Brox Blues Ain't Happening, Neither Is A New Contract For KD? So CJGJ Is A-OK Today?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adam Raised my Earl
Nolan multed by the magnificent roller coaster ride.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
That is Houston.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Sports Chill lge down for the only homegrown afternoon team
is Talking Your Teams. Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are
the eight Team.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
What's Up Houston? It is a Friday edition of the
A Team Sports Talk.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
An hour from now, you can flip on Space City
Home Network and see our bright, smiling, shining faces and
we'll take you up until Astro's on Deck, which will
cut into our show yet again. This that'll start at
five o'clock. Astros and Yankees getting together for a weekend
set in the Bronx will certainly have a number of

(01:08):
subplots and items to discuss with regards to that. We
will also talk to Chandler Rome for his weekly visit
coming up at four o'clock, and obviously during the Astros
on Deck show, since we are handling that, will be
also talking to Brian McTaggart for his weekly visit. I
want to get into what's going on with the Texans.

(01:30):
Two different I guess issues, and they both involved the
safety position, but very different ways. Jimmy Ward decided to
get arrested again last night. I want to start there
just because I don't think it'll take as long to
get through this. Then we can get into the fiasco
that happened yesterday. But is this just something as simple
as he's going through a rough patch right now, because

(01:52):
I don't remember him having like a a I get
into legal issues, reputation coming in, Yeah, don't.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
There's nothing of great consequence that took place, and this
does not appear to be any issue at all other
than lack of knowledge about the situation he was in
and already the incident from last night is nothing in
terms of what really stands in the way of potentially
seeing the NFL make a ruling on this, the actual
legal course of action taking place, which should happen over
the course of the remainder this month. He's within a

(02:21):
week of that court initial court date, and by the
end of the month there should be a resolution which
then sends the NFL into motion on what they do.
But this was just a matter of he had alcohol,
didn't realize that was an issue with the situation he
was already in, and so he was held and then
released and moves on to the actual issues at hand

(02:42):
from the incident that took place over the summer.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Yeah, and his lawyer basically said as much and said
that he won't be facing any new allegations and that
the charges will likely be waived or at least that's
what he's expecting, which I wouldn't expect his lawyer to
see anything else. But yeah, it's the second time that
he's been arrested this summer basically, so it's not something

(03:05):
that you want to necessarily hear if you're the Texans
and you're already dealing with a safety situation where what
the hell happened yesterday?

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Well, one last thing on Jimmy Ward. I think it
was a mistake to extend him, and I think it
is a mistake to count on him strictly for a
football reason has nothing to do with the off the
field stuff, especially since there wasn't any off the field
stuff before this summer and obviously before Casario extended him.
I mean, you can't count on him because he's just
going to be hurt, and that's been the story of

(03:37):
his career for now three years running. Now he's able
to play in a little more than half the games
the two years he's been here a little bit more
than that the last year he was before arriving here.
But the way he plays and the stage of his
career that he's in, you know, Jimmy Ward, should he
be a Texan this year, he'll be a thirty four
year old NFL player heading into his eleventh or twelfth season.

(03:59):
I think it's there are other ways to outfit that position,
and I think that's exactly the course they'll go. You
don't have to get rid of him, he's already under contract.
If everything works out and the league doesn't have anything
to sanction him with, then by all means you have
him on the roster. But you know that there are
ways that you're going to need to have somebody else
behind him that you're ready to play, because inevitably there'll
be a time where he won't be able to play.

(04:20):
He has experience, he knows this defense. He's been on
the field a ton with the other ten guys that
will be out there with him, So I get it
from that standpoint, it's more of a weight and see,
I think they'll make the necessary accommodations because he's now
one of three safeties unavailable to them to not only
get through the preseason but be prepared for the season
on September seventh, if in fact, none of those three

(04:42):
are available to them.

Speaker 4 (04:43):
CJ.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Gardner Johnson's situation, it seemed unlikely that it was a
short term injury when he was down on the field yesterday,
according to the descriptions and then the comments we got
both from Demiko after practice and then from Nick Casario
right here on the A team. But remember Nick said,
you know you things like that, and everybody kind of
assumes the worst. And I think he's probably right from

(05:04):
how we feel about those things, especially the ones that
I actually see and did not have a chance to
see that one yesterday because it wasn't out there and
it was not during the video available portion of practice.
But he didn't want to talk about the length of
that injury or put him out for the season at
the time we talked to him late afternoon yesterday, and

(05:25):
the subsequent accurate reports indicated that it is not an
ACL injury. The ACL is intact, but more testing needs
to be done to figure out exactly what is the
injury and then the extent of that injury, and then
obviously the timeline that goes along with it. I have
no idea where to put it at. Could be short term,
you could see him play or be available for the

(05:48):
big majority of the season. They don't play a game
for a month. If he's out for four weeks, he
could actually be available for Game one. If he's out
for six weeks, he could be available for Game three.
If he's out for ten twelve weeks outside of the
off week, there's still potentially eleven games he's out there for.
No idea at this point, peer speculation, but potentially there
is the opening for much better news than when he

(06:11):
went down yesterday.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yeah, and I think that this kind of thing, I
guess from time to time can happen where you know,
one person gets a bit of news, in this case
Aaron Wilson, and goes with it and then it's not
necessarily correct. Although Aaron Wilson is not at all and
we've had him on the show many times and we
both know him personally, that's not one of those guys

(06:35):
that's like a Bob Nightingale type or I don't know,
fill in the blank, somebody who just throws stuff. Again,
like if Aaron Wilson tweets something. I'm almost nine nine
point nine percent of this sure every single time it's
it's facts. So whatever happened or whatever led to you know,
him initially reporting that it's a torn acl and now
it's not, and you know, whatever case scenario this is,

(06:57):
which I think under the circumstances, it looks like it's
the best case scenario for the Texans. But we still
don't even know, and I don't think when are we
gonna know, Like when are we going to definitively know.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well, we'll hear from Deviko Ryan's Saturday after the football game,
and I think if the Texans know at that time,
there may be an opportunity for him to deliver some
of that information. If they don't know all parts of it,
like exactly what the injury is, exactly what course of
action they're deciding to take if it's surgery or rehab,
then the timeline that goes with it. If those things
aren't all known, then he may just feel most comfortable,

(07:29):
especially since he leans on the side of not talking
about injuries at all. He may lean on the side
of just talking about we're still getting more information, especially
if no report has come out yet. Indicating what it is,
then he easily can go that route, and it might
even be the factual actual route. But that's really probably
from the team. The first time we'll hear anything of
any substance from them. We'll be back on the practice

(07:50):
field at the beginning of next week, so I would
imagine sometime before they stop practicing, before the Panthers get
here on Thursday, they'll practice those three days in front it.
I bet you will have some information and the timeline
that goes along with it. Sometimes the tests that you
do immediately, both on the field and then actual machine
testing because of the injury, you know exactly what happened.

(08:15):
And that's what happened with the Chargers yesterday. The Chargers
put on an official statement eight hours, ten hours, seven
hours after their player was carted off the field because
it was a patlite and they knew what it had happened,
they knew what needs to take place to fix it,
and they know the timeline associated with fixing it. He's
out for the year. Shaan Slater doesn't appear to be

(08:36):
what has happened with Gardner Johnson, so there may be
more additional information needed before all those things. I just said,
they come up with a plan of where they're going
with this and subsequently letting us in on it.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
Yeah, and I mean, I know this is a running
joke at this point, but can we just if there's
going to be all these injuries in Houston sports, can
we just have one definitive injury one time that's like
of the major variety. I don't want to have any injuries,
but if we're going to have one, can it just
not be cloudy one time?

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Well, the least cloudy injuries are either the one that
happened last night when Anthony Richards had said, Hey, this
is my first game ever at quarterbacks, so I'm going
to pretend like I know nothing about how to read
a defense and I'm going to let the edge come
and crush me. And yes, as many ex quarterbacks that
are now in the media have screamed super loudly, as

(09:26):
have many offensive linemen that are now in the media,
or at least have followers on social media screamed just
as loudly. This was not on the blockers. This was
not on the back out of the backfield. This was
not on the lineman at the line or the tight end.
This is on the quarterback, not recognizing what is happening
and where's hot route is. But to the injury, he
hurts pinky. They knew exactly what it was. It was dislocated.

(09:47):
They put it back in place. They think he's going
to practice as early as tomorrow their next practice. But
he did not play the remainder of the game. That's
pretty definitive an injury like that, or where you clearly
have torn your acl and you know that later that
day you clearly blown out up the tele attended. Unfortunately,
we saw an injury in that very same game on
the other side of the field where a player on

(10:08):
his way into the end zone as a defender, his
leg was going in the wrong direction and his season ended.
There were several season ending injuries. There were only three
games to kick off the preseason weekend last night, and
sadly that likely means there will be more tonight in
the three games, or tomorrow in the eight games, or
Sunday and the remainder of the week one preseason games.

(10:28):
But the severity of the injury, sometimes when it's extremely severe,
you have your answer before even the team tells.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
You, yeah, I just you know, just once I would
like it to be not so cloudy when I hear
from one of the teams here in town.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
And again, I know, we get the astros that the
nature of an injury, it's unknown. Everybody's different, your body's different.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
Well, okay, then fair, let's just say if it's not
black and white, as they say, don't add to it
by making it cloudier.

Speaker 5 (11:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
Well, Texans haven't had a history of doing that. No,
I don't expect them to in this insane really, I
mean it's lately. I don't know how you feel about
the Tari Easton injury that seemed rather cloudy, but I
don't I'm not blaming them for it. But what exactly
is going on in year one when he couldn't play?
What is his second year? The injury back still? And

(11:25):
then last year similarly the the You know, if I
sat here right now and said, uh, Tarry Easton was
playing through injury last year and the year before, and
then I said, so what was wrong with him? You
would not give me an answer. A lower leg injury.
You don't know what the answer is. It's not a
personal attack on you, No, it's a general who would

(11:45):
but you know, people inside the organization.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
Fred Van Vliet missed February last year. Well, he sprained
his ankle, that's why. Well we also watched it, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
But we weren't.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
Also kind of being misled by what the team was
saying in the process of he's got a sprain ankle,
he's going to be back in about.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
A month ish. I mean, when you see, I don't
I've never gotten I just don't. I don't understand the
if if one team does it, that doesn't project it
onto anything else, and if they've done it with a
couple of injuries, I mean, it's just totally totally different.
They didn't give us a he's going to be back
in a month. They said he'll be back when he's ready,

(12:22):
and then he came back. We saw him sprain as ankle.
We don't have to guess what he did. We watched
it about Tari Easton, like all we ever got is
lower leg injury. What is it?

Speaker 3 (12:32):
If it's the lower leg, then we're talking about the
knee down right, because if it was upper then it's
above the knee.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
And from an NBA perspective, the Rockets discussion handling and
literal word for wording of it because they send out
an injury report every single day. They actually updated hourly
during the season. That is a very common description for
an injury, and they also have their own little caveat
of telling guys not to play for no reason at

(12:59):
all and having it called rest. I have to do
this though.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
Before the wee end the segment, Frev Van Vliet's injury
was technically a lower leg injury too. It was his
foot or his ankle. I guess, right, and now tell
me when. Tell me what you saw when Tari got hurt.
I don't know when did it happen exactly.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
That's the difference. We watched him hurt his ankle.

Speaker 5 (13:20):
They don't.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
They can tell us it's a lower leg injury. But
one hundred percent of the people covering the team, if
we if we see it happen, they have to be transparent.
But if we don't, we have to do anything. We're
just making things up about what's happened. Nothing happened. I
argue about this another segment during the show. You just
haven't pretty sure you won't because I'd have to engage
and that's not happening, right.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
I will talk to a mute at least one point
during the next several hours here on our program. Now
we won't do that, but we will get into a
little bit more about CJ. Gardner Johnson and how that
all unfolded yesterday. Also a little couple of interesting rockets tidbits,
believe it or not. Here on the first Friday in August.
Before you know it, we're gonna have their schedule. It's

(14:02):
like right around the corner. And methinks this will be
a very hyped matchup or a hyped season, I should say,
for the Astros. And speaking of hyped matchups, I will
get into the Astros at Yankees as it pertains to
that very topic as well. It's all coming up here
on a Friday edition of the show.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (14:31):
Here we go, put one hundred times, Hey, Brenet pins
in every line, Sow them up.

Speaker 7 (14:35):
Let's some shine going at them up. Get not fifty mounts.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
It is the A Team Sports Talk.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
Seven ninety lex ac Cole Thompson with you on a
Friday edition of the show Astros on Deck coming up
at five o'clock, Channel of Rome coming up at four o'clock.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
And uh so.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yesterday when all this stuff was happening, and we got
in here and you know, saw that CJ. Gardner Johnson
had been carted off at practice last day at the Greenbrier,
and it was just kind of like a sour mood
on I wouldn't say it was like I mean from
the standpoint of you know, camp going off without a hitch.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
I mean, Damiko Ryan said it himself.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
They got they accomplished everything they wanted to accomplish. Whether
you thought it's been a good camp for certain players
or position units on the team is another thing altogether.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
But that's just training camp. But then CJ.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
Gardner Johnson, one of your you know, highly touted editions
in the offseason, goes down. It looks bad, and then
you're hearing torn ACL because you know, Aaron Wilson initially
tweeted the following Texan safety CJ. Gardner Johnson to undergo
more testing on the knee. And then he says he
comes back and he says ACL is not torn per

(15:48):
sources out an undetermined amount of time, but initially his
first source whoever, it was his first his initial tweet,
it was torn ACL and he was the guy saying it.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
And like I said in the segment, you know this wex.

Speaker 3 (16:01):
He's a guy who I think if he tweets, if
he posts something about the Texans, you can usually take
it to the bank every single time. So you see
that and it's just it's not a good thing. And
then the language that was being used by De Miko.
And even as some people pointed this out yesterday, we
had Nick Cassario on the show yesterday and some people
were like, look how much he was talking about depth

(16:23):
on the show.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
When they asked him about CJ.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
Gardner Johnson, it was like, at all signs pointed to, oh, yeah,
season ending injury, he's done.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Look forward to next year.

Speaker 3 (16:34):
Sucks that the first year of this deal that he's
on is going to be you know, basically on the shelf.
And then everybody else that has a big name in
the NFL and primarily on the national side of things
started weighing in, like Ian Rapaport, good news for the Texans.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Safety. CJ.

Speaker 3 (16:50):
Gardner Johnson, who has carted off in practice today did
not tear his ACL. Sources say he's undergoing more tests,
but initial tests have provided good news. And then Adam
Schefter similar type situation. He comes in and says tests
revealed that Texan safety CJ. Gardner Johnson's ACL is intact.
Texans are still conducting more testing to determine the extent

(17:12):
of the injury, but the team is not concerned.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
About his ACL.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
So I don't know what the injury is, but it's
not a torn ACL, and I guess that's the best
case scenario under the circumstances.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
I mean, it depends what it actually is. But we
know the timeline on the ACL, but we don't know
what the injury is, so we don't know the timeline
on that. Very few injuries take longer to recover from
that weren't obvious and apparent. You know, dramatic Tech Dell's injury,
Dak Prescott's injury. Several of them are so dramatic and
drastic that we might not know what it is, but
we know a lot of stuff has probably been torn,

(17:45):
and otherwise maybe it is. You know, sometimes broken bones
are lengthier than others, depending on what it is and
how long it takes that individual to recover from it.
Sometimes it's much shorter. But yeah, until we have an
answer for it, doesn't really mean a whole lot. I
do think it's most likely better news. I don't know
about good news. And two Nick Cassario's comments here, the

(18:06):
beat goes on, if he's not talking about their depth,
then he's pretending that they're not in season once training
camp starts here in season. He talked to us yesterday.
Yesterday was Thursday. His football team has a game two
days from now. They got another one nine days from now,
They got another one sixteen days from then, and the
season openers a month away. Of course, he's talking about
depth because those are the players that are playing football

(18:27):
for his team. You got six guys that are safeties
essentially vying for the four or five roster spots. One's
been on the pup list since they got to camp
and didn't participate in the off season program. That's Jimmy Ward.
One was just drafted, participated in the whole off season
program and had a good start to camp before getting
hurt for what is a multi week injury. He's into
week two of that. That's Jalen Reed from Penn State,

(18:48):
and obviously now CJ. Gardner Johnson, who's participated throughout training camp,
was in Houston and at the facility throughout their offseason
program from when they acquired him until where we were
yesterday in West Virginia. Well, three players aren't with you,
and there's definitely not definitive information on CJ. Gardner Johnson.

(19:08):
The likelihood is that Reid is available by this season opener,
though his practice time will be severely limited, and he's
a rookie, and they may know more about what they
want to do with Jimmy Ward, but we don't, And
I don't think it's injury related at this point. I
think the time spent recovering from the problems that he
had last year health wise have been solved. I think

(19:30):
it's more of this is a way to let him
get healthy as best as he can away from the
practice field while the league sifts through and the actual
legal process feeds through the system until they get an
answer on that. But in the meantime, players have to
go out there. They're gonna put eleven players on the field,
and two of them will be safeties. Block will be
out there for maybe a snap or ten or fifteen,
but probably not much more than that. So in this

(19:52):
first preseason game, you're even more limited. Well how much
are're gonna play Jalen Petrie? Now you're even more limited,
So Miles Bryant, mjson U, Russ Yeast and others who
aren't safeties. But our players in the secondary may end
up taking the seventy five snaps they have Saturday's game
against the Vikings because they just don't have that many players.

Speaker 3 (20:14):
It's not it is. It is TBD. But it's not
like it's determined who they are. It's just a matter
of how much each one of these guys is gonna
get of the work workload.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
Basically, absolutely, it's to be determined.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
More so, they're gonna how they're going to look long
term at that position in a year where I just.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
They've played each of the last two years with m J.
Stewart taking snaps because of depth reasons and the players
in front of him were out and they're ready to
do it again. If this year starts this way with
the roster as it looks.

Speaker 3 (20:42):
I guess and this is fool's gold or this was
you know, putting your faith in something maybe you shouldn't.
I think, just in light of all the concerns I
have about the offensive line, I just want the defense
to be as advertised and then taking that next step
that we all thought of and it still probably could
even with this, as crazy as that might sound right

(21:04):
now considering the status of both CJ. Gardner Johnson and
Jimmy Ward. But I just I don't really think you
have to worry about the defense barring health. And again,
I know that's ridiculous to say because it's the NFL,
but everybody can be healthy on the offensive line and
you could still have an offense that can't get the
job done for a variety of reasons.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
I don't feel like that about the defense. Yeah, the
good news is that's the only place on the team
where it really doesn't matter health or not. I don't
know that health has anything to do with how the
Texans play on offensive line because I just don't know
what the difference is between their top five and their
next five and their next five. Because the situation they
put themselves in is the way we plan on fixing
it isn't with a ton of new talent. It's with
a brand new idea and teaching and discipline and knowledge

(21:48):
and communication of how the five guys upfront, along with
the other blockers and any pass protection scheme or run
blocking scheme work together. Because you just I don't even
think Nick would try to tell us otherwise, and he
really didn't. Yesterday we heard from him. On the offensive line,
they didn't go out there and find a bunch of
talented offensive linemen. They found a bunch of guys who
have a lot of playing time in the NFL. I mean,
not a one of the players they added was among

(22:10):
the top two, three, maybe even four best linemen on
their respective football teams. They were arguably the worst offensive
lineman on their respective teams. Still starters, Cam Robbinsons started
games for two teams last year, just not very well.
You know, Laken Tomlinson's been a full time play every
single snap as a starter for multiple teams over the
course of his career, never other than one season when

(22:31):
he did to get Pro Bowl recognition, not often considered
and not recently considered as one of the better players
on his team's offensive line. And these are the guys
that are going to be out there. The Texans also know,
like everybody else does. I mean, they got eleven guys
set to start, you know, twelve fourteen guys expected to
get tons of playing time on your defense. They're not
all going to be healthy. They play in the NFL,

(22:52):
they play football it's full. You can't have a healthy team.
It just doesn't happen. It's a matter of who it is,
how much yet do you have at the position, how
easily replay they are, and how shrewd a GM you have,
how much knowledge you have about the players that are
available on the streets or with other teams, knowing the
teams that have a surplus of players at different spots,
who you can make a phone call too to see
if you can pluck somebody that is actually a player

(23:14):
they would otherwise keep. And who do you have on
your roster that you can offer in return. If you're
taking a real top fifteen defensive player off somebody's team,
well maybe you have to offer a top fifteen player
off of your team that you just have in a
position of strength. It's a lot like the Kenyon Green deal.
We're talking about the other player CJ. Gardner Johnson, You're
able to get him for an actual player on your

(23:34):
roster in a trade. He was hurt last night. If
you missed that for the Eagles, a hand or wrist
injury for Kenyon Green. I don't know the severity of it,
but that's how you make things happen. That's what, in
my opinion, is made Nick Cassario a very good GM,
usually very very very well prepared for whatever injuries have
hit this team. From the guys that are already here,

(23:55):
the fifty three plus sixteen on the practice squad, and
who else can be brought in to make up four,
they have talent and plenty of it. On defense, A CJ.
Gardner Johnson injury for any length of time should not
derail them, but yes, it doesn't make them. It does
make them worse. He was a plus level player trying
to make a plus level defense even better. And we'll

(24:17):
find out sometime hopefully in the next two to three days,
when he will be able to do that in twenty
twenty five, because hopefully, from what we know at this
point in time, there does appear to be a window
for him to return in twenty twenty five. But that's
pure speculation. The best of cs halfway through our number one,
that's what we do at that time, that's what we
will do next.

Speaker 1 (24:37):
The age on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (24:44):
Did you just see this?

Speaker 7 (24:45):
We should be putting out between five and fifteen posts
a day.

Speaker 8 (24:49):
Four hundred people were arrested for things that they said
on social media. History repeats itself type Banguel's succeed Never
doubt that you're the one to for no one. You're
the best of X. Nothing's gonna have a top. You
know you're the best of X.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
Posting every single day.

Speaker 8 (25:11):
You're the best of X breaking the entire Internet.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
It's a Friday edition of the Best of X Sports
Talk seven to ninety. Here on the eighteen X ac
Cole Thompson with you. Is there a like? For example,
there is a certain burger chain in town that is
celebrating its seventy fifth anniversary today.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
It's the one that's better.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
Than in and Out even though you are you one
of those people that thinks the other one's better.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Where are you falling that?

Speaker 6 (25:49):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (25:49):
They both have attributes. I think as an overall grade,
I would grade the other place you're talking about, and
it rhymes with Waterburger as the better one, the one
I eat at much more often. I've certainly tried the
other one, the in and out version, and it has
some things that I like. Sometimes you'll go there when
nothing else is available. Sometimes you'll seek it out. Water

(26:11):
Burger seventy five years old. Congrats to them celebrating that
today you want a seventy five cent burger, they can
make that happen for you. Tell us about the technicality.
It's not a technicality. So it's a way of business
here in this day and age. Go ahead and fire
up the app, because that's how you can get it.
One app, one burger. That's how it works. So go

(26:32):
ahead and take advantage of that. You got another four
hours and twenty three minutes, five hours and twenty three
minutes till eight o'clock.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
But the technicality is the ingredients part. Isn't it just
the burger? Yes, nothing else on it? Yes, that's a technicality. Okay,
well you didn't say that part.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
A seventy five cent fully loaded anything you want on
it burger. Yeah, that's what they're offering. Oh no, that's
what they're not. That's what I want. They're offering a
seventy five cent single patty water, if you'd like other
items on it, or additional patties, they're all available to you,
just at an additional cost, as per usual.

Speaker 3 (27:07):
So obviously that's what brings us to McDonald's. I U,
I don't know if there is a food chain of
any kind and it has to be the fast food
variety to kind of compare to this that you would
try and do something like this at you being Adam
Wexler or anybody listening, but you in particular. Is there

(27:28):
a fast food place that, either now or more likely
in the past, you would have attempted to go to
like every location in America and eat at that location.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Well, they are separate from most all of the others
for the very obvious reason there's more of them, that's true.
So if I set out to do it at some
other entity, it might be easier. It would be less
of an undertaking, just for the pure mass number of
locations that any other fast food chain has, which is
a little bit less than this one has.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
At least if you did that at Waterburger, they wouldn't
make it until you ordered it.

Speaker 7 (28:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
I mean, if I did it right now, I could
knock off a trip to the Waterburger across from Compact
Center and eat there, and then maybe in a month
or two I could stop off at the new Waterburger
across from Compact Center. As they move locations about three
hundred yards apart from one another. I didn't know this
was happening.

Speaker 3 (28:24):
Will you remember where there. I'm always flying by there
at eighty five miles an hour.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
There's a Burger place that was on fifty nine in
between west Land and Buffalo Speedway that is no longer
operating there, and Waterburger has taken that spot over, which
is only it's one huge shopping center away from their
current water Burger had a silly name. I don't know
what you consider silly. There's a couple of d's in
the last name. That's why I started with an F

(28:48):
and with uckers. And I guess if I made it
sound funny because I can't. You can't just throw that
on me. Yeah, so I think it's gonna be great.
I think there were some logistical issues at prime eating
times lunch and dinner, mainly for the current location bill.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Yeah, I'm excited that that won't be there. But the
point of the story is best of X. How are
we talking about all this stuff and we haven't even
mentioned the reason why. There is somebody and he's using
social media to help everybody follow along on his journey
and to help them fund his journey because he's asking
for your help to go to every single one of them,
every single golden arches that he can get to, and

(29:28):
he's deemed thirteen thousand plus of them thirteen five hundred
and forty four to be exact. So he will take
it to the mean streets of TikTok, usually neighborhood of
thirty seconds to a minute's worth of Essentially, here's what
this location is like. I'll show you we order there.
Most of them are now upgraded to the digital ordering.

(29:49):
I'll want wander through the restroom and show you what
it looks like in there. I'll show you some of
the workers' lower bodies so as no faces will be
in the video, and I'll make it to the next
location for up a little bit of a rating at
the end, seven out of ten, seven and a half
out of ten. Three out of ten employees were great,
four out of ten employees were rude. Eight out of
ten bathroom clean service great, very speedy, loved it.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
Who knows there was a time where these types of
people that do this kind of thing would be laughed
out of the building. But here in twenty twenty five,
it's almost like if you're not trying to do something
like this, people wonder what's wrong with you. At least
from a social media standpoint, and he is only nineteen
years old.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
He has Donnie Boy.

Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yeah, Donnie Donnie Boy's ten on TikTok if you're nasty.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
Donnie Boy's ten is just so dangerously close to the
first ever email address you have that you know you
have to change when you become an adult. Oh, you
mean the hotmail one like the one that Ross still has.
Probably he's about based on his most recent posts done,
he's thirteen months in two hundred and eighty three McDonald's

(30:59):
in and just over thirteen months from this post he
made earlier today this morning.

Speaker 3 (31:04):
This article said he had already eaten at three hundred
and fifty. So I'm getting different sources. This doesn't mean
they've all made it to his page. Yes, and if
you go to his GoFundMe page, but again that's whether
it's two eighty or three fifty, that's a college try.
So if you're like, I don't want to give this
guy money, well he's legit in the standpoint of he's
already gone to hundreds of these so he's not just

(31:25):
asking for money, although he has, he is asking for
hundreds of thousands of dollars that it he believes it
will cost him over the next three plus decades.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
Says the goal is a thousand. He's got one hundred
and five bucks.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
I've always dreamed of visiting every McDonald's in the United States,
tasting each unique item on the menu and experiencing the
local vibes. This journey isn't just about the food wex,
It's about connecting with people and cultures across the country. However,
the costs of travel, lodging, and meals, of course add
up quickly. With your support, I can make this calling adventure.

(32:01):
That's a nice way to put it a reality, sharing
my experiences and discoveries with you every step of the way.
Join me on this delicious quest.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
And many people have. I'll go to the second most
recent posts because since it's been up a little bit longer,
there are more comments there. Gail says, here since day one, bro,
she's a day one yep, Jaden says, respectfully, tag me
when you're in Massachusetts, specifically Lowell. He wants to know
when he's at that location. A lot of people are
very specific with oh, I recognize what that one the

(32:32):
moment you showed it. Have been there on a hundred
times a lot of people comment on the things that
he has shown, and I kind of ran through it.
He often gives you a little bit of a video
snippet of the restroom. There are a lot of comments
like that, wanted to know if he left Washington already,
let me know when you're in Colorado. You know, things
like that pretty pleasant, not too much controversy located within this.

(32:55):
I haven't seen anything from the corporation on any of
these posts that I've sifted through, but I'm sure there
will be one at some point. They should help foot
the bill. I mean, he's got he's given them enough.
I dare you to pull up on the McDonald's in
South Minnesota and Seux Fall see what happens. Wow, sounds
that sounds menacing. There was a dare. Look, there are certain.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
McDonald's is that I wouldn't want to.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Go to in this country. Still waiting for Alaska. Your
boy Epic nine to ninety nine, certainly a major adult
with that handle. He'd made an estimate. I don't know
where he got this from.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
It's going to cost him me around five hundred to
seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in travel costs like food, hotels, gas, flights,
and car maintenance.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
Flying to go to McDonald's. Dude, there's thirteen thousand McDonald's
in the US. He's going to quit before he getting
anywhere close. I agree with that guy.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
There's nowhere close is relative, and he's already been to hundreds,
but thirteen thousand, five hundred place.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
He really doesn't spare any of these locations. Now that
I've had far too much time to look at a
few of these posts, it's pretty standard drives. You see
the outside, you see the inside. You see him order,
you see him get his meal. He shows you the meal.
He walks to the restaurant, hits the restroom, and makes
his way out. But he shows the restroom. I mean
he shows this, shows the toilet or the urinal. It's man,

(34:16):
he's in that restroom. But I don't really want him to, no,
because I've seen multiple ones. I've only seen a few
of his posts, and more than one of them it
was not empty.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
Cas says, I'm sorry, I can get to two forty
nine Golden Arches in Houston in one week.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
You're behind the count. Maybe he will spawn new people.
Got to get your content creator, and you're trying to
find your niche you're trying to find a following. Well,
you take people on a journey. Whatever that journey might be,
as seemingly uninteresting as it might be, it usually works.

Speaker 3 (34:52):
My wife has a theory as we close this thrilling
conversation down.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
He's got one hundred and twenty nine one hundred and
twenty nine thousand followers and five plus million, one hundred
and twenty nine thousand followers, and he's only come up
with one hundred and five bucks.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
Come on, just maybe he recently asked for for help. Well,
he needs to start putting that link out there more.
She is convinced that the carbonation in the sprite at
any McDonald's is hands down better than any other fast
foods chains out there.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
There are a lot of chains known for their specific
mix of specific because they do it a little bit differently.
Everybody nate palm sprite and McDonald's. I think it's fairly
well known to be elite.

Speaker 9 (35:31):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
Doctor Pepper at Chick fil A is pretty fairly well
known to the answer is a shake that's well heavy.
But they do have a new doctor Pepper BlackBerry shake. Oh,
I'm aware. Wex it's Friday and I'm feeling froggy. Well,
there you go. Best of X. Donnie Boy is ten
visiting all the Golden Arches, not McDowell's, but the actual

(35:55):
golden arches around this great country of ours.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
The AE on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Getting close to the top of the hour, So just
a couple of things to note as we make our
way there. Three o'clock, four o'clock, we'll have chandeler Rome
join us as the Yankees and Astros get together in
the five o'clock gour during the Astros on Deck show.
Around five point fifteen or so, Brian McTaggart will join
us again on that very same topic, obviously, for many,
many things to get to as we roll through the

(36:32):
final show of the week. If you were wondering what
Steven Silas was up to, I can tell you work
of Her Team USA work for USA Basketball, as he
has been over the last year in change. He's the
head coach for the twelve man team set to compete
in the FOBA Men's America Cup. Few of the names
on that list you may be familiar with, Jaron Grant,

(36:54):
Jamius Ramsey, who not long ago won a state championship
here in the state of Texas. Then's a Big two
basketball followed. But that's what coach Silas has been up to,
working for a team USA and likely on an NBA
bench as an assistant on into his immediate future. You
lamented about the event itself, but championed the fact that

(37:17):
cal Raley not only participated in it, but then won
it and what it then does to players in the future. Yes,
it was also the last year the Major League Baseball
Home Run Derby was attached to the worldwide leader ESPN.
Their television deal included them relinquishing those rights as that
kind of all fell apart and Major League Baseball has

(37:39):
gone different routes, and it appears Netflix wants in Netflix Babe,
maybe your next home for the MLB Home Run Derby.
And I wonder if with that they would have any
influence over format changes. I don't think there was much
wrong with the format. I kind of like the way
it was this year. It was pretty easy to eliminate

(38:00):
those that were pretenders like Jazz Chisholm, and I don't
think it was too taxing on those that were not.
You know, some of the years that had guys out
there forever swinging and swinging and swinging and homering and
homering and homering just was both boring and tiresome for
the individual. So I don't think it made for a
great event. I'm sure there'll be some tweaks, but I

(38:22):
don't know this will be Netflix probably. Anytime you see
an entity trying to get in on one of the
top three major professional sports from a streaming standpoint, it's
usually the beginning of a much larger broadcasting plan, and
I would imagine that is what Netflix has in mind. Obviously,
the Major League Baseball is working for multiple streaming platforms.

(38:43):
Were aware of that from last Friday and from tonight's game,
aware of it from last Sunday's game right and early
in the morning from Boston. Although free accessible via their
site and streaming service only, Netflix could be another to
the party in the very near future. I can't keep
it up of this carousel of stream to keep up,
just need to pay attention on a regular basis. Where's

(39:05):
the game today? Sports Talk seven to ninety just like always, Well,
that's exactly right.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
It's Look, it's the only place that you're going to
be able to see the game or hear the game,
I should say for free tonight for the second straight
Friday Night in a row Red Sox last weekend Yankees. Tonight,
the Red Sox will be back in town again because
we haven't had enough of them.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
Maybe they'll beat Alex.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
Bregman's new team in that series since they didn't last weekend.
But first things first, you got the Yankees in town tonight.
We are going to discuss that at length when we
come back, because I have a theory about this. We're
always talking about the golden era of Astros baseball, and
with the Yankees coming into this matchup tonight with the Astros,

(39:46):
the Astros still somewhat limping in although they are getting healthier.
I have a theory on the hype level for a
series like this, even if it is in the Bronx,
even if it is the Astros and the Yankees for
the umpteenth time, I'll tell you about it to start
the three o'clock hour and our simulcast on Space City
Home Network.

Speaker 7 (40:02):
Next, the A Team on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Ninety two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adham talking your Team.
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the eight team.

Speaker 3 (40:34):
It is the A Team Sports Talk seven ninety now
Space City Home Network.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
Doug Pike's timing is impeccable. He waved him in. I'll
tell you what though.

Speaker 3 (40:45):
His question was interesting, as the Astros are going to
start a three games set with the Yankees in the
Bronx tonight, we'll have the Astros on Deck show coming
up at five o'clock. Chandler Roam of the Athletic will
join us an hour from now to discuss that and
more all things Astros.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
He was talking.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
He was asking, is a hit by pitch just that
if the ball hits the chains that a player is wearing,
isn't it part of your body? If it's on you?
I mean they hit protective gear all the time. That's
not getting hit on the arm that's strapped to you. Well,
so is the chains.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
No, it's not. It's loose hanging off of you. Is
that the rule? Well, if it hits your chain while
the chain is completely trapped against your body, like you're
laying down in the chains on you, then it would
I'm sure it would count as a hit by pitch
because you'd barely be able to tell the difference, and
your jersey's loose. Yeah, when it hits your jersey, that's
a hit by pitch, right, but that's standard major league uniform.

(41:41):
I don't know if they would consider that, Like you
could get a super duper oversized jersey, and I'm sure
they would at some point outlaw it when that particular
player welled, Zach Granke's jersey would would get hit more often,
but not that I've ever seen it. I don't know
if he brought it up for a happenstance or it's
he's now trying to get a ruling on it, but
I don't remember it happening. And normally you wear a

(42:04):
chain around your neck, so if the ball's coming at
your neck, sweet chin music. I mean, there's not that
many of them, luckily.

Speaker 3 (42:12):
I feel like a few starts to go Fromber had
to disengage from his chain because his chain is broken
at least three times this year. Maybe you should get
a better chain, throw less violently, let the guys hit it,
throw it underhanded. That's true, all right. So I have
a theory on this series. It is Yankees. It's Astros
all the bad blood. It's really one sided. I mean,

(42:35):
when it comes to the postseason, the Astros own them.
There's there hasn't even been one single postseason victory for
the Yankees. They've gotten games, they've won, but as far
as the series or in you know, wild card game.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
They've met a bunch of times the same team as advanced. Yeah,
every time.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
And that's why I think the bad blood stuff is
more on the New York side the.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
She's on the New York side of the barriers that
keep the fans on one side. That's where the bad
blood is. Aaron Boone, Aaron Judge Bellinger. They've been through
a lot of this Bellinger in two different places, because
he's obviously now Yankee. But beyond that, are there people
in this clubhouse or people on their twenty six men

(43:19):
roster that have much of a vibe for it? The
people in the stands won't. They'll be losing their voices
tonight and tomorrow and Sunday. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
You know what, though, I'm glad you brought that up
because when the Astros one in twenty two and I
did the video for the next morning, I put some
of those comments, and those two guys you mentioned I
included at the.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
Beginning of the video.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
It's kind of like a flashback of all the people
that said things about the Astros to somehow not validate
the twenty seventeen championship.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
And those current Yankees were two of the loudest dummies
at the time.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
But I feel like, while I agree with what you
just said by calling them dummies, I feel like.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
I don't think they knew the facts. Well, this one,
very current Astro once said, how did he say it?
If you don't know the facts, then you need to
not say anything. He had a lot of meeting behind
it when he said it to Ken just that way,
and he looked right into the camera and he said,
if you don't know the facts, you need to not
say anything. It was awesome. He just that's why we

(44:18):
love him. It's like a T shirt. You need to
not say anything.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
It would have been better if he had looked at
him and said, you should probably stop talking less you
know the.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
Fact, if you don't know the facts, I wish you
just wouldn't say anything at all. God, he just crushed
it with that line. He was so fired up, he
was so in his feelings. He Carlos Man, we love you, buddy.
Iconic line should be on the facts, then just don't
say anything at all.

Speaker 3 (44:41):
If you don't have anything nice to say, So anyway,
I say all that. Say those two players you mentioned,
Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger, they're now teammates. Obviously, Bellinger
was a member of the Dodgers team that could not
win two home games against the Astros, and so therefore
they only lost because the Astros were cheating stupid idiots.
He when he gave his SoundBite that I used at

(45:03):
the time, he was just so like sure of himself,
which was the irony in the He didn't know the facts,
and he was upset because you know, none of the
players got punished, right because your union president or head
or your union member, I guess I should say, voted
for that to be the case. That's how they got immunity.

(45:26):
I just between them and the Yankees fan base. This
guy right here making up stuff about a buzzer. It's
incredible to me that Jose didn't sue the pants off
of John Boy.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
But he's too nice of a guy. Frankly, I think
is the biggest reason why he didn't. It is, you know,
bringing that up. I do think I'm really giving that
a whole lot of thought. But something that happened over
the past year on with the situation with the old
miss student and the family and the boyfriend, and the
suing that that family then did with Pat McAfee and others. Right,

(46:01):
you know there's not this reputational damage. Well, the person
you're talking about took the story from a totally non reputable,
essentially made up source on social media, and that's very
similar to how this whole story got legs and everyone
took off with it, or it took off with those
entities that she described and wanted and the family ended
up suing. I don't think it's all that dissimilar in

(46:22):
that situation.

Speaker 3 (46:23):
It is dissimilar in one way that family had to
sue to get compensation. Nothing happened to John Boy and
then Major League Baseball was like, we'll actually pay you
to keep putting out content since you've increased your already
good but now it's insane platform based largely on the
fact that you ran with a lie about jose al Tuove.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
Great League.

Speaker 3 (46:43):
But anyways, the difference between how Bellinger presented what he
was so sure of and Aaron Judge, who I think
if you go back and look at the press conference,
the way he was asked the question he was set
up to give the type of answer that you're talking about.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
What was he supposed to say?

Speaker 3 (47:01):
The question was do you think you know the Astros
first championship was tarnished or was tainted or what have you?
And then he went into I mean, I don't know
what else he was supposed to say, Well, they didn't
earn it because they cheated.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Yeah, but it wasn't.

Speaker 3 (47:17):
I don't know if you looked at them side by side,
if we played them right now and you heard the
difference between a defiant Bellinger, well we could.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
Play judge now, but we'd have to wait till four
twenty to play Bellingers. Why why? Man, I'm ready now? Awesome?
What times the game?

Speaker 6 (47:31):
Do?

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Totally awesome? I'll have till eight o'clock. Do you get
a burger? Can I do it after the game?

Speaker 9 (47:36):
No?

Speaker 2 (47:36):
The deal's off by then. I know he will be hungry.
Then he'll probably be hungry at four twenty one. But
that's that's a you problem.

Speaker 3 (47:43):
You know, if he was a little bit older and
it was the late two thousands, he could have been
teammates with Hamilton, like even.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
The photo used for him on his baseball reference page yeah, Well,
I'm saying it as I say it out loud. I'm saying, well, duh, wex.
Why wouldn't it look like he just enjoyed that, because
he's always doing that. He always looks like that. Why
would there be a picture that he doesn't look like that.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
He's the Specolia of Major League Baseball, but everybody likes
Speccoli Modern reference forty years, forty plus years old. Anyways,
I say all that, say it's the Astros and the Yankees.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
It's in New York.

Speaker 3 (48:21):
The Yankees will their fan base will be able to
for most innings collectively be able to boom. Now two players,
for sure, it would have just been Jose al Twove
getting all the booze, but now it's gonna be Carlos Korea.
I just feel like this is considering what's going on
with them, They're spiraling and the Astros injuries and what

(48:44):
have you, is this like the least hyped matchup between
these two since even not forget the cheating scandal, just
since twenty seventeen when they faced off against each other
in the ALCS.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
Well, one of them is definitely not a full strength
and playing like it. And that's Houston and has been
for some time since they beat Bellinger's old team, the Dodgers,
and the Yankees have just kind of it feels like
they're almost sleepwalking their way through the season, and the
Judge injury didn't help. He's also not playing well both
before the injury and since he's returned. He's only played
in two games since he's returned, but he's in a

(49:16):
five for thirty four slump with sixteen strikeouts. So this
is the Judge that the Astros the scene of the postseason.
We'll see if it's the same one they see for
the next three days. There isn't a whole lot of
hype for anything. I mean, there's a rivalry between these
two teams, and the hype for them meeting in the
playoffs is always through the roof Their regular season meetings

(49:37):
came at the beginning of the season a couple of
times in the recent past, and I think that helps.
They need something at the beginning of the year to
talk about, and it was a great matchup to do
that with. Unfortunately, that was when the Astros introduced themselves
to the season, and they were awful, and that was
one of the reasons why you're right here in kind
of the middle of it all, you know, post trade deadline.
The Yankees have their own issues and the Astros have

(49:59):
their own issues, and I think that's why you're seeing
a little bit less focus on it. Some people think,
as a third place team in the American League East
and nearly out of the top six for the postseason,
that the Yankees can't lose this series. They lose two
out of three to the Astros, it's one other team

(50:20):
that's ahead of them that likely pushes them behind either
the Rangers and or Guardians, and stay behind Seattle keeps
them in third place. I'm not sure it's quite that
way with the Astros, even though what they'd be losing
is bigger. The Astros don't.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
Win two games. They only win once.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
Seattle manages to win their home series this weekend three
times against the Rays when the Astros are in the
second place the first time in a long time. They
can gain those two games by winning three times and
you winning one time or less. I don't know that
they're going to sweep, but they obviously came off of
a sweep against the worst team in the American League.
They're playing well and better got better the two players

(50:57):
they've added. One has been very very good, that's Josh Nay.
One has been very very bad, that's sey Heno Suarez.
It's still the same story for me with the Astros.
Hunter Brown throws tonight, from Berveldez throws tomorrow. Most of
the season, you have won at least one of their
two starts in succession, and they haven't very often pitched

(51:18):
back to back since the beginning of the year. But
losing four consecutive starts by that duo that hadn't happened
all season until current that's what they're currently in and
it's not because they've pitched badly in all four of
those games. Last game Hunter Brown pitched, he allowed to run.
One of the two games that Fromber pitched, he allowed
a run. They didn't win either of those two games.

(51:38):
They need to win. They need to win series. Doesn't
change now, It didn't change the beginning either win series,
win the division head of the postseason.

Speaker 3 (51:45):
Not to mention, the Red Sox are playing very good
baseball and they have already swept you last weekend and
they're next at home, So yeah, it'd be good to
take at least two out of three from this series.
All right, another reason, no matter what happens, the Texans
will likely win the AFC South.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
I'll explain that next.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
The eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
It is the A team Sports Talk seven ninety Space
City Home Network Friday edition of the program.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
Getting you into your weekend.

Speaker 3 (52:23):
If you're not already in the car on your way
home from work, well I don't like your boss very much.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
How about that. You can tell him, I said so.

Speaker 3 (52:31):
But yeah, good weekend coming up with Astros and Yankees.
You've got the Texans preseason opener tomorrow taking on the
Minnesota Vikings. And then, of course the reason why I'm
just not that concerned with the Texans from the standpoint
of as long as they stay healthy and specifically c J.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
Stroud.

Speaker 3 (52:52):
And that's a big if, by the way, because I
don't know what life will be like under this version
of the offensive line.

Speaker 2 (52:59):
But we you mentioned it specifically earlier in the show.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
I don't think like the Jacksonville Jaguars, I think would
be the biggest threat, if you want to call it that,
of the other three teams in the division. To keep
that from happening, it's not gonna be Anthony Richardson and
the Colts. And as a matter of fact, you know
with that injury last night, a dislocated right pinky in
case you hadn't heard, I know, he's returning to practice

(53:27):
as soon as maybe tomorrow. So it's not about this
particular injury. But like you phrased it earlier in the show, WEX,
he just does dumb reckless things with his career essentially.
I mean that's a little much. A dumb reckless thing
was being bad at reading a defense.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
Okay, well what about all the other times he's been hurt. Yeah,
that's fair.

Speaker 3 (53:46):
But like if you go down the list and it's
not just what the injuries were, it's how they happened. Uh.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
I mean, he's Cam Newton on the football field, so
you're blaming him for trying to make a winning play
because he has a huge, strong body.

Speaker 3 (53:59):
Well, eventually, after a Super Bowl appearance and everything else,
they caught up with Cam two.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
Yeah, it's the same thing with RG three Cam Newton
and I set it before Shansdyke and had put him
on the field even one time. It's playing with fire,
but you draft him because you want to play with fire,
and then you have to figure out how to balance
it out. You know he can gain that yard, you
know he can run over five people. You know it's
a good play. But at the expense of the potential
health of your quarterback? Do you call it? Do you

(54:24):
ask for it? And each of the three quarterbacks I mentioned,
and there are coaches during that time period they've called
it and usually it works. It got RG three's career
shortened in my opinion, and that's coach Shanahan the elder.
There's no question it impacted Cam Newton's career. He still
managed to produce a lot of excellence, but his body,

(54:46):
it took a toll in his body. There's no question.
Anthony Richard had played so little at Florida to begin with,
and then thrust into a situation where they were hoping
he could play a ton of football. He barely played
it all his opening season due to injury when he
got hurt running the football in an awesome play, very
well designed that took advantage of the fact that he
was awesome. Now he got hit by MJ. Stewart and

(55:07):
ultimately suffered a concussion, and that was one of the
reasons season't got derailed. Then shoulder problems for the better
part of the last two years is the real reason,
and that is a huge, huge issue. I don't know
how much it impacts his ability to throw the ball
where it's supposed to be, but he has limited accuracy.
He threw three passes last night. He completed two of them, so,
in other words, he was the most accurate passer the

(55:30):
Indianapolis Cols used in last night's game. Their plan was
to play him for the first quarter and a half
than Daniel Jones would finish out the half. In that
he only got seven snaps, It lasted a lot less
time than that, and it certainly changed their plan for
this game. Daniel Jones ended up playing to the half,
and we'll see if they are both healthy enough to
flip that for the next game. It's probably more about

(55:52):
the team itself. I'm right there with you. If you
told me to pick a team that's likeliest to catch
the Texans this year, it's certainly not the indian Appleless Colts.
And if you tell me a rookie quarterback starting for
a likely under talented Tennessee Titans team, well then I'm
gonna add them to it. They're competing with one team
this year in my mind, and that is Jacksonville. If
any health to Trevor Lawrence really truly changes how he

(56:15):
plays football, if they're changing everything offensively, head coach, oc etc.
Leads to him playing better football, I don't think they're
under talented, and I certainly think he has weapons. Brian
Thomas Junior is phenomenal and we'll find out how shrewd
a move it was for new GM James Gladstone to
move up and draft two way player Travis Hunter. But yeah,

(56:36):
I'm not watching what the Colts are likely to do
this year and knowing that it's either Richardson or Jones
not very scary. I think Jones is perfectly well equipped
to play another twelve years in the NFL as a backup,
and he can help you win two out of three
games every once in a while. He can help you
get through a six game stretch where your quarterback that's
better than him is hurt. But I don't really want

(56:58):
him running my football team much In the same way,
it should have been a much shorter leash in Baltimore
for Joe Flacco. They were just so awesome they just
kept him there forever and then he turned into what
turned out to be a very long career as a backup,
quality quarterback, better athlete than that. So maybe Daniel Jones
brings a little bit more to the table. But one
thing real quick before we continue with that topic, because

(57:19):
this is related. What would you say if I told
you CJ. Gardner Johnson took to social media in the
last hour or two, I'd say, where were we at?
Because we didn't catch it here It is from exactly
twelve to fifty pm. Is this the horse's mouth? It's
his account and I do not believe he was hacked. Okay,

(57:41):
good go? He says one quick sentence or two sentences,
both with exclamation points. Texans fans, He says, I want
a whiz Khalifa collab for my EP. Need my fans help?
Are you kidding me right now? And the responses are CJ,

(58:02):
I'm begging you, dude, how long are you looking at missing?
And EM says, got you, bro, see what I can do?
They don't even care about the injury. He's your time
to shine. Yeah, I got the connection. I'll hit you up, bro,
What tell us about your injury? That's me? That's actually
my count, isn't it Jen says at Whiz Khalifa times

(58:22):
at CJJ XXIII would be insane.

Speaker 3 (58:28):
I mean he can do whatever he wants. Someone says, count,
how's your booboo?

Speaker 2 (58:33):
But like know the room man, you need one of
your fans to give you an ACL first. Not accurate.
It appears both of his acls are fine.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
This is the type of thing where I feel like
I could respond right now with our hotline number or
just our number, like bet you won't call.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
In Finally, maybe twenty eighteen twenty comments down. How are you?
Thank you? Seth Gunn eighteen hundred, very simple and obvious response.
Hey man, I just wanted to see how you were doing. Thanks,
hit me back whenever he's not his friend. This is

(59:07):
what the head coach as asked. It was in a
Hallmark movie. I'll donate my leg if you want get healthy,
CD bro, are you okay?

Speaker 5 (59:13):
You good?

Speaker 2 (59:14):
Matt, tom Steed recovery, get better Champ. You know what
Matt Thomas's post will be. No, it's not gonna be
his leg. He'll donate my leg.

Speaker 5 (59:24):
No.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
Regarding this injury, he's being very careful with it because
the official announcement has not been made and Hopefully he
won't be able to hit send on his post because
he will play for the Texans this year.

Speaker 3 (59:37):
What was your favorite CJ Gardner Johnson as a Texan
in twenty twenty five moment.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
Positively put in the holster the moment he saw the
first post from the Greenbriar yesterday in the Matt Thomas
ex platform, Holster.

Speaker 3 (59:51):
I have a question here in the three o'clock hour
on Sports Talk seven ninety why is Matt Thomas such
a mean, bad person just.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
On social I love him. Hope you're feeling better. Keep
your head up, heel up, brother, you okay, a lot
of people are are feeling it, like praying for you.
It's his account. He can do what he wants. It's
his life, as bon Jovi wants saying about himself, it's

(01:00:19):
my life, right, but.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
Like it's now or never. He also said that in
the song We'd Like to Know Your Status, CJ is
that he's never played it down as a Texan.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
In any kind of organized game. I mean he's not
facing an opponent as a Texan.

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
Put it this way, people are excited that you're on
the team.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
He knows that he's felt the love that's why he's
reaching out to them.

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
Then let them know how you're doing before you start
asking for collabs.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
You don't think this is letting us know how he's
doing it anyway. If I were to tell you he's
mentally probably okay by asking for help on a collab
with Wiz, I tell you.

Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
That we just got it text message from Matt Thomas.
What's the first You can't look at your phone. You
already saw it, didn't you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
Well, if we got one from him, that probably indicates
he was listening because well, and you know how people
have their own notifications on yeah, like t Ran, Matthew
and others. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure how you
can get even if let's say Matt for some reason
had a there's no he didn't have a notification of
when he his name is said anytime on the airwaves

(01:01:25):
on this station. It's just unless you know the producers
have been told explicitly by Matt or Gordy or Eric said, hey, look,
if you hear Matt Thomas's name mentioned on any of
our shows that he's not a part of, just go
ahead and text him real quick me immediately and record
the audio and send it to him. So, but his
ears were burning because he was listening and raft tweet

(01:01:45):
is ready confirmation we know Matt. Why don't you send
the actual Matt's gimmicks too? Well, yeah, but actually you
gotta be Matt Thomas, big on gimmicks, big on bits.

Speaker 3 (01:01:57):
If he knows that there's a possibility to ask can
come back before the season is over, that is when
he starts donating parts of my body to the said athlete.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Hey, Nick, I appreciate you joining us today, general manager
of the Texans. If my co host donated his very
good full leg to see j Gardner Johnson, the transplant
went tremendously Well, how would you feel about putting him
back out there? Good not so good half of a
good player.

Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
So I evon tell you, like, I had an extensive
physical feel like probably three years ago, and they did
a scan of my heart just to see what's going on.
And they told me, and I quote, you have the
heart of a horse. And I said, thanks that it
was a good thing. It sounds like a very good thing.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
I was like, all right, you're not the size of
a horse. I'm thanking God that I'm not the size
of it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
Your heart is capable of handling business like you are.
Apparently they didn't say a kind that's awesome. I'm gonna
beat up, beat up, you know, broken down, U shaped Steed.
I don't think they said your heart's like a horse,
but we're gonna have to put you down.

Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
But the Sports Talk seven Nike, well, for the second
time this hour, Doug Pike has wahed in and says
I'm a Shetland pony. I actually didn't look I didn't

(01:03:20):
have enough time to look it up during the break.
I was doing something. I was very busy doing something
way more important. As you know, we were commenting on
what we were watching in here.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
Yeah, we were trying to figure out who's talking Kenley Jansen,
where he was talking from Detroit and getting ready for
the segment, and what his physical regimen is getting ready
for games each he's the very very very very rare
major league pitcher that doesn't appear to be in very good.

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):
Shape, you know how, Like everybody was talking about all
the substances that Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire and Sammy
Sosa and jose Can Sako. I know those guys did
to hit all those home runs. They were like really
really talented on steroids, literally on steroids. Well, Kenley Jansen
is a dad on steroids.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
That's how we would describe his physique. Barry Bonds interesting
player to mention today. Why August eighth of a couple
of years ago, I'm not mistaken. He blasted home run
number seven fifty six, the new all time record. Oh
was he on the call? I do not believe.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
Oh that's right, he was on the call for the
last guy whose record was broken. Okay, what were we
going to talk about here? I forgot Oh yes, Houston Rockets.
Obviously they are going to win the NBA Championship this year.
That's a given. We can get that out of the way.
It's formality. We'll all be parading again. It'll be uh,
it'll be a big lee parade. Well, i'll get rings.

(01:04:44):
I'm looking forward to Kd's first season here. I'm also
looking forward to how they handle his contract situation, because there's.

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
More than one person in the know.

Speaker 3 (01:04:54):
And by in the know, of course, I mean national
talking head media and not somebody who's actually in the organization.
Who is I'm not exactly sure that just because the
Rockets went and traded Jalen Green and Dylan Brooks and
all those players that were involved to Phoenix that they're
just gonna go ahead and give him extension. And if
you don't believe me, listen to noted Dallas Hank Tim McMahon.

Speaker 5 (01:05:19):
The Rockets aren't going to go all in.

Speaker 9 (01:05:21):
By all appearances and by what I've heard, they're not
going all in on an extension for Kevin Durant. Now
doesn't mean it won't happen, but you know there've been
rumblings of, hey, KD, doesn't you know he's not going
to push for the full max. I don't know that
the Rockets are going to put anything on the table
that's close to the max. I think the Rockets are, like,

(01:05:43):
it's not ideal, but I don't think they would panic
if they go into the season with Kevin Durant just
on the contract that he's on, just on the on
the expiring deal.

Speaker 3 (01:05:54):
I'm going to translate all that and I'm gonna I
don't think any Rockets fans are panicking listening to that.
But I do think that it's it's you know, it's
a note because you didn't trade Jalen Green and Dylan
Brooks and shake things up to get one year out
of Kevin Durant. So I think Kevin Durant wanted to

(01:06:15):
come here a this is all. It's not from anything
I've spoken to anybody about. This is just the way
I'm looking at things. I think he wanted to come here. Specifically,
he wanted to play for e May. He wanted to
play with some of the guys both old and new
from the league. No offense to Jeff Green and others,
but he is older, and I think that the thinking

(01:06:36):
was the fit is already so good on paper that
it would take a catastrophic just chemistry nightmare non chemistry
for him to not re up here. But at the
same time, they know, for example, aman Thompson's gonna get
maxed out like next year, and they they're kind of

(01:06:56):
meandering around that not minefield. But you know, rafel Stone's
got to be cognizant of what because I think the
biggest compliment you can give raffel Stone and the Rockets
Brass is that they went and they got Kevin Durant
for a low risk, high reward scenario that also, at

(01:07:17):
the same time did not set them back from an
organizational standpoint. From a salary cap standpoint and from a
developing the rest of our young core standpoint.

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
Yeah, I would agree, and I would still also even
hearing what Tim said, and I don't really dispute any
of the angle that he takes, but I think there's very,
very close to a zero percent chance that Kevin Durant
and the Rockets don't agree on a long term extension now.
Timing wise, I would almost be willing to say it's
possible it doesn't happen before tip off of this upcoming season,

(01:07:51):
although I would find it very unlikely that it wouldn't happen.
I do think there's an avenue where it just is.
There's a reason for it to be pushed back, there's
a reason for it to happen at a later date.
But I do tend to agree with him for all
the reasons we've brought up here over the several weeks
that we have known that Kevin Durant is a rocket.
The best way to it might not be personally financially

(01:08:11):
as rewarding to do it this way, but every dollar
does count to how an owner feels like spending his money,
to how the Aprons fit, and then the other things
that are available to as a general manager in terms
of how you can go out and sign additional players.
What is then available to you with exceptions and etc.
And things like that. I think Kevin Duran at this
point in his making over five hundred million in salary

(01:08:33):
as an NBA player, only just as an NBA player.
He will top five hundred million as with next year's contract,
and he's already making fifty three a season. His first
year with the Rockets should pay him in that neighborhood.
I'm aware that he doesn't actually see all that money.
I'm aware of how things work with your salary, but
that's what the figures are that he has technically made,
so he's more of it in Texas he does, he will.

(01:08:55):
He's seen checks from Oklahoma City, a golden state, Brooklyn, Phoenix,
and now Houston.

Speaker 3 (01:09:02):
California's state taxes are absolutely incredibly terrible.

Speaker 2 (01:09:06):
He's received the least earnings from California. Kevin Newsom is
running that stayed into the ground, and he will end up,
i think, earning close to the most he's ever earned
and arguably the most he's ever earned from Houston in
his career. He signs one hundred and ten million dollar
extension plus the fifty plus he's already getting, that'll be
one hundred and fifty plus. That's more than he's made
from any other team. But for exactly what you said.

(01:09:29):
They have not re upped with Tarry Eason. He's in
the same draft class as Jabari Smith Junior, so similar timeline. Obviously,
they have not yet re upped with Amen Thompson. He's
a year behind. And there are other ways to figure
out when and how much you're gonna get there. The
three extensions they have given to their young players, two
of whom are still here. We're all under maximum level extensions,

(01:09:50):
and I think they, for some reason will be able
to do the same thing with Kevin Durant. Kevin, we
don't want to give you one hundred and ten million
dollars on a two year extension, give you fifty four
next year and fifty sixty year after. We don't want
to do that because it's gonna make it difficult for
these guys to get what we think we need to
pay them and when we need to pay them, so
they can continue being your teammates and happy teammates through

(01:10:12):
those three years. You're going to be here, and he's
gonna say okay, and he's gonna accept forty five million
for two years, two years ninety, two years, eighty eight,
two years eighty they I think the way that they've
handled all of these contracts and Fred is another one
you should add to it. It's a different way that
they did, paying him on the front side versus the backside.

(01:10:33):
I think that presumably, well, the way to get him
here was to pay him that money, and the way
to keep him here was say, look, we did this then,
so will you now allow us to do this now?
And all of this was all in the works from
the moment it happened, which is why there were options
in it. And Durant his agent, then Vliet his agent,
all the agents. I think they're all on the same page.

(01:10:54):
We don't know exactly what the page is, but I
don't think there's any doubt that the Rockets and Durant
and their respective futures, they know what it is. And
we'll find out shortly exactly the figure on what it is.
It will be for three years.

Speaker 3 (01:11:06):
Yeah, and real quick, just before we go the final
two seasons of Dorian Finney Smith's new contract. They're non
guaranteed and the Steven Adams Jabari Smith junior extensions both
decline and annual value between twenty six twenty seven and
twenty seven twenty eight, so they're in very good shape financially.
I think there is one other thing about the Rockets

(01:11:29):
we'll get to in the next segment, and we'll also
continue talking about this Astros Yankees matchup coming up tonight.
We've got Chandler Rome discussing all of that coming up
at the top of the hour.

Speaker 1 (01:11:40):
The ad on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
A few more things to get to to finish up
where discussion was on your Houston Rockets and the upcoming season.
Quickly though, Astros lineup for this evening against the Yankees
and Cam schlitt Lure, Jerry panga Hey, Sus Sanchez, Jose
Altuve Goo won two three. Altuve will not be subjected

(01:12:07):
to the booze while the Astros are in the field.
He's the designated hitter Correa Walker Diaz. Of course, Korea
is at third and Diaz is catching for Hunter Brown,
Taylor Tremmel and center. Dubon is over at second. Cam
Smith bat's ninth. He's the right fielder designated hitter for
the Yankees, of course, is elbow uh impacted injured. Aaron

(01:12:28):
Judge hill bet third. He's kind of had a rough
go of it since coming back to correct all two
games yep, one for six. Well, I mean it's more
about where he was before that. He's five for his
last thirty four. Yeah, well that obviously that goes into it.
But I like, once Jordan comes back, I mean, come on,

(01:12:49):
we want home runs every night.

Speaker 9 (01:12:50):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:12:51):
That's an his last ten games, he has two homers,
three singles, and sixteen strikeouts. That's designated hitter New York Yankee,
Aaron Judge. That's a very playoff version. Hopefully the Astros,
with their aces throwing in these first two games can
keep it there. As we mentioned a couple of days
going after the Marlin series, the Astros have still not

(01:13:11):
indicated who gets the ball on Sunday against the Max
Freed as their starter opener. Whomever.

Speaker 3 (01:13:17):
I'm scared of me, Alexander, you can get touched up. Well,
he won't actually get to pitch against him, all right,
real quick, going back to last segment, we heard Tim
McMahon saying he's not sure that the Astro or the
Rocket's going to give Kevin Durant an extension.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
Brian Windhorse I think it's his podcast. They are all on.
I don't know the name of it, the collective. Yeah,
that it doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (01:13:40):
Brian Windhors did have an interesting response to Tim McMahon,
saying just that.

Speaker 6 (01:13:45):
Well, this is one of the things I talked about
when Durant was on the market, about whether a team
looked at Durant would be comfortable with a one expiring
contract or felt that they needed to give him a
two year, one hundred and ten to one hundred and
twenty million dollar extension, and that that was going to
affect what teams would pay for him.

Speaker 3 (01:14:04):
I mean it again, I go back to he wanted
to be a Rocket. I know there was supposedly this
list of teams that he was he would approve. I
felt this whole time, going back to like I said
last February when they came here, I thought he wanted
to be here for a long time. I thought he
wanted to be here in twenty sixteen, and then he

(01:14:25):
got trapped in you know, kidnapped in the Hamptons by
the Warriors.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
That's what happened there. I thought that was DeAndre Jordan
here in Houston.

Speaker 3 (01:14:35):
Now that was a different kidnapping. Okay, that was when
they actually tied him to a chair or put a
chair against a door or something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:40):
Seriously, I think the price that the Rockets paid in
assets was commensurate with a deal made for a player
that's not going to be here only one year. I
think they gave up the appropriate assets to measure up
with that, and I think that's exactly what's going to happen.
I do think it was different for every team because
he didn't want to play for every team, and he
didn't go to Minnesota. Is not because he wouldn't commit

(01:15:02):
to an extension. It's because he didn't want to play there,
even for the first year that he's already under contract for.
So they backed off with their demands, knowing that they
potentially were in a bad situation, that they were trading
for a player who didn't want to be there, who
clearly would then not sign an extension, might not even
be there for any of the games. And other teams
I'm sure had different angles to it. The Rockets just

(01:15:23):
it wasn't luck, but there certainly were a lot of
pieces already in place. They added more pieces in place.
You hinted at some of the teammates that he's been
with before, Steven Adams, Jeff Green, guys that he's played
with and likes playing with before, certainly likes being teammates
with them. One of his first ever NBA teammates was
Jeff Green in Seattle with the now Thunder franchise. But
he's also very close with DJ Augustine, who's now part

(01:15:45):
of the scouting staff, very close with Royal Ivy, who
remains on the assistant coaching staff. And obviously he has
played for and been coached by, and even played against
Rockets head coach Imi Udoka. And it's more than just
he knows and who knows these guys are. He's appreciative
of who they are, and in the case of those
on the coaching side, he wants to play for them,

(01:16:06):
and for those on the playing side, he wants to
play with them. Every other team missed every single one
of those things. He doesn't have guys like that that
are in other organizations. There aren't other Emai Udokas quite
like that, and those individuals I mentioned, there's just very
few other teams that were in that situation that in
Jeff just have one or two or three advantages. They

(01:16:27):
had all those advantages, and they're clearly on a path
to a championship. They're on a path to a championship.
If they don't make this deal.

Speaker 3 (01:16:35):
Yeah, and they're still on a path to a championship
if it doesn't work out with Kevin Durant.

Speaker 2 (01:16:39):
I think, yeah, if the Rockets don't win a championship
with Kevin Durant doesn't mean they're not going to win
a championship with this corps. Just means they won't have
done it in the one, two or three years that
he's here. They'll just have to go get another guy,
or they will have added other players along the Kevin
Durant path that are players that can help them win.
While the players they have, most notably Jabbari Alprin and

(01:17:03):
a men who have become elite NBA win a championship
trio caliber players.

Speaker 3 (01:17:10):
And it's funny you should mention that because a guy
that you and I both know is probably I would
say he's in our top three of NBA analysts of
any kind. I think that highly of this guy, and
I think you do too, because anytime his name comes
up on our show, you just you take the riff
raff out of it, and you just like Tim Legler,
knows his stuff. So when Tim Legler says the following

(01:17:34):
about a Men Thompson, I get very, very very warm
and fuzzy wex.

Speaker 4 (01:17:38):
And I think Amen Thompson next to him showed you.
I just I have such an indelible memory over the
end of the year that game seven against Golden State,
the fact that Amen Thompson was more comfortable than any
player on the floor practically outside of Kurry and Butler
said a lot to me, and he did everything in
that game with all that pressure. He's going to be

(01:18:00):
a superstar in this league. I believe it, and he's
gonna get there sooner than later. So I like Houston.
It's a big number, you know, you're starting to talk
about north.

Speaker 5 (01:18:09):
Of fifty five and a half.

Speaker 4 (01:18:10):
You're saying, well, could they win sixty at pushing you
close to sixty. I think Houston has a chance to
be that good man. They've got a belief to coming
into the year.

Speaker 3 (01:18:19):
Tim Legler thinks an Aman Thompson's going to be a superstar.
So basically I'm going to start planning the parade route.

Speaker 2 (01:18:25):
He's not alone. He is a voice that most people
should respect very very highly. He's not he doesn't just
say stuff to say stuff. He's not over used on
ESPN where he runs out of things to say, so
he just says nonsense. I mean, I kind of wish
they would use it on him because he's smart, name
those basketball but he's not thrust into a situation where
he has to do fifty talk shows in a row

(01:18:46):
and yell louder than the other person yelling, which is
usually not a good place to be if you're an
analyst and working there. But why wouldn't he play great
in Game seven? That was his seventh ever playoff game.
Of course he would be phenomenal. It would have been
nice if it was one hundred percent for the entire game,
which he wasn't with the minor injury that slowed him down.

(01:19:07):
But most people are kind of on board with this.
It's best star.

Speaker 3 (01:19:10):
I bet he's gonna be one hundred percent on Opening
Night this year because he's had all off season two uh,
I mean every time I see the guy. There are
guys that do this all offseason long. They get on Instagram,
they post, you know, video of them playing pickup games,
and Kevin Durant's one of them.

Speaker 2 (01:19:25):
But like this is what I alpi. Yeah, fred boxing
a mess and they are busy.

Speaker 3 (01:19:32):
And in embarsotic locations. But here's the deal. A men Thompson,
that's every day, that's just Tuesday. He this is He
doesn't need Instagram because all I hear about is that
he's a gym rat. He doesn't do anything but play basketball.
And his brother is the same way. I want to
get his brother here. I want to put him together
and just have them wreak havoc on the entire league. Anyway,

(01:19:54):
we will take a quick time out. When we come back,
we will catch up with our good buddy, Chandler Room
of the Athletic.

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):
Next the A.

Speaker 7 (01:20:03):
Team on Sports Talk seven Nike.

Speaker 1 (01:20:09):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adam talking your team.
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the A team.

Speaker 3 (01:20:21):
Hey, hey, it's straight up four o'clock, which means an
hour earlier than normal. We catch up with Chandler Rome
of the Athletic. That's because the Astros on Deck show
is starting in his normal time because the Astros are
over on the East Coast taking on the New York Yankees,
the Lovable New York Yankees in the Bronx Tonight, and

(01:20:44):
speaking of lovel Chandler Rome joins us our good buddy,
Chandler Rome.

Speaker 2 (01:20:48):
Hey, Chandler, what's going on with you? Man? How's how
are things over in Astros world?

Speaker 5 (01:20:53):
It's going well. Man. Look if you guys have to
drop me because another textan gets arrested, I completely understand,
orchitect and gets arrested for a second time. If we
got to cut the segment short, I'd get it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:03):
What if the same one gets arrested a third time?

Speaker 5 (01:21:06):
But don't worry. He didn't know that drinking was against probation,
as if that's something that should be pretty common knowledge
when you get arrested for I don't know, domestic violence.
But who are we to say?

Speaker 2 (01:21:17):
Have I told you I love you lately? This is
the content?

Speaker 5 (01:21:21):
Just now, just now, all right? Good?

Speaker 2 (01:21:23):
I mean I was going to ask you if you
wanted to pedal your brand new product, but man, you're
coming in breathing fire today, But you can please by
all means, why don't.

Speaker 5 (01:21:31):
You krush City Territory? Open the merch Open the merch
shop today. If you want to stainless steel water bottle,
if you want a Duffel bag, if you want a
lightweight hoodie, we have all of that with the Krush
City Territory logo on and presented by Foul Territory Network.

Speaker 3 (01:21:45):
Please do they have any any hoodies with your face
on them? I don't wear that.

Speaker 5 (01:21:49):
I think I think we can make that work if
someone really asked, but I don't think that's available at
the moment.

Speaker 2 (01:21:55):
Okay, Week one of Take two of Carlos Korea was
what to you?

Speaker 5 (01:22:03):
I mean it was it was certainly interesting. I said this,
Actually I said this on the pod I think two
episodes ago. It was surreal at times to like look
down there, or like when I walked in the clubhouse
at Fenway Park for the first time and he was
in there, Like it kind of is surreal, and I
kept having to remind myself, at least in Boston, you know,
this isn't a rental, like he's not here for two months,

(01:22:25):
Like he's here for like the next three years, and
it's still pretty surreal that he's back and that it
worked out the way it did. I wouldn't say like
the teams play on the field matched like the vibes
and the energy that was present in Boston. Obviously they
got swept and then they went to Miami and played
a little bit better. But Korea himself, I mean, the

(01:22:47):
swings have looked really good, especially in Miami. I mean
he was hitting the ball to right field with authority.
He was the direction of the of the swings look good.
His plate discipline was good. The third base transition is
probably the thing I'm most intrigued by, but at the
same time least concerned about, just because of how elite
of a defender he is and his his baseball IQ

(01:23:11):
and just how savvy he is on the baseball field.
I think that won't be an issue. But again, I
think it's a little more difficult than people are giving
it credit for moving from shortstop to third base. But
I think if anyone can do it, Carlos Korea can
do it. So it was it was. It was fun
to watch him for six games. He looks happy, He
looks laid back, he looks it looks like he never left.

(01:23:33):
It looks like he's just a little bit older.

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
If he looks happy, then what does Haesus Sanchez look like?

Speaker 5 (01:23:40):
He's he's a trip man. He's you know, everyone's still
getting to know him a little bit. Coaches, players, everybody.
But I mean, the one thing he can say about
him is he never stops smiling. I mean, you can
tell he's really happy to be here. I think going
back to Miami so quickly after the trade, obviously he
was happy to see a lot of his old friends
and guys like that. That maybe can trick a little

(01:24:00):
bit to it. But I mean his energy is infectious,
His positivity is infectious. You know. It's the Ashers didn't
need maybe that. I'm not trying to insinuate that their
clubhouse was not, you know, positive and happy, but anytime
you add another person like that into it, it can
only do good. And I mean at the plate, I
mean he he doesn't get cheated on his swings. He

(01:24:23):
takes some healthy hacks. He had some good at bats,
you know that. Obviously, batting from the left side and
giving that balance to a lineup that really needed it
is going to be helpful. I think we all saw
that he's not maybe a plus defensive outfielder. I think
there needs to be some work there. And I think
the other thing, you know, he hasn't played much in
left field, like at all in his career, and that's

(01:24:46):
where he's gonna be mainly playing here just given the
roster construction, So they're gonna have to work with him
in the outfield a little bit. I don't think it's
it's not terrible by any means, but but they've got
to get him better at a couple of things. But overall,
I mean, he They didn't acquire him for his defense.
They acquired him for his left handed bat to crush
right handed pitching, and he showed that he can do

(01:25:06):
that this week.

Speaker 3 (01:25:07):
The Astros has also got a new pitcher that he
pitched on Wednesday.

Speaker 2 (01:25:11):
Well, he's not really new.

Speaker 3 (01:25:12):
We've had Spencer Arraghetti around for a season and change,
but not much of this season.

Speaker 2 (01:25:19):
He did not look good. There's no other way to
put it.

Speaker 3 (01:25:21):
Pitch count was high, location was bad, giving up too
many hits, and the traffic turned into inevitable runs. Is
this just a matter of rust? Is this somewhere in between?
Give me your crystal ball on what Spencer Arigeti's gonna
be the remainder of the twenty twenty five campaign.

Speaker 5 (01:25:41):
You know, it's hard to say look, can give up
eleven hits in three and two thirds innings like that
on in and of itself is not good. But he
got sixteen swings and misses, which is the third most
he's ever gotten in a big league game. The vilo
was there, the breaking balls and the spin were doing
he wanted it to do. It's hard for me to

(01:26:02):
look at that outing and just say it was an
abject disaster. But again, at the same time, he had
eleven hits, he only got eleven outs. That's not going
to work going forward. Yeah, I think it was a
little bit of rust. I think it was just a
little bit. He looked like a guy that had not
pitching the big leagues in one hundred and twenty three days.
The problem is there's forty seven games left in the

(01:26:22):
regular season. Like if he did that in May, you'd
be able to just like, oh okay, it's Russ, Like
he's got a couple starts and he'll get his feet
back under him. Like no, like you're in a battle
for your life in the division and the Mariners are
now a game and a half back, and the runway
to just be like, oh okay, Like he'll get his
feet under him at some point like that doesn't exist anymore,

(01:26:42):
and I think they are hopeful, and look, you saw it.
It's in there, like it's not one of these situations
where it's, you know, just completely gone. But it's gonna
take him little while to get reacclimated. Same thing with
Christian Haavier when he gets back. Same thing with Lauis
Garcia when he gets back. And both of those guys
have missed more than a year. What you have to
worry about if you're an Astros fan, is that doing

(01:27:03):
that with the calendar that they have with you know,
like I said, they have forty seven games remaining in
the regular season, do they have enough time? Do they
have enough time to get these guys firing on all
cylinders in games that not every game from here on
out as a must win. But when you got the
Mariners a game and a half back, you can't just
be every every you know, third or fourth day and

(01:27:24):
be like, oh, we got a guy that's you know,
it's only gonna go three innings today, and he's his
command's not great and he's still rusty and still getting back,
but we'll get him. We'll get him sharp sooner or later.
Like that's a tough way to live in the middle
of August in a division race. So it's what the
Astro signed up for when they didn't acquire any pitching
at the deadline, and they're gonna have to maybe live
with the consequences.

Speaker 2 (01:27:44):
Chandler Rome covering the Astros in Major League Baseball for
the Athletic, joining us here on Sports Talk seven to
ninety to that same topic. I think people might even
lose sight of it. Yeah, that day so and so
Javier pitch did not pitch. Well, it's it's a lost game,
it's a lost cause. But it's certain only has much
bigger impacts on that. And we saw that when the
Astros would go through a day or two where you
barely got anything out of your starting pitching. Their bullpen's

(01:28:07):
effectiveness is tied to not having to over use them
and not having to constantly shuffle who's in the bullpen
because you got to bring up a guy and send
down a guy almost every other day because you just
don't have arms. Is there a different way to go
about it to combat that, or is that just the
obvious secondary problem they're going to face when they're almost
constantly giving the ball to somebody who may or may

(01:28:28):
not get more than ten or eleven outs.

Speaker 5 (01:28:31):
AJ blue Ball looked pretty good, didn't he?

Speaker 2 (01:28:33):
He sure did. I was wondering why it took so
long to get him here. Quite honestly, all throughout the season.
I brought it up. Well, I mean, and I know
he didn't have a good season at Triple A.

Speaker 5 (01:28:42):
Yeah, that's the thing. You looked at his Triple A stats.
I watched him pitch on Tuesday, and I wondered to
myself how he has the Triple A numbers that he
has if he's been throwing that stuff in Triple A.
But look, he's a he is one of the possible solutions,
a guy that you know if you get him up.
And Joe's Foddy mentioned it on Wednesday when they sent
him out, said he can fill that Ryan Gusto role,

(01:29:05):
or if you're if you are a previous Astros fan,
the Brad Peacock role of swing guy, let him go
three or four nings do exactly what he did on Tuesday,
and blue Ball is a guy that could do that.
You look at some other guys that they have down there.
Do they go to miguelu Yoa for something similar? To that,
like they have got ways that they can do it

(01:29:27):
when it's not so where it's not just throwing all
of their one inning guys for two innings and overworking them,
like they've got ways to go about it. I think
Bluela is going to play a pretty crucial role down
the stretch, especially if he's touching ninety eight and sitting
ninety six in these short spurts, like that's valuable. So
he'll help. But I mean, at some point they are

(01:29:49):
going to have to get length from starters not named
Valdezer Brown and I think arag Getty. Again, I'm not
as worried about Aragetty as I probably will be about
Garca and Javier, just because they're coming off of reconstructive surgeries.
Javier hadn't pitched a game in fourteen months, Garcia hadn't
pitched a game in twenty seven months. And I don't

(01:30:10):
want to say that it's going to go exactly this way,
but the Astros saw on Monday what a first season
back from Tommy john surgery. Looks like it was Sandy
al Contra who they absolutely lit up for five innings.
He's got an era approaching seven. He had a seventeen
month recovery between his last big league outing and this

(01:30:32):
season when he started back up, Javier will be at
fourteen months. I'm not sitting here telling you that Javier
and Alcantra are going to have to produce identical numbers,
but that is the risk you run when you don't
fortify your rotation with just guys that have been pitching,
guys that have been doing it at the big league level.
They had the chance to do that at the trade deadline,
they found the price is too high, and now they're

(01:30:52):
going to have to just hope and pray that the
injured guys coming back get effective pretty quickly.

Speaker 2 (01:30:57):
Real real quick. Before we let you go, Does Christian
Walker have pulse?

Speaker 5 (01:31:01):
Oh yeah, I think him and the iiner Dias have
been the biggest eye openers past month. You know, Walker's
ops is at seven hundred, Diez is right above seven hundred.
They keep that going, then this lineup all of a sudden,
it's a lot longer, a lot scarier. Walker especially has
looked really really good on this road trip. If they
can keep that going, I think that's gonna offset a

(01:31:22):
little bit of the pressure that we just talked about
on the starters.

Speaker 3 (01:31:25):
That's Chandler Rome of the Athletic. He joins us each
and every week. Sometimes he joins us an hour earlier,
like he did today. Chandler, we appreciate you as always
have fun covering Astros Yankees.

Speaker 2 (01:31:35):
All right, thanks guys, Chandler Rome.

Speaker 3 (01:31:37):
Here on Sports Talk seven ninety and Space City Home Network.
We will respond to some of the things he had
to say and more coming up next the eight.

Speaker 1 (01:31:48):
On Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:31:52):
Wait, welcome you into the Bronx Plummer.

Speaker 2 (01:31:57):
It's the time for Astro's Yankees again tomorrow.

Speaker 6 (01:32:01):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:32:02):
I hate Apple Games, I absolutely and you know what,
I like the the product, I like the presentation. I mean,
except for this guy's got a twenty percent chance to
get a hit here, they.

Speaker 2 (01:32:14):
All do basically well. Batting average already tells you that
they're trying to add the other elements of well, now
it's a two to one count and he's facing this picture.
Here's what their history is, so there's a little bit
more to us.

Speaker 3 (01:32:25):
Once they got rid of that gimmick Katie Nolan and
started taking themselves seriously as like an actual broadcast crew.
It's it's not a bad product, but Okay, then put
more than two games three games a year on the
on the platform. I mean, I don't know every Friday
night they have one to two games all year. That

(01:32:49):
does nothing for me as an Astros fan. Space City,
Home Networks where it's at. Baby, Yeah, it's funny. I
came in here all fired up about the whole WWE thing.
So so apparently if you have ESPN on your provider
mm hm, you should be good to go on those
premium leg events.

Speaker 2 (01:33:09):
Why would you worry about the actual story facts of
the situation. You had a chance to go off on them,
and you don't know. Why wouldn't you? Why would you
bury that in the press release? Because they're not speaking
to the individuals, the individual cable owners. They're speaking to Hey,
look at what we just did. This is gonna be awesome,
and that's all the information you need. Look how awesome

(01:33:29):
this is going to be. You don't need the deats,
very small information that impacts the individual users.

Speaker 3 (01:33:34):
Because you like how immediately one of my productions came true.
Oh look there's Triple H hugging it out with Stephen A.

Speaker 2 (01:33:40):
Smith.

Speaker 3 (01:33:43):
I mean, quite frankly, he's gonna be He'll be involved
someway and it's going to be awful.

Speaker 2 (01:33:47):
I just know it. I don't know that he's really
gonna have time for all this stuff. Why what has
he said no to so far? And I think he's
got a lot of yard signs to get ready. He's
got a lot of very important districts to visit. I
won't endorse him. Jd Vance is gonna kick his ass.
I mean, that's what he'll probably say because he's Trump.

(01:34:08):
I don't know if he could say it quite that way,
but the message would be the same. I don't think
he's gonna run. He's a very busy man. He's got
lots lots of jobs.

Speaker 3 (01:34:18):
I get why anybody would say it, because he's like, well,
he's being in.

Speaker 2 (01:34:22):
He's been practicing for this eventual acquisition of the WWE
for years. He's already got his entrance down to a t. Yeah,
when he goes to NBA games, that's a WWE entrance
Like okay, well but okay, in his defense, what other.

Speaker 3 (01:34:42):
Talking head gets his own camera shot when when he
walks into the building. They don't do that for Brian Windhorse,
could you imagine?

Speaker 2 (01:34:51):
Uh No? But other people do it with their phones
walking out from Madison Square Garden. I believe it was
this practice walk out with Lex. Well, my personal camera
is me. They didn't send somebody to video me. That
would be awesome. Do you want me to go with
you so I can do a you know what, very
easy to do solo. No, it's not.

Speaker 3 (01:35:12):
I think you need to have a camera man that
gets your arrival at the next Texans practice my arrival.

Speaker 2 (01:35:17):
Yeah, Oh my gosh. The other day. The other day,
I had somewhere to go first before Texans practice, so
I was there early, and the person checking the for
parking on the in the media section, Oh, you're the
first one here.

Speaker 3 (01:35:29):
I'm like, uh, that is too early. You felt like
such a loser, didn't you. I stayed in my car
for a bit.

Speaker 2 (01:35:35):
Because you didn't want to be the first one of
the party. Well, there's no reason to go out there.
You're just standing outside watching nothing. The players aren't there yet.

Speaker 3 (01:35:42):
So the person that was at the gate was like
the first one of the day. He knew what he
was doing. She she knew what she was doing. She
was kneeling.

Speaker 2 (01:35:50):
Well she didn't. She expected me to be somebody else
that was there to help with setup was a fan day,
or I had this job to do, or I worked
for the team. No, it turns out he's just a
regular media guy, early media. Oh well, then I'll have
to go over and get this list. I didn't think
I would need yet. It's way too early for you
to be here. I'm surprised she didn't say, so, where's
your co host? She doesn't. I don't know that she
knew me beyond what Shelby. I have my.

Speaker 3 (01:36:12):
Credential of my names on it just to help, but
be on that pride.

Speaker 2 (01:36:15):
Didn't know is Kevin Beck in studio for this series
after tonight? I believe that's the case.

Speaker 3 (01:36:21):
Yes, okay, well look and you just heard Channel Rome
last segment. I do think the Astros might be I
hate even saying this because I know it's gonna blow
up on my face. I do feel like they're catching
the Yankees at a good time, and it's it's more
so about the fact that they do have their two

(01:36:43):
best pictures going in. I mean, Aaron Judge, for all
I know, you get hit a four hum and fifty
foot bomb tonight. It's actually it's actually likely.

Speaker 5 (01:36:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:36:51):
All the Astros have to do is keep the home
runs that are going to get hit against them to
solo shots. The Yanks are gonna hit a homers, they're
gonna run into outs, they're gonna make mistakes in the field,
and they're not gonna get a lot of base runners.
So take care of your own business. It's always like
the Astros are facing two pitchers that don't have much
history this year. The heels just back and Schlittler is

(01:37:12):
only into his fifth start. So, you know, like Chandler said,
and I've pointed it out, he's pointed out, I hope
everybody's paying attention closely enough to realize that having Christian
Walker and Jiner Diez every day in this lineup. Finally,
over the last forty five games, last sixty days, let's
say you got two guys with basically an eight hundred

(01:37:32):
OPS for almost like forty five percent of the season
is what we're talking about. Now that they've both hit
at that clip, it's getting respectable again. Like if you're
eight hundred OPS guy, you're one of better hitters. Like
these numbers have dropped dramatically in Major League Baseball. There's
two guys in the National League right now with a
three hundred batting average just two. Jeremy Payne's batting average

(01:37:53):
in the three twenties is second in the American League
only two. Judge who's rapidly getting closer to him by declining.
There's plenty of offense in baseball, but man, there's a
lot of numbers that are way way down now.

Speaker 3 (01:38:09):
Because I just said what I said, I need to
even out the karma a little bit before any games
have been played. But you know, I don't want this
to be the pitching version of what the Astros have
done a lot this year. They just did it this
last series against the Marlins. Oh, some no name hit
his first home run against them. I do not want
this to be the latest example of some bum pitcher

(01:38:30):
and that's.

Speaker 2 (01:38:30):
What he is.

Speaker 3 (01:38:31):
By the way, he's like throwing a no hitter against them,
Because of course.

Speaker 2 (01:38:37):
I'm not too worried about that, but you know what
I'm talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:38:39):
There's this just absolute puss throwing guys that are terrible,
and then it'll be like the sixth inning and it'll
be no score in the Astros have left eleven guys
on base, and I'm punching a couch cushion again.

Speaker 2 (01:38:51):
That's what the sport is. Three games against Boston. That's
why I'm not built for two of their three pitchers
through their best game of the year against the Astros.
Yeah too, Criswell who's barely started any games, and Gilido,
who pitched himself out of baseball the last two years.
And then they went to Florida and they crushed a
former Sylleng Award winners not having a good year. They

(01:39:12):
handled the pitcher in day two, the whole pitching staff
day two, scoring eight times, and they should have won
the fally, just the junkballer allowed them many base runners,
and then the guys that follow them allowed them many
base runners. They did score four times, but they needed
to score seven times.

Speaker 3 (01:39:28):
Yeah, and they didn't start scoring and well they had
the two other lead and then they just went away
for a while. But yeah, I just want if if
it goes according to plan, based on the variables each
of the next two nights, I think the Astros should
be in good shape.

Speaker 2 (01:39:46):
But they just they, like you said, they've got to
do their part.

Speaker 3 (01:39:49):
And that what you just said about Jiner Diez and
Christian Walker is actually what Astros fans should be most
excited about because they've been here this whole time while
all these other guys were on the shelf. They're part
of the reason that the Astros doing what they did
for all of June and into like the couple first

(01:40:10):
days of July was so impressive because they weren't getting
it done until they were. Christian Walker did it at
Dodger Stadium because he owns that place. But Dodger Stadium,
Christian Walker is what we've been getting more of lately,
and we need more of that.

Speaker 2 (01:40:25):
This is hopefully more of what we're going to see.
They're a first place team. They are now filding a
major league lineup on an everyday basis. You know, even Tremmel,
Dubon and Smith to finish out tonight's lineup, that's perfectly fine.
And you know, Taylor Tremmeel against the right handed pitcher
he'll see at least once in this game, probably twice.
Maurice Dubon is the guy who's been filling in for

(01:40:45):
this team for the last several years, a major league hitter,
also having for him a good offensive season, and unfortunately
Cam Smith is still kind of going through it a
little bit more of a feel good for what he
did against the Marlins, although he still he hit one
to the wall and got right hit. He beat out
an infield single, he was able to leg out another
hit he scored from first base on adult He's done

(01:41:06):
the same types of things, but a breakout of power
is long overdue. Remember he's played an entire season. He's
played ninety plus games. He's homered in only five of
those games all year, two multi homer games, but he
still only has seven home runs all year. For a
guy that clearly is going to be a power hitter
at the major league level, A little surprised it hasn't

(01:41:28):
manifested itself a little bit more than it has extra
base power power in general. He's so I guess he's late,
or he's consciously swinging to hit it the opposite way
that he's just not taking advantage of a natural power stroke.
For right handed hitters, just set the ball into the
Crawford boxes. Just pull a ball three hundred and seventy
feet down the line in most every other ballpark, and

(01:41:49):
you're homering. He just has not done a lot of that.
His spray chart is not like most of the other
right handed hitters for this team or any team in
the number of balls he still hits the opposite way.
He's having an okay season. He's a rookie, but I'm
a little surprised more that hasn't been part of his
first year arsenal.

Speaker 3 (01:42:06):
All right, we've got a half hour or so to
go before we officially launch into Astros Yankees pregame coverage.
The on Deck Show will begin at five o'clock, and
we will be getting you ready for that. In the meantime,
more of us next here on a Friday edition of
the show.

Speaker 1 (01:42:23):
The Age on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (01:42:34):
The Astros and Yankees. A little bit later here on
Sports Talk seven ninety, we'll get into the Astros on
Deck Show at five o'clock and also expect to live
visit from Brian McTaggart the second of the day. I
hope lots have changed since then, so we got all
the latest and greatest from tags when he joined this
round five point fifteen for the on Deck Show afternoon
game tomorrow and finish up the series before welcoming Boston

(01:42:56):
to Dyke and Park Monday, City Connect Monday to Day Wednesday,
and then a second home series to wrap up the
homestand Joe A. Spotta talking with the media there in
New York indicating they as a as an organization pretty
enthused about Luis Garcia's work yesterday. Give you some more
details on that when we get to the Astros on

(01:43:18):
deck show. But seven strikeouts over his four innings of
scoreless work for the Space Cowboys still most likely another
rehab start before he would make an appearance with the Astros,
and Joe Spota indicated as Matt Carharror of the Chronicle notes,
he will pitch again, but the Astros did obviously I'll

(01:43:39):
pitch again, a pitch again at the minor league level
in a rehabit assignment. Will Javier. They just did not
disclose where he will do that before. Again, if nothing
is of issue with Javier, the next time he gets
the baseball, then the next time after that it should
be with the Houston Astros. I do expect, barring a
change of circumstances with Sean Dubin, that he will be

(01:43:59):
pitched wishing for the Astros during this upcoming homestand the
Astros made official that move for Ennuel de Los Santos,
who will be with the team in New York for
this series. In their bullpen with both Contreras and Hernandez
no longer part of the bullpen, Hector Nearis is still there,
Jason Alexander still on the roster, Colton Gordon is still
there and figuring out how all these pieces will start

(01:44:20):
to fit together when they still only have two clear
obvious choices to start baseball games. They are going tonight
and tomorrow with Hunter Brown and from Bervaldez, they have
plenty of options. Arragetty's almost certainly a part of their
rotation moving forward. Colton Gordon's turn in the rotation is

(01:44:41):
a mystery of where and when he will next have it.
Same thing with Jason Alexander. Same thing with aj Bluebaugh,
who is back with the Space Cowboys for the time being.
I just mentioned two pitchers who should be back soon.
Should have an update on where things stand timeline wise
with Lance mccullors junior pretty soon because of his last
a four inning off site worth of work was last Wednesday,

(01:45:05):
now nine days ago, so I'm sure he has thrown
since then, and to what extent I do not have
that answer, And maybe we're ready for a real throwing
program for Brandon Walter. I do think there's an opportunity
for him to pitch maybe before the end of the
month with the Astros, but remains to be seen a
lot of changing parts in their rotation. All Right, you

(01:45:28):
want some good news.

Speaker 3 (01:45:30):
Sure, I don't know if it's good news, it's interesting news.
Opening night of the twenty twenty five twenty six NBA
season has been announced.

Speaker 2 (01:45:39):
Has been announced Yeah, by Sham's on his account.

Speaker 3 (01:45:44):
The late game has the Luka Doncices taking sny Luca.

Speaker 2 (01:45:50):
Yes, obviously they'll be taking on. Apparently he sold told
Slovenian TV's lost thirty one pounds. Did you see right?
What the conversion is?

Speaker 3 (01:46:00):
I thought it was all the same there Celsia's fahrenheit,
the metric, the metch I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:46:06):
He lost ten kilometers. It's the same as three one.

Speaker 5 (01:46:08):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:46:09):
That so the the late Los Angeles Luka Dancices will
be taking on and hosting, in this case the uh
Jimmy Butlers of Golden State.

Speaker 2 (01:46:19):
Right again, Steph Curry versus Lebron. All right, what's the
early game?

Speaker 3 (01:46:22):
The free Throw Merchants will be hosting the Kevin Durance.
So it's not a late game, but it is on
the road. For Opening Night on October twenty first.

Speaker 2 (01:46:37):
A game on NBC. Yeah, we've speculated opening Night on
NBC for the NBA this season. This is new to everybody. Again,
what's old is new? NBC has the games. This is
a Tuesday night for opening night of the season, the
first of what always will be considered Opening Week because
it will be marquee matchups on major networks throughout the
course of the week, and as possible, the Rockets would

(01:46:58):
be there again but opening night, and in the fact
that the late game is the Laker game against the Warriors,
the very first game of the twenty twenty five to
twenty six season features the Houston Rockets. They will be
at the NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder. There's a lot
of storylines clearly there. The Rockets will, hopefully because of that,

(01:47:20):
have an opportunity to kind of ease their way into
the season and that they start first. There'll be teams
that won't play games for either of the first two nights,
and so yeah, I mean it's a very very very
minor thing, but their seasons will be compressed just to
touch more than Houston's. That's pretty awesome to hear. If
you are into those sorts of things, having your team featured,

(01:47:42):
discussed and worthy of the league, kicking off their campaign
with you a part of it. This is the path
the Rockets have been on. They have an unquestioned marquee
Hall of Fame bound, current superstar, not on his last legs.
He's still one of the best players in the league.
He's still a reasonably good bet if he reaches the
games played minimum to be among the All NBA players

(01:48:06):
this upcoming season, just in a new uniform. Obviously, that's
Kevin Durant. They have reached this point in their progression.
Teams that are in this situation are expected to be
the group of teams and their players that become the
faces of the league if they aren't already. And that's
the position Houston is in.

Speaker 5 (01:48:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:48:26):
I mean, we were talking with somebody the other day
about this, you know, talking about with what we do
on the broadcast. Are you ready to be working on
Christmas again? Are you ready for all the national love? Well,
the full schedule isn't even out and the Rockets the
first time you hear John Tesh's theme again, it'll be

(01:48:46):
featuring a Rockets game.

Speaker 2 (01:48:47):
Yeah, and Sham's also has the slate, the unsurprising slate
for Christmas Day, also featuring your Houston Rockets. And again,
I think both of us have talked about expecting that
to be the case. Ten teams featured. Third of the
league is featured. They are in a position to be
one of those ten. Didn't expect them to be at home,
and they're not. They have the Lakers that day, Rockets

(01:49:10):
at Lakers. There are two West Coast games on Christmas Day.
There's also a game at Denver on Christmas Day. The
other two games obviously will be much earlier. The Knicks
host the Calves. The Oklahoma City Thunder are playing dearon
Fox's team on Christmas Day, but the Rockets at Lakers, Tea,
Wolves at Nuggets, Maves at Warriors, the three pretty well

(01:49:36):
honestly four matchups, but as four Western Conference only matchups
on Christmas Day for the NBA.

Speaker 3 (01:49:42):
Well, the Knicks Calves game will obviously start at nine
am or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:49:48):
Nobody cares about that, but one of those teams probably
going to be in the finals because the East sucks.

Speaker 3 (01:49:57):
That may be true, but in all seriousness, look that
you just mentioned there's five, there's four Western Conference matchups
exclusive Western Conference matchups.

Speaker 2 (01:50:06):
Yeah, the worst team of those eight features a player
the league obviously is gonna be featuring for the next decade.
Victor Webbin. Yamo's Spurs aren't one of the top eight
teams in the West until they prove it.

Speaker 3 (01:50:16):
You can't be featured for a decade if your body
gives out before eight years. That is true, but I
don't think that will happen.

Speaker 2 (01:50:23):
Okay, Ralph Sampson.

Speaker 3 (01:50:24):
Anyway, the Rockets Lakers game, though, you're thinking, Okay, well
it's gonna be late.

Speaker 2 (01:50:28):
No, they're gonna the late game.

Speaker 3 (01:50:31):
They'll throw on late or whatever late, probably that Warriors game,
like because it's actually on the West Coast, like the
Nuggets game might be before it. But I think Rockets
Lakers is going to be the juiciest timing scheduled matchup
in my opinion of those five games.

Speaker 2 (01:50:50):
Lebron's still a Laker. He barely exists, but it matters
to the people that put games on national TV.

Speaker 3 (01:50:56):
Jenny Buss swand it have Kevin Durant in town. Yeah,
it's gonna be fun to watch all of that unfold.
So some NBA news we weren't expecting here on a
Friday the at.

Speaker 7 (01:51:09):
On Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 10 (01:51:10):
Ninety he went over the Astros lineup already, correct.

Speaker 2 (01:51:22):
Yes, I did, Jeremy Pane. You will see the first
pitch from the schlittler that is throwing.

Speaker 3 (01:51:28):
It how many times? Well, it won't happen to night
for Todd. Who's on the call for Apple? Is it
the same crew every single.

Speaker 2 (01:51:38):
Wayne Rendozzo, they have two crews. Heidi Wattney's doing sideline.

Speaker 3 (01:51:42):
She'll be the one wearing the Apple headphones throughout the game.

Speaker 2 (01:51:46):
And who's the color? I'd have to double check. Is
Hunter Pence still on Apple TV?

Speaker 9 (01:51:50):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:51:51):
Why He's the only thing good about that book just
does other things. Now, Okay, I saw a post of
someone who cover or follows collegiate and high school sports
posted something and said, I don't know if everybody realized this,
This might be the greatest high school arm that I
think I've ever seen. And they showed the video of
him throwing pitches and video of pans up to the

(01:52:12):
scoreboard and it's he's hitting one hundred. He's sixteen years old,
and in the context of it, it says it's a
Hunter Pence's his nephew his name is Striker Striker Pence,
and he's an elite high school pitching prospect now close.

Speaker 3 (01:52:27):
Spencer Strider's parents were to having the coolest last name
ever for their kid, Striker one letter Striker, Striker Strider.

Speaker 2 (01:52:34):
He's going to striker out her. Yeah. Uh, how old
is he? Sixteen? I believe so? Yeah. I think he's
a class of twenty eight.

Speaker 3 (01:52:44):
Okay, that just looks weird to me now, And I say,
you know what, you know how Matt's always Matt Thomas
is always complaining about all these high school kids following
him on social media, as if he's complaining about getting followers.
He pimps his social handles like every segment. It's not
back like you don't like it. But I had like
this like spate of guys like that that followed me

(01:53:05):
a while back, and I was like, what's going on
because they were all high school athletes, and I'm like, well,
are they watching one of these high school shows on
Space City maybe? And they seem like I didn't understand
it because I don't talk about that on the air
like Matt Thomas does the first time.

Speaker 2 (01:53:20):
We don't do it a whole lot here. Obviously, I
think in my case and that the same thing. Just
covering high school sports for a long time on the
East Side.

Speaker 3 (01:53:27):
Yeah, but all the kids that I covered are like
thirty with kids now I'm old.

Speaker 2 (01:53:32):
Seriously, I think about that.

Speaker 3 (01:53:33):
Like the last time I did TV was twenty twelve
when we were doing the high school or the the
Friday football frenzy.

Speaker 2 (01:53:40):
And those guys have they have to have what.

Speaker 3 (01:53:43):
They're probably their second wives by now, some of them,
or first.

Speaker 2 (01:53:48):
What It's okay.

Speaker 3 (01:53:49):
Some people get divorces and they get the new wife
or spouse.

Speaker 2 (01:53:54):
I mean, I doubt you're lying. I mean, I'm sure
it's I know I'm not. It's some ray have never
even been married, they're not even on one yet. Happens
every day. It is a part of life.

Speaker 3 (01:54:05):
Did I or did I not have someone tell me
before my first marriage that it was my practice marriage?

Speaker 2 (01:54:12):
Was the person who told her that the media already
practicing like they had also practiced? I could? I mean,
did they get better the second time?

Speaker 3 (01:54:19):
Impression of him? And then people will know who it is,
but I don't name him.

Speaker 2 (01:54:22):
He wouldn't care. Does everybody know that this person's been
married more than once? Or care I don't know that first.
It's not like, oh my god, you've been married more
than once.

Speaker 3 (01:54:30):
Yeah, and well, but he was married the first time,
he lived in a completely different city and did not
do the gig that he does now that he's very
well known for.

Speaker 2 (01:54:37):
How about that. There's your hints. I'm miss clueless before
as I am right now. I can't believe you don't
know who I'm talking and think I'm really not having
even started to think about it. How many practice marriages
have you had? I'm still practicing. So far, so good.
We'll see how this one goes. I think I'm a
I think I'm in good shape. I think we've done
okay what we've been around as a unit from before

(01:55:00):
the Texans were invented. And we've been married since year
two preseason of year two, coming up on the anniversary.

Speaker 3 (01:55:07):
Wait a second, you got married in three that is correct.
And she convinced you to get married during the preseason
of a Texans year.

Speaker 2 (01:55:18):
And they played that Saturday night.

Speaker 3 (01:55:20):
Oh my gosh, she scheduled your wedding on a night
of a preseason.

Speaker 2 (01:55:24):
Game Chargers Texans. It was fine.

Speaker 3 (01:55:26):
You had hives standing up at the aisle didn't you
at the altar?

Speaker 2 (01:55:29):
Everything was fine. I was very okay with it. There's
no way.

Speaker 3 (01:55:33):
Now, this was two thousand and three, so you barely
had a cell phone that was not a brick at
that point. There was no way you weren't checking something.
Did you have a TV on at the altar so
you could check in on this meaningless score? I don't
believe you scores. That's a good point. Scores very meaningless.

Speaker 2 (01:55:53):
So I did not.

Speaker 3 (01:55:54):
I told you about this yesterday. I was like, you
know this preseason game. You know we're both going up
to Austin this weekend to take our daughters to school.

Speaker 2 (01:56:03):
Yeah, luckily we've carved out a lot of time on
our show today to give you the five things to
watch tomorrow. We'll do that here in the next eight seconds.

Speaker 3 (01:56:10):
Sweet, And you were like eh, I was like, I
cannot watch sports on DVR. It's just the only thing
I can't watch on DVR. It doesn't matter what it is.
It bothers me. And you're like, why, it's so much better.
You can fast forward through the commercials and timeouts like
you would think that, but I hate knowing that it's
already done.

Speaker 2 (01:56:28):
You're not like that, but the result is not relevant. Well,
I'm just talking about you know, the Vikings lost the
game and the Texans beat them twenty seven to eighteen.
You care when you get to watching it on Sunday.

Speaker 3 (01:56:40):
Let me explain what I mean, as it pertains too
specifically preseason NFL football. I want to watch because it's
an organized game against another team, even though I know
it doesn't mean anything. But if I don't watch it,
there is less than zero chance that I'm gonna go
back on my DVR and plod through a pre He's
an NFL game, that is, that's like watching professional gambling

(01:57:03):
or something.

Speaker 2 (01:57:04):
The preseason game that I was completely not paying any
attention to because I was trying to make sure. I said,
oh my god, I do Graham Harrell? Who is the quarterback?

Speaker 3 (01:57:13):
Who do you think was the quarterback? This is year two.
It's not David, Yes, it was, No, it wasn't. He
didn't play David.

Speaker 2 (01:57:19):
This is preseason week I guess four in this case.
So the final preseason Dave, we're going he played almost
the whole game.

Speaker 3 (01:57:26):
David Carr played the whole game of the final preseason game.

Speaker 2 (01:57:30):
Why because he's David Carr and they were just getting
things started with this franchise already has before an established player.
This is the second to last preseason game, which back then,
but it is normal for starters to play the majority
of the game. The following week, he threw two passes.
Dave were going through eight.

Speaker 3 (01:57:50):
Oh, I thought you said it was preseason game number four.
It was week four, a week four? What does that mean?

Speaker 2 (01:57:55):
They had five weeks of preseason. It was week four.
They had five weeks of preseason Fame game four preseason
games for everybody else, I forgot about the Hall of Fame. Okay,
so on that in that instance, I missed out on
David Carr's work. He completed five passes to the goat
that evening Andre Johnson, including a touchdown. Rookie preseason licks in.

(01:58:16):
They were trying to slow down this quarterback duo from
the Chargers. One of them's a Heisman Trophy winner and
the other ones going to the Hall of Fame. Oh gosh,
who got who was there before Philip Rivers? Drew Brees.
Drew Brees was their starter, and he was followed in
their lineup that evening by Heisman Trophy winner and rather

(01:58:37):
short human like me, Doug Flutie.

Speaker 3 (01:58:41):
Did Flutie Flakes finish his career in San Diego or
did he play one other? I feel like he played
somewhere else after that. I do remember that. I bet
you do. You remember all those things?

Speaker 2 (01:58:51):
I don't. Powder Blues he finished.

Speaker 3 (01:58:54):
His career with the Pats two seasons later. Oh, that's right,
at age forty three. Well, that is very interesting and
trivial stuff. What are the five things that we have
to watch this weekend?

Speaker 2 (01:59:07):
I'll have to read about it. I have to write
it somewhere because we don't have time for it.

Speaker 5 (01:59:10):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:59:10):
All right, we'll get you ready for Astros Baseball, the rookies.

Speaker 3 (01:59:14):
It's Urserie, it's Higgins, it's a Nol, it's Jalen Smith.

Speaker 2 (01:59:19):
You'll name it named four. Well, it would be Read,
but he's heard it would be Hamilton, but he's hurt
and CJ.

Speaker 3 (01:59:27):
Gardner Johnson wasn't going to play anyways. That is correct,
even if he wasn't hurt. All right, we will leave
it at that for the eighteen portion of the program.
But don't worry, we're not going anywhere. We've got you
squared away with Astros on deck coverage coming up next
to Astros Yankees Game one from the Bronx.

Speaker 2 (01:59:45):
We'll get you ready for it when we come back

Speaker 7 (01:59:49):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety