Astros Relief Pitching Disaster, Rockets vs. Suns, Schrager Has Texans Drafting Tackle

Tuesday on The A-Team, Adam Wexler and Adam Clanton react to the Astros' loss to the Rockies, preview Rockets-Suns, discuss which players the Texans could target in the NFL Draft, and are joined by Astros pitcher Bryan King.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The a team Sports Talk seven to ninety. We will
be simulcash shortly, like in an hour or so over
on Space City Home Network as CHN. But in the meantime,
another day of a lot of offense on the board
in a game in which the Astros come out on
the wrong end of the business deal that was tough

(00:20):
to see last night.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Stayed up for it not that much later.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
It's not like it was a nine o'clock start out
in Seattle or something like that. There'll be plenty of
those upcoming shortly. But two losses in a row for
a team that's having no problems putting runs across the plate,
but they're having a lot of problems keeping those same
runs from crossing the plate against them, And it's basically,

(00:44):
I don't know if this is the exact opposite of
twenty twenty five, but it kind of.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Feels that way.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
The pitching, whatever type of pitching you're talking about, doesn't
feel like it's as good, and the offense is spectacular,
but it's just coming in more losses than you would like.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
They give up thirty.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Two runs in the last four games, and one of
the last four games they give up zero.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
It's weird, it's not weird.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
They can't get people out, and you can't before in
the two ballparks they've played in most recently Colorado and
in West Sacramento. Can't give extra outs away. It's too
easy to score when you're making it easy for the
other team to score. And they hadn't committed errors all season.
They obviously didn't lose any balls in the sun all season,
and now they've done both of those things in the
last four games, and that's what's going to get you

(01:30):
beat and it has.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
The weird part is that what did you just utter
at the beginning of that they can't get people out?
When's the last time the Astros couldn't get people out
in the last decade.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Never.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
They've always had dominant to very good pitching, right and
yesterday Cody Bolton started. Today, Mike Burrows is starting.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
The worst version of Christian Javier is expected to get
the ball on Wednesday. I think a pitcher who's making
his third ever major league start, and as a rookie,
he starts Friday, and I suppose Lance.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Mccullors starts Saturday.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Maybe a good version of him probably sometime in Seattle.
Spencer Raghetti or Colton Gordon or Jason Alexander is going
to start?

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Are you just easing us in? I'm trying to.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Tell you why do you think their pitching was so
good over the years, Because I just gave a bunch
of names that weren't among them.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Hunter Brown's not pitching. Frommer's not pitching. JV's not pitching,
Garret Cole's not pitching. Just the list goes on and
on and on of who they don't currently have in
their rotation. Granted, we're just getting started with that side
of it, and there's no way the Astros are going
to finish with one of the five worst pitching stats
in baseball, But that is exactly who they are, no matter.
The Astros are still striking guys out at an exceptionally

(02:38):
high rate. They're number one in Major League Baseball in
strikeouts by their pitchers, but in pretty much every other category,
they're the easiest.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Team to score against. They're the easiest team to get
on base against. They're just not doing any of the
things as a whole, both from a starting standpoint and
a bullpend standpoint, that you would normally see out of them,
and a little of it of it. You've played the Angels,
who've been surprisingly competitive, You've played in two ballparks, only
one game in Colorado, but the other three in West Sacramento,

(03:06):
where it's gonna be offense happy baseball pretty much no
matter who plays those games. And then the other series,
which really doesn't fit a surprisingly good team or an
overwhelmingly offensively charged ballpark, you absolutely dominated. You give up
seven runs in three games so early in the season.

(03:26):
There's a lot of imbalances. You brought it up yesterday.
Who have you played? There's always a little bit of that.
Who have you been able to use? Who have you
not been able to use? I mean, I would say
the two most important Astros pitchers are with each other
on the injured list right now, Josh Hater on the
back end, on her Brown on the front end. So
that obviously is going to impact things. And you know,

(03:47):
your eleven games into the season, and one of your
eleven games was a bullpen game, not by design but
by necessity, and that is very unfortunate. Honestly, I was
doing the tenth Inning Show last night, and as I
said then, which I still believe today, that was good
night of pitching for the Astros all things considered, Yeah,
I know they gave up eight runs in an inning

(04:08):
and lost because of it, but they needed to not
run through their bullpen again, and so Ryan Weiss kind
of ate it and he pitched three innings.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
His last two innings were very good.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Cody Bolton, he went out for a fifth inning of
work yesterday, forced shutout innings to open the first ever
start of his career in the ballpark I just described,
and he managed to get his way through it. Got
into a little trouble in the fifth inning, but there
was one out with runners on second and third after
the Rockies successfully gave an out away and it worked,
which is crazy. But then they just couldn't get the

(04:39):
final outs of the inning, and they had multiple opportunities
to do it.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Ryan Weiss got.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Three ground balls, any one of which could have ended
the inning. The ground ball that would have kept the
Astros ahead off of Goodman's bat and Jeremy Panie for
some reason, broke to his right and the ball went
to his left. You had the ball that bounded up
the middle that Weiss probably should have just gloved himself
and tossed over to first, But I think he felt

(05:05):
like the play was so easy to make behind him.
I don't know if he let it go through, but
it's certainly how it looked like. And then it hits
the bag because of where Jeremy Paney was playing. That's
a double on a bounding grounder that should have never
left the infield. And then you had the one that
Painia actually got the air for when the ball went
right into his glove and right back out of his glove.
Any of those plays would have ended the inning before

(05:26):
the eighth run had scored in the inning, and the
first play that wasn't made would have kept them at two.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
That changed everything. He did give up a bunch of rockets.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
There were six hard hit balls in that inning better
than ninety five miles an hour off the bat, so
not spinning it into Ryan Weiss was great, but it
was a tough situation for them to be and he
knew he was going to need to give them length.
And I think in light of that, both pitchers wanted
to get early swings, wanted to throw strikes. Weiss couldn't
find the strikes on early, so he was throwing in
a bunch of hitters counts and it burned them only

(05:58):
no only needed one inning from anybody else, and it
was the season debut of Ennuel Delos Santos. But without
a win tonight behind Mike Burrows, the Astros will be
right back at five hundred after winning six out of
seven to get them to you know where they were
just a couple of days ago. You open the season
with two straight losses to the Angels. You're now sitting
on a two game losing streak to the Athletics and Rockies.

(06:18):
So hopefully tonight you'll see one thing stay the same,
and that's tremendous offense. They could have scored even clearly
could have scored more runs than the seven. The last
out of the eighth inning was with the bases loaded
and Jose Altuve, who'd had three hits in the game already,
and instead of you know, hitting one through first and
second and hitting the pitch where it was thrown low

(06:41):
and outside, Jiner Daz a couple of bats before that,
that's what he did. He smashed it through a huge
hole between first and second, drove home a run. If
Altuve had done that, they would have taken the lead,
or they would have tied the game at nine.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Speaking of smashing things. Holy rocket launcher, Cam Smith four
sixty two. Where are you at on that one? Jordon
Alvarez striking out?

Speaker 3 (07:04):
Yeah, Jordan and Carlos only hit balls that would have
been homers in twenty two and twenty three parks, respectively,
in a sequence of three at bats, four hundred and
fourteen feet away from center field. If you stand there,
you're in play four hundred and sixteen feet away from
home plate in centerfield. If you stand there, you're Joe Adell.
You're standing on the other side of the fence. And

(07:25):
both of them identical launch angles, identical exit velos, and
they basically went to the same place on the wrong
side of the fence for the Astros, and they were
caught for outs.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Yeah, that was loud outs, as they say, tough to see,
and especially in succession, basically in proximity to each other
that the Astros were, I mean, gosh, And by the way,
isn't he isn't it actually extra worse that that happened
in Colorado, Like you would think, just by default, if

(07:58):
you go ahead and hit it that far, it would
carry a little bit because of the thin air and
all the stuff that they always say there.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
And yet maybe it did carry it a little bit,
just not a lot of it. Yeah, I hope cam
Smith took advantage of the opportunity, and it certainly would
have been nice to win, because then he could easily
swing by Carlos and Jordan spot in the dugout or
the clubhouse after maybe if they'd won eleven to nine
and told those two guys to, you know, maybe hit
the weight room, maybe throw the iron around a little bit.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Mabe I did, had worked harder exactly, I wouldn't have
to do that. It is probably a good sign. We'll
hear from Joe Aspota.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
He will stop by in about ninety minutes after he
already stopped by earlier today. He's gonna comment on that
very thing, what they have seen and what they hope
to expect moving forward with Cam Smith. He was quite
pleased with that rocket launched off of his bat last night.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah, I'm a little nervous about Joe Spotta's news he's
going to give us about Hunter Brown.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah, we'll let him share with you some of the
news he shared earlier on the Matt Thomas Show with Ross.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
We'll do that at about three point thirty.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
And we will definitely discuss what happened in college basketball
last night a little bit, as we will also discuss
your Rockets and sons getting together. Who would have thought
wex that here on April seventh, after everything that happened
last offseason. That would be the first time that Jalen
Green squared off against.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
The Rockets, first time that Kevin Durant plays in Phoenix
since leaving.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
That's true, since he was That was one of the
what three games he has missed this year.

Speaker 3 (09:25):
Ankle injury later in the season, and they missed those
back to back games on purpose because he can't stand
going back to the places he once played. Narrative, he
missed two games for personal reasons. So it happened to
be in Golden State. Yeah, yeah, I saw that happen.
I think we're beyond that now that it was so
silly then. But yeah, he did not play in the
first game in Phoenix. Somehow the Rockets managed to win.

(09:47):
He has seen Phoenix this year. Whichever games the Rockets
managed to win those two, it means something to Houston.
Last night, Denver was victorious, so they hold the three
spot right now, moving the Lakers a half game back
of them. For that three four spot. The other three
teams other than Denver Lakers, Houston, and the Minnesota Timberwolves,

(10:07):
obviously the seventh seeded Suns as well, all in action tonight.
As a nothing can be determined unless both Minnesota loses
and the Rockets win. The Rockets can no longer be
passed by Minnesota for five. And there's a scenario where
the Suns losing and these Phoenix or the Minnesota Timberwolves winning,

(10:30):
that would eliminate the Suns from joining the postseason. They
would be locked into the play in tournament. That's wild
that all of that is hinging on.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
Well right now.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
I mean, we're six days ago in the NBA season.
There's ten spots in the Western Conference playoffs. None of
the seeds have been determined, not a single one.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
With four games are so left depending on who. Everybody
has four games or three games left. A few teams
like Denver who played last night after three left. Almost
everybody else has four. You love this stuff spread, just
the one that I update and post every late night
or early morning. Gosh, just I mean, I really should
have added the other teams that I'm locked in on
the local team. Here's what needs to happen for Houston

(11:08):
to do this. And here's what's left. Here's the schedule,
here's who holds the tie records. It's pretty good stuff,
all right.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
I do like the NBA's graphic that they do post
every day, which gives you seating possibilities. There's only two
teams in the West, and the Rockets are one of
them that still could land in one of the four
different spots. The Rockets can be in four or five, six,
or seven. The Clippers are the other team, not four
or five, six or seven, three, four, five, and six.

(11:35):
The Clippers are the other team. They're in the play
in tournament, but they could be anywhere. They could be seven, eight,
nine or ten.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
Crazy crazy times.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
All right, we'll jump back into some Astros conversation, and again,
as WEX mentioned, we got Brian King coming up at
the bottom of the hour as well.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
So a lot to get to here.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
On Tuesday edition of the program Game Sports Sox seven
ninety Tuesday edition of the program, Astros lose the opener
in Colorado last night, second consecutive defeat in which they
put up more than enough offense you would think to
get a victory, but when you're giving up as many
runs as they've been giving up. By the way, what

(12:15):
did you say, thirty how many thirty four.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
Thirty two runs allowed in the last four games. Thirty
two of those games they allowed zero.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
That's just insanity.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
Well that's what again, their pitching numbers do not lie.
And yesterday was the first day they've actually given up
an unearned run by some fault of their own. They
had one on the ledger already, but that was an
extra inning unearned run, so they didn't do anything to
deserve that, but yesterday they did. It was the first
time all year you had obviously not allowed an eight
run inning. The same way, the Astros had an eight
run inning and oh my god, they're down six to nothing.

(12:47):
There's no way they're gonna win today. Well, they had
an eight run inning, so you're gonna win when you
do that. That's all Colorado did. The other seven times
at bat for the Rockies, they scored once. The Astros
scored over and over and over again throughout the game,
but without a monster inning, which they nearly got in
the eighth inning. But you know, kind of had to
soldier through yesterday. I think before the game it seemed

(13:07):
pretty obvious that Joe spot had made it clear to
both Bolton and Weiss that you guys are gonna carry
the heavy, heavy load today and just kind of wear
it and see what happens.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
It worked out very well.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
Bolton's line was a lot like mccullor's line from the
day before. It looked worse than it was.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
He was awesome.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
We sat here yesterday. I kind of, you know, what
would be best case scenario. I think we did that
during the nightcap last night. You know, if Bolton can
get you more than nine outs, get you into the
fourth inning, give Weiss an opportunity to maybe get you
late late into the game. He got you into the
fifth inning, he got you thirteen outs. First major league start,
second appearance of the season, second appearance as an astro,
and he pitched very much like he did in his

(13:49):
last outing when he relieved Hunter Brown. And he did
all that after he took one hundred and two miles
an hour off of him.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
Three pitches into the game.

Speaker 3 (13:56):
First batter of the game, one hundred and two exit
ve Lo and it goes right off of Bolton and
into the outfield. They obviously came to check on him,
and they did some imaging after the game precautionary. He
obviously stayed out there for well over an hour pitching,
so again everything should be fine. But you know, he
and Weiss are probably not available at the very least

(14:16):
until you get to Seattle, if then maybe further into
the Seattle series, because both were beyond sixty pitches yesterday.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
Well, I'm hoping that Mike Burrows has his best outing
as Nastro. I mean, it's it's not like the bar
is so high, and he has steadily increased his quality
of outings, all two of them. If you do that
tonight and you still get the same type of offensive
output that you've been getting, I think that's why I'm

(14:45):
not as Panic's not the word, because it's too early
to do that. But I guess that's why I'm not
as frustrated, because you can't really argue with seven runs.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
I mean only I lost nine to seven. They scored
seven runs.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
They scored x amount of runs this game before that
and then before that before that. Like their offense is
what I wanted it to be last year, when they
kept stacking guys on base and they were dealing with injuries.
Then they don't really have a lot of injuries they're
dealing with. From an offensive standpoint, now.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
They really don't have any any Esac Perettis most likely
is in today's lineup. Joe was not specific yet about that.
I surmised last night on the Tenth Inning Show that
today might be a day even in the expansive left
field of right there on Blake Street in Colorado, I'd
put yard On Alvarez in left field today. I'd make
Esok Perettas the designated hitter or put him at second base,

(15:36):
and that way Perettis, Correa, Penya, Altuve, Walker and Alvarez
are all in a lineup in Colorado where you're trying
to snap a two game losing streak. The terrible, awful
weak Astros offense. They only scored seventeen times in the
last two games. You can't win games like that. Seventeen

(15:56):
runs in the last two games, no wins, ten of
them ten innings against the Athletics, seven of them yesterday,
and they're not at That's not enough to outduel the
other teams who beat them by two runs in each game.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah, and I guess the good news is, with the
exception of the Angels. No one else in the division
is exactly taking things by the throat.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
Yeah, did you catch my Al West early season notes
post earlier today? You want to reference that here right
out of the.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
Gate, I'm going I'm gonna get it up right now
so that I can see it here on the Astros.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
As we've been discussing now for twenty three minutes and
forty five seconds, they are pitching very, very poorly. They
are hitting better than anybody in baseball, and honestly, in
many of the categories it's really not even close. So
that's how they've been able to put themselves in first place.
I guess technically by some totally unnecessary one hundred and
fifty one games to go tiebreaker. The Angels, at six

(16:48):
and five, are in first place. The Angel story was
told again last night. They got great pitching from Jose Soriano,
his third start, his third quality start, their third win
in his three starts. He's got a point four to
five ERA because he finally gave up a run, and
they've won all three of them. The other starting pitchers,
they've needed five other starting pitchers this year for the Angels.
Their the ARA is five sixty five They're three and

(17:09):
five when anybody other than Jose Soriano pitches, they're three
and zero when he pitches. Very surprising Rangers, who got
to five and five yesterday with their victory over the Mariners,
a third consecutive, very low scoring game for the Rangers
because of their pitching, Their bo Penny ara is the
best in the American League. It's one to eighty three.
It's third best in baseball. It's absolutely been an early strength.

(17:30):
I was uncertain that it would be, but some unheralded
arms have pitched very well. Seattle Mariners dipped to four
and seven with yesterday's loss to the Rangers. Straight Yeah,
they're two three four hitters. Most Knights are Raleigh, Rodriguez,
and Naylor. They have seventeen hits between them this year.
Roley has three extra base hits. The other two guys

(17:51):
have none zero extra base hits from their three four hitters,
Julio or Rodriguez and Naylor thirty nine strikeouts between the
three of them, one hundred and twenty seven at bats.
Their best three hitters, their most productive three hitters, are
hitting a combined one thirty four on the season. It's
why they're one of the worst offenses baseball, and it's
why with very good pitching they've only won four times

(18:11):
in seven games. And even with the Astros pitching staff
treating the Athletics quite well over their three games, sixty
seven percent of their lineup is hitting two twelve or worse,
with an ops of six forty nine or worse. That's
six of the nine spots they trot out there every day,
and it was way worse before the Astros got to

(18:32):
West Vacossi.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
They can't.

Speaker 3 (18:35):
They haven't quite gotten it going, but we'll see if
some momentum was gained. They were off yesterday from how
they performed against the Astros. They had two games where
they hit double figures. They obviously were circling the bases
quite a bit. Most everybody got going with the long ball.
Other than Nick Kurtz. He's done nothing this year, and
at some point that's going to change in a big way.
He's too good of a hitter, has too much power,

(18:57):
and nothing about what happened last year was four lucash
They're going to hit, they just haven't so far. That's
your early season. Look around the division.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
And by the way, if you're wandering, yes WEX listed Astros, l.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
A A, T e X, s E A and sack.

Speaker 3 (19:17):
Well I can't put I got a K. And there's
a bunch of other sites that finally have come on
board with that, like the team ranking site. If you're
looking for athletics, you won't find it because they list
them by city name. And if you're looking for Oakland,
you won't find that either because it flat out says
Sacramento that's where they play.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
I love it. It kind of surprises me that they
didn't do that last year though.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
Yeah, MLB has not done that, even though everybody else
has listed Houston Astros, Boston Red Sox, they're just listed
as athletics.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, well this year.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
And next year definitively, probably not another year after that,
but we'll see how things are going in.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Have you seen the stadium? Uh, not recently. I saw
a couple of this weekend. They have.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
I mean you can clearly see the outside frame of
the bill. There's still dirt in the middle, but Dave,
there is concrete and it is definitely you can tell
what it's going to be. So I don't think there's
gonna be another season unless there's realignment. The Astros will
be playing in Vegas very very soon. We're gonna catch
up with Astros reliever Brian King right here live on

(20:19):
the A team in advance of their game this evening
against the Colorado Rockies.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
So stick around. Brian King joins us next.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
Adam and Adam here with you on the A team
and happy to be joined right now by Astros reliever
Brian King from the mean streets of Denver, Colorado, where
the Astros head into Game two of their series with
the Rockies this evening, which obviously you will look look
to peek in on here, Brian. Curious about one thing
right out of the gate, and we appreciate your time

(20:46):
this afternoon with Josh Sideline. Currently Sue's not out there
with you. It's a very different looking bullpen you're hanging
out with every day. How's the early part of the
season been just kind of hanging out for hours at
a time with guys that haven't all been around each
other all that much.

Speaker 4 (21:03):
Yep. First of all, thank you guys for having me.
I appreciate you guys' time, and you know it is different,
but at the same time, we still got we got
some dogs out in the bullpen. We got some dogs
helping us out, like Cody Bolton last night. It looked great.
You know, it's because it's different, doesn't mean that we're
any worse off. We've still got people who can go

(21:25):
out there and compete and help us wink.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
I'm glad you said that because I didn't mean it.
Different doesn't mean worse or better. It just literally means different.
There's a different group out there. I'm also glad you
mentioned something about Cody. I was doing post game last
night and even early today on the show. I thought,
what he gave the team is exactly what you're hoping
for when you go into a game like that. How
is it watching him work again? Another newcomer to this team?

Speaker 4 (21:47):
It was great. I mean, you know, we kind of
had a scare first pitch off the bat and he
get the comebacker at him. That things are pretty good.
And he was a bulldog. He beared down for four
innings and and game us a good start. So hopefully
we can come back tonight and punch back a little bit.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
So as a pitcher, you see West Sacramento for three
in Colorado for three back to back on the schedule,
are you kind of amping yourself up, just knowing that
the margin for error might be a little bit center.

Speaker 4 (22:20):
Yeah, I mean, try not to think about the stuff.
Like at the end of the day, you still got
to go out and execute your stuff. You know, sometimes
pictures will say that the ball doesn't move the same
and whether that's true or not, you got to be
able to adjust on the fly. So you know, at
the end of the day, we've got a great defense.
You try to fill the zone out with strikes and
let them work.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
Brian King joining us here on the A team here
in advance of Game two of the three game series
with the Rockies.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
It wasn't that long ago.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
I'm curious if it feels like it to you when
you made your major league debut not long after, a
couple of years after the Astros added you in the
minor league Rule five draft. Do you remember what it
was like going out there for the first time over
at then minute made Park now Dyke and Park, And
how you felt coming out of the bullpen, How you
felt seven pitches later when your first major league outing

(23:09):
was complete.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (23:11):
Absolutely. One of the biggest things I remember is God
bless America started playing right after they called my name,
so I had a couple of seconds to just breathe
and try to calm myself down a little bit. I
remember running out from the bullpen gate and the whole
time I was looking down at the grass, like stay focused,
stay present right here. We got a job to do.
And like you said, seven pitches later, we were back

(23:33):
in the dugout and I couldn't have been more thrilled.

Speaker 3 (23:36):
Well, it sounds like we need to push this out there.
I don't know if it can stick. We were huge
fans of Ryan Presley's entering the game music. I mean,
shouldn't you be coming into the game with that same
music every time, no matter when you're coming into the game.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
That sounds pretty sweet.

Speaker 4 (23:52):
I'll have to talk to him and see if you
let me borrow it.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
See, once she retires, it's fair game, right.

Speaker 4 (23:59):
Yeah, there's still a little bit of respect, and you know,
you don't want to steal his thunder. I know the
fans really loved listening to that song when he came out,
and even for me personally, I get that. When I
think of that song, I think of Ryan Presley and
all the work he did, all the great things that
he he'lled teach us. You know, he's a mentor for

(24:20):
a lot of people, and uh, hoping to get to
chat with him soon.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
Here in a bit talking to Astros reliever Brian King
here on Sports Talk seven to ninety. You know, I
was talking to Wex about this, like how we've never
really talked about an Astro's team at any point over
the better part of a decade where the pitching was
not so elite that you're looking at, oh, nine runs
on this night, eleven runs on this night. It's kind

(24:45):
of weird coming into the season, how much offense is
going both ways regardless of who you guys are playing
on any given night. Have you been a part of
a situation like this to start a season before.

Speaker 4 (24:58):
No, not to start a season, but you kind of
get games like this throughout the year. Like it's baseball.
There are gonna be times where the hitters are dialed in.
There's gonna be times where we're the ones dialed in
and keeping the scores low. But you know, it's just
it kind of comes and goes in ways, and right
now we're just kinda in one of those ways right
now where it's not going our way. But you know,

(25:20):
things can change quick.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Do you ever think about the fact that baseball is
the only sport where you can say what you just
said about one hundred different situations. Nobody ever says, yeah,
that's just basketball or that's just football. But when people
say it's just baseball, we know exactly what you mean.

Speaker 4 (25:36):
Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the beauty this game.
Anybody can win on any given night. It doesn't matter
what place you're in. You play one hundred and sixty
two games, there's gonna be plenty that don't go your way.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
What was your dvantage point last night at the game
when Cam Smith got a hold of one and absolutely
bombed one out of that ballpark.

Speaker 4 (25:55):
Yeah. I was sitting there in the bullpen and I
saw good contact off the bat, and you know it's Colorado,
so you know the bull can fly a little bit.
I didn't know he got it as well as he
did when you saw that ball leave the playing fields there,
Like Dan, he touched that thing pretty good.

Speaker 3 (26:12):
A lot of guys will usually bond over different things,
especially out in the bullpen, and whether it's good, bad,
or otherwise. I'm curious how you view Tommy John. You're
one of many pitchers in baseball that has had it.
You're one of many pitchers in baseball that have been
very successful after having it, and you're very far removed
from it now. But you know, when you think back
to going through that into where you are today, how
does that hit you? You know, Tommy John and the idea

(26:33):
that it certainly is far far from a career ending
injury is actually quite the opposite.

Speaker 4 (26:40):
Yeah, in the in the moment, it was one of
those things where I actually I felt the sense of
piece when it happened. I don't know why. That's not
typically my personality. I like to do everything I can
to stay healthy, but for some reason in that moment,
like I just had a feeling that that was where
I was supposed to be and I knew I could
handle it. So it's not easy. There's no surgery or

(27:03):
or rehab that is easy, but sometimes you got to
take what God gives you. And you know ultimately that
that was the plan that that helped me get to
where I'm at.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
I look at a guy like yourself starting the Cubs organization,
joined the Astros organization a couple of years ago, and
now you're with the big club, and the way things
kind of fit into place. It certainly felt like you
fit in personality wise, maybe even background wise with the
group you were with, and each year as they had
new and different players, I think about your place here
and how you get along with people. Ryan Weiss similarly,

(27:37):
it feels like there's just the right mix of people.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
Like if you're going to walk out.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
Of the clubhouse on a getaway day and you're headed
to the flight, well, there's you and your boots and jeans.
There's Weiss and his boot and jeans. That's Ryan Presley
a couple of years ago. Like, how does it always
seem to work out that these guys seem like the
perfect fits for the club.

Speaker 4 (27:56):
I think a lot of it is, you know, the
people that that the clubs try to attract. I think
part of it is, you know, you spend time with
guys who kind of been through some tough situations, whether
it's on the field off the field. Everybody's kind of
got their own path, and I think the astros, especially,

(28:18):
you're good at finding guys who may not have had
the typical, you know, big time school draft pick a
lot of guys are you know, we always kind of
look at ourselves as misfits like we we didn't fit
in other places, and but there was something we did
well and the astros were very good at picking up
on that and maximizing that well.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
Since WEX brought it up and I have you on
the phone, I'm wearing a pair of Ostrich right now.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
Are you more of a gator guide?

Speaker 5 (28:45):
Do you like?

Speaker 2 (28:45):
Python's like, what do you roll with? When you got
the boots on?

Speaker 4 (28:50):
I've got a pair of Ostrich and then I've got
a pair of just like normal weather one. I kind
of wear when I'm gonna get dirtier, and when I
wear I'm a little bit dresser.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
Is there anything better than going into a store to
get a new pair and smelling that leather?

Speaker 4 (29:04):
The only thing else that I'd say might be a
little better as a new baseball glove. They're both pretty
dan close.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
I figured you'd say something like that. That's a good answer,
all right, Brian King. We appreciate the time. Good luck
the rest of the way this season. I feel like
I need to tell you the obligatory stay healthy because
that's just what we always say, but especially with what
happened last year. So stay healthy and we look forward
to seeing you perform the rest of the year in
the and Astros uniform.

Speaker 4 (29:32):
That's your plan. Thank you, guys. I appreciate your time.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
All right, Brian King here on Sports Talk seven ninety
your home for Astros Baseball and a big boot fan.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
Thanks for getting that out of him.

Speaker 3 (29:40):
WEX that was pretty obvious if you watched him do
some of his work here off the field. I know,
I probably maybe last question could have been, when have
you and Josh and maybe Ryan and a few others
planned your latest upcoming hunting trip.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
Yeah, that is it's you know, I think I know
football players hunt, but I think an inordinate amount of
baseball players are just because of the time of their offseason.
That really is a big thing in Major League Baseball.
So yeah, that's on us for not delving further into that.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
But well, somewhat local flavor to many of the players
on the team, not only being Astros now, but a
lot of them from that not too far away places
and places where obviously that is something you can do.
Appreciate him joining us well. A couple of things on
one of the things he had to say about what's
going on out there on the bullpen on a day
to day basis, not just in Colorado or in West Sacramento,
but throughout the season. Obviously look ahead into this evening's

(30:34):
contest with Mike Burrows on the mound for the Astros
as we continue here on a Tuesday edition of The
eight Team.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
The Age on Sports Talk seven ninety so I have
it on Iver joining us last segment. There was at
least one thing WEX wanted to touch on from that conversation
that did not involve a new pair of boots or hunting.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
I would imagine moving forward, and we'll let you hear
a little bit more from Joe Espada very specifically on
this in about forty five minutes. But we wondered aloud
after the first four appearances for Brian A Bray, you
if lower leverage situations were in his future and with
no other additions to the bullpen yet for the Astros
of the annual Delos Santos, essentially, I mean Bennett Susa

(31:22):
has not returned and Josh Hater has not returned, two
guys who at different points last year were the last
line of defense turned into closers. Josh Haters the permanent closer,
and because of other injuries, Bennett Susa was asked to
do that a few times.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
I think that's going to be Brian King.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
I think it will be very situational, and I don't
know that it's a definitive that they're going to put
Brian abra you in a different spot. Obviously, if they
have a large lead, I would be unsurprised to see
him at any point in relief in any game. But
I would not expect necessarily to see him in a
nine to seven game, a nine to eight game, a
five to three game in the ninth inning necessarily moving forward,

(31:57):
That is how I would do it. I don't think
Joe's definite on that, and we'll see how the circumstances
kind of dictate that. I do think Brian King probably
Profile's best as the next option. I mean, honestly, it's
why last year they were almost able to navigate their
way through the season without Josh Hater, but then when
Bennett Susa joined him, and unfortunately they both ended the

(32:20):
year unavailable, and now they've both started the year unavailable.
It just puts you in a really difficult spot. They
had a five person bullpen. When you add those two
to a brew Okurt and Brian King, you get them
the ball with a lead, and the after six innings,
you're probably gonna win, and you might turn to all
four of them for an inning apiece, you know, six,
seven eight nine, or you know seven eight nine in

(32:41):
some form of fashion, and you're gonna get out of
there with the lead that you handed to them. It's
thinner bullpen and different roles might come from it for
these players, But you know King's work and pretty much,
honestly since he arrived. He had a very short brief
time last year where the home run ball got him
a little bit, but his numbers from we talked about
his major league debut, which was only a couple of

(33:03):
seasons ago. Last year, he was out there and healthy
for sixty plus innings.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
He's up.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
Next time he gets it out, he will move to
the one hundred major league innings threshold. He's been nothing
but awesome from the moment he got here, in my opinion,
very low batting average against, usually pretty efficient with his pitches,
which makes him available a lot more often than some
other relievers, and he throws strikes and gets guys out
pretty simply put, He's got a fantastic career era well

(33:29):
under three is Era this year is one point sixty nine.
Very few appearances, but almost half of their games five
and a third inning, So I do think there's probably
an opportunity for him to get the final outs of
a game.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
Maybe sometime real soon.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
Yeah, he's made what five appearances, he has eight strikeouts,
So he's doing exactly what you're talking about in that
he's only pitching an inning or so when he's making
those appearances, So multi strikeout appearances if they're as brief
as they are, which that's what the name of the
game is for a reliever. He has been fantastic and
been one of those guys where when he comes in

(34:05):
when everybody has these guys on their team and they
have the other kind of guys on their team, he
is not one of those guys where you see Joe's
spot at points the bullpen and he walks out, you
will never go Oh to Brian.

Speaker 3 (34:17):
King again, I talk in a very specific type of way.
People that listen to the show a lot are aware
of it, and sometimes they'll be confusing.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
Just to clarify.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
When I asked him about his opening Day, here's a
major league debut. It was following six innings of work
from from ber Valdez, and so when he came in,
he was talking about what was playing when he came
in the very first time, and that's what I was
referring to, saying, why don't you have that song every time?
Why don't you owe to our country every time you
comment on the un Why don't you make that your

(34:48):
entrance music? But obviously I also mentioned Ryan Presley's music,
and it got lost in translation. I don't want him
stealing Ryan Presley's music.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
That's Ryan's.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yeah, that's true. By the way, no one, and I
don't think no one has ever used.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
Brian King to America the Beautiful, Like, how awesome is that?
And he was, like I said, he really did. It
only took him seven pitches to get in and out
of that first Major League your parents, he was as
he has been to this day.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
No, unlike Mariano Rivera, no one, to the best of
my knowledge, has ever used Johnny Cash. And I don't
think anyone will ever use the song that Ryan Presley used.

Speaker 3 (35:28):
I think it's very specific to the area. For one thing,
I don't think the White Sox or Guardians, or Marlin's
or Rockies are gonna have a reliever that says, you know,
let let's make that happen, or gonna have a team
in their production department throw that on him and see
see if it sticks. Not to mention most of those
teams I mentioned, I don't know how many closing opportunities

(35:49):
they're getting home.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
That's the other thing. It only works if you're awesome.

Speaker 3 (35:54):
Edwin Diaz awesome closer, Mariano Rivera, Billy Wagner, Ryan Presley
awesome closer.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
What did Brad Ledge come out to before his career
got derailed by Albert Pooholz here in Houston and then
he recovered, of course in Philly.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
I do not recall. I feel like he had a
specific song though.

Speaker 3 (36:10):
No question he did. You guys are listening, We're dumb,
You're not let us know.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Yeah, I'm sure we'll find that on social that answer
very very quickly. But yeah, second of this three game
set in Colorado tonight and then a day game tomorrow.
We will not be here to do the show tomorrow,
but wex will be involved in the Astros tenth Inning
show after the series finale is completed, and then of
course they've got that four game set coming up in

(36:35):
Seattle this road trip. I know the Astros probably wouldn't
say this, and certainly not some of the broadcasters involved.
I feel like it's going fast, faster than I thought
it would when I looked up and saw it they
had ten games away from Houston right out out of
the gate.

Speaker 3 (36:48):
Well a week from yesterday. It will finally end. Like
it's not going to end until Monday of next.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
Week, I know.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
And part of that is the fact that I'm thinking
about this weekend being a three game series when it's
Vien and not very much a three game series.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
It's the four game series that wraps around the weekend.

Speaker 3 (37:03):
So one last note of positivity on Brian King, just
because they sounded like we're talking pretty glowingly about the
work he's done since his arrival with the team in
twenty twenty four, I meant it when I said it.
He's got the lowestdra of any Astros pitcher since twenty
twenty four that's thrown it through at least fifty innings.
This doesn't surprise me. This is an interesting list. Hunter Brown,

(37:27):
Josh Hayter, Brian Obreu are four, five and six on
this list. King's first Susan's third, and you say Kakuchi
a second, You say Kakuchi, well, only threw sixty innings,
and Bennett Suss's only at fifty point two. So among
pitchers who've thrown a little bit more than those two,
Brian King again, it's gonna hit one hundred innings as

(37:48):
a major leaguer. His next out, he's been awesome. You
can't ask her much more than that. Two sixty two
era is what he's thrown to as a major league pitcher.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
That's elite.

Speaker 1 (37:57):
If you were to inject truth serum in Kakuchi this
very second, he'd probably tell you that his best stretch
of his entire career was in Houston.

Speaker 3 (38:06):
No need for truth serum. Just like Garrett Cole. You
don't have to Ryan Presley too.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
You don't need to.

Speaker 3 (38:11):
You don't need to fool him, you don't need to
Arnold Schwarzenegger him, Just ask him.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
Weren't we all kind of skeptical though when he got crazy?

Speaker 1 (38:21):
This guy doesn't throw strikes, This guy's long pitch innings,
this guy's career history stinks. But the astros get ahold
of pitchers and they say, dude, I don't know what
these other teams were doing.

Speaker 3 (38:30):
I don't know what they were doing. I mean, I
know it's not our country, but I don't know what
they were doing in Toronto. And basically Seattle isn't our
country either. But now you're here in Houston. Look this pitch.
It gets swing and miss this pitch. Have you ever
noticed how people don't hit it? Throw it more?

Speaker 2 (38:47):
Do this?

Speaker 3 (38:48):
Do what we tell you. I promise it'll work. Just
follow our lead, and it worked tremendously. His ten start
stint with the Astros was phenomenal, seventy six k's and
sixty innings, and he won five of his decisions.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
Good acquisition, very good.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
All right, More Astros conversation plus Rockets get back together
with a familiar face tonight in the desert. That's all
coming up, as the simulcast begins. Next segment.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
The eight on Sports Toxico seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
You've got the Astros Over on news Radio seven forty
k TRH. They'll continue their series with the Colorado Rockies
after taking one on the chin nine to seven last night.

Speaker 2 (39:27):
What are you making faces for already?

Speaker 3 (39:30):
The Astros on Deck show begins here. That's six thirty,
followed by Astros Baseball, Rockets Launch Bad begins at nine
o'clock over on news radio seven forty k TRH, followed
by Oops, it's all right.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yep, did that exactly wrong? Even read the email from
earlier today.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
Read the email. It's written on the dog You're.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Gonna get outright second, can just say this real quick.
I hate this time of year because everything's on it.
It's like trying to find an NBA game on one
of the sixty different streaming Yeah. I know, but I'm
telling them the wrong information because I can't keep it straight.
And I just want to throw this through the wall
because every time I try to do that. This is
why Gordy.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
I don't forward tease, just find it, just keep it
on an iHeart station.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
We'll have a game somewhere.

Speaker 3 (40:20):
Astros Baseball tonight right here on Sports Talk seven to ninety.
Rockets Basketball tonight on news Radio seven forty k t ERE.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
Again, this is why I don't do this. You do
all the things like that. I'll just talk about the games.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
So anyway, we had Brian King on in the first hour,
and it is a reminder that there is still fantastic
talent pitching for the Astros, but you wouldn't know it
with all the runs they keep giving up. And sometimes
that's been okay because their offense, as we mentioned the
first hour, has has responded and been spectacular, especially in

(40:53):
light of last season where it just felt like you
were getting guys on base but they weren't gonna come home.
This time around, they're definitely doing that and you saw
that in the form of four hundred and sixty two
yards is our feet is like spectacular, whether it's in
Colorado or not. I mean, if you want to say
he got help or what have you, that's fine. But

(41:15):
Cam Smith and that is the longest one of the season,
I believe we did not mention in the first.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
In Major League Baseball right right for the Astros, not
in a game played at Corsfield, in any game played
in any stadium in Major League Baseball in twenty twenty six.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
I'm still mad about that email.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
I read the email earlier today and I said, I'm
going to say this on the year.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
This was a fool proof cheat sheet. It's close.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
It's probably like ninety five percent accurate. Usually the game
that begins.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
First is the one on seven ninety usually, and the
Rockets are the Astros. First pitch is seven to forty.
Rockets tip off is probably about ten.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
To twelve this evening.

Speaker 3 (41:54):
Could you imagine ten twelve and a regular season NBA
game will probably tip off tonight sent time at ten
to twelve.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
And you're not mad about it. I mean, I hope
they get a victory. I'm not worried about what time
they start.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
But isn't that the worst part of any sporting event
that goes on late? You invest that time, you lose
that sleep. You want to at least have a victory
to show for it.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
Again, it's all on the premise that, man, if only
I wasn't working Rockets basketball till twelve forty five, I
would definitely be asleep already, certainly be in bed. Let
me get you guys made me stay up an extra
three hours.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
A little the case, a little peek into reality from
all at nine or eleven, then I've fallen asleep. I
don't go to sleep at those times. You've dozed off
in front of whatever games you're watching at the time.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
Oh you're up, I heard you snoring. Yeah yeah, yeah,
well you get that too, Huh. It's annoying. So you
know what, I.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
Don't like that text message I just got from Brody
either he's taunting me. Good bring it so anyway, Astros tonight,
Mike Burrows doing this, Lance mccullors doing this, Emi definitely
doing this. I'm talking about starting pitchers as it pertains

(43:13):
to the start of the year versus where they are now.
Christian Javier not doing that. Yeah, we'll see if that
sticks again. We're gonna hear from Joe spot in twenty
five minutes. Some thoughts about how things went crazy place
to play games. He's been there many many times. That
was what we would call a crazy Colorado game last night. Obviously,
how the pitching went, and again remember what j Bryan

(43:33):
King just told us that Cody Bolton got a scare
very first bat of the game, then ended up getting
thirteen outs and pitching him into the fifth inning. The
thoughts of where things are with Jeremy Pania, who was
obviously in the lineup again last night leading off, and
how they make their way through the final six games
with one off day, the remainder of this road trip,
and Hunter Brown and kind of where things are with

(43:55):
what Joe had to say about him earlier this afternoon
and in advance of tonight's game, just kind of this
note on the Astros offense. All these things kind of
go hand in hand, and you've got to realize how
good the offense is. And I can give you a
number of different statistics to help point that out. The
team that has left the most runners on base is Houston.
The team that has scored the most runs is also Houston.

(44:19):
They are It's been maybe one of the best now
eleven game stretches that we've seen during this Golden era,
this best era of Astros baseball, this championship era, this
American League Championship era, this dominating the Division era. I mean,
I'm probably not going to put the time in to
see if there's another eleven game stretch where they're even

(44:40):
better than this, but I'm actually looking at it. Certainly
against the rest of the league, they're just better than
everybody else going right now. The Dodgers are the only
ones even close in a couple of different areas. Like
the Dodgers OBP now is eight eighty nine, so they're first.
The Astros is only eight eighty eight, their second.

Speaker 3 (44:58):
It's been incredible what they've been able to do they're
hitting to a bunch of double plays, they're leaving a
bunch of runners on base, but they're also bringing a
lot of them in. You know, last night, you would
have liked to bring a few more of them home.
Quite obviously.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
You do that, you probably end up winning the game
if you can hold the Rockies down in that additional
at bat that they would have. But it can happen
if you're not constantly threatening them, and that goes to
the bats that they're taking. So Joe comment on all
of those things, and like we said, we'll get you
ready for Astros baseball starting at six point thirty. Every
game the rest of the season, if you are looking

(45:30):
at seeding is important in the NBA. More important than
that every game played is can we get through one
more game of health? The Lakers could not. Two of
their best three players went down last night. Victor Webbin
Yama in the Spurs victory did not play in the
second half after Paul George ran into him with his
chest and he had a rib contusion.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
Not Paul. Paul was fine.

Speaker 3 (45:53):
Victor did stay in the game, but he did not
return in the second half because of that rib contusion.
They still won so they kept kind of on the
heels of Oklahoma City, who has not yet clinched the
one seed. They've got a two and a half game
lead with four for OKC three remaining for the Spurs.
Spurs have the tiebreaker, having beaten them four out of
the five times, so they have to be better than

(46:13):
them record wise to finish with the number one seed. Obviously,
we've been laying out what matters between three through six
and seven is Phoenix. They've not yet been eliminated from
rising into the sixth spot. Minnesota is playing the Pacers
tonight on the road in Indiana, dub I know the
Pacers aren't playing to win, but the Pacers that are
on the court are playing hard. And the Timberwolves that

(46:35):
will be on the court tonight will not include Jade
McDaniels and will not include Anthony Edwards. You know, most nights,
when we're talking about what is in front of the Wolves,
we just keep harping on the absence of Edwards. I
think their second most important player to winning is McDaniels.
I know Julius Randall can fill it up, but he's

(46:55):
very Doctor Jekyll and mister Hyde.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
What about Nasried uh Nos, Reed's healthy. I think he's
maybe one of the next guys in line. I just
meant his importance, not quite. I don't think I feel
like he gives the same thing every night.

Speaker 3 (47:07):
Yeah, he's consistent and obviously the way they use him,
he's not a starter, but he is a finisher.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
So help me out here with this analogy.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
If I just called Julius Randall, doctor Jekyl, and mister Hyde,
one of those two is not desirable, which one is it?
I think it's the hide right, Okay, so that would
make Rudy Gobert only mister Hyde not desirable at all.
If Rudy I cannot wait for the playoffs. It's why
I was having a hard time deciding which of the
two teams as a matchup that Rockets fans want more.

(47:37):
The Lakers, And that was when they were healthy. So
now it's no debate, but when the Lakers were healthy
or the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Minnesota Timberwolves are always desirable
as a matchup in the playoffs because Rudy Gobert is
playing for the other team if their coach is dumb
enough to put him out there for thirty minutes a night,
and for the most important minutes in a close game
late cakewalk. Chalk it up to you cannot lose to

(47:59):
that team. He's such a playoff zero. It is amazing,
and so I always look forward to that matchup if
you happen to be watching the opponents play them, and
now he's going to be counted on even more if
they're still missing those two players. Pacers are missing a
bunch of guys, so who knows if they can manage
to grab a victory there. But obviously it would help
Phoenix if they wanted to slide into six. It certainly

(48:20):
helps the Rockets not need to push somebody from passing them,
but I really don't think that's much of an issue
that they have fifty The Rockets have forty nine wins.
The Timberwolves have forty six. They certainly have to beat
the Rockets when they play, but they would also have
to do a lot of other things as well. If
the Rockets beat the Timberwolves when their hair on the tenth,
no matter what else happens, that would clinch no worse

(48:42):
than five for Houston.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
It sucks because the fact that the Rockets have lost
so many games that they should not have lost, just
based on the opponent, lends itself to the fact that
they will more than likely wind up the four seed,
play four to five, beat the Lakers in the first round.
I think if you have the Thunder in the second round,
where as before, maybe if you're in a different situation,

(49:06):
you might not have had the Lakers in the first round.
But should you have gotten to the second round, you're
talking about in all likelihood a Nuggets team that you're playing,
perhaps where even though they would be favored, and even
though they have a guy who I still think is
the most valuable player in the league, records be damned
and all that, I just think what he does is
far more valuable for the Nuggets, where meaning when you

(49:29):
take him away, they're not even a functional franchise. If
SGA goes down tomorrow, Thunder are still going to win
the majority of their games.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
They just will. They have a lot of talent, and
they play really good defense.

Speaker 3 (49:40):
I don't know if I quite agree with that, because
I think Denver's a little bit better. I think, very
very truthfully, not anti san Antonio. I think the way
that the two teams, the three teams are playing right now,
I think the two teams most likely to play in
the Western Conference Finals are Denver and Oklahoma City.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
I totally agree with that.

Speaker 3 (49:58):
I think Denver every night for the past two weeks,
I imagine Rocket fans have been watching them lose for
the first three quarters every single night. It seems like
they did to the Rockets too. They just did it
last night. They were down fourteen to the Blazers, who
are trying to win and advance their own position, and
down fourteen to the fourth quarter, tied the game up,
actually had a game winning shot attempt to avoid overtime,

(50:20):
and then won in overtime. It's what they do. They
don't lose anymore. They are now healthy. This is the
best version that they've been all season, even though Watson
isn't fully integrated back into what they're doing. I think
they're as dangerous as they've ever been. I absolutely think
they can win the West, and again I would rate
them ahead of San Antonio as a team likely to
do it. San Antonio, Houston, Denver, and Oklahoma City. Those

(50:42):
are the four teams I expect to see in the
Western Conference semifinals based on the current playoff seatings lost
to discuss here. Not only on that front, but we
draw closer to the fun of the NFL draft a
little bit on that. And there is no more college
basketball because the championship game was played last night Hail two,
though we'll talk about it next.

Speaker 6 (51:04):
The eight on Sports Talk seven ninety as really mentioned that.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
I don't really care for college basketball. But I've told
you the reasons before. The shooting is awful. They don't
hit free throws. The athleticism in comparison to the NBA
is it's just such a steep drop off. It's not
anywhere near college football versus pros. Like, it's just not

(51:33):
I can watch a college football game and be completely satisfied.
But then the national championship game was played last night.
You know what the champs, the eventual champs, Michigan. Do
you know what they shot for the game?

Speaker 2 (51:47):
I know it was not very good. It didn't start
with a five.

Speaker 3 (51:49):
Well, you are doing a phenomenal job of playing.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
The hits here. It didn't start with the four.

Speaker 3 (51:55):
Well, where did they play and on what rims and
with what basketball? I complained for decades and the coaches
have done the same, and they still don't do anything
about it.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
And they're stupid for it. They're I mean stupid is
the right word? Is dope? Explain what you're talking about.
They play with new rims.

Speaker 3 (52:10):
They play with new overinflated basketballs on a brand new
court that is lifted up off the ground, unlike most
other courts, unlike most other rims, unlike most other basketballs.
And they can't figure. And they're playing with a very
very very different shooting background in these cavernous stadiums. It's
not a joke, it's not a maybe, it's a definitive.

(52:34):
It is a fact.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
It affects it.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
They shoot worse. It happens every single year. There's a
couple of games that are outliers where man, this team
shot fifty nine percent. Yeah, that team and that one game,
what about their opponents? And then the next opponents, and
then this game. Quite honestly, last night was the first
I'm not positive who's going to win this game after
five minutes game they've had.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
Now.

Speaker 3 (52:53):
There weren't lead changes and it wasn't that close, but
they didn't blow them out, thankfully. I used the ugly
Yes on Monday's Good Bad and the Ugly for the
two respective first five games of the Final four. Both
of the semifinals on the men's and women's side, and
the completed women's final just wasn't very competitive. And whichever
team got on the board first and had their first

(53:14):
six to seven eight point lead, it grew to twenty.
There was nothing the other team could do about it. Now,
Michigan had the lead throughout, but they never had such
a lead that you didn't want to stay tuned, you
didn't want to keep watching, and there were plays to
be made. I'm impressed by the slightly less than one
hundred percent Wolverines, a pair of them, and the way
that they were able to play last night, because I

(53:35):
thought that was going to close the gap, and I
really think it did. But the better team won. I mean,
Michigan was the better team throughout the year. They've had
a much better tournament against whoever they've been up against,
and they won. They did shoot a very low percentage.
They made twenty one of their fifty five shots. That
is not very good. Now, you also said they don't
shoot free throws, well, they shot free throws exceptionally well.

(53:58):
Twenty five of twenty eight is why they're champs. But
twenty eight attempts is whyugh.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
In a forty minute game, twenty eight attempts. I don't
like free throws in the pros or college? Is this?
I don't discriminate, Do.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
You just do you count the ones that were Well,
we're losing, so we have to keep sending them to
the line free throws?

Speaker 2 (54:16):
No, because I realized that's a part of that.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
It's an unfortunate part of the end of a lot
of basketball games where you're fouling intentionally and whatnot. And
I get that that's something that casual fans of basketball
at any level don't like that aspect of the game.
But it's just just part of the game that's like,
I don't know what to care about. That's like a
holding call in football. It just comes with the sauce.

Speaker 3 (54:37):
And I believe that I've read some write up, some
posts something commentary about the game, and everyone's pointing to
what you're pointing to the team that won and what
twenty one fifty five, the team that lost went twenty
one of sixty eight.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
Tell me which starter for Yukon.

Speaker 3 (54:54):
Basically the guys that get all the minutes, which one
of them had a good game offensively? Because you can't
name even one the guy who sent Doucom mullins. He
made four shots, that's awesome. What about the other thirteen
that he missed? And they shot a billion threes on
these hard rims with bouncy basketballs. It's astonine that college

(55:18):
basketball has not realized how.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
Easy it is to give at least a little bit
of a fix to this. It's not going to guarantee
they shoot well, but this almost guarantees that teams won't
shoot well.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
Is there any reason?

Speaker 1 (55:32):
Because I think two thirds of what you're talking about
can easily be fixed. Nobody's going to change the stadium setting,
so that's out. Sorry, you have to plan an elevated
floor in a football stadium. Those are the breaks. But
with that setting, there's no real reason that you couldn't
put I mean, it's the basket.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
Is the basket.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
I don't think the baskets, stanchion size and all that
is all that different.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
It's the rim, right, the baskets are saying, but well,
the rim does change.

Speaker 1 (55:58):
Well, what I'm saying is, why can't you bring instead rems?
Even if the like, why can't you do that?

Speaker 7 (56:04):
You can?

Speaker 1 (56:04):
And the basketball is the easiest thing to fix, exactly
so why they do look more orange?

Speaker 3 (56:09):
Uh yeah, I mean it's you could have had three
more games of fantastic excitement and buzzer beating awesomeness we didn't.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
Death perception is a thing, though, Yeah, and I get it.

Speaker 3 (56:20):
You know this is your I'm pretty sure college sports
is a business to money making endeavor. So if you
can get whatever thousand people to buy seats that are
a billion miles away in your cavernous NFL stadium, keep
doing it. And I don't blame them for that. The
other parts of it are very easy. You can still
get sponsors on the basketball. You can still have good basketball.
I mean again, competitive basketball kind of wipes it away.

(56:41):
But I'll never get over what we witnessed here in
Houston in the championship game with Yukon not so coincidentally
and Butler.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
It was a joke.

Speaker 3 (56:50):
It was one of the worst basketball games I've ever seen.
These are the two best teams in the country. These
are the teams that earned their way by out playing
their five opponents on the way to the title game,
and nobody could put the ball in the aske It
battle basketball.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
I interviewed the Bulldog at like five in the morning
for Channel two one time. I hope you mean the
mascot not the actual dog. Both were there. Yes, I'm
talking about the actual dog. I didn't really ask it
questions because I knew it wasn't going to say anything back.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
I have a picture with.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
Him, which awesome. Anchors were throwing it out to you.

Speaker 1 (57:21):
This would have been Courtney's avala, okay, And it might
have been a solo deal because it might have been
on a weekend.

Speaker 3 (57:29):
So I'm sure after she got it back from you,
I will send it back to you. Courtney Live from
NRG Stadium, Adam Clinton. At the time, I don't even.

Speaker 2 (57:37):
Know it was George R. Brown Okay, the Georgia what
were they called at the time? Festivities? Who the station?

Speaker 1 (57:44):
I think Local two is still Local two okay, yea,
And Courtney said, great, great stuff, thanks Adam. Well, the
problem was who I was really supposed to interview that day.
Couldn't do the interview because he was under the weather.
His name was William, his last name was Walton.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
Early in the morning.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
No, that was a different time. I was there all
weekend and all week actually at the times. But yeah,
he did take a picture with me, but he was
under the weather.

Speaker 3 (58:09):
Michigan sixty nine, Yukon sixty three. Michigan champions a forty
game season for both teams.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
Yeah, I mean, look, that's Michigan's having a nice little run.
By the way, they certainly are an athletic program. Amidst
scandal and turmoil, they're doing a lot of winning. They
won the title here in Houston, a couple of national
championships ago, and on the football side, obviously they've won this.
They have six other titles I believe with their other
professional sports teams.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
That's how you have to say it. They're being paid,
they're being accurate. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
By the way, did did all the charges get dropped
on more? I don't think all of them know. The
lesser charge is stuck and the bigger charges did. As
I recall, I don't know. Is that thing still up
in the air it has been finished? The case.

Speaker 2 (58:55):
I don't think it's been completed. Okay, he's never gonna
coach again.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
Right, you can hire him if you want to. I
don't know who you are and why you hate your
job so much?

Speaker 1 (59:07):
You being athletic directors. No, I mean I say this
all I'm not so much. Yeah, give this guy a
second chance.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
I get that angle of it, But is there nobody
walking the planet that wants the job that you're hiring
for Because you can hire that other person, you can
do that, they're gonna have a chance to succeed. Like
he doesn't by no means does he have a track
record of success. That says, if you're not hiring him
because of the baggage that he carries, well good luck

(59:35):
to you. You're not hiring the best football coach. That's
definitely not the case with Scharl Moore. So you have
multiple reasons to hire somebody with less baggage who might
actually win, just like he might actually win, Like he
doesn't have a good enough head coach resume. He spent
a lot of time coaching college football at some level
and as an assistant, But he was given the head

(59:56):
job of the team that just won the national championship.
You want to hear, and it's not even he was
the coach of that team at that time.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
It's not even a hot take because it really doesn't
make sense if you think about it. We always talk
about baggage, and you're only worth the amount of baggage
you bring to the table based on what your performance is.
That is so a different conversation for any sort of
leader of men versus an athlete. You will put up
with so much stuff as an athlete that they'll do
off the playing surface because they can do this on

(01:00:24):
the playing surface. But if your job description is to
lead men and you have that kind of baggage, especially,
you're like, you have to go through you have to
run the gamut to even get back to I mean,
we talked about Art Briles.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
Who is the guy? Oh my gosh, why am i
urban Meyer?

Speaker 7 (01:00:40):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
The other one road Rasha urban Meyer.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
No road Rash Robert Patrino, Yes, Robert Patrino, otherwise known
as Bobby.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
I mean, he was catching. He was coaching out like UTEV,
wasn't he?

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
Uh No, he was coaching in a smaller Arkansas product.
And then he was the interim coach for his colleague
that he was already working for this year, and then
they decided after the year, let's go somewhere else, let's
let's move in another direction. That guy was a scumbag,
but he did get a second chance. Now, his resume
was a little bit better than Sharon's was. Yeah, and

(01:01:16):
he's also regarded as a very good offensive coach and
ultimately ended up getting this head coaching job because he
was already the OC.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
Also, there weren't any weapons used. It was just more
of a sleazy situation with him. Yeah, he's a sleez bag, Okay,
all right, or as Wex likes to call people, dirt bags.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
Joe A.

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
Spota stopped by the station earlier on today a portion
of what he had to say about the Colorado Rocky
Mountain High.

Speaker 3 (01:01:42):
Yeah, his thoughts on the latest with Hunter Brown. Also
coming your way next here on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 5 (01:01:47):
Ninety the eight on Sports Talk seventh to you.

Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
On this Tuesday afternoon before Games two and three of
their series against the Colorado Rockies. A visit from Joe
Aspata weekly here on sorts Talk seven to ninety. That
took place earlier today on the Matt Thomas Show with
Ross as it always does.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
If you miss that or our interview with Brian King
a little bit earlier on this show, you can catch
that via Sports Talk seven ninety dot com via the
iHeartRadio app. Please, if you are not already, subscribe to
each of our show with our podcast and you'll always
find everything we have here on Sports Talk seven to ninety,
but a portion of that is spot an interview for
you right here, beginning with what it's like as per
usual playing wild games in Colorado.

Speaker 7 (01:02:28):
Seems some while once here in Colorado throughout my career,
and Sacramento has become one of those ballparks where you know,
it's just challenging, but you know, we we have to
we have to find a way to get the job done,
you know. And it's not you know, it's uh, you know,
both both teams are playing on the same elements, so
we just got to find a way to win.

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
Uh.

Speaker 8 (01:02:50):
Even though the pitching staff has been roughed up the
last handful of days, you do have an offense that
has been able to, uh really top to bottom, give
you the enough offensive production to win most even if
the pitching staff unfortunately has not been able to come
through for you.

Speaker 4 (01:03:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:03:04):
And and that's been you know, we we we that's
been the character of our team. You know, we'll fight
to the end. You know, even last year when we
have the full arsenal of our offense on the field
at all times, we always find ways to to fight
to the end and and and keep you a run
full of money, and that's that's who we are right now.

(01:03:25):
We have we we have an offense in which we
we understand what makes you successful.

Speaker 9 (01:03:32):
We're going to grind up bats. We're going to make
pictures work for for every pitch. We're not going to
give the bats away. We have from one through nine
giving you.

Speaker 7 (01:03:43):
Quality if at bats and our offense it's clicking.

Speaker 4 (01:03:47):
Now.

Speaker 7 (01:03:48):
We we have to keep that going. And and and
at the same time, you know understand that you know
the pitching is going to it's going to come around, right,
so you know, we have some really good arms. We
went to a stretch where we were able to roll,
you know, bulping out there and we got some clean
innings and stuff like that. It's it's been challenging the
last the last couple of the last couple of games.

(01:04:09):
But but you know, but I do have confidence in
this dice that don't turn around. And and but I'm
very pleased with our offense and just being able to
fight and and keep us in games.

Speaker 10 (01:04:19):
Feels like there's a ton of guys we can highlight
that are hitting well for you. But let's focus on
Cam Smith. What if you've seen from him at the play.
And how about that shot he had last night, Well,
it was.

Speaker 7 (01:04:31):
A bomb, you know, in that in that game, you're done,
hit one straight center. You know, I think, I think
walk with someone else in another ball where I thought, uh,
these balls had a really good shot of leaving the
ballpark and he didn't. But once he hit his it
was like a golf ball. He was like a tee off,

(01:04:51):
like he tee off and it was just an absolutely bomb.
You know, he's driving the boat a right field for homers.
He driving the ball in the air straight center. You know,
he's pulling the ball with confidence. Ages that fats are
really good. His presence, he's confidence has been really really good.

(01:05:13):
And you know, we know what this guy with this
kick is capable of doing. With time we experienced and
and hopefully we we we're talking to we're starting to
tap into into his uh, into his talent.

Speaker 10 (01:05:29):
Astro's manager Joe spotted with us here on Sports Talk
seven ninety. How has Jeremy Pania been coming along and
do you have a plan about as far as in
terms of integrating him daily.

Speaker 7 (01:05:41):
Yeah, I think you know, he's we were getting to
a point where you guys will see him there every day.
We are in a position where he's build up pretty good.
We'll continue to, you know, keep an eye on him,
and not only him, but the rest of the guys.
Right we we've been playing some really long ball games.
I want to make sure that we if not only
Jeremy but other starters some time up their feet. But

(01:06:04):
but he's in a he's in a really good spot.
You know, you mentioned Hunter, and I'll be sharing some
information today with with the media, you know, once I
meet with the media at around four o'clock mountain time,
so you know you'll stay tuned for for for that information.

Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
Wait a minute, we are your friends, Joe, you can
tell us. Won't tell anybody, just to ourselves, I know, but.

Speaker 7 (01:06:29):
You know everybody's listening to your show.

Speaker 5 (01:06:33):
Thank you appreciate that.

Speaker 8 (01:06:34):
You know, Uh, Esox back of bereavement. How much time
does he need to get get ready for you to
start playing getting back in the line up here.

Speaker 7 (01:06:44):
He'll be in there. He'll be in there tonight.

Speaker 4 (01:06:46):
You know.

Speaker 7 (01:06:46):
I wanted to make sure that you know, he was
at home for a couple of days and I wanted
him to get back to Colorado, get a full day
of work, do some strings hit and and and you know,
temperatures are pool here. So I didn't want to rush
him on the field. Last season, right after the All
Star break, he played in that first game in Seattle,
and that was the injury happened. So I want to
make sure that we we do it, you know, we

(01:07:08):
do it the right way. Get a day of work
in the weight room and all that, and then you
know he's able to get back in there today.

Speaker 8 (01:07:16):
For I let your run skip, Uh, Brian, And Brian
did not perform well for you in that game on Sunday,
and the e are is inflated. Obviously it's gonna it
will go down with some better performances coming up hopefully.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
Uh.

Speaker 8 (01:07:28):
You know there's some will say, you know, does does
jooning to be thinking about maybe making some changes and
maybe altering the late games leverage situation. The reality is
wherever you put him in with the way you're pitching
staff right now and the way your bullpen is going
to be used a lot because the starters haven't gone
as long as you want to.

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
You need to go to Brian.

Speaker 8 (01:07:44):
What have your conversations been like with him as he
left the mound on Sunday?

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
Uh?

Speaker 8 (01:07:49):
You know, he's he needs a clean inning, and he
needs only in the clean inning in your mind, I
would think, but he also needs anying where he's not
over taxed in terms of number of pitches being thrown.

Speaker 4 (01:07:57):
Yeah, no, no, you're right.

Speaker 7 (01:07:58):
And and know I've talked to Brian about it, and
you know, with some mechanical issues that he's been working
through here, and you know, and and I've like I
told him and some of the late inning guys just
to be ready to pitch anytime late in the game.
You know, I want Brian to you know, potentially be
open to you know, doesn't necessarily got to be the

(01:08:20):
ninth inning. There could be leverage in DA the pocket
where he can click cleaning and throw that eighth And
you know, I do have Brian King, I do have
Tang guys that could throw late in the game. I
have Bluebaugh who can also be deployed lay in the game.
So I've been I'm going to be looking at ways
to get him going, and because we obviously we need him.

(01:08:42):
He's he's been so good and so valuable to us
for years that for us to get him back probably
get him in some situations where he can go in
a little less leverage and get a clean inning and
get him going.

Speaker 2 (01:08:55):
A couple of things there.

Speaker 3 (01:08:56):
Obviously, what he mentioned there is something we were talking
about earlier when we just finished up with our Brian
King interview. Probably be ready. If you are a lad
inning guy, you could go in the seventh, the eighth
to ninth.

Speaker 2 (01:09:07):
We will see how things shake out.

Speaker 3 (01:09:09):
Not necessarily a demotion from the closer's role, but maybe
an opportunity in a little bit less of a leverage situation,
maybe with a few more outs to go. If it
doesn't work out, the Astros would still then have a
chance to make good on getting the victory. And he
also said he would likely have more on Hunter Brown
later this afternoon when he meets with the media, which
I suspect he will. But the Astros have also now

(01:09:30):
updated us while we were listening there. To Joe, it's
a Grade two right shoulder strain for Hunter Brown. He
will refrain from throwing for a few weeks, and obviously
beyond that, trying to grade it again, well, what does
a grade two strain mean? The severity of it again
is a little bit more clear when they call it
grade too, but not necessarily for what a timetable might

(01:09:52):
look like.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
Hopefully, like I said.

Speaker 3 (01:09:53):
We'll get a little bit more from Joe a little
bit later this afternoon, maybe even before we leave it,
certainly during.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
The Astros on Deck show.

Speaker 3 (01:10:01):
But like I said, this did not likely to me
seem like an interview or an injury that would be
short term. I hope it's not super long term. But
he's not throwing for a few weeks. That's all of
April right there without even throwing. Basically, so is May
when you begin to see if he can throw. Have
you decided to have a procedure which sets the timetable

(01:10:21):
back even more. That's obviously what we will be discussing.
We come back on the other side, Astro's heading into
the unknown with Hunter Brown Rockets heading into the postseason,
and one of their recent opponents, shockingly because he has
a podcast, is talking about the Houston Rockets.

Speaker 2 (01:10:37):
All of that. Next here on the A Team.

Speaker 5 (01:10:40):
Well wex.

Speaker 2 (01:10:42):
I'm gonna read aloud.

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
From a medical definition, a Grade two shoulder strain is
a moderate injury involving partially torn ligaments connecting the shoulder
blade to the collarbone. Symptoms include pain, swelling and a
visible small bump. Treatment focuses on rest, ice and physical therapy,
usually healing within.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
Four to twelve weeks. Why shouldn't I jump off the roof?

Speaker 3 (01:11:09):
I'm not sure why people thought a shoulder strain would
be a short term injury. So again, it's good to
have more news, but it is to me as expected
and rather unfortunate. The Astros can win baseball games without
Hunter Brown, they become far less of a sure thing
to win baseball games without Hunter Brown. He affects the
team in many different ways beyond just the day he starts. Obviously,

(01:11:30):
the day before, in the day after, quite obviously, but
he also on that particular day he was your sure thing.
You're going to have a chance to win that game.
Might not win them all, but if he gives you
thirty two starts, odds are pretty good. With the team
you have around him, you're winning at least twenty of those.
So out of the gate, with thirty two starts from
your ace, you're eight games over five hundred. You know,

(01:11:51):
you're eighty four and seventy six with two games to go.
Depending on what everybody else does, it could be a
little bit better than that was probably gonna be in
that neighborhood now that A is out the window, probably
for two months. I mean, if everything goes well, and
that is an accurate description of his recovery, you have
to factor in recovery plus plus the complete from scratch

(01:12:11):
ramp up. It's an injury that prevents him from being
ready to throw in the majors. So it's going to
take several weeks after that after a full heel. Doesn't
make it sound like surgery is a necessity. But I'm
curious what we'll hear from Joe A. Spotta later this afternoon,
if maybe you know the decision makers, the doctors, his agent,
the team, what they think the best course of action is.

(01:12:32):
Obviously his future is something to be concerned about, but
his future in twenty twenty six might also be something
for them to be concerned about. And it's tough when
you have a team that clearly can win big this year.
I think it's pretty clear the Astros can.

Speaker 2 (01:12:49):
Win big this year.

Speaker 1 (01:12:50):
It's an American league with probably five or six really
good teams.

Speaker 3 (01:12:55):
They're one of them. It's an American league without an
obvious dominant teaminion, so they have as good a chance
as the Tigers, the Yankees, the Blue Jays, the Mariners,
anybody of winning big this year. And obviously that's a
Yesterday we called it a kick in the gut. I
said it was multiple kicks in the gut, and you
probably hadn't eaten in a while, so it really hurt.
And it is exactly that as we get the grade

(01:13:16):
two strain news on Hunter Brown.

Speaker 1 (01:13:19):
Two questions as it pertains to this, And I don't
know how much of those twelve worst case scenario weeks
this week because again, like you just said, I mean,
how do you know that's worst case scenario. Well, worst
case scenarios have surgery. That's that is the worst case scenario.
Because then I don't I don't even know what the
recovery times.

Speaker 3 (01:13:35):
Again, it indicates a tear, but it indicates a tear
likely that doesn't require surgery.

Speaker 2 (01:13:42):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:13:42):
But to your other point, then you've got to start
ramping up. So that's where the timetable becomes. It's not
going to be anything remotely short. And so my first
question would be, if you were Hunter Brown and you
fancied yourself a cy young candidate, you didn't even have
to fancy yourself a sy young candidate.

Speaker 2 (01:13:58):
You were You've got that good stuff?

Speaker 3 (01:14:01):
Is that he together a World Baseball Classic roster including
every single major league pitcher as an option. He's in
your starting five, he's in the starting rotation, Hunter Brown.

Speaker 1 (01:14:13):
Could you imagine if he had taken part in the
World Baseball Classic and then this happened, it would immediately
be the blame.

Speaker 3 (01:14:19):
Well, yeah it would, But what is the actual blame?
Why do you get hurt? Because he plays baseball? He
throws the baseball hard. But again, did he throw too hard?

Speaker 2 (01:14:28):
Too soon?

Speaker 3 (01:14:29):
Could ask that did he throw too many pitches in
his opening start?

Speaker 2 (01:14:33):
Through one hundred and two?

Speaker 1 (01:14:34):
We just got done talking yesterday about how an iron
man he is though he's never had injury issues, so
this is the first significant one.

Speaker 2 (01:14:39):
So it's not just about.

Speaker 3 (01:14:41):
Right, Let's take it back to last year's conversation. As
I smile as I say it, like we don't know
when what's going to happen to who and why? Right,
we're going on and on and on about well, he's
never been hurt before, So whoever wants to sign him,
at your own risk, go ahead, give Romber Valdez money.

Speaker 2 (01:15:00):
Well, that was about usage from the standpoint, there's the difference.

Speaker 1 (01:15:02):
They're frontline starters who made every start for the better
part of two years.

Speaker 2 (01:15:06):
But the panda or the epidemic of Tommy John specifically
in the ASTROS organization, lends itself to what I was
the point I was trying to make there, like, this
isn't that this is a this is a shoulder. It's
it's the best.

Speaker 1 (01:15:21):
Case scenario when it comes to those two, right, But
there's no predicting picture.

Speaker 2 (01:15:25):
Injuries is fools.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
But the point of all this is he even in
the conversation, provided he comes back, or has he missed
too much time already for a Cy Young?

Speaker 2 (01:15:38):
He's not in any c Young conversation. That's what I figured.

Speaker 1 (01:15:41):
And the second part is how much does this push
Dana Brown to go try and get help? Which is
a really weird time to say this, since we're in
week two of the regular season.

Speaker 3 (01:15:53):
It's not a weird time to say, Hey, Dana, what
do you think of the offense? My god, they're unbelievable.
What do you think about esak pereties a huge part
of what we could do, but he's barely been out there.

Speaker 2 (01:16:02):
Huh So who are they?

Speaker 1 (01:16:04):
Their offense is so good and they're trading from a
position of massive strength. Could you include Essak Perettis and
others either from the team or from the minor league
outfit and go out and get yourself not an ace,
but more of a frontline, proven commodity, a top three
A guy who you know can answer the bell, guy
who's healthy, guy who's a legit major leaguer, because that

(01:16:27):
is exactly what you lack in spots two, three, four, five,
and six. Currently, there is not a single pitcher in
the astros current rotation that is a bona fide given
as a major league starting pitcher. Lack slot one because
he's hurt, well, yeah, the whole yes, slot one through
six now because Hunter's not in it, there's not a
single one of them. Spencer Arighetty's pitching for the Astros

(01:16:47):
during their next ten games. I think that's pretty much
a given in my opinion. He's not going anywhere for
a while. In all likely no, But.

Speaker 3 (01:16:53):
I don't know if he's gonna pitch well, I mean,
I hope. I'm sure Luca and Nico Cable pitch well.
As his wife finally posted pictures of them with their
names so congrats to them. They've Yesterday we talked about
Gracie and Derek and others who may have hard launched
their relationship. Yes, the Arraghetties have soft launched their new arrivals.

(01:17:14):
A picture of a hand one day, a picture of
dad and baby, a picture of mom and baby. But
every couple of posts on social media they've been more.

Speaker 2 (01:17:22):
Here's a little bit more. Today.

Speaker 3 (01:17:24):
The babies were there, not their faces, but in their
little outfits with their names.

Speaker 1 (01:17:31):
I just wish they could catch a break from a
pitching standpoint. I know that there was a litany of
injuries last year to position players, but the Astros have
more than paid their fair share of whatever you want
to call it to not have some of the biggest

(01:17:51):
or best names available to them that should have been
in their organization had it not been for insert major injury.

Speaker 3 (01:17:58):
Yeah, most people looked at all the act positions that
Dana Brown made on the pitching side, starting pitching sides,
specifically in arms that could be starters, as a way
to make sure everybody after Hunter Brown would they would
have answers for any issues that if he doesn't pitch well,
if he doesn't recover, if he gets hurt. We've got
guys to slot and then never put together a team
that they figured would have to slot in four Hunter Brown.

(01:18:18):
Nor would any team do that. Not a single thing
wrong with the way that Dana did that this offseason.
You were counting on Hunter Brown. It was the right
thing to do. You now just can't. It's injuries are
a part of sports. They're certainly a part of pitchers injuries.
Arm injuries.

Speaker 1 (01:18:31):
It's not an elbow, it's not a force a triceps
or biceps.

Speaker 3 (01:18:35):
It is a shoulder strained grade too. He's going to
miss many weeks with this. Like I said, an update
from the team itself, beyond what they put in their
game notes that it is a grade two strain and
he will refrain from throwing for a few weeks. Will
hopefully I have that for you a little bit later
on the program. Two more hours with us the Astros
on Deck Show beginning at six thirty. A whole lot
more for us to get through here on the A

(01:18:57):
Team on a Tuesday afternoon, the.

Speaker 5 (01:19:01):
Aged on Sports Talk Stevin ninety.

Speaker 2 (01:19:05):
Ninety and Space City Home Network.

Speaker 1 (01:19:08):
On a day where we learned that the news about
Hunter Brown is even worse than we thought. I mean,
it is a shoulder strain, like Wex was saying, so
it's not gonna be a slow or not a quick
road to recovery. But when you hear that, it's great too,
which means there's at least a partial tear in there.
And then you factor in the fact that after that
heals sufficiently for him to start ramping up, well, then

(01:19:32):
the ramping up begins.

Speaker 2 (01:19:34):
It's gonna be a long long time.

Speaker 1 (01:19:36):
I was making fun of Wex yesterday because he basically
was saying, yeah, a Hunter Brown's not pitching until the
calendar hits June.

Speaker 3 (01:19:42):
But that's why, even as you said, and we've talked
about it now since the Astros posted it in their
game notes, I mean, I don't I can't tell people
what to expect. I can tell them what I thought
right out of the gate. I'm not all my godding
this announcement at all. I'm not all my godding. He's
out for a couple of months. I'm not sure why
anybody would have expected less he's got a shoulder issue.

(01:20:02):
I mean, it could have been a Grade one string
trained quite obviously, which woul last week.

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
Sure, but I really don't.

Speaker 3 (01:20:07):
I don't usually expect, oh, it's a nothing, even when
Josh Hater came back to camp and we had no
reports of it. I mean, I asked Dana Brown when
we had the media luncheon, is there any expectation that
guys who left the year hurt aren't healthy as we
start spring training? And he said he didn't think so.
Other than Nate Pearson. He knew where he was at
that time, and in indicat he probably would not be

(01:20:28):
ready to throw. But then Josh Haterer gets there. We
know he hasn't had a procedure and he's had a setback.
I was concerned that not having a procedure was significant.
I was so very surprised it didn't require it. He
had a shoulder capsule issue and he got hurt late
enough in the season, and I don't think people viewed
it as catastrophic. He missed the final forty games or so.

(01:20:49):
If he had gotten hurt a month sooner, you could
have added those thirty games. If he would have gotten
month hurt two months sooner, you could have added those
sixty games. It was a season ending injury unless it
happened in the opening week. It was a months long process.
He only missed a month and a half because there
was only a month and a half left. It was
a very long term injury, which is exactly what I

(01:21:11):
thought it would be when it was announced as a
shoulder issue. I hope it's only as bad as a
Grade two can be. I hope there's no surgery necessary.
I hope he comes back and you know, can give
you one hundred and eighty ago half of a season
of excellence, because if he comes back, I'll be expecting excellence.
But they are aceless. They are question mark ridden from
every single day moving forward until they prove otherwise. Six

(01:21:35):
starts into Tatsuya EMI's career, maybe we'll feel comfortable giving
the ball every fifth or sixth day that he's going
to go out there and give the team a chance
to win. He's done it once, He's not done it once.
Today you get Mike Burrows for the third time. You know,
when in his progression, do you feel like, okay giving
him the ball every fifth day? You have a chance
to win this game. He's going to post a three
to fifteen ERA this year. That's a real opportunity to win.

(01:21:57):
I think Lance mcullors just throwing the ball well twice
he's got and excellent results once. How far into the
season are you confident that everything that could go on
and on it applies to every single picture they have.
It didn't apply to Hunter Brown as recently as last season.
It didn't apply to Hunter Brown and fromber Valdez. You've
gone from two sure things, or as close as you

(01:22:17):
can get to it, recognizing fromber was rather inconsistent late
in his astro's career, but really someone you could count
on overall, is a fair way to put it. You
went from two last year, the final week of the
season of your last season, to zero in week two
of this season.

Speaker 1 (01:22:34):
Well, barring something happening like what I just was predicted
just by the law of averages with fromber Valdez, this
is the scenario that you feared if you were the Astros.
You didn't really sufficiently replace a guy that eats a
ton of innings, and now you're paying the ultimate price
for it, because.

Speaker 2 (01:22:54):
I mean, until Fromber goes down in Detroit.

Speaker 3 (01:23:00):
Like is anybody really I'm not is anybody else second
guessing their decision now today like any other day, about
not resigning from ber Valdez.

Speaker 1 (01:23:08):
No, But if they were, or if anybody was, I
wouldn't be mad at them. And here's why it didn't.
I mean, it took forever for a team to finally
say yes. It's not like he got scooped up by
the first team that had money to spend.

Speaker 2 (01:23:22):
I mean, there was.

Speaker 1 (01:23:23):
Clearly something else besides just talent that was at play here.
But you also know him better than anyone else, So
I didn't fault them for letting him walk. But if
they had decided in the late running, okay, let's bring
him back, I wouldn't have faulted him for that either.

Speaker 2 (01:23:38):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:23:39):
Well, of course, on their terms, sure you'd love to
have him back. I don't second guess that decision one bit.
Has headed that where that way for years. You said
they know more about him than anybody else, which means
they know more about his baggage than anything know more
about what they might have dealt with. They know what
they got, and most of the time, in a major
league baseball situation, heck, a professional sports situation, we're not
talking about a criminal here. We're not talking out somebody

(01:24:00):
with that kind of baggage. We're talking about baseball baggage.
If he gives you results, you retain him. You want him,
you go out and sign him, and ultimately you retained
him while he was under club control year after year
after year, and he was a workhorse and an ace
and for the most part a playoff performer. Obviously at
different points in his early and then late postseason career
you were getting different results.

Speaker 2 (01:24:21):
But they chose the correct path.

Speaker 3 (01:24:24):
In my opinion. It wasn't really taking a chance. I mean,
you could have taken a chance that he would stay healthy,
that it would stay in line. And this is and
you got to look at the way that they've operated.
You're gonna let JV go elsewhere. You're gonna let Garrett
Cole go elsewhere. You're gonna let Zach Greenke go elsewhere.
You're gonna let all those offensive players go elsewhere, Korea,
Springer Bregman, and you're gonna sink your longer term money

(01:24:48):
three years, four years into from ber Valdez. It seemed
extremely out of character for them, so they didn't. I
have no second thoughts about that today at all, no
second guessing the move, no wishing they'd done it differently.
It worked out, unfortunately for them.

Speaker 1 (01:25:04):
Did you think that they would at least look to
replace his spot in the rotation with a more proven
or valuable or higher echelon talent.

Speaker 3 (01:25:18):
Yeah, I probably did, but I don't. I don't second
guess the moves that they did make. I mean, there
were some other arms that have moved. I mean, you
could have spent a ton of money, say on Sunny Gray,
like the Red Sox did. I don't would not have
advocated for that season so far, but individually speaking, just
looking at one particular player, maybe that's something you could
have done. They went about putting their rotation together this way.

(01:25:39):
You know, you're you're talking about spending money on a
more proven guy. How many pitchers got a bigger AAV
this offseason as a starting pitcher than Astro's sinee Tatsuya Emi.
It's probably the fourth or fourth or fifth most trustworthy arm,
even though he's never been in the Major leaguers before
amongst starting pitchers, and they got him. They spent need

(01:26:00):
to go get a what they felt like was a
proven another league starter. They went out and specifically targeted
Mike Burrows in trade. I like both of those moves
tremendously and that's who you're counting on now. It's why
I brought those two names up first. Those are the
guys I think they should have the most belief in it.
And those are the guys that honestly, it stinks, but

(01:26:21):
it's baseball, and you probably felt pressure anyway. The pressure
probably ramped up a little bit. They need you to perform. Well,
you have an offense that maybe doesn't require you to
be aces immediately and every time out there deal aces
not necessarily be the ace.

Speaker 2 (01:26:36):
But you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:26:37):
But there's pressure now if there wasn't already, this team
needs them more than ever because they're going through ten turns,
twelve turns, fifteen turns in the rotation without an ace.

Speaker 2 (01:26:49):
Yeah, it's I mean it's again.

Speaker 1 (01:26:52):
I want to hope that the offense is going to
continue to do this, but that's even less of a
guarantee then just hoping guys stay healthy at any position.

Speaker 3 (01:27:04):
I mean, well, they're probably they can still be the
best offense. They probably aren't gonna average seven runs a game.
Seventy seven runs in eleven games. It's easy math. They're
averaging seven runs per game. It's probably not gonna stay there.
But they don't have to be.

Speaker 1 (01:27:16):
I mean, now they actually might need to be the
best offensive baseball to attempt to win.

Speaker 3 (01:27:21):
But that's also it's pretty unlikely. Look at who they
still do have. These guys were gonna throw one hundred
and twenty five games, one hundred and thirty games that
Hunter Brown was not pitching in, impacting, yes, but not
appearing in, and they were still gonna be able to
compete for the division title and a postseason run. It's
not gonna be what we saw yesterday and the day
before in the first game against Oakland's team in Sacramento.

(01:27:45):
Every time out there, we're not gonna spe double figure
runs scored against them every time Hunter Brown doesn't pitch,
because that's every day. Now, both things are gonna level off.
They're not gonna have one of those five worst pitching
staffs in baseball, but today they do. They're not likely
to have the best offense in baseball all season, but
today they do.

Speaker 2 (01:28:05):
Did you happen to see the ABS Challenge leaders?

Speaker 7 (01:28:09):
I do.

Speaker 3 (01:28:09):
I actually watch them every single day, of course, because
this is math and charting and I love it all.
So what specifically are you looking at today?

Speaker 1 (01:28:17):
Well, it's a like fourteen way tie for first place.
But on percentage correct successful challenges. Yeah, the success rate.
There are about fifteen guys or so that have one
hundred percent.

Speaker 3 (01:28:33):
But you mean individual players correct? Oh, I mean what
are we talking about? Five challenges?

Speaker 2 (01:28:39):
Four?

Speaker 7 (01:28:40):
Four? And what?

Speaker 1 (01:28:41):
Actually only one guy has four? Mike Trout h Yvon Herrera.
Oh yeah, Yvon Herrera, my bad.

Speaker 2 (01:28:49):
Manny Machado has two.

Speaker 1 (01:28:51):
Te Oscar Hernandez has There's a lot of guys that
have two. Jose L Tuvan, in case you're wondering, leads
the Astros with three three four challenges, I should say,
three of which have been successful. So there have been
I'm trying to see if there's anybody. Oh, somebody does
have five, and that's Kyle Schwarber. But he only got
four of them, right, So.

Speaker 2 (01:29:12):
Oh my god. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:29:15):
I do wonder though, at the end of the year,
because this is gonna start getting tracked in all seriousness,
like you're gonna talk about who leads the majors in challenges.
That's gonna be a thing.

Speaker 3 (01:29:26):
It'll be a thing if they're consistently getting it right.
If it's fifty to fifty and I told you this
would happen. I'm hopeful people will realize how hard it
is for these umpires. Guys are challenging pitches that are
clearly correct, so they're being confirmed, and umpires are missing
pitches that are clearly wrong. But it's not the spread
that people, I think expected that hitters were and catchers

(01:29:49):
were going to say, Look, these guys stink. A few
umpires do, most of them do not look at these
challenges where that tiniest, tiniest, barely a seam of the
baseball is in the zone.

Speaker 2 (01:30:00):
But that is a strike. That's what this is for.

Speaker 1 (01:30:04):
If they called it a strike, they got it right
on the most difficult pitch to get right. They're very
very good. Yeah, as a whole, very very good. Oh well,
i'll say they're better than I thought. I can't go
that far. Some of these guys are you know, are not?
They're just That's why I wonder if.

Speaker 3 (01:30:20):
They're going to get better at swinging and not swinging,
they're going to be better at recognizing the zone the umpire.
I think the umpire are gonna have their best season
ever because of this, because they're forcing them to be sharper.

Speaker 2 (01:30:31):
Yep, yep, I like it. I like it all the
way around.

Speaker 1 (01:30:34):
So they did release those findings, but that that's uh.

Speaker 3 (01:30:38):
There are several people entities on the X platform that
post that pretty much every day.

Speaker 2 (01:30:42):
I follow it every day. What's the one pitching ninja?

Speaker 3 (01:30:44):
That's one of them, codified baseballs another that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:30:47):
All right, we still have a lot to get to.
Let's switch it up.

Speaker 1 (01:30:50):
Though when we come back. What is Nick Cassario thinking
as we get closer in, let's make a trade. Let's
make a trade. It has happened, Texans fans. Nick Cassario
officially has pulled off a trade. We'll talk about it
next and find me on the X platform. The Texans
have made a trade. Both teams have already announced the trade.

(01:31:14):
They got together with.

Speaker 3 (01:31:15):
The last team they played, the New England Patriots, and
orchestrated a player trade involving draft capital not announced by
either team. What draft capital goes from one place to
the other. Jonathan m Alexander of the Houston Chronicle Friend
of the program indicates, as you would suspect, it's the
late round pickswap, likely in the twenty twenty seven draft.

(01:31:37):
But the Texans acquired the following player via trade with
the New England Patriots. Could you provide for our listeners
the pronunciation of this linebacker's name as provided they there
on my post on the X platform.

Speaker 2 (01:31:50):
Why am I not seeing the post I'm on here?

Speaker 3 (01:31:52):
Did I never hit send? Have I forgotten to do that?

Speaker 2 (01:31:54):
Why they have?

Speaker 3 (01:31:55):
Okay, it's Marte ma pooh. You emphasize the pooh at
the end of it. Mapu Marte Mapu played for the
Patriots since he was drafted keep part of their special
teams and limited use as a linebacker, A lot of
use in twenty twenty four.

Speaker 2 (01:32:12):
Limited last year.

Speaker 3 (01:32:13):
I would suspect, as is usually the case with Nick Caserio,
this is a player acquired for the specific purpose of
giving Frank Ross the opportunity to once again have this
team near the top of the league in coverage units
with their special teams. The player humble player they signed
earlier this offseason, similar type of background. They've had players

(01:32:34):
like this in the past every offseason. You wonder, is
this for depth? Is this a player that you could
see on the field. Probably not, but it's a player
you're gonna see on the field when the player that's
not currently on the roster punts for them because I
still don't think the Saints punter they traded for is
going to make the team.

Speaker 2 (01:32:53):
Which is incredible because why did you bake the trade? Oh,
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:32:57):
Maybe they cease that he can improve. Duh, he can't
get much worse. I'll be wrong. It's okay. He'll make
the team and he'll have a great season.

Speaker 2 (01:33:04):
It's fine, but they're starting punter. There's no other punter
on the roster.

Speaker 3 (01:33:08):
Right now, and I don't believe if I were to guess,
I think we'll make it through all seven rounds of
the NFL draft and a punter is not selected. But
if a team does draft a punter, it's probably the
Texans undrafted free agents. It's okay, Kymie Fairbairn undrafted free agent.

Speaker 1 (01:33:24):
Yeah, you don't need to use draft picks on guys. Well,
you can if you know they're gonna crush. And there's
there's a handful of both place kickers and punters that
you know they're gonna succeed at the NFL. You know
it's a worthwhile selection, just not too early.

Speaker 2 (01:33:37):
Justin Tucker before he went rogue.

Speaker 3 (01:33:38):
Yeah, drafting Justin Tucker, Cameron Dicker and the list is
much longer than it isn't I mean the undrafted free
agent kickers, Well, yeah, they probably weren't good enough to
be drafted, and then things worked out. There was a
time in Kaymie's career where people weren't certain he would
get four contract extensions, but he did.

Speaker 2 (01:33:56):
So this is a deal that Nick has made.

Speaker 1 (01:33:58):
It will alter his twenty d twenty seven draft capital.
Everything's still intact for what he has at its disposal
for twenty twenty six. But there was news out of
New Jersey, where John Harbaugh's team plays. And by the way,
you're a new head coach, you've welcomed your players back
to the facility today. The ten teams that have new

(01:34:21):
head coaches could open up their offseason programs as early
as yesterday. Almost all of them did it today, and
they are one of them. It's why you saw the
walking into the facility posts on social media from these teams.
Dolphins have a new head coach, so we got to
see Malik Willis entering the facility. Obviously, John Harbaugh is
in New York, so Baltimore has a new head coach,
Jesse Minter, so we got to see Lamar Jackson walk

(01:34:43):
into the facility Texas will get their offseason workout program
started the week of the NFL Draft. Like most everybody else,
but this team in New Jersey called New York has
received an internal trade request from arguably the best player
on their defense, certain of them, and of course he
plays defense.

Speaker 3 (01:35:03):
He makes a bunch of money. He doesn't want to
be there. Who's gonna trade for him? Our show is
located in Houston, Texans, Houston, Texas. Do you think the
Texans are trading for defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence?

Speaker 2 (01:35:18):
No, because of the aforementioned money.

Speaker 3 (01:35:20):
There is a Again, zero point zero is pretty dark,
pretty bold.

Speaker 2 (01:35:26):
It's leaving you no wiggle room.

Speaker 3 (01:35:29):
I'm totally comfortable telling you there is a zero point
zero percent chance they're trading for a very expensive player
who only wants to get traded so a team will
commit even more money to him long term.

Speaker 2 (01:35:44):
It's interesting to see who trades for him.

Speaker 3 (01:35:46):
Yeah, it's a team that can afford to do it,
and the Texans can't afford to sink any more money
into a position defensively, like defensive tackle. They spent money
to keep Sheldon Rankins here. They didn't have to do that.
They've spent money to keep Daniel Hunter here, They're about
to spend money to keep Will Anderson here. And I
specifically mention those contracts because they're all different factors. One

(01:36:09):
of the matters for next year. You got a one
year deal for Rankins, one of the matters through the
next season and possibly beyond with Hunter, and the other
one Will Anderson Junior, is gonna matter for much much longer.
But you also have a few more years until the
massive money actually kicks in. You're not spending twenty million dollars,
even if you get it for nine this year. You're

(01:36:30):
not spending twenty million dollars on Dexter Lawrence to play
here on this defense under no circumstance. That doesn't even
get into the money that needs to go to Kamara,
the money that could go to Kayln Bullock, the money
that's gonna go to Aziz al Shire.

Speaker 2 (01:36:41):
It's it's too much. He's not coming here.

Speaker 1 (01:36:43):
Too rich for their blood. Would be an amazing addition
to that defense. I mean, would the would the quarterback
even get a pass off? Ever, it's why they're drafting
a defensive tackle. Yeah, guess how much the defense he
might he might not be as good as Dexter Lawrence, like,
there's one hundred percent chance of that, but it's okay.

Speaker 2 (01:37:00):
He doesn't have to be.

Speaker 3 (01:37:01):
He's gonna make a couple of million dollars next year,
you know, ten to twelve over the first several years
of his contract, and hopefully he's a good player, and
all of a sudden you have good talent for little
money to help fill out the roster.

Speaker 2 (01:37:15):
What days the draft again, It's two weeks and two
days from two day, sixteen days away. April twenty third
is Round one.

Speaker 3 (01:37:25):
I'm gonnaupset the limit on players acquired by the Texans
in the draft at one.

Speaker 2 (01:37:30):
It could be zero.

Speaker 1 (01:37:32):
It will not be two, and then they will probably
acquire three players minimum on Day two of the draft
Friday to twenty fourth, second and third rounds are Friday.
I think three is the bare minimum they have picks
to do that today. Wouldn't shock me at all if
that number went up. I'd be a little surprised if
that number went down. They will definitely have three new

(01:37:52):
players drafted by the time we hit Saturday.

Speaker 3 (01:37:55):
I don't know where and when, but you know, way
it's less than that. He's not gonna trade his way
out of this draft. They need young talent, and when
you're into the you'll be at picked past pick one
hundred when you get to Saturday because of the compensatory selections.
No way they're getting to Saturday with only three drafted
player or less than three players draft.

Speaker 1 (01:38:12):
Do you feel do you feel more or less likely
about them trading out of that first rounder today than
you did say.

Speaker 2 (01:38:21):
The no third option? Equally right, you're the same.

Speaker 3 (01:38:24):
Ye, nothing's really changed because I think they can get done.
I still don't. I really never see them trading up.
What is it that they have to have? What is
on this draft board that's such a limited group of
talent that once you get past pick twenty, you don't
have anybody to take till pick seventy, And they don't
want to take that chance that a position or a
player that they truly think has high end potential is
long off the board. Well, they have the assets to

(01:38:46):
do it. I just don't think there's the player that
they're going to go up and do that for. I'll
leave this one thing out there as the possible outlier
that the internal decision makers. Nick Cassario, James Lipford, Tmiko
ryans have in the back of their mind, and that
probably should include Nick k because it's based on that.
Are they so New England Y that they do believe

(01:39:07):
this offense is lacking one key piece to do the
things they think the Josh McDaniels New England style offense
has to have to operate. That's a plus level. Count
on me, throw me the ball when it matters. Tight
end Dalton Schultz led the team this past year in receptions.

Speaker 1 (01:39:27):
He found the end zone a few times. Nobody found
it more than six times.

Speaker 3 (01:39:30):
Do they really look at this and that's kind of
the next step the evolution of configuring a defense. They're
not going to draft a Rob Garnkowski caliber player. The
current Josh McDaniels offense operates with Hunter Henry.

Speaker 2 (01:39:44):
He's no different than Dalton Schultz.

Speaker 3 (01:39:46):
But it do they actually view it in a way
that says, we would like to see that change. We
got Niko, we got a nice stable of young receivers.
We're not making a significant move in the backfield again
because we did that with Montgomery. Are we looking at
this offense Kole Popovich running a New England style running game?
Nick Keyley running a new England style offense.

Speaker 2 (01:40:07):
Tight end? Is that a part of it for this
new look CJ stroud led offense.

Speaker 1 (01:40:11):
Well, he's never had a tight end like that, and
the Texans have really never had a tight end like
that since Owen Daniels, and.

Speaker 2 (01:40:17):
They've had many excellent offenses.

Speaker 1 (01:40:19):
Yes, But I just wonder, specifically for CJ, if you
did have a just go to all world tight end,
how much that would open things up for all the
other positions on the field.

Speaker 2 (01:40:33):
That aren't bad.

Speaker 1 (01:40:34):
By the way, I don't know what Tank Dell's gonna be.
I'm cautiously optimistic just because of what we've seen from
him and the fact that he's been out as long
as he had. I mean, this is there's no question,
this is a full rehab, full whatever you want to
call it. He's had every bit of recovery time that
he needs and ramp up time by the way as well.
So you know, adding him to a Nico Collins offense

(01:40:58):
and the other receivers, you know, take in the next
step in year two. In the case of Higgins and
Noel having a tight end in the middle of that,
that's not just a safety blanket but an actual bona
fide stud It just to me goes to what we've
been wanting to talk about all off season, is that
c J. Stroud will he has to have that kind

(01:41:19):
of season moving forward, and it'd be interesting if they
went that route.

Speaker 3 (01:41:24):
Say what signature segment? What did somebody say about retaliation
in Major League Baseball?

Speaker 2 (01:41:30):
That is next.

Speaker 6 (01:41:33):
The a team on sports talks that make you go, hey,
what what.

Speaker 2 (01:41:43):
Tige water here? What are you talking about? Man on
a Tuesday?

Speaker 5 (01:41:48):
Pay what o drian I dare now say? What?

Speaker 1 (01:41:57):
How would you describe the the start for the Boston
Red Sox this year?

Speaker 3 (01:42:03):
They love the Arizona Diamondbacks, San Francisco Giants and Cincinnati Reds.
Why is that they're the only three teams that have
scored fewer runs than them?

Speaker 2 (01:42:11):
All Right, it's not going well for them, and.

Speaker 3 (01:42:15):
I'm sure the record's fine despite their slow start offensively, Really,
what's their record? It's the worst in baseball. Everybody's won
at least three games except for one team.

Speaker 2 (01:42:24):
What did Alex Bregman know that? We didn't?

Speaker 5 (01:42:26):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:42:27):
Good luck without me? So they've got Wilson Contreras.

Speaker 2 (01:42:31):
He's pretty good.

Speaker 4 (01:42:32):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:42:33):
One of the reasons they thought that we'll be fine.
We got Wilson Contreres. He can play first base. Who
needs Alex Bragman, Horrafael Devers or James Tibbs or Kyle Harrison.

Speaker 2 (01:42:43):
Keep going, Oh, they're okay for that.

Speaker 1 (01:42:46):
Okay, he gets hit a lot by one particular team
and pitcher. Yeah, it's true, Brandon Woodruff likes to hit
Wilson Contreras when he's pitching for the Brewers and they're
playing the Red Sox.

Speaker 3 (01:43:03):
That is a factual statement. I could add some color
to it, but I'll let you continue and save it
for after.

Speaker 1 (01:43:10):
He's been hit by a pitch one hundred and thirty
one times in his major league career. Twenty four of
those times have been by a Brewer's pitcher, which is
ten more than he's been hit by any other team.

Speaker 3 (01:43:24):
He's a Red Sox player today. He's played in the
same division as the Brewers for a large as the
Brewers for some time.

Speaker 2 (01:43:35):
Let's say it's just a little skewed.

Speaker 1 (01:43:37):
But again, Woodruff, of those twenty four times, he's responsible
for six of them.

Speaker 2 (01:43:45):
Yeah, they played against each other yesterday.

Speaker 1 (01:43:47):
He hit him, well, he did hit him, and Contreras
was not happy about it. So after the Red Sox
of course lost, because that's what they do these days.
Eight times they lost. Eighty six was the final at
Finway Park. I might add, Wilson Contreras just decided to vent.

Speaker 2 (01:44:04):
A little bit.

Speaker 3 (01:44:04):
Well, he vented like very much. While he was on
the field, he wasn't happy about being grazed by a pitch,
and when he was at first base he was pretty
much yelling at anybody that would listen. Woodruff just kind
of dismissed it and had virtually no reaction. Alex Cork
came out of the dugout to try to prevent anything
from happening in a possible ejection if it just continued,

(01:44:25):
but everything cooled off still after the game.

Speaker 1 (01:44:28):
He likes to normally escalate things, but JV would agree. Yeah,
so anyway, what are you fuck? Love you, Alex? Get
jump off, Alex.

Speaker 2 (01:44:40):
I thought he said shut up, but you're right. He
didn't say bleep you Alex, just not Schalanty as he's
walking back to the mount That was so awesome. Uh
So anyway, Yeah, Wilson Contreras after the game had this
to say about the Brewers and specifically Brandon Woodruff.

Speaker 11 (01:45:00):
That is a twenty fourth time. But they hit me
in my career at twenty fourth and that is the
sixth time they hit me. And they always say I'm
gonna trying to hit you.

Speaker 2 (01:45:09):
That get old.

Speaker 11 (01:45:09):
So next time they hit me again, I'm gonna take
one of them out. That's what happened. That's a message.
That's a message.

Speaker 1 (01:45:16):
I'm gonna take one of them out. You know what
I like about this? He's not discriminating. Yeah, Woodroof's the
guy that's hit me six of the twenty four times.
So the next time one of them hits me, I'm
taking one of them out. If it's not Woodroof, well
then I'm gonna go somewhere closer.

Speaker 3 (01:45:33):
We do have a baseball game on right now. No, Lie,
that most recent pitch was an HVP. No way, Absolutely,
Peralta just hit one of the Diamondbacks batters. He doesn't
seem too unhappy. He's heading down to first, but just
some like I said, some background to all this, then
we'll get into the very clear and very strongly worded

(01:45:56):
oh my god, what is baseball gonna do? After he
said that? Will soon Contreras one hundred and thirty one
times been hit by a pitch. Where do you think
that ranks among active players? First, it's second second most
among active players. The guy who's ahead him, Starling Marte,
has been played in five hundred more games, although Contreras
has played in half the number of games, is Freddy Freeman.

(01:46:18):
And he's still ahead of him on this list, which
should tell you that if you were hanging around on
social media yesterday, you know what happens when a player
says things like this, or the announcers, oh my god,
this is the sixth time he's been hit by this pitcher.
Maybe five minutes later, Brewer's Boy two six seven will
post here are these six hit by pitches for Wilson Contreras.

(01:46:38):
Tell me what you see here and what you do
see and you could see it in yesterday's game. And
there's a reason why Craig Bigee was hit a billion times.
There's a reason why Mike Trout gets hit a lot.
There's a reason why Ty France gets hit hit a lot,
And I gave you.

Speaker 2 (01:46:51):
A very France deserves it. Well.

Speaker 3 (01:46:53):
It's a varying degree of talent of players who get
hit a lot. Some are really really good hitters, and
we don't know what else to do. We got to
throw in and some of them are not. Some of
them don't give you much choice.

Speaker 2 (01:47:05):
Because of where they sit.

Speaker 3 (01:47:06):
These pitches that have hit him on his elbow guard
are barely off the plate. They're not in the batter's box.
They're not tailing in on him.

Speaker 2 (01:47:16):
They're bare. They're barely off the plate.

Speaker 3 (01:47:18):
Because he is standing on the chalk and when he
leans into swing, his arms are If there was a box,
they would be in the zone.

Speaker 1 (01:47:27):
It's okay to do that. It's why these guys wear
arm guards. It's what Martin Maldonado did in the World
Series to get on base.

Speaker 2 (01:47:34):
It's how guys reach.

Speaker 3 (01:47:35):
It's what a leedmis Diaz tried to do and he
got caught. Yeah, it's how they get down to it.
Because you're free base, you might as well do it.
So he gets hit a ton one hundred and seven
other times, some other non Brewers pitcher has hit him.
Yes it is a lot, and yes it's a very
high number for one pitcher, and he is a pretty
good player. So there's also the yard on Alvarez element.
But I got a pitch inside you. Well, basically, he

(01:47:58):
said I'm gonna take him out. So let's what does
that mean. He got to first yesterday and a ground
ball to the infield followed, so he tried to break
up the double play on that very ensuing play, and
he went with his leg a little higher than normal.
The player he ran into did have to get looked
at after he didn't. I don't think he spiked him.

(01:48:20):
He didn't get penalized for it. The umpires didn't come out,
they didn't rule both runners out. There was no obstruction,
but it was definitely I'm going to try to take
you out. And those are his words. Now I'm a
telling that. Does that mean when he gets hit he's
charging the mound? Does that mean when like, pitchers don't
stand in the batter's box anymore so taking one of

(01:48:41):
them out. If he's talking about a pitcher, he's got
to get his pitcher on board to take a different
player out. Because you can't take the picture out quote
unquote unless you charge them out and start a fight.
You can have your team retaliate on your behalf. You
can try to take somebody out when you're on the
base pass you're Albert bell on Fernando Vigna if you want.

Speaker 1 (01:49:04):
Here's the part I don't like, and I all of it. Well,
I know that you don't like that aspect of it,
but here's what I don't like. And this goes back
to you know, NBA officiating being poor in this way
as well. The second guy always gets to look holding.

Speaker 2 (01:49:21):
Especially when he tells him he's gonna do it.

Speaker 1 (01:49:23):
Well that, but again, he's not even put in this
situation if he's not getting hit as much as he is.
And I understand what you're talking about where you know,
where he lines up in the batter's box and all that,
but if he feels like it's an enornin amount of
time with this one guy in this one team, then
he expresses that you know what's going to happen before
anything physical actually does happen. Again, MLB's gonna step in

(01:49:45):
and they're gonna find him for saying this, And that's
kind of crappy because he wouldn't be saying it if
he was getting hit all the time.

Speaker 3 (01:49:51):
Yeah, but it's why every pitcher who hits somebody and
we all know it's intentional and then they talk after
the game, they never admit it.

Speaker 1 (01:49:57):
Well, corner, he has done the opposite exactly. He's like,
uh no, this is as transparent as I can get.
I'm going to nuke somebody. He's not really saying nuke.
I just thought it was apropos, But uh yeah. I
think I fully expect for him to be lighter in
the wallet sooner rather than later. I fully expect for
us to wrap up the four o'clock hour when we

(01:50:18):
come back. Speaking of team dysfunction, Wow, Doc Rivers, new
Hall of Famer. He is a complete joke. I want
to get to what he said. You're not going to
believe it not breaking news.

Speaker 3 (01:50:32):
I think if you've listened to this program, especially this program,
I guess some.

Speaker 2 (01:50:38):
Would say really bad.

Speaker 3 (01:50:40):
A team continues football at five coming up at the
five o'clock hour. You'll never guess what we have for
you in the final segment of the show one hour
from now.

Speaker 1 (01:50:46):
Tickets you don't have to guess. I just told you.
We have concert tickets to good hint too, since you're involved, Oh,
I mean I want winners.

Speaker 3 (01:50:53):
We will have tickets to go see two of the
most famous bands in the history of rock and roll,
separate concerts.

Speaker 1 (01:51:02):
Why as you go full Mike singletary, there I want winners.

Speaker 3 (01:51:06):
I want winners. I do want winners. I want our
listeners to win. Before we get there, we can tell
you this. How does Joe Espotas solve the puzzle? I
got six players for five spots tonight against the Rockies. Well,
he's not playing all six of them tonight, and you
tell me who's missing. Jeremy Panna starts at shortstop. He

(01:51:26):
bats first. Jordan Alvarez is the designated hitter. He takes
his four homer season and bats second. Jose Altuve and
his gold glove defense so far this year. He's playing
second base. Your third baseman and bat and clean up.
Esach perettis whoa Christian Walker's at first, bats fifth, home
run machine Cam Smith and right field. That's sixth, patrolling

(01:51:48):
center field and likely not to get hit in the
head by a ball that is not lost in the sun.
Jake Myers Jiner Diaz is doing the catching for Mike Burrows.
He bats eighth, and your left fielder is Bright Matthews.

Speaker 2 (01:52:00):
He bat's ninth. Who's missing? I didn't hear Carlos Carea's name.

Speaker 3 (01:52:04):
Carlos Correy is not in the starting lineup for the
first time this season. I would imagine in any reasonably
close game tonight, he will see action when called upon.

Speaker 1 (01:52:16):
So do you think this is what they're going to
ultimately end up doing? Just take one of those guys
out every single day?

Speaker 3 (01:52:22):
I think when they play I said before very clearly,
even with the large outfield dimensions and likelihood of running
all over the place all night long in Colorado, I
still thought they would play yard on Alvarez in left
field so all of the bats could get in the
lineup in a game in Colorado against a left handed pitcher.

(01:52:43):
And they chose to do otherwise. I do understand why.
I imagine Joe might even have an explanation for it.
Hopefully there's not a reason beyond that too many players
for not enough spots, and there is some reason Carlos
is out. But I think in many other ballparks they
just happened to be. This is the you know, they've
had very few days this season because of paynews, injury

(01:53:03):
and Petis bereavement leave where everybody's been hey, Joe, can
I play today? And they just happen to be in
arguably the worst place to play left field for what
they're trying to prevent with jord On, so he's not
out there.

Speaker 1 (01:53:15):
Yeah, I mean I I feel like we're splitting hairs
or picking knits.

Speaker 2 (01:53:22):
Is it sits today?

Speaker 3 (01:53:24):
They've got today, tomorrow, four games in Seattle outfield, large
lots of running probably demanded of their left field er.
If the pitcher allows those hits over there, there's no
way he can't play left field in any of these games.

Speaker 2 (01:53:36):
He has to.

Speaker 3 (01:53:38):
You got too many bats to they need their bats.
I don't care if they have a surplus of offense.
I don't think they're doing this to find out if
they can make it every day without one of them,
which we were joking about earlier. Hey, we've got all
this offense, we've got a surplus of offensive players. We're
missing our ace for weeks if you missed that already,
A great true shoulder strain for Hunter Brown announced by
the team. He's not going to throw for several weeks

(01:54:00):
and it could be a month's long injury. So could
they be thoughtful enough to say, well, we're so good offensively,
we can drop down to six.

Speaker 2 (01:54:09):
Runs per game and we can lose one of these bats.

Speaker 3 (01:54:11):
I don't really think that's imminent, but tonight, no Carlos
kore on the starting lineup.

Speaker 2 (01:54:16):
By the way, he's off to a decent start.

Speaker 3 (01:54:19):
If he was off to the start that Walker, Altuve
or Alvarez was off to, they'd be undefeated. They'd be undefeated,
and he'd have twenty five RBIs.

Speaker 1 (01:54:27):
I mean, he's not He's not like tearing the cover
off the ball. But he's probably better than you expected.

Speaker 3 (01:54:36):
He's exactly what I expected if he was hitting the
ball with You know, he's got two big, big shots
in yesterday's game. One bounced off the wall to right
for a double and one went four hundred and fourteen
feet to the center fielders glove and dead one.

Speaker 2 (01:54:53):
He destroyed that baseball.

Speaker 3 (01:54:56):
But nobody's been at the plate in the Major more
than sixteen at bats with runners in scoring position except
for Carlos. Sixteen or fewer at bats for every single
major league player this year except for Carlos. He's got
twenty three blowing away, lapping the field and batting with

(01:55:17):
runners in scoring business.

Speaker 1 (01:55:18):
That tells me that a spot is putting his lineup
together thusly.

Speaker 3 (01:55:24):
As they say, he's hitting two sixty one with nine
RBI and those twenty three at bats, Yeah, several teammates
aren't too far behind. But he that and it's the
cleanup spot. That's where he sacked peretis Is. Today he's
had most of his days work at the cleanup spot.
If he was having a monster season, if he was

(01:55:44):
hitting three forty, if he had six extra base hits,
he'd have twenty RBI.

Speaker 2 (01:55:50):
No problem.

Speaker 1 (01:55:50):
Well, I fully expect one or both of Jeremy Pane
and you were on Alvarez to be on base when
Isak takes his first at bat, may be even more.

Speaker 2 (01:56:01):
See how al two does there?

Speaker 7 (01:56:02):
You go?

Speaker 2 (01:56:03):
Don't leave.

Speaker 3 (01:56:03):
Don't leave the best hitter of the three out. I'm
the second best hittering.

Speaker 1 (01:56:07):
Jordan's either striking out or he's I mean he's that's
the only way he's not on base because they're gonna
walk him.

Speaker 2 (01:56:12):
Otherwise. I think they'll walk him then he's on I
love it.

Speaker 1 (01:56:15):
I don't even think like they might pitch to him
the first time around. I mean, they intentionally walked him
last night and it worked out. But pose al tuve,
no pit, no player in Bay. Only three players have
been intentionally walked twice this year, except for Jordan, has
been intentionally walked four times.

Speaker 2 (01:56:34):
He's gonna hit a home run tonight. I can't believe
he didn't hit one last night, so far away.

Speaker 3 (01:56:39):
He also, like Korea, hit one four hundred and thirteen
feet unto the center field bomb. Who's unclutch. No, I
could again many minutes. Seven runs is great. They could
have easily had thirteen with how many players are on
base and in scoring position. And they kept the train moving.
And it's why they did score seven. It's why they
did score ten the day before. It's why they are
leading in the league in base run scored this year.

(01:57:01):
They lead the league in walks, They're far far from
the lead in strikeouts. They've done all the things they
hope to do this year, way better than anybody could
have expected.

Speaker 2 (01:57:11):
But it is they planned. They should more than games
with the offense.

Speaker 3 (01:57:15):
They have no question about, no debating that whatsoever, the
best offense in baseball should be able to win more
than just barely more.

Speaker 2 (01:57:22):
Than half their games.

Speaker 1 (01:57:23):
I still can't believe they got shut out in the opener,
given what we've seen since then.

Speaker 3 (01:57:29):
He is the best pitcher in baseball. It's three to
zero with aer point four to five ERA. He's given
up one run all year April seventh. I know we
got to say that for the other things we just
talked about. To Jose, Soriano is going to be an
Angels All Star.

Speaker 2 (01:57:45):
The only one. I mean, unless Joe has an outside
chance to make it nonsense.

Speaker 1 (01:57:52):
He'll be hurt by next month. We all know he's
hurt right now. I know, but he'll be hurt her
get hit again. Yeah, I mean, whatever it is, I
think it's I'm gonna go with soft tissue because that's what.

Speaker 2 (01:58:03):
Don't know why. I don't want these things to happen.
I don't either, but they always do with him. I'm
not saying anything. I'm just talking about track records. No
injury predictions from me. Well, I'm not predicting it's gonna happen.
I just said it's.

Speaker 1 (01:58:15):
More likely to he's gonna be hurt or more. He
said he will, but it's because of his track ret
that's a prediction. I'm not putting it into the universe.
He just did the universe. Are you listening, Well.

Speaker 2 (01:58:25):
The universe already took Hunter Brown for me. So this
is my.

Speaker 1 (01:58:28):
Uh not predicted by fighting back Cat Jump. Well, why
would I predict that he's never been hurt. Now you're
gonna say that I jinxed him.

Speaker 2 (01:58:35):
No, I would never. It's the sports mt ers.

Speaker 3 (01:58:39):
Well you're not sports empty. If this just in thank
goodness for that.

Speaker 2 (01:58:43):
All right.

Speaker 3 (01:58:44):
If you enjoyed our teas of the Doc Rivers segment,
send us a donation, as there wasn't one.

Speaker 2 (01:58:48):
We delivered the crap out of that. We'll do that.
Don't worry. We've got another hour to go. But it's
gonna start with football at five, the Texans.

Speaker 1 (01:58:56):
I'll even give you a hint. It's a wax hint.
They're taking a tackle. What a tease. Here's the whole story.
I didn't say what kind of tackle in the first round.
We'll tell you about that next.

Speaker 5 (01:59:07):
The ad on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (01:59:12):
And I asked Wex the question I always ask when
it comes to this type of thing.

Speaker 2 (01:59:16):
Your thoughts on Peter Schrager.

Speaker 3 (01:59:18):
He's very very good, especially at this I actually think
he's a pretty good news breaker, and I think we'll
see a lot more from him as the draft is
here and another season approaches. With him being a longer
term employee of ESPN, which now also technically owns the
NFL network, where he came from. But I think he's
very good and he's one of the rare newsbreakers reporters

(01:59:42):
who also does a pretty good job with intel on
the draft. Well, he's not necessarily your draft analyst.

Speaker 1 (01:59:50):
I've watched this tape. I know this, I followed him
this combine that and the other.

Speaker 3 (01:59:54):
But more I know the people I've talked to this guy,
I've got intel, this is what they're looking at.

Speaker 2 (02:00:00):
That's where he brings to the table, is what Plus.

Speaker 1 (02:00:02):
That's my favorite kind of person that it covers this
particular aspect of the NFL, because what have I said
for a million years now? All these guys that think
they know what this guy's going to do at the
next level and it's just a complete and total crapshoot
versus what Schrager's doing. And he says this at the beginning,
you know what follows is my first mock draft for

(02:00:23):
the twenty twenty six class. These thirty two projections based
on what I'm hearing rather than what I would personally
do at each slot. In other words, he went to
the annual league meetings last week in Phoenix. He spent
a lot of time talking to sources and trying to
get the latest intel on what teams might do with
the first round picks, because ultimately all that matters is
what the actual teams think and what they do. Now,

(02:00:44):
what you think they're going to do, that's a waste
of my time. I don't agree with it. I understand
your point.

Speaker 3 (02:00:50):
Where does it say I was vacationing in Phoenix last
week and has stumbled upon the annual league meetings?

Speaker 2 (02:00:55):
Shocking?

Speaker 3 (02:00:56):
How they have them in such wonderful places Phoenix.

Speaker 2 (02:01:01):
Have they ever had them in New Orleans?

Speaker 7 (02:01:03):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (02:01:03):
That's more, let's spring for a super Bowl party rather
than league meeting it. I would imagine that Phoenix and
Florida are popular destinations for this type of thing.

Speaker 2 (02:01:12):
For sure.

Speaker 3 (02:01:12):
I'll say one thing about the draft, where we moved to,
where the Texans are situated at twenty eight, I think
we're all set on one thing.

Speaker 2 (02:01:19):
That's Fernando Mendoza.

Speaker 3 (02:01:20):
He's going number one to the Raiders, going to play
for Clint Kubiak.

Speaker 2 (02:01:23):
Got to be mentored by you like that.

Speaker 3 (02:01:26):
Kirk Cousins that was made official earlier this week, the
signing of Kirk Cousins. He's gonna work with Tom Brady
they've had their visit. That's happening. I think number two,
I'm pretty much ready to rubber stamp David Bailey going
to the New York Jets. I think a lot of
people initially had Reese. It certainly could be Reese. There's
other players that might be their pick, but I think

(02:01:47):
David Bailey is going to be the selection for the
New York Jets at number two.

Speaker 2 (02:01:51):
Number two overall, it's crazy. Uh, Maholmes is way down.

Speaker 3 (02:01:55):
I mean, I guess the last place he played would
mean he's not from Texas Tech. But Baker Mayfield was
a number one overall.

Speaker 2 (02:02:03):
Okay, I forgot about that, but no coming out of
the school.

Speaker 3 (02:02:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be That would be the answer.
I think production is there. I think enough of the
other post season measurements and other things that everybody wants
to look at are good. But you can't watch the
way this guy got after it got in the backfield.

Speaker 2 (02:02:23):
And he was just a disruptor. So that's one in two.

Speaker 3 (02:02:27):
I don't nowhere near ready to tell you what's going
to happen the rest of the way. There know a
lot of the names it'll be off the board in
the top fifteen, probably the top twenty or so. When
you start thinking about what is it that the Texans
are looking at at twenty eight, what's Pete say?

Speaker 1 (02:02:41):
Well, there's good news and bad news. Okay, if you're
like me and you want them to take an offensive
lineman every round of the draft.

Speaker 3 (02:02:50):
Let me continue the tease you gave our listeners. First
and foremost, the twenty fifth pick is a tackle. The
twenty sixth pick is a tackle. The twenty seventh pick
is a tackle. The twenty eighth pick is a tackle.
The Texans pick at twenty eight, they're taking a tackle.
They are taking a tackle. Tackle is a position played
by both offense and defense.

Speaker 2 (02:03:08):
They are taking an offensive tackle.

Speaker 3 (02:03:10):
The defensive tackle I would put in my top three
likeliest Texans pick is Caden McDonald, and he on this
mock draft goes twenty sixth to the Bills detackle out
of Ohio State. I think there's a real good chance
that if he is sitting there based on how the
draft is fall and that could be the Texans selection.
Cale Lomo is the offensive tackle out of Utah, Pete's

(02:03:33):
got him going twenty seventh to the Niners. Also think
there's a reasonable chance if you think he's a good
fit for likely how they want to run the football
a lot and behind his very specific skill set player,
I definitely think he makes sense, but it's a different
offensive tackle that the Texans are taking.

Speaker 2 (02:03:50):
According to Pete Scheger, I'm going to read the description first.
I actually know Max. There's no way I'm going to
do this right. Okay, say his name. It's your story.
It's not my story. It's Peter Schrager's story.

Speaker 1 (02:04:04):
Ill Hunker. I don't know how to pronounce his last name,
Ita if Arizona State. But the description reads one of
the players with the biggest upside in this class. He's
still relatively new to football. The Nigerian born tackle got
to the United States when he was thirteen years old,
picked up the sport in just the past few years,

(02:04:28):
still growing and learning. He could be a home run
pick if a team is patient and capitalizes on his upside.
Houston is always looking for talent on its O line
as the front office works through another makeover of the unit.
I mean there is not a single sentence in that
entire paragraph. I don't have a major problem with given

(02:04:50):
who is making this pick apparently.

Speaker 3 (02:04:52):
Want to you have a major problem Yeah, with the
Texans drafting and offensive tackle.

Speaker 1 (02:04:57):
Well, I mean, let's take the second or let's take
the last sentence. Houston is always looking for talent on
its O line as the front office works through another
makeover of the unit. I mean, how polite can you
say they suck at this position group?

Speaker 3 (02:05:10):
So, yeah, you have a problem with the fact that
they still stink at the offensive line, not with what
they're doing.

Speaker 1 (02:05:15):
No, I have a problem with who he has them
taking in light of that, because because I don't want
a project. If you're trying to make your line better,
not another makeover of it. That's so being that, that's honestly,
that's it's kind of disingenuous. Like the line has not
been good for a long time, and they've done a
lot to try and fix that this offseason. But what

(02:05:36):
I don't want to hear about is, well, we are
finally taking offensive linemen in the first round, whether he's
a tackle, whether he's a guard, whether he's a center.
And this guy is basically, if I paraphrase and give
you the cliffs notes version of this paragraph, he's a
gigantic project in everybody.

Speaker 3 (02:05:51):
You're taking project as to like a buzzword for disaster.

Speaker 2 (02:05:54):
Well, I'm not.

Speaker 1 (02:05:55):
Here's the thing I don't want. I don't want this
to be another Kinyon Green, which.

Speaker 3 (02:06:00):
After this player or Lomo or any one of the
offensive tackles in the top twenty eight game one that
players watching Braden Smith and tay Ersrie play tackle right.

Speaker 2 (02:06:14):
Probably, which again makes me ask the question.

Speaker 3 (02:06:17):
Why, because they're better than this player today and when
Braden Smith moves on, this player is definitely ready to
take over for him, either after the two year deal
he has.

Speaker 2 (02:06:28):
Okay, maybe even after year one.

Speaker 1 (02:06:30):
That's fine, there's nothing wrong with that scenario if you're
not the Houston Texans. Okay, what's wrong with getting a
guy who is better than him or will be very
soon or can compliment him because he's next to him
and he's not playing his position. Like I just feel
like you shouldn't be taking quote projects with big upside

(02:06:51):
as your first round pick if you're trying to address
your offensive line in the first round finally for the
first time in forever, even though I know they do.

Speaker 3 (02:06:58):
I think you're taking it as a bigger negative than
it's intended.

Speaker 1 (02:07:01):
Well, maybe he shouldn't have written it that way. It's
just honestly, it really is the way he writes. He
could this be the best tackle from the draft. Maybe,
So why is it so bad to take him? Because
if it's not a guy who just started playing football
a handful of years ago and doesn't have upside, and.

Speaker 3 (02:07:19):
It's more clearly does have upside.

Speaker 1 (02:07:23):
If this guy that you take instead of this guy
is a guy who I don't need, I don't want
to hear upside, He's already got it.

Speaker 2 (02:07:28):
The side is up. Give me amo vibes claim.

Speaker 1 (02:07:33):
To think of I mean why because it's not the
eighth or tenth or twelfth pick, but it's the last five.

Speaker 2 (02:07:39):
But it's the most valuable pick you have this year.
It is.

Speaker 3 (02:07:42):
That is true, But I've gone I think this way,
and I think a lot of gms and coaches think
this way. Doesn't mean it's the right way.

Speaker 2 (02:07:48):
Amobia Koye makes makes your reaction to that what it
just was because of how high he was taken exactly.
But if this guy is Ambia Koye Part two, the
only difference is he was taking at twenty eight instead
of eleven or wherever he was taken, right, I.

Speaker 3 (02:08:02):
Wish first round. Honestly was a segmented discussion. What do
you mean if you draft after the top twenty your
hit rate stinks? Yeah, twenty one through thirty two aren't
really sure things you think they should be because we
attached first round pick to it. That means the thirtieth
best player and the second best player you got drafted

(02:08:23):
at two, you got drafted at thirty and three years
from now, who are you the same person? You were
a first round pick and you were a first round pick.
But the guy at two has to one positively, he
has to hit immensely. He's a three time All Pro
Games Bowl player, and he's carrying your defense and he's
carrying your offense. The guy at thirty gets a second

(02:08:45):
contract probably hmm, plays there for five years. Or you
draft a running back at twenty eight and three years
later you draft his replacement.

Speaker 2 (02:08:55):
That's the irony here.

Speaker 1 (02:08:56):
You're drafting at twenty eight because you had a good season,
but you had a good season in spite of the
position group that you're drafting for.

Speaker 3 (02:09:03):
Yeah, I mean, to me, the guy you draft at
twenty eight and Jaden Higgins at thirty four and tay
Ersery at forty eight and lasted at forty two. Are
the same talent.

Speaker 1 (02:09:13):
Yeah, and again going back to last season, it's not
like they can't I know it's the first one. That's
what everybody's gonna say. It sound like they can't hit
on these guys. Urser's been he's not been good, he's
been great, and where you took him everything.

Speaker 3 (02:09:25):
As it was described. You know, this team has constantly
been looking to upgrade its offensive line. They've been focused on.
This will be the fifth consecutive Nick Cassario Draft where
they use a first or second round pick, a top
sixty four selection on an offensive lineman five straight years.
There are five spots on the offensive line. One of

(02:09:46):
them has probably starts the first game of this year.

Speaker 2 (02:09:50):
Just tay Ersery.

Speaker 1 (02:09:51):
Yeah, now I get it, but you understand that aren't here,
Blake Fisher is not starting, and I don't know who
the new guy is. Okay, what you're saying lends itself
to my points. So we're taking upside guy here.

Speaker 3 (02:10:05):
Don't be fra I can't tell you what to think,
but I want to don't be afraid of that word.

Speaker 2 (02:10:09):
I'm afraid, terrified. I'm scared of it.

Speaker 3 (02:10:11):
What if the project is complete by August of twenty
twenty six.

Speaker 2 (02:10:16):
The project.

Speaker 1 (02:10:16):
Yeah, this group project, he's ready project complete?

Speaker 2 (02:10:21):
Did he transformation NFL player? Done?

Speaker 7 (02:10:24):
So?

Speaker 1 (02:10:24):
The upside took place over the summer months. Ot miraculously
rookie Minnie, how good is this coach? Voluntary mini camp mandatory?

Speaker 2 (02:10:31):
Minnie gave the Astros pitching practices of NFL clubs.

Speaker 3 (02:10:35):
I'd like to proclaim that he is ready signed. Kole
Popovich August twenty twenty six. Relatively new to football. That
is pure nightmare. No, no, no, you're on offense. Why
don't you act like he's blind side? Why don't you
act like he's Michael Oher in high school?

Speaker 7 (02:10:49):
No?

Speaker 1 (02:10:50):
Kid, you got to push these guys around. Does that
mean that Sandra Bullock's showing up to training camp?

Speaker 2 (02:10:54):
Run the dang ball? Nick? What does she say about
the gun she carried around?

Speaker 4 (02:10:59):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (02:10:59):
For safety? Yeah, something like she had a line about it. Though.

Speaker 1 (02:11:02):
All right, I'm officially on nervous watch for the draft.
Already here we are.

Speaker 5 (02:11:09):
The ad on Sports Talk.

Speaker 2 (02:11:12):
What's up, friend?

Speaker 1 (02:11:13):
Why don't you tell the boys and girls out there
what kind of tickets we have to give away later
on this hour?

Speaker 7 (02:11:19):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (02:11:20):
We have tickets to give away to Return of the
Carnival of Sins Tour and tickets to the Power Up Tour.
Who's headlining those tours you might ask.

Speaker 2 (02:11:31):
Well, one of them is a crew.

Speaker 3 (02:11:34):
Motley Crue headlines the Return of the Carnival of Sins Tour,
Tesla and Extreme also musically playing at that site in
the Woodlands on September eleventh. It's a pavilion and ac
DC that's the headliner for the Power Up Tour that's
at NRG Stadium, just prior to the other show we
mentioned August thirty first NRG Stadium. Tickets for each event

(02:11:54):
are available at ticketmaster dot com.

Speaker 2 (02:11:56):
Final segment of the show, we will give away a
pair of tickets to each show.

Speaker 3 (02:12:01):
Thanks to our listeners for listening. By listening, you'll know
the answer to the question we'll ask in the final segment.

Speaker 2 (02:12:07):
Can we touch on Doc Rivers real quick? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (02:12:11):
This is an ongoing conversation and rather unfortunate for Doc
and people who like him that it comes just after
the Final Four. What happens at the Final four? The
Hall of Fame class gets honored. I happen to be
watching the show that they do each Saturday of the
Final four, mainly because I wanted to hear what Mike

(02:12:32):
D'Antoni had to say. His contributions to the game had
him as a new enshriney, and I did personally take
offense to a post made by one NBA team congratulating him. Okay,
I thought it was probably pretty petty of me to
find it in poor taste. Congrats to Mike D'Antoni and

(02:12:56):
Doc Rivers on being named to the Natesmith Basketball Hall
of Fame Class of twenty twenty six. It included a
picture of Doc Rivers in his uniform number twenty five
when he played for this team, and included a picture
of Mike D'Antoni wearing number fourteen when he played for
this NBA team. That NBA team is the San Antonio Spurs.

(02:13:16):
So the San Antonio Spurs, who, because of a ridiculous
Robert Or move, helped to prevent Mike D'Antoni from winning
the NBA Championship. Many believe they weren't in the finals.

Speaker 2 (02:13:29):
Well you can believe they're not.

Speaker 5 (02:13:30):
It happened.

Speaker 2 (02:13:31):
The conference is watching with your eyes.

Speaker 3 (02:13:33):
But they did congratulate him, and I thought it kind
of sucked. But Doc Rivers is going into the Hall
of Fame, and obviously it's because of what he has
done as a coach, not what Glenn did as a
basketball player with the Spurs and Hawks and others.

Speaker 2 (02:13:47):
Nicks.

Speaker 3 (02:13:47):
We talked about this before, so the site, like I said,
this is not new news. Everybody can grade out their
own opinion on coaches and if they're good or not.
He's won a ton of games. He's flown up the list.
He keeps getting hired over and over and over this.

Speaker 1 (02:13:59):
Franchise, that franchise, that franchise, that franchise, that franchise.

Speaker 3 (02:14:03):
I think I've listed all six of the franchises that
have hired him as head coach. All of them, I think,
except for one, have also fired him, and the Bucks
will fire him following the season. I don't think he's
good at coaching NBA basketball. I think when he has
talented players, they won a bunch of regular season games.
When he has the best most talented team in the NBA,
without question, he wins the only NBA championship that he

(02:14:23):
has won, and otherwise his teams play very far below
what they would play as with a different coach. In
the playoffs, and lose consistently. As you don't have to
agree with me. I don't think he's a very good
NBA coach, and I recognize how many games he has
won in the regular season.

Speaker 2 (02:14:37):
Well, he doesn't agree with you. In fact, it's quite
the opposite.

Speaker 1 (02:14:42):
So the Bucks earlier this year, I mean, obviously they
start the season. I guess they had championship aspirations. I mean,
you can have Giannis on your team, but if you
don't have anything else, that's not a championship contender. But
whatever they thought they were going to do something, they
quickly discovered that they're not going to do something.

Speaker 2 (02:15:04):
And right now they're thirty one and forty seven.

Speaker 1 (02:15:07):
They've been eliminated from playoff contention a long time ago,
and they've shut down Giannis and that's a whole other,
separate issue. Right now, he's going to get traded this
offseason and it's going to be an ugly breakup, and
blah blah, blah blah. A lot of this is falling
at the feet of Doc Rivers, because, as you just
pointed out, he's not a very good basketball coach, and
not just from a tactical standpoint, but just from a

(02:15:28):
leadership standpoint. And if you don't believe me, well, on
March second, the Bucks were just outside the last playing
spot in.

Speaker 2 (02:15:37):
The East and they had lost to the Chicago Bulls.

Speaker 1 (02:15:40):
Now, I'm not going to sit here and make fun
of that, because the Rockets found a way to do
that spectacularly.

Speaker 2 (02:15:44):
I might add, and they're going to the playoffs.

Speaker 1 (02:15:46):
But Rivers thought that this would be a good time,
since they're still within you know, distance shooting distance of
getting into the play in I'm going to call a
team meeting so I can rally the troops. So what
he did was, according to this report from Shams, started
the meeting by imploring his players to look up his resume.

(02:16:07):
I took teams to the playoffs and to the championship
that weren't supposed to. I thought this was one of
them either you're with us or against us. If you're
not playing hard, we're not playing you anymore. I know
everything that goes on in this building. What do you
think their record's been since that meeting? WEX just give

(02:16:28):
it a guess. It's four and eleven, four and fifteen, Okay.
I think you could say that that was the final
nail in their season, him calling that meeting and saying
what he said you'd call a meeting, but saying what
he tried to say in that meeting, and just completely

(02:16:50):
rubbing people the wrong way.

Speaker 3 (02:16:53):
That's so this was a from sources that were inside
this meeting.

Speaker 1 (02:16:58):
Six different sources. By the way, this is a team meeting.
Six people that were in that room.

Speaker 3 (02:17:03):
Likely the room is the locker room, whether it's the
practic facility or elsewhere, right, something like that.

Speaker 2 (02:17:09):
Let's do some math here.

Speaker 3 (02:17:11):
Eighteen rostered players potentially with the team at the time,
so I'm injured, some not, so that's eighteen of them.
It's probably nine to ten man coaching staff. So that's
twenty eight people. Eighteen players, ten coaches. There certainly could
be you know, for management types and assistant GM, the
GM the director of player personnel, of those who also
are support staffs. So let's add another ten people to it,

(02:17:33):
maybe fifteen, So we're looking at maybe forty forty five
people in the room. That's the very very highest level.
Now I'm saying you got six of the people to
tell you this. It tells you something quite clearly. I'm
going to make sure they have this in their story.
I want this to come from inside the meeting. Six

(02:17:56):
different people thought this, and there might have been more.
He just already had six aout. Why do you use
the search it? They don't want him to coach there anymore.
I can manage the players or the man. This is
going to help publicly, there's this is the biggest leak
ever intentional because they don't want him there.

Speaker 1 (02:18:10):
I name one of them for sure, that one would
bet my mortgage that one of them was Kyle Kuzma.
You know why because during that meeting, after he said
I know everything that goes on in this building, he
showed clips of Kuzma's miscues in recent games. He was
then a dnp CD. That's a did not play coach's decision.
Later that night in a twenty seven point home loss

(02:18:33):
to the Celtics that was the first dnp CD of
Kyle Kuzma's career.

Speaker 2 (02:18:39):
He's one of the five. I don't want this guy here.

Speaker 3 (02:18:42):
I think it's a combination of players and other people.
It's just it's a matter of the they. This is
an opportunity to make sure management knows this. Everybody else
knows this. The Bucks have now won the award the
Bulls just fired their personnel staff. Are Turres Kernishevas and
the director of personnel both gone. This is easily the
winner of which NBA team will have this word attached

(02:19:04):
to them this year toxic. It's a different team last year.
It's almost always a different team. And every year around
this time or right after the season, somebody writes an
article describing the unbelievable toxic situation that was happening in
this clubhouse, in this locker room.

Speaker 2 (02:19:19):
And it's the Bucks, no question about it.

Speaker 3 (02:19:22):
And you said it earlier without even a second of
thought or a stoppage in your thought.

Speaker 2 (02:19:28):
He's getting He's not playing any more games for the Bucks.

Speaker 3 (02:19:30):
He might play a few more this year if he
forces his way back into the lineup for no reason,
because they also can't improve or dis or improve or
decline their playoff position or their lottery position anymore.

Speaker 2 (02:19:39):
But he's not gonna play for them next year.

Speaker 3 (02:19:41):
You know, he's waffled about wanting to be in Milwaukee
and play for the organization.

Speaker 2 (02:19:45):
It's a total dead end. He knows it, and everybody else.

Speaker 1 (02:19:47):
Knows it, and the Bucks now have to know the
only way for them to possibly get out of this.

Speaker 2 (02:19:52):
We can't win. Anything is to move him.

Speaker 1 (02:19:54):
They should be definitively trying to move and they're never
gonna win with Giannis and Milwaukee. That should be abundantly clear.

Speaker 3 (02:20:01):
What's also abundantly clear is after stops in Orlando, Boston, LA, Philadelphia,
and Milwaukee, Doc Rivers is coaching for the last time.

Speaker 1 (02:20:10):
Yeah this week. He's older. He's not going to get
a premium. It's his gig age at this point. How
what more evidence do you need? Presidents, gms and owners
don't be blinded by eleven.

Speaker 3 (02:20:26):
And ninety three wins. My gosh, this guy must be awesome,
you know what.

Speaker 1 (02:20:31):
You know what else he's gonna end up doing some
of the next mistake the teams are gonna start making
with him.

Speaker 2 (02:20:35):
They're going to bring him into their front offices. I
don't know, somebody will.

Speaker 3 (02:20:38):
I could see very possibly his next job is the
one he used to have NBA cop broadcast. Yeah, he
could do that, as long as he's now got his
voice back to.

Speaker 1 (02:20:48):
What I mean, I'm saying I can see it happened
because somebody could probably hire him. I'm not saying I
want to hear it.

Speaker 2 (02:20:55):
Oh, the Rockets need to play better defense.

Speaker 1 (02:20:57):
Come on, dude, we gotta do this for forty eight
minut some game time. He's not going to be screaming anymore.
His voice will be fine. Yet every time I heard him, yea,
I had to find an old clip from like the
early days of T and T two.

Speaker 2 (02:21:08):
See oh that's what he said, like.

Speaker 1 (02:21:10):
Face to face conversation with him, like an interview situation
I know I have during some of the playoff series
they played against.

Speaker 2 (02:21:16):
I guess the Clippers. Maybe I was normal. Yeah, when
it's in.

Speaker 3 (02:21:19):
Between games and he's just, you know, shooting the.

Speaker 1 (02:21:21):
Ball, just shows you how good Chris Paul was for
some of those Clippers teams, and he still managed to
choke away That lead to the Rockets to Corey Brewer
and Josh Smith ballers for that night.

Speaker 2 (02:21:37):
Awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:21:37):
I'll harden on the bench being clutch as usual. Case
you missed it next that music means only one thing.
Halfway through its final hour of the program around five
thirty weeks, caught up on some items we either have
completely and totally missed, like a former professional being hired

(02:21:58):
at a university Bill Belichick's university, or items we need
to revisit.

Speaker 2 (02:22:04):
That's in case you missed it.

Speaker 3 (02:22:05):
The story I just brought up is Michael Malone was
officially announced as the new North Carolina Tar Heel head coach.
Very eager to hear what he has to say about
his daughter attending school there and in athletics volleyball player,
if that had much to do with why he is
taking a head coaching job at the collegiate level, something

(02:22:25):
he has never had before his coaching career began. We
began in high school very briefly, and then several years
as an assistant in the mid nineties, and then ultimately
an assistant in the NBA for most of the last
two decades, coupled with his two NBA head coaching jobs.
But even though he's been coaching for thirty years, he's
not Bill Belichick's age. He's several decades away from being

(02:22:45):
Bell Belichick's age. He's fifty four. She's currently at the
school playing mm hm oh. That's interesting. So a lot
of people are looking at their hiring lineage and saying,
ugh outsider, who needs him? Hubert Davis played here, assistant
coach here, Guthridge and Matt Doherty obviously, Dean Smith and

(02:23:06):
the whole line of coaches, Roy Williams, these are Carolina guys.

Speaker 2 (02:23:09):
Who's this guy? Mike Malone's a good coach.

Speaker 3 (02:23:11):
I think that's extremely shortsighted from the blue bloods, I
guess or the diehearts that feel that way. But it's
more about it's a new adventure because the name of
the game is very, very different. But maybe that's why
he's doing it, or why they're doing it. This is
a professional basketball outfit. You have a personnel director, you
have money to spend on your roster, and you do

(02:23:34):
that every off season. That's a professional basketball team. That's
what he's familiar with. We'll see if it works out there.
The other angle of it was a lot of people
thought Billy Donovan was in line to get this job,
wanted this job, and was ready to take the job,
but wanted to do the right thing and wait until

(02:23:55):
after the season actually ended in Chicago, and after other
college coach like Dusty May did not decide to move
on from their current schools and entertain the North Carolina
deal and job and offer that. Maybe they panicked and
just said, well, we can't wait any longer. We can't
wait for Billy Donovan. We're going to hire Mike Malone.

Speaker 1 (02:24:14):
I don't know how panicking into hiring this coach would
be described as panicking, but we'll see how it works
out there. Obviously, an update on Hunter Brown was given
by the Astros via their game notes.

Speaker 3 (02:24:24):
It's a Grade two shoulder strain for Hunter Brown. He
will not throw for us several weeks. But there's obviously
more to it, and hopefully we'll get more from it.
The Texans they pulled off a deal affecting the twenty
twenty seven NFL draft, a swap of late round picks
and Marte Mapu from the Patriots. Special teamer is now

(02:24:47):
Houston Texans property player, useful tool. What else do we
have today? In case you missed it, Yeah, let's stay
on the Astros. There wex you'r starting lineups for today.
Mike Burrows.

Speaker 12 (02:25:00):
He's gonna be important, right because now you don't have
Hunter Brown for a while. He was one of your
other big additions along with em I, So hopefully he
can help you get going here against the Rockies, keep
that ballpark from letting things get out of hand. Carlos
Krai gets the day off. Panol'll lead off and play short.
Jordanskinna DH and hit second.

Speaker 2 (02:25:18):
Al two. Vey will be third, playing second base.

Speaker 12 (02:25:20):
Esak is back, He's gonna hit clean up and play third,
followed by Christian Walker at first. Cam Smith and right
field will hit six. Jake Myers will play center in
bat seventh, Yiners catching for in bat in eighth, and finally,
Bryce Matthews gets a chance to play some left field
and he will hit ninth.

Speaker 3 (02:25:33):
Yeah, one eighteen hitter is probably welcoming the opportunity to
hit at cors Field.

Speaker 1 (02:25:38):
That's what Bryce Matthews is. I think he has the
second longest home run hit this year by the Astros.
Yesterday's four sixty two from Cam is number one. I
think his four thirty four is number two. Obviously hasn't
had a good season offensively yet, but it's hard to
kind of get into a rhythm when you're not in
the lineup as often. Joey litle Berfito has been out
there the last couple of games. Kyle Freeland and another

(02:26:00):
left handed pitcher has helped to dictate the split between
low Perffito and Matthews.

Speaker 2 (02:26:05):
Though low Perffito earlier this.

Speaker 3 (02:26:08):
Opportunity to hit against a Lefty in the final game
of the Athletics series. I think more of that should
be welcome, and I'd love to see Bryce Matthews hit
more against Righty's two game losing streak, a season high,
hopefully not three, which would be a new season high
for the Astros.

Speaker 2 (02:26:24):
I can't take three. That's like Mariner's territory. Well, keep
this in mind.

Speaker 3 (02:26:27):
You will have two Astros games completed before you visit
with our listeners. Again, that's true, not you though, Oh yes,
I'll still have two completed games.

Speaker 2 (02:26:38):
I'll just be on tomorrow while you will not. You're
going to visit in between them? Are you doing post?
They'll both be done by then. Ah, that's true. I
didn't think about that. I don't know. I thought you
were doing.

Speaker 1 (02:26:49):
The Astros are playing tonight and then again tomorrow. I
will have post tomorrow. Both games will be complete.

Speaker 2 (02:26:55):
I'm aware of how it works.

Speaker 7 (02:26:57):
Now.

Speaker 2 (02:26:58):
This is when I'm half assed paying at ten.

Speaker 3 (02:27:00):
By the way, in case you missed it, see the
Astros will be right here on Sports Talk seven to
ninety this evening.

Speaker 2 (02:27:05):
The on Deck show starts at six thirty.

Speaker 3 (02:27:08):
Cole Thompson will have that for you, plus post the
tenth Innick Show, after and over on seven forty Houston
Rockets Basketball. Ross will get you started at nine o'clock
with launch Pad myself along with Empty We'll take you
through Rockets and Sons.

Speaker 2 (02:27:21):
Did you see what's the Bulls mascot name? Benny? Sure?

Speaker 1 (02:27:26):
You see him staring down Dylan Brooks before the game
the other night?

Speaker 2 (02:27:29):
I did. That's awesome. The rocket a nice little piece.

Speaker 3 (02:27:33):
I think it maybe was a Player's Trib article from
Dylan Brooks.

Speaker 1 (02:27:37):
Probably worth a read. It's very Dylan Brooks. He's very confident.
What else do we have?

Speaker 12 (02:27:42):
Josh flip over to the NFL right here. Fernando Mendoza.
Sources are telling Adam Schefter that he's not going to
attend the draft, even though he's expected to be the
top pick.

Speaker 2 (02:27:52):
He's going to be in Miami with family.

Speaker 12 (02:27:54):
Other notable top picks not to attend Trayvon Walker, Trevor Lawrence, Baker,
Mayfield in Miles Garrett. What do you think if you
were pretty sure you were going to be the top
pick in the draft, or are you showing up for that?

Speaker 2 (02:28:06):
Or now I'm gonna be with fans.

Speaker 3 (02:28:07):
If I'm not mistaken that's less than Miles Garrett's a
nine or ten year guy. Right, So you talked about
that's ten drafts roughly back to Miles Garrett being number one,
and that's at least five people you mentioned, right, yep,
So half the number one picks haven't been there.

Speaker 12 (02:28:22):
I think people are afraid of being in that green
room with the camera on him, like Aaron Rodgers, I mean, yeah,
I well, it's crazy that people thought it.

Speaker 3 (02:28:30):
I'm not sure what they truly thought on draft night
that he would be number one, And I think they
did recognize there's not a lot of teams that were
looking for quarterbacks after that, which is wild thinking of
where we are today. But he lasted twenty four more picks.
You know, Baker Mayfield probably didn't know he was going
number one. The day before the draft, or maybe even
hours before the draft. He was at his house with
family and friends. We got an awesome prank behind the

(02:28:51):
scenes video because minutes before the selection his phone rang
and it was somebody in the room with him and he's.

Speaker 2 (02:28:56):
Like, what are you doing?

Speaker 5 (02:28:58):
Don't call me?

Speaker 3 (02:28:59):
Was awesome, and the other people wanted to spend time
with their family. Obviously, I can if you watched anything
that happened this year with Indiana football, and you saw
his family, and you saw the community and all the
things about being in Miami with his family, his mom,
his dad, his brother. I'm sure who's his teammate this year?
That falls right in line with kind of what I
would expectors She tell me he prefers living room.

Speaker 2 (02:29:23):
Right. Yeah, it's like Joe Burrow.

Speaker 3 (02:29:24):
I'm advocating for this, and Josh you can second it
if you'd like. Not that I'm a huge fan, but
I'm a huge fan of the impersonation. Feel free to
drop some more chefter on our listeners.

Speaker 1 (02:29:37):
Yes, but you can't stand out so much. That's what
makes it even funny. Fun I'll see what I can do.
Michigan won the national title last night.

Speaker 2 (02:29:45):
He was there.

Speaker 1 (02:29:46):
Huge Michigan guy. Loves the program. That's his school. Huge
Michigan Hank very short, love it he is. Honestly, I
was alarmed at how's tiny he is.

Speaker 2 (02:29:56):
He's wee Did you know he's sixty?

Speaker 3 (02:30:00):
Well, because with the NFL network being consumed taken over
by ESPN, a lot of people think he won't be
doing what he's doing.

Speaker 2 (02:30:08):
Currently for much longer.

Speaker 1 (02:30:09):
Breaking Newsport much younger, Ian Rapaport will ultimately take over
that role. I could see that is Ian Rappaport still
Bill O'Brien's mouthpiece for the Texans organization, Like he's still
feeding them stuff about the Texans even though he's at
Boston College.

Speaker 2 (02:30:24):
Nah, probably not. He was here.

Speaker 3 (02:30:27):
We had tickets to give away. If you've been listening
to the show, they'll be easy to win. We will
do that next here on the A team.

Speaker 1 (02:30:31):
You want to go see ac DC, you want to
go see Motley Crue.

Speaker 2 (02:30:34):
Stick around.

Speaker 5 (02:30:37):
The eighteen on Sports show.

Speaker 3 (02:30:39):
We're a little under two hours away from first pitch
around seven to forty this evening, the Astros in Colorado
Rockies will play game two of their three game series.
The Astros are just six and five on the season,
after losing the first two and the last two of
their season, winning six of the seven in between, scoring
at a well best pace in baseball seventy seven runs
three eleven games, and they did so again yesterday right

(02:31:01):
on that number seven more runs, but their second consecutive
game with heavy offense and no victories, losing the finale
against the Athletics twelve ten and extras and then the
losing yesterday nine to seven to the rock He's to
open up that series. The news on Hunter Brown has
him probably months away from returning, the grade two shoulder
strain reported by the Astros earlier today, and the fact

(02:31:24):
that he won't throw for weeks, and some intel on
what exactly a grade two strain likely calls for. Those
are things that are out there. Josh Hater's possible return
maybe not too far off. Bennetts SUSA probably sooner than that,
which could really get a shot in the arm to
the bullpen.

Speaker 2 (02:31:41):
He had a live VP here in Houston.

Speaker 3 (02:31:43):
Remember SUSA and Hayter did not go on the trip
with the Astros so they could continue rehabbing in order
to make a return. That's what Joe Spotted told Chandler
Rome the other traveling media there in Colorado as the
Astros are getting set for that game tonight. Like I
mentioned it, o't forget a little bit later tonight nine
o'clock launch pad nine thirty we will get into Rockets Countdown.

Speaker 2 (02:32:04):
Ross will have launch Pad.

Speaker 3 (02:32:05):
I've got Rockets Countdown in the game with MT tonight
and we'll do that over.

Speaker 2 (02:32:09):
At News Radio seven forty KTRH.

Speaker 1 (02:32:12):
We do have a pair of tickets to see ac
DC's Power Up Tour August thirty first.

Speaker 2 (02:32:16):
This year twenty twenty six.

Speaker 1 (02:32:18):
N RG Stadium also have a pair of tickets to
go see Motley Cruz Return of the Carnival of Sins
Tour with Tesla and Extreme Woodland's Pavilion September eleventh.

Speaker 3 (02:32:28):
Tickets to both showsville with ticketmaster dot com. If you
do not win them, here when you call seven one
three two one two five seven ninety with the answer
to this very easy question which you will know the
answer to because you love me and Adam and Josh
here on the A team, and you've been listening today.

Speaker 2 (02:32:46):
We're talking about Doc Rivers earlier and uh, he pointed
to his resume in that team meeting with the Bucks.

Speaker 5 (02:32:55):
Look at my resume and all the places I've won.

Speaker 1 (02:32:58):
And he was talking about dragging teams that shouldn't go
to the playoffs to the playoffs and how good he was,
and clearly.

Speaker 2 (02:33:05):
Teams of the playoffs that shouldn't have been here. I
thought you guys were one of them.

Speaker 1 (02:33:10):
Told me, I mean the most backhanded compliment ever. I
guess continue play say away. He did like Trip and
win an NBA title with the Celtics.

Speaker 2 (02:33:22):
What year did they win that championship?

Speaker 1 (02:33:24):
That one championship with all that talent and all that
awesome coaching they had.

Speaker 2 (02:33:29):
I believe.

Speaker 1 (02:33:32):
Sam Cassell was on that team as a backup point
guard to Rajon Rondo. I believe he hadn't gone into
his his odyssey of multiple assistant coaching gigs without getting
a head coaching gig, which is honestly one of the
biggest atrocities in today's NBA.

Speaker 2 (02:33:49):
He should have a head coach. Possible.

Speaker 3 (02:33:51):
They would have won the title without him. But Sam Cassell,
at age thirty eight, did score nineteen points in that
series' final victory in the year that you're gonna give.

Speaker 1 (02:34:01):
Josh in the entire series of the finals, he scored
nineteen that's correct.

Speaker 2 (02:34:06):
I mean he was making game winners.

Speaker 3 (02:34:08):
One fewer point than one of the finest voices currently
talking about the NBA today, Brian Scalabrini.

Speaker 2 (02:34:16):
Not on the team. It's not Paul Pierce either, or
Kevin Garnett. Well, yeah, because neither one of them are
considered a fine voice.

Speaker 1 (02:34:26):
They both scored well over one hundred points in what
was a six game series.

Speaker 3 (02:34:30):
This player scored twenty. Sam Cascll scored nineteen. You hear
from pretty much every day.

Speaker 1 (02:34:37):
Why can I not think he's big? Oh Perkins? Yep,
he has really falling off, by the way.

Speaker 3 (02:34:45):
So in other words, what year did Sam Cassell and
Kendrick Perkins combined for thirty nine points in the NBA
Finals triumph of the Boston Celtics.

Speaker 2 (02:34:54):
I like that a lot.

Speaker 1 (02:34:55):
Sam Cassell scoring points in that year's final and hitting
game winners in nineteen ninety four's NBA Finals as a rookie.
As a rookie, he hit the game winners.

Speaker 2 (02:35:08):
Three season was the final season of his career.

Speaker 1 (02:35:10):
You know what always gets me is that shot in
like Ellie's Kiss of Death. It's like a It's a
one score game with several seconds remaining. How is that
back then considered such a game winner? Was it that
much harder to score?

Speaker 3 (02:35:24):
Florida State kid had a wheelbarrow from day one as
an NBA player.

Speaker 1 (02:35:30):
Do you think he and Vernon Maxwell ever had like
fistfights over who was the better Florida product or just
their schools in general, Florida versus Florida State. Probably nothing,
Or do you think that Sam was a rookie and
saw Vernon Maxwell waving a gun around at Loubie's in
the parking lot and thought, I'm gonna keep my mouth shut.

Speaker 2 (02:35:49):
You win.

Speaker 1 (02:35:53):
I love you Max. If you're listening, you know we
both love you. Friend of the show and personal friend.
But yeah, Samkus and that Celtics team snapped the Rockets
twenty two game winning streak. That's another hint because it
happened this year too. All righty, there you go. We
have a winner yet it Yeah, a lot of people

(02:36:13):
in on it, as we always do. We love you guys,
love you listeners.

Speaker 3 (02:36:15):
We know you're out there, and we want to reward
you for being part of the program, whether you are
on the phone lines with us over the four hours
or you communicate us with us via social media, and
you're welcome to both each and every day. We tell
you that every day, and we love that you're out there.
Hopefully we'll be out on remotes over the course of
the next few months during the baseball season and maybe
even during the basketball postseason.

Speaker 2 (02:36:35):
You can come out and hang with us, draw us,
some SuDS with us, or some food.

Speaker 1 (02:36:38):
I'd like to think that tonight provided the Rockets, I
mean the Astros take care of their business that the
Braves can do. The Astros is solid and put some
separation between them and the Angels breathing down their neck
for the division lead. Here on April seventh, What can
I do?

Speaker 2 (02:36:55):
What can I not do? Roll your eyes enough?

Speaker 3 (02:36:58):
On April seven of the baseball season, scoreboard watch cannot scoreboard?

Speaker 2 (02:37:04):
Why when do you start? I'm not calculating magic numbers.
I cannot start number right now? Come on, I know
you know not do that. What is it?

Speaker 7 (02:37:12):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (02:37:12):
The good news is you say Kakuchi is starting tonight
for the Angels.

Speaker 1 (02:37:16):
Sucks this year? He has not he has an era. No,
it's nearly seven.

Speaker 3 (02:37:20):
It is closer to seven with six it's six six
fifty two. Okay, Trout is back in the lineup tonight.

Speaker 1 (02:37:27):
Well, he'll be hurt soon, as we covered earlier in
the show. Not wishing for it, just saying it'll happen. Uh,
what are you gonna do when he like tears his
oblique before tomorrow's show or the next day show? Has
we just also established.

Speaker 3 (02:37:38):
I'm not gonna do anything but remind everybody what's on
the schedule tonight.

Speaker 2 (02:37:41):
Of importance.

Speaker 3 (02:37:42):
On the NBA side, Minnesota can lock in their playoff
spot behind Houston if they lose at Indiana tonight. No
Jade McDaniels and no Anthony Edwards for them. The Sacramento Kings,
why does their game matter because they're playing the Golden
State Warriors. Warriors spot in the playoffs is confirmed playing style,
but they'll either be nine or ten. Oklahoma City at

(02:38:04):
the LA Lakers. The Rockets have one fewer win than
the Lakers heading into tonight. If they want to pass
the Lakers for the seed, they need to pass the
Lakers in the win column and win by the Rockets
later this evening at Phoenix and a loss at home
to the Thunder by the Lakers would put the Rockets
and Lakers at exactly fifty wins with three games to play.

Speaker 1 (02:38:25):
Honestly, no Austin Reeves, no Luca and Lebron is like
eighty five just forfeit.

Speaker 3 (02:38:32):
Keep in mind, Oklahoma City has not sewn up the
top seed yet, so I would have.

Speaker 1 (02:38:35):
Sat going they're gonna score one sixty on that Lakers squad.
They don't play defense now now that Luca and Austin
Reeves are gone at Luca never did, and Lebron hasn't
played defense in five years. They're gonna They're gonna go
one eighty on them, one hundred and eighty points scored

(02:38:55):
by the Thunder.

Speaker 3 (02:38:56):
Not a real wagering opportunity, but I'll take the under.
What's the last road game of the season for Houston tonight?

Speaker 2 (02:39:03):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:39:03):
They are three straight to end the regular season here,
starting with Philly. I wonder if Daryl Morey's coming to
town to say hello to all of his old friends.

Speaker 3 (02:39:11):
Like me, they are uncertain of their own playoff position
of Philadelphia, Charlotte, Orlando, and Toronto all have forty three
wins with less than a week left in the season.
And then those are seeds six through nine. They're close
enough to Atlanta that any of them could pass Atlanta
for five. They're close enough to the Heat that any

(02:39:32):
of them could drop to the ten seed.

Speaker 1 (02:39:34):
Orlando is rolling over and dying night after night last week.
I can't believe they finally beat the Pelicans. We will
send you into the nightcap, which will send you into
the on deck show as we get ready for both
Rockets basketball on seven forty and Astros baseball right here
on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (02:39:51):
We will talk to you together on Thursday. I'll talk
to you guys later tonight and tomorrow. We'll see what
a sick is well.

Speaker 2 (02:39:58):
He's a Wath