Astros: Time to Press Panic Button, Rockets Can Win Out, Worst Costumes Ever?

Thursday on The A-Team, Adam Clanton and Adam Wexler share their concerns about the Astros, look ahead to the Rockets' possible playoff matchup, react to the Rangers new uniforms, and much more!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
What an opening? What's up right off the top? You
remember an anchorman?

Speaker 2 (00:05):
When uh, let's see, there was Ron and there was
Brick and there was Champ. What was what was the
fourth character's name, the one that was outside the panda's cave?
Brian Fantana, Brian Fantana?

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Thank you man?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
How could I forget our good friend Paul Rudd's name?
And he what did he say when they went.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
To him live? He said, Panda Watch? You remember that?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
I remember that an Anchorman? Yeah, well that's Panic Watch.
That's the Astros right now. They can't score. It was fun,
it was all funny games. And they're giving up seven
eight nine runs with their pitching. Because they were scoring
seven eight nine runs.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
I know they could have only scored sixteen times the
last two games they would have won. Yes, man, I
knew you would do in their last two games if
they'd added fourteen more runs properly to each of the
two games they lost. Now, so you can panic also
if you think they can't stop the other team from scoring,
because it's both happening.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
You have to admit I am in really good spirits
considering that I told you i'd come in a few
times this season and be panicking, and I'm just like, nah, No.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
I didn't expect to be in panic mode this early
in the season, considering they were five and two when
they left town.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
They have not yet returned to town.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
They got a whole weekend's worth of games and into Monday.
As we welcome you into the Thursday edition of the
programs the weekend, so we're.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Going to keep it light.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
It's Thursday afternoon. It's time to have some fun. Get
ready for whatever makes you happy over the weekend. Thursday night,
Friday night, Saturday night, go out nights if you want whatever.
It is good tennis. I don't know about that. I
mean it is good golf because we do have the
As you heard at the end of the last show,
it's whisper time because we pay attention to golf for
a handful of days a year. Really paid more attention

(01:44):
to golf when the tournament was here in town. I'm
glad to hear that. But yeah, the Masters is also
now teed off, and we'll keep the update on a
few things regarding that. A lot of extended because of
the timing of it, a lot more Tiger Woods jokes.
Also dropping on a lot of jokes being told at
people's personal lives expenses because it all became public information

(02:07):
kind of over the last couple of days. Again, we
weren't with you yesterday. I was with you for the
Astros tenth inning show following the second of the two
consecutive losses.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
We haven't been here for.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
But it's four consecutive losses that the Astros have now suffered.
They're under five hundred like almost the entire American League.
If you lead the division in the American League, congratulations,
you've won more than you've lost. Every other team not
above five hundred. Twelve other American League teams have not
won more games than they've lost. Handful of teams are

(02:40):
even The Astros fell under that with a fourth consecutive defeat.
Have not yet set the rotation for Sunday and Monday
of next week, but roster moves were necessary, and we'll
tell you what they did, at least initially to help
their roster that's ravaged by overuse and the pitching side,
and obviously Jake Meyer's injury and yesterday game will have

(03:01):
them needing another player. How much they will use that player,
we don't know. But two games where the Astros scored
just one run a piece, a home run from Christian
Walker and an RBI single from Bryce Matthews, who was
emergency inserted into the game that moment in the game
because that's when Jake Myers got hurt. It's all the
offense they could muster in Colorado, which is equally surprising.

(03:24):
The two teams they played these to open up this
road trip. They play in offensively charged stadiums for different
reasons and really doesn't even matter who's on their particular teams.
Runs usually get scored in those two venues, and they
did by the other team almost entirely. There was one
shout out for the Astros, and that's the story of

(03:44):
their season. If they're on the road and the other
team doesn't score, they will win. But if the other
team does score, it's over. The Astros cannot win every
game on the road. They've allowed a run. They've lost
so far one in five on the road, and they
got four more. Like we said, the Mariners series starts,
nobody's going through it more results.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Wise than Seattle.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
Well, that's the first team in baseball to earn a
ninth loss was the Seattle Mariners. They'll head into play
tomorrow at four and nine. The Astrous will head into
play at six and seven, and by the time they've
gotten through or gotten to first pitch of the final
game of the series on Monday afternoon, the NBA's regular

(04:30):
season will be complete. Most teams now sitting on three
games remaining a handful with just two. The Rockets are
in the group that have three games remaining, and there's
only four days left in the season, so the last
of their back to backs begins tonight. They've got Philadelphia
in town. Memphis will be their opponent for tomorrow night's game.
Everybody in the NBA is off on Saturday, and then

(04:50):
everybody in the NBA is back on for the Sunday
evening finales, all three at home for the Rockets. There
were a lot of things determined in the Western conferen
It's postseason based on last night's results. Heading into play,
only one team had their seed locked in. That was
Golden State, the worst seed ten. It's not even a
real seed. You're not even in the playoffs yet, and
they're not gonna be unless they win twice on the road,

(05:13):
and after last night's activity, the one seed is set.
It's the Oklahoma City Thunder. The two seed is set,
it's the San Antonio Spurs. The sixth seed is set
tomorrow night's opponent the Minnesota Timberwolves. The seventh seed is set.
The victims of the Rocket's most recent beatdown comeback, the

(05:35):
Phoenix Suns, and again the ten seed, the Warriors. So
all that's left to determine the last two home court
advantage spots for the opening round of the playoffs spots
three and four. One of their opponents spot five, and
the other two teams the middle two teams they're known
but in which spot they fall, the Blazers and Clippers.
One of those teams will be eight. One of those

(05:55):
teams will be nine. And you know by now, three,
four and five is still a battle between the Nuggets,
the Lakers, and the Rockets. Lakers and Rockets off last
night on tonight, and the Denver Nuggets pushed a little
bit further away from both of them with their victory.
As per usual, they KQ walked through their game and
then fifteen twelve, nine minutes to go in the game,

(06:16):
they absolutely obliterate their opposition, which they did last night.
So they are a game and a half up on
the Lakers, who they do not have the tiebreaker against,
game and a half up on the Rockets, who they
do have the tiebreaker against. And with some of those
results from last night, how it impacts everything. Oh my god,
Denver plays Oklahoma City and San Antonio to close out

(06:38):
the season. Those games don't matter to those two teams anymore.
Those are the only two games left for the Denver Nuggets,
and it is of zero consequence to either of their
opponents if they win those games. So I would expect
rest and limited use, if any use, from the players
that matter for the Thunder And quite honestly, the same
thing happened with the Lakers remaining opponents. Not so for

(06:59):
the Rockets opponents. Certainly not tonight. Philadelphia could finish fifth
or sixth, or seventh or eighth or ninth or tenth
in the Eastern Conference, they probably would prefer whatever they
perceive as the most beneficial spot. I guarantee you that
doesn't involve attempting to lose.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
No, They've got what they are.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
They still a half game behind the sixth seed Toronto
to avoid the play in tournament, if you will, they're
definitely trying to play for you.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
Also avoid playing a two seed one seed, right, you
get to play a three seed or a four seed, but.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
They're gonna do it without Joel Embiid.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
Yeah, Joel Embiid is not gonna play tonight. Tyrese Maxi
is available. The Rockets probably, I'll say it's forty five
to fifty five, the low end being the maybe will
have a full complement of players other than the two
obvious ones with Steven Adams and Fred van Vliet, but
illness with a Tarry Easton could have him sideline tonight.

(08:02):
Probably have further word on that before we wrap things
up here tonight, AC with mt on the call over
at toy At Center tonight for the seven o'clock tip,
So we'll take you through the five o'clock hour to
get you there. But there is a lot left to
be determined, really much more so in the Eastern Conference
now than in the West. But as you look at
these last three games, it's clearly more important than anything

(08:23):
else that happens because the Rockets are either playing Denver
or they're playing La in the opening round, and that
is it. We are down to that at this point.
If they're playing Denver, they will obviously have a very
tall task, very very tall task. But the opportunity to
play La and start here in Houston is clearly still
in front of them.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Take care of business. Take care of business.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
Doesn't matter who you're playing, It doesn't matter what they're
playing or not playing for. If you win out, you're
the four seed, you're playing the Lakers at home. That's
not necessarily is because the Denver Nuggets aren't going to
lose the three seed.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
But why aren't the Lakers going to stay ahead of
you as they are today? Because they suck? But that
also they still have to lose. They will.

Speaker 3 (09:07):
Which of the games do you think they will lose
to Golden who's not trying, to Phoenix who's not trying,
or Utah who's dying to lose? Okay, I mean seriously,
even if it's being promoted tonight, Steph Curry's missed time
and Lebron James and they've missed time. This will be
their first meeting of the season tonight, Golden State. How

(09:28):
much how much is Steph Curry playing in these three
games their tenth Well, that's all there is to it.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
They either have to determine with him specifically and their
team if they want to quote, ramp him up to
play in what two postseason games?

Speaker 1 (09:47):
Max?

Speaker 2 (09:48):
I mean need to ramp up. We watched him, I know.
Well that's what I'm getting at. If he did that
to the Rockets. And I'm not saying the Rockets are
an all world defense by any stretch, what is he
going to do to the Lakers?

Speaker 3 (09:58):
They don't play any But my point is, why would
he do anything to the Lakers?

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Well, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Are you, if you're the Warriors, are you wanting to
have him continue to get some reps in just from
a conditioning steam?

Speaker 1 (10:11):
I mean in place since January thirties? Right?

Speaker 3 (10:13):
They have a back to back, So does he play
in both of them? Is it the first game as
the Lakers or the second game? It's tonight, okay, I
would think, And who's the second game? I don't know
the Phoenix Sun's schedule. They're not impactful anymore. No, I'm
talking about the Warriors.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
I don't know the Warriors' schedule off the top of
my head.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
But it's definitely the Lakers tonight. Yes, Well, that's the
game he's going to be playing the majority.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
Of Yes, exactly, So they're gonna you know, I'm sorry,
but the Lakers are bad, very bad. It's not a
given that the other team, who has nothing on the
line is gonna just.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Again, it's whatever is less than a given that the
Rockets are gonna win out. Why would we think they
would just take care of business. It's the exact opposite
of what they've done all season long, whether they're playing
good teams, whether they're playing crappy teams, and especially when
they're playing crappy teams, they almost consistently played down to

(11:09):
their competition.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
So the point of this whole conversation, as I made
it continue, yeah, it really shouldn't matter to Houston.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Nothing should matter at any point anymore.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
They're in the best position they could hope to have
been in based on how the rest of the season went,
and they got there by winning seven consecutive games. They
can stay there by winning three more consecutive games. And
when they get to the point where their playoff positioning
is no longer impacted by a game, whether it's Friday
night's game, which I'm sure they can't be there yet,
or Sunday evenings game, well, then you can approach it differently.

(11:40):
You don't have to go into the postseason on a
ten game winning streak, but I would love to see
it if those games still matter to wherever they fall.
You're not messing with karma, you're not playing bingo with
the basketball gods. You're just playing basketball. It's the best
basketball they've played all season. I'm really not that concerned
about who they play, because if they played this way,

(12:01):
they only have two possible opponents in the opening round.
I'm not going to favor them over Denver, but they
can beat them. I'll absolutely be favoring the Rockets over
the Lakers if it plays out that way.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
Yeah, and I I mean, I guess there's technically could
the Denver Nuggets. Could the Rockets leap frog them for
the third seed? Yes, I mean I know, yes, because
they're a half game back, But in.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
Light of their game and a half back that the
Nuggets basically have to because they have I don't know
how far down the roster they can go to to
attempt to lose a game to two teams that are
also not gonna be playing. I mean, Oklahoma City is
gonna play a bunch of reserves tomorrow night, and they're
probably gonna play pretty well.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Oklahoma's a pretty deep team. San Antonio is.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
Probably gonna play nothing but reserves on Sunday night most
for the most part. But I mean, the players are
still gonna try to win. Somebody's gonna win the game.
Denver and Oklahoma City. Somebody will win Tomorrow night, Denver
and San Antoni. Somebody will win. It's just not gonna
be because Nikola Jokic led them to victory. Here Victor
Webbin Yama had a fifty burger because those things aren't
on the table anymore.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
The Victor Wemban Yama thing is so nauseating. This whole
complaining about the sixty five games. This it's but he's
not the center of it. It's everybody that's like eight
different players. He's his own category because he's he's on
a minute restriction as it is, so I already it
just annoys me.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
Because he's ninety six then minutes played this year in
the NBA something like that. I know it changed last night,
haven't updated by us my stats. He's probably not even
in the top hundred anymore.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
The fact that he played fifteen minutes and forty seconds
so that he could use one of those exceptions to
be eligible for all of his awards.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
It's just laughable. And the same.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
People one hundred and first, okay, one hundred other NBA
players who will not get MVP votes, maybe ninety five
who will not get MVP votes played more than he did.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
This guy's definitely the most valuable player in the NBA,
give me a break. And the same people that are yeah,
but morons will because they think there's some man too,
not very many. The thing is, most of the people
complaining about this sixty five games you have to play
rule are the same ones that wanted that rule imposed
when Joel, I mean yeah, when Joel Embiid and Nicola

(14:13):
Jokic were being debated for whether or not they should
be the MVP, it probably.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
Should have just trusted the voters to use their own discretion,
and they didn't.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
And so now we're dealing with this here we are,
like fifty other things in the NBA. We've got way
more than fifty things to get to here. On a
Thursday edition of the program, we'll get back into some
astros conversation when we return.

Speaker 4 (14:36):
The A on sports talking.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
Oh my goodness, gracious, there's a lot of stuff going
on I'm really looking forward.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
To Best of X today.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yeah, we weren't here with you yesterday, likely would have
been a part of Best of X yesterday.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
What do you think so, doctor, I think so it's
just so like not surprising at all.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Ah, I don't mean, I don't know. I've heard so
many things. I think it's much more surprising than you.
You've heard them too, people, Wipers were not Best of
EXUS eight minutes out. We'll get there.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
When we get there, I'm just so excited, so all
not to hijack the segment dead and send us back
in the direction we were in to close the last segment.
But when we opened up the show recently checking on
where things stood with the game of most importance to
Rockets fans tonight, their own game, and checking out the
injury situation. As we mentioned Joel Embiid that was updated.

(15:28):
He is out with illness. Tarry Easton also with illness,
but he's just questionable at this point. But I did
peruse down to the Warriors Lakers situation. That's why we
had our discussion. But since then, uh, oh, Seph Curry's
out tonight.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
Oh good, so they'll only win by twenty instead of forty.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
So no, this is undoubtedly intentional. They know how much
Rockets fans. Let's see, Golden State lives rent freeing Rockets
fans heads, so they will perceive this as an intentional
move by Golden State to help the Lakers win.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
Did I get it right by the letter of the law.
You did it correctly. But I cannot even the Warriors.
If there are Rockets fans out there who still have
the Warriors living rent free in their heads, you're just pathetic.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
And that's why I don't But I still can't quite
grasp the rent free comment, Terry. Why see, they shouldn't
live rent free, and they've bought lots and lots of
condos inside the Rockets. They've beaten them in the playoffs,
they've beaten their brains, and they've constantly been they just
they're not good. They're not even that good with Steph
and the Rockets had to hit a game winner in

(16:38):
the final eleven point one seconds.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
To beat them.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
This has been this has not actually been a thing,
no matter what you say you being Rockets fans, since
the Warriors were actually contenders, which ended basically with their
last championship four years ago. Because here's the thing you
can talk about. That's that's what drove me crazy about
last year because I knew it was about the matchup.
It was what the matchup would then lead to. If

(17:04):
somehow the Rockets don't beat this awful led by Brandon
Pozemski team, there was gonna be everybody here in Houston saying, well,
ruts just owned by wars They should probably do something
dramatic in the offseason since they lost to the Warriors,
probably trade two of their starters if I were them,
but they did, they could have They could have lost
to any seventh seed and that would have been the

(17:26):
right move.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
You will never convince one has nothing to do with
the other.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yeah, you'll never convince me that the Kevin Durant trade
was the wrong thing to do.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
Yeah, we need not dive into that discussion here, but
just wanted to give that Warriors information because the Lakers inconsequential.
They're only consequential because of who they play. They're playing
the Lakers tonight. It matters if you're attempting to have
the Lakers visit Houston for Games one and two, and
I guess Game five, if there is one, it would

(17:54):
be it would be helpful if the Lakers lost.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
I actually think that's what's going to happen the Rockets.
The Rocket cannot pass the Lakers unless the Lakers lose again.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Right, The Rockets, I think will get the four because
I think the Lakers will find a way to lose
again because that's what they do, and then it'll be
four or five. It'll start in Houston. The Rockets will
find a way to lose one of those games in
LA because that's what they do, and then they'll come
home with the gentleman's sweep and then they'll get slaughtered
in the second round by Oklahoma City.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
I've already got this mapped out. It's gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
And when they get Fred and Steven back, and they
make some adjustments to the roster in the offseason, maybe
some big ones, then it'll be a different story. But
I like, if you want to ask me to sugarcoat
it or make it all pretty and neat and nice
for you Rockets fans, because you want me to somehow
think they're going to do anything other than losing the
second round this year, given who they're facing. I'm not

(18:42):
gonna do it. I'm not gonna not be honest with
you about this. And if they had Fred van Vliet
and Steven Adams, i'd give them more of a puncher's chance.
But nobody's gonna pick anybody against the Thunder, including the
stupid Spurs. And they can stop with that too. You're
not beating them in the postseason. You're not beating the
Thunder four times before they beat you four times.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
Uh Again, that matchup's not necessarily set. It's the one
that's gonna take the longest to get to. And Denver
will have a say on whether or not that matchup
even it occurs. Denver is the great you know, and
will presumably the Rockets, yeah, have a say and whether
that even occurs.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
Denver is the great fly in the ointment. They're the
only team I think that Actually, I'm gonna say this
right now. I don't think it's the Spurs. I do
think Denver could find a way, somehow, some way to
beat the Thunder in a seven game series. I strongly
don't think that about the Spurs.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
Yeah, I don't know if this if the Nuggets finish
third or fourth, likely is they finished third. And if
you're asking me today, who's gonna play in the Western
Conference Finals, it's the Nuggets and the Thunder. If the
Thunder end up in the one to four matchup because
the Denver Nuggets somehow fell into the four spot right, well,
then I would probably I would strongly consider having the
Nuggets and some other team because I do think they

(19:52):
have a chance to beat the Thunder. The Thunder are far, far,
far far from invincible, probably not going to lose it
to the Eastern Conference if they reached the final, correct,
But I don't think there are as invincible as as
maybe at certain points this year some people.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
Did think, do you think as it pertains to the
Thunder when they get to the postseason, Because I honestly
I don't remember last season whether this was a thing
or not. I'm sure it was, but what always happened
with the Rockets, and specifically James Harden those free throws stopped.
It was like somebody turned off the faucet.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
It was so bad.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
He could get raped across the eyes by Draymond Green,
he could get a saw. I mean, all sorts of
things were happening. He wasn't gonna get those free throws.
Did did did a SGA shoot his fair amount last season?

Speaker 1 (20:39):
On their way to the title.

Speaker 3 (20:41):
Well, semantically, I don't know how to answer that. Was
it close to his regular season number, That's what I'm asking.
I mean, I would say it was close.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
I was his regular season last year.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
I don't think it was quite that high. Shut nine
point four free throws per game in his twentieth three
postseason games a season ago.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
What a he shot?

Speaker 3 (21:04):
What a luxury two point eight free throws per game
during the regular season, so it went up.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
So it actually what a luxury to be able to
foul your defender and get rewarded for it. Whereas Harden
was just looking for some calls. I know people want.

Speaker 3 (21:20):
To tell for calls, driving into traffic, not trying to
even score, just looking for calls.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
That's that's what you meant, right.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Just The main thing that people will bring up when
I have this conversation this season about this and about
the two of these guys, is they'll always talking about
the the you know, the follow or the rip through
move that Harden did, you know, the one that the
NBA looked at and said, well, we've got to change
this rule. We can't have that happening anymore. What have
they done to change anything? About what SGA is doing,
which is straight up hitting the other guy and pushing

(21:48):
him back and then getting a foul call. Are you
freaking kidding me?

Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah? An MJ move. No, not a push, a push off.
You just have to push off.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
Right.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
If you say I wanted to entertain that Acidine statement
you just made, we just get I tried, I would
just negate it by saying yeah, but at least the
defender was able to hand check him. Could you imagine
if people could hand jack Sga, he would die?

Speaker 3 (22:13):
James Harden twenty seventeen eighteen, Yeah, that's the one you want.
MVP year uh seven point eight free throw attempts per
game in the playoffs in their seventeen games regular season, Well,
he was fifth in the playoffs in those attempts per game.
He was first in the regular season in attempts per
game eleven ten point one.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
Ten point one. Okay, So so it's.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
The exact reverse, basically, twenty five percent fewer attempts in
the playoffs than regular.

Speaker 2 (22:40):
I wonder if the Rockets would have, I don't know,
won the championship if he has gone to the line
many times he should have.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
You're not playing teams that don't can't defend, so they
foul more or you're There's a lot of different things
to it, but the game in general does usually change
a little bit in the postseason, the pace of the game,
the half court aspect of the game, and you know,
seeming wanting the players to determine the game on the
from the field rather than from the free throw line

(23:07):
is probably part of it. But that just means they
let more fouls go, not that they call right, but
they could do that both ways in some games. Certainly
in this Rockets run very very very much stand out
to us because they let obvious you have to call
these fouls go, and that's not helpful really to anybody
who likes NBA basketball. Best of X the topic that

(23:27):
is running circles through social media at the expense of
these poor, poor two people and their families.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
It's next to.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
During our time away here, which was yesterday, yesterday, Astros
Baseball had us here during the A team until I
brought you the tenth Inning show. A lot of people,
a lot of certainly members of the media, print podcast
world of the bloggers, and of course those in radio
and television, especially on the NFL side, well, they've been
digging into what The New York Post dug into initially,

(24:05):
which were photos at a very very exclusive resort of
a member of the media and one of only thirty
two people walking the planet, an NFL head coach. There's
only thirty two of them all across this great earth
of ours.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
What a coincidence?

Speaker 3 (24:21):
And the photos which again, as the story continued, this
is the Mike Vrabel Diana Roussini story.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
Quite obviously.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
As the story continued to get discussed, more and more
people started to get into the background of it, not
the obvious background of it. Is there really a relationship here?
But why did this come to light? These are photos
from a couple of weeks ago. These are photos that
it's not really a situation where, hey man, it's twenty

(24:51):
twenty six, everybody's got a phone and you just got
to be careful by how you act. This was pretty
clearly designed, it would seem, I can assume, to spot them,
somebody asked for them to have a camera where on
this other rooftop balcony, exclusive rooftop balcony, to see if

(25:12):
maybe photos could be captured both of them to the
Post gave information saying this is ludicrous, or I was
with this group of people and she was with this
group of people. They didn't give a joint statement separately
saying those types of things, and these pictures don't accurately
depict what was going on. If you're a radio host
around the country, I'm sure you were talking about interlocking

(25:35):
fingers and what that means. And anytime you've ever interlocked
fingers with somebody, your intentions were clear, or you'd already
shown her or him your intentions because it had already
already happened, not your normal encounter with someone that you
otherwise would only see in the workplace. And Diana's own
comments herself apparently were about it's not uncommon to have

(25:58):
interactions with people outside the building, right outside venues, which
has also gotten a lot of people wondering that. I mean,
maybe for a very small group of people, and it's
not totally outrageous and totally uncommon for a media member
and a player to ultimately end up together. But that's

(26:19):
nothing at all what we're talking about here. If we
were really, you know, nice people, we'd be talking about
the two married others and the families that this involves. Obviously,
I think Most people know that Mike Grabel has been
married for almost thirty years. They have two fully grown kids,
and Diana Russini by now because of what's happened, most

(26:41):
people are aware that she's been married for about six years.
And obviously he's been covering the NFL for a long time.
Mike's been around the NFL for a long time. But
the digging and digging and digging not only with well,
she used to get this information. She got this information.
I wonder why, and I wonder and everyone's having a
good old time with it. Well, can we just let
Diana speak for herself to see what kind of time
everybody wants to have with this. Sure, So the digging

(27:04):
and digging and digging, because this is what social media,
Oh my god, this person's about to get this job. Well,
let's go find out what they said. Oh, this person's
about to get drafted. Let's go find some of their
old posts. There's plenty on social media and on YouTube.
And because she's in the media, she conducts interviews, she
has her own podcast, She's been working for major networks.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
There's loads of stuff out there.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
I haven't seen anybody pull any audio from her when
she was talking about this NFL player or this NFL
deal or what she's hearing, but rather times when she
was talking about rather personal things. So I'll just run
through a few of those, because everybody seems to be
having a good time with it. This is the A
team here on Sports Talk seven ninety. I already told
you in the opening segment it's the weekend. It's time

(27:45):
for good times. So even at somebody's expense, which I
do ultimately feel very bad about.

Speaker 1 (27:51):
They had good times too. Apparently we don't know.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
But among the things that she said that's been reposted
all over social media and relationship stuff, there was this
talking about when people are in love.

Speaker 5 (28:05):
I think we all do weird things when we're in love,
and we overshare and overpost.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
And I'm married to someone average, I don't.

Speaker 6 (28:12):
Post a lot about them.

Speaker 5 (28:13):
If I was married to someone beautiful, I don'ver post too.

Speaker 7 (28:16):
Together.

Speaker 5 (28:17):
And you know what the worst part is, he sent
me a text during that segment, not watching because he
actually works for a.

Speaker 4 (28:23):
Living, and he said, good luck today, be great on
get ups. So the guy's got a heart.

Speaker 8 (28:28):
Of gold, and here I am on national TV killing him.
I need to really stop killing my husband on television.

Speaker 6 (28:34):
I'm gonna be divorced by Christmas couple.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
I don't know how much time ago, but when she
worked over it to the network that carries Get Up,
they replayed that segment, which I then added her response
to it because they obviously thought it was funny enough
to replay her killing verbally her husband and then indicating
she's going to be divorced soon again, you can playfully
talk about your relationship, as she continued to do in

(29:00):
this case, speaking for all women, I.

Speaker 5 (29:04):
Think when men propose that's their wedding day, like that's
when you guys are all in, it's not really all in.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
For us yet.

Speaker 5 (29:13):
I think for women, the actual wedding day is the moment.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
So I mean, keV was all down for.

Speaker 5 (29:19):
I was the one that was very skeptical.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
I was like a little mo.

Speaker 3 (29:25):
Pause, is there more? Oh, there's lots more way into
the next segment.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
Let me yeah, I play one more.

Speaker 3 (29:33):
This is a continuation of that commentary because she then
gets into the night before her wedding because she was
still working and.

Speaker 5 (29:41):
So the night before my wedding, I'm making calls and
I had a phone interview set up with Jimmy Garoppolo,
and I remember Jimmy was greating made like a funny joke, like, hey,
it's night.

Speaker 6 (29:54):
Before your wedding.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
You sure you want to do this.

Speaker 5 (29:56):
I'm thinking, like, of all the people in my life
and I'm gonna talk the night before wedding, the one guy.

Speaker 4 (30:02):
My dad wanted me to or my mom.

Speaker 8 (30:04):
Wanted me to marry, was Jimmy Garoppolo.

Speaker 6 (30:06):
And he's calling me like this is a sign.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
Of all the people in my life. She's referring to
Jimmy Garoppolo, like, I know you do have relationship with players.
When you are an insider and you've got everybody's phone over,
you make calls to them when you need something, and
obviously in this case vice versa.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
But wow, I have so much to say about this
absolute witch of a human being.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
Maybe come on, Oh, I've got you on that.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
If you want to question whether or not they were
bumping uglies, wow, I'll tell you exactly why. I know
that this was not just interlocking fingers by the pool.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
There's more to it.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
There's more audio to it. There are our thoughts to it.
You're welcome to share yours as well. It's intern active
program here, by the way, Thursday afternoon.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
Zero's surprise about my verable either by the way, zero zero,
say what you want, that's my opinion, does not surprise
me at all.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
It does.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
It definitely doesn't surprise me about her because we have
ample evidence.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
Does surprise you is that, without any evidence other than
these photos, you're one hundred percent certain that's what you're saying, correct,
got it? We have, thankfully or unfortunately, more on this topic,
and more from Diana herself next year on the eighteen.

Speaker 2 (31:31):
All right, uh, before we before I weigh in on
one horrible person and one slightly less horrible person that
are getting together now, and I fully believe that I'm not.
I mean, you Wex or anybody else out there can
give them the benefit of the doubt all you want,

(31:55):
And I will admit that some of my leanings as
it pertains to Russini specifically, are based on things I've
heard in addition to these pictures.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
Anything I mean like this has been.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
This is very much a where there's smoke, there's fire
situation with her specifically, there have been rumors about her
for forever. And before you say, yeah, there's rumors about everybody, no,
not this much, not about this one person. I've never
seen anybody involved in covering the NFL that I've heard
that specific type of rumor about as many times as

(32:32):
I've heard about Diana Rossini. And that was before these
pictures came out. Now, let's talk about the actual pictures
and where they were taken. Where was the h Where
was the NFL team or owners meetings.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
Held at a resort or at at a resort not
too far well, a couple hours away from this resort
in Arizona.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah, where were they at?

Speaker 2 (32:55):
Not the same hotel, in a hotel that is known
as an adults only luxury resort two and a half
hours away from where the NFL owners meeting was held.
I mean, if you're there to cover the owner's meeting,
where was everybody else staying?

Speaker 3 (33:11):
If you think it's me again, we can get into
all that. You believe it no reason not to absolutely.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Great, But then when you put it like, I know
that all of these segments and these clips were playing
are supposed to be like in jest, and she's trying
to be fun Like, have you noticed that every single
one of them She's not really funny.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
She's just kind of running her husband into the ground.

Speaker 3 (33:35):
Yeah, apparently her mom thinks that their their their marriage
is in trouble. This is from several years ago. I'd
actually heard this one before. She was talking about her
mom giving her grief.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
You know who lets me know my marriage is going
apart my mom? So that's are we doing this with him?

Speaker 3 (33:52):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yes, yeah, please do it? I said, hey, thank you
so much.

Speaker 8 (33:56):
Ket told me that you stopped by the house.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
You did.

Speaker 6 (33:59):
Oh yeah, yeah, he looks good. He looks really good.

Speaker 4 (34:02):
I go, yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
I was like, he doesn't seem a stress this year.

Speaker 8 (34:05):
She's like, you know what, I'm starting to think he's
got a girlfriend, and you.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
Know what, good for him?

Speaker 4 (34:11):
What?

Speaker 1 (34:12):
He looks good.

Speaker 8 (34:13):
He's successful, his wife's never around.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
You love this football thing.

Speaker 6 (34:18):
That's why he looks good.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
I don't.

Speaker 6 (34:22):
I went right back out.

Speaker 8 (34:23):
I go, why would you see that to me right
now while I'm on a trip right that my husband
has a girlfriend, and just keep atty on your toes,
you don't.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
You know?

Speaker 1 (34:33):
Gee? I wonder how she turned out the way she did.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
What's everybody's home life and relationships within their family. You
don't have to be identical and look again, like do
what you want to do in your own time. Just
don't try and frame this like it's anything but what
it is. And my favorite part was Mike Vrabel's response,
I'm not even going to dignify this with any more
of a response.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
And I'm paraphrasing, yeah, okay, Like, come on, man, just
don't say anything that would be better than basically lying
to all of us.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
Again, if they are lying, then this that's what they're doing.
She continued though, with the grief, with her mom giving
it to her, and then, uh, you know, I don't
need you scaring me like this. I'm out working. I'm
miles and miles and states and states away. I mean,
I should try to make sure everything's okay.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
Now I'm wondering. I'm like that one girl in his
office is really pretty. Shoot later.

Speaker 9 (35:33):
Naked you you're just start repairing it from here.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
You'd be like, hey, show me a picture in the stadium.

Speaker 4 (35:44):
It's just me naked.

Speaker 3 (35:47):
I don't want that nobody.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
Could you imagine waking up to that voice every day?

Speaker 3 (35:55):
Kevin's been doing it for probably almost half almost a decade.
I imagine they were together before the marriage, just about
six years ago.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
But she tweeted something today irregular old sports tweet correct
The NFL informed its teams about when they could expect
to see replacement officials.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
Blah blah, blah, blah blah.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
Her first response was from a guy named Mark. It
was a giant elephant in the picture, and it says,
address me.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
I think he was in a room, right, it was
he was.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
In a little small room with chairs that he didn't
belong in. I mean, when's her next like live on
camera hit for whatever.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
Entity she's working for these days.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
I mean, probably an episode of her podcast. I would
imagine she has to address this, right, I don't think
that would probably be the forum for it, especially, I mean,
you're obviously controlling all the content. They're not taking questions
and answers. If she goes on somebody else's podcast, that
might be the case. She does another interview, that might
be the case, But on her own, I doubt it.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
If you're involved in something like this and then you
do your next whatever podcast as television hit, what I mean,
you can do that, but it's just gonna come off
as so like disingenuous or just really just kind of lame,
like to not even address it at all.

Speaker 3 (37:12):
I would well, the truthfulness or lack thereof of the
actual story would impact your desire to address it on
your podcast. If it's true, I very seriously doubt she's
going to address it. If it's untrue, maybe you wouldn't
be more likely.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
To say so. But I'm with.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
I'm with because if it's true, and if it's not true,
you're still dealing with the same thing.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:37):
Really, the only person that matters and people their family.
They do have kids or one kid and your husband
and the same thing on side. That's I know now
in Vrabel's case, and consider I mean, everybody has also
had fun with this angle of it. This is Tom
Brady's team, you know Tom with Bridget and Josel and

(37:58):
all that stuff. This is Robert Krafts team, the guy
that likes the orchids, that's that's his team.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
Aaron Hernandez his team, he likes killing people. This multiple
you know, it's Jordan Hudson's and himself. I mean, it's
just on and on and on.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
There is one more thing about this, and we're not
gonna go all full Diana Rassini, Mike Vrabel all.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
Show this is it, man. We got like five more
seconds of it. No, no, we got a little bit more.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
We got a little bit more because take all the
the lurid stuff aside. This is actually a giant problem
if you think about it. So we'll definitely delve into that.
We'll reset, we'll get into the Astros not being able
to score runs suddenly. And the Rockets absolutely are going
to play the La Lakers in the first round of

(38:43):
the postseason. I garontee it. We'll talk about all that
more coming up in the three o'clock hour. Next dance
for Space City Home Networks simulcast is underway. We're taking
you until six o'clock tonight. Rockets basketball getting underway as
they'll take on the first they're remaining three opponents tonight

(39:03):
inside Toyota Center, fresh off that road trip, fresh off.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
I mean, they're going for eight wins in a row.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
I don't know if anybody like I know that some
of these teams have not been the most awesome of competition,
but they've they've beaten some good teams in there too.
I think Phoenix is they've definitely had the most surprising
season in the Western Conference, I would say. And the Knicks,
they're a good basketball team, So that has taken place
during the stretch of seven consecutive wins, and we'll get

(39:32):
you into that coverage early on in the six o'clock hour,
But we also have to get to the Astros and
how they can't score anymore and how the injuries are
like all of a sudden piling up in bunches. But
just to dovetail off of what we were talking about
the last couple of segments with this whole Diana Russini
Mike Vrabel thing, Forget the infidelity potential, forget all the

(39:57):
sleazy aspects of this. At the end of the day,
is Diana Russini not one of the I don't know
how you would describe it, biggest voice's most prominent media
members covering the NFL who supposedly has some sort of credibility. Yeah,
fair to say, right, That's what I was gonna say,
like top ten, top twenty, some of that range. And

(40:18):
Mike Vrabel has, to his credit, worked his way up
to one of the most prominent coaching positions in the NFL.
The New England Patriots are probably the most recognizable brand
this side of the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL, and
they've actually won something in the last thirty years, and
he's gone from playing for them and winning championships to
assistant coaching, including here in Houston, all the way up

(40:39):
to head coaching and now he's the head coach of
the Patriots.

Speaker 6 (40:42):
Well, Derek, the.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
Owners meetings, doing this supposedly or not doing this, I
don't care if you believe it or not. This isn't
even the first time that she's been accused of unsavory
activities to get information. And I'm not saying that that's
what she's doing with Mike Vrabel, if she's doing anything
with Mike Vrabel. But what I am saying is, if

(41:06):
i'm the NFL, this is a bad look and it's
a conflict of interest.

Speaker 3 (41:12):
You're right, it doesn't really I don't know what you're
gonna do with the coach. I'm probably not gonna do anything.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
Well, if they're investigating whether or not a coach in
Sacramento is intentionally fouling at the end of an NBA game,
and if they're they're exactly if they're investigating whether or
not players are sitting.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
For game investigations.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
Well, but again, this goes back to at the end
of the day, is she reporting on things and getting
that information that other reporters are not getting because they're
not doing things with Mike?

Speaker 3 (41:43):
The NFL care, I think they should. I mean, why
would the team care like guesn't enough? Are you? Are
you trying to say it's impacting the way they play?
Is it impacting something? He's not committed enough to his
team that he's wasting his time on the side and
not watching enough film.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
No, I get there. There is a like there's an
argument aside from the.

Speaker 3 (42:01):
Need for some sort of act by their employer. You're
presuming like that's all on her end because she's the media.
It's not because it's a woman. It would be the
same thing if it was a man on the other
side of the fence. Because it's the media side of it.
The media entity is trying to maintain their level of
respect and journalism and we're here to do our job.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
That really wouldn't fall under that.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
But the NFL or the Patriots, maybe this guy isn't
what everybody thought. Maybe he's not a great representation of
our organization, which would be pretty rich from that organization.
Maybe you frown on it, but his job's not in
jeopardy and whatever, nominal fine or you're suspended from the
building for fifteen minutes. I mean, well, there's nothing on

(42:48):
There's nothing there. This is a personal issue inside the
Patriots family.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Basically, I don't want to bring up a source subject
here in Houston. It's not even here in Houston because
it didn't happen here in Houston. But it did happens
involving someone who coaches here in Houston. Why did he
may Udoka eventually lose his job coaching the Celtics. Was
it just because she was an employee of the team,
Because if it was something that had happened like that,

(43:13):
everything was the same. But it was someone that was
not an employee of the Celtics. Would he have kept
his job?

Speaker 8 (43:19):
There?

Speaker 2 (43:19):
Is that what you think? Yes, okay, that's I think
that's fair. I think most people would answer the same way.
She is not obviously an employee of the Patriots, and
he's not a member of the media. But yet I
just there's got to be to me. I mean, if
you want to have credibility.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
It's just that's personal to her credibility, it's personal to
her employer's credibility. Mike Vrabels, if you believe it is
a dirt bag. He's ruined his home life, He's been
awful to his family.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Yeah, that stuff happens all the time in pro sports,
though that's not what I'm even getting at, right.

Speaker 3 (43:55):
His credibility. I mean, my gosh, and we're talking about
the NFL. There are a lot of things you can
do as an NFL player or coach that most other
people employed by almost everybody else in the country can't do.
And continue to get paid and do the job that
you've been hired to do. Now because they're really good
at it on the NFL side, and they want to

(44:15):
keep winning, keep.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
An eye on this. And I might be completely wrong,
and it's fine if I am. It's not gonna be
the first of the last time. But if I were
a paper championship contender like the Patriots, and I had
a quarterback like Drake May who's not as good as
everybody's trying to pump him up to be because he
plays for that team, and then this happened in the offseason,
all I can say is that they're lucky it's happening
a few weeks before the draft, as opposed to any

(44:38):
later in the year because these types of things a
million times over have led to just hey, you remember
when the Patriots were the next up and coming thing.
What happened to them? Why did they have a you know,
seven to ten season this year? Like what happened? I
thought they were going to be all Like, I'm not
saying it will happen, but if it does, people will
point to this.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
They just will.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
That's human nature, and it's it's sports fans nature to
see something like this happen and then go back and
be like, well, maybe you shouldn't have been you know,
with Diana Russini, you know, people will say that.

Speaker 3 (45:11):
So he gets divorced because it's true, I don't know,
and his family life is ruined. They're gonna stop winning
because he can't handle it, Like Rabel.

Speaker 2 (45:22):
You telling me that personal life stuff.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
No, they're gonna blame it. I get that completely, but
I wouldn't buy it for a second.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
I mean, it depends on how bad it gets.

Speaker 3 (45:34):
Yeah, But to me, the fact that if you believe
it's happening, it makes me believe even more that it's
not gonna make him stop being a good coach because
he's already doing this.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
No, I think you're right on that.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
I think that what's gonna stop making him be a
good coach is that Drake May is just not that good.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
But that's my opinion.

Speaker 3 (45:50):
Well, I think he was already a good coach before
he ever to Drake May on this scene.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
There was a time where I was like, if they
if the Texans decided we're hiring Mike Rabel as head coach,
I would have been fine with it. I think he
I think he has the now Tennessee kind of I
don't want to say it like kind of sullied that
or put a blemish on his resume, or however you
want to phrase it, because I feel like anybody coaching

(46:15):
for the Tennessee Titans these days, with their ownership group,
you kind of have to take it with a grain
of salt because they're just not very smart.

Speaker 3 (46:23):
Yes and no, because why would it be a stain
the fact that he got fired. Well, his work there
was good. It's why we think he's a good head coach.
They won, Yeah, and they have a good coaching tenure.
They've been doing this ever since they well they were
going to go in that direction regardless because they obviously
were no longer playing. They had an okay quarter I

(46:46):
mean mine Tannahil's been better than any quarterback they've had since.
So that ought to tell you about where they are.
But they also had a system they could win with.
They had a really good talent on defense, and they
had Derrick Henry, so they ran the ball forty times
a game. They don't have those players now, and they
weren't going to have them. Even if he hadn't gotten fired,
they would be losing if Mike Brabil was still there. Yeah,
but they won every year he was there until the

(47:07):
last two. They first four years they had a winning record.
Three of those four years they were in the playoffs.
His time in Tennessee is good. It was successful.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
Coaching.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
It doesn't hurt. He doesn't have a blemish on it
because of it. He has a silver star, not a
gold star.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
Well, look, they.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
Were going the Patriots in twenty twenty six were going
to have all sorts of scrutiny anyway because of what
happened last year. All right, well, now you're going to
play like a reeler schedule. Now people have more tape
on Drake May all.

Speaker 1 (47:37):
That kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
Yeah, they're going to get to their next press conference
in house. He obviously spoke at the General Managers meeting.
Coaches and gms all have their coffee breakfast, orange juice
breakfast with the media, and he did it there as
he does in all of their formal press conferences there
on site at the facility. The first question goes to Karen.
I'm curious what her first question will be the first

(48:00):
opportunity they hold one of these, and she goes first
because it will happen. He could keep it to football,
she could not. Somebody else could keep it to football.
They could not.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
The funny thing is, of these two people in this situation,
he's definitely gonna get asked about it before she will
because he's on that side of this.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
Front facing member of the organization.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
He's the head coach. He has regular media availabilities. And
we are now within as of today, two weeks before
the draft. It's not always that the coach speaks before
the draft of the two weeks that are now remaining,
but certainly the coach. They're gonna draft players on Thursday, probably,
and then again on Friday, and then again on Saturday.
He could have three availabilities over that time. He could

(48:45):
have one, but he's not gonna have none.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
Yeah no, with the draft coming up, with everything that's
still to come in the office.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
I already addressed that in my state. And let's keep
it to football here. Well, you got it. Sound like
Rex Ryan after the foot video.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
He will it's personal matter obviously, and I just I'd
rather talk about football right now. That's what he's gonna say.
He's just not gonna say it like Rex probably. Whereas
her I don't know what's gonna happen.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
Well, I mean as of what she appears to be doing,
and it's super early in all this. This is going
about her business. There's an NFL story to tell. I
posted on my ex platform. I've got a story right
for the athletic all right, I've got a podcast to do.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
I'll do it.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
And her quote average husband is I think a CEO
at one of the very very well known burger chains
in the country. Yeah, so he's not going to be.
I mean, even if people think he's average, as she
put it.

Speaker 3 (49:38):
That's why all the fun that everybody else is having
with it. I mean, they are people, that's their real
lives here that we're talking about. Families involved. Kevin G
probably doesn't appreciate this a whole lot.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
Kevin G, the one from Mean Girls.

Speaker 3 (49:54):
No, her husband last name begins with the G. Sorry
when I hear Kevin G did not change her name
to his. I think about the debate, Diana Goldschmid, I.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
Think about the debate club leader. What's up?

Speaker 6 (50:04):
What's up?

Speaker 2 (50:04):
Gets U?

Speaker 1 (50:06):
Yeah, I know what you're talking about. So good.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
All right, let's get back into some Mastros conversation. Next,
how does this get fixed? How does this get turned around?
And most importantly, how important is this? This first Division
rival Sorry Angels, series four game variety going to affect
both of these teams coming out of Monday's finale.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
We'll discuss next.

Speaker 10 (50:32):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
It is the eighteen Sports Talk seven ninety. I'm looking
at Chandler Rome's latest article in his latest tweet, and
he'll be on the show with us on Friday. The
Astros have to hope this is rock bottom. Yeah, the

(51:03):
Astros do have some things to work out. They aren't
hitting currently, just two games worth of it, and obviously
they're not pitched well almost the entirety of the season.
Even with a shutout, They've got one of the league's
worst bullpen eras, they've got one of the leagu's worst
starting rays, worst team eras.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
And it's been an epidemic. And to top all that off,
when they've gotten Layden games and they haven't had too
many late close games. But they can't trust the person
who's been tasked with closing games for this team. That's
Brian Abrew amidst all these other injuries. They won't have
to announce these moves until tomorrow, but Chandler first initially
reporting that JP Frantz would be heading to Seattle to

(51:41):
join the team. He and Brian Taggart adding that Taylor
Tremmel would be added to this team. Jake Myers is
going to go on the IL tomorrow. I don't think
there was much doubt about that when he told us
here after yesterday's game. Because of the low side back issue,
as he described the proximity to or where it was
on his body. He's going back to Houston obviously, should
be here by now to have more tests done in

(52:02):
a stint on the AL I think is a given
in his case and thus necessitates an additional body. Both
of the two players I mentioned Trommel and France will
have to be put on the forty man roster. They
opened up a spot already earlier this week when they
designated Roderi Munos for assignment. He cleared waivers and accepted
an assignment to pitch for the Sugarland Space Cowboys. So

(52:25):
the Rule five addition they made and offer back to
the Reds, all that stuff is now complete. He's free
and clear of all commitments. He's an Astros minor leaguer
now and I don't know that he will pitch in
any way that has them saying we got to go
bring him back up, but he is still a part
of the organization. An additional move will have to be
made to get the second of those two acquisitions onto

(52:46):
the twenty six and forty man roster, and presumably that's
Renel Blanco going on the sixty day il Brandon Walter
went there, Hyden Wiznski went there. And when you're on
the fifteen day l you're on the forty man when
they move you to the sixty off and thus when
you're healthy, you have to get put back on the
forty man roster. But for each of those three pitchers,
Walter Blanco and was Nesky that is months and months

(53:09):
away from happening, if at all, of this year. So
that's the move that I would assume would be made.
Don't have to worry about losing anybody else, but you
got to play games, and they've got arms in the
bullpen that clearly aren't fresh. I kind of walked through
a little bit of what JP Franz's season has been like,
and you know, actually getting to see some of his
work in spring training, some of the televised games that
he played in or highlights elsewhere, and same with his

(53:30):
appearances with the Space Cowboys. He reminds me a little
bit of Lance mccullors in twenty twenty six and that
he just couldn't do the things he wanted to do
because all he's been doing for the last two years
is fighting injuries. And I think the off season that
France had allowed him to maybe be a little bit different.
I don't know if he'll be I don't think he's
going to be the same picture he was, but he's

(53:52):
probably learned a few things about how to attack hitters
and we'll see if it translates to the major league level.
He obviously I think it goes without saying when they
call it up, he's been performing well he has. It's
probably not the same for any of their offensive players.
I was talking about it on the tenth Inning Show
yesterday and I said, I think they might just bring
Shay Whitcomb back up. The Space Cowboys and the Astros

(54:15):
statistically are the exact opposites. The Space Cowboys best pitching
team in the PCL buy a lot, and they are
the worst offensive team in the PCL. They lead the
league in strikeouts. They can't score, they don't hit. It's
been bad, but because their pitching has been so awesome,

(54:35):
they've won a bunch of games. They got a great
start two days ago from Jason Alexander, they got a
good start yesterday from Colton Gordon. I'll be eager to
see if their scheduled starter today Spencer Arraghetti over at
Constellation Field, actually makes that start, because they don't have
any announcement in place for who's starting Sunday and Monday.
Of the final two games of the Mariners series, Emi

(54:56):
goes tomorrow and McCulloch's junior goes on Saturday, they still
have those two games to play, and this is also
when they were supposed to go to a six man rotation.
They don't have off days coming up. They immediately turn around,
come home and start a series with Colorado. The Saint
Louis Cardinals are in there. They have this stretch of
games where they already knew they were gonna need six,
and they've lost two before they even got there. Thirteen

(55:18):
games into the season, two of the five starting pitchers
couldn't get to Game fourteen. That's what happens with Christianavier
leaving in the second inning before the second inning starts
for him, and obviously Hunter Brown's already on the IL,
so with both of them going there, I think they
probably give the ball in one of those two games
to Cody Bolton. He and Ryan Weiss threw all those
pitches to open up this series, so they wouldn't be

(55:39):
ready even on regular rest until Saturday. But I think
Sunday it's probably that would be my guess that one
of the two of them, presumably Bolton starts and then
they got somebody else that's not there. In my opinion,
I don't want a bullpen game with Weiss starting it
or Tang starting it, or Blue Boss starting it. I
want to starter starting it. They're already up against it
with every single It seems like they're going through this,

(56:01):
and they might go through this because Emi probably gives
you five innings every start, and Burrows probably gives you
five innings every start. Does anybody give you Hunter Brown
level starts at least one turn through the rotation?

Speaker 1 (56:14):
I apologize for multite. Did you mention JP franc yet
or not? Yes? Okay, you don't think he'd be a
possibility for one of those.

Speaker 3 (56:21):
Not stretched out? If he starts a game, it would
be a bullpen game. He's a bullpen arm at this
point to me. Now, that could change later on, but
they didn't. They didn't utilize them in the spring, and
they didn't utilize them so far in Sugarland to be
a starter. They utilized him to give them length in
the bullpen, just like blue Ball and Weiss like they
have options to last. They set themselves up to handle

(56:42):
this from a we have to get twenty seven or
twenty four outs every day. But the quality of those
as obviously in question, because these are the back end
of where your rotation.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
Your roster.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
When's the last time he started a game? It's got
a two years now right for the Astros the big
league level, yep. And again when that was happening, he
was one of those guys that was saving your bacon
because of other injuries.

Speaker 3 (57:06):
Right, and last year those guys were Jason Alexander and
Colton Gordon. The Astros were in it to the end
because the two guys like that. You got a lot
of innings out of Gordon, some weren't that great, but
you got him and Alexander somehow you won nine consecutive
starts when.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
He gave him the balls. Good.

Speaker 3 (57:19):
So those are two other options, and again the timing
behind it. The Alexander start was Tuesday, the Gordon start
was yesterday Wednesday, So if they would line up, there
are obviously possibilities for it. You do have some consideration
about who is and who isn't on the forty man roster,
but not really. You figure out a way to make
it happen. And these probably we already know the Hunter

(57:39):
Brown injury is not short term.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
And we could find out.

Speaker 3 (57:42):
Even though Javier the player himself yesterday after the game
sounded remarkably optimistic about it, I don't know that that
will play out to be true, but he said he
felt something at the final batter of the first inning,
and then when he went out there, it just didn't
feel right. He had right shoulder tightness. We'll see what again.
Where they go from here is with him. That's almost

(58:04):
the second story. It's more about get through.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
They got to get through these games. That's what happened yesterday.

Speaker 3 (58:08):
Aj Blueball comes in and the expectation is, Okay, what
do we do in the fifth inning when we have
to replace him? Well, it turned into what do we
have to do in the next inning because it took
him thirty nine pitches to get through that. You had
to go de Los Santos for two. I don't think
they wanted to, but they had to. You had to
bring in two more guys.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
You had to.

Speaker 3 (58:26):
Christian Roa had nothing yesterday. He managed to get five
outs on thirty four pitches when only thirteen of them
were strikes. He walked three guys and hit two guys.
A miracle. They just had to get out of Colorado
and get the necessary outs to get there. Their offense
obviously wasn't doing anything.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
So again you're talking about and both teams are off
You're talking about two teams that.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
I don't know how this four game series is gonna go.

Speaker 2 (58:54):
But I don't know who's having a worst start all
of a sudden or at least, let's just say worst week.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
In my opinion, the Astros injuries, because it's Hunter could
absolutely start to derail this season. And that you could
say that they're having a worst start because they already
know with one hundred and forty nine games to go,
their ace is out for months. That how could anything
happen in Seattle be that bad. What's bad for Seattle
is they don't have any injuries. These are there guys.

(59:21):
This is who we have and their three most important hitters,
arguably they're three best hitters. They've been awful, absolutely utterly
useless as an offensive player. No extra base hits from
Julio Rodriguez, none for Josh Naylor. They've lost nine to thirteen.
Their pitching has been fine, they're among the top eight
I believe still in what I hate, but they cannot score.
They got shut out again, they got swept by the Rangers.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
This is the perfect storm for them to get right
and get back on track.

Speaker 1 (59:49):
Yeah, they're playing a team in a huge slump with
not great pitching or at least question mark.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
This is this is movable object, resistible force. Worst offensive
base close to it against the worst pitching staff, and
baseball are close to it. That's what's happening starting tomorrow night.
And but Emi starts it, that's not your whole pitching staff.
If he pitches the way he did in the last outing,
maybe you keep Seattle's bats where they've been. Maybe they're
staring at a sixth straight defeat and they're really starting

(01:00:17):
to wonder, when are we ever going to get out
of this? If you open that series by snapping your
own losing streak getting six innings out of Emi, now
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna really get greedy here
and say and a save from Brian a Brave that
would be crazy greedy.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
I'm not asking for that. That's not gonna happen.

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
But if you get six innings out of em, you
shut that offense down again like everybody else is doing,
and you've got to win.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
You're back at five hundred. They're four and ten.

Speaker 6 (01:00:43):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
I think whatever you get the rest of the series
would be fine.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Maybe they'll just roll over and die the rest of
the year. If they're four and ten. That'd be great.

Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
We'll dig into that and other things, specifically Hunter Brown. Next,
what does Brian mctagger think about Hunter Brown's shoulder injury
and how we got to this point, Well, we'll get
the answer from the Astros beat writer right here on
SportsTalk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (01:01:04):
Next the eight on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
And it will be dot COM's Brian McTaggart made his
weekly visits earlier today on The Matt Thomas Show with
Ross and wanted to share a little bit of that with.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
You, and it's entirety.

Speaker 3 (01:01:18):
If you want to hear it all, and I'm sure
you do, you can catch that at SportsTalk seven ninety
dot com. We'll get right into it here, give us
a chance to react to it to a little bit.
Starting with his thoughts on how they got here two
starts into the season with Hunter Brown hurt.

Speaker 11 (01:01:32):
I think it was maybe his after his third spring
training start, and we were talking to him after. We're like, man,
you look like you're ready to go. I mean you're
in ninety eight and he was like, yeah, I feel ready.

Speaker 6 (01:01:42):
To go for the season.

Speaker 11 (01:01:43):
So, you know, these guys used to come to spring
training and start throwing their bullpens in Florida and then
they would go from there.

Speaker 6 (01:01:50):
Now when they come.

Speaker 11 (01:01:51):
To spring training, they're like, Oh, I'm throwing four or
five bullpens back home. I started throwing in January. It
seems like that they're starting earlier. So I don't know
if that leads anything, but it certainly seems like they're
throwing more often than they used used to be back
in the day, and guys are getting hurt more so.
Who knows, We don't know why he got injured, but
he certainly looked, you know, a month ago, like he

(01:02:12):
was ready for the start of the season.

Speaker 9 (01:02:14):
It's crazy that we kind of bragged on the Astros
depth and pitching, but you look at it and you're going,
all right, it's okay to brag on it. When you
lose a three, four and five in your rotation, when
you lose the number one guy, the guy that you're
building around is your true ace, it just stings a
little bit more.

Speaker 11 (01:02:31):
Yeah, and they didn't expect that. I mean, Hunter's been
a guy who's been healthy his entire career. I mean,
they they liked the fact that they had Arraghetty and
triple A. Jason Alexander and Triple Lloyd Colton, Gordon, JP
Franch and like, okay, if one of our other starters
are our middle starters go down. You know, we had
these guys who've been up the last couple of years
and have given us some good innings. Feel good about that.

(01:02:52):
But you did not expect your ace to go down,
and you're not going to replace him with anybody at
triple A of that caliber. So uh yeah, I mean, uh,
you know, we'll have to wait and see the extent
of the injury and and how long it is until
he comes back. It's not nothing about it is good.
Nothing about it feels good if you're the Astros and uh,

(01:03:12):
you know, getting swept and and really the entire road
trip but not off to a good start at all.
So uh, there's nowhere to go but up from here.
And so they're gonna need some of these depth pitching
guys to step up. And that includes guys like uh,
blue Ball who didn't pitch well when he came in,
but he's gonna have to pitch better. France is gonna
come gonna have to come in and pitch better, and

(01:03:34):
and and they're good, they're gonna have to eat some
innings and get deep into the game. Otherwise this is
gonna spiral and get out of control pretty quickly.

Speaker 12 (01:03:40):
Spiral is the word I was just about to use, Brian,
because okay, it's we we know it's it's the beginning
of April, so we don't want to panic.

Speaker 6 (01:03:47):
It's a long season.

Speaker 12 (01:03:48):
But as you said, I mean, this looks like this
is a situation that's that's not good, and that when
you have these starters who aren't pitching the way they
are and then you mentioned blue Ball getting lit up.
I mean, Ryan why started off okay and then he's
been getting lit up and Brian A Bray you just
has has given up a run every time he's gone
out there. We're focusing a lot on the starting injuries,
and rightfully so, but I mean there's got to be

(01:04:10):
a lot of worries for Joe Spot and his.

Speaker 11 (01:04:11):
Bullpen well, and that goes to the starters. And these
guys aren't going deep. You know, the starters are aren't
going in the fifth or sixth inning very much.

Speaker 6 (01:04:19):
Now you're putting extra.

Speaker 11 (01:04:20):
Pressure pressure on the bullpen and they brought in you know,
three wrong leap long relievers because they knew that there
were a couple of guys specifically mccullors and Javier who
wouldn't go deep in the games. But now you know,
Burrows are going deep in the games, and now Hunter
Brown's out, so it's just putting pressure on everybody. And
this really started at the beginning of spring training when
when Hayter was injured and uh was going to have

(01:04:40):
to start the season on the aisle, And then you
move a bray New into the closer role, which you
know he wasn't actually great at you you know you'd
rather have him in the setup role, and you're moving
guys around their bullpen now and uh so nothing about
this has gone the plan. It's got to be really
frustrating for them coming off a seasonlast year they had
so many injuries on the pitching staff staff. But they

(01:05:03):
do have guys I think we'll see come up. I mean,
I think ri Getty comes up and joins the rotation.
Nick's homestand Jason Alexander pitched really well last time out
in Triple A. He's a guy that won like what
nine starts in a row for them. So but again,
you're you're really testing your depth really early in the
season and banking on nobody else getting injured.

Speaker 12 (01:05:24):
Brian McTaggart with us here on Sports Talk seven ninety
onto the offense side. One run scored in the last
couple of games. Obviously, we're not going to panic there
because the offense has been very good. But what do
you think has been plaguing them the last couple of games.

Speaker 11 (01:05:37):
Yeah, it just looks like they got away from their
approach a little bit. I mean, especially the middle game
in Colorado yesterday. You know, they just I just think
they got pitched really well, but they just got to
get back to what they were doing, you know, the
first ten games of the season, including in Oakland, they
are in Sacramento when they were swinging the bats so well.
So one run and back to back games in Colorado

(01:06:00):
is not great. I don't think it's a real cause
for alarm yet. I mean, or Jordian's pulled off a
little bit. I mean, he wasn't going to keep up
at that pace. But I think their offense is somewhere
in between what we saw in the home stand and
somewhere in between what we saw in Colorado. They're not
going to score seven runs a game. They're not going
to score one run a game. They're somewhere in between there.
And if you know, if Christian Walker keeps swinging it,

(01:06:22):
you have to feel good about that. I think Alvarez,
if he's helping the obviously he's going to have a
huge year. And you know, I'll two days off the
night start. So I think pitching is really where this
team needs to try to hold things together here. And
because I think the I think the offense will be okay.

Speaker 9 (01:06:37):
Back to a brave you for a second again, He's
not had a clean ining yet this year. The ere's
north of nineteen. We've seen Brian King get a little
bit of heavy leverage situation. Obviously, the astro's got to
be in a levere situation here in the foreseeable future
to make this.

Speaker 1 (01:06:52):
But how long of.

Speaker 9 (01:06:54):
The leash is a braid right now as we speak
about Joe going to him in the keey mo on
into the baseball game, especially the fact that he's even
with a chance in a non leverage situation he still
struggled yesterday in Denver.

Speaker 11 (01:07:07):
Yeah, I mean, I think there there is a little
bit of a leash there. I mean, I mean, what
do you do? I mean they just do do you
put king it closer at this point? I mean, again,
you put guys in these roles they're not used to
and we've seen this over the years. I mean a
Brave is an example. He hasn't gone particularly well. Even
going back to the Remember when they put Will Harris
at closer. He'd done so well as a setup man,
did not do well as a closer. If you move

(01:07:29):
one guy out of his role, then another guy out
of his role, now you got everyone pitching in different roles,
and you're really rolling the dice there. So I think,
I think there's gonna be a little bit of a
runway here for a Brave. But at some point he's
gonna have to pitch and get guys out and pitch one, two,
three innings. And you know when is that? When is
that cut off.

Speaker 4 (01:07:47):
Line going to be?

Speaker 11 (01:07:47):
I think only a spot I can answer that, But
it's probably coming down the road. But I don't think yet.
I mean, I still think. I still think on Friday night,
if they have the lead in the ninth in and
they're going to give the ball to a Brave.

Speaker 3 (01:07:57):
I thought that last thing he said there when I
heard it earlier this morning with Matt Thomas and Ross
was alarming and surprising, but obviously he's very close to
the team and feels like that's what they might do.
He was used in the final inning of yesterday's game,
obviously not the ninth inning of a game. You already
down eight one and it was nine to one by
the time he finished his work. I thought, like his

(01:08:18):
previous outing, he had maybe a good batter and when
he really got it up there, and even for him,
that's barely getting it up there. He was pushing ninety eight,
but for most of the other at bats the ball
was nowhere near the strike zone, non competitive pitches, not
nearly the velocity he has shown. This is less about
not handling the pressure of being a closer, which he's

(01:08:41):
had trouble handling in the past. This is more about,
and we kind of got this from Joe two weeks ago.
Something's not quite right. I don't think he's hurt. I
just think his mechanics are not where they need to be.
His release point is off, something with his anything, his stride,
his arm angle, something not quite there. And I would

(01:09:02):
be for a team on a skid like they're on
one in five in their last six, four game losing streak.
It's four to three in the bottom of the ninth.
I wouldn't put them.

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
Out there, No, no, And it's just it's what sucks
about it is what we've been talking about. It just
grows the pile of you know what grows that you're
having a deal with right now. And I never would
have guessed that this would be where we'd be sitting
as they headed out to Sacramento for the start of
this road trip. And that's why I think this upcoming

(01:09:32):
four game series of Seattle is so pivotal for both
teams because if they're probably not predictable starts to the season.
But I do agree with one thing Brian mctagger said,
I do think the offense will be fine.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
It's just a matter of time.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
Speaking of Major League Baseball, you know what headed for
a work stoppage players and owners, as both of those
groups are going to be making more money than ever.

Speaker 1 (01:09:55):
There's an explanation for that. It's coming up next.

Speaker 3 (01:09:59):
The eight They offered both the Astros and the Mariners,
who begin a series four games Friday afternoon or Friday evening,
Saturday evening, and then afternoon games on Sunday and Monday.
The American League is quite an interesting picture. Thirteen or
so games into the season, there have been some finals
that have come in today, a bunch of afternoon baseball,
many of them get away day games or beginning of

(01:10:20):
series games. One of them involved the New York Yankees.
They stay in first place still by two games in
their division, despite not picking up their first hit until
the late going against Jeffrey Springs and the Athletics. They
did get a hit, but they did not score and
thus they did not win, so the first place Yankees

(01:10:43):
lost to the Athletics today. The Athletics are now within
a half game of the Astros. The last place teams
in the American League are the AL West favorite Seattle Mariners,
AL Central favorites, the Detroit Tigers, who lost their ninth
game today. They're now four and nine. They've lost five consecutive,

(01:11:05):
and the Boston Red Sox, another four win team. Those
are the four There are four four win teams in
the AL. I just gave you three. The other ones
obviously the White Sox. These are all teams other than
Chicago that thought we're already good enough to make the postseason.
Let's get even better, or the Red Sox who thought

(01:11:25):
that doesn't matter what we.

Speaker 1 (01:11:26):
Do will be in the hunt. Just watch. It's very
very very much early, but upside down. Now.

Speaker 3 (01:11:33):
The story of the teams in first an interesting financial one.
The Rangers are spending about thirty million dollars less than
last year. Their pitching's been awesome. They have the best
American League bullpen right now. They're seven and five. They
lead this division. Maybe the Astro should call them the
Central Division leaders are the Guardians. The East leaders, as

(01:11:54):
I told you, are the Yankees. That's the largest spending
team in the American League, the Yankees, and the least
spending team in the American League, the Guardians. Guardians have
the smallest, least expensive payroll in the American League and
they've gotten out to an eight and five, less.

Speaker 2 (01:12:11):
Expensive than the A's, who don't even have a real
home or stadium.

Speaker 3 (01:12:15):
The A's have sunk not crazy money, but to a
lot of different players. They got a lot of players
to agree to long term deals, so their money went up.
But they're going to be on unbelievably team friendly deals
moving forward, and you know, some might not work out,
but it's not something they had done previously. And the
A's aren't way ahead of the Guardians, but yes they

(01:12:37):
are ahead of the Guardians. Are cap number or salary spending?
There isn't one in major League Baseball. It's a little
under seventy million. The Yankees are way over two hundred.
They're third overall in baseball, with the Mets first and
the Dodgers second. Dodgers would be first by about thirty
million if their deferred money did not have to be

(01:12:59):
accounted for or with present day value, so their second
than with the Yankees third.

Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
Did you see.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Who had the second highest odds to be fired among
all major league managers?

Speaker 3 (01:13:14):
So this is based on the starts to these respective seasons.
I just did not see these, So I'll be making
a guess.

Speaker 1 (01:13:23):
Well, I get.

Speaker 2 (01:13:24):
Can you guess the the odds on leader to be
fired first?

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
Tony Vitello. No, he's not even on this list.

Speaker 3 (01:13:33):
I mean, I know he's only been a major league
manager for thirteen games, But I took a shot.

Speaker 2 (01:13:38):
Alex Korra plus three hundred. They stink at plus four
to twenty five.

Speaker 1 (01:13:46):
Joe Espada.

Speaker 2 (01:13:48):
He has the second highest odds to get fired according
to bookies Dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:13:52):
Oh, I always go to bookies dot com. Nobody does
it better than Bookies dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
Well, go to one.

Speaker 3 (01:13:56):
I hope, I hope everybody hears the sarcasm. I'm trying
to lay it on pretty thick.

Speaker 2 (01:14:01):
Go to a gambling on this sort of thing site
that you respect.

Speaker 3 (01:14:05):
Well, we're thirteen games of the season. I don't even
really care who's on the list. Like if the Red
Sox are going to make a change, I know the
people who have ownership's ear are usually above Cora. They
unequivocally should be fired first, Alex, Like you're making all
these moves. You can make a lot of good moves.
You can make a lot of bad moves, but we

(01:14:25):
grade you out on those moves that it's your These
are the players that you've given your manager. You can
watch a manager manage a team or previous team or
this team, and you get an idea that if he
has the right tools, I like the way he manages,
or he has a bad team and I still like
the way he manages. Like Markkotse in West Sacramento, I
think everybody thinks he's a really good manager. His record
is embarrassingly bad. But this is what he has to

(01:14:48):
work with, and you can still figure out if you're
a good manager or not. I think Alex Cora is
a perfectly fine manager. They're not losing games or looking
sluggish or having bad bad body language or terrible team
chemistry because Alex Cora can't manage this team. They're not
playing good baseball because they probably aren't as talented as
you thought they would.

Speaker 2 (01:15:09):
Management Kurt Zuzuki is third with the Angels at plus six.

Speaker 3 (01:15:14):
Okay, see that makes no sense. That's why I guessed Tony.
Kurt Suzuki is also a first year manager, and they're
not terrible day the Nationals were. How is he underserving
his players?

Speaker 1 (01:15:28):
What is he doing wrong?

Speaker 2 (01:15:29):
Carlos Mendozo of the Mets plus one thousand, that's a
little different. Josh Thompson with the Phillies plus twelve hundred.

Speaker 1 (01:15:35):
Now we're talking. These are teams loaded with talent.

Speaker 2 (01:15:37):
Then, oh I skipped over Tory Lo Lavolo with these
in Arizona plus eight fiftey.

Speaker 3 (01:15:42):
Nobody even. Nothing's happened yet, nothing crazy. The field is
plus six fifteen. Yeah, we're I think we're a good
distance away from an early managerial firing. You know, Joe's
spot is in a different spot than all of them
two for a different reason. A bunch of those guys
are in year one. Others have multiple years remaining on
their contract. He didn't have any years remaining on his contract.

Speaker 2 (01:16:05):
This is three year three. Yes, I did not realize
he had a three year deal. Uh, it's the commitment
to him is clear, it's short. The commitment to Dana
Brown is the same.

Speaker 3 (01:16:15):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:16:16):
They are managing and general managing for their jobs.

Speaker 2 (01:16:20):
I do wonder if things don't go as planned, and
they're not so far, but as early as we just
mentioned for the Tigers, aj wants to come back here.

Speaker 1 (01:16:30):
I don't know if people know that. It's absolutely a fact.

Speaker 3 (01:16:33):
Again, if your management in Detroit and you're looking at
the four and nine start after you increased your payroll
by over one hundred million, that it's I mean, you're
gonna say this your management, These are my guys.

Speaker 1 (01:16:46):
I know what I'm doing.

Speaker 3 (01:16:48):
It's clearly aj Hinch's fault and that's embarrassingly stupid. But
upper upper management might believe you. Aj Hinch is one
of he knows what he's doing.

Speaker 1 (01:16:58):
I hope they.

Speaker 3 (01:17:00):
Position their biggest acquisition this offseason was who fromber did
you catch his numbers from yesterday?

Speaker 2 (01:17:09):
As I recall, it wasn't good. Well, it was good
and bad. Okay, So how do you do that in
a day's work? You eat up innings, but you give
up a lot of runs. That's exactly right. The Tigers
were on the road at the Twins. His Tigers didn't
give him any run support in the top of the first,
so he was used to that a lot of pressure
on him in the bottom of the first inning to

(01:17:31):
keep it scoreless.

Speaker 1 (01:17:31):
He failed to do so.

Speaker 3 (01:17:33):
The Twins were able to score six times on him
in the first inning, but he did not get taken
out of the game. So he gave him a second
inning and a third inning. Then he gave up another
run in the fourth, and then he stayed in the
game again and pitched into the fifth inning and gave
them five full innings, so they only needed three innings

(01:17:53):
out of their bullpen. They almost came back to win,
came back to win, but all of a sudden, the
two awesome starts he had. He's three starts into his
Tigers career and nearly forty million dollar contract.

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
He's got an era just shy of five. It's very early.
It's very early.

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
That's what you comply to every single one of these
situations we're talking about, all right. We did not get
to the fact that major leaguers are averaging a staggering
amount of money per year.

Speaker 1 (01:18:23):
We also didn't get to.

Speaker 3 (01:18:24):
We kind of did, Hey, guess what, everybody's spending more money.
Guess who's getting it. We also didn't get the JD.

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):
Martinez his thoughts on the Astros from way back in
the day.

Speaker 1 (01:18:34):
I thought they were interesting. We may or may not
do that.

Speaker 2 (01:18:36):
As we continue here on a Thursday edition of The
A Team, It's Sports Talk seven ninety Space City Home
Network again. Schn WEX over the air AC right here.
Josh Jordan is our producer. We're taking until six o'clock tonight.
Talked a lot about the Astros. Ye know, I was
looking at a really funny video during the commercial break,

(01:18:56):
and I was realizing, yet sweep over the Red Sox
doesn't look as great as it did when it happened,
And maybe the Colorado Rockies sweeping the Astros won't feel
as bad later, but it feels pretty bad right now,
like in twenty fifty six. Thank you it's gonna look

(01:19:16):
bad all season.

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
I'm just trying to talk my way through this.

Speaker 3 (01:19:19):
Huh huh, not letting that happen. You don't go to
Colorado and score nine runs. Right now with the offense
of the way it's going, it doesn't really matter who's
there the Colorado Rockies. I mentioned this yesterday and the
Tenth Inning Show, it's pretty clear even this early in
the season, if they managed to keep who they have healthy,
they're way better than they were a year ago. They're
probably a fifth place team still, but they're a little

(01:19:41):
bit more competitive. They have a few more pieces that
might keep you in games on any given day or
score a few more runs. So instead of being a
one hundred and five lost team, they're a ninety six
lost team, they're a ninety three loss team. Something in
that neighborhood. But that doesn't really like. You couldn't have
gone in there feeling badly about your offense. You had
lost a series to the Athletics, but it wasn't because

(01:20:03):
of the offense, at least not after the first game.
You scored plenty of runs to score the last two
games you won one of them because you kept them
from scoring any runs. And like I said earlier, if
you want to hear the most saddest part about the
Astros road trip, all it takes to beat the Astros
during the first six games this ten game road trip
is scoring.

Speaker 1 (01:20:21):
That's it. You score, you win.

Speaker 3 (01:20:23):
The Astros shut out the Athletics in game two of
that three game series.

Speaker 1 (01:20:27):
Guess what.

Speaker 3 (01:20:28):
The Astros won that game. Every other game they've lost,
all it took was scoring. If you score against Houston
on this road trip, you will beat them. So far,
that's music to Seattle's ears because they are going through
it cannot score. They're coming off of getting swept. They're
four and nine. They literally can't score. Their last game

(01:20:48):
was three nothing. They didn't score any runs. It's been
a story of their entire season. They opened the series
with an like you're trying to spin it one way.
Oh well, we all we played the Yankees early in
the year, and you know they've got a really good
pitching staff. Really hasn't matter who you've played, not all
the Rangers have a good pitching staff too, But they're
not scoring runs ever, and I hope it changes. It
doesn't change this weekend, I should say, but the Astros

(01:21:10):
are clearly going through it from a pitching standpoint, the
numbers are what they are and they do not tell
a lie.

Speaker 1 (01:21:14):
The numbers rarely do.

Speaker 3 (01:21:16):
The Astros offensively are still they're the best offensive team
the American League as a whole. They just happen to
come in after scoring one run in back to back games.
I don't think their offense takes much, if any hit
with the absence of Jake Myers. He hasn't officially been
put on the IL, but that is coming. Taylor Tremmeell
is going to be with the team starting with tomorrow,
and so is JP France on the pitching side. If

(01:21:39):
they decide to play yord On Alvarez in the outfield,
then that will prevent them from playing a combination of Tremmeel, Matthews,
Low Praffito, and Cam Smith in the outfield during their
time in Seattle, and that's up to them if they
want to do that. They don't often put jord On
in the outfield and a lot of these bigger places,
but I would suggest that they might want to do that.

(01:22:00):
We will see if they decide if they want to
do that. And as good as their offense has been
as a hole right near the top of the league
ops homers, they still lead the majors and doubles. They
didn't walk a lot in these last two games, but
they're still right up there over the course of the season,
and even in these losses in the series as a whole,
they didn't strike out a ton. They struck out in
some key moments, but they're still doing those things a

(01:22:22):
little bit better, and most of it's getting wiped away
and easily wiped away because they're pitching has been substandard.
Will be as nice as possible there the Astros then Nationals.
They share a ballpark and they share the last two
spots in the majors in pitching. Only one other team
besides them has an ERA over five. One other team

(01:22:46):
and they're at five forty five, the Terrible White Sox.
The Astros and Nationals are both over six thirteen games
into the season. They're probably there shouldn't be a thirteen
game stretch in any season where you have an RA
over six six oh five. Keeps the Astros from being
last because the Nationals are at six six. They're walking
batters left and right, they're giving up home runs. There's

(01:23:08):
way too much traffic they just simply put, they have
not thrown enough strikes and when they do, they're getting hit.

Speaker 2 (01:23:14):
It's just it goes back to what I said earlier
this week. I just never thought that we would have
this conversation about all the astros. Pitching is not elite, right.

Speaker 3 (01:23:24):
So saying that now, and it clearly is not. And
you probably didn't go into thinking this season it would
be elite, but you're talking about team history leading up
to this, through this Golden Air, their pitching has been awesome.
And even in years where maybe the names on the
back of the jersey didn't suggest it would be awesome,
they still were pretty old. Ropen was very good. All
those things were in place. So saying all that have

(01:23:45):
you is your hand hovering over the panic button. Have
you already smashed the panic button? The read you left
a comment? Have you put any w's in the chat yet?

Speaker 2 (01:23:53):
The reason I haven't is because of what else is
going on the division, namely with the Mariners when they're
going to play.

Speaker 3 (01:24:00):
If I didn't let you do that, you can only
look internal. You can have internal conversations about your astros. Well,
it's not good, not about who you've played. It's not
about how they've done. It's not about where you are
in the standings. Those are all very good points, but
I'm not even letting you have this. Just look at
their games. They're thirteen times on the field. Your best
picture is out for the foreseeable future. Another picture that

(01:24:21):
you were hoping to bounce back is also now out
with a similar issue. We don't know how severe the shoulder.
Does it bother you that much? When you use the
word you use, it was just hope? Was there much
more than that? Should you have felt good about it?

Speaker 1 (01:24:34):
I couldn't.

Speaker 2 (01:24:34):
I could not have made a solid argument to anyone
that that Christian Javier was going to be back to
his old self this year.

Speaker 3 (01:24:41):
And I know they didn't sign a lot of other
quality starters, but they did spend money the fifth highest
paid player as a starting pitcher in this off seasons.

Speaker 1 (01:24:51):
Free agency is an astro.

Speaker 3 (01:24:54):
So you emi got the fifth most money of anybody
out there in AAV and then they also accommodated for
if this doesn't work out with Javier or McCullers, if
we can't do this, well, that's why they have the
rotation that they do ready if needed. Can't tell you
they're going to succeed at the major league level, but
they have five competent minor league starters from you Loa

(01:25:17):
up the list to Lambert to Raghetty to Gordon to Alexander.
I don't know if they'll work or work out. They
obviously have options with the big club. They needed to
start from somebody else already this season, and they didn't
turn to the minor leagues. They've turned to Cody Bolton
twice and he's performed pretty well.

Speaker 1 (01:25:33):
It makes me also, you have blue ball.

Speaker 3 (01:25:36):
Also, they're in position to handle some of what was
already question mark. Of course, they're in no position to
handle the ace going out they really I know it
sounded so different last year because Romber was there and
every other year you've had more than one. But again,
I don't really look at it that way. I'm not
too concerned that they let him go. Obviously it would
be better if they didn't, but I'm not trying to

(01:25:57):
rewrite the actual history and knowing that they did the
right thing because they did. But if the panic button goes,
is it too early? Is that why you don't push it?
Is it because their offense has been so good and
the expectations are to continue. You got three of the
top six ops's in the American League in your everyday
lineup in Houston. Again, remember when we would say that, Yeah,

(01:26:19):
you look at look at it. There's Alvarez, there's Springer,
there's Tucker, there's Correa, there's Bragmant.

Speaker 1 (01:26:24):
These guys are crushing well.

Speaker 3 (01:26:26):
Three of the best six this year right now to
date are Alvarez, al Tuvey, and Walker, all better than
one thousand thirteen games in and honestly, camp Smith's not
too far behind.

Speaker 1 (01:26:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:26:37):
No, I mean that's it goes back to what Brian
McTaggart said, Do you feel like the offense will come around? Heck,
you feel like the offense is gonna come around starting
this series.

Speaker 3 (01:26:45):
Yeah, And I almost feel wrong allowing come around, like
you should never score one run in a game in
Colorado back to back, right, but come around at two
games where they didn't score. They had two games at
the beginning season they didn't score the other nine games.
They're destroying the heavy majority of the season.

Speaker 2 (01:27:04):
In the games where they're scoring the one run, they're
getting the usual. It's a very twenty twenty five scenario.
They're getting tons of guys on base, and then they're
just not coming home.

Speaker 1 (01:27:14):
I mean, the last.

Speaker 3 (01:27:14):
Two games they couldn't put they hit a home run, walker,
they didn't do much else the rest of the game,
and yesterday they had eight singles.

Speaker 2 (01:27:21):
Yeah, but guys on base are still guys on base,
and that wasn't the case in the Athletics series.

Speaker 1 (01:27:27):
They just it wasn't in the first game.

Speaker 3 (01:27:31):
They scored nineteen runs in the last two games, or
seventeen runs in the last two games.

Speaker 1 (01:27:36):
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. They were driving them home
though they just did outscore them. Correct.

Speaker 2 (01:27:41):
But overall, they're getting guys on base, whether they're winning
or losing. And that part was the frustrating part of
twenty twenty five, because they would get the guys on
but they wouldn't come home. Now they're coming home, but
they can't keep the other team from also allowing those guys.

Speaker 3 (01:27:57):
That's why I'm not fully distanced twenty five. But I
don't see a lot of what I saw last year
pretty much anywhere, not offensive. They got major problems in
the bullpen. Clearly they knew they didn't have a closer,
but I didn't know it would be a major problem.
It is a major problem. They weren't as successful in
the final two months last year with Hater out, but
it wasn't a huge problem.

Speaker 1 (01:28:17):
It could have been better.

Speaker 3 (01:28:17):
They probably would have closed out a few games and
would have gotten into the playoffs. Right now, they're just
lucky they haven't needed a closer period thirteen.

Speaker 1 (01:28:27):
Games into the season.

Speaker 3 (01:28:29):
I mean, I know Brian Obray who has a save,
and I know they've used him in the ninth or
eighth inning at the end of games. There's there's really
not been any Oh man, this is this is glad
we have this closer. Glad Josh Hater's here. They just
haven't had any really any games like that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:44):
When's Josh Hater coming back again.

Speaker 3 (01:28:46):
Well, he's supposed to be throwing live bps and have
hopefully more than one of them complete by the time
the Astros get back on Tuesday and seeing how those
go then if they continue again. This is a zero
setback since spring training started. Situation, so the best news
they've gotten. It's just a long term recovery because he
started from ground zero and he wasn't at really the

(01:29:07):
ramp up stage until this.

Speaker 1 (01:29:09):
Until the live vps.

Speaker 3 (01:29:10):
You might see Bennett Sussa on a rehab assignment in
the next seven to ten days. If things go well
for him, that obviously would be very, very helpful. If
he's the same pitcher he was last year, which was outstanding,
and a late inning leverage option for Joe Aspata. Right now,
they pretty much have won and he hasn't been asked
to do it yet. But that's Brian King, and we'll
see what transpires in this series. But if Seattle keeps

(01:29:33):
playing the way they are, which is low scoring, close games,
you're probably gonna need somebody to keep the a's off
the board Mariners, I should say off the board late
in the game to secure victory. There's still plenty of
Astra pushing the panic button. Okay, my hand is hovering.
How close is it? There's another hand in between it.
If that spaces can be visualized, it's not very much.

(01:29:55):
It's not because it's the Hunter Brown angle of it.
Hunter Brown makes it hard to not view this season
in a totally different lens than.

Speaker 1 (01:30:03):
Oh one of their twenty six players is hurt.

Speaker 2 (01:30:05):
And here we were thinking that because of last year,
we would just get good health here in Houston. Just kidding,
all right, lots to get to astros related also, other
than the Rockets, what team could you most easily stomach
if they were the ones that knocked off the NBA
best thunder in the postseason?

Speaker 1 (01:30:24):
All that more coming up next.

Speaker 3 (01:30:26):
You hear it, My life hinges on good news. So
I hope you deliver something outstanding.

Speaker 2 (01:30:30):
Remember when all those times we would talk about the
stupid Lakers championship that happened in the bubble, Yeah, but
almost six years worth of it. Yeah, and the Dodgers too,
same year. I mean, it was all about LA during COVID,
all about La. Where was where was it? Where did
it finally finish up?

Speaker 1 (01:30:49):
Low's up in Arlington?

Speaker 3 (01:30:50):
But technically a bubble because the roof was closed and
there were placards. Okay, so yeah, I remember that bubble Championship.

Speaker 2 (01:30:57):
It was authentic because Justin Turner actually had COVID.

Speaker 1 (01:31:01):
COVID Championship, Yes, but we always said it was fake.
They didn't mean anything.

Speaker 2 (01:31:06):
Those weren't real championships had giant asterisks next to him.

Speaker 1 (01:31:10):
Very very different.

Speaker 3 (01:31:11):
We said that Baseball's championship that season, granted it was
only a sixty game season, and the NBA's championship. I
definitely look at them differently, not the same.

Speaker 1 (01:31:21):
Why they were both fake and fraudulent to the point
to your point.

Speaker 2 (01:31:26):
Anthony Davis agrees with me. The thing about this funny
how many rings does he have?

Speaker 1 (01:31:31):
The one? And it was that one? Correct? But he
agrees with you, Yeah he was.

Speaker 3 (01:31:35):
So he disagrees with his former two times over former teammate. Yes, okay, wait,
which one the one who's gone on record multiple times
and saying not only does it count and not only
was it hard, it was the hardest championship to win?

Speaker 1 (01:31:52):
Who said that again? Bronnie's dad? Okay, So this is
about Anthony Davis. He's an idiot. Okay, So what does
ad think?

Speaker 2 (01:31:58):
Well, he went on Draymond Green's podcast to say it,
but basically said he wasn't It wasn't a real championship.

Speaker 1 (01:32:08):
Did I really win a championship?

Speaker 2 (01:32:09):
I know I'm listed as a champion, but I'm not
sure he's right. It's I mean, he is the main
reason it's right because, as you've put up pointed out
so many times, what was the timeline that year? Everybody
was playing? Then Rudy Gobert stuck his fingers all over

(01:32:30):
everybody's microphone. Then everybody was off for three months. Then
they all got together in Orlando, reported to the bubble,
drank coffee and eight wings. Some of them played pickleball
and did broke curfew. Who did that again, House Daniel, Yes,
but this guy got healthy, this guy being Anthony Davis,

(01:32:53):
who's currently out right now with another hangnail.

Speaker 3 (01:32:57):
Yes, my finger right. He also played for the Wizards,
or he's employed by the Wizards. They have no interest
in having him.

Speaker 1 (01:33:04):
Playing money from the Wizards, is what you meant to say.

Speaker 3 (01:33:07):
Well, they're not trying to win there. Hey ma, You've
got a lot of young guys to look at.

Speaker 2 (01:33:10):
But at least he's not like Lebron, who is only
saying that nonsense that you talked about because of his legacy,
Like he knows.

Speaker 1 (01:33:18):
Anthony Davis knows. Honestly.

Speaker 3 (01:33:20):
I wonder how many people, if they're having some ridiculous
legacy conversation like it matters, are looking at his total
and saying, yeah, but like he won four titles.

Speaker 1 (01:33:30):
I don't. I don't really think people are saying no,
it's really three. I will right. I think you're in
a small group. I'm in a large group yours go by,
it's also going to mean less and less.

Speaker 2 (01:33:41):
I mean, do you look at the Spurs, the Spurs
first championship differently than you do all the other ones?

Speaker 1 (01:33:46):
I think I really don't.

Speaker 3 (01:33:48):
I mean it's a fifty game season, yeah, very different
regular season, not nearly as different postseason, a standard postseason basically.

Speaker 1 (01:33:56):
And they were playing the eighth seed in the East.

Speaker 2 (01:33:59):
I mean, having about that, I happen to stand on
the fact that that was not a real championship.

Speaker 3 (01:34:05):
So you're you're this whole three minute exercise to lift
my spirits was Anthony Davis and you think alike.

Speaker 1 (01:34:15):
About the Lakers? Okay, why didn't you plany my imaging?

Speaker 3 (01:34:18):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:34:19):
What is it this Lakers radio? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:34:22):
I mean I thought I don't have any imaging for
Wizards radio.

Speaker 2 (01:34:25):
But he was a member of the Lakers when it happened,
so I just figured you'd fire it off.

Speaker 3 (01:34:29):
I mean, I was just looking at the dock and
he just caught me off guard. I mean, I just
if it's on the if it's on the rundown, if
it's in the after it, I'll read it now, I'll
see it.

Speaker 1 (01:34:37):
Let me ask you. We just went over in the
first hour.

Speaker 2 (01:34:41):
The most likely teams to you know, advance to the
Western Conference Finals. And let's just take the Rockets out
of the equation. If indeed what I think will happen happens,
it's not gonna matter anyways. They'll advance in the first round,
they'll trounce the Lakers and a gentleman's sweep, and then
they'll probably get throttle by the Thunder. So the Thunder

(01:35:01):
have now advanced to the Western Conference Finals and they're
meeting up with the Spurs, the Nuggets, some other team
that squeaked through there.

Speaker 3 (01:35:14):
If these Spurs are two and the Nuggets are three
floored is where I will be laying. If one of
those two teams doesn't reach the Western Conference.

Speaker 1 (01:35:23):
Would be like Nuggets Sonics in ninety four.

Speaker 3 (01:35:26):
Well, you're you're getting, yeah, pretty much, you're getting number one.
You're getting a playing tournament winner in the seven eight
game to play the Spurs, and you're getting the Wolves
to win two series.

Speaker 2 (01:35:39):
Well, let's face it, the Wolves that you mentioned and
the Nuggets definitely would feel better about them advancing to
the NBA Finals over the Thunder.

Speaker 3 (01:35:52):
Well, the odds overall from one of the one size team,
the thunder of the odds on favorite to win it
all and the Western Conference teams that trail them, or
the Spurs, Nuggets, Rockets, Wolves, what Los Angeles Clippers?

Speaker 1 (01:36:10):
Right? Yeah, Golden State Phoenix and then the Lakers? What
did they think? Who are these people? Is this John
Hollinger again or whoever it was.

Speaker 3 (01:36:19):
There's only gonna be there's only twenty teams that it
can even be on the list. That was not meant
for you to get mad at. That was meant for
you to realize. But it makes me think of the
Warriors being the second seas.

Speaker 1 (01:36:29):
The last one.

Speaker 3 (01:36:30):
Here here, I'll go from bottom to top, starting with ten.
There's only ten. The Blazers are ten, the Lakers are nine,
the Suns are eight, right, the Warriors are seven?

Speaker 1 (01:36:41):
How are the Warriors seven? Please explain this to me,
because there's only ten?

Speaker 2 (01:36:45):
Yeah, but how are they even considered that much closer
to the top of the.

Speaker 3 (01:36:51):
Clary is in the playing tournament? Is he on the
best team in the playing tournament?

Speaker 2 (01:36:57):
Maybe at least this year. If you're a Warriors fan,
you can say, well, he didn't play for two months.
Last year, he played the whole time and they were awful.

Speaker 3 (01:37:05):
Right, they were in the playing tournament last year, and
he had Jimmy Butler. My point wasn't about it was
more about the Lakers are in the top six. They
can't finish any worse than fifth. But that's not the
team they're taking to the playoffs, right, and it is
being recognized.

Speaker 2 (01:37:19):
And I don't think Luca's European hamstring treatments are going
to do anything magical.

Speaker 3 (01:37:24):
Not in the first round. I guess it's possible because
of how long it could extend. The timetable could suggest
maybe there's a late game six, game seven appearance if
everything worked out remarkably well. But once you get into
the second series, you just bought yourself another eight days
plus whatever came in between. You know, if it goes
to five or six games, that's another four days.

Speaker 2 (01:37:43):
Do you think it's going to be a huge showdown
between Clint Capella and DeAndre Ayton?

Speaker 1 (01:37:48):
Uh No, you're right, I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (01:37:52):
I mean DeAndre does, like one of the two teams
is pretty fired up about what they got from that
particular center, and the other team as DeAndre Ayton, he sucks.
They do not appreciate they signed him this offseason. They
thought it would help.

Speaker 1 (01:38:05):
It hasn't.

Speaker 3 (01:38:06):
He can't even he just doesn't have enough good games.
He has too many games where he's a total zero.
That's why that like Jackson Hayes often provides more than
he does for them, and they as they sit here
today and doing what they did with their roster in
the offseason, they're like, I can't believe this. Jackson Hayes
was already on the team, he was eighton, was brought
there so they wouldn't have to use him as much,
and now they're forced to use him more because he's

(01:38:27):
just more effective.

Speaker 2 (01:38:28):
And listen, should this happen, Rockets face the Lakers regardless
of home court. I think the Rockets would beat them
in five if they started that series in LA. I
really do. I just think the Lakers are awful. You're
violently pushing the end of Lebron's career into the forefront

(01:38:49):
if you're the Rockets. Because it's not even a given
he signs with LA.

Speaker 3 (01:38:53):
It's not a given he plays next year, although I
think it's likely and it's definitely way far from a
given he is a Laker next year. Obviously, isn't his
team currently it's going to be even less of his
team moving forward, provided any kind of health for Luca,
He's already taken on that role of being not the
number one guy, arguably barely number three or barely number
two if he's not three.

Speaker 1 (01:39:12):
So yeah, this is where we're headed. But honestly, nothing's.

Speaker 3 (01:39:15):
Changed for the last four years. It's just taken a
long time because he's still good enough to bring people
to the stadium, play really good basketball.

Speaker 1 (01:39:26):
If they were healthy, it would have changed.

Speaker 3 (01:39:29):
The Lakers legitimately would have made likely made the second round,
had a possible opportunity to reach the Western Conference finals.
Would have definitely needed an upset to reach the NBA Finals,
and then anything goes by then they don't have that anymore,
and the likelihood of that re emerging next season obviously
is very small.

Speaker 2 (01:39:48):
Is this the longest injury that Luca's ever dealt with?
It has to be, right, It kind of depends when
he comes back well. But what I mean from that
is he's never missed serious time for like weeks at
a time in the past that I can recall well,
because he's never had the catastrophic injury. This is just
that's what I mean, listen, it's just a hamstring injury, right,
but it's great too, which means it's a tear and

(01:40:09):
means he's out. The reason I asked that is because
he definitely lost a ton of weight this offseason to
get into shape. And I just if you had told
me that would be the season that something like this
would happen, I had called you crazy fat Luca definitely
tears his hamstring before this version of Well.

Speaker 1 (01:40:28):
They've leaned on him a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:40:29):
He's produced, he's been the best offensive player in the
NBA this year, but he's not going to play in
this first round series. It would not appear no matter
who it's against. And it almost assuredly is your Houston Rockets.
First of the final four games of the NBA season
begins tonight the Sixers and the Rockets at Toyota Center.

Speaker 1 (01:40:47):
Will get you into that.

Speaker 3 (01:40:48):
As we continue here on the A team this afternoon,
it is signature segment time. It's a good one. It's costumes.
They're not really receiving the kind of yay we got
new costumes, rather the opposite.

Speaker 1 (01:41:05):
What's up with that? As next, I'm so excited about
this one.

Speaker 2 (01:41:09):
Not quite as excited as I was for Best of X,
but that's just because that was just complete tabloid fodder.
This is more about making fun of another team that
we love to hate.

Speaker 1 (01:41:22):
Let's City Connect time.

Speaker 3 (01:41:23):
Yeah, the Padres, the Pirates, the Brewers, the Orioles, the Braves,
the Reds, and the Royals have just also the Texas Rangers,
the subject of today's What's up with that? Well, they've
got their new alternate City Connect costumes ready to go
this year. You want to focus immediately on the Rangers

(01:41:44):
or a quick trip through the other seven.

Speaker 1 (01:41:46):
I don't care about the other seven. There's your answer.

Speaker 3 (01:41:49):
What this is doesn't care about Wisco or b More No,
all right, what this is about is might not even
care about Texas.

Speaker 2 (01:41:58):
Well, that's what I'm saying. I'm it's got They love
to say they're Texas's team.

Speaker 1 (01:42:05):
You know it's our name. I would too. Yeah, if
you lived in Arlington, if the Dallas of my team
was Texas, I would lean into it. Or McAllen.

Speaker 3 (01:42:16):
What does Houston have besides titles? I got the city
where Houston's team. What does Texas have besides a title?

Speaker 1 (01:42:23):
The whole state? Yeah, the whole state. So why are
you dressing up like you're from the other state that's
north of us.

Speaker 3 (01:42:28):
What do you often call them Sooners south of the
team in Arlington. Yes, well they're they're leaning into that
based on the looks of it. Saw plenty of mockups
that replaced the city connect name across the front of
their jerseys, which we'll get to momentarily with quite simply
Sooners because the color scheme that was chosen then incorporated

(01:42:50):
handcrafted artwork to celebrate the passion of art, music, dance,
and Tejano culture. It's very Sooner Crimson in Hugh so Yes,
even though it has a T on the hat and
it says tehas across their chests, they do have the
feel of collegiate baseball and softball factory, the Oklahoma Sooners.

Speaker 1 (01:43:16):
Let's go to the comments. This shows this off the
MLB post or the Rangers post.

Speaker 2 (01:43:22):
The Rangers post with the video where they're all looking
at the camera like they're intimidating and they're not.

Speaker 1 (01:43:26):
I'll take the other one real quick.

Speaker 3 (01:43:28):
The simplest and cheapest to produced lame is always horrible,
all right, now you go.

Speaker 2 (01:43:33):
I think I speak for most of us when I
say the only cool thing about this is the red
block t hat it's an incredibly lazy jersey literally through
a J instead of an X, and called it a day.
Peegle c C clears this by a country mile. Please
have an alternative to this that is the most range

(01:43:57):
the alter you that is the most like the Ranger
fan tweet. Ever, he even hashtag all for TX, which
is so dumb you didn't even come up with a
new one.

Speaker 1 (01:44:09):
I mean, even if you want to make fun of.

Speaker 2 (01:44:11):
Chase the fight as they spiral to below five hundred,
at least it's not danx is again and leaning in.
Please have an alternative to our alternative. Just these people,
these people, My thing is, I just don't get it.

Speaker 1 (01:44:30):
He listens to the Matt Thomas show. Uh, it's more
of an East Texas thing. Bleep.

Speaker 2 (01:44:37):
One could argue Houston Astros have more acclaimed this. Well,
they are closer to Mexico since it says Tejas on
the front of these. It's fine, just like this is
another Matt Thomas fan. Apparently it's fine, just like the
other one was fine. They just can't get it great
for some reason, Like here's the deal. You can be

(01:44:58):
upset about any number of things the Astros have done
over the years, namely letting some of their best players
walk in free agency. I know a lot of fans
specifically get upset about that one thing you're never going
to be able to say. Over the last two City
connect Jersey releases, they absolutely nailed both of these. They
look sick. People want to buy them. They are creative.

(01:45:21):
They don't look like they just took a solid color
and put a J on it.

Speaker 1 (01:45:27):
For example. I mean, these are basic and they look
like they're from Oklahoma.

Speaker 3 (01:45:32):
I thought the simplest way instead of getting into all
the other aspects of of it. And if you want
to read the comments on that aspect, they are everywhere.
But I know a lot of people looked down on
the script that was used for the first version of
their City Connects. But it does appear most people think
this was a major downgrade from their first edition of

(01:45:54):
the City Connects. I think the Astros just in comparing
one or the other. They're so dramatically different, as are
the Rangers, but both well received and both you see
them all over the ballpark constantly. The Space City City
connect uniforms are still everywhere, worn with happiness and clearly.
I think we all really really like the clean look
and the cream nearly white color of the current versions.

(01:46:18):
Not very well received on social media. I'm sure we'll
find out in the ballpark and around the mean streets
of Arlington if they're well received by their fans.

Speaker 1 (01:46:27):
There are no mean streets in Arlington.

Speaker 2 (01:46:29):
And by the way, like you said, it's a downgrade
from what they were using as City Connect jerseys, which
was pretty simple awful and I think here's our old
English right logo. I guess I mean, first glance one
versus the other. Now, just like say the the Space
City City Connect astro, they had so many additional minor

(01:46:53):
features of the ticking on the sleeves and the patches
NASA inspired and all the other parts of it, rather
than just a big, huge space city which everybody saw
and recognized. These Tejas City Connect uniforms are very similar.
They've got a lot of tiny little details on the sleeve.
There's an old Texas Rangers patch on the back. Those
two make all of these uniforms that they come up

(01:47:14):
with pretty cool. But unless you're really reading about it
or you've purchased it, maybe you probably don't even notice
They exist. All the cool parts of it are hidden
by whatever staring you in the face. And if whatever
staring in the face is not something you really like,
then that's how they're gonna be perceived. Somebody said, I
hope the Angels don't wear their road reds because it's
basically the same thing another guy, And this is the

(01:47:37):
funniest I love Texas born and raised. But what's the
point of city connect if we're connecting Texas?

Speaker 1 (01:47:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:47:46):
And the thing is, you know what, the dirty little
secret about this is, They're not really in Dallas, or
they're quote unquote based out of or supposed to be.

Speaker 1 (01:47:55):
They're out Arlington. Nobody cares about Arlington.

Speaker 2 (01:47:58):
It's just a place to put a bunch of state
and an amusement park in between two cities that are real.

Speaker 3 (01:48:03):
The eight Cities like most Major League cities, but the
eight that put out their new City Connects today, they represent.
Seven of them represent a city.

Speaker 1 (01:48:11):
More than this. One represents a state in Spanish.

Speaker 2 (01:48:15):
In Spanish, heehas it means the friendly, the friendship state.

Speaker 3 (01:48:18):
I believe a lot of other mockups have replaced the
X or J with a T and that famously misspelled
hat that had the tea in there for the X
and have had fun with that.

Speaker 2 (01:48:29):
Digital production team. Check bringing the red unis back. Check fun.
Hispanic heritage theme is cool? Check boring ass jersey Three
angry emoji faces in a row.

Speaker 1 (01:48:42):
That's from Andy.

Speaker 3 (01:48:44):
Well and see what their record is in them maybe
middle and inspire them to change people's minds. Hey man,
we never lose in these jerseys. These are awesome people
helping people.

Speaker 1 (01:48:54):
Is that what you're saying? Yeah? First place Rangers, all right,
that is what's up with that? For this week?

Speaker 2 (01:48:58):
The Rangers City connect jerseys that represent the state and
not a city.

Speaker 1 (01:49:04):
Good stuff. Very arrangers of you, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:49:08):
MLB, speaking of witch handing out some punishment. Not to mention,
even the MAVs medical team is awful. Let's just keep
piling on the southern Oklahoma market while we're at it.

Speaker 1 (01:49:20):
We'll do that next.

Speaker 10 (01:49:24):
The AG on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:49:29):
Pretty unlikely you missed this fight in Major League Baseball
earlier this week because it was pretty unlikely to unfold
that way. Most major League Baseball fights don't have what
happened here.

Speaker 1 (01:49:39):
Yah.

Speaker 3 (01:49:39):
Jorge so layer of the Angels, the pitcher for the
braz Ronaldo Lopez kind of a build up. Even prior
to the game, he'd had a lot of success against Lopez,
and then he had success against him in that game,
hitting a home run and getting hit by a pitch,
and then when he batted again and a pitch went
sailing beyond his catcher near the head, not that far inside,

(01:50:02):
but far enough and high enough certainly that a hitter
would be rather ticked off about it. The play ended
up resulting in throwing down to second after Jonah him
he Braves catcher got the ball back and there was
a play at second base, tried to throw out Nolan
Sean Yuell, did not, and then the staring continued. Jorge

(01:50:22):
Solre basically was just trying to stare. It daggers through Lopez,
and he obviously noticed he was standing off to the
left side of the pitcher's mound, staring right back at him. Finally,
after many many seconds passed, he slowly walked on top
of the mound, looked down, and got ready to throw
his next pitch. Before he did, he realized the steering
had not stopped. He said something, and so Laire then

(01:50:44):
slowly started walking to the mound. Made five six seven
steps out there and started talking to Lopez so casually
that him didn't even really do anything. He didn't chase him,
he didn't grab him. He didn't think he was going anywhere,
but then he did. He charged the mound. Punch is
flying missing as usual. Brought it up the other day,
I think talking about Lopez. Lopez didn't drop his glove

(01:51:08):
or the baseball. He actually threw a punch that hit
so Lair kind of the side of his head his
neck area with the ball in his right hand. When
it happened, Walt Weiss probably came out looking the best.

Speaker 1 (01:51:20):
Who's Walt Weiss.

Speaker 3 (01:51:21):
I'm not to get historical with Walt Weiss because that's
no fun here in Houston, but he's the manager of
the Braves and he's responsible for tackling or Hey, so
Lair got him around the legs and drove him into
the ground. A few other players helped get him down.
He actually was pretty calm almost immediately after that, and
nothing beyond that happened. Lopez was pushed way out of

(01:51:42):
the way. There weren't any other punches thrown. The whole
thing was pretty much over by the time the extremely
exhausted members of the bullpen made their way onto the field,
and nothing's come of it as the series continued and
then completed, other than Major League Baseball stepping in and
I think correctly issuing a seven game suspension for so lair,

(01:52:02):
But usually the case with pitchers, I think you're in
a tough spot. What number of games do you give
a starting pitcher in a suspension? You know, Solaire's missing
seven of one fifty five, however many games you think
he's gonna play, he's out for those seven games, you
charge them ound you're gonna get suspended pretty much every time,
almost no matter how things led up to it. Lopez
is he's barely gonna miss any time. His turn in

(01:52:25):
the rotation will be skipped, but not long after he'll
be reinserted into the rotation. To me, at least forcing
them to do something differently. If you feel like it
was intentional, and I think that they should have, then yeah,
I think it probably more like a twelve or eleven
I think eleven game suspension makes the most sense because
then you really ensure that they have to accommodate for

(01:52:46):
this in a big way, and I think that's kind
of the purpose of the punishment, and I think they're
afraid of it because it's a weird number. He got
a seven game suspension, so Lair got a seven game suspension.

Speaker 1 (01:52:57):
The Solaire kind of subplot to this.

Speaker 2 (01:53:02):
And I know this is like small, but I always, like,
I always think it's interesting when players that helped teams
win championships then wind up in a situation like this.
I mean, it doesn't I guess it doesn't happen that often,
but I mean it's I guess it's been so long
since that's five seasons. I guess since Celaire hit that

(01:53:23):
monster home run here in Houston.

Speaker 1 (01:53:26):
I believe to help.

Speaker 2 (01:53:27):
The help the Braves beat a beat up Astros World
Series team.

Speaker 1 (01:53:34):
But yet there they were, and I don't think anybody
I mean, he was a Brave as recently as twenty
twenty four.

Speaker 2 (01:53:40):
Yeah, I was wondering when he left. I couldn't remember.
And was he traded or was it free agency? He's
bounced around a couple of different teams and he was
like supposed to be. He's just the same as he's Honestly,
he's the same player he's always been.

Speaker 3 (01:53:51):
He strikes out of town, he hits a bunch of homers.
If you can't handle the two forty batting average or
the you know, low seven hundreds. I mean, obviously he
had a to where he was pretty he was a
little bit better than that.

Speaker 1 (01:54:02):
You'd be a perfect Yankee.

Speaker 3 (01:54:04):
He honestly, I am honestly a little surprised how often
he's bounced around. There's been other reasons behind it too,
and he's had quite a bit of trouble, and this
is probably the number one reason.

Speaker 1 (01:54:13):
He just hadn't been very healthy.

Speaker 3 (01:54:14):
But I don't think any of that stuff matters to
a player in that situation unless they're think, well, what
are you thinking about?

Speaker 1 (01:54:22):
Man?

Speaker 3 (01:54:22):
I had such great times with Ronaldo Lopez for the
five minutes we were teammates in twenty twenty four. He
wasn't on the same team asn't back when you're talking
about they did spend a little bit of time together.

Speaker 1 (01:54:32):
When Solaire came back, he's.

Speaker 3 (01:54:34):
Thinking about this guy never gets me out, and he
just threw at me after hitting me earlier in the game.
He has a ninety mile an hour weapon in his
hand and he's throwing it at me. I'm not doing
anything but playing baseball. I'm hitting the ball over the fence.
I'm hitting singles and doubles. To me, this is what
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:54:52):
I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:54:53):
It's not the entirety of Clemens's career, but it's the
very specific nature of one incident. I can't get you out,
so I'm going to throw at you. That's what he did,
and everybody knows it. To Mike Piazza, it's embarrassing, and
that scenario you're talking about happens quite a bit. That's
embarrassing for the pitcher, it's freaking dangerous as heck for

(01:55:15):
the batter.

Speaker 1 (01:55:16):
You can't do this. Hold a baseball as you punch them. No,
you can't throw it guys, period.

Speaker 3 (01:55:22):
And the reason you're throwing at him is because you
can't get him out. All he's he's doing his job,
he's playing baseball. You're doing your job Badly, figure something
else out. Put four fingers up.

Speaker 1 (01:55:35):
I'm gonna give you a wex response.

Speaker 2 (01:55:37):
Congratulations for watching your first baseball game, because this has
happened for like hundreds of years.

Speaker 1 (01:55:43):
Basically, not really, but you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:55:44):
Well, the very specifics of we can't get jord On
Alvarez out, so we're gonna pitch him inside. This is
a very specific hitter pitcher matchup. I can't get him out.
He owns me. I never get him out. I already
hit him in today's game after he homered off me
in today's game. That is very specific, and wat wise

(01:56:06):
after the game said, you know, I don't you know
you're not throwing it. Guys, he wasn't throwing him there
got away from him, and you know, I'm happy how
everybody handle all that stuff, And then all the questions
turned into, man, do you.

Speaker 1 (01:56:16):
Know karate I forgot about that stuff like that?

Speaker 3 (01:56:20):
Yeah, not the exact question, but you know it can't
I'm you have to hand down suspensions that matter because
of all the things that happen in baseball games, you know,
the unwritten rules kind of stuff's hot and hard slides,
don't bunt in a no hitter, don't steal a base
when you're up a lot of runs. Those are all
sensitivity training nonsense. This is dangerous.

Speaker 2 (01:56:41):
Yeah, don't pimp that home run, Well, don't give it up,
which I've always felt is the case, by the way,
I mean, if you're not wanting that to happen, because
your feelings are gonna get hurt. Maybe you should pitch better,
or maybe your team should pitch better. If you're a
manager upset about it.

Speaker 3 (01:56:56):
I mean there's an aspect of that too. Home runs
are so infrequent, and you're in a bat five hundred
and fifty times you're gonna hit the ball over the
fence thirty five times.

Speaker 1 (01:57:04):
Getting excited about that, it seems okay.

Speaker 2 (01:57:07):
Adulas Garcia in the ALCS specifically, he probably uh.

Speaker 3 (01:57:12):
Like, it's nothing different than we saw in the World
Baseball Classic. And there's nobody in the World Baseball Classic
that should have ever been thrown at for how they acted.
He shouldn't have been thrown at either.

Speaker 2 (01:57:23):
There's a lot of celebrating on the WB side. It's fun,
it's baseball, well, but it's supposed to be buttoned up.
Wex no.

Speaker 3 (01:57:30):
Their jersey's usually, especially a Doulas's jersey, it's definitely not
buttoned up.

Speaker 1 (01:57:34):
Barely, it's barely even on him.

Speaker 2 (01:57:35):
Gonna bray you all right, We will leave it at
that five o'clock hour, coming up next, football at five
coming up next. We are so much closer way fourteen thirteen,
fourteen days until a draft something like that. Today WEX
will know the exact amount of hours. I'll get you
that information next segment. How far away we are from
the Thursday draft two thursdays from Al'll have that hours

(01:58:01):
the age.

Speaker 4 (01:58:02):
On Sports Talk seven ninety He's.

Speaker 3 (01:58:04):
From tonight, round one, two weeks from Tomorrow night, rounds
two and three, two weeks from Saturday night, the remaining
rounds four through seven of the NFL's player selection process.
It is football at five here the final hour of
the Thursday program, with UAC making his way to TC
Toyota Center for Rockets and Sixers. If you missed the

(01:58:25):
update from earlier today when Joel Embiid was listed as
out with illness for tonight's game. Not long after that,
the Sixers sent out a post on their X platform
channel and noted that well, he's not just ill, he
is unavailable for the foreseeable future. No timeline on his appendicitis.

(01:58:49):
He's undergoing surgery this afternoon. And this was from several
hours ago, right here in Houston. Obviously it's a great
place to have a medical procedure, but the team in
town to take on the Rocket see will not be
a part of this, and very possibly not be a
part of any of their future basketball games. They have
a very uncertain NBA postseason future. Rockets a little bit

(01:59:10):
more certain they will be the three seed, the four
seed of the five seed. More on that coming up
in the upcoming segment. When we are outside football at five,
the NFL Draft is obviously at the forefront of our conversation.
We already took care of the New England Patriots head
coach athletic reporter story earlier on the show, but we
need to revisit it.

Speaker 1 (01:59:30):
It's always there for us.

Speaker 3 (01:59:31):
But I do like to peruse what the NFL finally
put out officially. I think we already knew exactly where
the Texans would draft because we've been paying attention and
keeping up to date on exactly what their selections are.
It is difficult with Nick Cassario because of all the
moves that are made. The Texans currently currently with two
weeks until the draft, have eight selections to be made,

(01:59:53):
and when the league sends out their entire draft order,
it's very official. This is the team that's drafting there
and why if it's just because this is where you
finished in the standings and this pick has not been
traded to or from you, then that's all it says.
It says Houston Texans twenty eighth overall pick in the
first round of the draft. Their name appears on this
draft selection list fifteen times. They have eight selections to make,

(02:00:18):
if that gives you any idea on how many times
Nick Cassio has been involved in sending picks away that
they don't have. They actually have a pick in this
year's draft that was originally theirs that they got back
from Philadelphia, and there's obviously a bunch of other selections
like those from the Commanders and the New York Giants
that they acquired from those teams that are in their

(02:00:41):
draft ax asset Kitty. What it looks like today. Three
picks the first or four picks the first two days.
One in the first the mention, the one I just mentioned,
the one that they earned based on how they finished
in the postseason this year, which was the team that
drafts last out of the teams that lost in the
divisional because they had the best record among them. So

(02:01:01):
they have the twenty eighth pick in that group. They
have the thirty eighth pick in the draft. That's the
sixth pick in the second round. That's from Washington from
last year's trade with Tunsel. They have the fifty ninth
pick in the round. That's twenty seventh overall. That is
their own pick, which they have not moved yet. They
have the fifth pick in the third round, that's number

(02:01:23):
sixty nine overall. That was part of another trade made
last year, their Draft Day deal with the New York
Giants that had the Giants moving up to twenty five,
ultimately selecting John Harbaugh's quarterback Jackson Dart a year before
John got there to join him. And that's what they
have right now for the first two nights, four of
the first sixty nine picks. Nick Cassario controls right now

(02:01:46):
twenty eight, thirty eight, fifty nine, sixty nine. I'll sit
here today like I'll sit here on Thursday if it
hasn't already been proven true. I don't think the Texans
make those four selections in those four spots. They might
emerge from the first two nights of the draft with
four new players, but very unlikely they will be in
those four spots. There's player they think they need to
go get twenty four to get, they will. If there's

(02:02:07):
not a player at twenty eight, they have to have
because they know he'll be available five, six, ten spots later,
just like they did last year with the Draft day deal.

Speaker 1 (02:02:14):
I just mentioned.

Speaker 3 (02:02:15):
The first pick of the draft was supposed to be
twenty five. Last year, it ended up being thirty four
and they took Jaden Higgins. At the time they took
Jayden Higgins, they weren't sure where their next pick would be.
Ultimately it turned out to be number forty eight, a
pick they did not have entering that evening's activities, and
that was tay Ursery.

Speaker 1 (02:02:29):
Same thing's gonna happen this year.

Speaker 3 (02:02:31):
He has eight picks, the four other picks coming rounds four, five,
and seven, no sixth round pick, a pair of them
in the fifth round, and again as day three Saturday morning,
Saturday afternoon, I should say, begins, well, the Texans have
the sixth pick on the board on Saturday, A lot
of activities usually a pretty good way to think about

(02:02:52):
it when they get to that day. Honestly, the beginning
of round two is similar, with how much time it
elapses in between the end of round one and then
pausing until the next night. I think something is very
possible that if the Texans even still have pick one
oh six by the time Saturday rolls around, being that
it's so close to the top, you could absolutely see
a movement there. So one six, one sixty seven, two

(02:03:14):
forty three. The quarterbacks in this draft that could impact
the Texans are all of them except for Fernando Mendoza,
and Mendoza only doesn't affect them because once the Raiders
take him at number one, they won't be looking for
a quarterback again, like when they sit at thirty six
right in front of the Texans or a team that
is sitting at and that's there the Texans' second pick.

(02:03:36):
That's actually a bunch of slots, eight slots after Houston.
The Jets aren't taking ty Simpson in the first round
unless they trade into the first round. The Arizona Cardinals
aren't drafting ty Simpson in the first round unless they
trade into the first round. And if ty Simpson hasn't
been picked in the top twenty and ty Simpson's still
on the board after the Chargers and Eagles draft, they

(02:03:59):
don't need a quarterback. And if we're still on the
board after the Bears and the Bills and the Niners draft,
they don't need a quarterback. It is possible that one
of the teams drafting early in the second round that
stinks and has no quarterback could make a deal with
the Texans. The Texans obviously orchestrated a deal with Arizona's
current general manager, Monte Austin Fort a couple of drafts ago.
It's why Will Anderson Jr. Is on his way to

(02:04:22):
getting an extension. Did that happen after yesterday's show and
we not talk about because there was no show? It
certainly happened after Tuesday's show. Yeah, Will Anderson Jr.

Speaker 1 (02:04:31):
And CJ.

Speaker 3 (02:04:32):
Stroud, per reports, both had their contracts extended via the
fifth year. They're a first round draft pick. That's a
four year contract with an option on year five. Both
of those were exercised. It is not relevant to anything
else they will do this offseason, other than if they
don't do anything with either one of them, then their

(02:04:53):
future earnings are what they are for the present time,
which also doesn't matter. The extension doesn't impact their cap
situation for this year, doesn't have impact, their cap situation
for next year doesn't impact anything except an acknowledgment of
this was procedural. It does not prevent them or indicate
that they will have an extension of a much greater

(02:05:14):
financial commitment and many more years. It doesn't mean anything.
The Texans will continue negotiating with yll Anderson Junior on
a long term deal.

Speaker 1 (02:05:22):
This is just part of the process to do so.

Speaker 3 (02:05:25):
They may or may not enter into negotiations on a
long term contract this offseason with CJ.

Speaker 1 (02:05:30):
Stroud. I tend to believe they will not.

Speaker 3 (02:05:32):
I think that both sides probably have a pretty good
understanding of where the team finances are and the unlikely
scenario is in front of the Texans. It's not very
often you draft two players in the top three. It
happens almost never in the NFL. So the amount of
money you're committing to those players, if they're both getting
that extension long term after year three, is enormous. And

(02:05:54):
they have a bunch of other things on their plate
because they're talented, because they've drafted it exceptionally well. You've
got two draft picks without extensions in the secondary that
are entering year three. They don't need an extension this offseason.
No talking about Kayln Block and talking about Kamari Lasser
after next season, they probably do. I would extend both

(02:06:16):
of them after year three, if you can come to
an agreement on what amount of money that will take
with they and their agents. I wouldn't want them heading
into year four without a future commitment from the team.
They've played their way into that situation, and I doubt,
very seriously year three is going to be a downturn
for either one of them. They're both Pro Bowl caliber talents,

(02:06:37):
if not more so, and I think Lasser's probably played
his way into more than that.

Speaker 1 (02:06:41):
And I don't know what.

Speaker 3 (02:06:42):
You like in your ball hawking safety more than getting
the football, but that's what their ballhwking safety does, so
I like it a lot. But that's what's kind of
staring the Texans.

Speaker 1 (02:06:51):
In the immediate face. What can they do between now
and then?

Speaker 3 (02:06:54):
How do they want to assess their financial situation with,
you know, the amount of money they're giving you will
Anderson's probably pretty how much did Micah Parsons get? Okay
more then probably be for the same years, probably be
two to four million dollars more on average annual value,
probably a little bit more on the guaranteed money. It's
just the way it goes. They already probably have a
very very very good idea of what that is now

(02:07:15):
how you structure it and how you restructure it on
down the road. That obviously is something for the future
of Okay, we've got cap situations here. Are we redoing
his deal? Are we doing that deal? It's a constant
part of the process, and the Texans in absolutely keep
this talent here when they have the ability to do
those things. They still have more contracts they could alter
this year if necessary. I don't know that they will,

(02:07:38):
other than the one that I've brought up countless times,
the one with Aziz al Shire.

Speaker 1 (02:07:42):
It's not a restructure. It's going to be an extension.

Speaker 3 (02:07:45):
There's no way they're having him play into this final
season of his original deal.

Speaker 1 (02:07:50):
I think they want him playing.

Speaker 3 (02:07:51):
Here probably for the rest of his career, however long
that might be, and coming to an agreement on at
least the next couple of seasons, I'm sure is in
the immediate future. Early this week I also put a
proclamation of bold prediction out there as it relates to
the draft, and soon I'll be ready to go the
rest of the top ten as guesses, but I'm not

(02:08:11):
really making these as guesses. Mendoz is going number one,
and David Bailey's going number two. I think David Bailey's
going to the New York Jets.

Speaker 1 (02:08:17):
I think that is up for debate, clearly.

Speaker 3 (02:08:21):
I think many mock drafts might even disagree with that.
That's just how I see things going with the Jets
and what they want to do. A lot of Rville
Reese fans out there, I think he's going number three.
So I don't think I'm crazy thinking that Bailey's going
number two and Reese is going number three. The Cardinals
hold that third selection, and I'm not on board with
what many believe the Titans are going to do it for.

(02:08:44):
Because the closer we've gotten to the draft, the more
fuel to the fire of if we can get a
buy a player that changes the dynamic of our offense,
then do it. And that players Jeremiah Love. I see
the merit behind it. I absolutely think if they believe
in cam Ward, then they should believe a backfield of
cam Ward and Jeremiah Love early in their respective careers

(02:09:06):
year two for Ward, next year, year one for Jeremiah Love,
that while they're on contract number one, they can have
that program turned around. If that's what they believe, then yes,
that's what they will do. We'll see what they believe
when we get to that fourth pick in the draft,
because I think those three players I mentioned going one, two, three,
probably in that order, probably will be at least those first.

Speaker 1 (02:09:27):
Three players off of the board.

Speaker 3 (02:09:29):
I mentioned a few things we'd get to when we
came back on the other side, both the setup for
the Rockets tonight, taking on the Sixers, where things stand,
with the standings for both them, and much more importantly,
quite honestly, with the Sixers, how important this game is.
And they revisited the situation with the Astros, the resistible force,
the Astros pitching, and the movable object the Mariners offense.

(02:09:49):
That's next here on the A Team, the A team.

Speaker 1 (02:09:54):
On Sports catch you here on the A team.

Speaker 3 (02:09:56):
WEX taking it up until six o'clock. Get into Rockets
launch pad. At six o'clock. Russill have that for UAC
and MT we have the call of the game, Rockets
count down at six thirty Rockets and Sixers fun following
along with my posts for about a week now, trying
to give you as much information as possible about how
the seedings are going in the Western Conference. Last night

(02:10:17):
was a pretty big day for the Western Conference with
how many teams were on the court, Rockets were not
one of them, but the Nuggets, the Wolves, the Thunder,
the Clippers, the Blazers, the Spurs, and the Suns, all
of whom are playing in the post regular season portion
of our schedule. They were all on the court last night,
and those results finally knocked down four of the remaining

(02:10:39):
nine seeds in the Western Conference what is known the
Thunder and number one.

Speaker 1 (02:10:44):
The Spurs are number two.

Speaker 3 (02:10:46):
The Wolves are locked in at number six by virtue
of their loss last night to the Magic. These Suns
are locked in to number seven. There's no more room
for them to catch anybody, and nobody behind them can
catch them. Are already locked into ten. So that's five
of the ten spots locked in. Anything that happens to
the rest of the season, no matter how those teams play,

(02:11:06):
who they use, how much effort is being put into
win games, it's not gonna impact their postseason position in
any way whatsoever. It's very impactful to what the remaining
schedule is. For the teams that don't have their playoff
positions yet secured. The playing tournament will be LA and Portland.
One of them's the eight. One of them's the nine.
They actually play one another, and likely that is who

(02:11:28):
earns the eight seed and travels to Phoenix. The other
one will host the Golden State Warriors. And I explained
the playing tournament for you once already, o' and be
happy to do it, Agambi, just not now. The three
spots that matter the Houston fans are three, four and five.
Denver winning again last night with another unbelievably strong fourth quarter,
they now have a game and a half lead over

(02:11:50):
the Lakers and the Rockets. They obviously, as well know,
have the tiebreaker over the Rockets. So a three game
winning streak for the Rockets the rest of the way,
meaning they win their final ten games of the season,
Plus the Nuggets lose their final two games, and the
Lakers don't finish with fifty three wins, which would mean
them winning their last three games, have to win their

(02:12:12):
last three games, Houston would finish as the number three seed.
The likelihood of it take a team by team. Can
the Rockets win three in a row? Well, Philadelphia is
their opponent tonight. Maxi is playing Joel Embiid as I
mentioned last segment, undergoing appendicitis surgery, today in Houston. He's
not playing, and the Rockets are playing their best basketball

(02:12:34):
this season. Yes, I think they can beat the Philadelphia
seventy six ers. I thought that with or without Joel Embiid.
They've played some unbelievably entertaining games with them the last
several years. No matter who's been on the court, it
will be a challenge regardless. This is a team that
I think plays very hard. They do tend to play
shootout type of games nights with they're hot offensively, they

(02:12:55):
don't really mind giving up one hundred and thirty five
points because they're gonna score one fifty. I don't think
the Rockets want to get into quite a game like that,
and they don't think they will. Then they have the
Minnesota Timberwolves tomorrow night, the second night of a back
to back. Late this afternoon, the Wolves updated their injury
status for tomorrow. They don't play tonight. Rudy Gobert is

(02:13:15):
not playing. He's resting. Anthony Edwards has been upgraded to questionable.
He continues to try to work through play through that
right knee injury that he has been dealing with for
a long period of time. Julius Randall did not play
in their game last night. He still listed as questionable
for tomorrow with his hand injury, and ijud assum Wu

(02:13:36):
also questionable with calf injury maintenance. I'm not sure what
their plans are because they're locked in to the number
six seed, but upgrading Anthony Edwards likely means they intend
to use him before they their regular season ends. They
obviously only have a couple of nights work left after
they play the Rockets. They close out their season on

(02:13:59):
Sunday with everybody else in the NBA, and it does
not impact their playoff position at all. I guess they
don't think Anthony Edwards can hurt himself any worse if
he plays, But people in Minnesota upon that report seem
to believe that he's going to play against the Rockets.
I'm sure he'll be on a minute's restriction. I don't
know if he'll start or not. Remember he had a

(02:14:20):
recent game where he was playing and he didn't start,
but it really wasn't because of his knee. And then
the Rockets finished with Memphis. Memphis is beset with injuries
and obviously they want to lose as many games as possible.
The playoff positioning for these teams headed towards the top
of the draft and were at the point following the
college basketball season, where prospects, especially lottery prospects, are announcing

(02:14:45):
their intentions to be a part of what is an
unbelievably loaded draft class. Memphis has twenty five wins. They
can't catch anybody. Everybody else that's worse than them has
already clinched staying worse than them. But they do have
the same record as the MAVs, and they do have
the same number or one fewer win than New Orleans.

Speaker 1 (02:15:07):
So by the time we get to.

Speaker 3 (02:15:08):
The last day of the season, it could mean a
little something to Memphis, as in, they might really, really
really be trying to lose. Right now, they're really trying
to lose, and they're doing an awesome job. They're thirty
games under, they have twenty five wins. That's how the
Rockets final three games play out. I think they'll finish
with a ten game winning streak, which puts them in
play for the three seed because the Nuggets are playing

(02:15:30):
the Thunder and the Spurs. Somebody has to win those games.
Crazy to say that for the best three teams in
the West, but two of them don't have anything to
play for. Denver probably wants to win the first one
that's Oklahoma City. If they do that, then they will
not likely have anything to play for because they will
be heading into their final game of the season, I
think likely with a two game lead over the Lakers,

(02:15:50):
which means they will have already clinched the three seed.
They just need the Lakers to lose to either the
Warriors or the Suns tonight or tomorrow, which I think
they will most likely. The Rockets win two or three,
Lakers win one or none. Their last game is against Utah,
also trying to lose, but probably on the last day
of the season. It might not matter if they lose

(02:16:11):
or not. The Rockets have to finish with one more
win than LA. The Lakers win once, Rockets have to
win twice or three times if the Lakers went twice. Obviously,
the Rockets have to go undefeated. Now. If the Lakers
win all three of their games tonight and tomorrow against
the Warriors and Suns, and then Sunday against the Jazz,
well the Rockets cannot.

Speaker 1 (02:16:27):
Be ahead of them. They could still be fourth.

Speaker 3 (02:16:31):
If they went out and the Nuggets lose out, then
they would host the Nuggets, and the Nuggets would fall
to five. Three four and five are in play as
we head into play tonight for all three teams, the
Rockets don't have the tiebreaker over either of them. The
Lakers have the tiebreaker over both of them. That's what
it looks like heading into tonight's game Rockets injury situation.

(02:16:53):
As Ema Udoka gets set to meet with the media
before tonight's seven o'clock tip. The only thing that was
different on their injury report throughout the afternoon was the
addition of Tari Easton being put on it because of
his illness. But according to Eme, who just met with
the media, said, they will make a decision as he

(02:17:15):
goes through warm ups and they'll see how things are.
So kind of truly the definition of a game time
decision for Tari Eastan, I doubt very seriously. It impacts
of their starting lineup. I would hope they continue moving
forward with the same one that has provided positive results
on the scoreboard. Clearly, you can be pro one player
or pro this lineup.

Speaker 1 (02:17:36):
All you want.

Speaker 3 (02:17:38):
The games that we're watching this team play, you can
see why there are certain lineups that no matter what
the net ratings might tell you when cherry picking the
numbers that there are some issues with this team. They
are significantly better offensively when they play with a point guard.
They have two on the roster. One is Reed Shepherd,
one is Aaron Hotelliday. Their offense is life ears better

(02:18:00):
when they do that, and their defense does struggle a
little bit regardless of who the other four guys are,
whether it's Shongoon making it significantly worse or not, we
know that, but they also have had so many problems
in the first quarter of games that Reed Shepherd and
Alpura and Shangoon obviously have been starting.

Speaker 1 (02:18:18):
It has to be concerning. They've been able to come back.

Speaker 3 (02:18:20):
They've been able to make games of it pretty much
every time, and largely that's because later in the game,
even later in the first quarter, the offense gets going,
and usually it's because Reid or Aaron Holliday is helping
to get it going. But they do have to consider
what it looks like and what they might want to
do differently. This might not be a lineup change. It
might be more how do we want to defend this
team with the five that we have out there? Should

(02:18:43):
we be switching everything should we be doing this, Should
we be going under all sorts of things they have
to look at, But you can't ignore that they've had
some pretty enormous first quarter deficits even during the seven
game winning streak. It can't be ignored, and I don't
think it will be ignored even when you win. To
be looking at things and try to figure out how
to do things better after you won, And you could

(02:19:04):
definitely do that after the Suns game, as I did
walking out with Wex in the early morning hours after
their game against the Suns the other night. I noted,
I will always have one for you on social media
if the Rockets get a victory and give up a
twenty four to nothing run in the first quarter, because.

Speaker 1 (02:19:22):
That's what happened.

Speaker 3 (02:19:23):
Phoenix was down five to and scored twenty four straight points,
most of it against the lineup that started the game.
There definitely were some issues with the lineup that started
that particular game and then later in the game, even
though Reed Shepherd was not much of a part of
what they did in the fourth quarter, really none of it.
They got it going offensively, and they got it going
defensively pretty much immediately after the first quarter.

Speaker 1 (02:19:45):
Ended.

Speaker 3 (02:19:46):
The Phoenix Suns could notp win the ball in the
basket the rest of the game. They only made eighteen
shots the rest of the game after making fourteen in
the first quarter. They won that game because they played
well defensively. Finally, the offense is always going to come
as long as they have a point guard on the floor.
Amn Thompson has been all awesome. Playing him at point
is dumb. They figured it out. He rarely does it.
Having Kevin durampring the ball up the court, they're getting closer,

(02:20:07):
getting closer to realizing that also is not a very
strong move. We got tickets to give away in the
final segment of the show, give you dats on that
when we come back.

Speaker 1 (02:20:16):
In case you missed it is on the way.

Speaker 3 (02:20:18):
Obviously, on a day where we spent as much time
on Mike Vrabel, there are probably a few things we
might have missed.

Speaker 1 (02:20:24):
That's next.

Speaker 4 (02:20:27):
The ad on Sports Talk seven ninety n we hit you.

Speaker 3 (02:20:31):
With in case you missed it, wex Ac and Josh
here with you as per usual, Ac on his way
to Toyota Center. A few things we need to get
into that we have not already touched upon. And I
also need to mention coming up in the final segment
of the show, if you want to see Motley Cruz
Tour hit town. We got a pair of tickets for
that coming up on September eleventh, over at the Woodlands Pavilion,
return of the Carnival of Sinn's Tour. We also have

(02:20:53):
a pair of ACDC tickets to give away. They are
coming through town in August August thirty first over at
NRG Stadium, So we'll give both of those pairs away
in the final segment of the show. A listener obviously
will win them. Hopefully a listener has been listening to
the program throughout the afternoon. Something we discussed here in
this five o'clock hour, or maybe in the next fifteen minutes,
we'll ask you about in the final segment of the show.

(02:21:15):
You'll know the answer because you listen to the A
team today and we'll be happy to set you up
to go see those one of those to two of
you respective events. What do we have today in case
you missed it, Josh, Yeah.

Speaker 6 (02:21:26):
Let's get into it.

Speaker 7 (02:21:27):
You already hit on the reported extensions for not extensions,
but fifth year options being picked up for will Anderson
and CJ Stroud, So I don't know is there much
more to get into on that front.

Speaker 3 (02:21:37):
I was trying to explain to people on the social
media yesterday, just like I did earlier in this sec
in this hour. It me I'm not trying to say
it means nothing, but it's basically procedural. Would you have
the opportunity, this is the first opportunity you have to
do two things with third year first round picks people
going into their fourth year. This is when you exercise

(02:21:58):
the fifth year option. There's no other time to do it.
It is this offseason. And then the opportunity for the
first time you have to enter into a long term
negotiated contract. So the first of those two things is obvious.
Will Anderson Junior and CJ Stroud, they will want them
under contract for the first five years of their NFL careers.
Even if you move on from CJ after this year

(02:22:20):
or something crazy happens, you would have clearly wanted to
you pick up the option. It's totally normal. It doesn't
matter at all, and it also doesn't stand in the
way of the second thing I mentioned. You can negotiate
long term extensions with them. It doesn't preclude it or
indicate that you will or you can't. One really doesn't
have much bearing on the other. And I just try
to make that clear to everybody.

Speaker 6 (02:22:42):
I think you did a good job there. Let's stay
with the Texans.

Speaker 7 (02:22:45):
So Nick Shook from NFL dot Com, he's doing an
article on one area every team needs to nail on
the drafts by area, position group is what he's talking about.
This one kind of surprised me. Do you buy this?
He has wide receivers. This the Texans need to nail
in the draft. His reasoning, Tank Dell. We'll see if
he can return after missing last year. They got to

(02:23:06):
count on Higgins and Noel the rookies going into their
second years. Dalton Schultz also returning from injury. He thinks
the Texans need to address wide receiver. What do you
think wex let me.

Speaker 3 (02:23:17):
Go backwards to forwards? Dalton Schultz returning from injury. It
is accurate he left the season injured. He was injured
in the last game. It could not be more irrelevant
to their future plans.

Speaker 1 (02:23:29):
It has.

Speaker 3 (02:23:29):
He didn't end the season injured with a torn knee
a busted up shoulder. It's a it's a football significance
because he missed that game in January.

Speaker 1 (02:23:39):
Their next game is in September. He's gonna be just fine.

Speaker 3 (02:23:42):
He's an older player, but I don't really think that's
what Nick was meaning there. And then on your way
back up, you got three more years with Jalen Noel
and Jayden and Higgins. At the very least, you could
obviously negotiate longer term deals with them at any point
during that time. I wouldn't expect it, but we shall see.
Love what they I saw from both of them. They're
exactly why you do invest in that position almost every draft.

(02:24:04):
If you're not spending Cincinnati Bengals money on T Higgins
and Jamar Chase, and very few teams are, then this
is a very normal way to go about it. It
wasn't first round draft capital, it was good draft capital.
But you're wanting them to play at that level and
I think they can and they will. Nico Collins not necessarily,
Hardly anybody is a long term Texan. There's almost nobody

(02:24:27):
under contract beyond twenty twenty seven, and that's where he sits,
and you could obviously extend him. You've obviously redone his deal.
You initially gave him an extension, which I think was
very good for the player, but I also think it
was extremely team friendly. He's not one of the top
ten paid wide receivers in the NFL, and he's missed
time in every season, and no comment about his injuries,

(02:24:48):
which have unfortunately been much more impactful to this team.
But you can't tell me the team is or we
should count on Tank Dell hopeful. I believe he can
perform at a close to the level, but that's a
pretty big risk, and he's going into the last year
of his deal. This is the fourth year from his

(02:25:09):
rookie contract. Is a third round pick, so a must have.
The way Nick put it maybe is a little strong.
But when we come back on Monday after the April
twenty third, fourth and fifth draft, if not Saturday, when
we discuss it here on the air on Sports Talk
seven ninety, we'll be talking about the newest drafted Texans
wide receiver.

Speaker 1 (02:25:28):
I would rubber stamp that I believe it will happen.

Speaker 7 (02:25:31):
Interesting, it's a tricky spot right because Nico Hirk for
the playoff game, so was Dalton Schultz, and.

Speaker 6 (02:25:39):
They're doing something a little different this year.

Speaker 7 (02:25:40):
A couple of years ago they trade for Stefan Diggs,
plus they had who they had year after that, Christian
Kirk replaces Stefan Diggs this year.

Speaker 6 (02:25:49):
Kind of going with young guys, right.

Speaker 3 (02:25:51):
Yeah, they really you know, obviously, the trade for Christian
Kirk is probably one you would never do after the draft,
but they have it before the draft, and they wanted
to ensure that they had something in place and make
sure that they were set at the slot position. They
had another veteran in there at least and body to
replace Stefan Diggs, and then they drafted two wide receivers.

(02:26:13):
It bothers everybody else, It doesn't bother me. I don't
know what's gonna I don't know how the draft's gonna
play out. I'm Nick Casario. I don't know how the
draft's gonna play out. I can't just neglect a position
and hope, because then when you hope, now you've become desperate.
They weren't forced to draft two wide receivers. They elected
to draft two wide receivers. I don't think a veteran.

(02:26:34):
There will be another veteran brought in, but it will
be at a very minimal value, probably someone they don't
need to trade for, but someone who's got, you know,
several seasons worth of playing as a number three and
number four somewhere else in the NFL. They'll both be
here a rookie.

Speaker 7 (02:26:48):
And of it, I'm glad you said that, because the
one good thing you have going for you, Nick Cayley
coming back. You expect these young guys to take another
step in their second year. But if you're kind of
putting all your chips in the middle the table for
this season, you're really banking on them taking the next step,
Nico staying healthy and as you mentioned, finding a veteran
that can produce for you. And because that was the

(02:27:10):
problem why Jalen nole the they basically told you why
he didn't didn't get on the field as much as
they would want, not always in the right place at
the right time.

Speaker 3 (02:27:17):
And while Jalen or Christian had a fantastic game against
the Steelers, he didn't have a good season here. He
was hurt for two different pockets of the season, just
wasn't particularly productive when he was out there, and at
the beginning, probably the first eight or nine games, several
of which he missed when CJ targeted him. Bad things
actually happened. You know, two of his earlier the interception

(02:27:40):
in the game against Jacksonville. Obviously, there was an additional
interception much later in the season the playoff game against
the Patriots, and there was during the too many instances
where they just they weren't even on the same page.
I think Christian probably had the offense down and was
running the right routes, but something was not quite in place.
And then that's why the game against Pitsburgh was so shocking,

(02:28:01):
because it was phenomenal.

Speaker 7 (02:28:03):
It was, and you have to think, and this will
be the last one we hit. We're up against a break.

Speaker 1 (02:28:07):
Gotta be.

Speaker 7 (02:28:07):
They're gonna lean on the run game. Wex that's do
everything they're telling us. They want to be able to
run the ball better this year. They're o line signings,
trading for David Montgomery. Clearly that is their plan.

Speaker 3 (02:28:17):
Nick Cassario does scream, but he does it with his actions,
and he's doing exactly what Josh said. They are screaming
it louder than any team in the NFL. We're not
hiding what we're doing. We're not hiding how we want
to play football. We're adding linemen that can block for
the run. We've added a tight end that can block

(02:28:37):
for the run. We have added a running back who
we are telling you he actually is saying this Dimiko
did that we think can be a true number one.
They want to run the football a lot better this year.
That's how they want to take the pressure off of CJ. Stroud.

Speaker 1 (02:28:52):
And even if every other team in the NFL knows it.

Speaker 3 (02:28:54):
If they've done it right, they still won't be able
to stop it.

Speaker 1 (02:29:02):
Two more minutes with us, but don't go anywhere. We're riding.

Speaker 3 (02:29:05):
Rockets Basketball covers is evening. Just three games remaining in
the regular season games eighty eighty one and eighty two,
game thirty nine forty forty one of the Rockets home schedule.
With wins in all three, the Rockets will close the
season on a ten game winning streak. They're already on
a season best seven game winning streak, and after everything

(02:29:27):
that everyone was talking about, both negatively and positively since
the end of last season, the Rockets will have a
better record than they did a year ago. They won't
finish higher in the standings. I think the Western Conference
had one enormous surprise and then obviously tilted things and
that's the San Antonio Spurs. The Rockets, with three more

(02:29:49):
wins will win fifty three games. It'd be one more
win than they had a year ago fifty two and
thirty last year had them as the two seed. Last
year fifty two wins. This year will have them ten
or so games back eleven twelve maybe of the San
Antonio Spurs, and might not even have them any higher
than the five seed currently tied with the Lakers, do

(02:30:10):
not have the tiebreaker and two wins behind the Denver Nuggets.
They'll have to win more games than Denver, meaning Denver
has to lose out which is unlikely, and the Rockets
have to win out, which I would actually predict at
this point. Tonight's game I think is the most difficult
to earn a victory in, but it became a lot
easier I think, unfortunately because of the news regarding Joel Embiid.

(02:30:31):
Fortunate that they might win. Unfortunately, one of the game's
best players is once again unavailable appendicitis and surgery for
Joel Embiid today here in Houston. More on that with
ross Ac and MT beginning six o'clock with our Rockets
coverage I mentioned we have tickets to see a CDC
and Motley Crue that eats on those and then how

(02:30:52):
you can win them Power up to or twenty twenty six.
That's ac DC and RG Stadium August thirty. First tickets
via Ticketmaster dot or can be purchased if you do
not win them here, or you can go see Motley
Crue Return of the Carnival Sins Tour with Tesla and
Extreme that is September eleventh. They're playing at the Woodlands Pavilion.
Tickets for that event also at ticketmaster dot com. We

(02:31:14):
got a pair to each show, so we're looking for
two different winners today and you can call in and
win if you have the answer to this very simple question.
It's simple because the answer we discussed here on the
A Team this afternoon in the last twenty minutes, So
if you're listening, that easy, easy answer is already in
your head. Seven one three two one two seven one
three two one two five seven ninety seven one three

(02:31:37):
two one two five seven ninety last segment.

Speaker 1 (02:31:40):
As a matter of fact, we hit you with in
case you missed it.

Speaker 3 (02:31:43):
A lot of draft intel out there and everybody has
varying opinions. One nfl dot Com article stressed their opinion
on the biggest draft.

Speaker 1 (02:31:53):
Goal of the Houston Texans. What should it be?

Speaker 3 (02:31:56):
Specifically, what position should be the texans immediate most important
draft goal. Your hint, it's not quarterback. Your other hint.
We talked about it at length. Last segment should be
a very easy answer seven one three, two, one two
five seven ninety not saying whether I agreed or disagreed

(02:32:20):
here with that particular stance, but I do think it's,
you know, eight players. I think the Texans emerged from
this draft with eight players. I don't know what what.

Speaker 1 (02:32:30):
Spots in the draft they'll end up being.

Speaker 3 (02:32:31):
I ran through the selections they currently hold, and I
do think we're going to see what we usually see
from Nick Cassario. He's already in this particular draft, in
this twenty twenty sixth draft that is now two weeks away,
the Texans involvement in it has already been massive without
making any selections. Uh, Looking at the seventh round in particular,

(02:32:53):
the Texans are the sixth round and beyond. The New
England Patriots are picking one ninety eight. That's a pick
that's come through Houston Jaguars are picking at two oh three.
That's a pick that's come through Houston. The Rams have
the pick at two oh seven. That's a pick that's
come through Houston. Get ready for it. Two forty four,
that's a pick that's come through Houston. That's four picks

(02:33:17):
in the six and seventh rounds that Nick Cassario has discarded,
I mean used to get better players in the draft
over the last couple of years. He's already made moves
that impact the twenty seven draft. I'm sure there are
more moves coming that will affect the twenty eight draft.
Because the Browns withdrew their proposal to be able to

(02:33:37):
draft trade draft assets for five future drafts, he hasn't
yet gotten any work done on the twenty twenty nine
draft or twenty thirty draft, and many general managers probably
should not have their hand in that, considering the lifespan
of a general manager is usually not very long. But
very much looking forward to seeing this part of the offseason.
I think if you consider where they were when the

(02:34:00):
season ended in New New England and where they are today,
you have to appreciate one thing, agree with the players
or not agree with how they've spent their money or not.
That's up to you. You have to appreciate that this
appears to be a very clear plan. I like when
teams have plans. I'm happy to debate whether I agree
with it or not. But this team had a plan.

(02:34:20):
We cannot have any more games played, if possible, can
have it not ever have a roster again during the CJ.
Stroud era where we don't trust our offensive line to
block for the run, where we don't have players on
this offensive line at least with a pedigree and a
resume that says I can get the job done. Whether

(02:34:41):
Braden Smith and Wyatt Teller do it in the future
now that they are Texans, they're both on the other
side of their career, but they're nowhere. I don't think
at the end of their career three to five good
seasons left out of both of them. It might not
all be here, and they're not under contract for them
all to be here, But for this immediate season, that's
part of their very very plan. An actual definitive blocking

(02:35:03):
tight end who probably can also catch. Also added in
Foster Moureau, a running back with seven years of being
able to play at a reasonable level. David Montgomery's never
been one of the top five running backs, probably not
even one of the top ten, but somebody who maybe
with a little more work lone has a little bit better,
better way to help this team. He's not going to
start running for four point five and four point seven

(02:35:25):
yards of pop all of a sudden. He hadn't done
that in neither of his two stops, even in Detroit,
when they had the ability to run behind a very
good line. But everything they've done all lines up the
same way. So there's no haphazard method to who they've
brought in here, and so now I expect them to
follow through with that same plan in the draft, and
that still means committing to the offensive line.

Speaker 1 (02:35:46):
I do believe at least.

Speaker 3 (02:35:48):
One of their first picks, one of the picks they
make in the top I'll say sixty, and I can
tell you today they have two such picks. But I
don't know if there will be or three such picks.
I should say there could be four, there could be three,
there could be two, there could be one. In the
top sixty. They will definitely be drafting an offensive lineman
for the fifth consecutive year. They just have to start

(02:36:12):
hitting all them more often. I believe they hit on
tay Ersery. I think it's pretty definitive they did not hit,
and it was a humongous miss because it was the
fifteenth overall pick on Kenyan Green, and I think they
missed on the two that also happened before Ersery. Jew
Scruggs is now no longer with the team. He was
used in trade this offseason and never emerged as a

(02:36:33):
real option. He started a bunch of games due to injury,
and then he got into games this past year because
Laken Tomlinson was terrible. It was shown that jew Scruggs
was only marginally better and they moved him. And then
obviously you have Blake Fisher, who will most likely have
a chance to be on the team this year. They've
made so many signings and they might additionally draft another

(02:36:55):
player you brought back at Ingram. You brought back Trent Brown,
signed two more offensive linemen expected to start, and you're
probably gonna draft another lineman. The lineman they draft, if
it's in the first four rounds, he's making the team.
The linemen that are expected to start, that's five more.
They're all making the team. Trent Brown, could you possibly

(02:37:17):
choose to take Blake Fisher into the season over him
pretty unlikely with him possibly, but those are all Some
of those are among the things they have to consider
on the offensive line, And yes, I think very strongly
short term deals with everybody along the offensive line. The
idea that you still don't have a permanent starting center
and maybe at one of the two guard positions, although

(02:37:39):
with Teller and Ingram at least for the next two
years you probably do. Obviously, Titus Howard isn't here, Braden
Smith and tay Ercery will start this year. I think
an offensive lineman is something I would definitely invest in
early with the expectation that that is my future, the
Texans future offensive line three years down the road. Even
two years down the road, they might only have a

(02:37:59):
couple that are on it, Ingram, Ersery and maybe one
of the two signings, maybe both. If things works out tremendously, well,
that's great. It's okay to draft a player that can't
get on the field because the guys in front of
him are too good. Doesn't sound right. Maybe it doesn't
make you super happy. You don't want to waste to pick.
You'd love to get a guy that can help you,
But if the guys ahead of them are playing well,

(02:38:22):
I'm okay with it. We'll see how it plays out
for them. We'll do that on another day. Luckily, with
another day for us comes tomorrow. We will be with
you again tomorrow for a Friday edition of the A Team.
We'll send you into Rockets and Sixers this evening from
Toyota Center. Rossterbvil Reale has Rockets Launch Pad for you
next Clinton and mt They'll take you through Game eighty

(02:38:45):
as the Rockets look for their eighth straight win and
they're fifty first on the season. You can find me
on social media late night tonight updating you on all
the scenarios that go into play. With just three days
remaining in the season, that will be Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Well,
we'll talk to you again tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (02:39:05):
The AD on Sports Talk seven ninety