Astros Split, Rockets Beat Two Bad Teams, ABS Rules!

Monday on The A-Team, Adam Clanton and Adam Wexler discuss the Astros splitting their opening series with the Angels, react to the Rockets' last two wins, examine how ABS is impacting MLB, and much more!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
O'clock here on a Monday edition of the A Team
Sports Talk seven ninety Welcome back in from the weekend.
Although you guys have been good little boys and girls
listening to seven ninety all day long, so just keep
it right here.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
We're taking you up until six o'clock. He's wex. I'm
a see.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Josh Jordan is our fearless producer and I don't know
a little bit of a mixed back from over the weekend.
That was not fun on Thursday and Friday watching the
Astros and they're.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Much hyped.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
I guess you got to be such a wet blanket
well because it was awful until all. I can you
just come in here on Monday and say, man, it's
awesome to be here. Yesterday dub Astros rockets Saturday dub Astros.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Let's talk about it.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Because Saturday dub Astros would not have told the full story.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
That's why we have four more hours to tell it.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
They were dead in the water. What am I supposed
to say? Astros five hundred bring it?

Speaker 3 (01:00):
I mean, I guess the rain could have ruined their day.
But baseball games don't end after three four innings normally,
do they I'm not dead in the water. Time's not
gonna run out in a baseball game.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
When was that eight run rally the fifth or sixth inning?

Speaker 3 (01:13):
I can't we scored three in the fifth and eight
and the sixth, eight and the sixth or three in
the fourth, eight and the fifth whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
And tell me this be honest. Completely looked lifeless before
they got baseball players that don't get hits look lifeless.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Okay, but you can't.

Speaker 4 (01:30):
You can't. Are you having trouble with the chair over there?

Speaker 3 (01:32):
No, it's just what we do to prepare for our
day when we have thirty seconds to get ready.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
But say that after the first two games, Oh, you
can't letting you I'm doing it, disallowed you.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
And not you know, pay attention to it. And then
it's like, dude, come on, man, let's let's try. Let's try.
I'm not the only one that was thinking this stuff,
I know, because people are just they can't handle it.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Look, you can't do a carbon copy of basically every
bleepy game from twenty twenty five the first two and
a half games of the season and not have You're gonna.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Do a carbon copy of twenty twenty five one thousand times.
This year only sixty two. It's gonna happen all the time,
all the time. But this goes bad. That's what I've
been saying.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
I don't care if you have those kinds of games,
but don't don't have a feudal offense because you put
the guys on and didn't bring them home.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Why not, because what happens if they never even got
on base? I really would.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yeah, nothing wrong with what the Astros did the last
four days. Be nice to have three wins, which is
I think a recomber. Well, I know everybody thinks the
Angels stink. Do you think they're good this year? Well,
the record's gonna be bad, But here's what they do.
Did you watch this weekend? Did you listen here on
Sports Talk seven ninety. They're gonna do it all year,
And what the Astros did on Saturday and Sunday is

(02:49):
pretty much the only way teams are gonna beat him,
and they're gonna beat him a lot.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
That way.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
You have to outscore them. They swing for the fences
from the first pitch to the last bits. They're gonna
have a ton of home runs just like they did
last year. They're gonna give up a ton of runs,
just like they did last year. And holy cow, did
they love kicking the ball around And they're going to
do that all year this year. Dell, he's just jo Adell.
That's what he had to do. You have to die
for that ball, You got to try to save the game. Yeah,

(03:13):
but it's always Joidell. He's always something. Jodell had zero errors.
Logan Ohapi threw two balls into the outfield, yo On
Mocatta had the basic play errs he made. He tried
to save the game for his team.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah, but Joe Adell is associated with that throughout his career,
not just the You are micro causing this to four
games on the season and I'm not going to have it.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Well, yeah it was four games, like seams, both teams.
You're doing that with, Well, no, that's who I mean.
I don't think anyone would disagree. The Angels aren't gonna
have very good pitching this year. Jose Soriano might pitch well.
He probably pitched a lot better than his numbers were
last year. And we saw that on Thursday. Hunter Brown
pitched well enough to keep the Astros tied when they
didn't score that day, and then the Astros didn't pitch

(03:57):
very well pretty much from the moment he left the
Mount on Thursday night. The whole rest of the series
was nothing but run scored by the Angels. The Angels
lead the Majors, and home runs the Angels lead the Majors,
and walks drawn. And that is no way to go
through life for the Astros' pitching staff. But hopefully it's
one turn through the rotation, which will wrap up today
with Lancepecullors Junior opening up the series against the Red Sox.

(04:17):
The Astros did not hit the ball very well on
opening Day. They pretty much hit the ball fine the
rest of the weekend, and they scored a ton of
runs on Friday night, quite obviously, but they hit the
ball plenty well enough to make the difference. And that's
what the nature of baseball is. You can have three
balls hit at one five to three off the bat
and they land on someone's glove and you go home upset.
You can have three balls that dribble through the infield

(04:38):
and nobody can make a play on it. And some
of the eleven runs they scored on Saturday were a
result of that. They just scored twenty runs in two games.
You know, on any balls they hit over the fence in
fair territory, none, not a one. The Astros hit one
home run over the weekend and scored twenty runs in
two days without any home runs. I'd love to see
them be able to pass the baton like that and

(04:59):
find ways to get runs home and make it difficult
on a pitching staff. They had multiple big innings over
the last couple of days every time they scored. They
had five run scoring innings in the last two days.
All of them were multi scoring inning, multi run scoring innings.
That is a very very good way to go through life.
But all things considered, they're only two and two. They

(05:20):
did not take advantage of probably one of the weaker teams,
maybe the weakest team in the division, if not the
entire American League, which I think will still play out.
And now you got a much better team comes in
with a losing record, a terrible Boston Red Sox. At
just one and two, you get a very good trio
of starting pitchers. It would look like, certainly on paper,
obviously Crochet the best among them. But you also go

(05:42):
back to the start of your rotation. The Astros do
not have a six man rotation, yet they do have
the off days necessary to get yesterday's starting pitcher his
necessary five days of rest in between starts. That's tatsu
em We could start there, among other places when we
get into additional Astros conversation, trying to lay everything out

(06:02):
from the weekend obviously involves a couple of nights on
the court for the Rockets.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Friday night and yesterday. They won both games.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
A little bit tough that they didn't take care of
Memphis the way it seemed like they should have, but
they let teams get off to good starts quite a
bit lately. Really was no different yesterday against the Pelicans.
It was all even after the first quarter, and then
they blew them out, absolutely embarrassed them. It was one
of the best nights of basketball for the Rockets in
a lot of different ways, certainly for Alprin Shingoon, probably

(06:33):
for a lot of health of this team, considering both
of those two wins included two well played tarry Eason
at games, and he made three threes in last night's
game on five attempts. It's more about his overall play, though,
because the game before that that they won against Memphis
on Friday he made three and he missed.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Five, and he was great. That's the player they've been missing.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
Not necessarily someone who's gonna drain all of his three
point shots, almost all of which are wide open, but
the guy who's gonna help you win basketball games when
he's out there, make steels, play defense, grab boards. He
had seven rebounds in both games, six offensive rebounds total
in both games. That's the player they need again, and
they talked about that a little bit after the game.
He and Alprin Shangoon arm in arm. So we'll also

(07:18):
get into that. Rockets will go into play today, which
they are off for the day, same record as in
Minnesota Timberwolves. They have a game left with the Timberwolves.
They have two back to backs left this season, and
they will start the first of those two tomorrow night
Tota Center for the side of both games. They got
the Knicks tomorrow and then the Bucks to begin the
final seven games of the regular season in April.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
On April first, Yeah, the Rockets were, like you said,
a little bit of a mixed bag. I love the
fact that Kevin Durant didn't play a single solitary second
in the fourth quarter last night, but like you said,
I would have liked that to have been the case
against Memphis. I will say, though, it was good to see,
Oh hey, they're playing a crappy team and they blew

(08:00):
them out by thirty two.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
Well, the crappy team did their part, and I don't
you know, not two the blanket has some droplets of
water on it. The Rockets played the Pelicans starters basically
in the first quarter to a tie, and then they
played the Pelicans starters again in the third quarter for
the most part, to another tie. The Rockets and Pelicans
scored the exact same number of points in the first

(08:22):
and third quarter.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
The Rocket game thirty after the first quarter. Last night
it was twenty nine apiece.

Speaker 4 (08:28):
You sure where they hit that.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
Depots also working the game, just in a different place
on a different medium.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
Maybe I'm thinking of the Memphis game.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
Twenty nine apiece in the first, thirty three apiece in
the third. But the Rockets had such a huge lead
the third quarters a little bit of a non issue.
But the Pelicans did their part. By I mean, if
they really, really, really were playing to win, then I'm
sure some of their starters would have played more minutes.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
Thinking they did it was thirty after the first quarter.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah, and they didn't, and so the Rockets took advantage
of that. And I do think the probably are seeing
what is now obvious. The group that they have needs
to start the game better, but there's no reason to
change it. The Reed Shepherd as a starter does two
things in my opinion, that help this team tremendously. Tari
Easton's just a better player for who he is right

(09:16):
now for this team and what they need coming off
of the bench with those players, and what he brings
to the table game changing type of attitude. There were
some Terror Twin like plays being made in these games
for Tari, and you need more of that. And when
you put Reed Shephard, a second year player who does
not have a lot of experience in that starting group,

(09:37):
that means essentially all of his first and third quarter minutes,
in addition to the others that come about at different
points of the game. They're all played with Kevin Durant
and they can help each other so much, and it
takes him out of the bench group. The bench group
now which does look to be settled on nothing but veterans.
Tari Easton's in his fourth year and he's a pup
when you compare him to the other guys coming off

(09:58):
the bench, Aaron Hollidays coming off the bench six straight
games as part of this rotation, Jay Shaun Tate is
coming off the bench, and Clint Cappella, i mean, Steven
Adams is probably shedding a happy tier off to the
sidelines watching what Capella is doing as an offensive rebounder.
In his Timeuela, they were both they were among the
top five in the NBA individually as offensive rebounders in

(10:22):
this NBA season this year, and now they have one
of them. And he's gone out there and done it,
and he needs to do it. And if you you know,
per thirty six minute Capella, he's one of the top
rebounders in the entire league.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Over the past eight games.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
As the Rockets have kind of settled in on this rotation,
So figuring a couple things out as they go into
the final eight games of the season, and remember the
first three are at home, then you have two on
the road out West, and then three more at home
to close out the season. Five of those eight games
are against quote unquote playoff teams, teams inside their respective
top tens in each the Eastern and Western Conference. Doesn't

(10:57):
really matter who's on the other side of the court,
as pretty much every game line two month has meant
has has kind of shown the Rockets can beat good teams,
they can lose two poor teams. They just need to
try to finish the season healthy and feeling good about
whichever of the Nuggets, Lakers, or Wolves that they are
going to see in the first round. I think things

(11:17):
are pretty well settled in the Western Conference. One and
two will be okay see in San Antonio, even though
it's not definitive who will be one and who will
be two, seven, eight, nine, and ten are essentially locked
in now as well, and three, four, five, and six
are also It's just a matter of where they end up,
who has the two home court spots, and what the
matchups are.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
I think the Rockets want the Lakers. I think those three.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
I think to me, it almost doesn't matter between the
Wolves and the Lakers. And I think the Nuggets would
be the least desirable first round opponent.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yeah, the Nuggets. You're going home probably in five games.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
If we're being honest, the Nuggets are just they're just
I don't know if they're teasing teams or they're not
as good as they need to be, but they just
kind of they're cruising. They don't do anything for three
quarters and then they dominate. Now when they play Utah,
obviously it's easy. Utah still doing what I don't think.
I guess they got fined for, but they're still doing it. Oh,
these players helped us stay in the game, and you're

(12:15):
not playing anymore. They did the same thing the other
night with the Nuggets. They were winning the game, and
then any player that was having a good night that
they had enough bodies to sit on the bench for
they did, and then the Nuggets blew them out. And
I don't know what to make of the Warriors game
last night. I don't know how the Warriors stayed in
the game to begin with a second half lead turned
into a twenty three point Nuggets blowout.

Speaker 4 (12:35):
It's fine.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
As long as the Warriors are losing, I'm fine with it. Well.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
The Warriors thankfully are a non factor in the NBA
this year. I'd be absolutely floored if they are playing
playoff games this year. Play in games are not the
same as playoff games. I don't think they will be
a playoff team in twenty twenty six.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
Probably pretty embarrassing if you picked them to be the
second seed in the West and win more than fifty games.
But that's just me. I would never do it the
first seed like that. That's true. Okay, ABS was front
and center major League Baseball. I can't wait to talk
about that. There is a fraud in the Astros Division.
You're going to talk about that. The madness and everything
else from over the weekend.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
We'll get to.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
But apparently a team meeting and as WEX described it,
arm in m arm all of that plus playing the
Pelicans that cured all of the Rockets woes and they
will likely be heading to the NBA Finals. Definitely. We'll
explain next. As bad as the Orlando Magic. Did you
see that last night? Like I know you were keeping

(13:34):
tabs on it because you were. There's two, there's eight,
there's eleven straight. There's twenty straight. There's twenty five straight.
There's thirty straight. That's thirty one straight points.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
Most points in recorded history, which only goes back to
ninety ninety six ninety seven the play by play era.
No team has scored thirty one consecutive points that anybody
could come up with before yesterday, when the Orlando Magic
allowed the Toronto Raptors to score thirty one consecutive points.
They're all only eleven turnovers during that offensive drought for

(14:04):
the streaking Orlando Magic, streaking towards Man, what a shocker.
Another disappointing season in Orlando. I thought Desmond Bain was
going to lead them to the title. It actually was
an awesome trade for twenty eight teams. Yes, helped to
hurt the Grizzlies and has done nothing for the Magic.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
I don't know. I mean the mask They've had major
injury problems.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
They're their second best player, if you think Bane's their best,
or however you want to shake it out. Franz Wagner
has been Hurt's been hurt for half a year, and
now they lean on Powlo to lead them, which is
not a very good thing to do.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
It hurts my soul that the Orlando Magic have been
back to the NBA Finals since the Rockets and the
Magic met in nineteen ninety five.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
Yeah, well they had JJ Reddick. I mean, how do
you compete with that?

Speaker 3 (14:49):
You have Jj Redicks time, Well, it was JJ's team
and Dwight was one of the reason the mate's team.
One of his teammates at the time actually was a
Dwight's team, was JJ's team.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
I can't even rememb was Trevor Reza playing for the
Magic or the Lakers in that finals, because he played
for both of them.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
I'm sure he was playing for the Lakers. Well, all of.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
That is to say this team meeting that the Rockets had.
First of all, let's start right there. When you hear
a team has a closed door meeting, any team baseball, basketball,
you don't hear about this much in the NFL. Probably
hard to get everybody together, seeing as how there's so
many on the roster.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
Well, I mean, I can't help but laugh just because
how you presented it. A closed door meeting. Yeah, well,
what does that mean? It means in my opinion, I'll
tell you what. I think you got to figure out
what it means. Because they had a meeting. They had
a team meeting.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Sometimes these meetings don't include the coaching staff.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
That's the first point. Was the coaching staff in this
one or not?

Speaker 1 (15:51):
Because I think it's a very different meeting depending on
what you're talking about, what the scenario is.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
So you're trying to say the closed door is internal.
They're closing some people internally out of the meeting. Yes,
and people that work for the team cannot come in.
It's a closed door meeting. You're not allowed in here.
Not you media, You're never allowed in here for having
a meeting, right, I mean somebody who works with us
every day, sits on the bench with us every day,

(16:16):
sits on the bus with us every day, takes flights
with us every day, and yells at us on some
days or smiles at us. You're not welcome here. That
is a closed door meeting something like that, That team
meeting because the team needed to talk about things. That's
how I took what they said last. They did not
use the term closed door meeting. They said that exactly.
But I don't think the door is open. Well, the doors,
that's the other part of the semantics. I'm trying to

(16:37):
not jump off, trying to leave it out there. It's
so obvious. I don't have to say that right now.
They I know what the setup is in most locker rooms,
and I know what the setup is at Toyota Center,
and I know what the setup is at the Memorial
Harmon Training Facility. I don't know what the setup is
necessarily when they are on the road and on the plane,
Like if it's on the plane.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Think they used a hotel ball room. It's pretty much
which guaranteed that it's not closed door. It's an open
door meeting, open aisle. I mean, there's nothing you can
do about it. Well, let's let them explain.

Speaker 3 (17:10):
Yeah, Tarry Easton he joined and was welcomed into the
alprin Shangoon postgame interview session after Alpi had an outrageously
successful game and he is on a he's on a heater,
I think you'd say, so we'll take a look at
some of what ALP and a men for very specific
two players have been doing lately. But after what the

(17:30):
Rockets did last night, one by thirty two, largest margin
victory this season, and Shengoon with his remarkable second quarter
overall game, a zero turnover game on his way to
thirty six points, he was the subject of many questions
after the game, and then Tarry Easton sat next to him.
They put their arms around, or he put his arm
around Tari and they continue to answer questions together. And

(17:52):
then clearly when the player who's been struggling is sitting
next to the player who's crushing it, Well, how'd you
think his player did? And he's sitting there and it's
a good fun line and stuff, but the idea that
a team meeting was held was divulged. While the two
were speaking with the media.

Speaker 5 (18:06):
We had a team meeting and you know, we kind
of got you got everything out and kind of understood
what expectations are. And you know, guys just told me,
you know, we need you and attack him. Yeah, they
said we need you, and that's.

Speaker 4 (18:22):
All it was.

Speaker 6 (18:23):
Everybody knows, everybody sees we need him, and he kind
of knows too, but he was just in his head
too much and we were just like, you know, telling him,
like we really need you.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
And I think he helped him a little bit.

Speaker 6 (18:34):
It comes from everybody head, you know what I mean,
and inside of everybody. We don't just talk behind him
or like one on one. It was just like, you
know what I mean, front of everybody. I think that's
helped him a lot more because we were just kind
of in the point, we really need you, you.

Speaker 4 (18:48):
Know what I mean.

Speaker 6 (18:48):
And he's one of the guy brings the energy this team.
You know, that's what he's been doing last four years.
So you know we kind of just you know, tell
him to we need you to win.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
So I do like the fact that he not only
said he was in his own head, but he said
it right in front of him.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
Which publicly, which he almost assuredly had told him during
this meeting and maybe many other times as well. Yeah,
and I look, I don't know, and it's obvious, it's
very obvious.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
We watched the games. We call the games.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
Well, i'll tell you this, and I don't know this,
and I'm not trying to start nothing. Okay, but remember
when Patrick Mahomes's family was his biggest story as Patrick
Mahomes and anything he did on the field, two members
of it, not just his wife, his stupid, annoying, obnoxious brother.

Speaker 3 (19:40):
So his dad wasn't drinking and driving at that time.
Yet he's his own category. Okay, but yes, he's a
good point.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
He's in the category. But I felt like, yes, but
nobody got the worst press though, because he was the
worst of them. Brittany didn't do anything wrong. She poured a.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
Drink on somebody once, right, it's not right. Yes, I
get that, but my gosh, compared to what Jackson's doing
when authorities are involved, it's not.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
Even closed or it's her voice.

Speaker 4 (20:05):
It was.

Speaker 3 (20:07):
And still like the Mahomes story, Mahomes is playing great quarterback.
We didn't have anything to say, so people were glombing
onto this nonsense.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Off the field.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
It didn't impact him at all, with the exception of
his dad having a very, very big hiccup. Recently, Jackson's
been a wall in the news and Britney's toned it down,
probably because she was her gam up.

Speaker 3 (20:28):
Yeah right, and you you just neglected the key to
that whole story. I can hear it how you're describing it.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
They had a team meeting.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
No what you're trying to spin for everybody here, and
you're not even realizing it. If we were on TV,
everybody could see this Pat Mahomes playing great football. Family
just shambles, total distractions. We're talking about nothing but them,
and then they're cleaning up their act and they're getting
better and they're out of the news. I don't hear
about Jackson anymore. Brittany looks great. She's in magazines. Oh,

(20:57):
he's the quarterback of a six win team. Now they
can't go both hands on one or the other or
option B.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
It's gonna turn to them and say, would you guys
kind of do some things to take the heat off
of me. I'm just gonna ignore you.

Speaker 1 (21:12):
We can't act like Tarry Easton's mom's account on social
media was not getting attention that was probably at the
very least unwanted by multiple parties.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
I don't doubt that that's true, but I also don't
think that's different. It's I also think it has been
like that for a long time, and.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
I don't think that's what because he was playing well
when she was doing that, So I don't it's not
what I'm saying, but I just it just reminded me
of that because I thought, in my opinion, once he didn't,
once he started playing not well, that's not gonna help.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
Like he was, she was fillaying him in tweets. It's
not gonna help. It can't. Maybe maybe it doesn't hurt,
but I don't think it's helping. Yeah, that's hard to say.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
Their relationship is very unique, and obviously anyone whose mom
is that involved both.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
And I think that's a good thing. She's in.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
She is locked in on everything that's going on with
him and this team, and quite honestly, the NBA if
you were listening closely to how the Tari and Alperan
were describing the meeting. It did very much sound like
it had just a hint of intervention talk, but I
don't really think that was the the the intent. And
Tari did give a little bit of an explainer when
I asked about, you know, was this meeting really centered

(22:22):
around you Memphis?

Speaker 5 (22:25):
So it felt like it was pretty centered around me,
to be honest with you, but.

Speaker 7 (22:31):
It was.

Speaker 5 (22:31):
It was overall just a concern and uh and just
a It wasn't like, uh, directly like pointed at me negatively.
It was more so positive. It was more so affirmations.
It was more so everybody kind of trying to lift
me up. We're flying to Memphis. That was the year
kind of anniversary of my father's death, so I was
already kind of mentally going through some things this with everything,

(22:53):
So everybody's just being there for me and embracing me.

Speaker 4 (22:57):
That was that was important.

Speaker 3 (22:58):
It was a hey, guess that's what we're not going
to do if you're playing like this win. And it
wasn't done in a negative way, and it's clearly, at
least initially has had a very positive impact. They need
this player, this very specific player, for what he very
specifically does for this team. They needed him to get
back on They needed him to get back to the
helpful player that he was. You ask anybody on this

(23:20):
team how to help this team, how help their team
win when they're not going well offensively? No one knows
how to do that better than Tarry Easton. That's what
he's done his whole career. I think everything he's done
offensively as he's grown into a much better offensive player,
is well now that he's done. Now that he can
do this, he could do all these things that helped
teams win from the moment he joined the NBA for
the moment he joined this team, no matter who was

(23:41):
out there on the court with him. And that had
also been lost a little bit with how poorly he'd
been shooting, some of the things that he was doing,
and the late stages of him still being in the
starting lineup before recently, it was just even more pronounced
because you had a player that wasn't bringing the jews,
the energy, the offensive rebounding, the defense, the up tempo,
the pay and he also wasn't shooting very well and

(24:03):
wasn't scoring at all. And I do think the team
recognized that, and the players that he mentioned by name,
Amn Kevin, obviously Alprin, Jabbari, that have all been trying
their best and giving a lot of uplifting commentary to him,
and at least for two games now with eight remaining,
it certainly paid off. He was a big factor in
both of the wins they had over the weekend. You

(24:23):
look at their last handful of games, there are a
lot of winnable nights. They played a little bit better
down the stretch in some instances. Obviously last night they
didn't need to because they were absolutely destroying the Pelicans
on the scoreboard and had their largest margin of victory.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
Of the entire season. So we'll see how if translate.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
If at all three games this week at Toyota Center
Tuesday against the Knicks, Wednesday against the Bucks, Friday against
the Utah Jazz, I'll just have five games remaining after that,
and lots still I'm sure to be determined in the
standings as to how things shake out. Well, you got
a few more things to say about that meeting and
obviously about how the team is playing. Does a deeper
dive into Alprin Shingoon and a men Thompson on the way.

(25:04):
But Thursday or Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And now
as we sit here on Monday waiting this evening's Major
League Baseball slate, we got five days of baseball games
and automated ball strike system challenges to run through. And
you'll never guess which umpire that everybody knew wasn't very

(25:24):
good at calling balls and strikes was at the center
of Thank goodness, we can get correct calls even when
this guy's behind the plate.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
That's best of X next.

Speaker 8 (25:37):
The Age on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
So what if I were to tell you that an
MLB umpires up and says come, It's.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
Interesting how everybody's going to react to the ABS system.
You know, catchers who are constantly calling for challenges and
being proven, or the opposite hitters who maybe get their
team in a bind when it's the fourth inning and
they just use the team second challenge and we're wrong.
And now you're running through the rest of the game,

(26:12):
a potentially very competitive game, and you don't.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
Have them there.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
But on days where you know the rotation lands use
certain umpires behind home plate, you know, it's going to
be a day for excessive use. And that day came
Saturday in Cincinnati at the Great American Ballpark.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
I really, really really.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
Wish it was the Great American Ball Stadium because then
it would be the GABS, which is where they were playing.
So the Great American Ballpark ABS put to use one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight times that afternoon.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
Can I just interrupt you real quick? One thing you said,
you said extreme use.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
I didn't say extreme. I said it was put to use,
but I thought you said it was. I thought you
said it was put to extreme use. I didn't use that.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
I don't believe I used that adjective. I was going
to ask, if you meant extreme need, it's.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
Well, if they're incorrect, then it's not necessarily needed. One
of those challenges, one of the eight challenges, was made
by the Red Sox catcher Carlos Nareez, and he was wrong.
He thought a ball should have been a strike, so
he challenged it and it was confirmed it was still
a ball. One of the two pitches that Roman Anthony challenged.

(27:27):
All the other challenges were asked for by the hitter,
so seven of them in the game. One of the
challenges that Roman Anthony asked for over the course of
the game. It was a strike and he thought, nuh
uh uh, it is not, but it was confirmed a
strike that was correct. The other six challenges were all overturned.
Six overturned pitches. During that game.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
C B. Buckner was behind home plate. It's this was again.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
If this is the first time you've heard his name
as an umpire who's not very good at calling balls
and strikes, then you're not locked in to baseball because
it's common knowledge.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
It's unfortunate.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
It's why I think there should be things in place
to say, look, either you get better or you're done.
I'm powering behind home plate calling balls and strikes. You
more than welcome to get on first, second, or third
base and be a part of the rotation and still
pull the same check. But we can't have you behind
home play because you're just not very good at it,
and it we can only do so much to overcome it,
even on this particular day, and again, unlimited challenges might help.

(28:27):
But one particular at bat definitely stood out because we're
deep enough into the game. It's a five to three game,
and you know the Reds are down and the bases
are loaded, and Gene Suarez is at the plate. Gene
a Hanio Suarez is at the plate, and there's two
strikes and he gets wrung up. I'll let the announcers

(28:49):
take over from there.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
Look, good challenge.

Speaker 9 (28:54):
Immediate tap of a helmet, abs power to my team.
Alls now the two, two.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
Three, ten.

Speaker 10 (29:05):
The helmet again, he says, it's off the plain of way.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
Here we're God. The loudest cheers of the game. The
Reds have it to Homer's God. Back to the challenges.

Speaker 3 (29:22):
The Reds have Homer twice today in front of a
very fun, love and raucous Saturday afternoon crowd, and all
American crowd, if you will, and the loudest cheer of
the game. And if you were watching the game, and
certainly if you're listening just now to that excerpt, you
could hear how loud the fans got. He tried to
punch out the same hitter twice in a very important situation,

(29:43):
and called pitches that were off the plate strikes not
tremendously far off, not one of those two point seven inches,
but not a strike, nonetheless, And that's what the system
is in place to do. And they loved every second
of it until he grounded out in the inning ended
moments later.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
But that's not why we're here.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
Right, get the calls right and again, just the responses
to this video. I grabbed this video, this version of
this video from someone who had posted it from another site.
But this person's own caption has garnered seven point one
million views and forty two thousand likes for saying absolutely

(30:23):
electric lmao.

Speaker 11 (30:25):
C B.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
Buckner noticeably annoyed when he tapped the second time, only
to be wrong again and listen to forty thousand people
cheer for his incompetence.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
That's what we've been doing.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
For how long cebe Buckner has been umpiring games poorly?

Speaker 2 (30:43):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (30:43):
I do, I understand, and I'll say what to me
matters in this the X. I said it last week.
These guys are ever. They're never gonna be perfect. A
human will never be perfect calling balls and strikes balls
that are close that they miss I mean, getting this
upset up. It is hopefully people won't because now they
won't be missed, because they'll be corrected. You have to

(31:05):
have challenges left, you have to be compelled to challenge
to get it correct. But we also have to recognize
some of the pitches that are going to be challenged
by catchers. The Astros had a pitcher freaking call for
a challenge this weekend. The Astros have been zero for
six unchallenges so far this season, challenging these umpires are
incompetent When the big screen shows that they missed it

(31:29):
by zo point one inches on a ninety seven mile
an hour fastball on a ninety six mile an hour sinker.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
Okay, but again, like if that's if that call stands,
it changes.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
The whole which is a game.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
It's less about embarrassing them and more about it's not perfect.
The human is not perfect. This is there to fix
part of that. I don't expect them to get every
call right. I expect fewer calls in the game now
to be missed. This is good, it's not we're here
to get Cebe Buckner fired. He the work he's already
done should have gotten him from no long right umpiring

(32:03):
behind home play, And there are other umpires like it.
Just through these number of games and the highlighting of it.
You also had an injection in this game, and you know,
I think more people are paying attention to it. But
you know, there are other umpires being challenged as often.
There are other umpires so far this season that have
a lower overturn rate or a higher overturn rate, I
should say than he does. There's one. But it's to

(32:27):
get it right, and that's what this is. I'm not
here to try to embarrass them more unless it does
the also obvious makes them better because they don't want
this anymore, sharpens their game.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
Or the other way which some of these responses I'll
go quickly through. It wouldn't surprise me if we see
some longtime umpires retire next season. The fact that we
can't see Angel Hernandez get absolutely humiliated like this time
and time again is actually a crime. One guy said,
I think we lost the plot.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
Man.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
This is not good for the game. A fun part
of baseball was how the zone is subjective. Now we're
arguing zero point three inches out the zone, swing the bat,
and the guy said, disagree on all fronts, and that's me.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
There's a lot of you take the bat off your
shoulder guy that are out there in the twitter verse.
I mean, we asked them to have a good eye,
and then we're also asking the swing get pitches out
of the zone. That are pitchers pitches. I don't I
don't really see that. They don't really go together. It's
not that he's bad.

Speaker 2 (33:26):
More likely he's a combination of arrogant, perhaps biased.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
Yeah, there is an element of that, and you'll see
what how will this impact his relationship with catchers, his
relationship with hitters, which probably wasn't good to begin with,
and will we see more ejections over things?

Speaker 2 (33:40):
Now?

Speaker 3 (33:40):
The ejection wasn't necessarily for that. There was a Trevor
Story pitch calling incident later in the game. We saw
Derek Shelton get ejected basically because he's.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
The manager of the Twins. Everybody knows that, right.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
Because he thought the challenge wasn't actually made or made
in time, and he was ticked off that they let
it happen. And the ultimately got ejected over this. So
we're gonna see a bunch of that. We're not even
a week end of the season yet.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yes, I love it. I love that this is happening.
I've wanted this for so long. Finally major League Baseball
got something right, except for zero credit for taking as
long as they did. Since this technology was available years ago, Anyway,
did we just witness the worst loss in NCAA tournament
history last night?

Speaker 2 (34:23):
We'll discuss next.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
It is the A team spours SOX seven ninety Space
City Home Network simulcast beginning at the top of the hour. Oh,
Pete Gillen, he's got to be happy after last night.
Does anybody still know who Pete Gillen is? Probably not.
Rex Chapman doesn't.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
Okay, you remember that something about him thinking he was
not alive, but he is was.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
He was on the set with him when it happened.
Bummer yeah for him. But yeah, that was spectacular last night.
We're watching during the Rockets game. I know you had
a screen on it somewhere where you were at Space
City Home Network.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
They do have a few televisions there. We did add
it on Duke y.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
Kon Calvin said, what was the noise Calvin made when
he hit that shot?

Speaker 2 (35:13):
Or were you in the room with him?

Speaker 3 (35:14):
I yeah, there wasn't a I don't think there was
a We could actually we saw it happen, but the
audio is not very high.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
We're next to a sports.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
Bar, yes, well, I mean we're inside Space City Home
Network and the sports bar is outside adjacent to it
an adjoining wall. You could five seconds after we saw it,
you could hear the oh my gosh from inside the building.
Yukon an unbelievable comeback, Duke an unbelievable let down, which

(35:44):
is basically what they do, and not only in the tournament,
but over the last two seasons.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
It's a shame.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
I haven't lost a lot of games, but every time
they have it's been the same story. Their last four losses,
they have had a thirteen point lead or more in
every single one of them. One of those, of course,
was last year's tournament loss with the Cougars. Not to
mention how it went down in the final few seconds
of that game, The final few seconds of this game
certainly were legendary. Yukon it's a very good basketball team.

(36:13):
It's not crazy for a one seed to lose to
a two seed. But after the way the first half
went and people were saying, how is Yukon even in
this game? How come they're not down by thirty after
missing seventeen of their first eighteen threes, and Duke did
a good job. It wasn't happenstance. They were playing great basketball.
They were playing like the other two number one seeds

(36:34):
that had already advanced to the NCAA's Final Four, and
then they weren't.

Speaker 1 (36:40):
It was I mean again, all you had to do
was basically not do what they did. That was the
only scenario in which you lose that game.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
That's I think That's what a lot of people on
Twitter liked saying today, Well there's ten seconds left.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
There's only so much that can happen in ten seconds
with a two point lead. Yeah, you're gonna get fouled.
Well you should have gotten fouled, Okay, So then what happens.
Some college kids are gonna make two free throws.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
The team has to determine that they're not going to
foul you to start with. That in and of itself
is a rarity in that situation. What were they doing.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
They were trying to create a turnover because there was
ten seconds on the clock.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
Well, they got it. They weren't close.

Speaker 3 (37:21):
Enough to foul anybody other than the Boozer in the
initial inbounds pass to Cam Boozer. They could have fouled
him when he made his initial pass. They really did
not didn't get even close enough, and the player recognized that.
That's when he fired the pass to the other boozer
twin and they were running to him, and I think
they had every intention of fouling him. I don't know that,

(37:43):
and they didn't really say definitely that they were. But
he he made multiple mistakes I think there, and then
he saw what everybody saw and he tried to make
the game winning play, which was a smart idea. And
I was pointing this out to Robin last night. I
knew she had seen it, but I wanted to make
sure she.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
Really saw it.

Speaker 3 (38:01):
There are seven players in the back court, or eight
players in the back court. All five Yukon players were
in the back court, and three duke players were there.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
That means two are down the floor. Duke players were
the only two players that were on the other side
of the half court line, the only two players probably
wondering where the ball was.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
He was trying to pass it to them. He just
didn't get it there. He took a dribble for no reason. Right,
He picked up his dribble for even bigger no reason,
and he set himself up to now have two on
rushing defenders looking for him to pass, which he did inexplicably.
They jump up and he doesn't throw it, well, then
they most likely foul him. He doesn't dribble, and then

(38:39):
they get close to him. Well, he still can dribble,
he can pass it backwards. At ten seconds left, there's
no calls to be made. That's where the error was made.
And it still works out fine for Duke if he
just doesn't get the ball tipped. And then, of course, me,
being the jerk that I am, I couldn't help it.
I mean, why did Duke lose because the ball was tipped?
I cannot wait till they don't use this, even though

(39:00):
they should for one shining moment. That's literally the first
lyric in the song. The ball is tipped, and here
we are. It's right there in front of them. I
cannot wait. But the tournament still has three more games
to play, the final four, and Duke isn't there. If
you thought our description of it was good, that's not
nearly as good as the Yukon radio call, the Duke

(39:22):
radio call, and the television call. All we will have
for you is we continue here on the A team.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
The A team on Sportsy team.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
Wex over there ac right here, Josh Jordan, our producers.
We are one hour in off a spectacular weekend of sports.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
You had basically, i'll say, four.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
Astros games, even though we came in here on Friday
after the first one.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
Whole weekend of Astros games.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
You won more of them over the weekend than you
did to start with, So i'll give you that. See,
Wex was mad at me in the first hour because
I wasn't gung ho about the Astros.

Speaker 3 (39:56):
Come on, well, I was kicking Thursday's loss to the
curveball ready because we already got that one in.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
There were three games. We talked about it.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
Yeah, but I can't keep to the curb when they
get shut out in the opener.

Speaker 3 (40:07):
I'm not ignoring it and acting like it didn't happen.
But I already gave it for my four hours of attention.
All right, fine, I'll give you that. And then, of course, yeah,
we had two Rockets games over the weekend, both wins.
But when they're against the skeleton crew that is the
Memphis Grizzlies and the New Orleans Pelicans, I suppose beggars
can't be choosers, but I would have liked some of

(40:28):
these types of wins against the Utahs and Sacramentos of
the World earlier in the season, and then maybe you're
not talking about fighting for the fifth sixth seed something
like that.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
They would be in a better position.

Speaker 3 (40:40):
They could be as high as three, certainly without losses
to Portland and Chicago and Sacramento.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
And things like that. For sure. Uh, there's that's it.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
They'd be against the same teams that they would not
be fighting for, whether or not they'd be playing at
home to start those series. And last year, even though
they started at home, very very different team, but they
were unable to escape the first round. And the way
they've played for the first seventy four games of this season,
I don't know that too many people expect them, regardless
of matchup, to make their way out of the first round.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
So go prove them wrong.

Speaker 3 (41:08):
Go play better basketball, get more out of the non
Kevin Durant players, and have Kevin Durant get everything he
needs to without having six or seven turnovers in a game,
which has also been a problem for this team. Turnovers
for once a total non story in a game, the
Rockets had four turnovers in the first half and the
Pelicans scored zero points off of them. Then they had

(41:29):
four more turnovers in the second half. So an eight
turnover game is certainly a great way to go about business.
You score one hundred and thirty four points, you would expect. Oh,
of course they did. They shot fifty six percent for
the field, They hit forty nine percent of their threes. No,
they just got more shots because they weren't turning the
ball over.

Speaker 12 (41:47):
It.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
It's as much as we always talk about how many
points the other team gets off of them, Well, you're
preventing your team from scoring. It's in football we talk
about it quite a bit, especially when they happen in
the red zone or on the right side of the fifty.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
But in the NBA it's that's the same thing.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
If you turn the ball over, that means you didn't
shoot it, that means you didn't have an offensive possession
that resulted in even an opportunity to put the ball
in the basket. So they had well over one hundred shots,
they shot a shade under fifty percent, right around forty
percent on their threes, and they coasted to a victory
in the final two quarters because they'd already put themselves
out front by twenty one with a twenty one point

(42:21):
margin in the second quarter. So that definitely is a
good way to finish the road trip, a little bit
more pleasant end of it then the beginning, clearly with
the way they lost those two games, the loss to
Chicago which is completely unacceptable, and the deficit they were
facing right out of the gate in Chicago very much unacceptable.
And then obviously I can again I gave all the

(42:44):
time I needed to I thought to this game, But
fifteen straight points at the end of overtime to lose
a thirteen point overtime lead, I mean, just that one
night of basketball flips these two teams. They have the
same record as Minnesota as we sit here today. If
the Rockets hang on to a thirteen point zero overtime
lead with three minutes to go, then the Rockets are
forty six and twenty eight and Minnesota is forty four

(43:06):
and thirty and you've won the season series with a
two game lead. That's how much shifted during those three
minutes of basketball. Instead, you sit here tied. The tiberger
gets determined on April tenth, when you meet for the
final time this season.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
And they'll have Anthony Edwards that time, which they did
this time. When you did this.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
Right, you had played them earlier this year, also without
Anthony Edwards, but you won that game. So all those
things happen on this four game road trip. There's only
eight games remaining, six of them are at home. They're
off until tomorrow night, the first of a back to
back Nixontown then bucks Intown. Knicks were on the court
yesterday losing to the Thunder as the Thunder try to
hold off these Spurs. Both of those two teams are

(43:46):
likely to finish as sixty win teams and are well
past everybody else in the Western Conference. Lakers, Nuggets, Wolves, Rockets.
They're going three, four, five, six, and those will be
your matchups in those games. And then you got the
other teams that have no chance of winning the season
that will occupy the other two spots when we get through.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
The playing tournament. Astros are on the field tonight.

Speaker 3 (44:06):
They have their games with the Boston Red Sox tonight,
tomorrow and Wednesday afternoon. Lance McCullers Junior makes his season debut,
and he will do so with Carlos Correa as his shortstop.
Good friends, this is how they came up together. And
he's playing shortstop obviously because Jeremy Pania is spending another
day out of the Astros lineup, so the scale back

(44:27):
tilted away from playing. This will be game three that
he has missed while playing in just two. Jose al Tuve,
back at second base, leads off for the Astros. Christian
Walker's good start, good contact and driving the ball start
to his season.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
He's moved up in the order to number five. He
keep playing like this all he wants. Yeah, this would
be great. I would love it.

Speaker 3 (44:50):
And I don't see any reason why he can't do
some of these things. He's probably a little bit over
what you see him finished when he's not gonna finish
with a nine to eighty ops, and he probably will
hit a homer.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
He doesn't have any yet.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
But Altuve, Alvarez, Peratis, Carell, Walker, Smith Myers, jyner Diez
back behind the plate, and Bryce Matthews gets another start
in left field, an almost all right handed hitting lineup
as Ranger Suarez makes his Boston Red Sox debut tonight.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
On the other side, he's really good.

Speaker 3 (45:18):
He's really good, and obviously he's throwing in the four
spot for them. I think we all know now if
we hadn't figured it out, why Emi is throwing in
the four spot for the Astros. With how the off
days shake out, they can go and give him his
five days of rest in between starts while giving everybody
else regular rest just because they slotted him intentionally into

(45:38):
the four spot, which means he made his major league
debut yesterday and it wasn't particularly sharp.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
No good for a while, good for a while, but
then it all kind of went by the wayside. We've
got plenty more time throughout the rest of the three
hours to discuss the Astros, but we wanted to get
back to what we were talking about last segment. Duke
is not coming back for any thing, not this year,
because they've been sent home and it was done so spectacularly,

(46:04):
and I don't I mean, I knew.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
The calls would be good. Obviously.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
The television call was great. You know Iron Eagle on
that call in that moment with what was unfolding, spectacular.
The fact that Grant Hill was on the call and
knowing what school he went to, he was appalled, as
you should have been.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
But I really really enjoyed the Yukon radio call. WEX Yeah,
this is local business. You know, you got your radio
team and went the team throughout the year. And many
of them for many, many, many many years. Obviously, there's
an interest in the outcome of the game, and well,
you get to work more if you win, and Yukon
didn't look like they were going to do any more
working after how things went in the first half. But

(46:45):
it did sound pretty good. Listen to it.

Speaker 3 (46:48):
Tell us what you think Yukon as the final seconds
being played in Remember it's a seventy two to seventy game.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
They're down.

Speaker 3 (46:55):
Duke has the basketball set to inbound.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
They tell them, now I hit the kaiden Boozer had
of steel. Mullens gets it.

Speaker 12 (47:04):
It's caravan, the Mullein's long race three in, Mullan's.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Goodlivers, dedlim deblum. Here they're gonna go to the monitor
to review it.

Speaker 10 (47:23):
Absolute penduluments, mullems grill of forty five foot in.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
You could actually hear his soul leaving his body. That's
the sound that he made.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
Yeah, well, we actually had our staff pull each of
the sounds and put them on one sound clip together,
which we'll give you after we each hear each of
the three. I think everybody knew the situation, so repeating
the score. Maybe he gets lost there because he didn't
do it. But you hit a forty footer, you hit
the three, it went in. It's obvious. It's put them
in the lead. No mention that they said they're gonna

(47:56):
go look at it. Well, for what you gotta, you're on.
I hate to be critical, but they didn't. They didn't
explain what was going on.

Speaker 1 (48:05):
No, and that is a reason to be critical, but
not nearly as much of a reason to be critical
as whining after the fact, which is what the Duke
Radio called.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Did hit in?

Speaker 9 (48:15):
They do for Boozer bobbled it back for Star and
needs to get rid of it to unser Kaiden seven
seconds try to throw it a hand deflected, stolen by
Connecticut two seconds it Smolan's up top for the win.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
Oh hit it with three tenths.

Speaker 9 (48:27):
Of a second ago, tyl Kai Smith ran off the bench.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
That should be a technical.

Speaker 9 (48:34):
Well with three tents in a second ago Connecticut has
on least seventy three to seventy two.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
Should have been a technical wax.

Speaker 3 (48:45):
Yeah, there's been a couple of instances this season. This
postseason happened with the Texas Longhorns the clock stopping with
point three and the Yukon players nobody got more than
I mean, there was a player that did come off
the bench. He came out a few steps and circled
right back as soon as he realized there was time
on the clock or somebody yelled at him. He didn't

(49:07):
go running out on the court. He didn't create a scene,
he didn't force a stoppage and play.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
It was easy easy to.

Speaker 3 (49:14):
Not make that call, nor should anybody want them to
make that call. And I don't think the announcer went
overboard asking for it, but it did happen, and he
noted it.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
Yeah, I mean it's he He did what he was
supposed to do. I suppose in that situation. I mean
he was saying something that if you're listening on the
radio you couldn't have seen, right.

Speaker 3 (49:31):
I don't know that he got all the elements of
it right, but nonetheless it was there. Television, you can
see what's happening. But it's still pretty fun to hear.
How it was described Iron Eagle, Bill Raftrie and Grant
Hill on the TV side last night as Yukon's miracle
finish game to fruition get it into ahead, who's here.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
That buck caravan? Two seconds?

Speaker 13 (50:00):
We're poor great colors in front of.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Utterly impossible.

Speaker 13 (50:11):
More streams, trauma, the deflection, the reaction, and that the
major luggage had a Bitdiana.

Speaker 10 (50:21):
They all teach suit. He see a stalky the freshman
grayln violence. I want to play, don't joke. Have to
do is hold the ball there. They didn't need to
get rid of it. They'll back for violation nothing.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
How'd you like to be a freshman has shot that
big onions? Well, they all have them in Indiana. What's
this final one that we have?

Speaker 3 (50:51):
We'll say that for the other side, that is three calls,
all excited or despondent, put them all together for you.
We'll flip that around on the other side as we
continue here on the A team, and of course we'll
dip back into Major League Baseball just one weekend's worth
of it. But we can already draw concrete conclusions about
the final one fifty eight fifty nine we have in

(51:12):
front of.

Speaker 8 (51:12):
Us, the A team on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 3 (51:17):
Yeah, I mean this is a little bit different than
your run of the mill loss in an NCAA tournament game.
We've had buzzer beaters already this year, games that were
actually decided when a shot went through the net with
zeros on the clock. We've had some great finishes, we
have some great late makes, we've had a couple of meltdowns,
and we've gotten to the final four teams that are
left to win at all. Illinois is the team that
wins the South Regional. They beat Iowa Saturday over at

(51:40):
Toyota Center to do so, obviously, Yukon joining them with
their upset victory over Duke. They obviously were dogs, and
then they were even more unlikely to get there based
on what happened in the first half of that game.
And then neither of the two number one seeds that
did reach the final four had much trouble doing so.
Arizona easily winning throughout their tournament time so far in

(52:01):
Michigan handling business rather easily as well. Very good teams
that they were up against, but no match for what
they have been and now they play each other. So
a non number one is destined for the NCAA Championship Final,
and a number one seed will be there to meet him.
We'll find out on Saturday night how that plays out,
and then Monday night of next week we will have
an NCAA tournament champion. And again, like the Yankees, and

(52:23):
like the Lakers, and for a time, like the Notre
Dame football team. A lot of people like to dislike Duke.
It win a lot, so people naturally start to dislike them.
Houston Astros started to find out about that over the
last handful of years. It's a fun thing to do.
You revel it off all as well. I even had
people posting. I saw someone post I really feel bad

(52:46):
for Duke fans, but I'm sure everything will be fine.
The Lakers are head of the playoffs and the Yankee
season has just started, so I'm sure Duke fans will
be just fine. Just kind of putting all those fans
together in the same group. But as I mentioned, to
close out the calls of the night from yesterday, the
winning radio call, the losing radio call, and the totally

(53:06):
impartial I love the excitement of it all TV call,
which is what you hope to get. We've experienced it
twenty times over with the Astros, all the voices you hear.
If we're not giving you Robert and Steve's call, which
we do as often as possible as coming from someone
who doesn't normally this, it's Joe Davis works for the
other team, or works for your team, or travels with

(53:28):
your team. They're trying to make excite and exciting for
everybody that's watching. And guess what, they're excited to be there.
And you heard that with Ian and Bill and Grant.
But this is what it sounded like for each of
the three calls we gave you, just at the moment
of impact with the shot finding its way through the net.

Speaker 4 (53:57):
Which one was Duke? Again?

Speaker 1 (54:05):
Can I hear the Yukon guy's soul leave his body
one more time? That's incredible. That's a tower team.

Speaker 3 (54:15):
You're on the radio and everybody knows what's happened. It's okay,
It's totally fine. You're you're excited for the moment.

Speaker 4 (54:22):
Again.

Speaker 3 (54:22):
This is when we talk about it in our situation
and any other broadcasters. I mean, this is very much
the college life that it is your team. It is
your team. You don't play. But we know the angle
that broadcasters normally make when they are with the teams
as they are in this situation, and universities versus professional
I think definitely elicit's a very different attitude towards being

(54:46):
behind it and the emotions behind it. I love every
second of that and enjoyed while recognizing the moment of
oh he made it, Oh he made it.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
You know what else I've loved every second of the
baseball season.

Speaker 3 (55:00):
Cal Raley's. Oh cal Raley tell us about old big number. Well,
do you remember silver medallist?

Speaker 1 (55:07):
Yeah, that guy in the World Baseball Classic when he uh,
well he wouldn't he came in second?

Speaker 2 (55:14):
He did. He was the number one loser of that group. Remember,
so did we for that matter.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
That's true, we're all number one losers here in America
at the World Baseball Classic anyway.

Speaker 3 (55:24):
All right, but he did, he did kind of stand
out for his efforts or lack thereof, is.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
Lack thereof of an effort to shake Randy Rosa in
his hand, dap him up, say hello whatever, to the
point where Randy told him to go to hell.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
That's a quote. And then what did Randy do? Also
told him to bleep off? And then he said one
more thing too, and then I don't remember.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
After that, he apologized multiple times publicly.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
With statement, what did I say when it happened?

Speaker 3 (55:55):
You said, this is going to fracture the already fragile
the Attle Mariners Clubhouse.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
And what else have I always said about cal Rawley, always.

Speaker 3 (56:05):
That you thought he was the best player in the
American League last year and certainly the most valuable, and
he should have won MVP, or you didn't probably say
that option too, that he was a fraud, a big
fat from Okay, we continue, please, well, since refusing to
whatever he did with Randy rose Range refused to shake
his hand, was it wasn't the DAP extended same thing?

Speaker 1 (56:27):
No, a shake of a hand is different from a DAP,
first of all, once in this instance, whatever one For seventeen,
his average is fifty eight still out of a thousand, correct,
thank you for clarifying. And uh one two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven,

(56:51):
twelve thirteen fourteen strikeouts.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
This is through four games. And what did he do
last year? Well, I can tell you this. He had
sixty home runs.

Speaker 3 (57:02):
He had sixty homers last year, and he drove in
one hundred and well, he drove in his teammates sixty
five times. He drove himself in sixty of those times.
Obviously with those homers, obviously that's a pretty strong season, right, Yeah,
sixty one to twenty five, nine to fifty.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
Ohps, the output of the year prior for the home
run total. That's not really a fair comparison. To make
his full season last year vers just four games this year,
wouldn't the more fair comparison? Just compare his first four
games to last year to his first four games of
this year.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
I'm trying to be consistent. I can freak out about
the Astros offense. Why can't I freak out thusly about
cal Rawley's individual offense?

Speaker 2 (57:40):
Then you won't want me to tell you what he
did through the first four games last year? What did
you do?

Speaker 3 (57:44):
I mean you're asking how many times did he strike
out in the first four games last year?

Speaker 1 (57:49):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (57:49):
Huh?

Speaker 3 (57:50):
He struck out in the first four games of his
sixty home run season. Yep, a lot less than he
has so far this year. Struck out five times.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
So there's tape on him now, that's what it is.

Speaker 3 (58:00):
He went one for seventeen this year with fourteen ks
so far last year.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
With a fifty eight average. Don't forget the fifty eight average.

Speaker 3 (58:07):
Yeah, last year he started the year one for sixteen
and then he hit his first homer.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
Wow, he only struck out five times.

Speaker 3 (58:13):
He's already behind the Curtis so one for sixteen last
year to start the year, but now after not shaking
Randy's hand or dapping him up and completely fracturing the clubhouse. Yeah, now,
in between he hit sixty homers, but we don't care
about that. We only care that he went one for
sixteen last year in four games and worse, one for
seventeen this year in four games. Clearly he's fallen off
a cliff and it's all over for the terrible, awful,

(58:37):
no good, very bad Seattle Mariners, who four games into
their season in defense of the American League West Division,
are sitting at a robust astros like two and two.
All I'm saying, they're starting pitcher yesterday didn't give up
any hits. He's like their fifth best guy. Who was

(58:58):
it yesterday, Hancock? Okay, I just look, I think it's good.

Speaker 1 (59:04):
I already said this is going to be a closer
race than everybody was letting on.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
You can't get much closer than it is right now.
Who has struck out fourteen times on the astros so far?

Speaker 3 (59:12):
Anybody a handful of players, if you pull them all
together all together.

Speaker 2 (59:16):
See, that's the thing. In all seriousness, I like that.

Speaker 1 (59:19):
You brought up last season's four games start, But fourteen
strikeouts is fourteen strikeouts and I don't care.

Speaker 2 (59:25):
Who are they playing again? A team that they beat
a bunch twice, two out of four games. That's it.
That's all they could do. Who was it again? The Guardians?

Speaker 3 (59:34):
Okay, the Astros have as many wins as any team
in this division as we sit.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
Here today, very very well, right now is.

Speaker 3 (59:42):
A division leading mark and there's only two teams in
the American League with more than two wins.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
They're in perfectly good.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
Shit, don't the Astros play the Mariners like relatively soon?

Speaker 2 (59:51):
As in in a few days.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
They see the division will be very very close to them,
very very quickly to open up this season. Obviously, this
home stand does not include any of them. And then
it almost immediately goes to, yeah, let's go see those guys.
A trip to Oakland, New City, Sacramento, and Seattle. That's
this next road trip, the opening road trip of the season.

(01:00:14):
They mix a stop in Colorado in between, but eight games,
no three?

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
Oh, they give three games this year in Colorado? How
about that?

Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
Usually two three games here in Houston the following week,
but they will see the A's, they will see the Mariners,
and they will both be on this upcoming road trip.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
I joke.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Of course, I'm sure cal Raly will recover nicely and
get whatever he got last season to help him hit
sixty home runs coming off of thirty four of the
year prior.

Speaker 3 (01:00:43):
Like a real number for cal Raley is probably and
I'm sure I can find it forty. Yeah, of you know,
a forty one homer season you had thirty four, you
obviously improve, which not. He's not hitting sixty home runs again,
And I don't even think other teams would let him
be in a position to do so. There'd probably be
a different way to go about it at some point
last year, I think a team should have done more
of that and did not. But it's not like he's

(01:01:04):
going to have a I don't see a bad season
for him.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Well, that's one of us.

Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
He's clearly a fraud, and I'm looking forward to him
folding and the franchise folding with him.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
Well, he is a whole one home run behind the
entire Astros team who has won.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
Yeah, but Jordon didn't strike out fourteen times. Yeah, and
he did homer once and nobody else did.

Speaker 4 (01:01:25):
That's true.

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
That is true, all right, Well, Jordon would have home
or twice if it weren't for the stupid makings of
the building that he plays in for his home games. Well,
the roof's not permanent, that's true. You could open it
and can't believe they didn't. Maybe, Sparky, we'll talk about that. Actually,
more likelihood, he's going to talk about whether or not
you're concerned with the Astros pitching, and more importantly, is

(01:01:47):
he concerned you're gonna hear.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
From him coming up next with the Astros pitching.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
And let me preface this by saying, it's not a
sure thing that Lance McCullers Junior just has a smooth
sailing outing here tonight in his first start of twenty
twenty six.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
Breaking news. Oh no, no, that's not breaking news. Sarcasm.
You see why I reacted to that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
I'm sorry to have done that, but of course it's not.
We just watched three guys not pitch very well. Yeah,
why would I have any different expectations.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
For this gun. It's a little bit different than yeah,
once never pitched in the majors before.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
One is basically a rookie and the other one was
who is who is the other guy? Who's their third star? Oh,
he's been hurt, Christian Javier. That's what we said last week.
They got one guy we can count on for sure.
The other guys have to prove it. He's one of
the other guys.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
By the way, you could count on him as long
as you weren't counting on him to eat innings.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
Well nobody did that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:39):
The Astros bullpen has been taxed so much so that
they had to make a pitching move already. Christian roa
sent down after last night's game. Obviously he's a pitcher
with options. He did make his Astro's debut, and Cody
Bolton has joined the team, and I assume he is
available if needed, and he did not. They just need
arms because of how often they had to go to
their bullpen. But we have a conversation. You're on the

(01:03:01):
station as we will each and every Monday morning with
Steve Sparks, Astros radio analysts and obviously former major league
pitcher joining the morning drive, and our portion that we
play for you here the entirety of the interviews at
Sports Talk seven ninety dot com review the iHeartRadio app.
It begins with a question about that very thing. What's
his concern level about the pitching staff.

Speaker 4 (01:03:22):
I'm not with the starters. No, I feel like they'll
get it going.

Speaker 14 (01:03:26):
You look back to Milwaukee last year, they got off
to a brutal start and they ended up having a
great pitching staff and the best record in baseball all
that stuff, So early starts for a season. I will say,
coming into the season, I was concerned about strike throwing
by some of the bullpen members, and that came to
fruition this weekend.

Speaker 4 (01:03:46):
So we'll keep an eye on that.

Speaker 14 (01:03:48):
They've got a million guys that they can settle back
and forth and find the right group to go out
there and attack hitters. But right now, I mean, I
think the ass were pretty fortunate with how many walks
they had in that series to come away with a split.

Speaker 4 (01:04:05):
But you'll take it.

Speaker 14 (01:04:06):
I mean, you want to be able to absorb some
bad stretches later in the season, and right now, not
getting off to a bad start is what it's all about,
is being able to absorb the eventual lose eight out
of ten that everybody goes through later on.

Speaker 12 (01:04:22):
One more on the pitching side, Sparky Brian A. Brady,
you a little bit of a rocky starts. Well, what
do you do you see out of him? And is
there necessarily anything from those performances that got you a
little concerned.

Speaker 14 (01:04:34):
Well, the velocity was the yellow flag, so it was
the first time he had gone back to back games
and through over twenty pitches the day previously, So we'll
see how that shakes out. You've always remember managers in
the past, I've got to remind a brand you to
throw hard.

Speaker 4 (01:04:54):
Every once in a while.

Speaker 14 (01:04:54):
He just goes out there and just kind of touch
and feel and trying to ease his way into the
out So sometimes you just got to say, all right,
first battle, let's go, let's air it out. So it's
a long season and he's pitched a lot of innings,
so I can't blame him if he's trying to conserve
a little bit of energy. If that's the that's the deal.
But you've seen ninety three miles per hour with a

(01:05:16):
Brayu on the mound. That's not typical. So yellow flag
for me.

Speaker 11 (01:05:20):
He's twenty five pounds lighter and he has three doubles
through four games of action. Christian Walker, I understand that
there was a lot of people who said twenty million
dollars down the drain of an angle's salary.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
So far, he looks like the most complete hitter on
your roster.

Speaker 11 (01:05:33):
What have you noticed about his approach to the plate
and things that he's definitely changed on up through the
first four games.

Speaker 4 (01:05:39):
Well, Dana told us on ash Line.

Speaker 14 (01:05:40):
You know, and it's very dangerous and it's tempting to
try to pull the baseball at Dyka Park if you're
a right handed hitter. And I've heard other managers say
this over and over, is when their hitters come into
dyke And Park, you want to make sure that they
don't fall in love with it because it develops bad
habits trying to pull the ball all the time. So
to see him drive the ball the other way, I

(01:06:01):
think is a great sign.

Speaker 4 (01:06:03):
You just watched the batting practice.

Speaker 14 (01:06:04):
Right now, I think all the right handers are doing
a good job of concentrating on going the other way,
and that sets yourself up, I think mostly for success.
You know you'll react to pitch his inside the breaking ball,
but right now, just staying inside is.

Speaker 4 (01:06:18):
Gonna be imperative. I think, because I wouldn't.

Speaker 14 (01:06:22):
Be surprised if Jordan Alvarez continues to get walk at
a very high clip, so paradis Christian Walker. Those guys
are going to need to pick up the slack and
make it hurt like Paradas did yesterday. A big two
run single after an attentional walk. I think that's going
to happen a lot again.

Speaker 12 (01:06:38):
Steve Sparks join us here for his weekly visit what
to flip the switch for this offense on Saturday and
carried over into yesterday.

Speaker 14 (01:06:47):
I think approach and I think the second game of
the season, the Astros didn't get much for their much
bang for their buck, but they were hitting the ball hard.
So I think, you know, just having a veteran team realizing, okay,
that was an anomenaly, just because all you can do
is hit the ball hard. You know, sometimes it goes

(01:07:08):
right at him. Sometimes the runners in scoring position lies
to you. But just continue to have a really good approach,
and they've got a lot of guys that can remind themselves, hey.

Speaker 4 (01:07:19):
Stay with it, you're doing the right thing. Just keep
doing what you're doing and things will come to fruition.

Speaker 14 (01:07:24):
When's the last time that the Astros scored twenty runs
in a row without a homer. You know that's that
was refreshing for me as like especially at dyk In Park.
I bet, I bet that didn't happen all last year.
Twenty runs in a row without a homer. That's that's
pretty good. That means your approach is pretty solid.

Speaker 11 (01:07:43):
You're looking at one Alan Joseph Blueball coming on in
as not only one of the more better relievers, but
I view him right now as probably your best leverage reliever.
You want him in those high intest moments because he
is living up to the challenge, But would you consider
him more so as the seventh eighth inning guy and
try to figure out what you want to do with
that long reliever role because I'll tell you what I want.

(01:08:05):
Sixty nine on the mountain and I need a nice moment.

Speaker 4 (01:08:08):
Yeah, you know, I'm with you.

Speaker 14 (01:08:10):
He reminds me of Christovinsky when he kind of burst
onto the scene and he can do a little bit
of everything.

Speaker 4 (01:08:15):
He can get you out of out of an inning.

Speaker 14 (01:08:18):
He can pitch against the pocket and the other team's
lineup because he has so many weapons. You know, Will
Harris did that a lot. You know, he can get right,
he's in left, he's out because of the curve and
the changeup. So I think blue Ball can do a
lot of those things too. It's still early, I think,
to probably push him too far back there into the fire,

(01:08:39):
I think right now, but it's certainly trending that way.
And he's got a lot of talent, and he's got
a lot of confidence too. You can tell, like he
goes right at guys and he's confident it pitches inside,
and you don't see many relievers do that either, So I'm.

Speaker 4 (01:08:54):
Excited about them too.

Speaker 14 (01:08:55):
I don't blame you for thinking, you know, let's push
him back there right now, but I would just cool
it for a little bit right now.

Speaker 4 (01:09:01):
I think, especially early in the season.

Speaker 14 (01:09:03):
Where the starters aren't going really deep, it's really nice
to have somebody like him coming there every three or
four days and give you multiple innings and keep your
team in the game and pitch really well, not just
the quantity and the quality too. So yeah, I think
the league is getting ready to see a guy that's
going to be a real weapon for Joe Aspata.

Speaker 3 (01:09:25):
First four games of the season, Mike Burrows five and
two thirds, Hunter Brown four and two thirds, same for
Christian Javier and tatsu E Mike two and two thirds,
AJ Bluebaugh four and a third out of the bullpen.
Basically gave you starters work over a two game span,
just gave up the home run, one other hit, struck
out five. This is what we knew they would want

(01:09:46):
to create to start the season. Multiple pitchers capable of
giving them multiple innings is what they have to be
made of right now with their thirteen man staff.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
And he is a humongous part of it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
Yeah, and there are some question marks that I wanted
to get into it at some point today, and we
will in a little bit on the bullpen, especially a
decision that was made yesterday. But yeah, pitching, especially tonight.
You're gonna keep an eye on it and for the
foreseeable future. All Right, which member of the Grizzlies through
major shade at KD over the weekend?

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
You're gonna hear it next the eighteen on Sports Talk.

Speaker 1 (01:10:28):
It is the A team Sports Talk seven ninety Space
City Home Network Rockets sweeping the weekend, got the win
over Memphis and then the Pelicans game last night. So
on Friday when they were playing in Memphis, and when
I say that, I mean it was to call them

(01:10:49):
a skeleton crew like. First of all, they traded Desmond
Band in the offseason to Orlando. Then they traded Jaron
Jackson Junior to the Utah Jazz and he was immediately
shut down. That was at the trade deadline, I believe,
and then they shut down John Morant for the season.
I mean, they are officially in tank mode. All that
good stuff. But Gigi Jackson does not want to hear
any of that. And actually, if you to hear him

(01:11:13):
talk about it, not only is he basically saying that
Katie gets an inordinate amount of whistles, which I think
is hilarious because Katie gets assaulted every time down the
floor and they hardly ever call it. And I think
last night it finally boiled over. He got a technical
because he was tired of it. He's got eight of
them he does, that's only halfway to getting suspended.

Speaker 3 (01:11:37):
I think he's good eight games to go, eight over
the first seventy four.

Speaker 2 (01:11:40):
Probably not going to get eight over the next days.
I'll tell you.

Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
There's some things that I've noticed about Kevin Durant since
he's become a rocket. I never noticed just how bad
the turnovers are. That's one thing. But I also never
noticed a how much he gets fouled, and b how
much he doesn't complain about it. Relatively speaking, he does
to a certain extent he gets to a point in
the game, but for the amount of pawing and grabbing
and clawing and pushing that he gets just to get

(01:12:05):
the ball let alone when he has it, he really
doesn't go at the officials very much. That's why all
of this that you're about to hear from Gigi Jackson
is hilarious, but not nearly as hilarious as where he
puts himself as far as ranking the players on the
floor on any given game.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
Right now between the Rockets and the Memphis Grizzlies.

Speaker 4 (01:12:26):
I ain't well sugar coat it.

Speaker 15 (01:12:27):
I've thought as I was getting downhill being physical as
unusually im getting no calls. But uh, Katie can draft
step draft step and just jump up and down in
your hand, be right there and you clearly see on
the replate and nobody touched him.

Speaker 4 (01:12:44):
And now you got a target target. What's his name?

Speaker 9 (01:12:48):
Bro?

Speaker 15 (01:12:48):
You not Katie B I'm on this court, on his
cart right, I'm the closest one to him, So like
this is unbelievable. How refs can suck up to somebody.
I'm he's to go, so I respect him. But as
far as us other guys, you know, we we bust
our ass like he does too.

Speaker 4 (01:13:05):
We tire shoes like how he ties the shoes.

Speaker 15 (01:13:08):
But you know the next game the Telly so yeah,
flush this one.

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):
I don't even know where to begin.

Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
I love it, the part where he said, yeah, we
bust our ass, we ties our we tie our shoes
like he does. Yeah, except for when he ties his shoes.
He's Kevin Durant and you're G. G. Jackson, Right, So
the closest thing on the floor to Kevin Durant after
Kevin Durant is GG Jackson in a game between the Grizzlies.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
Yeah, for his rockets. We need a bucket. Who are
we going to? I think he's talking about rockets too, though, Like.

Speaker 3 (01:13:36):
Just he's talking about his guys on the on this
night when he's playing next to Cedric Coward and Javon
Small and Taylor Hendrix and someone who scored thirty one
points against the Rockets, Olivier Maxin's prosper He's the he's there,
He's there, Kevin Durant. I like that just took between
the two first names. He's he's pointing out the same

(01:14:00):
thing and using a particular player to point it out.

Speaker 2 (01:14:04):
In this instance, it's KD.

Speaker 3 (01:14:05):
In most every other instance this year, it's been either
Luca or SGA. Yep, he didn't even he really he
talked about the big picture of it all, and he
as a player didn't want to get into what almost
every coach who's played it a national game that everybody
has seen against SGA. Mike Brown of the Knicks is
the latest they played them in a national game last night. Okay,

(01:14:26):
See what Gigi's saying is he's not mad at Kevin.
He doesn't even think Kevin did anything. Kevin played basketball,
and Kevin got the calls he thought over and over
in that game, and he's he's really shouting out and
he says it what he says, Why you have to
suck up to him. Kevin's not asking the referees to
do that. He's not making them do that. They don't

(01:14:48):
go into the game like he's saying, Hey man, there's
ten of us out here. The game's the same for
all of us. I shoot a jump shot and I
get hit on the arm. That's a foul. I drive
into somebody who doesn't have legal guarding position, that's a foul.
Why is it different just because he's.

Speaker 2 (01:15:03):
Got thirty one, thirty three thirty seven thousand points.

Speaker 1 (01:15:07):
To me, the difference is where I think he's wrong.
Is that the two guys you mentioned that is happening.
I don't think the refs are sucking up to them.
I don't think the refs suck up to anybody. Honestly.

Speaker 3 (01:15:19):
I think at the moment saying, man, I drove to
the basket ten times and they hammered me ten times,
and this guy drives to the basket and the feather
touches right shoulder and he's going to the free throw line,
I'm like, come on, man.

Speaker 2 (01:15:34):
The stuff all both ways.

Speaker 1 (01:15:35):
The stuff he's saying absolutely does I apply, I think
to both Luca and especially SGA, in large part because
in SGA's case, he's initiating the contact that actually is
there and he's making it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
But Kevin Durant is that like you know.

Speaker 1 (01:15:51):
Me if I were one of those people that like
when Kevin Durant came in through through town with whatever
team he was on, Thunder Warriors, nets Suns, did I
get them all? Yes, I feel like there's one more
than I'm missing. I never have felt like he gets
a ridiculous whistle. I feel like he gets whistles relative

(01:16:14):
to what, you know, the contact that's there. But that's
part of why I've always like Kevin Durant. He doesn't
rely on that to do what he's done. And oh,
by the way, while we're on the subject of Kevin Durant,
the most impressive part about him passing MJ on the
scoring list is how many fewer field goal attempts he
had to do it. And I don't know how many
free throws are in there. I mean, I'm sure he's

(01:16:35):
shot his fair share, but I've never felt like Kevin Durant,
in any way, shape or form, was a free throw
merchant or even like dependent upon free throws to be
effective at all.

Speaker 3 (01:16:46):
That's why I think Gigi's point is well made. If
you take it the way I took it. This is
a referee problem. It's not a Kevin problem. He's not
out there looking for fouls and here's he's getting this call.
He's not out there creating the contact the way some
of these other players do. And it's it's a referee issue,
and to me it always has been. It's harder to
get them to change because the players are constantly taking

(01:17:08):
advantage of whatever ever they can. They put an emphasis
on this, Well, now we're gonna go and do that.
They don't like me with the rip through move, Well,
now we're gonna do this. Uh, the step backs where
I am traveling, I'm not traveling, and they've changed the
rule on this. Well, now it's hard for the officiating
and the officiating legislating basically to keep up. But the
simple stuff of this player's in legal guarding position, there

(01:17:29):
probably would be no contact whatsoever. If SGA doesn't extend
his arm and you keep falling for it, of course
he's gonna keep doing it. This is the Maddox Glavin principle.
Why would I throw the ball over the plate if
I don't have to? If you're gonna call that a strike,
I'm just gonna keep throwing it there, and you're it
wasn't a Glavin problem. What is a Braves problem? It
was an umpire problem. You've got to get that fixed

(01:17:51):
or else is gonna keep happening.

Speaker 1 (01:17:53):
Maddix is not a Hall of Famer If there's abs,
true or false. That's a serious question with him, specifically
his control and his ability to work hitters and his
knowledge of hitters. I still think he's gonna be I mean,
there's still so much swing and miss with this stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:18:07):
Yes, Like we didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
Relying on that outside corner so much to get that call. Okay,
so he got he's standing there, doesn't swing. No, Yeah,
I would say he's still a Hall of Famer. He's
too good.

Speaker 3 (01:18:18):
He's I don't know of anybody that has had better
control for his long a period of time as a
starting pitcher in Major league history than him. Yeah, that's sure,
which is why he was able to take advantage of
it so much.

Speaker 2 (01:18:27):
Man, he got a lot of calls off the place
he would he would have. I think he would have
adapted very very quick. He would have been the most
challenged picture of his time.

Speaker 3 (01:18:36):
Well, the umpires would have also figured it out, well,
this is wrong and it matters now.

Speaker 2 (01:18:41):
It didn't matter then, giving credit.

Speaker 3 (01:18:42):
They weren't being graded harshly for missing calls, and there
was no ABS system in place.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
It's a it's frustration. You're a team that's not going anywhere.

Speaker 3 (01:18:51):
You're out there trying to, you know, play as best
you can, and you feel like you're up against eight
some nights. That's how Gigi felt after his fourteen point
night kDa twenty six of them coming on his seven
attempts at the free throw line. Are you ready to
go mocking? We are almost to April. That's the month
they hold the NFL's draft. Let's go mocking with the

(01:19:12):
Texans next.

Speaker 2 (01:19:15):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (01:19:19):
Underway here on Sports Talk seven ninety, it is the
A Team. Wex Ac Josh Jordan with you. We're taking
until six o'clock tonight. Astros Red Sox beginning their series
over at Dyke and Park on the heels of a
split over the weekend.

Speaker 2 (01:19:35):
The four game series with the Angels.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
Again, I don't think they're gonna be good this year,
but I'm not sure that they're gonna be bringing up
the rear in the division. What I hope is that
how you feel about the Rangers means that they're the
ones bringing up the rear, then the Angels, then the A's.

Speaker 2 (01:19:54):
Then we'll see what happens at the top.

Speaker 3 (01:19:55):
Well, just something it considers we kind of dive into
all of this for what took place this weekend, the
Angels four games with the Astros, the.

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
Major league leading home run hitting team.

Speaker 3 (01:20:09):
After those four games plus Wednesday's one in San Francisco,
this the Angels nobody hit more than nine home runs
over their first three or four games. Handful of teams
have played four, and the Astros and Angels are among them.
So nine homers is the major league's leading total. That's
what the Angels did at Dyke And Park over the weekend.
Twenty eight walks is the majors league leading total. That's

(01:20:33):
what the Angels did this weekend in four games at
Dyke And Park. Now, granted, the Astros are second in
walks with twenty three, and as it turned out, the
Astros are only outscored by three runs. After not looking
very good and really not shutting down the Angels hardly
at all, Angels averaged over six runs per game. They
scored six or more runs in three of the four games,

(01:20:55):
but the Astros got twenty runs on twenty hits in
the final two games of the series to even things up.
This is who the Angels are going to be. They're
going to strike out a lot, They're gonna walk a lot.
They're gonna commit a lot of error, they're gonna hit
for a low average, and they're going to hit a
ton of home runs. Even giving Taylor Ward away this
offseason in trade, they have no shortage of home run

(01:21:18):
hitting power. And I just think a lot of their guys,
that's what their philosophy is there with who's sitting on
their roster. They want to score runs that way. They
know that's the only way they're gonna score runs. Last season,
the top four home running hitting teams in Major League
Baseball were the best franchise to ever exist, The New
York Yankees on the East coast, the best franchise to

(01:21:39):
ever exist. On the West coast, the Dodgers, the best
team in the American League West Mariners, and the Angels
the terrible We don't win any baseball game, Los Angeles Angels.
This is what they're gonna do, and they did it
to the Astros last year too. Don't get two worked
up about it. It's the strike throwing that's problematic. It's

(01:22:00):
the falling behind hitters, thus giving them pitches to hit.
You saw a couple of Crawford boxes, probably four of
the nine were home runs that front row, second row,
the left handed homer from Josh Low, the three run
homer off of Burrows into the Crawford Box. There are
a few of those. Obviously, Mike Trout's gonna bomb. It
looks like anywhere he hits this year, that's an unwelcome

(01:22:20):
sight for us as competitors, but a very welcome site
for Major League Baseball. If they can have a superstar
return in Mike Trout so nobody can pay any attention
to him again out there in LA, that's gonna be awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:22:32):
I wish it was a big story. It just isn't.

Speaker 3 (01:22:34):
Unfortunately, he's the most talented, most decorated regular season superstar
that hasn't mattered at all to the health and growth
of Major League Baseball that I think has ever existed.

Speaker 2 (01:22:46):
And it's a shame, but it is. It is what
it's been.

Speaker 3 (01:22:49):
I'm saying anything about that. It's more about they don't
win any They don't, you know, signing the deal there
and trying to get them to win. I don't frown
on It's not on him. He could go elsewhere for notoriety.
That's not really on his shoulders.

Speaker 1 (01:23:00):
Don't you think there would have been another team at
the time that would have given him that money.

Speaker 3 (01:23:04):
Sure, but it's not on him to be the face
of the league. It's on him to go play great
baseball and stay healthy. He's played great baseball for the
front side of his career, he's been unhealthy for the
backside of his career, and if he's healthy now, it
would be awesome to see if he can return to that.
But the Astros pitching is going to be better than this.
Don't let us sit here for two weeks leading into
the season and say, I'm really excited about Mike Burrows.

(01:23:27):
I think he's gonna be great for this team. And
tatsu Emi. You didn't spend twenty one million dollars on
a pitcher you didn't think get guys out at the
major league level, and neither of those things worked out.
Mike Burrows is gonna start the last game of this
series Wednesday afternoon right here on Sports Talk seven to
ninety against the Boston Red Sox, and when he throws
his first pitch, probably to Roman Anthony, he's gonna have

(01:23:47):
a seven ninety four ERA after his one start, and
when tatsu Emi throws his next start, he'll he'll be
looking for his ninth recorded out because he didn't get
through three innings because he threw seventy four pitches and
half of them weren't strikes. It's an issue. It's not
something I think is an ongoing issue. It just was

(01:24:08):
an issue and we might see the same tonight. Well,
you're saying that the pitching is not going to be
this bad. I kind of hope they find themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:24:17):
If not this series, then definitely before they go to
West Sacramento where that team mashed them for home runs
and other hits. Pick a type of hit. They destroyed
the Astros pitching and it didn't matter who it was
last year. Hunter Brown included, I get to call the
Athletics league leaders as well.

Speaker 3 (01:24:35):
They only played three games this weekend. They have one
hundred and two at bats. Obviously, I had a handful
of walks and hit by pitches, so a little over
that and played appearances. But in one hundred and two
at bats by the West Sacramento Athletics, they struck out
a league leading fifty times.

Speaker 2 (01:24:53):
Because they're swinging fifty.

Speaker 3 (01:24:55):
Strikeouts in one hundred and two at bats, is in
see unheard of at any point in any season, over
any stretch of three games fifty strikeouts. I think the
Astros can do that. Hopefully they don't really get their
bats going then. But you know, all that stuff being
said about the pitching, it came up in the conversation

(01:25:15):
we played for you guys from Steve Sparks this morning,
and I totally agree. I'm glad he called it a
yellow flag because we don't really know the level of
concern the team has for it and what might be
the reasoning behind it. I understood three days into the season,
wanting to get Brian Abrady with some work in a
five run game, it did not go well. And then
the very next day, knowing it was an afternoon game

(01:25:36):
and now you're in a safe situation, he comes back
out there and it didn't go well either. And the
numbers that go along with it, seeing him top out
in the lower to mid nineties with his fastball. I mean,
I'll go with Steve and call it only a yellow flag.
But that was that was the most concerning thing from
the entire weekend, Not how the starters pitched, not how
they got shut out on opening Day, not anything. Was

(01:26:00):
number one on my list for biggest concern. They're already down,
Bennett Sue. So they're already down, Josh Hater. I hope
they're not down. Brian or Brew and man three consecutive
years of being the pre eminent non closer in Major
League Baseball, at some point I figured it might catch

(01:26:21):
up to him. The guys out there every other day
for three consecutive years.

Speaker 2 (01:26:26):
Well, why did he go back out there yesterday? Because
it was a safe situation, and you, I mean he
had twenty eight pitches Saturday night.

Speaker 3 (01:26:34):
Easily, I mean, yes, had to be removed. I didn't
have any issue with that. You're gonna pitch on back
to back days throughout the season.

Speaker 2 (01:26:40):
It's it's not on her quick turnaround days like that.
If Joe didn't, oh my god, I forgot well time
tomorrow's games.

Speaker 1 (01:26:47):
And I guess, I guess it's probably a little bit
more sensitive in my eyes because of what we're talking
about here, the usage over the past several seasons.

Speaker 2 (01:26:56):
Yeah, sure, but you don't go into the season thing.

Speaker 3 (01:26:58):
We got to scale it back to fifty five appearances
in sixty games. Certainly not when he's your closer to
open the season. They're a delta hand. They didn't anticipate,
so they have to go this route. He is the
most experienced member of their bullpen out there that they have
confidence in. It did not go well, and either of
his two games, Brian Bray gave up one hit in
two appearance. It's just one hit, but he couldn't throw

(01:27:18):
strikes and he wasn't throwing very hard. The one hit
was a three run homer, and he had to be
lifted from yesterday's game because he clearly wasn't himself. It
wasn't about the trouble that he was putting the team
in and the possibility that will now the go ahead
run or the tying run is sitting at home played.
It was more about they just didn't like what they
saw from him and obviously wanted to maybe get in

(01:27:40):
front of it a little bit. And we'll see if
Joe Aspota has anything additional to say about it today.
He seemed rather unconcerned yesterday, but noted that the velocity
wasn't where it normally would be.

Speaker 1 (01:27:50):
Yeah, keep it. That's something to definitely keep an eye on.
So real quick mock drafts are going to be out
there from now until the end of time or until
the NFL Draft in this.

Speaker 3 (01:28:03):
Case April twenty third, and then they'll put on April
twenty fourth, they'll make.

Speaker 1 (01:28:07):
Here's my second round mock draft, or within the window
of a month, finally it'll be here. The latest one
that Matt Miller put out there has the Texans taking
Blake Miller offensive tackle out of Clemson, and the justification
for this, other than the obvious, is that signing thirty

(01:28:28):
year old Braden Smith to a two year deal solves
their right tackle need for the moment, but their plan
to build a young and inexpensive offensive line around CJ.
Stroud is still in place for the obvious reasons. Wait wait,
I wrote that. I know it really does sound like
something you wrote.

Speaker 3 (01:28:43):
It's nothing they have done this offseason with their short
term signings. Even ed Ingram only has a three year deal, lucrative,
but only three years. Obviously two years for both Wyatt
Teller and Braden Smith, even though there are ways you
could manipulate it to be even less than that, it
was done for specific reasons. It's I hope they follow

(01:29:03):
this plan. I'm down, completely down for an offensive lineman
with great future potential. The idea that you have landed
a player in the first round that you have under
your control for five years, or you've landed a player
in the second round that you have under your control
for four years that you anticipate starting for the majority
of that contract. That's what they should want to do,

(01:29:24):
because now you've got a young player who clearly doesn't
not make a lot of money. Any contract that any
player signs out of this draft from the Texans beginning
at picked twenty eight all the way through, every pick
that Nick Cassario executes is nothing is chicken feed. It's
dittally squat as it relates to what they're spending cap wise.
That's how you build an offensive line, good players that

(01:29:45):
don't make a lot of money that you can turn
over potentially not in every year. You're extending nursery, and
then you're drafting somebody else at a different position. And
then if it's Blake Miller, you're extending Miller in four years,
and then maybe you're drafting for a different offensive line position,
and while they're now making some money, you're able to
replenish the line with lower salaried players. Both of these

(01:30:05):
two guys they signed. By the way, why Teller played
in the same place for seven years with a lot
of the same players on that Cleveland line, and Braden
smit did the same thing. He and Quenton Nelson started
essentially every game they were on the field for for
seven years together. That's how you build an offensive line,
in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (01:30:22):
We'll get to some of their other picks in this
mock draft. Plus, if Howie Roseman's mouth is moving, he's lying,
we'll explain that next as well. The eight for SOX
seven ninety Space City Home Network.

Speaker 2 (01:30:37):
So I know that we.

Speaker 1 (01:30:40):
Said that the Texans will be taking their right tackle
of the future in this mock draft in the last
segment ten picks later with that pick that they obtained
in the Laramie Tunsil deal, They're going to shore up
the interior of their defensive line with Caden McDonald out
of Ohio State.

Speaker 3 (01:30:57):
So should be two for two on players. Offensive lineman
reserve pretty much doesn't play unless injury. Defensive tackle definitely
would be a part of their rotation immediately, but not
likely to unseat Tommy t and Sheldon Rankins.

Speaker 1 (01:31:13):
And if you're into this sort of thing. A few
picks later in the second round, they also draft a
guard out of Oregon by the name of Emmanuel Pregnan.

Speaker 3 (01:31:23):
I've actually talked to some people over the last couple
of weeks here. There were so few offensive linemen's names
that were thrown out. The Texans could do this twenty
eight or thirty eight, and this was one of the names.
He's a guard interior offensive lineman out of Oregon, and
there's a handful of other interior offensive line We were
talking about two different players and this being one of them.

Speaker 2 (01:31:43):
They say that you should be ecstatic if that is the.

Speaker 3 (01:31:46):
Player that you land, and you know, I kind of
thought the same, Not one hundred percent, obviously, I think
there's still three weeks worth of my own evaluations to do,
rudimentary as they might be. I'm not gonna lie to
you and Sam about to go study film, but I
am doing all the work necessary to give you informed
opinions on what players might actually fit what the Texans
like to do, based on how they it least showed

(01:32:06):
at their collegiate stop and in this case at Oregon,
it's the same thing as what you did with the
first offensive lineman.

Speaker 2 (01:32:15):
It's not a coincidence.

Speaker 3 (01:32:16):
I wouldn't think that you're drafting someone to learn and
play initially behind the two older short term free agents
that you just signed. One player behind Braden Smith but
probably a swing tackle, and the other player behind Wyatt Teller,
and I would be all for it. Good sized player,
good feet, very physical and I hate to even use

(01:32:40):
this to describe an offensive lineman. Yeah, he's tough, I
would hope. So what about this wide receiver, what do
you like about him? I's got good hands, I would hope.
So there's certain words that get used at certain positions
when you're evaluating him that I mean, I guess you
could say the well, we found his tape pretty good.
He seemed to hold his ground but pretty well. But

(01:33:00):
as an offensive lineman, you'd like him to be tough,
and this guy is anything but that. Nobody would ever
say that.

Speaker 1 (01:33:06):
I don't think if they did, then they'd be pretty
down on whoever they were talking too.

Speaker 3 (01:33:10):
I mean, you play offensive line, it kind of comes
with the territory. And if you play wide receiver and
you have bad hands, then you move to defensive back.

Speaker 1 (01:33:20):
By the way, with the fifth pick in the third round,
he's got them taking Jake Goldey of Cincinnati at the
linebacker position and points to Henry Toatoe and a zizou
Shire in contract seasons.

Speaker 3 (01:33:33):
One is actually they both might be inaccurate even by
draft day. I don't I think they're going to reach
out to Henry and extend him immediately or soon, and
they might not do it at all. He's a later
round pick who you've gotten really tremendous production out of
and last year was his best year, but you paid
him nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:33:53):
And these are some positions you do like to churn over.

Speaker 3 (01:33:55):
And in this system where you're gonna have five dbs
on the field a lot for defensive I'm clearly well,
there's two spots left. Aziz is not going to be
going into a contract here. I've said that accountless times
here on the show. That would absolutely floor me if
he entered this upcoming season without an extended contract here
in Houston. So technically today he is still set to
play in the final year of his initial Texans contract,

(01:34:16):
but I do not believe that will happen. But they
don't have the next best linebacker. The guy who steps
in for either one.

Speaker 2 (01:34:23):
Of them right now is EJ.

Speaker 3 (01:34:24):
Speed, who they resigned this offseason. Getting another younger player
that they can find a spot for because somebody else
isn't here anymore. Again, it makes perfect sense.

Speaker 1 (01:34:34):
And if you're wondering when or the Texans going to
take a running back, well, this mock draft has been
taking one in the fourth round, Nicholas Singleton out of
Penn State. Just in case you thought they would take one, I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:34:48):
Not because this team has relied on an older veteran
running back for what now will be the at least
the third secutive season. So it only makes sense. But
when are they going to take a running back? Well,
they took a running back last year, and they took
a running back the year before that, and both of
them are in the backfield this year.

Speaker 1 (01:35:08):
When they take them though, as what I was really emphasizing,
like if they're going to take one, well, the.

Speaker 3 (01:35:13):
Last time, the last time Juir Jordan played a healthy game,
he ran for one hundred yards. The last time Woody
Mars played in his first playoff game, he ran for
one hundred yards. Got I know that's not everything. And
I recognize they're both now second and third string respectively,
Marks at two and Jordan at three because Montgomery is here.

(01:35:33):
It's far from a must to draft a running back
in this draft. I'm totally again draft good players. This
is why the arguments about what Nick likes to do
in the draft, I'm down. I'm not here for I
don't disagree with what he's been trying to do. It works,
It works for every GM in the NFL if they
follow this. Oh, this guy's gonna help us win. This
guy's a good player. We need more of them. I

(01:35:55):
want them on my team. That's all he's trying to do.
If you feel only for need and then you miss, well,
then you don't have good football players and you didn't
fix your need because he's not a good football player.

Speaker 1 (01:36:05):
Just in case you're wondering, and I know you are,
six picks prior. With the final pick in the third
round is where the Jags replace Travis How do I
say his last name?

Speaker 2 (01:36:15):
At running back? With Emmitt Johnson out of Nebraska.

Speaker 3 (01:36:18):
Travis Blank Junior is still there, that's Travis Hunter junior.

Speaker 7 (01:36:22):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:36:22):
No, but Travis et Chen junior is now New Orleans
Saint Yeah, I mean Emmitt Johnson is He's a little
bit like who they have in Tutin. I think he's
a little bit more of a runner than a beat
you up, run you over, runner.

Speaker 1 (01:36:38):
That's funny because they describe him as more of a
bruiser than Natian.

Speaker 2 (01:36:41):
Well, they need to do.

Speaker 3 (01:36:43):
They don't have a definitive, clear cut number one as
we sit here, but I think there's some confidence in
their building that Tuton could could do enough this year
that they're not so desperate. Again, there are overall running
numbers weren't awesome this year to begin with with both
of them there, Tuton and at Gen. So I don't
mind it if I'm Jacksonville and looking at what they've done.

(01:37:03):
And again, the more players at positions that I don't
think are vital to Houston they go off the board.
It sets them up for something else. They're going to
have a pick very early in round four, so that's
another player I wouldn't imagine they would draft with.

Speaker 2 (01:37:14):
One to six.

Speaker 1 (01:37:15):
They have the first pick in round five and they
take Joshua Joseph's edge rusher out of Tennessee.

Speaker 3 (01:37:23):
Again, without telling you the specifics on any of these
individual players they have to it's it's the same philosophy
they've followed and these players.

Speaker 2 (01:37:32):
One thing that you probably.

Speaker 3 (01:37:33):
Could guess even if we don't tell you where do
you think he's finding these players. What do you think
he wants to see in these players when he decides
this is who we should go get.

Speaker 2 (01:37:43):
Huh.

Speaker 4 (01:37:43):
Let's see.

Speaker 3 (01:37:44):
So you've said they've taken a player from Clemson, Ohio State, Oregon,
Penn State, Tennessee.

Speaker 7 (01:37:50):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:37:51):
Those those schools seem like the Nick Cassario school of drafting.
That's that's all.

Speaker 7 (01:37:56):
I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:37:57):
From Oklahoma, it's the same thing over and over again.
So I'll read it a different way.

Speaker 3 (01:38:01):
That's acc big ten, big ten, big ten sec sec.

Speaker 2 (01:38:07):
Yeah, I get it.

Speaker 1 (01:38:10):
He I mean, look, there's no way. First of all,
there's no way they are picking in this order. Yeah,
that's confident they're gonna take at twenty eight. Now, I'm fine,
there's nothing. You can't do this.

Speaker 3 (01:38:21):
You can't forecasting draft are trades that deep into a
draft is silly for anybody who's putting a mock together.
But they do this exercise knowing full well he might
end up with these players, which is that's thee That's
what you're doing here. You're trying to tell people, I
think they should have interested in this player at this position,
at this point in the draft, because I think they
could end up with them.

Speaker 2 (01:38:42):
You're never gonna peg the numbers.

Speaker 3 (01:38:43):
No, I mean they're not gonna have these when they
get finished with Tuesday or with Thursdays and Friday's portion
of the draft for sure, and then it's a free
for all on Saturday, with four rounds to work with
and his lack of desire on executing any seventh round.
The only reason Nick Casaria wants seventh round picks is
so he can deal them. I want one so then
I can move it somewhere else and move up and
move into the twenty twenty seven draft and moving into

(01:39:05):
the twenty twenty eight draft. That's all he wants, the multiple,
multiple seventh round picks that they've churned through every year.

Speaker 1 (01:39:12):
At this time last year, Howie Roseman was considered the
best GM in football.

Speaker 3 (01:39:18):
Correct, He's always in the conversation, for sure. I don't
know where you put him this year.

Speaker 1 (01:39:23):
But I am dying laughing at these quotes that he's
giving about AJ Brown, who clearly wants out. They clearly
want to move him, and yet here he is saying,
I understand that there's interest in the AJ Brown story.
I unfortunately don't have a home under a rock. But
my answer to any question on AJ Brown is AJ
Brown is a member of the Eagles. From my perspective,

(01:39:44):
anything you ask me about AJ Brown, I'm going to
go right back to that answer. But I understand the
interest I put on TV and I see that there's interest.
But my answer is AJ Brown is a member of
the Philadelphia Eagles.

Speaker 2 (01:39:56):
He's STI getting traded.

Speaker 3 (01:39:57):
He's so holding their public position for leverage with everything
he says, Hey, you're right, he doesn't want to be here,
and we're working with him and his agent. We're trying
to make something happen that doesn't help their leverage. No,
but saying not much of this is going to have
a huge impact on it one way or the other.
But this is this is not GM speak. It's every GM.

(01:40:17):
It's not a Howie think, it's every GM. We'll speak.
Why would I tell you that, Yeah, we're getting phone
calls every day and there's no way we need his
number pressed and sewn up for next year because he
ain't gonna be here.

Speaker 2 (01:40:27):
We never say that. Why would I tell you what
I'm gonna do. It's a little bit the same.

Speaker 1 (01:40:33):
All right, interesting NFL stuff right there. We will transition
over to the good. The bad and the ugly from
over the weekend. That is straight ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:40:46):
The age on Sports.

Speaker 8 (01:40:47):
Talk seven ninety's not good and the ugly don't make
me good.

Speaker 2 (01:40:53):
With the A T we're selling the good. It's interest
segment time here on the A Team.

Speaker 3 (01:40:59):
We do that every weekd afternoon, four thirties on Mondays,
with the good, the bad, and the ugly from the
weekend gone by. Since we last spoke on Friday afternoon,
Josh has the ugly. I'll take the bad, ac get
A started with the good.

Speaker 1 (01:41:14):
Well, normally you would say that a play like this
in right field would be bad or maybe even ugly,
but when you consider who didn't make the play, if
you're an Astros fan especially, this was good.

Speaker 4 (01:41:30):
Here it comes man that's in the air out to
right field, Garcia and a couple of stuff.

Speaker 13 (01:41:36):
He lost it in the sun, but cuts it around
he'll store and a gift.

Speaker 2 (01:41:42):
Run for the Rangers. Adules Garcia.

Speaker 1 (01:41:47):
That's a former Rangers right fielder Aduls Garcia helping his
former team as they increased their five nothing lead over
the Phillies in that game because he basically lost in
the sun, which can happen to anybody, but it's funnier
when it happens to him.

Speaker 2 (01:42:04):
There was a bunch of that this weekend.

Speaker 3 (01:42:06):
You had the plays that or during the first week
of baseball, O'Neil Cruise's two plays in that first inning
with Paul Skens in his opening game that obviously did
not last even an inning. And in that very same
series you were talking about, Adolas Garcia was actually at
the plate for one of those plays. Jake Berger botched
two pop ups playing first base for the Rangers, one

(01:42:27):
of which extended the game. They had a three to
nothing lead in the ninth inning and a Doolas Garcia
was up with two guys on and he drove them
both in with a double after a foul pop up
was not caught with two outs by Jake Berger. He
also botched one on the infield. So maybe guys just
aren't quite ready for the season. And if you're watching
over at Dike And Park, with how often the ball
was getting thrown all over the yard by the Angels

(01:42:49):
defensive crew, you could probably echo that very same thing.
I don't know how much how much of your season's
good or bad or ugly will be dead dedicated on
individual players that are in your Clinton hates these cross hairs.

Speaker 2 (01:43:06):
That's probably the last one for a while.

Speaker 3 (01:43:08):
The bad, I can't tell if this is right or
wrong because it was good and bad. But I guess
this one segment of it was bad and it's ABS.
How could I find an ABS segment that was bad? Well,
the segment of ABS from the weekend that was bad
was if the Astros challenged it. I don't know how
you do it after all the work they put in
day to day for the many years they've all been

(01:43:30):
major leaguers, and then fiddling with it. When do we challenge?
How good are we doing this? All through spring training,
teams were challenging NonStop. The Astros are actually pretty good
at it. The bad stems from two different things. One
are three different things. They had six challenges that they initiated.
They were wrong every time. They were zero for six.
One of them, which is number two, was initiated by

(01:43:52):
a pitcher. There were only five pitches challenged by a
pitcher this entire season so far were right and one
of the three incorrect ones. A little small of a
sample size to say, man, these guys stink sixty percent
of the time. It doesn't work every time uh, there
were only five calls, but Rodery Munoz for some reason

(01:44:13):
decided to challenge a pitch wasn't even close and he
was wrong, So that also bat for the Astros. And
then if you caught one of the Yiner Diaz challenges,
holy cow, we're crushing Cebe Buckner and some of these
other guys for barely missing with point one point two
inches off the plate. There have been catchers and hitters

(01:44:33):
who have called for challenges on pitches that were clearly
upon review, very very correct. So it's gonna happen to
every team. The Astros also will probably start even in
things out. Maybe we'll even see more. Christian Vasquez caught games.
He's got one of their four and is not the
catcher tonight. For the Astros, it's ds. I'm sure the

(01:44:55):
Astros will get better a two and two start. I
don't think if they'd gone for six on challenges, which
probably means they had seven or eight coming, that the
record would be any different.

Speaker 2 (01:45:05):
No, it was a very two and two weekend. All right,
What do we have for the ugly?

Speaker 16 (01:45:11):
My ugly is going to be on the Astros as well.
I'm not super concerned about this it's early, first time
through the rotation, all that stuff, But twenty eight walks
issued by the Astros in that series, that's just way
too many boys.

Speaker 1 (01:45:24):
And Lance mccullors is on deck tonight. He loves the
walk batters. Well, we'll see.

Speaker 3 (01:45:29):
He actually threw a lot of strikes at the end
of the spring here in Houston. But that's a lot
different when you're in a major league situation. He was
in a major league stadium, but he wasn't in a
major league situation when he pitched during those two exhibition
one of the two exhibition games against the Space Cowboys.
I don't want to gain too much confidence in his

(01:45:50):
strike throwing ability, but those walks that were issued, you
had six from your starters the first two days you
sent to Emi obviously on day four, Javier the day
before that. Each of them also walked four batters.

Speaker 2 (01:46:05):
And Javier hit a guy.

Speaker 3 (01:46:07):
Well that's what he does now. I don't know if
you guys have noticed, but anyway, he hit two guys.
By the way, that's way too many walks for starters
who aren't eve getting out of the fifth inning. That's
where the you know, part of the problem was. But
it really wasn't any better. And you know, Munos is
in an interesting situation.

Speaker 2 (01:46:25):
He walked four batters in his two and two thirds
innings of work over two games.

Speaker 3 (01:46:28):
He gave up three runs. He obviously challenged a pitch
that wasn't a strike. He got four strikeouts. It's kind
of all of it all at once. But being a
rule of five guy, just because he made the opening
day roster doesn't mean he's here for the long haul
or even for the season. Obviously, you have to keep
him on the roster all season, not just opening day,
not just opening weekend. And the Astros because of all

(01:46:49):
the pitches that were thrown in the arms that were needed,
you had six different pitchers appearing more than once over
the first four games. Brian King appeared three times in
the first four games. They already made a roster move.
They already brought up Bolton and sent down Row. And
it's gonna be a continuing theme. I'm sure if this
even remotely persists, there's no way around it, no matter

(01:47:11):
how many longer relievers you have. And you have that
in Weiss, and you have that in Tang, and you
have that in blue Bough. At the very least but
you gotta get more length and you got to throw
fewer pitches, and walking guys is the opposite of doing that.
That was an alarmingly high total.

Speaker 4 (01:47:26):
For sure.

Speaker 2 (01:47:26):
I did not expect the Angels to draw twenty eight walks,
but they did.

Speaker 7 (01:47:30):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:47:31):
That's what makes me worried because even if we're not
gonna sit here and say they're a bad team, I
don't think. I don't think they're one of the good teams.

Speaker 3 (01:47:38):
So well, if you throw competitive pitches, they're gonna swing
at it. The Astros weren't doing that right, differ missing
the zone and throwing competitive pitches.

Speaker 1 (01:47:47):
That's what worries me about just this upcoming series starting tonight.

Speaker 3 (01:47:51):
Yeah, I think I'm not worried about it, but it
was an alarming total. We haven't even seen everybody pitch.
I mean, you haven't even gone through the rotation once.
Bad start, Yes, I mean the hunter. Brown's a good
example of not being concerned. He wasn't particularly sharp and
having him walk four batters in a start might happen
once the rest of the year twice, but he also

(01:48:14):
didn't let anything happen. He left them out with no
runs on the board. The inning ended with no runs
on the board. He found a way to get out of.

Speaker 4 (01:48:20):
It, but he can't.

Speaker 3 (01:48:21):
You can't go deep into games when you do that.
The other guys didn't go deep into games because they
were less successful. In addition, especially in EMI's case, he
just wasn't throwing strikes.

Speaker 2 (01:48:30):
There was no way to compete like that, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:48:31):
Every He's falling behind hitters too often, walking too many batters,
and his pitch count was out of control.

Speaker 2 (01:48:37):
The pitch the pitch count, that part right there. What
he finished with seventy.

Speaker 3 (01:48:41):
Four seventy four pitches, thirty six strikes, got eight outs.

Speaker 2 (01:48:46):
Yeah, he's gonna have to do.

Speaker 3 (01:48:47):
He was nervous after the game, and it seemed pretty
obvious that he was yeah, well, hopefully next game not
so much.

Speaker 4 (01:48:53):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:48:54):
That's the good, the bad, and the ugly. What does
this sound like when a major leaguer calls into a
radio show to destroy the team that he played for
his current GM higher I'm glad you asked.

Speaker 2 (01:49:10):
You're gonna hear that next.

Speaker 8 (01:49:14):
The age on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (01:49:19):
What does it sound like when you get out of
bed in the morning and you have joint pain that
you haven't addressed WEX, what.

Speaker 2 (01:49:23):
Does this sound like? Not again? Or I'm in pain?

Speaker 1 (01:49:27):
Yeah, those are two very good candidates for how it
might sound. Could be some noises being made. So how
do you feel Tony Vottello's doing in San Francisco is
the GM of the Giants.

Speaker 3 (01:49:41):
After all of these games he's been manager for? Yes, well, A,
I find the question silly, as you know, you're already laughing.
I haven't even said anything. He's doing fine. He didn't
maybe put a little bit too much emphasis on his
own Yeah, maybe the guys are a little tight because
the speech I gave comment from over the weekend, which

(01:50:02):
I'm sure a lot of people saw. But he's going
to be scrutinized, I think quite a bit because it's
just it's new, It's never happened before. He has literally
zero experience at the major League baseball professional level. He
comes straight from a very successful college program. So everything
he does, every day to day operation that he institutes
for this baseball outfit there in San Francisco, people will

(01:50:25):
question it whether they're doing things differently or doing things before,
and who he's hired. All that stuff all for a
team that's pretty average.

Speaker 2 (01:50:33):
So how familiar were you with Mike Lacosse. I loved him.

Speaker 3 (01:50:38):
I saw him pitch a few times here at the
Dome and Astros great Mike Lacosse.

Speaker 2 (01:50:43):
Is that who you're referring to? Yeah? That one. He
pitched here for three years, probably at his best season in.

Speaker 3 (01:50:48):
An Astro's uniform when he got here, half as many
seasons as he pitched in San Francisco for the Giants. Yeah,
the Astros were Mike Lacosse's team, his second team, the
San Francisco Giants were his last team a major league
pitcher started and pitched out of the bullpen, and who
never in a million years I think would ever be
mentioned on this show. And I'm pretty darn certain this

(01:51:08):
is the first time.

Speaker 2 (01:51:10):
Yeah, well, it's because he did that.

Speaker 1 (01:51:11):
And listen, I don't know what the equivalent would be
like in Astro's history. If you were to find a
guy that is basically there Mike Lacosse who was so
upset about who the manager was and how management had
hired him, Jimmy Williams or I don't know, pick a name.

Speaker 3 (01:51:30):
So Michae Lacosse thinks Tony V is bad? Yes, Okay,
and he thought so much. He felt so strongly about
that opinion that he called into a local sports talk
show to say as much.

Speaker 4 (01:51:46):
Well, this is.

Speaker 16 (01:51:46):
Former All Star pitcher Michae Lacosse.

Speaker 2 (01:51:48):
This is awesome.

Speaker 12 (01:51:50):
Do you think the negative takes might be miffing some
of the Giants' brass some of the front office guys
don't want the negative takes.

Speaker 7 (01:51:56):
Oh, of course, not the hiring of the the college guys.
Don't you think that's kind of a slap in the
face to all of all of the minor league managers
and professional baseball and all of the bench coaches in
Major League Baseball that think about becoming a major league manager.

(01:52:17):
They just bypassed all those guys and through this college
guy in there. And of course, when you saw the
look on his face his first real press conference, you
saw a totally different look on this guy's face. Man,
Like they just saw dog got run over, you know,
in the driveway. And they have the locted executives and

(01:52:38):
Major League Baseball still around until he got the head
of the snakeoffs. Yeah, the baseball guys are going to
continue to punish you.

Speaker 1 (01:52:46):
All he did was say that the manager is woefully unqualified,
and it's probably a bad look that they passed over
every single bench coach and other candidates in Major League
Baseball and then just completely dismissed all of the entire
executive office for the Giants as well.

Speaker 3 (01:53:06):
We didn't posey, that's true, he didn't do that. Yeah,
he doesn't think very highly of Larry Bears, who's talking
about in the front office and obviously the manager. Now
what he said about the managers, other than the getting
specifics and then making sure to add in in the
driveway running over the dog is enough.

Speaker 2 (01:53:25):
It doesn't really matter where it is.

Speaker 3 (01:53:26):
Is it worse than the driveway? I guess he must
have thought that slop speeds. People in our seats and
people there fans in San Francisco. For sure, we all
said the same thing because it's so new, and I
don't know that it's going to be repeated. It's definitely
it's very unlikely to be repeated if he falls on
his face. But he would really have to manage things
poorly because he's trying to manage a team that doesn't

(01:53:48):
have the talent to reach the playoffs, to win eighty
six games. He's trying to manage a team that doesn't
have that into that, so they're probably asking you to
do more than he's capable of doing.

Speaker 2 (01:53:57):
Any managers capable of doing so.

Speaker 3 (01:53:58):
I don't know how it's going to be looked at,
but that's the attitude many of us have. So it
happens when college basketball coaches. It looks like the Lakers
might be interested in coach k Great. Great, I'm sure
that's gonna be an awesome hire. And to a certain extent,
even though he's played the game, I don't think it's
a whole lot different when guys go out there and say,
I mean, why shouldn't we hire him? And then they

(01:54:19):
announced that JJ Reddick is the head coach. I mean, yeah,
it's I think that's in.

Speaker 2 (01:54:23):
A front funny that that's what happened.

Speaker 1 (01:54:24):
Kobe wanted Mike Krzyzewski and they were like, he said, no.

Speaker 3 (01:54:29):
Mike Krzyzewski, JJ Reddick, Tony Vittello. They did as Mike
Lacosse's point is, they didn't put any of any of
the work that all these other guys are doing. Vittel's
a little bit different and just that he's been he's
a coach, but he's also not a major leaguer did
not coaching gets this level.

Speaker 2 (01:54:45):
He doesn't know anything about this.

Speaker 3 (01:54:46):
You know some of these college football coaches that always
get brought up for jobs. I mean, Nick Saban had
some NFL background. He's been a coach in the NFL.
He's been an NFL locker rooms. He's helped to run
a team as an assistant coach in the NA When
he left for the NFL to poorly coach the Miami Dolphins,
you know, you're not coming from a totally green area.

Speaker 4 (01:55:08):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:55:08):
Cliff Kingsbury, maybe he's a little bit closer. He has
a little bit of NFL experience before he goes from
Texas Tech to being a head coach at the NFL level.
But JJ Reddick just literally walks off the broadcast Boothy.

Speaker 2 (01:55:20):
I played in the NBA. I watched what our coaches did.

Speaker 3 (01:55:22):
I went into broadcasting, and now I'm the head coach
of the Los Angeles Lakers. And I'd spent five minutes
as an assistant coach. I wasn't a video guy, I
wasn't anything. I wasn't a behind the bench coach. I
was nothing. And now I have the job, and now
it's happened in the NBA many times Steve Nash very
similar path. But if it works and we're gonna find out,
is it really so bad? Like I mean, I don't

(01:55:44):
know how close.

Speaker 2 (01:55:45):
Mike Lacasse, who's been out of baseball since nineteen ninety one,
has stayed to the progress.

Speaker 3 (01:55:51):
Of San Francisco Giants baseball. But it was pretty entertaining
for the radio team. It would be I'm sure entertaining
for us if that happened here. So who's the guy
who would they be complaining about? I mean, it literally
happened when John McMullen was the owner of the team,
and people complained about him long after he had gone,
this is the worst person they've ever had, and they

(01:56:14):
just weren't in a position to say until they get
rid of him, which is what Mike he's basically saying,
until they get the guy who's making all these decisions.
They're going nowhere.

Speaker 2 (01:56:24):
So who would be the Astros? So they're saying to
this to Dana, I guess yeah, But I mean and
they played here.

Speaker 3 (01:56:35):
I mean, it's hard to put it in Astro's terms
for the obvious reasons, because not all spending my wheels
going nowhere for the last fifteen years, like they happened
in San Francisco. Now, I think one part that you know,
there were obviously this call happens, and the radio station
obviously is this really Michae lacoss Well, the newspapers they're
obviously called win of this. They wanted to do the

(01:56:56):
same thing, and so they confirmed it because they had
a conversation with him and Mike Haim say Elf said, well,
of course it was me. I mean, I guess I
could understand a fake Barry Bonds or fake Bruce Bouchier,
Bob Brinley, but who's gonna.

Speaker 1 (01:57:09):
Call la right right? He did say about Bear that
he despises him, and probably some of that has to
go back to where he served a month's long suspension
back in twenty nineteen when a video surface of him
in a physical altercation with his wife. That's probably one

(01:57:30):
reason that Lacoste doesn't care for.

Speaker 3 (01:57:31):
He's the most hated man in baseball, according to Mike Lacosse.

Speaker 1 (01:57:35):
Yeah, all right, five o'clock hour is coming up next,
which means football. If five which means are the replacement
refs back in the NFL, that's something we actually have
to discuss and talk about, because they are actually probably
very much on their way back, pending some litigation, if
you will.

Speaker 2 (01:57:55):
We shall see next.

Speaker 1 (01:58:02):
Football at five underway here on the A Team Sports
SOX seven to ninety Space City Home Network, Monday edition
of the program, fresh off the weekend.

Speaker 2 (01:58:11):
Look, the draft is less than a month away.

Speaker 1 (01:58:13):
Before we know it will be in training camp, and
then the preseason games will be out of the way
and we can get back to football. Except for that,
there will be replacement officials, not unlike the ones we
saw botching calls in Week three of the twenty twelve season.
I believe it was twenty twelve, might be twenty ten.
If they can't get their act together. From a labor standpoint,

(01:58:36):
I listen, I don't know. I've constantly and consistently said
that NFL officials are the best in sports. They're not perfect,
but they're just light years better in my opinion, than
both MLB and NBA officials. Those replacement refs back in
the day that batched that call in Seattle against the Packers.

(01:59:02):
That was one of the worst things I've ever seen
from an officiating standpoint, Like, it's the very definition of
the thing that all these sports leagues fear your incompetence
of your officials dictated the outcome of a game.

Speaker 3 (01:59:17):
Like when the Saints and Rams were in the playoffs
the past interference those right, it happens. The quality of
your officials doesn't mean it won't or it will. Both
of them were very regards, very different quality, and the
same thing happened.

Speaker 1 (01:59:33):
And I don't remember where we were in the pantheon
of replay at the time. I mean, I know there
was I think there was some review back when that
Seattle Green Bay game happened. There's no excuse for what
happened with the Saints game. So what's your opinion on
them moving in this direction? Obviously this is just simple
negotiating hardball, but the league is also clearly, as they

(01:59:57):
have done in the past, willing to play games that
matter with all their multi billion dollar owners and multi
million dollar players with officials that aren't as good as
the officials they are not agreeing with in labor. Well,
but don't worry, though, wex because the owners are quote
alarmed by the state of negotiations.

Speaker 2 (02:00:16):
They want you to know that.

Speaker 3 (02:00:17):
Yeah, because they are saying, oh, you guys want this
that's crazy, that's alarming.

Speaker 1 (02:00:22):
The NFL began began compiling a list of college level
officials to recruit earlier this month, and the owners are
expected this week to approve a sweeping set of replay
enhancements to support replacement officials in preseason and regular season games.

(02:00:43):
A sweeping set of replay enhancements because these guys you know,
aren't good enough.

Speaker 2 (02:00:49):
Is that how I'm understanding this.

Speaker 3 (02:00:51):
I mean, that's part of it. They should have sweeping
replay enhancements to begin with.

Speaker 1 (02:00:56):
Thank you, And I think that's what they're sort of doing.
But yeah, it's being I guess hurried along because of
the state of I.

Speaker 3 (02:01:04):
Mean, this idea that they're you know, again, this is
all total, totally normal stuff. I'm not even alarmed by
all this and where we are and how far away
the season is or how far apart negotiations are, and
they are pretty far apart, you know, for what they're
willing to offer and what they're asking for in which
they keep claiming to hear quotes from the official side,
their labor side. There are a executive director he basically

(02:01:26):
was just saying, well, this is the most profitable sports
league out there. And paraphrasing the amount of money that's
being generated, and this is what we're asking for, and
this is what they're balking at, and he's just saying, well, dude,
you have it, give it to us. That's not really
how negotiations work. For one, but the angle of where
they're going to find these officials from that actually should
be alarming, not to NFL fans, not to NFL players,

(02:01:49):
and not to NFL owners.

Speaker 2 (02:01:51):
To college football fans.

Speaker 3 (02:01:52):
If college football officials are being recruited and it impacts
the college officiating pool, meaning you're really good at this,
so why don't we give you a little bit more
money as a replacement official and you can come to
the big leagues. Well, then what do we think college
officiating is better than NFL officiating? Of course we don't.
If they were, they would be in the NFL. They're

(02:02:14):
not because they're not quite as good. So now what
Now all these billion dollar universities are going to be
spending all this nil money on this quarterback and this
running back and this edge player and re recruiting all
those players, and then they're paying this coach and they're
fired coach twenty three million dollars this year to watch

(02:02:35):
a replacement official make a call that costs you advancing
in the postseason.

Speaker 1 (02:02:39):
So we haven't even gotten to the craziest part of all.
And again let me preface this by saying I understand
where they're coming from, because they're trying to avoid what
happened in twenty twelve that we just mentioned. If a
work stoppage were to continue into the regular season, new
rules or the new rules would create a type of
centralized officiating. Each game would still be officiated from the field,

(02:03:06):
but staff members in the league's Art McNally Game Day
Central Command Center.

Speaker 2 (02:03:12):
Say that five times fast.

Speaker 1 (02:03:13):
In New York would be permitted to weigh in on
a wide variety of called and uncalled penalties, and would
take on additional roles following the two minute.

Speaker 2 (02:03:24):
Warning and in overtime.

Speaker 1 (02:03:26):
And according to verbage the NFL released Tuesday of last week,
league staff members could alert a replacement referee if they
see clear and obvious evidence of an uncalled foul for
roughing the passer, intentional grounding, or an act that would
normally lead to disqualification.

Speaker 2 (02:03:45):
So it's extreme cases, but the staff.

Speaker 1 (02:03:48):
Members would also be permitted to alert replacement referees that
a flag shouldn't have been thrown if there's clear and
obvious video evidence that at least one element of the
foul called is not present.

Speaker 3 (02:03:59):
I could swear, and I wish I could reference it exactly.
We already heard this this offseason, and it had nothing
to do with replacement officials, but now that there, it
had everything to do with We're just trying to make
the game better. We're trying to enhance the ability to
call games correctly. This is not a threat. This isn't
a we're preparing for a season without you guys. This

(02:04:19):
is a we were already planning to do this, but
maybe you forgot. We are already recognized that there are
issues with our current staff, the staff that's fighting for
more money that we're going to try to make better.
They've already acknowledged they didn't have enough people in the
replay booths to begin with during the well, we got
nine noon games today, maybe we should staff accordingly, and

(02:04:40):
that clearly was an issue from a timing standpoint. I
don't want to say it sounds disastrous when you first
hear it, but I don't think it will be because
of the speed of the game. I mean, if there's
a clear and obvious miscall, you've got how many seconds
before the next snap is if it's not in the
two minute warning and someone's not trying to score at
the end of the first half. Teams aren't usually operating
that quickly to begin with, even though they're more than

(02:05:01):
welcome to. I don't know why more teams don't. Do
you really have the time to get buzzed, I mean, technologically,
I hope the officials aren't actually getting buzzed, and it'd
be even worse, I think, But time to get buzzed
and time to go pause the game. You gotta blow
the whistle. If you're actually talking to someone elsewhere, you
can't let them go. The play clock has to be stuffed,
The game clock has to be stopped. The game has

(02:05:21):
to be stopped until whatever conversation as an official you're having,
and then whatever necessary information is conveyed, if you need
to go back, if there is a call to be
looked at, if there has to be a change because it.

Speaker 2 (02:05:33):
Was a clear and obvious mistake.

Speaker 3 (02:05:35):
But again, this that's what they've already proposed doing with
the regular officials. They're not trying to do anything other
than act like they are ready to move on without them.
They don't care if they have to. They really don't.
They've shown it many times over. From a product standpoint,
their product's gonna stink with a replacement official, no matter

(02:05:56):
how many intents enhancem Of course they are, but it
well their position as you can ask for this, You
can ask to be made full time, you can ask
for more pay, and you can ask for this marketing
money that the league is saying, what are you talking
about two and a half for marketing money. But the
league is probably going to end up winning, so to speak,

(02:06:17):
just like they do with the players, because they can
always present a scenario where we'll just move on without you.
They've already done it before more than once. They don't
lose their games. This isn't like baseball they lock out
the players. There's no games. If the league and the
officials and their labor relations reach a point where they

(02:06:37):
find replacement officials, it's so they don't miss the games.
Everyone's getting paid except for you, and everyone's making money
except for you, officials.

Speaker 1 (02:06:46):
So Scott Green, who's the nfl RA executive director, brought
up that very point because he said the bottom line is,
our officials work for the wealthiest sports league in America,
with profits that exceed any of the others. That's normally
a point of pride for the NFL, and it is.
They're always talking about how much money they make. However,

(02:07:07):
our officials are substantially undercompensated when compared to baseball and
basketball umpires and referees. Our officials also aren't provided the
healthcare benefits that those at three forty five Park Avenue have.

Speaker 3 (02:07:23):
I mean, that's as plain as you can put it.
That's what I was saying earlier. Hey, they make a
lot of money. Can we have some more? That's all
they're saying.

Speaker 2 (02:07:30):
Yep. And healthcare again, that a small thing, not a
small thing, especially in a physical job that you're performing.
I'm sure that it's not nothing. When's the last time
an official was carted off the field? But we just
saw it. It was in the playoffs two years ago,
wasn't it right there at the goal line? I don't remember.
I've slept since then. This typical negotiation, typical.

Speaker 1 (02:07:55):
Though they got May thirty. Is it May first or
May thirty first? I keep seeing two different dates.

Speaker 3 (02:08:01):
Is it several months before the season or several months
before the season, which one, yes, I don't want to
see replacement officials though it's the thirty first, but no, nobody.
Both sides don't want it. But the only side that
has to prepare for it is trying to tell everybody
publicly we're preparing for it. And again, they've done it before,
so who's to say they won't do it again. The

(02:08:21):
league's in a different era now and different stage and
different visibility. I suppose you know a blatant missed call
pre heavy social media era, Well, okay, they missed a call.
In this era, it it's going to be magnified to
the answer, and.

Speaker 2 (02:08:38):
They know that better than anybody.

Speaker 1 (02:08:41):
The difference between today and twenty twelve from a social
media standpoint with regards to sports, let me get it
as very narrow casted as I can, is insane, Like
in say, you will feel the blowback. It's not like
it was in twenty twelve. And I remember that, I
remember it very vividly. It was all we were talking

(02:09:01):
about the next day because it was a Monday night game.
As I recall, it was either Sunday or Money. It
was a primetime game, and it determined the outcome. It's
a tough call. Who caught it?

Speaker 2 (02:09:15):
I still don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:09:16):
Well, there you go, all right, we'll take a quick
time out one of Wex's favorite whipping boys coming into
the Astro season.

Speaker 2 (02:09:27):
Wex is gonna apologize to him live on the air.
You gotta stick around for that. Do you really think
this is happening? You're gonna have to stick around to
find out.

Speaker 1 (02:09:37):
The a. Sashi Brown, the Baltimore Ravens team president, said
that the whole flap because of the Max Crosby trade
being rescinded, that's not going to negatively affect the team's reputation.

Speaker 2 (02:09:50):
You know why, because I said the same thing, all right,
what else?

Speaker 1 (02:09:53):
No, that's not why. That's not the reason he gave.
He did not say because Adam Wexler said so on
local radio in Houston, right he said, And I hope
you're sitting down. It was a slow news cycle. That's
why everybody was all up in arms about it. One
of the best defensive pass rushers in the NFL's trade
getting rescinded, including everything that went into that. That was

(02:10:15):
all a big deal because it was a slow news cycle.
All right, When did this happen because I'm I'm pretty
sure did.

Speaker 2 (02:10:21):
You hear him? See him?

Speaker 7 (02:10:22):
This?

Speaker 2 (02:10:23):
League meetings are going on right now, which is why
you're getting a bunch of quotes from gms and other
assorted personnel within the organizations and head coaches as well.
And many of these.

Speaker 3 (02:10:34):
Are just seated at a at a table in a
hotel ballroom, which oftentimes we do have video of.

Speaker 2 (02:10:40):
I'd be curious.

Speaker 3 (02:10:41):
If it sounds like he's joking.

Speaker 2 (02:10:45):
Hey man, it was a slow news day, right.

Speaker 1 (02:10:47):
We've got strong and long relationships across the league, he
said about the Ravens. We have emphasized the importance of
doing things the right way. We'll continue to do that,
and we understand that it is a headline story because
of its profile and significance. We believe our relationships to
the extent that you need time to repair them. People

(02:11:09):
understand who we are and what we're about. When you
have high profile transactions like this and opportunities like this,
it's unfortunate, but sometimes these things do happen. No fault
of Max Ours or the Raiders. It's just kind of
how it played out.

Speaker 2 (02:11:26):
I mean, what play Where did he say this?

Speaker 3 (02:11:29):
Where did he say the line that has us all
come on, man, because that part he's not joking, he's
dead serious, and he's totally right. He has that's what
you do business for. If you constantly do bad business
and you're making agents uncomfortable dealing with you, and it's
impacting your players, your roster, your success, then that's what
your reputation is going to hold over everything else that happens,

(02:11:51):
especially a one kind of an outlier incident. They have
plenty in the bank. He's totally right.

Speaker 2 (02:11:58):
But what he's not right about is that this kind
of thing happens all the time. No, it does not.
You do not go out and get one.

Speaker 1 (02:12:03):
Of the best pass rushers on the planet for two
first round picks all of a sudden, mysteriously, uh don't fit,
you know, don't pass his physical then pivot immediately and
get another defensive stud pass rusher which doesn't require two
first round picks, like an hour later. Because that's what
happened here, and it's never happened before like that.

Speaker 2 (02:12:22):
These things seem to happen. No, they don't. Yeah, the
specifics of it, of course they don't happen.

Speaker 3 (02:12:27):
You make it looks suspect. Of course, it looks suspect.
No one's denying that. But the fact is two things
are here. I mean, I'll take him at your word
and his word that that wasn't a joke slow news day,
but it sure sounds like one because everything else he said.
I'm guarantee you he's not. This isn't how I'm in
front of the cameras I've ever say this.

Speaker 1 (02:12:47):
This is a Jamison Hensley article, who has covered the Ravens.
Its nothing to do with that, is what I'm saying is,
if like it was a joke, I feel like he
would have put that in the article.

Speaker 3 (02:12:56):
Yeah, yeah, you're right on that for sure. It just
doesn't I mean, it kind of of dilutes your your
opinion of it. Because I'm not gonna sit here and
say I don't have any issue with that whatsoever. I
do vehemently disagree. It's it could have happened like what's
a what's a busy news day? Doesn't matter? Guess what
would have flown to the front of the line even
here anywhere in the NFL.

Speaker 2 (02:13:16):
This is one of the thirty two. What was going on?

Speaker 3 (02:13:19):
Well, it was late. It was also it was after
we had been done for the day. It's a Friday
night news dump what is commonly referred to as a well, no,
one's pending attention right now, we might as.

Speaker 2 (02:13:29):
Well do this. Convenient for him to say that, No,
it was.

Speaker 3 (02:13:32):
More about the the deals had to become finalized Monday
and Tuesday and Wednesday when the new league year was
getting said to begin, and the idea that you could
go ahead and get a play, well, all that stuff
is the timing of it. They can't just sit around
after the Max Crosby deal isn't gonna happen and say
we're not going to pivot to Trey Hendrickson that quickly.

(02:13:53):
It looks too suspect, or they would say, well, we
want him. I mean that it looks suspect because we
all knew this beforehand. We were all saying this beforehand.
Why are you trading two.

Speaker 2 (02:14:03):
First round picks for Mats Crosby for he's a marginally
better player than Trey Henderson. Nobody's debating who's better.

Speaker 3 (02:14:10):
Everybody knows Max will have a bigger impact on your
team positively by being on it. But is that outweighed
by just signing Hendrickson for less and keeping two first
round picks including one this year that can help Lamar
Jackson's team win immediately.

Speaker 2 (02:14:25):
Give me fascinating to see how these two play.

Speaker 1 (02:14:28):
In light of all this, By the way, Brown went
on to say he doesn't think the trade process or
the two day free agent negotiating period, which is a joke,
needs to be reworked because of what happened with Crosby.
He said, I think this is how it should be handled.
I really do. We're not aiming for that result, but
when you have a high stakes transaction like that, everybody

(02:14:49):
needs to understand kind of what conditions you're moving forward on.
And John Spytech, who has the best GM name on
the planet.

Speaker 2 (02:14:57):
And how's he doing? Ah, he runs the Raiders.

Speaker 1 (02:15:01):
He said, Could you make a rule where you trade
anybody or you could trade anybody at any time and
you don't have to wait for the start of the
league year. Maybe I think that's what's well above my
pay grade, I think, And so we'll just operate within
the rules and the confines of what they give us.
Slow news cycle is really really funny.

Speaker 2 (02:15:22):
Yeah, that's why I'm hoping.

Speaker 3 (02:15:23):
That's why I'm saying it that way, because if he
really I mean that he doesn't really believe that, so
I don't have to say.

Speaker 1 (02:15:28):
If he said, this is not the first time it's
going to happen, and it will not be the last,
and he's right. So I think everybody wants to be
prudent throughout the process. And it's unfortunate and rare.

Speaker 3 (02:15:40):
Mean, how many other players came out and said, don't
forget that this did happen with this team, and this
player had already agreed to a deal, and then they
for whatever reason, decided, well, we're not going to pass
him on his physical and all of a sudden, he's
missed out on all these other opportunities because by that
point in time, teams had moved on to other negotiations
with other players at that position, and now you just
threw them back in the market, like when free When

(02:16:01):
it happens to a free agent, it's way worse than
this because they're not negotiating with anybody anymore, or it's
way worse for the team except they can go get
somebody else. If a player and his agent say, well,
we've got to pull out here because we got a
better offer. Yeah we agreed to this, but yeah we
never really signed anything. It was just my word is

(02:16:22):
not stronger than oak. It's more like paper. So I'm
gonna go ahead and basically welch on this deal. We're
gonna sign somewhere else. Well, A team needing to pivot
to one of the twenty other free agents at that
position is different than a player out of the market
because he's got to deal with this team as the
next best player and the next best player and the
next best player of all signed deals.

Speaker 2 (02:16:42):
And now he's where do I go? They're not as
many openings. I don't even think this is the funniest
thing to come out of the owners meetings.

Speaker 3 (02:16:49):
We got a whole nother day of it with the
AFC and some of their coaches tomorrow. Sood Jimmy haslm say,
And I know we've heard some this obviously is yeah,
I did. I was gonna bring it up last segment,
but I can't wait to hear you frame it here.
Jimmy Haslam runs the Cleveland Browns. He owns them.

Speaker 1 (02:17:04):
Yeah, Once upon a time he traded for a guy
that he liked to get massages here in Houston. He
also played quarterback for the Texans for a while, and
he called that trade Jimmy haslm a big swing and
miss for Deshaun Watson, But now he says that Watson

(02:17:26):
has a quote great chance and a fresh start with
Todd Munkin as in a great chance, fresh start, offensive
minded coach who has in his past been able to
work with all kinds of different quarterbacks and make them successful.
So DeShawn has a great chance to do that now.
In other words, he could be the starter this year,

(02:17:48):
which when you consider their quarterback room, yeah, he's got
good a chance as any.

Speaker 3 (02:17:54):
If he beats the other guys out, because nobody's any good.
That seems more likely if he beats them out, because
it can actually play. That would be something that would
be a major story, that would be a major shift
in what we're actually expecting out of a team, and
obviously here in the AFC, but this is kind of
along those same lines.

Speaker 2 (02:18:12):
I keep bringing him.

Speaker 3 (02:18:13):
Now he does have another avenue, because he's already put
it out there what a bad deal this was. He
could say we had to rework his number, you know,
we're looking for avenues on what makes the most sense
for us. But he can't really say it because they
don't have a quarterback with or without him, they don't
have anybody that they know can play. They have question
marks about Deshaun and they clearly have question marks about
both of their second year quarterbacks. So instead he tries

(02:18:36):
to sneak this line by the very intelligent people in
the media, he's got a fresh start, he's got an
offensive minded coach. In the past, he's well, hey, wait, wait,
he has an offensive minded coach.

Speaker 2 (02:18:49):
What did he have last year?

Speaker 3 (02:18:51):
Is Kevin Stefanski a some sort of defensive minded coach?
Did we miss something? What do we have the year
before that when he was there before should or and
we're there was Kevin Stefanski still there the year before
that and the year before that, I mean every year
that just now he has an offensive mind. I mean
he didn't say now, but he did say offensive minded
coach like he just had m H. Is that what

(02:19:15):
you're saying? He has an offensive minded coach, just like
the last coach where things did not work out for
any number of reasons. I'm all for, you know, whatever
happens in the future. I don't really think it was
a very good period of time for Deshaun off the field.

Speaker 2 (02:19:30):
But it was awful on the field.

Speaker 3 (02:19:34):
Awful, awful, awful football Watson in Cleveland, terrible NFL quarterback.
Sure it could change why, I have no idea. It
was all mental really, and he's over all that. Okay,
you got out of your apology.

Speaker 2 (02:19:53):
We have thirty more minutes and there ain't one coming anyway,
So you're so rude.

Speaker 3 (02:19:58):
Well you've got you've got it misguided. So I I
can clarify that if you'd like.

Speaker 1 (02:20:02):
We'll do that in a little bit. But first, in
case you missed it, that's straight ahead.

Speaker 2 (02:20:08):
What if there's any lift Friers out there?

Speaker 7 (02:20:10):
All right?

Speaker 2 (02:20:12):
That music can only mean one thing.

Speaker 1 (02:20:14):
Time for the first edition of this week, In case
you missed it.

Speaker 2 (02:20:20):
I think we're starting with Josh as per usual. Yeah,
right to tell him? Oh yeah, hey Josh.

Speaker 16 (02:20:26):
Go all right, guys, let's uh, let's check in on
some astros. Cam Smith only one hit to start this season,
so not exactly what you're hoping for, But the good
news is he's already taken an early league at MLB
and outs above average in the outfield. Smith is the
only player in the league very early with two outs
above average. He's done it by catching all five of

(02:20:48):
his opportunities one one star catch to two star catches,
a three star catch, and a five star catch. If
you've been watching the games, you know what you're looking at.
He's been really good on defense.

Speaker 3 (02:20:57):
I think he leads Major League Baseball in time diving
into the netting.

Speaker 2 (02:21:01):
It's a two. I think he's the number one in
the Major Lea Baseball.

Speaker 3 (02:21:05):
Well, the distance travel to get the first one of those,
he really had no option at the end. You know,
the low fence and the nets right there. There weren't
any people where he happened to land at that point
in the game, so it was fine, but you know,
one hundred and thirty plus feet of travel distance to
go get that ball, and he was sprinting the last
you know, pretty much the whole way. He did it

(02:21:25):
again earlier or later in the week, but it wasn't
quite as far to go the ball.

Speaker 2 (02:21:30):
He cut right in front of the Astros bullpen.

Speaker 3 (02:21:34):
He's been awesome, and I don't really think much he's
he's clearly there's a book and he and the Astros
new hitting coaches are gonna have to figure a few
things out. If you throw him at pitch that's tailing away,
he's going to swing at it and he's going to miss.
He's got a big, long, looping swing, and I noticed
it last year. I wondered if there would be some
mechanical changes to it. Their don't appear to be. I'm

(02:21:56):
not concerned yet, and I don't think it's a long
like he can't play. But there's some things that already
you can see, and he needs still a little bit
more work. Great outfielder, great speed.

Speaker 2 (02:22:05):
They need him.

Speaker 3 (02:22:06):
He's clearly the guy that should be giving every day
at bats too.

Speaker 2 (02:22:10):
It's four games, by the way, how many strikeouts does
he have?

Speaker 1 (02:22:13):
Josh, you have that number in front of you by
any chance, because I just want to know if it's
more or less than fourteen.

Speaker 2 (02:22:18):
I believe he leads the team in strikeouts. He has five.
He doesn't lead him in anything else.

Speaker 1 (02:22:24):
Five strikeouts. That's so much less than fourteen. He's better
than cal Rawly.

Speaker 3 (02:22:29):
He and Esach and Jiner and lead the team with
five k's apiece. Yeahanner's the worst.

Speaker 2 (02:22:35):
One though, since he's done it in fewer abs. Yeah. Y.
He's the lineup tonight, as is Isaac as his cam.

Speaker 3 (02:22:40):
I'll try to add to their total tonight against Ranger Suarez,
Good luck Astros.

Speaker 16 (02:22:46):
What really excites me, though, is al tuo Ve already
with five walks, which Jordon also has five walks. So
this early in the year, for al Twove to be
this choosy, I'm all for it.

Speaker 3 (02:22:58):
Jordon also very very choosey insert sarcasm here. Three of
those five he was so choosy he went down to
first with no pitches being thrown. He was intentionally walked
three times.

Speaker 2 (02:23:09):
Choosy. It's a good eye. I like that word.

Speaker 3 (02:23:13):
It's something that Isak is going to hopefully take more
advantage of talking about it. You know, yesterday get he
had to hit it again. Your bottom of the eighth
inning gets tied at six, two runners on two out.
He hit the ball in front of Joe Adell that
scored two runs.

Speaker 2 (02:23:27):
You take the lead.

Speaker 3 (02:23:28):
Altuve actually followed with probably his best at bat of
the season and drove in run number three of the
inning and gave them a three run cushion, which made
life even easier on the second Brian that pitched in
the ninth inning, Brian King, who closed the game out.

Speaker 2 (02:23:40):
What else do we have?

Speaker 16 (02:23:44):
Let's go back to the Cleveland Browns, guys, why not
because it's that's always good for fun sources. Brown's pull
proposal to allowed pick trades five years out, and that
makes a lot of sense to me. You could see
a situation where a team is trade all their picks
for the next five years, or at least a lot
of them. Who's gonna want to go coach that team?

Speaker 2 (02:24:05):
I think this is the Kay Adams effect.

Speaker 3 (02:24:07):
We like Kay Adams here on the program, she had
Sean McVay with her and they were talking about this.
You know, the rams mantra over the years has been
these picks them yes, yeah, bleep, these picks. So we're
she was speaking of you guys would like this, right?

(02:24:28):
Are you surprised that this? And you know it seems
to make sense. He's like, I'll tell you this right now.
There is a zero percent chance of this getting through,
as in, we don't even need to entertain this. She's like, really,
and how come this? And he's like, look, I'm on
the competition committee. It was it was eleven nothing and
I'm on the committee. How do you think I voted?
Like he said this earlier today, which I don't think

(02:24:49):
is a coincidence that they reports then came they already
now know it's not getting through.

Speaker 2 (02:24:55):
Why bother, We'll just pull it back.

Speaker 3 (02:24:56):
And that's what the Browns have done now, trying to
do as much as they can to stay back from
any limelight so they can focus in on getting Deshaun
Watson ready for the season.

Speaker 2 (02:25:06):
What else, because he has a great chance to be
the starting quarterback.

Speaker 3 (02:25:10):
The funniest part is it's it's also like what everybody
else has been saying that we've played audio from today.
I keep coming out of what they say it is true.

Speaker 1 (02:25:18):
Well, yeah, absolutely competition for him if he's even functional, if.

Speaker 3 (02:25:23):
He's on the roster and he's healthy and he's taking snaps,
and the competition if he's well. They could be doing
all these things now and saying all this stuff then,
and when we get to training camp or the offseason workouts,
they could also just say we we're really he's on
the roster, we haven't found a way to get him
off fit yet, but he's not competing for our starting
quarterback job because he's never gonna play for us. Again,

(02:25:44):
I don't think that's where they're headed. So I do
think there's a legitimate chance that he's in a real
quarterback competition. It's the only one that's had a full
NFL off season to date because the other two guys
are rookies that I think would be in a competition.

Speaker 2 (02:25:57):
It's good to have teams like that around.

Speaker 3 (02:25:59):
You know, they waste some of the good players there,
and hopefully one of their goodest players that's now here
in Houston, whatt Teller, will still be one.

Speaker 4 (02:26:06):
He's gooder.

Speaker 2 (02:26:07):
What else.

Speaker 16 (02:26:07):
Yeah, if anybody should learn from going all in on
one player, you would think it would be the Browns
guaranteeing that contract all the picks they give up, and
then they come up with a proposal to where you
could trade all your picks five years ahead of time.

Speaker 3 (02:26:21):
Maybe they were just floating it out there to see
what kind of reaction it got, and they now have
that information.

Speaker 2 (02:26:26):
Well, they succeeded, all right.

Speaker 16 (02:26:27):
The final thing And in case you miss it, guys,
NFL officially awards Super Bowl sixty three to Las Vegas.
You think that all the football fans will be excited
to go to Vegas and pay seventeen dollars for a beer?

Speaker 2 (02:26:38):
How much? How small is that beer?

Speaker 1 (02:26:40):
I was about to say seventeen sheeps? These days, how
many Vegas super bowls have.

Speaker 2 (02:26:44):
We had the stadium's knew, That's what I thought, But
it's not that new, new.

Speaker 3 (02:26:49):
Enough that they will be seeing it again. This is
the second time.

Speaker 4 (02:26:53):
That's what I thought. So when was the first one?

Speaker 1 (02:26:55):
I know, you're good with years several years ago. I
remember that stadium open. That stadium is very nice, though,
very very twenty four. Oh it's way newer than I thought. Yeah,
I guess that.

Speaker 4 (02:27:07):
Yeah, that makes sense, you know.

Speaker 3 (02:27:10):
So far for this upcoming super Bowl Atlanta Mercedes Benz
for twenty eight and now Nevada Vegas Allegiate Two's crazy?

Speaker 2 (02:27:20):
Is that stadium you just said it was open in
twenty twenty four? It's two years. No, No, that was when
the super Bowl was there. Oh, okay, which is normally
right after it opens.

Speaker 4 (02:27:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:27:28):
I would assume it opened in like twenty two or
twenty three, somewhere in that range.

Speaker 2 (02:27:34):
And I've already been there three times for three very
different events.

Speaker 1 (02:27:38):
It's nice though, Like I'm not just saying the stadium,
like the concourses all that kind.

Speaker 3 (02:27:42):
As soon as the league allowed to move, this seemed
obvious this would be a destination super Bowl. It would
be in the rotation, and it clearly now it is
so far right, yep, has to be no question. I
really want to go to that stadium.

Speaker 1 (02:27:54):
I don't know what four though, I don't know that
I necessarily want to go there for a football game.

Speaker 2 (02:27:59):
Maybe you're team will be in it in twenty twenty seven, hope.

Speaker 1 (02:28:03):
So, I hope CJ is getting his you know what together,
his playbook.

Speaker 3 (02:28:10):
Sure, if you want to call it that, I think
his stuff is plenty together. And he had a bad
ay Ah. There were moments why the playoff performances weren't awesome,
but he never had a day like that.

Speaker 2 (02:28:24):
He didn't lose them those games like he lost them
that game.

Speaker 3 (02:28:28):
And you could say the same thing about the regular
season too, even with far less pressure, probably least noting.

Speaker 2 (02:28:33):
Look at us being diplomatic.

Speaker 1 (02:28:34):
All right, final segment of the program, Will WEX apologize
or not?

Speaker 4 (02:28:41):
Plus whatever else we want to do?

Speaker 2 (02:28:42):
That's next.

Speaker 8 (02:28:45):
The eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (02:28:49):
Is that better?

Speaker 2 (02:28:49):
He's sending an email right now?

Speaker 1 (02:28:51):
So I did that on purpose because I knew it
would be particularly annoying more than usual. Do me a
favorite play That last SoundBite we have in the system,
The last sound bite we had for the show today
that we were gonna play. I mean, it's number eight,
but we actually have nine in the system. Ten technically
play eight. Okay, eight, Here comes.

Speaker 17 (02:29:10):
One two and that's hit the other way and in
the right field, and that's down for Apa Sip though
Perfedo scores around third coming home Walker the front of
up plate by Solaire's cut off. Walker's scores over the
third go Smith Christian Vasquez his first at bat of
the season, a two run single, two nothing Astro.

Speaker 1 (02:29:27):
All right, First of all, screw you, Solaire. That's for
the Braves twenty twenty one World Series. And secondly, you
were just merciless impiling on Christian Vasquez. You insulted him
his family. There was there was some you threw some

(02:29:48):
name calling it as pets. You just everything and all
that's made up. Obviously you were not about the Christian
Vasquez signing though.

Speaker 3 (02:29:57):
Right you, As I said earlier before you got knew
what we were talking about. This supposed apology that I'm
supposed to offer is being totally misguided. If Christian Vasquez
produces for the Astros and it turns out to be
a good signing, I'm not going to apologize to Christian.

Speaker 4 (02:30:12):
Who are you gonna apologize to Dana?

Speaker 2 (02:30:15):
Oh? Well?

Speaker 3 (02:30:16):
I mean, Vasquez is what he is. He's not a
good He's not a good player. He's the terrible offensive player.
I mean he can catch the baseball just fine, so
can Martin. Martin could play catcher if nothing else was
required offensively for another ten years.

Speaker 2 (02:30:29):
Easy. That's who Christian Vasquez looks at.

Speaker 7 (02:30:31):
Now.

Speaker 2 (02:30:32):
He's working for the Braves right like you just heard it.

Speaker 3 (02:30:38):
He's batted two at bats for Christian Vasquez and one
of them produced two runs. The first five he's hitting
five hundred and not only that, he did what I
wish more players who were helpless at the plate at
certain points of their careers, and he's there. He just
took advantage of the situation. The bases are loaded, there's

(02:30:59):
a massive hole between first and second, and this pitcher
decided and catch its. Let's saw him something outside. He
just slapped it over their heads. He just slapped it
into the wide open opening and he not two runs in.
I wish more hitters would do that when the opportunity
is there for him. That's actually the sign of a
smart player, which again he is. It's clearly not personal.

(02:31:21):
It's nothing against him, and he's not doing anything. He's
not gonna play above his head. He's not gonna play,
but he's gonna play exactly as he's played the last
several years. I'm a pretty surprised that they played it
this way, though, having nothing to do with his offense,
and the fact that they won the game, that they
paired him with EMI. Now, I don't know if that's permanent.
I tend to believe it might be because he doesn't
know anything about him. He was the last person to

(02:31:44):
catch him that was in camp. All the other catchers
at least had something to do with him, and now
you bring this guy in with a week to go.
He barely knows the new pitchers. He's a major league VET,
so we can adapt clearly, But this is kind of
a special case.

Speaker 1 (02:31:57):
I know it's four years later, but does this make
it more more or less impressive that he drove in
an insurance run on the biggest stage in baseball?

Speaker 2 (02:32:06):
I mean, I guess I'd use the word irrelevant, but
it wasn't irrelevant. I mean, I know it's irrelevant to
who he is in twenty twenty six, yeah, but how
far off is he from what he was in twenty
twenty two?

Speaker 3 (02:32:18):
Well, just I guess if you want to make it relevant,
we can revisit what my thoughts were on the Astros
have traded for Christian Vasquez as they hope to put
another World Series title on the under their belts.

Speaker 2 (02:32:30):
I hated the deal. You really did. You're consistent. If
nothing else, he.

Speaker 3 (02:32:34):
Gave him exactly what they hoped for. He got the
occasional start. He was a very reputable backup then, he
was very good with his pitching staff. He had a
very important at bat.

Speaker 2 (02:32:42):
Do you remember the day we were at the ballpark
and he got traded here from the Red Sox they
were here.

Speaker 3 (02:32:47):
It's right what we have Red Sox as clubhouse. It's
happened with the Astros a couple of times over the years.
He was because the Red Sox were equally involved in
trying to do something great with him on their roster,
and he ends up here. So yeah, it's again, it's
nothing about who he is. The Astros two years ago
tried to upgrade their ability to win games because of

(02:33:10):
who their backup catcher was, Victor Karattini, and they did
that successfully for two seasons. I didn't expect him to
be the team to pay Victor the kount of money
I knew he could get.

Speaker 2 (02:33:20):
I get that.

Speaker 3 (02:33:21):
But their attempt at fixing the backup catcher spot with
some you know, thoughts about who their backup catcher is
or who their catcher the future is. Their catcher of
the future is already in the system. He's just not
an Astro yet. Walker Gyanica is catching games for the Astros,
probably as soon as regularly, as soon as twenty twenty seven.

Speaker 2 (02:33:40):
That very easily could be the case where he is
September close to.

Speaker 3 (02:33:45):
It kind of depends on what's happened with these other
two guys, because you don't really need to bring him
up here to watch.

Speaker 2 (02:33:50):
And what's happening with the team.

Speaker 3 (02:33:52):
Yeah, there's no real September call up idea unless they're winning,
and September call ups really don't even exist anymore.

Speaker 2 (02:33:57):
It's like one or two guys maybe with the roster
expanding by two. Was Hunter Brown the last real September
call up? Yeah, except he probably should have come up
sooner than that.

Speaker 4 (02:34:07):
M M was.

Speaker 2 (02:34:08):
He was their best prospect.

Speaker 3 (02:34:09):
He was blowing people away and they were they were
being careful with him, but he obviously came up and
did a great job. Yeah, it's nothing against Vasquez. Vasquez
for his career has been a very useful player to
his teams. The last several years, he has been a
useful backup catcher for his teams. He's just a really
bad offensive player and I'm sure that will play out
after his average dips.

Speaker 2 (02:34:27):
Below five hundred. Well, that a happening tonight.

Speaker 3 (02:34:30):
He was one of a handful of Astros with a
handful of bats to go in yesterday's game. There was
a team leading two RBI on one swing and then
Christian Walker got three, and then Perets passed them all
with three and four on one swing. Again, I just
don't I thought in my opinion, and now Sezar Salazar

(02:34:50):
has it worked out. They kind of got lucky. I'm
sure they felt like it would work this way. Nobody
claimed him. He's back with the Astros. He caught Spencer Raghady.
Yes in sugar Land. Spencer went four innings, allowed just
one hit, struck out four. He looked very good and
he's now back in the system. He's not on the
forty man, so if they needed him and he would
he would be their call up. If something happened to

(02:35:11):
one of these two guys, they would have to do that.
They still have more forty man spots to easily make
that happen. Example of it was today, you know who's
Cody Bolton? Why is he on the forty man roster? Well,
in order to be on the twenty six man roster,
they got to find a spot for him. They still
had Hayden was Nesky on the fifteen day IL, which
means he's on the forty man He's not pitching for
another sixty days. Minimum's probably more like ninety or one

(02:35:33):
hundred or under and twenty or more. So they put
him on the sixty day IL. So if and when
he's ready to pitch this year, they'd have to make
a move to get him on the active roster. They're
to worry about that in four months. They can do
the same thing with Renel. Renel's on the fifteen day
IL right now. If they absolutely positively had to bring
somebody up soon and they need a forty man spot,

(02:35:53):
that's a very easy way to do it without losing
any personnel.

Speaker 2 (02:35:56):
And it actually could be Salazar at some point. How
long until Spencer's back on a major league roster.

Speaker 3 (02:36:02):
Well, A lot of that has to do with how
many innings they have gotten from some of these other pitchers.
I don't think it's imminent, but as soon as they
finish up with this series they have the off day
proceeding traveling to West Sacramento, traveling to Colorado another off day,
and finishing up in Seattle, that they they've worked it.
So Emi is getting five days of rest throughout those

(02:36:24):
first several weeks, but they're gonna need somebody else, probably,
I don't know if the date was the thirteenth or
the twelfth or somewhere in there.

Speaker 2 (02:36:31):
With He's probably gonna be that guy. I can't say
for sure.

Speaker 3 (02:36:34):
Who else would it be? Well, the other three. There's
three pitchers right now and they all pitched one two three.
Alexander started on an opening day, did not pitch well.
Colton Gordon pitched on Saturday, he was excellent, and Arraghetti
pitched on Sunday and he was very good too. It
wouldn't shock me if they if it's for he's got
the next major league shops though right now, definitely, but
if they need a guy to come up and make

(02:36:55):
a start for this day and it's worked out that
it's I mean, they're pitching back to back Gordon and Arraghetty,
So I don't know how many days off it would
really be. Every minor league team has today off. Then
they play their six game series with Jacksonville coming up
tomorrow in Jacksonville.

Speaker 2 (02:37:10):
I love playing Jacksonville this time those two days.

Speaker 3 (02:37:14):
It being that they're back to back, somebody is probably
on relatively regular rest if and when that comes, but
I would hope that it would be Spencer, because you
want to bring somebody up that A you have more confidence,
and B probably stays here.

Speaker 2 (02:37:26):
I mean, at some point we're.

Speaker 3 (02:37:27):
Gonna whenever that is, we're gonna know more about the
other starters, Javier and mccullors most notable. He might's not
going anywhere with that injury, and Burrow's not going anywhere
without injury. But if Javier is not getting through innings
and not getting guys out and Lance is struggling, then
not only do you need a sixth starter whenever that
is soon, you might need somebody else in the five

(02:37:48):
man rotation when you get out of that.

Speaker 2 (02:37:49):
I really need Hoavier to get back to Javier. He
was okay. That's all you could say. Okay, And I
guess that's a small victory considering where he's coming from.
They go it again tonight.

Speaker 3 (02:38:00):
All the latest information up to date is always coming
up on the Astros on Deck Show. Dan Matthews will
have that for you. Robert Steve will take you into
the ballgame tonight. It is Lance McCullers Junior and his
twenty twenty six Astro's debut. The opponents for the next
three days, the Boston Red Sox Ranger Suarez goes tonight.

Speaker 2 (02:38:20):
We'll talk to you tomorrow.