the starts in those two games.

Speaker 3 (02:13:51):
Your two arguably best pitchers from the year prior.

Speaker 2 (02:13:54):
I was looking up Lance's postseason numbers quite obviously this
week is postseason. I believe he's three forty seven all time,
which is excellent. It's a little bit better than justin
Verlanders postseason.

Speaker 6 (02:14:07):
He ra.

Speaker 2 (02:14:09):
Not quite as good as Christian Javier's career postseason ra
but a lot of Christian's early years were very, very good,
and they've shifted the other way. Don't have word on
exactly when he will get the ball next, but it'll
be after additional rest. He pitched last Sunday, so he's
not pitching again unless he's in the bullpen, which he's
not until Monday of next week. By the way, Hayden
was Nesky is making his fourth rehab start tonight for

(02:14:32):
the Space Cowboys. He started with the an FCL game
Game of Corpus, then a game with sugar Land, and
now his second start with sugar Land, but fourth overall.
He might need another start. He might not, but he's
definitely not getting more than two so tonight and maybe
one more. And Renel Blanco just made his on Sunday. Yeah,

(02:14:52):
Renel Blanco's he's not. My guess is his next pitch
will be as an astro. And you'd asked about Bennis Susa,
a handler kind of laid out how much work he's
been able to get. There may be another appearance, maybe two.
If not, he's probably during this homestand a possibility to
join the team. And I think his social media post
indicated that their wedding is soon. I don't think they

(02:15:16):
just got engaged. Okay, he's when you post what he
posted and there's no because it's a copost with Erica. Yeah,
there's no picture of her holding the ring of him
on bended me, but more about it's coming next and
the caption reads next stop the altar and there's other
pictures in their.

Speaker 3 (02:15:37):
Engagement photos something like that.

Speaker 1 (02:15:39):
I did get a response after the low Perfido News
from one Brooklyn.

Speaker 3 (02:15:45):
She wasn't aware of that. She was well, of course not.

Speaker 1 (02:15:47):
She was like, no boo, because that's how twenty year
olds talk.

Speaker 2 (02:15:52):
Apparently, Yes, Joey Loperfdo is engaged and still with the
Space Cowboys.

Speaker 3 (02:15:58):
Off the market pointed out for other women.

Speaker 1 (02:16:02):
He might be on the market here in about a
couple of weeks. He's been traded once by this organization.

Speaker 2 (02:16:06):
Yep, and then they traded to get him back. Got them,
you say, Kakuchi cost them Jesus Sanchez.

Speaker 3 (02:16:13):
We'll see what his future holds.

Speaker 2 (02:16:14):
Our future holds in case you missed it, and an
opportunity when tickets that I mentioned a couple of times,
will give away the tickets in the final segment.

Speaker 3 (02:16:20):
Well, in case you missed it, next.

Speaker 10 (02:16:25):
The eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (02:16:29):
Among the things still coming your way over the next
to twenty five minutes before we gets you into the
Astros on deck show tickets to give away in the
final hour in case you missed it is obviously right here,
and we will pay off on that next installment of
the ten on the Texans.

Speaker 3 (02:16:44):
We'll do that in the final segment of the show.

Speaker 2 (02:16:46):
One more item worthy of my eyeballs at Texans training camp,
which begins Wednesday, July twenty ninth. The time now for
in case you missed it, what do we have today?

Speaker 10 (02:16:56):
Josh, Oh, we've got a clever headline here, beer say
for the World Cup hopping in host cities, That is correct,
FIFA World Cup they said it's been a bonanza of
beer sales in the US. If you've probably seen reports
beer sales, alcohol sales kind of down in general, but
with bars in Boston, they've been reporting that they had
an emergency that had to do extra deliveries just to

(02:17:18):
keep the taps running. Fans down to total of two
hundred and ninety thousand stadium beers during the six matches
in Philly. Despite some sticker shock, people were still buying
lots of alcohol. They extended it beyond host cities. Actually,
if you look across the totality of the number, sales
were up four percent nationally during this time.

Speaker 2 (02:17:39):
Well, we know for a fact, and that we actually
were having the conversation with somebody together the fan festival
here in Houston, the FIFA Fan Festival here in Houston
had experienced very similar output intake desire for the SuDS
over at the festival, and that replacements need to be made.

Speaker 3 (02:18:00):
I've got it.

Speaker 2 (02:18:00):
Restocking, I guess is the proper turn to use. There
A lot of my friends over at to Silver Eagle
a big part of that effort making sure that everybody
had what they needed at that event and many others
across the country. And it does extend beyond the host
cities and any additional festivals that were there in those places.
It's a very popular sport to imbibe and we've seen

(02:18:27):
it why some of the incidents that have happened overseas
in some of their matches, and that's why hooligans and
the terminology might exist if you believe that leads to it.
But I haven't heard much about that happening here or
in any of the other cities. I just know what
Josh said to be true. I almost feel like that
article could have had a great headline just like that,
but really only you needed three letters in the body

(02:18:49):
the context of the article beer sales hopping in World
Cup host cities, and then you'd have your dateline and
then it would say duh.

Speaker 1 (02:18:57):
Apparently, long sporting events in which there aren't a ton
of scores encourage drinking.

Speaker 2 (02:19:02):
Well, this is also before the event, right, and the
pre game, after the event, and after the next event.
And then there's enough Like there's a game at Houston
Stadium two o'clock kick, what about the other game happening
in this venue across the country. Well, I'm at fan
Festival and it's nine am and they're opening up at eleven,
and then I'll be here for that game that's here

(02:19:23):
in Houston that I'm not going to. I'm gonna watch
it here with all the other countrymen and people that
are fans of that also aren't going to the game
that happens all over the country.

Speaker 3 (02:19:31):
It's why.

Speaker 2 (02:19:32):
I mean, as far as I can tell, the Fan
Festival here in Houston, Patty Smith and everybody that helped
make that happen, the Harris County, Houston Sports Authority, and
the committee here for the World Cup here in Houston.
Chris Connetty sure seems like it was an incredible opportunity
to find success, which they did.

Speaker 1 (02:19:50):
It is proof that people will still find certain activities
to go outside for in the summer months here in
Houston if they really want to.

Speaker 10 (02:19:57):
What else do we have, Yeah, Titans running back Chris
Johnson to be inducted in the Titans Ring of Honor
that was announced that it's going to happen at the
season opener at Nissan Stadium Sunday, September thirteenth. The honor
comes after the forty year old Johnson revealed last month
he's been diagnosed with acl als. Excuse me, and we
all remember the CJ two K nickname. Two thousand and

(02:20:20):
six yards in two thousand and nine just an incredible
year and for fantasy football players, CJ two K was
a legend.

Speaker 2 (02:20:26):
There are only three players in franchise history, which obviously
includes yards gained wearing Houston Oilers uniforms in the city
of Houston and then on the road games as well.
Who are the three players with that franchise that have
run for more than Chris Johnson's seven thousand, nine hundred
and sixty five yards during his years there. Derrick Henry

(02:20:48):
He's number two. Eddie Geordan ninety five hundred. He's number
one ten thousand and nine. Earl Campbell He's number three
eight thousand, five hundred and seventy four. Chris Johnson also
only played in ninety five games. Derrick Henry twenty four
more Eddie George thirty three more. That's crazy. Hopefully what

(02:21:08):
is already taking place with the reintroduction of the ice
Bucket Challenge and this event when he will have rightfully
so have his jersey retired by the Titans Oilers organization,
it will continue to generate information, knowledge and donations to
that cause.

Speaker 1 (02:21:26):
I'm hoping that's one of many, many, many diseases that
AI speeds up the process on curing a lot. I mean,
you talk about speeding up the process that really doesn't
give it do it justice. That's one of those good
side effects of AI that I'm looking forward to.

Speaker 3 (02:21:47):
The bad side not so much.

Speaker 2 (02:21:48):
Terminator, we had something in the rundown for a couple
of days regarding AI that we did not get to,
So let's get to it here. You were just saying
AI could be a very good tool to help get
somewhere and reaching a solution a cure. Major League Baseball
would like, let's go ahead and slow down this AI
on our iPads, right, Josh.

Speaker 3 (02:22:09):
Yeah, that's correct.

Speaker 10 (02:22:10):
They're going to restrict they use the iPads and dugouts
to prevent tablets from running AI intelligence to help make decisions.
It looks like that's starting on Wednesday night or did
start on the Wednesday night the second half when the
hat second half of the season started.

Speaker 2 (02:22:24):
So they you were allowed to use iPads they were
issued to the team. They're very strictly limited, and the
way that the Major League Baseball wrote out the release
on how you can use them and what we're giving
you the ability to use it will be completely you know,
here's what you have on it, and that's all you
can have on it. You can install your own apps.
We have restrictions on it for this, will constantly be

(02:22:45):
monitoring for that. And then it just seems like they
didn't do any of those things. The things that they're
now trying to restrict were basically all the things they
said you couldn't do in the first place, because teams
are utilizing apps which they shouldn't have been able to use. Now,
they did argue for the opportunity to say, we've got
our own particular software that we like to use, and

(02:23:06):
here's why we like to break down this and we
need to have that there there's a reason to have it.
When we have it, let's use it. We're not cheating,
we're not doing anything wrong. Every team can do it
anyway they want, and it should enhance our ability to
utilize our data kind of they want to use even
more real time, and I think Lee wanted to restrict it,
but they weren't even supposed to do that. And then
they said, okay, you can do that. You're confidential, your

(02:23:29):
trademarked terminology system everything.

Speaker 3 (02:23:32):
You can go ahead and put that on there. And
it obviously has gotten.

Speaker 2 (02:23:34):
To a point where they are now using AI to
kind of project what's happening in that game, with that picture,
with that pitch, and this tendency and that tendency which
I would prefer you did not do. Look forward to
there's zero punishments involved here, even though basically teams they
realize were breaking the rules.

Speaker 3 (02:23:53):
Looking forward to AI managing the astros.

Speaker 2 (02:23:55):
Next, well, you already have people call I mean, Joe
Spot is not allowed to make a decision. Management calls
down and tells him what to do. It's I still
think people think that's how teams are man Like the
World Series with Blake Snell and Kevin Cash. Hey, hey,
we know he's not he can't face this order for
a third time. He's almost throwing eighty seven pitches. Get
this guy out of here.

Speaker 3 (02:24:16):
Whatever.

Speaker 2 (02:24:16):
So what if he's pitching, Greg, we don't care. That's
not what the numbers are to. I don't have eyes.
I don't have a feel for the game, and we
can't let you feel for the game or have eyes either, Kevin,
I think Blake was very happy. He wasn't He hadn't
pitched much. I mean he has, he does have arm problems.

Speaker 1 (02:24:31):
I do remember when everybody wanted the Astros to go
get him last year he has I think it was
last year, wasn't it.

Speaker 2 (02:24:36):
I don't yes year before his innings count. This year,
I'll give you an over under of five innings pitch, which.

Speaker 3 (02:24:43):
What are you doing? You think it's under? So didn't
finish a game again.

Speaker 2 (02:24:48):
This is the Dodgers who can fix their problems with
money plenty. Ever it's under just the one appearance, three
innings and they don't even need him.

Speaker 3 (02:24:58):
They only have the best record. They have another pitcher
who can also hit, who can also hit, Yeah, but
he can't pitch. That's true yet Yet.

Speaker 2 (02:25:09):
We'll hit you with the opportunity to win tickets and
the next installment of what needs to be discovered investigated diagnosed, analyzed,
discussed from Texans training camp.

Speaker 3 (02:25:20):
I will tell you that next the aight on Sports
Talk seven ninety the four pack of tickets to the
Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live Glow and Fire Show happening
August first and second over at Toyota Center. That is
on the line here also, and by the way, you

(02:25:41):
can find tickets on sale now at Toyota Center dot com.
Also a pair of tickets to Big Three Basketball happening
July twenty sixth at Toyota Center featuring h town's own
Houston Righands coached by Rockets legend Calvin Murphy as they
take on the Dallas Power and DMV Trilogy versus Miami

(02:26:01):
three ZH five two games for just one ticket. You
can get more information and buy tickets to that now
over at Big three dot com.

Speaker 2 (02:26:10):
Pretty simple stuff for you to call in and win
because you've been listening to the program seven one, three,
two one two five seven ninety. Last segment during in
case you missed it, three of us mentioned that Chris
Johnson would have his UH ceremony jersey retired by the
Titans Oilers organization, and I noted that he was fourth

(02:26:30):
on their all time rushing yards list, there is one
active player ahead of him, There's one player who played
for both franchises in each states ahead of him, and
there is one player who played only in Houston ahead
of him. And we mentioned all three by name. Pretty

(02:26:52):
easy seven one three, two, one two five seven ninety
if won to win either of those tickets. Who are
the three players ahead of Chris Johnson on the Texans
or Titans oilers franchise list for most rushing yards seven
one three, two one two five seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (02:27:10):
So I can't remember which one of the million different
things we didn't get to today we were getting too here.

Speaker 2 (02:27:16):
Well, we're gonna get to the Texans ten here, Okay.
So there are ten things I think are well worth
my time and eyeballs in our time here on the
program for me to glance over at Texans training camp,
which is now less than two weeks away. I got
so ten different things I'll bring up before we get
to training camp that I'll have my eyes on the
first two of which we got to a Wednesday and Thursday. Uh,

(02:27:38):
the Woody Marx David Montgomery dynamic in the Texans backfield,
and the loan new starter to the Texans defense, the
lone newcomer to the organization practically that they will use defensively.
That's read Blanket Ship, their other safety along with Jalen
Peatrie and Kaylen Bulock. Today we're going to talk about

(02:27:58):
the tight end usage. The Texans had Dalton Schultz and
Kate Stover at the front of the line last year,
only after they were no longer going to be able
to have Brevin Jordan as part of that mix. Hopefully
that won't be the case this year because he obviously
missed all of last year with injury and has had
injuries unfortunately mark a big portion of his career. Two
outsiders have joined the tight end group this year, Marlon

(02:28:21):
Klein via the draft early portion of the draft and
Foster Moreau.

Speaker 3 (02:28:25):
From the Saints.

Speaker 2 (02:28:26):
And he's been in the league a long time and
he's pretty well known as a blocking tight end who
also is capable of catching the ball that now comes
up to well they Nick Cayley and c J.

Speaker 3 (02:28:35):
Strouder throwing in the football.

Speaker 2 (02:28:36):
He doesn't have bricks for hands or anything, but he's
not regarded as somebody you are looking to to throw
the football too, but he absolutely can and now that's
up to them, and if that's what they're going to do,
this is a little bit about personnel groupings and what
they're really going to look like this year because last year,
their other tight end, they're blocking tight end. He was
a lineman, he was Blake Fisher. They ran the six

(02:28:58):
linemen out on the field all the freaking time last year.
They just did not have a better alternative, and it
did essentially turn into a bit of a tell if
you look over some of the numbers on regular down
in distance first and ten, not second in fifteen or
third and nineteen, where the down and distance is dictating
the play call. But a regular down in distance are

(02:29:20):
you dictating the play call with either your personnel grouping
or you're in the shotgun? And the Texans did have
some tendencies offensively that seemed.

Speaker 3 (02:29:27):
Like maybe team's picked up on them.

Speaker 2 (02:29:30):
Maybe they didn't. They were just good enough to stop them.
But twenty one personnel or you know, thirteen personnel, are
they gonna have three tight ends on the field often?
You know, Josh and I have had that conversation here
during this offseason, and I said, I hope not, but
I wouldn't say no. They probably at times might And
I'm curious about the roster. You drafted Klein unless he's hurt,

(02:29:52):
he's making the team. You signed Moreau, he's making the team.
You re signed Dalton Schultz Again, he's making the team.
Kate Stovers only in his third year as a relatively
early draft pick. Well, he's making the team. And during
the season, while Brevin Jordan was not playing, you re
signed him for this year. He doesn't have to make

(02:30:14):
the team, but he provides something you don't have on
the team as he's probably the most athletic of the group.
If not him, it's probably Kleine. So are they actually
going to carry five rostered tight ends? Maybe certainly, not
in two games, but in the active roster all throughout
the week and all throughout the season. Injuries can be
a part of that decision making, They unfortunately probably will be.

(02:30:35):
I actually think the answer is yes. For a team
that's more often than not only had three on the roster,
sometimes two with one on the practice squad that they
have to elevate when they get to game GA sounds
like the.

Speaker 1 (02:30:47):
Quarterback situation, not the tight end situation in the past,
but not this is the exact opposite of that.

Speaker 3 (02:30:51):
This is like a surplus. They're more.

Speaker 2 (02:30:53):
This is to me, it's exactly like the offensive line
that they've put together for this upcoming season. It's clearly
been addressed, and they clearly believe they're doing something that's
gonna make them significantly better in the ground game. But
they didn't do anything to really make much of a difference.
They have all the pieces to it, But where's this
guy is a difference maker player? Is Foster Morrow the

(02:31:15):
difference maker on your offense this year? It's extremely unlikely.
He's a good player. He was a good addition. Is
Dalton Schultz one of the better tight ends in the league. No,
he's a good tight end and he's definitely gonna make
the plays that are there to be made. And he's
set the franchise record and receptions in a season last year.
And then, like Nico Collins was unable to be a
target in the final game of the year, he was

(02:31:36):
there at the beginning of the game and nearly helped
them score a touchdown early before a penalty on their
backfield when they had a legal motion on the what
he marks touchdown. But they're just not plus level talent,
even with five really capable, all five of these players
would be our NFL caliber players and they're all Texans,

(02:32:00):
but the plus level players are still missing.

Speaker 3 (02:32:02):
On offense.

Speaker 1 (02:32:03):
Every one of those names you mentioned just doesn't. And
I'm not even it's you're not asking for them to
be Rob Gronkowski or Travis Kelcey, but just like, get
my attention at all.

Speaker 2 (02:32:14):
Yes, don't be getting married at Madison Square Garden, and
don't be dunked into a vat of chicken finger sauce.

Speaker 3 (02:32:23):
That was accurate on both counts.

Speaker 2 (02:32:26):
Unfortunately, I think the sauce was doctored. It was awfully thin.

Speaker 1 (02:32:32):
See you said that yesterday and we saw the video,
and I'm just like, I'm not so sure. I think
when you get that much of it, it's just that's
how it looked.

Speaker 3 (02:32:40):
But I wish it was actually thicker.

Speaker 2 (02:32:42):
So he just slowly fell into it after Brady hit
the target.

Speaker 3 (02:32:47):
I like quicksand.

Speaker 1 (02:32:49):
Want any part of that because it's a little too
close to Mayo for my comfort.

Speaker 2 (02:32:53):
I'm sure your friend justin my friend as well, our
musician in the fandom, he'll be happy to pass along
any Man related things that need to come.

Speaker 3 (02:33:01):
Your west is what it is.

Speaker 2 (02:33:02):
It is, Well, that's going to do it for us here,
not only today, but for this week. The Astros on
Deck show AC has that for you this evening and
he will bring you the tenth Inning Show after the
first game post All Star Break. Astros with their new
center fielder and their new ace all part of tonight's game,
So that comes your way next. We'll be back with
you next week for a full slate's worth of shows.

(02:33:24):
Have an enjoyable weekend as the Astros are at home
and right here on Sports Talk seven ninety

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