Cole Train, Texans Train and Baker vs. CJGJ Round 2!!!

Wex and AC head out on a hump day and are joined by rookie sensation Zach Cole, plus give an update on the state of the Houston Texans entering Week 3. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adam, raised.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
By Earl Nolan and.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Multed by the magnificent roller coaster ride that is Houston Sports.
Chill Lage down for the only home grown afternoon team
is Talking Your Teams.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the A.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Team eight, fueled by fifty different wing flavors from Big
City Wings. It is the A team. Sports Talks seven
ninety straight up two o'clock, just kidding nouns two one
on a Wednesday edition of the program, wex ac with
you as we take you up until six o'clock tonight,

(00:55):
where the Astros will be going for the sweep over
the hated Texas Rangers. And it's it's still not must win,
I suppose. But this is like I was talking to
Ross about this. This is like the appetizer slash formality
before the main course that is this weekend when the
Seattle Mariners come to town, who, of course again won

(01:17):
last night.

Speaker 4 (01:18):
Yeah, there are a lot of things still at play here. Obviously,
the games themselves are of utmost importance because you happen
to be playing one of the handful of teams in
the race Texas tonight. Off day Thursday, three games against
Seattle coming.

Speaker 5 (01:28):
Up after that.

Speaker 4 (01:30):
The Astros have created enough of a winning streak of
two days here at home that they passed the Red
Sox in the wildcard race, so now they're fifth. The
loss by the Rangers bumped them to eighth. The Guardians
are the team closest to the last wildcard team, which
is now Boston, and they're within reach of the fourth
wildcard spot, sitting right behind the Yankees. They're within reach

(01:53):
of the coveted two spot, so you don't have to
play in the wildcard series. The Guardians beat the Tigers
yester two and a half games, all that separates Houston
from Detroit. A tiebreaker would then be in play. But
all these things, with all these games, ten of them
for the Astros still remaining, they're all in play.

Speaker 5 (02:13):
All sorts of scenarios could play out.

Speaker 4 (02:14):
The bottom line is to me make the playoffs, So
make sure you outplay the Guardians by at least two
and a half games.

Speaker 5 (02:21):
They would have the tiebreaker.

Speaker 4 (02:22):
If you end up tied for the final spot, you
can win the tiebreaker with the Rangers and with.

Speaker 5 (02:26):
It the silver boot.

Speaker 4 (02:28):
If you get a win Tonight's would win the season
series seven to six, and again would likely mean the
Rangers aren't catching you. The Rangers aren't going to the
playoffs most likely. If that happens, though, you can leave
it up to Texas in Boston to figure out potentially
a final spot here, but lots to get after Christian Javier.
You'd like to see him turn in one of his
better starts. He's had a couple of those since he
returned from injury. You had rookie to rookie to rookie

(02:51):
yesterday on the mound for the Astros, and they were great.
Jaden Murray gave him his team another shutout inning, three
shutout inning from aj Bluebaugh, three good enough innings from
Colton Gordon to get him to the seventh inning. He
only allowed one run. That's absolutely fantastic work for him
and some of these kids that have been making it

(03:12):
happen well. One of them will join us here in
about twenty five minutes. Zach Cole, Astro's rookie outfielder, will
join the A team about two thirty as they finish
up the first of this six game homestand first series
of this six game homestand with the third game against
the Rangers, So definitely a lot of focus on that
because of how where we sit in the season. Was

(03:33):
over at Texans practice just before arriving here, and as
a friend of the show, Braxton Barrios told us yesterday
he would be at practice today preparing to make his
season debut against the Jaguars. He's not a liar. He
was out there, Christian Kirk was out there. Even Jake
Andrews was dressed out. Don't see much of practice, but
when you're dressed out for practice, that means you're participating

(03:55):
in some form or fashion. We'll see what they are
limited or what they're listed as the injury report. But maybe,
just maybe the Texans will get a little bit of
a boost from a personnel standpoint.

Speaker 5 (04:07):
On offense, they have put.

Speaker 4 (04:09):
Another player on IR, they have added another tight end
to the active roster, So plenty on their end for
us to also bring to the table. And CJ and
Amico we'll both visit with the media in a few minutes.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
Yeah, we'll look forward to what they have, what new
things they have to say. Although something that Dimiko said
yesterday we didn't get to that.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
We can.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
We're close, That's what he said. That's that's actually the
sound bite. We don't have to play it now, I don't,
but I meant we were close to getting to it.
Oh okay, well I meant that's what he said, because
what he said. But but but are they like that's
coach speaker from they aren't so yeah? I uh well,
let's be real. Of course they're close, they're not close

(04:49):
to being good. You got to interpret it. You gotta
really read between the line. They're close to being to
and up right, they're not close to being good.

Speaker 5 (04:58):
They're closed to being a team.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
That figures out how to close out games, which is
step one to being good in this parody filled NFL.
But nothing about how they've played football for one hundred
and twenty minutes this year, screams man. Two division championships,
and now look at the step they've taken, haven't taken
any steps?

Speaker 3 (05:14):
Well, here's the deal. Like, obviously, you would rather be
two and oh than zero to two, no matter what
the circumstances are, no matter what team an organization and
all that that you are. But if you are two
and oh right now and you're the Texans, then no
doubt the way you became two and oh was in
spite of yourselves, in spite of so many different mistakes

(05:35):
that you have made in both of these first two matchups.
And that's while I guess better that you won those
games instead of losing them. It's like a false sense
of security.

Speaker 4 (05:44):
Yeah, I don't want to disagree. I'll just add to it.
It's not a false sense of security because we're saying
the same thing, except for one enormous thing.

Speaker 5 (05:52):
How did you win those games?

Speaker 4 (05:53):
Why are we telling you those first sixty minutes against
the Rams and the second sixty minutes against the Bucks
were a win. We're telling you that because the Texans
sacked Baker Mayfield and got a first down after that
and ran the clocket exactly so they made the winning plays.

Speaker 5 (06:10):
They made the plays that.

Speaker 4 (06:12):
They aren't making. That's all it would have taken. You
can tell me all about the terrible offense it is.
You can tell me about all the things the defense
didn't do, all the mistakes they've made, all the penalties
they've had, all of those things. But if this play's made,
and that play's made, or sure plays earlier in the game,
that changed things. But we're not talking about fifteen plays away.
We're talking about two playoff teams, one here in Houston

(06:32):
and one in LA that had to figure out how
are we going to beat the Texans had to finally
beat them by being the team that made the play
the punch out of the Daria Gounbiwalle reception in LA
and obviously taking the entire clock off the board while
churning up first down after first down after first down

(06:53):
after first down on the final two to four drive
that took the clock all the way down to six seconds.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
And I think, what this is, where this comes from,
This place in my cold, black, darkened heart that this
comes from is I have PTSD from so many years
of wanting the Texans to lose so that I can
get the change that I want. Only now I do
think they have the head coach they need, and I
do think they have the quarterback they need, But I

(07:19):
don't think they have the offensive line to protect Frankly,
both of those guys, because, as Wex always likes to
sayack quarterback play gets head coaches fired if they maybe
if they have a not Because this also goes back
to the other thing that we would always argue about,
who cares if they won the division under Bill O'Brien,
they didn't do anything and they were winning against a

(07:41):
crappy division. Well, then that's the same thing as Demiko. Well, yeah,
that's exactly how this season would be.

Speaker 4 (07:47):
Well, I'm saying last year, in the year before, the
same thing, Bill O'Brien won a division, won a playoff game,
and then they went home.

Speaker 5 (07:51):
That's what Tomiko's done.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
If this is probably the best the AFC South has
been since Dimiko has been the head coach in the
brief two seasons and two games that.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
He's been here. So it's like, you know what, how
much do you.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
Kind of hope that this force has changed because it
always seems like that's what's had to happen for the Texans,
the change has been forced.

Speaker 5 (08:11):
Yeah, I don't hope for it at all because I.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
Want that kind of change. I'm just talking about fixing
the right glaring problem.

Speaker 5 (08:17):
So how's this year different than last year or the
year before.

Speaker 4 (08:20):
Well, the year before they weren't nearly as bad, and
twenty twenty three, that's why they were able to do
all that with a rookie quarterback because they weren't nearly
as bad offensive line wise, but they.

Speaker 5 (08:28):
Were last year what did it force?

Speaker 4 (08:30):
It forced them to say, yeah, this isn't working, but
we don't know how to fix it. Let's roll the
dice on this and did two games in with fifteen
games to play, it looks like they've crapped out on
that roll.

Speaker 5 (08:41):
I get it, guys.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Back it up.

Speaker 4 (08:44):
It's two games in, They've played two football games. They've
played no AFC teams, they've played no AFC South teams.
They almost won twice despite all these problems that they have.
Give them a chance, Okay, I will give them a chance.
Will absolutely give them a chance. I will call for
them to win this weekend and see what happens. I
will absolutely do that on Friday. I think they have

(09:06):
a better team, a team that's capable of doing much more.
When I watch Jacksonville flounder around their opponent this weekend,
I don't think, man, they're underperforming. When I see the
Texans do that, I actually still do believe that a
lot of it does rest on the quarterback. And at
some point, even though I'm not telling you the problems
don't exist in front of him and around him, at
some point it just won't matter anymore.

Speaker 5 (09:25):
You're going to have to get better play. It just
has to happen. I do think it's a team wide issue.

Speaker 4 (09:31):
Definitely want to get into much more than just the
offensive line, because every single part of what they tried
to fix, including CJ. Stroud, have not shown the fix
is in. I mean, technically the fix is in. If
you're losing all your games, hopefully not on purpose, none
of the things that we're supposed to be fixed and
focused on in the offseason appear to be in a

(09:53):
better spot after two games against two good teams. Clearly,
two good defenses is really the only thing that matters.
The Rams have a good defense and the Bucks have
a good defense. It doesn't mean you should have the
types of wasted opportunities, and I mean you snap the
ball and you're just running clock because you've called a
play that cannot work, or you've poorly executed a play.

(10:14):
You're just wasting the down, you're just running the clock,
You're just going to the next one. They've had far
too many of those in their first two weeks of
NFL football. When we get to Wednesday, it also means
we're only one day away from the new week beginning
with Thursday Night football. Quarterback issues from a health standpoint,
it exists all across the league, including potentially with the
latest version of CJ. Stroud with the Washington Commanders. We'll

(10:36):
have an update on Jayden Daniels situation and a few
other moves obviously around this division where things stand. Why
you say, and probably accurately, this might be the best
they have from a competitive standpoint inside their division with
Tennessee Jacksonville and a two to zero Indianapolis Colts team,
where statistically speaking, there are a lot of things that
point to it not being a fluke. Why they're too now,

(11:00):
it's just a matter of are these types of things
they will be able to continue to do to stay
on top of this division. They're the only team of
the four that managed to win their first two games,
so they're looking down at everybody and it's all division
games this weekend, Houston and Jacksonville getting together in Indianapolis
and the Tennessee Titans getting together in Nashville. We start

(11:21):
with that mentioned Zach Cole will join us, Chris Gordy,
He's gonna spend a half hour with us and our
number two. Dana Brown made his weekly visit to the
Sean Salisbury Show this morning, so at the top of
our number two we will hear from him at length
with updates, maybe promising updates about some of those who
might help the Astros moving forward. All that all the

(11:41):
way here on the eight team.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
To play in October another World Series. Crown must survive September.
Last night was devastating round his game within one.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
Gallic jumped up and lost three five offended race plays
out on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Home of your Astros.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
Right good now to drive Sports Talk seven ninety Traffic.

Speaker 6 (12:10):
We have this forty five Go Freeway inbound accident at Telipson.
Three of the left lanes blocked and that's the moving
back just slightly beyond Telephone Road Downtown's to love forty
five northbound accident at McKenny. And we have an Itennies
Freeway inbound delay at Waco with the truck broken down
in the left lane. I'm Katie London and the twenty
four hour Traffic Center.

Speaker 7 (12:28):
This report is sponsored by Low's Pro Savings. Stags are
back at Low's My Low's Pro Rewards members save even
more with limited time doorvesner deals. Get your choice to
Wall Delite Series Oblades now nine ninety eight bounly through
ninety seventeen, so lection and varies while supplies last subject
to terms and conditions. He lows dot com slash terms
for details subject to change.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
Is one of those live spots here on Sports Talk
seven nineties eighteen with Adam Waschler Adam Clanton where we
need a headset so we can wander around the studio
and try to tell you, let you hear what you
cannot see, and enjoy Big City Wings in the house
here on National Wing Day, and we're enjoying it. I
was just talking to my wife earlier today and she's like,
you know, we really need to go to Big City

(13:08):
Wings maybe to watch the Texas game this weekend. I
do have the Texas x's over at the Katie location
for every Longhorn game. It's a college football haven every
weekend for college football fans, football fans in general. Wall
to Wall TV's thirteen area locations and yes, today, Dollar
Wings for National Wing Day over Big City Wings.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
It's a great celebration. Everybody should be doing it. I mean,
this is everybody's doing it. It's peer pressure and we
like to talk about the thirteen locations around town. So
if you can hear the sound of our voices. One
is close to you. We have an honorary fourteenth location today.
It's right here in the studio. Because Sam and Rob
and all the amazing people tied to Big City Wings,

(13:48):
they decided to bring in a feast right now. So yeah,
we're gonna be eating during breaks and probably during some segments.
You'll have to excuse us, but you would too if
you had Big City Wings and everything they have to
offer in front of you. That's why they're called Houston's
Wing Joint. And yeah, aside from all of the things
you can watch, everything on the menu is second to none.
Get in there for National Wing Day today at any

(14:10):
of the Big City Wings locations.

Speaker 8 (14:13):
Make parking the easiest part of your night with park Whiz.
Reserve ahead and roll right in so you can enjoy
the show, the game, or a night out without circling
for parking. Save up to fifty percent off a secured
space and skip the stress. Smarter parking starts here. Download
the park Whiz app today.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
This isn't just a game, It's a once in a
generation event. The Harlem Globe Trotter's one hundred year Tour.

Speaker 5 (14:35):
Come be part of a legacy that never stops.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
The Harlem Globe Trotters one hundred year Tour. Get your
tickets today at Harlem Globetrotters dot Com.

Speaker 9 (14:44):
Football season is here people, Yes, Sarsky, this is Pacman Jones.
If you're trying to win this season, you gotta get
with bet Online. We're topping the latest odds playoff props,
all in one space, Easy sign up, best bonus and
light the fast playoffs and always burst the market.

Speaker 10 (15:02):
Bet Online the game Starr.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
Here iHeart presents ice Cube Truth to Poward.

Speaker 11 (15:11):
Tool taking the stage at Toyoda Center Friday, October seventeenth.

Speaker 12 (15:15):
Why not A can.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Can't sink? It's now at Live Nation dot Com.

Speaker 13 (15:21):
With Progressives home Quote Explorer, you can easily find the
right home insurance for you, even if it's not with Progressive.
But if you don't choose us, then sure, okay, it's
not gonna work out. We're not gonna cry about it
and or stay awake wondering what our future together would
have looked like. We can't get emotionally invested, even if
it sounds like.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
We are Progressives.

Speaker 13 (15:37):
Home Quote Explorer allows you to easily compare home insurance
rates and coverages in one place, even if it's not
with US Progressive Cashalfe insurancempany affiliates a third party. Insuran
compares the rates not avaiable on a state. Their situations
pricess very based on how you buy.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
I love you.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
I shouldn't have said that. Heay WA's back here with
you Texans fans.

Speaker 5 (15:53):
Let's talk prize picks.

Speaker 4 (15:55):
It's the best place to win cash while watching sports.
Just pick more or less on two to six player
staff projections. When your picks are right, you'll cash in
Price picks invented the flex play.

Speaker 5 (16:07):
They also offer injury reboots.

Speaker 3 (16:09):
The reboots mean.

Speaker 4 (16:09):
If one of your players leaves the game in the
first half and does not return, prize picks won't count
it as a loss. And right now, Max discounts prize
picks offering those I was telling you about him last week.

Speaker 5 (16:21):
We had one with CJ. Stroud, a max discount with
his passing yards.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
He was more on that.

Speaker 4 (16:26):
Have a max discount coming up with Pat mahomes pass yards,
and that max discount puts his passing yards at well.
If he gets one, he goes more. It's at point five.
So we're riding with Pat Mahomes this weekend for NFL
football Kansas City and New York getting together on Sunday.
Tell you about all my picks on my social at
Adam J. Wexler, and always remind you to download the

(16:48):
Prize Picks app today and use my code Wexler. That's
gonna get you fifty dollars in lineups after you play
your first.

Speaker 5 (16:54):
Five dollars lineup.

Speaker 4 (16:55):
That's code Wexler to get fifty dollars in lineups after
you play your.

Speaker 3 (16:59):
First five dollars lineup on Prize Picks. It's good to
be right.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
When you're hiring.

Speaker 14 (17:05):
Have you ever felt like you're missing out on meeting
great candidates, Well, they're not hard to find when you
go to ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter helps ten million people with their
job search every day, people who are actively looking for
jobs like yours, so it's easy to find the right
person fast. Four out of five employers who post on
ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try

(17:27):
ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter dot com, slash free at
ZipRecruiter dot com slash free.

Speaker 12 (17:35):
See the astros at diike it Park for the final
regular season homestand of the twenty twenty five season September
fifteenth through the twenty first. Don't miss the Silver Boot
Series presented by the Texas Lottery September fifteenth through seventeen.
Then celebrate Hispanic Heritage Weekend against the Maritors featuring Hispanic
Heritage Street Fest presented by Hornito's on Saturday, September twenty.

(17:55):
We'll close out the regular season on September twenty first
with Fan Appreciation Day present I see visit Astros dot
tom Slash promotions to get your tickets today.

Speaker 15 (18:05):
Fall is the season for reinvention, and it's easy to
do at Macy's Fall Favorite Sale. Come in and find
your new favorite styles like romantic ruffle dresses, cheek trenches,
cashmere sweaters, and textural fall layers which are perfect for
mixing and matching of for.

Speaker 3 (18:23):
Twenty to fifty percent off.

Speaker 15 (18:25):
So if you're looking for your new favorite things, look
no further than the Fall Favorite Sale tomorrow only at Macy's,
saving some already reduced prices. Exclusions apply.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
The NFL is off to a wild start. Touchdown Pass
number five hundred and eight for Aaron Rodgers and a
new season.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
Liz on iHeartRadio app us Down.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
Denvert local stations bring you the action lives, stop Chargers.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
Plus fantasy advice and expert analysis.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
With the official NFL podcast network.

Speaker 15 (18:56):
Everything you love about football is on the iHeartRadio app Touchdown.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
Just search NFL to dive in the A Team continues
on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (19:21):
Wednesday, Vision of the eight Team. It's Sports Talks seven
to ninety. Simulcash will begin at the top of the
hour on Space City Home Networks. You can stare at
us if you want to. Let's talk about the Texans
like we were last segment. Let's talk about the fact
that you know, there's some things that were said both
after the game and then again yesterday and again like

(19:41):
as wex mentioned, we're gonna hear more from Built Amico,
Ryans and CJ. Stroud today as the Texans prepare for
what they hope will not only be their first division game,
but their first win. I think we're all very aware
of their zero to two record at this point.

Speaker 4 (19:56):
Beware of everybody going berserk on social media and sports
talk shows, not necessarily here in Houston, but just in general. Uh,
if you go on three in the history of the NFL.
Teams that go oh and three, I don't care. Teams
that go oh and three while they've been playing in
a seventeen game season, while they've had seven teams make
the playoffs in each conference, are the only numbers you

(20:18):
should ever care about, because it's all, yeah, that's not
relevant how many oh and three teams made it during
a sixteen or fourteen game season. It's not relevant how
many ow and three teams made it when the playoff
format was different. It's only relevant if you care to
the current system compared to any year that was played
under the current system, which is a.

Speaker 3 (20:36):
Very very very very very small number of seasons.

Speaker 4 (20:40):
We've only been playing seventeen games for a few years,
and we've only had seven teams reach the postseason, with
only one of them in each conference getting an off
week for a couple of seasons. That's really and truly
the only relevance to it. And the reason we talk
about those things is because we marvel at them late
in the year. When three or four teams are to

(21:00):
become the next team to do it or the first
team to do it. It will happen eventually.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
It's a direct correlation correlation and by the way, kind
of the opposite of that. I don't think we're I
mean we might if a juggernaut gets built. I don't
know that we're ever going to see an undefeated team. Now,
now you got to win one more game. I mean
the Patriots were the closest we got.

Speaker 4 (21:20):
Yeah, I don't think it's something anybody strives for, even
though it's magical, and it's just not worth it. I mean,
look at how teams operate in the preseason, kind of
throwing away excellence, efficiency, crispness in week one by not
playing anybody.

Speaker 5 (21:34):
We watched it in Week one, and how nobody was
looked very sharp.

Speaker 4 (21:38):
And now week two, other than Buffalo and Baltimore against
each other, Week two is a whole lot better when
you get down to week seventeen and week eighteen, like
the Chiefs last year, or there's probably three teams a
year minimum, even the Rams last.

Speaker 3 (21:51):
Year, which backup quarterbacks started.

Speaker 10 (21:53):
It's just we.

Speaker 4 (21:54):
Don't need I'm not playing these guys in a week
where I don't need them. There is only one team
that has an off week, so that means a second
team that makes the playoffs isn't very concerned about resting
their guys over the rust that might come on because
instead of having two weeks off, now you're just resting
them that week. They've got a game the next week.
Because six of the seven teams have a game next week.

Speaker 3 (22:15):
I agree.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
I think a seventeen and oer regular season, which presumably
lands you the number one seed, and then a three
and oh postseason after that, is very unlikely to occur.
And keep in mind, how many years are we going
to be seventeen games? It'll be eighteen a year.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
The undefeated part. It's same with winless. By the way,
I don't think we're going to see a winless lot easier.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
It's not.

Speaker 4 (22:40):
It is so I mean, once you're on the road
to it, and if another team is chasing you for
the number one pick, I mean, I mean, can we
I really want to see what our undrafted free agent
quarterback looks like that we've been carrying on the practice
squad all year is a great opportunity for to get
him some reps so we can, you know, see where
things stand next year. Not sure where we're head at
the quarterback position. And I tell you what, these five

(23:03):
offensive linemen that have played eight snaps all year.

Speaker 5 (23:05):
This is a great chance for them to get work.

Speaker 3 (23:09):
Yeah, tankathon is in full effect for NFL teams day.

Speaker 5 (23:13):
Odds say, no one's doing either.

Speaker 4 (23:15):
You're right, Finishing a season with a zero in a
seventeen or eighteen game season is extremely unlikely.

Speaker 5 (23:22):
But the Texans are only looking at it. It's week
to week. And I know it sounds like, how can
you listen to these guys say what they say.

Speaker 4 (23:28):
They don't look at it at their season starting today,
as we've got to get a win. We haven't won
these two games. They look at it like we have
one game in four days. We're playing somebody. All we
have to do is win that game. It doesn't I
don't know what even our record's gonna be. What three
and seven, We're gonna be five and eight. I don't
know we're gonna be one and two. Okay, I can
tell them that. But if their focus is as it

(23:50):
should be and on an NFL team, I think they're
pretty good about that. Just go out and beat that
team and then worry about the next team, and then
worry about the next team. Don't carry over the things
that were plaguing you before. Except for the fact that
you have things to work on it practice, and you
might want to do things differently at practice. You want
to stress different things when you're in the film room.

Speaker 5 (24:07):
And I think all of.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
Those things are on the horizon for the Texans.

Speaker 4 (24:11):
But as far as being close, when you ask a
question of Demico Ryans and there's a negative tone to
it because you're just citing things that took place in
either of the two games, there's a sense of easy,
kind of like I just said, it's not all you know,
we might as well kick the season to the curb.
And the scores of the two games the one score
difference for the entirety of both of the games. Both

(24:32):
games had game winning plays in the final minute. The
Rams made a game winning defensive play and offensive play
by getting the first down on the throat in Nukua,
and the Bucks made multiple game winning plays, most obviously
the touchdown to give them the lead. Remember, the Texans
had the lead in their game at home with ten
seconds to go, but ten seconds ago they were in

(24:54):
the middle of the play that gave the lead to
the Bucks. But here's Demiko Ryans earlier this week yesterday
talking about we are close for.

Speaker 16 (25:02):
What we're doing offensive league defensive. Man, We're not far away.
So I don't want that. I'm not in the mode
to where hey it's it's doom and gloom like we're
We're not far away, We're close. I think we made
a lot of shrides in this game on yesterday. We
did a lot of positive things and we did well.

(25:22):
Of course, there are always things issues and things that
you can't correct, but it is not far off.

Speaker 5 (25:28):
Let's just pick up our one small detail.

Speaker 4 (25:30):
He said, we did a lot of good things yesterday
as and we did things better in week two in
certain areas that we did in week one.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
Would you agree with that? Are there a couple of
things that you think that that's accurate that he's relating to.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
Is it fair to say they.

Speaker 3 (25:43):
Did the few things better on offense but maybe not
as well on defense.

Speaker 4 (25:48):
I think let's start with the offense. There's no question
they did things some things significantly better.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
On offense. They scored a touchdown.

Speaker 5 (25:54):
Yeah, I mean, as simple as.

Speaker 4 (25:55):
It sounds, well, not only they scored a touchdown, they
got the opening kick marsh down the field and scored
a touchdown. And the hookup was their quarterback and their
elite wide receiver wide receiver one.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
This is what good teams do to win.

Speaker 4 (26:08):
Our best player is going to make plays. You're not
going to stop him. And on that one drive, that's
obviously the way it looked. They were able to add
on a second score after that, and they had many
more explosive plays in week two than they did in
Week one. Both passes to Nick Chubb and Woody Marks
were explosive plays. So there are quite a few things
from that standpoint, despite the other part problems they have

(26:30):
offensively of executing five to ten to fifteen plays in
a row, where they're dictating what they want, where they're
not getting blown up, where their scheme is working. That
is what has been most difficult to get to. But
clearly around more good plays. They scored four times. They
scored three times in week one all field goals. They
scored four times in Week two, with a half of

(26:50):
those being touchdowns. Yes, I'm okay saying strides were made.
Nobody's looking for strides because we keep score and this
team is zero to two. Team that's two over the
last two days. Is your Houston Astros expect to be
joined by Astro's rookie outfielder Zach Cole.

Speaker 5 (27:06):
When we come back here on the.

Speaker 4 (27:08):
Eighth, still in the early stages of the Wednesday edition
of the A Team, Adam Wexler Adam Clanton here halfway
through our number one, we will ditch best of X
because we've got something better for you. Astro's rookie outfielder
Zach Cole joins us here on the A Teamdyke and
Park his new home. He's christened it already with a

(27:30):
home run and his first opportunity, although how that came
about a little odd, But Zach, we certainly appreciate the time.
And I got a quick question for you. I know
you're from Ozark. Is that where your parents your family
still are?

Speaker 17 (27:44):
Yes, sir, we lived just outside of Springfield, Missouri, and
we've been there for my entire life.

Speaker 4 (27:52):
Well, now I set that up so I can ask
you this. Are Bob and Cassandra now the most famous
people in Ozark.

Speaker 17 (28:01):
I don't know about that.

Speaker 12 (28:04):
They are.

Speaker 17 (28:07):
We've always been kind of more quiet people and we
always kind of just more family oriented. So they're not
one for the line light very much, and not me either, honestly, Well.

Speaker 4 (28:17):
Clearly it has come upon both you and your parents,
that's who Bob and Cassandra are have been here for
this ride just starting there, the fact that you know,
got a little advanced notice that this would be happening.
We're able to get out to a lot of your family,
able to get out to Atlanta and then continue to
be a part of this rapid rise too, and now
arrival at the major league level. How awesome has it

(28:37):
been for you to have them here throughout the extremely
fast paced week.

Speaker 17 (28:45):
Oh, it's been awesome. They've been a rock for me,
and obviously they've been there for every step of my
baseball career and helped me get to where I am.
And I've said it once before, and I'll say that
a million more times. You know, it's just as much
of a win for them and our family as it
is for me to have this opportunity and for them
to be there to watch it, be there for my

(29:05):
first game and all the games since then. It's just
been awesome for me and and kind of just just
a little sense of calm for me and all the
the hectic stuff that's been going on this week.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
Well, Zach, I mean you've probably had been asked this
question a million times already, but now it's our turn.
First pitch, Really, you go over four hundred, Like, that's
got to be the best feeling in the world. Were
you a kid all over again as you rounded the bases?

Speaker 17 (29:29):
Oh, one hundred percent. That's That's the great part about
this game is you get to be a kid every
day and just go out here and have fun and
to you know, have an opportunity to do that. Just
just a blessing from God and just a testament to
all the you know, the hard work that I've put in,
but also all the people that have put in the
hard work to help develop me as a player. You know,

(29:51):
Coach has grown up and the Astro system. It was
just a very cool moment for everybody.

Speaker 3 (29:56):
Well, and you had a great entire game. It wasn't
just the first pitch, although that that went about as
well as it could have. And then you fast forward
to Monday night. I happen to actually be in the
building as a fan because I was sitting like a
few rows behind you, and I told my co host
and some others that was the loudest sound I heard
in the building all night when you connected on that one.
A little bit different when you do it at home, right.

Speaker 17 (30:19):
Yeah, The Astros fans are crazy, man.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
I love them already.

Speaker 17 (30:22):
You know, it's still getting used to the noise inside Dyiking.
But they're awesome.

Speaker 11 (30:27):
Man.

Speaker 17 (30:28):
We're very fortunate to have a great fan base.

Speaker 4 (30:30):
Zach Cole joining us here on Sports Talk seven to ninety. Clearly,
this point in the season is of paramount importance to
the club. Your club, This is your team. You are
a Houston Astro and you have been a part of them,
putting some good offensive games together, putting some wins together,
and putting themselves in good position with ten more games
to go. I mean, how do you feel about just
that simplicity and what I say, Zach Cole is a

(30:52):
Major League baseball player, he's an Astro.

Speaker 17 (30:57):
Well doesn't sound horrible, We'll be honest with you. But
you know, just being able to play for a team
that has such a winning tradition, a really competitive team
and a close race here at the end, it's just
awesome to be able to play some really competitive baseball
against some of the best players in the world. And
it's true for the little kid and me, and I'm

(31:18):
just very blessed for the opportunity.

Speaker 4 (31:20):
There's no doubt you've had already some meaningful conversations with
people in the organization, coaches, et cetera. But obviously your
new teammates both as you prepare for games and clearly
to everybody that can see right there in the dugout
or out there in the field, are there a couple
of things that you've been told or had gotten a
little guidance from from from a couple of teammates that
stand out here early in your career.

Speaker 17 (31:42):
Absolutely. Like I said, there's a lot of veterans on
this team, a lot of veteran presence, a lot of
guys that have you know, been in league for a
long time. We got All Stars, we've got Gold Glovers,
you know, we got you know, and a lot of
these guys also have World Series rings. So I mean
there's a lot of experience on this team and for
a guy like me to come in and just be
a sponge and kind of just you know, turn my

(32:04):
ears on, just listen to what they have to say,
take as much advice as I can. A main thing
for my debut day was just beyond time, smile and
breeze and everything's going to be all right. So that's
That's the one thing I would say that's stuck with
me the most.

Speaker 4 (32:19):
It's five games in. It's only five games in. Do
you feel any differently at the ballpark today than you
did for Game one, or Game three or Game five yesterday?

Speaker 17 (32:30):
I think the initial shock is starting to wear off
a little bit. Obviously, the first couple of days before
my debut, I couldn't really eat or sleep that much.
I had so much adrenaline. Racing threw me since that point,
but since then, obviously kind of settled into the you know,
the big league routine of our schedule and what it

(32:51):
looks like, and every day I feel like it's just
a little bit easier, so slowly putting the pieces together,
but obviously still a kid and still just really getting
used to playing in this atmosphere and playing with a
lot of great players. It's it's awesome.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
We're talking to Zach Cole here on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:09):
They were talking about that on the television side of
the broadcast the other night, how you weren't able to eat?
What I mean, you're what twenty four to twenty five.
You can eat whatever you want and not have it
affect you. What's a what's a pregame meal? What's your
eating habits on a day game or are on a
day where you have a game that starts the traditional
seven o'clockish start time.

Speaker 17 (33:29):
Oh well, you know, get into the field around you know,
in between the one and two o'clock hour, so you know,
eat some breakfast and then maybe grab a quick a
small lunch before you head to the field. And you know,
they obviously have you know, great cooks here, like a
full kitchen staff and everything. So I kind of just eat,

(33:51):
you know, after batting practice whatever they make. But they
have great food here. I mean, it's it's awesome. The
the resources in the big leagues and ojoke, for sure.

Speaker 4 (34:01):
Do you think anything's changed significantly for you offensively? Starting
the year in Corpus you had some success there obviously,
to the point that you got a promotion less than
a month ago of fifteen games with the in Houston
so to speak, with the sheer Land Space Cowboys, and
things really took off from there.

Speaker 5 (34:17):
You were just basically red hot from.

Speaker 4 (34:18):
Moment one and then here it has seemingly continued over
the course of this season in those three places. Has
anything really changed for you or have you just felt
comfortable all year. Are things any different, you know the
last month.

Speaker 17 (34:29):
Or so, I don't know, If I don't know if
comfort is the word I would use. You know, hitting
is really hard, and it's an up and down. It's
an up and down saying. Everybody who knows baseball knows
how difficult it is. And you know, there are just
certain things you have to worry about and that you
can control, and a lot of the outcome of hitting

(34:50):
is not up to you. So I would say it's
been a lot of adjustments, you know, made mentally and physically.
The Astros have a great farm system with a lot
of great coaches that have you know, helped me make
the adjustments I needed to make, and it's a testament
to them. You know, for me to be here is
is a win for them as well, just because it
shows that their farm system, you know, can help a

(35:13):
guy who might be struggling in double A to make
some small adjustments and start letting his game, in his
athleticism play on a more consistent basis. So I would
say those adjustments that I made and Corpus and in
shug Land are are definitely helping me right now.

Speaker 3 (35:28):
Well because there's been so many young contributors to this
twenty twenty five Astros campaign, and you're just the latest.
We've we've found ourselves asking this similar question. A lot
you know about the veterans in that clubhouse, but specifically,
what's it like when you walk in there and you
and you look across the way and you see Jose
Altuve and what not only what he's meant to this franchise,

(35:50):
but how he became what he is now and how
many conversations have you been able to have with him
in the brief time you've been up there about just
anything you know on the major league level related.

Speaker 17 (36:03):
You know, it's it's it's crazy. You know, you feel
like a little kid every day when you walk in there.
I said at the other night on Mob Network, but it's, uh,
you want to go up there and you want to
be a kid. You want to ask them for their
autograph and tell them how big of a fan you are.
And the same thing, you know, when you get on
base and you're looking at Matt Olsen or an Aussie

(36:26):
Albi's or a Jake Berger last night and you get
to talk to those guys that you've been watching on
TV for years. It's just you want to be the
little kid comes out in you. You know, you idolize
those guys, you watch them play, you learn from them,
and now you're you know, you're on base talking to them,
or you're you're in the clubhouse talking now to Bay
and you know they're they're great guys. They're all really

(36:47):
approachable for especially a young guy. That's all been very
congratulatory towards me, towards my promotion, wishing me a health
and success in the future. And it's just an amazing
experience to be able to talk to them and learn
from them. And they're all great guys, great baseball players.
So it's a dream come true.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
What did Jake Berger say to you?

Speaker 17 (37:09):
So, Jake actually went to Missouri State and I would
actually watch him play while he was in college while
I was going to high school when I was in
high school in Missouri. So I actually talked to him
a little bit about that. He said he noticed that
I was from that area. So we kind of talked
a little bit about that and a little bit about
the area just for a second last night. Wasn't over

(37:31):
there for too long, but just kind of connecting about
you know, a commonplace we've had, you know, in our
baseball careers, and he's a great dude. He really is.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
And are you or your parents or anybody in your
family big fans of the Ozark television show that was
on Netflix.

Speaker 17 (37:50):
I don't think any of us are. Any of us
have seen that, but we've heard and a lot of
the guys have definitely asked me about that if the
show is actually what it's like out there around about
it all the time. But I don't think any of
us are too big a fans of the show.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
No, Ya, It's pretty heavy the content there, So I'll
leave you that as a warning.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
Hey, Zach, we.

Speaker 3 (38:10):
Appreciate the time, Good luck the rest of the way,
and go ahead and hit another one tonight.

Speaker 17 (38:16):
Thank you guys so much for having me on the show.
I appreciate it and God bless you guys. Go Astros.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
Absolutely same to you.

Speaker 3 (38:23):
Zach Cole here on Sports Talk seven ninety will react
to that and more when we come back.

Speaker 4 (38:32):
Good stuff with Zach Cole of the Astros. If you
missed out, we'll have that posted for you shortly. Maybe
drop a little bit more of that back when we
come through later on this afternoon or on the Astros
on Deck Show. Don't know for sure what Joe Spotta
has in mind. I'd love to offer a suggestion. I
would say, I don't really care who's pitching for the

(38:53):
other team. He does throw as his right hand, so
I'm gonna go ahead and put Zach Cole in the
lineup tonight.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
See what happens.

Speaker 4 (38:59):
He did not get a hit yesterday's game, although he
did reach base via walk, and we Astros fans and they,
the Astros themselves, have seen a ton of Jacob deGrom
this year. Unfortunately, they got a little bit better, a
little bit more success.

Speaker 5 (39:15):
Against him each time.

Speaker 4 (39:16):
He's faced Hunter Brown on a couple of different occasions,
and we've seen some pitchers duels. Jacob Mgroram throws tonight
for the Rangers. Christian Xavier tonight for the Astros. It's
a thirteen game series. You will play against the team
in your division. This will be de Grom's fourth start
against the Astros this year. I think some intention behind
it from the Rangers over the last couple of weeks

(39:38):
or lead up to some of these series where they
intentionally hoped to have him face them, which he did
and we'll do so again tonight. But the Astros have
managed to do something here recently that they just weren't
doing a whole lot of for too much of this season.

Speaker 5 (39:51):
And I'm sure it's a total coincidence.

Speaker 4 (39:55):
Zach Cole's first game was Astros Braves first game of
that three game series to close out their nine game
road trip. They had a nice offensive day a couple
of times in Atlanta. So far here at home, I
would call six runs in a game a nice day.
They've done that on each of the two days they've
been here at home against the Rangers. So Zach Cole
debuts with the Astros as they close out the nine

(40:17):
game road trip in Atlanta. They score eleven runs that day,
six runs the next day, three runs in the finale
and a loss, and six runs in each of the
two games. Since he's played all five of those games,
they've scored six runs or more four times. They've scored
thirty two runs in six games, well over five per game.

(40:37):
It's Zach coll Just face it. No, it is the
funniest part about it is it's totally true. The very
first pitch he saw elicited, he was at the plate
already when Dana bron was talking with Jeff and Todd
on the TV stot on Space City Home Network.

Speaker 3 (40:54):
We need this guy.

Speaker 4 (40:55):
Hopefully he brings us a spark. You never know what's
gonna happen. And obviously he hits the home run, and see,
I told you, brings that spark. It is contagious sometimes,
especially in baseball more so than anything else. That's why
the terms streak and streaky are attached to this sport
like no other, especially offensively. Think back to one thing

(41:16):
that Zach told us. It's just a few minutes ago.
You know, baseball is not easy, no kidding. It's incredibly
hard saying you're comfortable or you're seeing the ball well,
or you're having some success. And the baseball player hears
that and they like it and they know, yeah, but
it's just a matter of time.

Speaker 5 (41:31):
I'll be right back out of this soon.

Speaker 4 (41:32):
You hit three hundred, like Jeremy Payne's gonna hit this year,
he's going to be one of the top five batting
average in the American League. But if he hits three
hundred on the nose, that means he goes up to
the plate ten times and he's out seven times.

Speaker 3 (41:45):
Yeah, that's baseball. And I think I've asked you this
question before from an individual standpoint, just going back to
what he said, what's more difficult hitting a baseball or
being successful in golf? Because they're very similar in that
you have to make the right contact, you have to
make the right reads on what I mean, the ball

(42:06):
is not approaching you in golf, but where you're trying
to send it is definitely coming into play. And the
head games are second to none in those two sports
versus any others.

Speaker 4 (42:16):
In my opinion, maybe if golf was like the home
run Derby and golf, especially when you're teeing off on
a par five driving range, you're trying to crush it.

Speaker 5 (42:26):
You're trying to get there in two.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
At the home run Derby, you're not trying to hit
a single, you're not bunting, you're trying to crush it.
But there are fielders out there and you have to
hit it over the fence or it's an out, it's
a bad hit. What if there were players hitting into
the fairway and there were people there fielding the ball,
there were people there redirecting the golf shot, you are

(42:50):
totally completely in control of golf all by yourself with
no other people. You're playing much more against the course,
the conditions, and the weather.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
In your own head, well your own head, but you.

Speaker 4 (43:03):
Don't have to rely on anything else, especially when it
comes to put If a baseball player, and I'll just
use Christian Walker because he comes to mind first in
twenty twenty five, if you hit the ball exactly the
way you want it in golf a stationary target, your
ball's not moving.

Speaker 3 (43:17):
Literally on a tea. It's on a tee.

Speaker 5 (43:19):
You crush it and it goes right where you want
it to go.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
That's awesome.

Speaker 4 (43:23):
Christian Walker's probably done that fifty times this year and
walked back to the dugout because he glove right to
a glove. He hit one off the would have gone
off the top of the wall and a guy caught it.
He smashed one at the shortstop who caught it, flipped
a second and fired to first, and he actually brought
a teammate back to the dugout with him. Even though
he guessed right. He hit it on the nose and

(43:44):
he crushed it. And look, that's the part that's the
biggest difference. He guessed right right. Golfers don't guess.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
Now, who looks more disgusted when things don't go their way,
Christian Walker or Tiger Woods in his prime.

Speaker 5 (43:56):
Well that's why don't you compare, guy? You're making me
be mean.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
Tiger Woods had the best but sour puss face on
the planet.

Speaker 4 (44:03):
Why don't compare Christian Walker to Tiger Woods? Well, shit,
further down the list where Christian Walker ranks on his side,
think about somebody who makes the cut, sometimes throws the
club into the lake, sometimes breaks the club.

Speaker 5 (44:18):
John Daly's having such a good time.

Speaker 4 (44:20):
He doesn't grip or anything except when he's writing books
saying grip it and rip it right. But yes, the
point is just in general, guys that aren't, you know,
the best in the world sometimes overreact and curse and
we've seen all that, but.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Not in my swing.

Speaker 5 (44:35):
That's the other thing.

Speaker 4 (44:36):
I would love it, love it if Christian Walker when
they get to a West Sacramento and one of the
eighteen fans there is making noise for him just to
step out and say, hey, hey, not in my swing.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
You gotta whine it. Though that was the best part
of the delivery. It was just the least slumped. Not
in my swing, but the least, they do not hold
the bat boys, they do not hold up a quiet
please signed no four pitch.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
Come quite the opposite.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
And believe me, this is not an insult to Christian Walker,
because no one is confusing a man's man like Christian
Walker for well, let's face it, Tiger kind of looked
like a weenie a lot of times. He was just
happening to be really good at the game, really.

Speaker 5 (45:16):
Really good at the game in this one.

Speaker 4 (45:17):
Yes, it's if your success in golf only required you
to be really good like twenty six point seven percent
of the time, like a two sixty seven batting average,
it would be a very, very very different sport baseball.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
So even if I come in last, I win something
so so so difficult Astros and Rangers.

Speaker 4 (45:33):
Tonight, I'll hear from Joe Spot a little bit later.
We'll also catch up with Dana Brown. About half hour
from now, Chris Gordy will step in studio with us
and we'll run through some of the football and college
football related items. Still kind of just getting rolling here
on a Wednesday afternoon edition of the Word eighteen.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named at him talking your.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
Teams Adam Clinton and Adam are the A team.

Speaker 3 (46:07):
It is the A team. Sports Talk seven ninety and
now simulcast on Space City Home Network. I wish you
could have seen us about a half hour ago, when
you could have seen the joy in our well, at
least in my eyes.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
Wex never has joy in his eyes. True.

Speaker 3 (46:23):
When we interviewed Zach Cole, just an absolute pleasure. And
you'll be able to hear any or all of that
if you missed it on the podcast, but you were
mentioning this last segment. He is the reason for the season.
Legit right now. When it comes to the Astros winning
these last two games, taking two out of three in Atlanta,

(46:43):
more often than not he's involved. And now that you're
I said this the other night. It sounded stupid, but
then you think about it, it really didn't. Jordan goes
down with that injury, and I turned to my buddy
and I said, well, at least Zach Cole's up.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
And then he delivered.

Speaker 4 (46:59):
Yeah, he delivered in that game, and he obviously delivered
in the opener. The three other games, He's done next
to nothing offensively. Basically, all of his hits and all
of his RBIs have come in those two games, yet
the team has managed to put runs on the board
in those instances.

Speaker 3 (47:12):
Yesterday is a great example of that.

Speaker 4 (47:14):
It would be nice if they didn't finish with six
as they watched the Rangers get from one to three
to four to five, still won the game six to five.
And as I thought for today, very segmented lineup for
Joe Espada, He's gonna put all the infielders first, Paynya
carre Al too, Ve Walker al Twov's playing second. Then
he's gonna put the best friends. It was like they

(47:36):
were doing a remake of step Brothers when Victor Karattini
and Yaner Diez scored one after the other yesterday. They're
back in the lineup together and back to back. Carrotini
will dh Jiner will catch for Christian Javier and then
it's the three outfielders.

Speaker 5 (47:49):
Hey Sue Sanchez is and left.

Speaker 4 (47:50):
He bats seventh, Jake Myers is in center, he bats eighth,
and Zach Cole is in the lineup. Tonight against Jacob deGrom,
the best pitcher he will have seen so far as
a Major leaguer. He bats ninth, brings his two homers,
his seven stakes in five games.

Speaker 5 (48:04):
And is robust.

Speaker 4 (48:06):
Twelve twenty four ops to the table tonight. Much more
importantly than that, it would be nice if the Astros
aren't forced to score that many runs, but rather can
casually put those runs on the board and see if
they can keep a team that, for the most part
this season, has struggled offensively. Yesterday did not have a
doles Garcia in the lineup, but that also meant Bruce

(48:26):
Bochi had him available as a pinch hitter.

Speaker 5 (48:28):
He came through and made the game even tighter one pitch.

Speaker 4 (48:31):
But back to back days they've needed to go to
Brian Abray, and back to back days he has earned a.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
Say which between Diez and Caratini, which one's dale interrupting
the story and making him forget what he was talking
about with all the fishing trips and such at the
dinner table.

Speaker 5 (48:45):
Is that fish big?

Speaker 3 (48:47):
Uh?

Speaker 9 (48:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (48:50):
What's the actor's name?

Speaker 5 (48:51):
Adam Scott or John c Riley?

Speaker 3 (48:54):
Adam Scott just the best Delta Bravo ever.

Speaker 5 (48:59):
Well, he worked in an office full of them.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
Yeah no, but I mean during that movie, yes, he did.

Speaker 5 (49:05):
A tremendous job.

Speaker 4 (49:06):
He came off like a jerk to his mom and
stepfather and to his stepbrother and his new best friend
and to his wife and kids.

Speaker 3 (49:15):
In the in car as they were singing Sweet Child
of Mine, great stuff, flas off key all that what
a waste of money?

Speaker 10 (49:22):
What does he say it?

Speaker 3 (49:23):
Or you can't even sing on key? It was pretty mean.

Speaker 4 (49:26):
It was very very unhealthy relationship that she got her revenge. Yeah,
so they need to lean on what I think Dana
Brown wanted and what I think this team needed is
for it's a little bit of a we need to
wake up. They couldn't figure out what it was going
to take to do that, and it did happen to
be Zach Coles. Zach Cole's not driving them to victory.

(49:50):
He's not leading the way his first game he did.
He had the two run homer to take the lead.
He had two more at bats that helped them play
add on. They also want eleven to nothing or put
eleven runs on the board. That day, he gave them
the lead with his second home run and then they
played add on and they kept scoring more. But in
the other games where he's done, the other guys have
come through. It's always been about the guys that need

(50:10):
to contribute are the same guys. We would have always
said it's about Payya Carre al Tuve, It's about Walker,
Carottini and Diaz everything they get for most everybody else.
Now that Alvarez is back out again, I mean, you
can help augment that. If you're at the bottom of
the order and you can get on base, than what
you're doing for Jeremy Pania and the rest of the
guys at the top of the lineup will matter. I
don't think it's a coincidence. Over the last handful of days,

(50:32):
as the offense has picked up well, the guy at
the top of the order has certainly been a humongous
part of that. The Astras have won the last two days,
and they've scored six runs in each of those games.
Jeremy Pagna has scored five of the team's twelve runs
in the last two games. He went to the plate
five times yesterday. He reached base five times yesterday. He's
got five hits in the last two games. He is

(50:54):
maybe about to look like the Jeremy Pagna that earned
his way onto the All Star team. Was competing with
Aaron Judge and cal Raley as the players with the
highest war in the entire league. His month away mattered
a great deal to the team, and it certainly slowed
him down offensively. I think he still looked a lot
better here the last month than he ever did in

(51:15):
the first three years of his career in the regular season.
The results just didn't quite match what he did at
the beginning of the season, constantly getting on base, hitting
shots all over the place and kind of churning this
offense and being that top of the order guy that
they needed. Maybe these last couple of games, he has
a five game hitting streak. He has hits in twelve
of his last thirteen games, and again the last two

(51:36):
he's been on base almost NonStop. If that continues for
ten more games, the Astros offense is going to continue
to put runs on the board.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
Since you brought him up.

Speaker 3 (51:45):
Let's talk about the other guy that just came back
recently from injury, because Jake Myers has not been shabby lately.
It's not been like, you know, overwhelming, but he's he
has I think both of these guys, I was wondering, Okay,
I'm not necessarily asking for them to have rounded into
the form they were in prior to their injuries, because
I think they were both going pretty well when each

(52:06):
of them got hurt, both in June.

Speaker 4 (52:08):
As I recall early July. For Jake, his last game
was the ninth and in the eight or now nine
tonight will be ten games that he's been back for.
The average has dipped all the way from THREEHO eight
to three H six bum, which means he's basically doing the.

Speaker 3 (52:24):
Exact same thing.

Speaker 4 (52:25):
He had three multi hit games at the end of
the road trip in Atlanta, a little bit slower here
in town. His lone hit yesterday, but he also came
around to score. He's made those plays in center field again.
Oh my god, running down baseball is at the wall,
and at some point today I knew we'd at least
mention it. They had two plays defensively at the end
of the game that saved the game. Victor Carratini behind

(52:47):
the plate saved a wild pitch for a Braye.

Speaker 3 (52:51):
Wild is not really doing it justice. That thing was
like six feet to the left of home plate and
he was I don't even know how he did it.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
I blump said the same thing.

Speaker 4 (52:58):
Victor Krattini said, Brian Abray from a wild thing caliber
wild pitch. Yeah, there you go and Cam Smith he
knew the play to make, but he knew what was
at stake. The play to make was go catch the
ball and end the game. But because of what was
at stake, he could not let that ball shoot by him,
you know, the line drive that was hit right at him.
If that ball goes by him, the game is tied,

(53:20):
and at least the guy who hit it is in
scoring position, but he's probably at third base in scoring position.
So he made an extremely late, correct decision. And because
he's a really really good athlete and really I think
is in control of his body, he was able to
pick it off the grass cleanly well, instead of having

(53:40):
it scooted by him or even go to the wall,
any number of negative things could have happened there. Instead,
it's first and second, you're still just one out away
and your strikeout away with Brian Abrew on the mountain.

Speaker 5 (53:50):
And that's exactly how he closed out the game.

Speaker 3 (53:52):
I'll tell you the thing about Cam Smith that you know,
it hasn't gone overwhelmed. Well, it hasn't gone well for
him offensively.

Speaker 4 (53:58):
He just hasn't for his out half a year of
good and half year really bad, really exactly so you know,
you do the math, it's kind of evens out his average.

Speaker 3 (54:07):
But I never worried about you, remember, he's playing this
position for the first time, and it's not just any position,
it's right field. He has been as expected, like you
mentioned his athleticism, and never worried about that part of it.
But there have been a lot of times this season
where the intelligence aspect of it, that's something that you

(54:28):
can never really predict because until you're in that situation,
especially when you're playing a new position, you're just not
gonna know until you see it. And he's done that
on more than one occasion. That's just the latest example
of a guy who, again you keep remembering he's playing
this position for the first time because you had no
other choice. You traded his predecessor for him, but you
thought he was gonna be playing third base, or at

(54:49):
least he probably thought he was.

Speaker 4 (54:50):
Gonna be playing He didn't trade for him to play
any position this year with your team, third base or otherwise.
The expectation for real for the Astros was to make
leave the door open for Cam Smith to possibly debut
in the majors late in the year.

Speaker 5 (55:05):
Maybe if things.

Speaker 4 (55:06):
Written really, really well Zach Cole would have never been
on their minds for that either. I mean he was
He's an older player, being that he was a college player.
He was only drafted a couple of seasons ago. He
hadn't risen above you know, the Double A level, and
that's where he spent I mean, thirty days ago, he
was playing baseball for Corpus. You asked him what it
was like to come into the Astros clubhouse and see

(55:26):
Jose al Tube his teammate, for the first time. Well,
he'd already walked into the clubhouse a couple of weeks
ago to see Jordon Alvarez, his teammate, because Jordon was
rehabing in Corpus while Cole was still there. Cole had
not even yet been promoted to Triple A yet when
he and Jordon were teammates with the Hooks for those
handful of games about a week's time, four games for

(55:47):
Alvarez's it's been a you know, wild isn't even the
right word, because it's been beyond wild for this team.

Speaker 5 (55:53):
I did hear you say something that I would like
to discuss.

Speaker 4 (55:57):
Next segment on the Astros, We're gonna have Chris Gordy
at three thirties. We'll get into a few other things
Texans as well. Going to sprinkle in some of what
CJ and Dimico had to say today. If you heard
Dimiko tell our audience earlier how he thinks they're very close,
you want to pay close attention to what CJ. Stroud
had to say today, But something you said earlier this afternoon.

(56:17):
You spent an hour with the Matt Thomas Show with
Ross with Ross because Matt was not there, and you
describe the Astros roster and a lot of words, adjectives
can be taken different ways, and maybe the first time
you hear it, you have a reaction to it. And
so if I'd been sitting here next to you, you'd
know exactly the reaction I've had would have had to it,
because I wouldn't have been able to hide it.

Speaker 3 (56:37):
But I was in the car at the time. Oh
I can't wait.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
You know what I said?

Speaker 4 (56:40):
You called, You described the Astros roster and where things
are with them, and the job in front of Dana Brown,
the rest of the Astros staff, not only for this year,
but more importantly, oh yeah, for what they're putting together
for the twenty twenty six season, and I thought it
was a word that should have elicited a reaction from people. Well,
I don't even think you meant it that way, but

(57:01):
it definitely did from me. The description of the Houston
Astros roster as we get ready for the final important
ten games of the season and the postseason that will
await them after it.

Speaker 5 (57:13):
We'll get into that when we come back here on
the A.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
Team, the eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (57:28):
Back here with you on the eight team, wexay se
col Thompson with you on a Wednesday, the final day
of the season where the Astros and Rangers will get
together unless both of them make the postseason and then
meet each other very unlikely, but not impossible last of
their thirteen game series. This one decides who has the
silver boot moving forward. The Astros already have it and

(57:51):
I'll just be keeping it after they win tonight. Jacob
Gram Christian Xavier Astros scheduled starters for the series against Seattle,
which begins after the Astros off day on Thursday, after
the Mariners finished their series with the Royals on Thursdays.
They've got games tonight and tomorrow against Kansas City before
they arrive in Houston. They scored twelve times in the

(58:12):
opener against Kansas City and one rather comfortably to keep
the Astros a half game back. But Hunter Brown, from
ber Valdez and Jason Alexander are the scheduled starters Friday, Saturday,
and Sunday for the Astros. There'll be six games remaining
in the season after that. Those pitchers, in light of that,
would clearly be.

Speaker 5 (58:31):
In line to go again at some point in time.

Speaker 4 (58:34):
I'm sure based a little bit on what has happened
since then, but there's no question these are the three
guys that have overall had the best seasons for the Astros.
Hunter Brown is still in contention for Cy Young consideration
from ber Valdez still had half of a season where
he and the team were literally unbeatable thirteen starts, thirteen wins.

(58:55):
His last start was emblematic of a very inconsistent season,
getting them only twelve outs. And then there's Jason Alexander,
who continues to put the Astros in position to win.
Nine straight times when he's been giving the ball after
a loss, the Astros have won. So that's how they'll
line it up when Seattle comes to town. And I
mentioned something very specific that I heard earlier today right

(59:17):
here on your home for Astros Baseball Sports Talk seven
to ninety. The Astros roster was described by my co
host as a mess. The Astros roster is a mess.
That's what I heard as I was listening in to
Ross and Ac earlier today before we got on the air,
and I.

Speaker 5 (59:35):
Thought, that sounds so bad. That sounds so negative.

Speaker 4 (59:38):
It sounds so well, if it's a mess, well then
somebody's done something wrong. The people in place, Dana Brown
and their staff man, they have put together a roster
that is being described as a mess.

Speaker 5 (59:51):
That's how it sounds. It's almost impossible not to hear that.

Speaker 3 (59:54):
But there are.

Speaker 4 (59:55):
Reasons for that term actually not being too far off
base and not necessarily meant in a negative way.

Speaker 5 (01:00:03):
Presumably. Yeah, well, they're crowded.

Speaker 4 (01:00:06):
The Astros have too many players, and they were a
little concerned about that on the pitching side each of
the last two years because they have so many injured pitchers.
And as this season unfolded and they had so many.

Speaker 3 (01:00:18):
Injured players position players, well they went out and added more.

Speaker 5 (01:00:23):
Just think of this, right out of the gate.

Speaker 4 (01:00:25):
You traded Kyle Tucker out one position player out, presumably
one position player in. You traded for Estakperettis, He's going
to play a position in your nine player lineup. Okay,
the math still works, one out, one in, it still
equals nine. Well then what happened, Well then cam Smith
made the team. So now you actually traded away one

(01:00:46):
player for two and technically you traded one player for
three because Hayden was Nesky also made the opening day
rotation was a part of this base ball, which is fine.

Speaker 5 (01:00:54):
You need this kind of depth.

Speaker 4 (01:00:55):
You're pushing, you know, not as much pressure on when
does Xavier come back, When mccullor's come back.

Speaker 5 (01:01:01):
When does France come back? When does Luis Garcia come back?

Speaker 4 (01:01:03):
Oh, that's great, and figure out where you're gonna play
this guy in the future and that guy in the future.
And then Pereties goes down. Well, so now he's on
the sideline. See you trade for Carlos Korea. Well, now
Dana Brown, who you'll hear from in full. A little
bit later, Sunday said he was hopeful, though it was
a long shot. They're targeting the Seattle series.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
He sounded slightly more confident this morning when he was
on with the Sean Salisbury Show that the series against Seattle,
which starts Friday, is more of a reality now.

Speaker 4 (01:01:34):
Also, you've lost Jordan Alvarez. Your whole comment, I assume
is based on when they get to spring training next year.
That's from a position player standpoint. At the very least,
every player they could be considering where would they play them, Well,
they're all going to be healthy. And then you look
at the pitching staff. They have more than twenty six
major leaguers. When they get to camp next year, they

(01:01:55):
probably have thirty to thirty five, which is awesome if
everybody were healthy. But they're not on the pitching side,
and we're almost certain they will be on the hitting side.
We don't know for sure about a couple of guys,
and anything could happen with your Honor East Soccer, even
an off season situation.

Speaker 5 (01:02:10):
But can't you look at that and.

Speaker 4 (01:02:12):
Say, Okay, then when we make our phone calls and
we talk to other teams, we're trading them guys that
immediately play for them one hundred and fifty games at
at a plus level. If Parrettis is somebody you have
to dangle, If Christian Walker is somebody that you have
conversations about these are players.

Speaker 5 (01:02:29):
These are everyday players.

Speaker 4 (01:02:30):
In Walker's case, he's played on a World Series team
and he's about to play on a playoff team here
in Houston. In Parretis's case, he played with Tampa fighting
for the playoffs every year, made the playoffs. He's gonna
make the playoffs here. These are players that help you
win games. These are players that are gonna help the
team's GM that they're talking to make them better immediately
at the major league level, and you might have more
than that, Like we know what their system is like,

(01:02:52):
even though the guys they keep calling.

Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
Up keep looking like major leaguers. Well, this will help
a great deal, I think actually, if money is involved
from your end in trying to outfit a little bit cleaner,
less messy twenty six man roster, and the infield specifically
is where the MESSI really comes into play because you
have only so many positions, and you have way more

(01:03:15):
players than those amount of positions right now. And it's
I mean, the Korea deal is it's so obvious that
it was as much spearheaded by Jim Crane wanting to
bring back Carlos Korea as Oh, by the way, we
also need a third baseman, and he can play that
position and won't have to play the position he's been
playing for his whole career. But you mentioned Parrettis and Walker,

(01:03:40):
who were ironically the two biggest I guess offseason acquisitions,
if you don't count Cam Smith. I could see a
scenario where you do dangle one of those and it
is Walker because of what happened here in twenty twenty
five prior to Paritis getting hurt. I e was their

(01:04:00):
most consistent hitter all season long until that point, and
Walker was this side of abysmal until like just recently.
And so then you what do you do? You you
trade Christian Walker, and what does he inevitably go do
somewhere else? I could just see it. But if you trade,

(01:04:21):
if you traded Perettis, for example, and you kept Walker,
I could I could also see a repeat of this season.
I just I feel like that first base position has
been cursed since Julie's prime, or just this side of
his prime.

Speaker 4 (01:04:34):
I wish we didn't look at Christian Walker quite so harshly.
And I think last the first base curse that you're
talking about has lent itself to it.

Speaker 5 (01:04:42):
I don't think it's without fault.

Speaker 4 (01:04:43):
Of his own. I mean, you can't lead the majors
and strikeouts with runners on base, and we just sit
here and act like it's not happening, and you know,
the constant pop ups and the yeah, he only seems
to strike out if there are runners to be driven in,
or if there's this gotta have this hit here he
has had. If this is a partial month, this is
month six of Christian Walker as an astro.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
He's had four bad months and this is one of them.
He's had two really good months. That's easy, so he's due.

Speaker 4 (01:05:09):
If you could just split it, if you could go
split it fifty to fifty and talk about a guy
that maybe has a you know, seven forty five ops
on the.

Speaker 3 (01:05:16):
Season, maybe he is at one hundred and one, one
hundred and three, one hundred.

Speaker 4 (01:05:19):
And five ops plus. I think it would be a
lot different. But it's really just about the individual at bats.

Speaker 3 (01:05:25):
It's okay to go twenty five for one hundred and
hit two fifty, but you can't have fifty of those
seventy five outs be strikeouts.

Speaker 4 (01:05:33):
They're the most useless at bats of all, because nothing
good happened that the guy doesn't move up ninety feet.
You didn't drive home a run from third because you
hit the ball three hundred feet to the outfield. You
didn't ground out behind the runner at second so he
could move to third. Just the simplicity of the you know,
playing you know station to station, you know, moving runners along,
passing the whatever you want to say. Too many of

(01:05:54):
his at bats and more this year than in any
year of his entire career. Some of the things are
all part of his career, the strikeout, but never at
this level. There are things he's doing this year worse
than he's ever done in his career. Unfortunately, the first
year of his three year deal. He has helped you
solidify the infield defensively, and we'll have to look at this,
you know, more closely year after year. So he didn't

(01:06:17):
get a hit, he went oh for four, He got
to bat four times, and he didn't get ninety feet
in any of them. But is it balanced out at
all that Jeremy Pania fielded a ball, just an easy
hopper up the middle with a runner on third and
two outs, and then he threw the ball in the
dirt over to first, but Walker.

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):
Caught it and that's the third out of the inning.

Speaker 4 (01:06:36):
And it wasn't an air that let a run score,
gave him an extra ninety feet, put an extra run
on the board. He didn't put a run on the board.

Speaker 3 (01:06:41):
Himself with his offense, but did he take a run
off the board with his defense.

Speaker 4 (01:06:46):
He's not going to win the Gold Gloves. I'm not
trying to paint a picture of him being the World League.
But it has been very good.

Speaker 3 (01:06:51):
Prowess, yes, and it's been better than a Bray he
was when he was at his best defensively, and you
could sort of talk yourself at times into you know, well,
I'll give him somewhat of a pass, even though oh
my gosh, he's at the plate again, and I want
to kill myself because that's how it was for two
straight not even two full years with a Bray you walker.
It's more like, come on, man twice in a row

(01:07:13):
at this position, because we know he's better than a
break you was coming in.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
He I know what Bray you won the al.

Speaker 3 (01:07:19):
MVP shortened season air quotes which you can all see
if you're watching, they are not the same player, even
at this age because they were what both thirty what
wa age.

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
Is he now thirty five?

Speaker 3 (01:07:33):
Who Walker?

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:07:34):
Yeah, his next birthday will be thirty five, but that
won't come until right before next.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Year and a break. You was already thirty six when
he got here.

Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
I believe, we believe that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
Yeah, I believe, we believe that.

Speaker 3 (01:07:46):
You believe that? So yeah, I look for him if
he's an astro next season, I would not. I would
anticipate him bouncing back. But jeez, that's not too much
to ask for, is.

Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
It all right?

Speaker 3 (01:07:57):
We will take a quick time out when we come back.
We are going to have Chris Gordy in studio for
a couple of segments here on a Wednesday edition of
The eight Team, the A Team on Sports Talk seven
ninety nashway through our number two. This is the A Team.

Speaker 4 (01:08:17):
Wex and Ac along with Cole here with you as
we always arach you in every weekday afternoon beginning to
o'clock simulcasters with us there on Space City Home Network,
and Chris Gordy now in studio with us to handle
a couple of items on the sporting landscape. We've had
so much astros discussion, we will naturally start there, get
into a little of the college football talk about the

(01:08:37):
best team in Texas not being ranked as the best
team in Texas, and obviously the Texans trying to get
a win this weekend when they take on the Jacksonville
Jaguars with a few new.

Speaker 5 (01:08:47):
Players available to them.

Speaker 4 (01:08:49):
But start with the Astros with ten games remaining, Chris,
they've taken the first two games of this series. They
unfortunately have seen the departure of the recently re arrived
Jord on Alvil. Do you think the offense can continue
to score like they have been the last five or
six games, averaging better than five runs six runs a
night if Jordan has played his last regular season game.

Speaker 10 (01:09:13):
Yeah, I mean that's the crazy part is like if
you just said, come into the series facing Lighter and
Merril Kelly, can they score six runs into those games?
I said no? But they found a way to do it.
You know, Jacob de Groom going tonight, Astros are an
underdog with Christian Hove here on the mound. But you

(01:09:34):
look at de Gram's last couple starts, three runs against
the Mets, three runs against the Astros, So you know,
can you can get him for three? And can you
get the bullpen for three? Okay? Maybe, but again, just
no Vegas. In the eyes of Vegas, They've got the
Astros as the underdog tonight.

Speaker 4 (01:09:48):
Meanwhile, do you know if they had the Astros with
Aj Bluebaugh as the underdog yesterday?

Speaker 3 (01:09:54):
Probably imagine Kelly were.

Speaker 10 (01:09:57):
I would guess, yeah, And I mean who saw this
coming at the start the year? You know, guys down
the stretch AJ Bluebond, Colton Gordon are going to be
pitching some important innings and.

Speaker 3 (01:10:05):
That call is going to be much needed on the
offensive set.

Speaker 10 (01:10:08):
We didn't even know who's that coal was in spring, right,
like the twenty eighth prospect. But yeah, I mean it's
as good as this series has been so far. And
it's great if you lose tonight and the Mariners win
again because they're playing the Royals and they're just on
his heater. Apparently. The Mariners, by the way, just go
on heaters. They are like they're on a six game

(01:10:29):
losing streak. They're going to an eight game win streak,
and it's like, what the hell is happening? But no,
it's just the pressure's on.

Speaker 11 (01:10:36):
Man.

Speaker 10 (01:10:36):
I just think in a perfect world, if you could
somehow win tonight and the Mariners lose, then it's okay
to for the Mariners to beat the Royals tomorrow and
then they come in Friday and this thing is tied. Right,
do the math there? If they win tonight, they lose
half game, you're.

Speaker 5 (01:10:54):
A half game gonna get tomorrow, you don't, right, right?

Speaker 8 (01:10:58):
Right?

Speaker 10 (01:10:58):
Okay, yes, that would be It's it's a winner take all.
You were five and five on the series on the
season series with them. Whoever wins the series wins the division.

Speaker 3 (01:11:10):
You know what's weird is California might determine this division.
And let me explain, the Astros have to play an
A's team down the stretch. That's not the A's that's
been like an upstart. Doesn't even really give them the
credit their due. They've won five and then the Mariners
finished the season with the Dodgers.

Speaker 10 (01:11:30):
Well, that's the good thing with the Dodgers losing last
night is that they are still in a tight ray.

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
Like that's what do you mean?

Speaker 5 (01:11:36):
Are listeners just gonna let you say the Dodgers lost
last night. Sho he pitched, he threw a no hitters
fiftieth homer.

Speaker 3 (01:11:43):
They didn't. There's no way they lost.

Speaker 2 (01:11:44):
Chris bought that win.

Speaker 5 (01:11:45):
They definitely won last night. I saw that.

Speaker 4 (01:11:48):
I know I went to bed at some point, but
you're telling me after he threw five no hit innings
and hit another home run, you're gonna lie to me
and say the Dodgers lost that game.

Speaker 5 (01:11:57):
Come on, well, there's no way that happened.

Speaker 10 (01:11:58):
They've lost to in a row.

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
What happened, people, They lost three in a ruw.

Speaker 10 (01:12:01):
But this is what I was hoping for, is that,
regardless of what happens with you, Seattle, is the they
close with the Dodgers. On paper, you look at that
and go, oh, that's tough. But what happens this time
of year we all know people start popping bottles of
champagne and celebrating winning divisions.

Speaker 12 (01:12:17):
And all this.

Speaker 10 (01:12:18):
The only thing I was hoping for was let this
be tight enough that the Dodgers still have something to
play for going into that gave up three runs in
the ninth.

Speaker 3 (01:12:27):
Gave up six runs immediately after Otani left the game.

Speaker 5 (01:12:30):
That lead was gone.

Speaker 4 (01:12:32):
They have got a two game lead in their division
over the Padres. Remember the Mariners do close with the Dodgers,
but that series is preceded by one against the forty
one to win loss Colorado Rockies.

Speaker 5 (01:12:44):
So you could leave this series with Seattle.

Speaker 4 (01:12:46):
If you go into it tied, you take two out
of three, you've got a one game lead and you
have the tiebreaker, so technically a two game lead, but
with six games to play, it's going to require you
to win some of those games at Sacramento and.

Speaker 3 (01:12:56):
At La California determines this division.

Speaker 4 (01:13:00):
Or the Astros can just Again, the Astros are not
in first place, but they absolutely still control their own
destiny because.

Speaker 5 (01:13:09):
Is ahead of them. Just go win your baseball times.

Speaker 10 (01:13:12):
Can I Like, I heard somebody say to me the
other day, They're like, do you think the Astros are
going to miss the playoffs? Look? This Friday Siren Sunday
are the playoffs. If you have a ticket, you're going
to Friday Siren Sunday. If you have season tickets, then
you're not going. Please give them to someone who will
go and could screen their head off and treat these
games like playoff games, because they absolutely are.

Speaker 3 (01:13:31):
You know what I hate about our seat and you
know the seats I'm talking about WEX because we've both
been the beneficiary of them. I'm not going to tell
everybody whose they are, but It's one of those places
where if you're sitting there, you need to behave yourself
because everybody knows whose seats they are. And I couldn't
be who I wanted to be. When Adulas Garcia was
up the other night, I couldn't tell him, you know,

(01:13:53):
to put the syringe down and surrender. I couldn't say
things like that at the top of my lungs. He
definitely would have hurt it. And I can't say if
I were to sit in those seats again for the
Seattle series, I would have all sorts of unsavory things
to say about a guy whose nickname is Big Dumper.

Speaker 11 (01:14:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:14:07):
For the Astros to miss the playoffs as the fifth
seed right now, two of the three teams behind them
would have to pass them, the Red Sox, the Rangers,
the Guardians. The Guardians are actually ahead of the Rangers
now after yesterday's play so the Guardians are playing a
series with Detroit right now.

Speaker 3 (01:14:24):
They beat them yesterday.

Speaker 4 (01:14:26):
They have another series with Detroit still on the horizon,
and Detroit is only two games ahead of Seattle, so
only two and a half games ahead of Houston. The
second spot in the American League, which comes with it
you don't have to play in the wildcard series.

Speaker 5 (01:14:43):
They finished with Texas.

Speaker 4 (01:14:44):
I don't know that those they'll be battling for anything
other than who finishes seventh. But the schedule is very dramatic.
There will be dramatic matchups all throughout the rest of
the way. I think it's quite obvious that we think
they're going to make the postseason. What do you think
they get from fromber Valde is in what should be
two remaining starts. He starts on Saturday, fromber goes in

(01:15:05):
between Hunter and Jason Alexander, and likely over the final
six he will get that second of his final two starts.

Speaker 10 (01:15:12):
He's got to show that he's earned your trust back.
I mean, it's amazing how ridiculous he was so much
of this season. In May he had an array of
two thirty six. In June even better, one seventy four.
In July two sixteen fromber was lights out. There was
a stretch fromber was outdueling Hudder. Brown is your best pitcher,

(01:15:35):
and yet in the months of August and September, this
thing has been ugly. Outside of one good performance against
the Colorado Rockies, who are awful, every other performance has
been subpar or bad.

Speaker 3 (01:15:47):
It's all gonna come together for October, guys, all of it,
health well some of it, and yes, the team's gonna
just rock it right to the World Series yet again.

Speaker 10 (01:15:56):
But just like that, I could see him stepping up
and going out there and saying, you know, what the
hell with the Seattle team, I've beat them in the playoffs.

Speaker 4 (01:16:04):
Before let's go, We're gonna catch an extra segment with
Chris as we continue here, I know it just means more.

Speaker 3 (01:16:10):
So we'll talk about the eleventh means more.

Speaker 4 (01:16:12):
We'll talk about the eleven ranked teams and the sixteen
team Southeastern Conference, talk about the Texans and exactly how
close they are or what it is that they think
they're so close too. And we come back and obviously
set the table for what's going on over at DIYK
and Park to close things up and close up this
hour here on the A Team. Chris Gordy in studio
with us here on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (01:16:41):
It's the A Team on a Wednesday afternoon.

Speaker 4 (01:16:44):
So a few more minutes with Chris Gordy, who comes
in for his weekly appearance. We's ac Coal and Chris,
we talk a little college football here. By the way,
when we get to our stone Cold locks in two
days and forty three minutes from now, on Friday afternoon
at four thirty, we will be looking at at Texas
Tech on the road at Utah in early season Big

(01:17:07):
Twelve clash. But since it means less, we'll not talk
about that. We'll talk about something that means more.

Speaker 10 (01:17:12):
I'm exorry for that. By the way they play, they
lose this one.

Speaker 3 (01:17:17):
Why doesn't the Big Twelve adopt that slogan? It just
means less. It doesn't sound very powerful.

Speaker 4 (01:17:21):
It does sound very intimidating for a football conference to adopt.

Speaker 5 (01:17:26):
Five that inside the SEC.

Speaker 4 (01:17:28):
This week, there are two games that are definitely worth
keeping an eye on, although only one of them is
a conference game.

Speaker 5 (01:17:34):
Auburn will be at Oklahoma middle of the day.

Speaker 4 (01:17:36):
Should be plenty of eyeballs on that two thirty kick,
and Florida Miami will get together. It's obviously not an
SEC game only, but Miami definitely looks the part of
a team that belongs where they are in the polls currently.
Their ACC schedule will actually test them a little bit,
and the winner of the ACC even if it's ranting

(01:18:00):
Dabbo Swiney will be a respectable team. Even the second
and third and maybe fourth place team in the A
C C will be a very respectable team. But my
simple question, I could have said nothing but this to
open the segment. Chris, who's the best team in the
state of Texas at playing college football?

Speaker 9 (01:18:17):
Oh?

Speaker 10 (01:18:18):
That's an that's an interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:18:19):
Not an interesting one, not a difficult answer.

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):
He asked him this question earlier this week.

Speaker 3 (01:18:24):
Can I help you? It's not Texas Tech, and it's
not Texas Now do you know who it is? Saying
you with such.

Speaker 10 (01:18:33):
Uncertainty because I have questions about their defense?

Speaker 5 (01:18:36):
Okay, I'll whittle it down even more.

Speaker 4 (01:18:40):
Neutral field, Let's line up Marcel Reid's team against Texas Tech.
Neutral field, let's line up Marcel reads team against Arch
Manning's team. Are you Are you actually going to pick
arch Manning in Texas over Texas A and M right now?
Or Texas Tech, who looks unbelievable at home against Texas
A and M right now?

Speaker 10 (01:18:59):
Like, I get where you're going, but also, Texas's defense
has still been pretty awesome, So and A and M
My biggest concern with them is when they were playing
the cupcakes in Utsa and Utah State, they were giving
up yards and points and then, okay, I get it's
that Notre Dame, but what they got forty.

Speaker 3 (01:19:18):
But lu Text didn't give up yards and points to Texas.

Speaker 10 (01:19:23):
It's true, I mean, but yeah, you.

Speaker 4 (01:19:25):
Think twenty seven on nine billion missed fourth downs is
a good day of offense.

Speaker 10 (01:19:29):
I'm still a believer that Arch is going to get
it figured out and he's going to play better, but
I was appalled. Did you see the stat that there
is a category called EPA something like expected points at it,
whatever it is. Arch Manning rex one thirty three out
of one thirty three quarterbacks in all of college football.

Speaker 5 (01:19:46):
And keep in mind what I'm saying and presenting.

Speaker 4 (01:19:48):
I'm being super over the top, but I really only
truly mean today, like how they've played, what they've looked like,
who they've been up against, how they've matched up all
those things.

Speaker 5 (01:19:56):
I'm not saying it's going to be this way at
the end of the year. Yeah, I don't mean each.

Speaker 4 (01:20:00):
Of the three top teams in Texas, if you believe
those are the top three, I don't think any of
them have played their best football, which means a lot
if you're talking about Texas A and M because of
what they've actually already accomplished and what's still ahead of them.
If this isn't their best football, and I do not
believe that it is, Mike Elko, who's in town, should
have something pretty special going on this year.

Speaker 10 (01:20:22):
Yes, well, they're called Texas eight and four for a reason.
I mean it's they always do.

Speaker 3 (01:20:29):
Thank you God.

Speaker 10 (01:20:30):
Three weeks in every year, Kevin, someone had us believe
in this team is going underfoot?

Speaker 3 (01:20:34):
Were they beating this?

Speaker 4 (01:20:35):
I mean, do you not?

Speaker 5 (01:20:37):
You can say, no, We're.

Speaker 10 (01:20:40):
Almost a month into the season. Nor Dame hasn't won
a game yet.

Speaker 3 (01:20:43):
So we can pay two games against two of the
best teams in the country, don't you think?

Speaker 5 (01:20:48):
Right here in studio we think so.

Speaker 10 (01:20:50):
All I'm saying is, has it been a great star
for A and M so far? Yes? Does this mean
that they're going to roll off wins against uh? You
know they have a stretch that they have to go
at Arkansas, at LSU, at Missouri home for South Carolina
and then oh, let's cap off the season at Texas
Like yeah one, I mean there's two losses in there
at least, why because I think this defense they haven't

(01:21:12):
goat Okay, take it stopped.

Speaker 3 (01:21:14):
Let's say it is two losses.

Speaker 5 (01:21:15):
So they just went ten and two, it'd be great.

Speaker 10 (01:21:18):
But but again we'll see as the sea. The one
thing that I like about him is I thought they
were going to be a ground and pound team with
all the running backs they have, and they haven't been.
They haven't needed to run the ball because the added
weapons of Mario Kraver and Casey Kncepsio to the bortle
have made them great. Marcel Reid, hey, he was just
a runner last year. Now he's an actually legit passer.
But let's see as the season rolls on, you're gonna

(01:21:40):
play some tough for dbs that can cover when you
get into conference play, So uh that will you know,
We'll see where it goes. But yes, right now, are
the Ages one of the top four teams in the SEC?

Speaker 3 (01:21:50):
Absolutely?

Speaker 4 (01:21:51):
Do you think the Cougars the U of H can
put something together to keep them near the top or
battling at the top of the Big twelve with what
you've seen through their first three.

Speaker 10 (01:22:01):
I like what I've seen from Wegman. Wait, to call
the other day was like, maybe I wouldn't run him
as much, you know, just a guy who's got injury history.
But it's working. I mean the other night, every time
it felt like Colorado was gonna get back into that game,
the Kuks did something to go, no, you're not, and
then obviously got the separation at the end to make

(01:22:23):
it look even worse. But that's a good win. Man,
Like I again, you look at our schedule. Though it's daunting,
I'm still saying I think to me, six and six
is the bar. Six and six gets us excited. It
gets the Kuks to a bowl game. It's a major
step forward for Willie Fritz and company. But can they
be better than that?

Speaker 3 (01:22:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 10 (01:22:42):
I think they can. So look seven to five with
their parade for him. If they get to that, I mean,
that's that's absolutely headed in the right direction.

Speaker 4 (01:22:50):
Like their chances of taking the bye week into Oregon
State next Friday and making it to four and over.

Speaker 10 (01:22:55):
That team stinks. Col Vallas is a tough place to play,
but that team stinks, you better go beat them all right?

Speaker 4 (01:23:00):
Little time for the Texans here. Ac thinks their offensive
line is perfection, perfection.

Speaker 3 (01:23:06):
They're terrible.

Speaker 5 (01:23:08):
What do you think of the Texans oh through too?

Speaker 10 (01:23:12):
I mean I was told they were better, they were
going to be better. I think they're slightly better. But look,
if Joe Mixon were healthy right now, I think they'd
be running the football a little bit better. And who knows,
that might have been the difference against the Rams. That
probably absolutely would have been the different difference against the

(01:23:33):
Bucks the other night. So you know, I think until
you get mixing back, and we have no idea when
that's gonna happen, it's nothing gets nick Nick Chubb, he's
just his best days are behind him. He had a
nice run there on that great But I just if
they can get mixed fully healthy and he's good, like

(01:23:54):
I think we're gonna see a little bit of a
different team. But he just got lost his confidence. Like
I can't believe we were looking Nicos numbers. Look at
Nicos numbers through two weeks last season.

Speaker 2 (01:24:03):
In this season, got seventy seven yards.

Speaker 10 (01:24:05):
Throw him the football? What are we doing?

Speaker 3 (01:24:07):
But here's the deal. If he has left lost his confidence,
I can't even blame him. Like we see this all
the time. Quarterbacks become damaged goods after being beaten up
over and over and over again. I'm not saying that's
where we're at now. It's very early in the process,
but I just I will never understand why teams don't
put the absolute number one through ten priority. I'm protecting

(01:24:29):
who they think is they tried quarterback.

Speaker 10 (01:24:31):
They tried. It's just you know, Pro Bowl offensive linemen
aren't just sitting out there. It's just ya.

Speaker 3 (01:24:36):
But you can't even you can't even have any on
your team that are homegrown if you don't take more.

Speaker 10 (01:24:40):
Well, they did Blake Fisher, I mean ursery they're trying.
Kenyan Green was a bust.

Speaker 3 (01:24:45):
Let me tell you, Ersari is the first guy that
they've quote unquote hit on.

Speaker 10 (01:24:50):
We'll see. I mean like.

Speaker 3 (01:24:52):
He's still time.

Speaker 2 (01:24:54):
I just Kenya Green's already been cut.

Speaker 3 (01:24:56):
By the Eagles. That's so perfimous. Well, they're misses. And
then that's like, I don't even know what I would
call that. Isn't there a bigger.

Speaker 2 (01:25:04):
Word for it?

Speaker 3 (01:25:04):
Wex you know, you know things swinging a miss We'll.

Speaker 10 (01:25:07):
Go win in Jacksonville. It's basically an RG East.

Speaker 3 (01:25:10):
If they lose this game, Oh my gosh, this game.

Speaker 5 (01:25:14):
Okay, there you go, that's two of us.

Speaker 4 (01:25:16):
I'll say my final actual definitive prediction for Friday, Chris.

Speaker 5 (01:25:19):
We appreciate the time as always.

Speaker 2 (01:25:21):
Thanks Phillis The A team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (01:25:29):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adam talking your team.

Speaker 2 (01:25:37):
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the eighteen.

Speaker 3 (01:25:44):
Halfway home.

Speaker 4 (01:25:45):
Some of you guys might already be home, or even
closer than halfway home. We're halfway home on the A
team to end two to go, We'll get you straight
to the Astros on Deck Show in advance of their
fourth to last home game of the season, their last
game of the season again the Texas Rangers, fresh off
of two wins against the Texas Rangers, beating them six
to three on Monday, beating them six to five yesterday,

(01:26:08):
and trying to complete the sweep in this series, which
would also give them the seventh win of the year,
and they're thirteen games overall. The silver boot that comes
with it much more importantly to the baseball fans out
there of the standings variety. It will give them the
tiebreaker should they end up tied for an important spot
in the postseason. Presumably if they're tied that means they're

(01:26:28):
tied for a wildcard spot. I doubt both of them
will be out playing the Mariners between now and then.
Mariners be on the field against the Royals. They will
take a half game lead into tonight's play. They will
play tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (01:26:40):
The Astros are off tomorrow and will await the Mariners arrival.

Speaker 4 (01:26:45):
They got a twelve five victory yesterday. They've played ten
consecutive games without losing, and it has netted them a
half game advantage over the Houston Astros. Astros will take
the field tonight with Christian Javier on the mount, opposed
by Jacob de Grom. Fourth time this year they will
have faced de Gram and the Rangers with him on
the mound. Zach Cole, who you heard from earlier, right

(01:27:06):
here on the A team in the line up beginning tonight.
He is in right field, with Jesus Sanchez and Jake
Myers in the outfield, Jose l Twove back at second base,
both of your catchers in the lineup. One of them
will be the dh the other will do the catching,
just as they did last night. Yinor Diaz with a
big hit early in the game to help the Astros

(01:27:27):
get out to that six nothing lead, which they ultimately
needed all of to win six to five. Wednesdays bring
the general Manager to Sports Talk seven ninety Dana Brown
and it's weekly visit here on Sports Talk seven ninety
seven ninety eight, nine point thirty. He stops by the
Sean Salisbury Show, and did so earlier today. If you
miss that, you can catch the interview in its entirety

(01:27:48):
right there at sports Talk seven ninety dot com or
via the iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 3 (01:27:52):
Since clearly you have downloaded it.

Speaker 4 (01:27:55):
You've got Sports Talk seven ninety number one in your presets,
and you also subscribe to each of our three daily
sports talk shows here, the eight Team, the Matt Thomas
Show with Ross, and of course, the Sean Salisbury Show.
We wanted to give you a little snippet of the interview,
and it begins with Dana Brown's thoughts on yesterday's starting pitcher,

(01:28:15):
AJ Blueball, who gave this team a sixth consecutive appearance
without allowing a run three innings of seven, strikeout, no
run baseball. What does Dana think AJ Blueball might be
about five years from now?

Speaker 11 (01:28:27):
I think we're going to be staying that this guy
has a power arm. He could throw it up to
ninety eight. You could use them out of the pen,
you could use them to start. And he's just starting
to scratch the surface of his ability. It looks weird
because he's so young looking out there, right, and you know,
I look at him and I'm like, man, this guy's
really got a chance to turn the corner. I think

(01:28:47):
he's not done physically yet. You know, from a scouting
eigh right, I think he's got a chance to add
some strength and some weight and so that should give
him a little bit more sustainability with the velocity. And
so yeah, I think we're going to be looking back going, hey,
this was you know, this was a good guy that
we that really extracts came into his own in twenty

(01:29:09):
twenty five. But really now five years from ay, I
think he's gonna be pretty good.

Speaker 18 (01:29:14):
Yeah, we know that the importance of the stars, the
Jordans and the l two Vas and Koreas. But this season,
like most seasons and in your past you've seen it,
it always takes There's always got to be somebody else
in a season that you know, with especially with all
your injuries, it has like a career type here I
start to think about what paradis meant to you guys,
and has meant what Jake Myers has done hell hitting

(01:29:34):
about one hundred points or eighty points higher than maybe
most expected. You look at your pid from blue ball
to Alexander, I mean, Jason, Alexander, you're getting it. Goes
on king Bullpen. I mean, there's a lot of guys
that we didn't expect that if quite frankly, have your
team in this position within striking distance the first place,

(01:29:55):
it's been amazing to see the other guy from other
people's vantage point kind of carry your team at times
when it's been desperately.

Speaker 2 (01:30:01):
Needed this year.

Speaker 11 (01:30:03):
Yeah, that's what it's all about.

Speaker 19 (01:30:05):
You know.

Speaker 11 (01:30:05):
You take it from like Zach Cole most recently coming
up and doing what he's done, you know.

Speaker 20 (01:30:10):
Providing you know, that left hand bat athleticism in the outfield,
popping a few home runs, really digging deep in that
batter's box, you know, doing a really good job.

Speaker 11 (01:30:23):
You know, these guys, this is what the team is
all about. Right, That's why it's one hundred and sixty
two games. It's going to take an entire organization, and
that goes from the front office, from the scouting, from
player development, you know, from all of the teams that
you have in the minor leagues to the major league
team and staff. I mean, it takes an entire organization

(01:30:45):
to be you know, as successful as we've been, you know,
in this organization and I hit my cap tool, you know,
the entire organization for continuing to put out player after
player time in time again. And so it's really exciting
to see the young players come up. You know, even Murray,

(01:31:05):
the way he's been throwing, he's been really good. You know,
you talked about blue ball, you know, Alexander you know,
eight and oh in his last few starts he threw
the ball actually better than you know, the line score said,
you know the other day. And so all of these
guys have come up, and you know, we talked about
this last week about getting guys off waivers. It takes

(01:31:27):
an entire organization to do what we've done. And think
about it, Sean, We've we've had twenty nine guys on
the IL. You know, Fangraft has us as you know,
the team that has suffered in the most injury wise,
in terms of impact. You know, at one point we
had our number one, number two number three hitter on
the IL. That's Penya, Coretis and Alvarez all on the

(01:31:51):
IL at one time. I don't think any team has
suffered anything like that, and so these guys have continued
to show the grit. So we have faith in this team.
This is a good team, and we continue to battle.

Speaker 18 (01:32:02):
Have you ever been a part of an organization that
that has been able to be this successful with this
much injury adversity?

Speaker 11 (01:32:09):
No, I mean it's very difficult to be that good.
And in order to be that good, you're gonna need
some of the names that I mentioned a few minutes
ago about step how they stepped up. And so it
usually when you suffer this many injuries as an organization,
you know you're barely in it in the wildcard, like barely.

Speaker 18 (01:32:29):
And you're usually looking the next year, Dana. That's usually
what happens, right, I mean, most teams that aren't as
talented as years, it's usually like, okay, we understand. It's
almost I don't want to say it's a hall pass year,
but it almost becomes that everything's gravy because you didn't
expect to be in the position.

Speaker 11 (01:32:44):
Yeah, it is gut wrenching to pay the truth. I mean,
I watched this every day. I look at the lineup
every day. I have to watch it, look at our
il sheet every day, and it is gutriching to watch
it and to know that we have continue to, you know,
battle through this and show the grit. And you know,

(01:33:04):
from Joe Espata to all his coaching staff, those guys
are taking what we hand them and getting the most
out of these guys. And that's when you know you're
a part of something special, and you know we just
need to continue to do it. You know, we have
ten games left. It's pedal to the metal. It's go time,
and it's let's get it done. And I think right

(01:33:25):
now we control our faith. You know, we can get
we play well these next ten games, we'll will win
the division and then we'll get deep into the postseason.
We'll get we'll be able to hit reset. But this
is our time. I think this is the time that
we need to get hot. These last ten It's sprint time.

(01:33:46):
Like you're on the last leg, it's time to sprint.

Speaker 4 (01:33:50):
Ten games left. The first of those ten tonight over
at Dyke And Park. He said it was gut wrenching
and gutting to look at the injured list sheets on
a daily base. Well additionally to what we played for
you here, he discussed some of the injuries that we
don't have a determination on through the rest of the
regular season and postseason. Said regarding Jordan Alvarez, they got

(01:34:12):
good news on the initial MRI. They'll know more in
a couple of days. Wanted to be careful about being
too quick to go IL with him, like we talked
about yesterday when Joe Spot had talked about it. If
he's ready to go before ten days are up, would
they just rather have just not put him on the
IL so he can play six days from now, seven
days from now. And that's something they're still considering. While

(01:34:34):
Josh Hater is not yet thrown, there's not yet ready
to say no to him at some point in the postseason.
As Josh Hater spoke with the media earlier this week
and sounded like he was thinking the same thing, which
obviously is good that they're seeing things the same way
and have the same forecast for maybe there's an opportunity
in at some portion of the postseason. I believe Hater

(01:34:55):
said maybe for the second, third, and fourth series. That's
something he might hope to targ and on East Soak Peretis.
I mentioned this earlier. It sounds from Dana earlier today
that they still haven't said no definitively to activating him
at some point during this Seattle series Friday, Saturday or Sunday.
But things continue to go in that direction, they will
be considering whether he's back. He said, I believe in

(01:35:18):
his words, there's an outside chance he could be back
for Seattle.

Speaker 3 (01:35:23):
When he says outside chance, I'm assuming he means the
last game of that series.

Speaker 4 (01:35:27):
It's just if things go well enough. They obviously it
would sound like he's not ready for Friday. So yeah,
what you're pointing at is sounds like something more along
the lines of when he might even see his first activity.
They have six games remaining after that. They're obviously all
on the road. They carry a ton of weight, just
like any other games here in the final ten. They
just don't happen to be against the only team you

(01:35:48):
play that's ahead of you. There's only a couple of
teams ahead of the Astros in the American League standings.
They got no more games left with the Jays, nothing
with the Tigers, nothing with the Yankees, just the Mariners
the games remaining with the team chasing them tonight, this
is it. The Rangers are technically still chasing them. They
have to catch the Guardians first and would then have
to catch the Red Sox next to actually catch the Astros.

(01:36:11):
But beyond that, you're taking care of your own business
in the other six games, the final six games of
the year. You can't make the Mariners lose on the
days you don't play them and they play Colorado and
the Dodgers, and the same thing for the teams. You
could still pass because there is a lot on the line.
Even if the Astros do not win the division. Right now,
you are set up in the five seed, which means

(01:36:33):
you're playing the four seed, which is the Yankees, but
you're a day of good baseball behind them.

Speaker 3 (01:36:39):
You pass them.

Speaker 4 (01:36:40):
The series doesn't change, but the venue does. Right now,
you're playing them at Yankee Stadium for three, but you
could play them at dyk And Park for three. Yeah,
even if you're not the division champ, you would be
the four seed. They would be the five seed. Yeah,
it could be the Red Sox as the five seed.
These four or five and six right now, these are
quite tight packed.

Speaker 3 (01:37:01):
Do the Yankees fans in their organization know that that's
not an intimidating place to play?

Speaker 2 (01:37:05):
Do they know that?

Speaker 3 (01:37:06):
I mean the Astros know that.

Speaker 4 (01:37:08):
They know they have some places where the ball goes
over the fence, becau, it's not very far away from
home plate.

Speaker 3 (01:37:13):
Yeah, especially right field where Chas McCormick took advantage. Oh
and Aaron Judge does from time to time as well.
All right, I'm gonna tell you guys why this morning
I thought it was it. I thought I was gonna
have the heart attack that finally took me. And here
kind of love the story. Especially Wex is gonna love
this story. Next the a on Sports Talk seven ninety,

(01:37:40):
Let's talk about my blood pressure for a second. It's
been up all day long. Do you ever you know
you you are a cyborg, so it's different for you.
Do you ever get so riled up before even eight
am that you think this is it, It's over, It's
gonna end today? Well before eight am eight am not

(01:38:00):
very often, like nice and before eight am probably not.
I take him to school at like seven twenty ishes,
when we're usually walking out the door, and I'm usually
back to the house by seven forty whatever, it's not
that big of a dud. There's it's more time spent
waiting in line than it is driving there and background trip.
So I get home and I realized that I got

(01:38:24):
some snail mail. I hate snail mail. I don't know
why I have to keep checking the same box with
fifty different people to say, hey, send it in an
email and stop stuffing my mailbox and killing trees. And
I don't even care about the trees. It's just what
I say. So I get this thing letting me know
that my auto insurance has gone through the roof again.

(01:38:46):
I have a clean record. I know that's surprising to
you and others that work with me and have been
in a vehicle with me. Good driver, great driver, I
mean for Mario Andretti in a truck, get where you
need to go, don't hit other people, and it's fast anyway. Uh,
clean record, all that good stuff. Yet I'm paying Like,
so you're saying I don't need you drive fast, but

(01:39:09):
nobody's getting harmed, right, So I don't need to get
special free Clanton T shirts. That was a bad choice
that you might guess. That's a segment too, because it
kind of goes hand in hand. Long story short, I
won't bore you with the details. This poor woman who
answered the phone. Finally, when I got ahold of a
human corporate account's payable, Yeah, Nina took a beating verbally

(01:39:33):
like right out of the gate.

Speaker 2 (01:39:34):
I mean just I verbally murdered her.

Speaker 5 (01:39:39):
Hold the phone away from your ear, take her headset off, sir.

Speaker 2 (01:39:41):
I'm trying to help you.

Speaker 3 (01:39:43):
I know you're trying to help me, but you're the
one who answered the phone. And I had already been
on a chat, which is the worst. You know, where
you're doing the automated person who's like been outsourced to
India or wherever they are, and they're they don't know
what's going on, and they're trying to give you the
in the book answers and all that. This guy just
was like I have a place. She yeah, well he
just pulled the plug.

Speaker 2 (01:40:01):
He's like, I'm out.

Speaker 3 (01:40:03):
So that's where like before I even make the call,
so I get corporate accounts payable Nina speaking on the phone,
she's actually very nice. Come to find out. Long story short,
my stepdaughter who's never been on my insurance from the
time she got her license in twenty two. I mean
she's in her second year at school at ut now.

(01:40:23):
She was on my policy. I never told them to
put her on my policy. Well, she got a ticket
in February. Did you know that if you get a
speeding ticket, even if you do the little defensive draveing
couers that takes care of it. To it's nan, there's
still like these marks that show up on your insurance.
But forget all that. Why is she on my policy?
I never tell told anybody to put her on the policy,
but there she is. By the time I was done

(01:40:45):
apologizing to Corporate Accounts Payable Nina speaking, I had cut
my insurance premium monthly like by I think it two
hundred dollars something more than that, and they pro rated
it so like next month it's only fifty bucks. I
might get in a wreck just for principle. So you
know she's driving. Yeah, she has a car, she drives,

(01:41:06):
Teresa has her own policy. She was on Teresa's policy
because she is.

Speaker 2 (01:41:11):
So it was a miss.

Speaker 3 (01:41:12):
I've been paying insurance prefer to drive my truck when
she'll never even sniff it for six months. And the
only reason I didn't know this. According to Nina was
I hadn't looked at the decorlaration or declarations page is
what it's called. And I'm like, I declare, I never
put her on it.

Speaker 4 (01:41:28):
So it's like online when you need to go to
the bottom of it and click okay, But if you
don't scroll through the entire thing without reading it, you
can't even get to the okay.

Speaker 3 (01:41:36):
But it's like the fine, fine fine print, sir, you
should have seen that. But I'm sitting it's it's like,
it's the most outfront. Should have told I actually did this.
I was like, because it was ten tel eight, total
serenity now and I could feel the burning sensation down
each arm, but mission accomplished. The chest wasn't tight, so
I knew it wasn't a real heart attack. But I'm
telling her this a heart attack. I'm telling you this

(01:41:57):
is how it's gonna go.

Speaker 11 (01:41:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:41:58):
But because it's all these other little things did they
add up?

Speaker 2 (01:42:01):
They add up?

Speaker 3 (01:42:02):
And I'm high strong, But that's why you said at
eight in the morning, I'm like, well, how can how
many things can add up? Oh here's what happened. I
get the envelope and I open it. First thing after
I walk in the door from dropping him off, and
I see, hey, uh doe to and they like they're
vague about it. They're like, uh, there's some circumstances. So
if you don't like this, you can declare it within
five days of your first off. I said, oh, I'm

(01:42:23):
gonna declare it. So I start, you know, doing the
chat thing.

Speaker 4 (01:42:26):
And yeah, anything to declare coming back into the country. Oh,
I'm going to declare something.

Speaker 2 (01:42:30):
I I was like, this is it.

Speaker 3 (01:42:32):
It's the one that's gonna take me, the widow maker.
It's gonna happen. It's got to be much more important
than that. It's money, that's all. There's no I mean,
that is it's it's it's very important.

Speaker 11 (01:42:43):
It just is.

Speaker 3 (01:42:44):
I'm not I don't. I don't bemoan thinking that money
is important. We're I feel like, should I just give
the numbers? It doesn't, I mean, why not? You may
like give the phone number to Nina out right here
in the air Nina Nina. I actually sought her out,
like to see if I could give her a good
rating because I felt bad.

Speaker 2 (01:42:59):
It wasn't her fallish. She's just answering.

Speaker 4 (01:43:01):
When you're yelling at the person, are you also telling
them I know it's not your fault, but I'm furious.

Speaker 3 (01:43:07):
Yeah, that was at the end of the sentence. I
was like, I'm not I said, I know you're taking
the brunt of this because you're the one that answer
the phone. I'm not taking this out on you, but
you're just the one that's so you asked if that happened.
It was much you get to that point before eight am. Yeah,
here's how I avoid it. I don't think you'll be
able to do the same thing I do. Okay, you

(01:43:28):
know when you make that phone call, you're gonna get furious.
You're going to blow your top. If you're not already
like I will, you already know it's gonna happen. I
know the same thing is gonna happen. So here's how
I prevent it from happening.

Speaker 2 (01:43:38):
You just don't call.

Speaker 4 (01:43:39):
I'll say, Robin, we've got to get this square Toway.
And if I call, it will not work.

Speaker 3 (01:43:44):
I will not be happy. I will not be able
to handle it. Okay, I'm gonna be and this is
not going to go well, which she's listening. But it's
it's what it is, what it is. As Matt Thomas
will say, the way I typically treat people in this
realm on the phone over the phone is light years
nicer ninety nine percent of the time than her. She

(01:44:08):
is guns blazing, even when they're on her side and
nothing bad has happened. She's just trying to get somebody
to talk to her. And I've it's it's uncomfortable hearing
her talk over them because they're always on speaker because she's,
you know, mobile and doing all that busy. Yes, yes, yes,
that's what I was like, Yes, I told you. Yes,
I'm like, could you not that's a person, it's not

(01:44:29):
like a bot. Okay, can you just be a little nicer?
And then she'll tell me why she doesn't have to be,
But yeah, I uh, I was slated. I had been
paying like just over three hundred dollars a month, and
I'm like, I know, I'm a male, and we're discriminated
against in this realm of the world, like mail drivers,

(01:44:49):
you might as well be a serial murderer.

Speaker 2 (01:44:52):
That's how they think of you. Insurance companies. It's all
a racket.

Speaker 3 (01:44:55):
But three hundred and two still seems like an awful lot,
even though I drive a very nice vehicle all that
kind of st it was gonna go up to three
seventy eight a month.

Speaker 2 (01:45:03):
I'm like, hold up, dude.

Speaker 3 (01:45:05):
Seriously, after I've been paying you this for six months
and didn't get a ticker or have an accident. So
after it was all said and done, pro rated next
month to fifty and I'm at one hundred and sixty
a month. Mission accomplished, said a serene guy. Now we're
not gonna get any fights, We're not gonna have any disagreements.
I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:45:24):
It's gonna be It's gonna be awesome for you.

Speaker 3 (01:45:26):
If the end justifies the means you were all wound up. Yeah,
but at least too taken off my life this morning
by having this conversation.

Speaker 5 (01:45:33):
You're the end would be much nearer if those your.

Speaker 3 (01:45:37):
Date of birth in your first and life Adam Clanton
February first, nineteen eighty one, And let's talk about this.
It was so I was so rude. I feel bad.
So Jayca I think was her name, I don't know.
It sounded exotic.

Speaker 4 (01:45:50):
We appreciate your time, appreciate your help. Yeah, thanks for
your assistance. I feel bad and I'm sorry for my attitude.

Speaker 3 (01:45:56):
Did I seem like I was high strung more than
the usual when I got in here today.

Speaker 4 (01:46:00):
Yeah, but I got you an hour after you were
already on the air. The day's where you do the
show before me, Yeah, before ours.

Speaker 3 (01:46:06):
You're a little bit more smooth.

Speaker 10 (01:46:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:46:08):
Plus I had Big City Wings. That always helps.

Speaker 4 (01:46:09):
It's nice to be appreciated fans of Big City Wings.
You know, it's a national wing day.

Speaker 3 (01:46:15):
Wait Robin handles this, and by the way, the reasons
how significant.

Speaker 4 (01:46:19):
The the argument is expected to be, like you gotta
call him because we got to take care of this,
or they've made a mistake here. We need to get
this corrected. The worst it is, the more likely it is.
I'm going to be too frustrated.

Speaker 3 (01:46:30):
Well, Teresa has her on her insurance policy, which is
with a completely different company, and I told her, I said,
it's she's always going around the house going.

Speaker 19 (01:46:38):
Nature's balance, Nature's balance. It's all gonna even out, you
know this. I'm doing this right now and it's good.
Yeah whatever, I don't think that way. I'm not all
hippity dippity like that. And then she goes into the
yoga room does to chai chi. I don't know what
she doesn't like some incense. She definitely doesn't when she
knows not to do that when I'm around.

Speaker 2 (01:46:56):
It's not a yoga.

Speaker 3 (01:46:57):
What's wrong with being relaxed? The incense smells like absolute
butt Open a window, it's awful. Go outside. Or was
she saying she sages the house there you go listen.

Speaker 5 (01:47:06):
So she's like the Kyrie irving the house called huge.

Speaker 3 (01:47:09):
Believe in ghosts doesn't mean that I have to smell that.
Whatever it is. It smells like five dead animals of
different species. We're all put together in a pot and
she lit it on fire. Good things, all good things.
I was just like, but I can't do that with
this because it's a completely different.

Speaker 2 (01:47:23):
So apparently I never to.

Speaker 5 (01:47:24):
Put you on hold, Sir Hangbaf she did that. I go, no,
don't do that, but she had to.

Speaker 4 (01:47:30):
Joe spot Of speaking with the media, echoing what we
shared with you, why do way he pays for his
Jane Brown earlier said they expect a decision on Esoch
Perettas from a will we activate I or not in
the next day or two. So again, heading into this
Seattle series, there's an outside chance there designated hitter will

(01:47:51):
be Esoch Perettis get.

Speaker 5 (01:47:53):
To the bottom of the hour.

Speaker 3 (01:47:54):
Here on the A Team brings our signature segment to
the forefront. And since Ac, like the other two of us,
did not have a morning heart attack, you'll hear from
all three of us for Wednesday's BS.

Speaker 1 (01:48:06):
Next the A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety a
little help over the hump with some Wednesday BS.

Speaker 3 (01:48:19):
Two Adams and a whole lot of bit stealing.

Speaker 1 (01:48:21):
Bitch stealing with them Bitch Steelers better known as the
eight Team.

Speaker 4 (01:48:28):
So it is time for our signature segment, and halfway
through the week we hit a Wednesday. It's Wednesday's BS.
Every once in a while we'll get back to the
B and the S that you're most familiar with.

Speaker 3 (01:48:37):
Bit stealing.

Speaker 4 (01:48:38):
I've done that in a while, probably early in football season,
late in baseball season, and not yet into basketball season.
We're probably due for a Nobody got time for that.
Maybe next week we shall see. But in light of
the fact we had a best of X segment today,
which was an interview with Zach Cole the Astros, there's

(01:48:59):
a couple of items here that I definitely thought fell
into the BS category that we just had not gotten
to earlier.

Speaker 5 (01:49:06):
Texans and Bucks this past Sunday.

Speaker 4 (01:49:08):
There were definitely two instances that were easy to see,
and considering it's Baker Mayfield, there were probably more that
I just didn't see. If you're paying pretty close attention
to the game, you saw Baker Mayfield scramble out of
the pocket looking for a first down, get chased down
by Will Anderson, taken down to the turf. Will Anderson
popped up off the ground and started wagging his finger

(01:49:29):
and shaking it like, uh uh not on my watch.
Baker Mayfield got right up and said, but I got
the first down, brother, and went back to the huddle.
They continued their drive. Later in the game, he had
taken a hit from CJ. Gardner Johnson and teammates and
went down to the ground and it looked like he
was hobbled, but as soon as he heard the trash

(01:49:52):
talking from CJ and other Texans, he bounced right up,
got in their face, and made his way back to
the huddle. I do I think he was hurt, and
watching him walk around the concourse after the game, some
of the Bucks behind the scenes video and then I'm
sure many of you saw you in rap reports report
today that he is very banged up, but the expectation
is while he may not practice in full, he will

(01:50:14):
expect it to play this weekend. But he bounced right
back up when it seemed like he was hurt, and
the two had a few words, nothing out of the ordinary.
They went about their business. That photo was snapped and
then posted at Baker Mayfield on his Instagram account and
it said built different ten toes down. He looks like
he's staring into CJ's eyes. He's got a couple of

(01:50:36):
teammates holding him back. A teammate of CJS is in
between them two. And again, if you remember the scene,
nothing happened, but it was just a typical. These are
definitely two of the louder people on their respective teams,
and in this case, teams they've been on. Because an
at CD dot Deuce responded, that's CJ Gardner Johnson on Instagram,

(01:50:58):
So Baker posts built different ten toes down picture of
the two of them jawing at one another. CD's response, boy,
this is cute but still ringless, and right underneath that
it says dash Dash dash View replies parentheses five and
eighty four replies to CD deuces CJ Gardner Johnson's comment,

(01:51:20):
So I'm not gonna reach of them all.

Speaker 3 (01:51:22):
We'll just get to the first few.

Speaker 4 (01:51:25):
D says yes, Sir Jackson says, you tell him goat
and so I bring it to the to the table here.
Baker won the game. Baker's very good. Baker played very well.
Senior Garder Johnson plays for a team almost is good.
Is certainly this Sunday one point worse. Has played in
some pretty important games, and the most important game. It's

(01:51:45):
a super Bowl champion.

Speaker 3 (01:51:47):
It's a proper response, a fun response, a good trash
talking response, a nonsense response. Where do you land on
this with the ring?

Speaker 4 (01:51:55):
Yeah, he says, boy, it was cute but still ringless
as on a random Sunday against an NFL quarterback.

Speaker 3 (01:52:01):
And remember this, if this was a picture of C. J.

Speaker 4 (01:52:05):
Gardner Johnson and any of the thirty other starting quarterbacks
in the league, because it's not gonna be a picture
of him in Stroud. He's his teammate, and it can't
be a second picture of him and Baker at least
thirty other teams. So it was a picture of any
of those other thirty quarterbacks unless it was a picture
of him and his former teammate Jalen Hurts, or a
picture of him and Pat Mahomes, or god forbid I

(01:52:28):
even have to say this, or a picture of him
and Brown's quarterback Joe Flacco.

Speaker 3 (01:52:34):
Then he could have said this to all of them,
right right, it's a very random scoreboard point two ism.
I have a ring and you don't. None of the
NFL quarterbacks have them right now except for Mahmes and Jalen.

Speaker 11 (01:52:48):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:52:48):
I need to also not preface this because we're kind
of already into the conversation. I wished I didn't like
Baker Mayfield as much as I do of them, and
think about all of the reasons that what this is
me we're talking about. I hate everybody that's not Houston
for life. He's a Texas guy that roots for the Rangers,
that went to owe you, that has beaten up on

(01:53:11):
the Texans, not just this year. I mean he's had good,
good games against them. It took the CJ drive to
win last time because Baker was so sensational and he
just did it again. And he's always talking trash in
the most volatile. If he were on my team, I
would love it way. He's one of me he's one
of my guys. He's my kind of guy for sure,

(01:53:34):
and I can't get mad at him.

Speaker 4 (01:53:36):
I love he's a great leader. Obviously, his guys are
behind him.

Speaker 3 (01:53:41):
He plays.

Speaker 4 (01:53:42):
He's not your typical quarterback because he doesn't stand in
a typical quarterback's body, and because of that, just people
aren't paying close enough attention to what he's doing. And
someone in Kansas City posted this earlier today, a graphic
of the elite quarterbacks with him attached to it and
their statistics over the last two plus years.

Speaker 2 (01:54:03):
Quarterback.

Speaker 3 (01:54:03):
He's not like, that's being not nice enough. Five.

Speaker 21 (01:54:07):
Oh no, I know, I'm saying that in the general
grand scheme of things, he top seven quarterback to seven.

Speaker 4 (01:54:13):
Now he plays in the NFC, so it's not really
a fair fight when you put him up against you know,
the playoff records in the playoff performances, and those can
be two different things. Your playoff performance and your playoff
record don't necessarily match. But he's not playing against Lamar
Jackson's team, Joe Burrows team, Josh Allen's team, Patrick Mahomes team.

(01:54:35):
But when you compare all of their games in the postseason,
Baker's games Joe's games. Mahomes lamar their game, their play,
their performance, even if it's just over that time period,
but even if you extended to the previous postseasons, he's
been exceptional in the playoffs, as good as any of them,
and he's passer rating. If that's all you care about,
it's right next to Mahomes.

Speaker 3 (01:54:57):
It's that good. I think the the highest compliment you
could pay somebody like him. I'm not saying it would
have happened, but what I'm saying is it's plausible to
think about if you plug in Baker Mayfield to any
of these teams we're talking about. I'm not saying there
isn't a drop off, but I I mean, could the
Eagles have won last year with Saquon Barkley being handed

(01:55:19):
the ball from Baker Mayfield? I say, yes, you want
to lie because of their offensive line good luck with
the tush push. Yeah, but you can still run aheap
sicker who. He's bigger than who. He's bigger than Jalen Hurts.
He's remotely he's built bigger, He's not.

Speaker 11 (01:55:37):
Bake.

Speaker 21 (01:55:38):
Yeah. Jalen six foot two thirty with pure muscle in
the thighs, Jalen still looks s grinding to me, he's not.

Speaker 3 (01:55:44):
I don't believe he outweighs him by thirty pounds. He's
a beast. I agree with you on a lot of things.
They see you're so far out of life in person.

Speaker 4 (01:55:53):
You're right that they they would do things differently, but
they could surely win. And I don't want to make
this into a Hertz verse Mayfield, because every time we
do things like that, you've got to rip one of
them and tear one of them down. They're winning what
I don't care if he's this kind of passer and
this kind of runner and this kind of cerebral do
you make winning plays. That's what the quarterbacks job is

(01:56:15):
to do, and these guys do it at an unbelievably
high level.

Speaker 3 (01:56:18):
And they're in a very AFC South ish type division.
There's one other team that could be good, and it's
their division to lose. Well.

Speaker 5 (01:56:26):
Like the AFC South champs.

Speaker 4 (01:56:28):
They're going to the playoffs for the third consecutive year
with Baker Mayfield. The Texans need to start doing the things,
the winning that will allow them to go to the
postseason for a third consecutive season with CJ.

Speaker 3 (01:56:40):
Stroud running the show.

Speaker 4 (01:56:41):
We got a few things from CJ about how they're
going to make that happen. Beginning this week. We're from CJ.
Stroud and how close they are. Next here on the
A Team, the A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

(01:57:02):
This is the eight team year old Sports Talk seven
ninety slate of NFL games for this coming weekend. Well,
there's handful of teams that have made it through so far,
so good, sit at two and oh, I'm sure they're
eager to get to three and oh's a handful of
teams that well, they just need one in the win column.

Speaker 5 (01:57:19):
The league is a league of parody.

Speaker 4 (01:57:21):
We'll see what it looks like ten weeks from now,
but it's certainly got teams that are a little surprising
at the top, like the Indianapolis Colts, maybe like the
Arizona Cardinals, but you got ten of them sitting there
without a loss started the season two and oh eleven
of those teams, Texan's happened to be one of those teams.

(01:57:42):
On the other end of the ten teams that are
winless and on the schedule this week, I already mentioned
they are staying inside the AFC South. There are only
two games. Indianapolis travels to Tennessee. Houston travels to Jacksonville.
Both of those games are at noon. We'll see what
the say standings look like after that. Two teams are winless,

(01:58:03):
the Texans and Titans. One team has won both games that,
of course, Jacksonville.

Speaker 3 (01:58:07):
Is the other team.

Speaker 4 (01:58:08):
They host Houston two one score losses, both decided in
the final moments. Texans had the lead on a couple
of different occasions against the Tampa Bay Bucks, including the
lead they had before the game's final offensive snap. The
only play that took place after the touchdown from White
at the end of the game was the kick return,

(01:58:29):
which was received, returned, and then the players walked on
the field to shake hands. There were no plays after that,
unfortunately for the Texans. Earlier we played you something from
Demico Ryans where he said, it's not all doom and gloom.
We're close, and I agreed, they're close to having wins,
which is at the end of the day, all that
matters to getting to the playoffs. Doesn't necessarily determine if

(01:58:51):
you're a good team, if you're playing good football or
the kind of football that suggests you've done anything to
improve your team. In the Texans case, the only thing
they can do to improve their team team is start
beating teams at the top of the standings, the teams
that they weren't didn't beat in.

Speaker 5 (01:59:06):
The postseason last year.

Speaker 4 (01:59:07):
They're the fourth best team in the AFC two years running,
so better than that would be one of the three
best teams or one of the two best teams. And
even if their regular season record doesn't match it, well,
go ahead and go to the postseason and make that happen.
So close can be a relative determination of what exactly
are you talking about. I totally agree they are close
to winning twice, they lost both.

Speaker 21 (01:59:29):
C J.

Speaker 4 (01:59:30):
Stroud sounded like he echoed some similar things when he
spoke earlier today, and in his case a little bit
more specifically about clicking and rhythm and being close on offense.

Speaker 10 (01:59:44):
They're really close.

Speaker 16 (01:59:45):
You know, we're like one or two plays away from
you know, winning tight dams gets good teams, and it's
so two weeks hand, so you know, it's still building,
still growing still.

Speaker 10 (01:59:53):
You know again used to play on one another.

Speaker 2 (01:59:55):
So but yeah, we're very close.

Speaker 4 (01:59:57):
I would absolutely put money on the Texans to be
awesome if it was a twenty five or thirty game season, how.

Speaker 3 (02:00:05):
Long, un telly would be awesome.

Speaker 4 (02:00:06):
It's five more dame name that they have been compelled
or forced or correctly chose to make the type of
changes they've made now.

Speaker 3 (02:00:15):
They changed it up. They fired their offensive coordinator, they
reshuffled the entire offensive line.

Speaker 4 (02:00:20):
There's five people in five different places from a year ago.
He's not, you know, a liar. He's not telling us
things that aren't true and don't matter.

Speaker 3 (02:00:29):
They do matter.

Speaker 4 (02:00:30):
It isn't easy. Nobody should be able to bolt out
of the gate with all those changes. But the I'm
already done with the it's early talk. If it's me,
I mean, if you were twenty games into the NBA season,
or ten games into more accurately reflected twenty games into
a baseball season, ten games into an NBA season, it would.

Speaker 3 (02:00:48):
Be close to what we're talking about here.

Speaker 4 (02:00:51):
It's still early if you've started four and six, if
you're the Rockets, it's still early. If you started seven
and nineteen and you're the Astros, which they do a
year ago, I suppose, and things could still snap into place,
and we could be sitting here in these very chairs
at four point fifty afternoon on a Wednesday, after the
next two Sundays, after going to Jacksonville and winning twenty

(02:01:13):
seven to fourteen, after welcoming the cam Ward led Titans
here and winning thirty one to thirteen, and then saying, yeah,
we're gonna go play Baltimore.

Speaker 3 (02:01:21):
We're two and two, they're three and one. Let's see
where we stand. Things will be totally different.

Speaker 2 (02:01:26):
They could have the same record after that game.

Speaker 5 (02:01:28):
They could have the same record before that game.

Speaker 3 (02:01:30):
That's true, I you know in there it goes back
to what I keep saying. Their defense gives them a
chance in all these games.

Speaker 2 (02:01:40):
That's the thing.

Speaker 3 (02:01:40):
If they didn't have the defense they have in those
first two games, then it's a it's a moot point
because that offense wasn't gonna get them enough points to
win the games.

Speaker 4 (02:01:50):
I know what you're saying, and I don't disagree that
they have talent, but beyond and this is a big
beyond not letting the other team score, it matters. It's
a huge They have one of the better scoring defenses.
There's only ten teams in the league that have allowed
eighteen or fewer points, and they've allowed seventeen and a half.
They're the only team that doesn't have a win. I'm
not trying to discount that stat. That's one of the

(02:02:12):
biggest ones. If the other teams don't score, you're gonna win.
But what is it that they've really done well as
a defense this year. They haven't stopped the run, they
haven't been great on third down, they've been awful in
the red zone. I like as a defense they've gotten
teams somehow, they've kept teams from scoring, and this week
they definitely benefited three points from the miss field goal.

(02:02:35):
They've benefited from their offense not turning the ball over.
They didn't have any turnovers against the Rams over the weekend.
One of the turnovers against the Rams was obviously not
gonna result in points because it came at the end
of the game.

Speaker 3 (02:02:49):
All the Rams wanted to do and needed to do
is get a first down to end it.

Speaker 4 (02:02:52):
The first turnover, sure, but that's one turnover in two
games that could have led to better field position leading
to more points, which it can and it did.

Speaker 3 (02:03:00):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (02:03:01):
So they're benefiting from that. But like just x'es and
o's and play for play, what's their defense needs to do?
More because they're the good players. We want more from
their offense because it's necessary to win, but less expected.

Speaker 5 (02:03:16):
The expectation is their defense should be playing better.

Speaker 3 (02:03:20):
No, their defense is still rounding into form, which should
scare everybody else that's still on the schedule for them.
But I think when you to answer your question about
what have they done, they've given the Texans a chance
to win if they had just any semblance of an
offensive game to put together, if they could have put
together just a drive that didn't end in a fumble,
for example, the first week, or you know this last week.

(02:03:44):
You know, the Texans were ahead late and it was
really the first time all night that the Texans didn't
make the play to stop the drive, because as you
mentioned yesterday, it was either eight or nine consecutive drives
prior the Bucks didn't get to score.

Speaker 4 (02:03:58):
But they couldn't get them off the field right, and
the clock kept running and the Texans offense would be
on the They were on the field for twenty two minutes.

Speaker 3 (02:04:05):
They ran less than fifty plays. The Bucks ran eighty plays.
I know, play this.

Speaker 4 (02:04:09):
I'm started to get into the we're getting into the
oh my god, enough with the box score nonsense, look
at the scoreboard, I know, but these things do matter.
It matters that you're twentieth in the league in total yards.
It matters that you are right in the middle of
the pack and yards allowed per play. It matters that
you're in the bottom six in preventing teams from succeeding

(02:04:30):
on third down.

Speaker 3 (02:04:32):
That is who the Texans defense is this year. That's bad.
It's it's average at best.

Speaker 4 (02:04:38):
And you can make up for all of those things
if you take the ball away from the other team,
if you're consistently putting your team in a good position
with takeaways. I wouldn't say that the Texans are doing
that this year, would you. No, they have won in
two games. Twenty other teams have more than one in
their two games. You know who's number one in take

(02:05:01):
The team they're playing this week terrible Jacksonville has six takeaways.

Speaker 3 (02:05:06):
How many does Travis Hunter have? He doesn't have any.
Since he's the greatest athlete to ever come out in
the draft, I'm not.

Speaker 4 (02:05:12):
Sure who besides James Gladstone is saying that he's their GM.
Nobody should be, And I think people are gonna question
whether or not this is really was really the right play,
and it isn't because he's not a good player. The
number three picks should be absolutely elite, not capable of
playing two ways.

Speaker 3 (02:05:31):
Yeah, these two are not the same thing. We'll have
plenty more of football discussion when we come back. It's
called Football at five and look you there, it's our
next segment.

Speaker 2 (02:05:43):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety. Adam Clinton and
Adam Wexler are the eighteen.

Speaker 3 (02:06:04):
Football at five here on a Wednesday edition of the
program Sports Talk seven ninety Space City Home Network.

Speaker 5 (02:06:11):
Do you happen to catch the one posts or one
of two posts?

Speaker 4 (02:06:15):
I was able to fire off before I left Texans
practice in Nywide Way here today, so they get on
the field around one fifteen. Obviously it would be preferred
if I were here before two o'clock.

Speaker 3 (02:06:27):
Can I tell you the tweet of yours I did
see today and I just shook my head. Only if
it's about football, it's not all right? Well allow it.
Lpga at five here on Sports Talk seven ninety. She's
a golfer that I've covered over the year.

Speaker 11 (02:06:39):
You know I did.

Speaker 3 (02:06:40):
I'm gonna do an impression of me looking at that.

Speaker 4 (02:06:42):
Stacey Lewis from the Woodlands, two time major champion, decided
that the end of the year she'll be retiring from
the LPGA tour. And the fact that I've done a
couple of stories on her and I've spoken with her
a couple of times, I've posted reposted that and noted
Woodlands legendary LPGA.

Speaker 5 (02:06:59):
Golfer is gonna hang up her golf bag at the
end of the year.

Speaker 3 (02:07:03):
I got the tweet.

Speaker 2 (02:07:04):
I read it.

Speaker 3 (02:07:05):
Yes, Stacy Lewis to college.

Speaker 4 (02:07:07):
And it's a nice long post, you know, thanks to
the Arkansas razorback fans where she played her collegiate.

Speaker 3 (02:07:12):
Golfrey point five point font two time major winner, born
and raised in the Woodlands, and I.

Speaker 2 (02:07:18):
Bless his heart.

Speaker 3 (02:07:20):
It's a local news sybody. You can't help yourself. It's
hard to shake free from that. You're not gonna get
that from my timeline, so you're gonna have to get
it from WEX.

Speaker 4 (02:07:27):
So if you were looking a little bit more closely
at my timeline between one twenty hang on, let me
scrore one thirty football related posts. We talked to Braxton
Barrios right here on the A team yesterday and good
afternoon there's Braxton. I had to confirm both his and
Tamiko's comments from yesterday. Braxton told us yesterday it's gonna

(02:07:48):
be awesome to be back on the field and I
can't wait to play against Jacksonville. So he and Christian
Kirk as expected, we're on the practice field yesterday. They
actually practiced for the very rare occurrence, on the second
and third practice fields rather than practice field number one,
which is where we usually are stationed.

Speaker 3 (02:08:03):
So you look like you're in the way here.

Speaker 5 (02:08:05):
Well that's why I'm trying to point that out.

Speaker 4 (02:08:07):
Yeah, they don't normally come to us, but we were
waiting at field three for them, so they that's where
we happen to be, and that's how you get onto field. Video,
So I posted a video one of them. One of
was Christian and uh and Braxton amidst the getting loose lines.
But I had already shot video of a bunch of
guys running onto the field. So it says Daniel Hunter,

(02:08:28):
will Anderson Junior, Jalen Petrie, among others coming at you
for Wednesday's practice. They were literally coming right at you
like I was a Daryl at an NBA game, and
Alpha and Shanngoon just had a wild flying layup and
he was.

Speaker 3 (02:08:40):
Coming at you. By the way, they were coming at
you at like not even half speed. They were jogging
onto the field. Jogging is putting it lightly. And I'm
telling you, I can't imagine, Like we we've talked about
this since last season, Danielle Hunter coming at you full speed.
I mean, just just kill yourself.

Speaker 4 (02:08:59):
If he was coming at me full speed, he probably
would make the tackle. Yeah, probably, so I think it
would work.

Speaker 3 (02:09:05):
And if you were an elite NFL quarterback, he would
also probably make the tackle.

Speaker 4 (02:09:10):
A handful of people did have responses to it, but
I'll bring to the table just one of them. Like
I said, this video has a host of Texans players,
some D linemen, some O linemen, corners, safety, you name it,
just about a hodgepodge of the roster. James responded to
this and said, did you ask anyone if they're gonna
bother stopping the run? How about asking any linement if

(02:09:31):
they plan on playing like they give a bleep. I
have a full response ready to send. I'm probably not
gonna send it, and it reads like this, Hey, James,
thanks for the questions. Didn't have a chance to ask
if they gonna bother stop the run and didn't have
a chance to stop any of the linemen to see
if they plan on playing like they given because this

(02:09:52):
is the beginning of practice and locker room availability today
was during the radio show.

Speaker 3 (02:09:56):
I'll have to try again another time. That is a
very diplomatic way of going about things. We're a handful
of players that did speak in the locker room. Obviously,
we want to hear a little bit more from CJ
and Demiko. They'll practice again tomorrow and Friday will be
the walkthrough before they fly off to Jacksonville for the game.
Before I hear from Demiko and his continuing to get

(02:10:18):
an answer questions about the offensive line. The Texans injury
report today was a little bit unexpected. It was nice
to see all three of the players that otherwise would
be out there if not for health all have returned
to practice. Barrios Kirk and Jake Andrews.

Speaker 4 (02:10:33):
I did not expect that, but his ankle injury had
him listed as limited as a participant in today's practice.
Same for the two wide receivers. Kamari Lassiter, with his
knee injury, was listed as limited Darryl Taylor. I did
not notice anything during the game, but I did think
it stood out that his play count was so low,

(02:10:55):
so I'd imagine the hip injury he's dealing with did
take place during the game, so he was limited today
at practice. And I didn't notice anything during the game
during the handful of snaps that Jalen Smith got.

Speaker 3 (02:11:06):
He plays corner.

Speaker 4 (02:11:07):
He stepped onto the field when Jalen Petrie came off
to have his rib checked out. Most of the remainder
of the first half, not a ton of snaps, and
then Petrie was able to play the second half. Jalen
Smith didn't practice at all today because of a hamstring.
They are not deep at corner, and I know they
can easily dip into the practice squad if they need to,

(02:11:28):
and if he is not active, they will absolutely need to.
Traymon Smith would slide into his vacated spot, I would hope,
and possibly someone like di'angelo Ross would then be a
player they elevate from the practice squad. The last two
games they've had to elevate success or correctly Yakub Johnson,
and he played almost three times as much Yester Sunday

(02:11:50):
than he did in the first game. He's their full back.
They obviously didn't aren't running the ball the way they'd like,
and so I think that's one of the reasons they
had him play that many more offensive snaps. Week one,
he played seven of sixty three offensive plays. A Week
two he played twenty of forty nine, and he blocked
a punt. So I imagine they're gonna elevate him again

(02:12:11):
and then you have to either waive him or sign him.
You only get three elevations. I think he's gonna end
up being signed and remain here with the team. They
signed a tight end, Brendan Bates. He spent time in
the Bears organization. I was an undrafted free agent out
of Kentucky a little time with the Jets organization, and
they signed him off of a practice squad and directly

(02:12:33):
to the active roster, so he will be there for
three weeks. So Bryant, Bates and Dalton Schultz are the
active roster tight ends. I presume it has something to
do with the running game. Also, he's definitely much more
known as a blocker from his college days and has
almost no activity on the field as a pass catcher.
At the NFL level, so they're aware of it that

(02:12:53):
they're not doing the things they need to do up front.
And Dan Orlovsky, if you missed it, had an incredible
breakdown of assessing blame to everybody, this offensive line breakdown,
this ineffective block from this player, this inability to recognize
where the hot route is, this poor play design by
that OC.

Speaker 3 (02:13:14):
It's not a CJ problem. It's not an on line problem.
It's not a young player problem. It's not a veteran
player problem. It's not an execution problem. It's not a
physical problem. It's all of those problems. And that's why
they're having as many problems because there are so many.
Although not everybody inside the organization sees it that way.
Jamiko Ryans speaking on their offensive line and how he

(02:13:34):
sees things.

Speaker 19 (02:13:37):
Not.

Speaker 2 (02:13:38):
I think we are much better.

Speaker 16 (02:13:40):
I think our old line has done a really good job,
much better than everybody kind of gives them credit for.
We've done a really good job picking up stunts things
like that. And the one guy a guy here got
there gets beat. That's football. That's gonna happen. So is
it the same issues that we had, No, it's completely new.
Our guy is doing a really good job of executing.

(02:14:00):
We just got to finish the game right. If we
finish the game the right way, I don't think anybody's
asking the same questions. It's that's natural that comes with
it when you lose. And I'm ready to handle all
of that that happens in this league. And you just
got to win games and the story changes. Right, So
until we win games, I know we'll get those same questions,

(02:14:20):
and we should get them right because we got to
do a better job of playing and finishing games.

Speaker 10 (02:14:26):
And until we do that, and I understand the questions
that we're receiving.

Speaker 4 (02:14:30):
Sounds a lot like the concerns you bring up. And
we've talked about a lot two years running. Now you
better not say that, and you better not think that
wins are what matters. Your record is going to determine
whether you reach the postseason, whether you do anything with
the season likely. But if you're just saying, oh, we won,
what what difference does it make? We're doing things much better?

(02:14:52):
Like that game's exactly the same, all the same mistakes,
all the same issues on their offense, But Henry Toatoa
tackles Bake Mayfield, so they win nineteen fourteen, so they're
able to run three more plays, bleed the time off
the clock, kick a field goal, go up by eight,
or get a first down and in the football game.
But none of the problems are different that they're still problematic.

(02:15:13):
They just didn't prevent you from winning today. What they
did prevent you from doing was winning today thirty one
to seven, right or thirty one nineteen if you want.

Speaker 5 (02:15:23):
That's what's still out there.

Speaker 4 (02:15:24):
And I think some people would technically agree with his
comments about they aren't the same problems, or maybe they're
not happening as often, But there are free rushers. And
if you're saying it's not because they're missed assignments, then
I've never seen these other Every week it's a new defense.
Every week, it's a new set of coaches looking at
your offense, and every week they're coming up with ways

(02:15:46):
to create free rushers. And most of the time they're
coming right up the middle because somebody's taking on the
wrong block or somebody's popping outside first when they've got
to stay inside first. Let the edge rushers take the
long path. They may be their best player, but it's
going to take him longer to get there because of
where he's coming from. When you're leaving the opening up front,
right next to the center, he just runs straight forward

(02:16:08):
and they're CJ waiting for.

Speaker 3 (02:16:09):
Him and as E's al Shaiyer is gonna get reacquainted
with Trevor Lawrence this weekend.

Speaker 2 (02:16:14):
Oh, by the way, are you looking forward to that?

Speaker 11 (02:16:18):
I am.

Speaker 2 (02:16:19):
I don't think Trevor is well.

Speaker 3 (02:16:20):
I mean, I don't think he's gonna be sliding in
space without looking around ten or twelve times.

Speaker 4 (02:16:24):
I mean, as much as it was completely handled poorly
by the league, and thus it was sensationalized in a
way it should not have been. That is illegal. That
is an illegal hit. It absolutely should have been penalized.

Speaker 3 (02:16:38):
It is what it is.

Speaker 4 (02:16:40):
It's it can be avoided, but quarterbacks aren't usually looking
to avoid it because they're not expecting to get hurt,
but they are expecting to get fifteen yard expect benefit
and they're expecting to benefit from them. So sometime mean,
Trevor Lawrence did it two nights ago on Monday Night Football,
the Lague game. He took a hit, he happened to
slide away from it and the player hitting him, who

(02:17:01):
was still flagged because it's an illegal hit. He didn't
hit him quite the same and it's all split second stuff,
so I'm not saying he did it better than his ease.

Speaker 3 (02:17:09):
He did it wrong.

Speaker 4 (02:17:10):
Yeah, there's too much bang bang nature to it, but
he should have been flagged for it and likely suspended.
I don't know about three games. Yeah, that was a lot.
And you're right about the sensationalization.

Speaker 3 (02:17:24):
If you will, there is a quarterback matchup that well,
what if I told you that one quarterback is giving
entirely too much praise to his opposing quarterback going into
this week's game? Intriguing? And oh, by the way, his
team is also zero and two, so you might hear
from him before the end of the show. All that
more coming up here on a Wednesday edition of the program.

Speaker 2 (02:17:46):
The Age on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (02:17:53):
Get into week three at the NFL level beginning Tomorrow
night One of the Undefeated's against one of the wins
Spills and Dolphins. Thursday Night Football NFAFC East Showdown, a
couple of two and ohs, but versus two and ohs,
Rams and Eagles from Philadelphia. This is coming Sunday afternoon

(02:18:15):
Cardinals and Niners. This coming Sunday late afternoon. They haven't
ruled brock Purty out yet. Mac Jones made his first
start for the forty nine ers this past Sunday. Slow start, fast,
finish good numbers and help them get to two and oh.
The Cardinals have definitely, I think, benefited from relatively easy
schedule to open up the season. But winning is winning,

(02:18:37):
and they have managed to win each of their two games.
They haven't ruled out Kyler Murray, even though he took
a picture with a pit bull while wearing a Michael
Vick jersey. He did, I mean, that was certainly a choice.

Speaker 4 (02:18:49):
It certainly was a choice, and I thought I had
a similar scenario from a more of a state of
the world scenario before I realized there's probably more to it.
I saw that to Stephen A was launching his new show,
more politically based, and I saw the title of the
show and thought, it's an interesting current day title for

(02:19:10):
your new radio program. But have since realized that's the
name of his media company, it's the name of his
book as well, Straight Shooter. I thought it was a
similar thing to Kyler ketch in the debate with Travis
no I only caught his as you can see Molly
is not here with us today.

Speaker 2 (02:19:30):
Yeah, that was awkward.

Speaker 3 (02:19:32):
Well, I mean, I don't think there's anything more to that.
I definitely one hundred percent think there's more to it. Well,
what is it I'm going to leave at the end
of the year. In the span of eight hours, turned
into she's not coming on the show today? Well, yeah,
or ever again. But it's not like a Joy Taylor situation.

Speaker 5 (02:19:52):
No, I think they were negotiations to extend her contract.

Speaker 3 (02:19:56):
Well, they just say it. Then negotiations didn't go well.

Speaker 2 (02:20:00):
Bye.

Speaker 5 (02:20:01):
There probably is more to why they didn't go well
or anything else.

Speaker 3 (02:20:05):
We'll see. Well, they probably didn't have enough money to
give her because they gave it all to him, and
maybe that's it. Definitely could be why negotiations to make
you money, But I'm also not he had cost you money.

Speaker 4 (02:20:16):
A bunch of other games that match the opposites, and
the Colts and Titans are in one of them. The
Bucks and Jets are in another zero to two versus
two and zero. It is noteworthy what's going on for
the Dallas Cowboys. Also briefly before we get back to
something regarding Thursday night football. So the Cowboys are playing
the Bears in Chicago. So why would I say, well,

(02:20:40):
that's great news for Dak Prescott and the Cowboys. Beyond
the obvious, the Bears are own two.

Speaker 2 (02:20:44):
Yeah, the Bears suck.

Speaker 4 (02:20:46):
If you're a quarterback and it's twenty twenty five and
you play against the Bears, then you're about to be
named NFC Offensive Player of the Week. And since two
week's running, the quarterback against the Bears has won the
award for Offensive Player of the Week one.

Speaker 3 (02:21:02):
Points allowed per game.

Speaker 4 (02:21:03):
Well, JJ freaking McCarthy won it in week one, and
then obviously Jared Goff against the Bears won it in
week two.

Speaker 3 (02:21:10):
He was being anointed.

Speaker 21 (02:21:12):
Also, keep in mind there's gonna be a little bit
of revenge on the mind of Matt Eberflus.

Speaker 3 (02:21:16):
There's no revenge on the mind of Matt. My defense sucks.
Are blues look cold. Look at the the stopping wet
blanket he just put on you.

Speaker 4 (02:21:25):
Hey, hey, Brian, what I'm trying to coach this team
to a second win. And I don't know if you
know this, but I used to coach the Bears, and
I was the one trying to get greatness out of
Caleb Williams.

Speaker 3 (02:21:38):
I got one whole year and nobody could do that.
I mean, what do you think can what can we
do to make me look good?

Speaker 11 (02:21:44):
What what I mean?

Speaker 4 (02:21:45):
I Jerry's done what he can do and he signed
Jadavian Clowney. I mean that's gonna help it. Can you
do anything for me? Hey, Matt, I hired you.

Speaker 3 (02:21:53):
Isn't that enough? I gave you a job? Get out
of my office? Revenge? Are you kidding me?

Speaker 5 (02:22:00):
I'm trying to win a game here.

Speaker 4 (02:22:01):
Keep Jerry off my back, try to get over five hundred,
want to give my second great postgame speech, and hopefully
I don't have to give the game ball to our
best player or kicker like I did a week ago.

Speaker 3 (02:22:15):
Well, they scored what seventy points between the two of them,
seventy seven points on the board. Cowboys had forty of them.
I had forty of them, and what five of those
were off of field goals?

Speaker 4 (02:22:25):
Revenge game for Matt coming off of allowing a Russell
Wilson led offense score thirty seven points?

Speaker 3 (02:22:32):
What blanket?

Speaker 4 (02:22:33):
I definitely should have revenge on his mind because he
clearly doesn't have scheming up his guys to play good defense.

Speaker 3 (02:22:40):
On his mind. Aren't you with me? Aren't you with me?
That the Giants are going to beat the Chiefs this weekend? U,
I don't know. It's in New York, isn't it. It's
it's a home game for the Giants, New Jersey, the
swampland of New Jersey. Hey, true, your guy, Your guy
made a very sound statement of that very thing this week.

(02:23:01):
Your guy ein Eagle, working with JJ Watt, was noting
that when they do games for the Jets or for
the Giants, when they're playing games in New Jersey and
they do all their beauty shots and they get all
their video before so they can show for bumps and
things coming, He's like, we're not going to try to
make you believe we're in New York.

Speaker 5 (02:23:19):
We're in New Jersey. That's what we're showing you. That's
what you should see.

Speaker 3 (02:23:22):
This game is in New Jersey. Always, do you know
beauty shots of the New York skyline?

Speaker 2 (02:23:28):
Not in this case.

Speaker 4 (02:23:29):
So Dolphins Bills, Yeah, Bill's trying to get to three
and zero Thursday Night Football.

Speaker 3 (02:23:34):
Well, I mean we all know that the the Dolphins
have not exactly gotten off to a rip rowing start.
In fact, there isn't a facet of that organization that
hasn't come into question over the first two weeks of
twenty twenty five.

Speaker 4 (02:23:46):
If we had a two segment interview with Braxton Barrios yesterday,
if he had a little bit more time always helping
out the kids and with eyes and our and no
kids hungry and fogo to chow, and all the great
people that he was working with, if we had had
a second segment with him, I would have said, if
I told you Mike McDaniel is going to get fired
six games into this season, your former head coach, would
you have believed it?

Speaker 3 (02:24:07):
And I think he would have said absolutely. And then
if you had asked, uh, how do you feel about
your tenure with the Dolphins? Would he have said anything
other than, boy, I'm glad I got out of there.

Speaker 4 (02:24:17):
Unfortunately some of it, the later stages of it, clearly
were injury riddle. That's why he's been off the field
for so long. But now, what do you want to
hear from your starting quarterback? If you're the Dolphins heading
into this week, you want to hear I want to
hear how Tyreek needs to you know, try to pull
back a little bit and he's not gonna be able
to throw you the ball that far down the field.
He's got to break off his routes. Like he just

(02:24:37):
said after this last game, all good thing. I mean
two has got he's got this team an offense. Right.

Speaker 3 (02:24:41):
Want to hear what you want to hear confidence. You
want to hear how confident he is in his individual ability.
You want to hear we're bouncing back. I've got this
in essence without saying that, so instead you got to
hear this.

Speaker 22 (02:24:57):
Dude, he's he's top tier. You know, if it's not
with his arm, it's with his legs. You know that
dude can do literally anything he wants. So definitely different
skill set for me. I can't do half of what
he does when it comes to running the ball and
and any of that. And then with how he can
just chuckle ball down the field, you know, with how

(02:25:19):
far and the arm strength that he has, you know,
he's he's supreme when it when it comes to that.
So it's gonna be fun get to see him, get
to play play him again.

Speaker 3 (02:25:30):
I don't see, dude what well obviously, if you didn't
follow that, he's talking about his opponent this week, he
got a question about Josh Allen. Yeah, I can't run,
you can't pass like him. You're gonna hate me for it,
Like that's the right answer. Why because he's one hundred

(02:25:51):
correct in his team, on his team, or in the
media or in football should have a problem with a
guy talking truth? If you were two and oh, they
wouldn't so then what But that's why should you care?

Speaker 4 (02:26:04):
Because Allen's only better than him at everything, right, which
is what he says.

Speaker 3 (02:26:09):
So in addition to being zero and two, don't say that?
Why because it's not what your team wants to hear
from you. But what do you say? Then you say
anything but that? What do you think about Josh Allen?
I think he's played a lot of good football. I say,
you know, there is a lost art in this country
called minimalism. You don't have to say a ton, you

(02:26:30):
don't have to go you don't have to wax poetic
about We all know that.

Speaker 2 (02:26:33):
By the way, all this.

Speaker 3 (02:26:34):
Stuff he's saying, we already knew that. So all he's
doing is telling is stuff we already knew and making
himself look because he says it, I can't do any
of that stuff. Well, then what are we doing here?

Speaker 2 (02:26:45):
Why are you the quarterback?

Speaker 3 (02:26:46):
Okay, you don't have to be Josh Allen to win
football game. Yeah, but you don't have to like say
that Josh Allen is ten billion, trillion times better than
you either.

Speaker 4 (02:26:54):
Again this listeners probably are like, come on, shut up already.
He's talking about them. Yeah, he's talking about the current
first or second best quarterback, pure talent, pure statistics in
the league, and all of the ways that he's so good.
He's a dual threat quarterback. He does have a strong arm.
It has nothing to do with Tua except when he
adds to it. He could have said nothing that part.

(02:27:15):
You're definitely right enough to say it and point out
I can't do. He could just say what he can do,
because what Tua can do has been good enough to
probably have done more than they've done in his tenure.

Speaker 11 (02:27:26):
There.

Speaker 3 (02:27:26):
How many times have you heard a team or a coach,
or a quarterback or a player say it ain't about them,
it's about us, Like he could have easily taken I
don't know what the question was in its actual form.
I don't know how it was phrased, because all I've
heard is his response. But that's what I would have
done if my team's zero and too looking at me
as a leader, and that morale is so in the

(02:27:47):
toilet because your coach is a weirdo and I just
he's not. He doesn't inspire that. So it's on Tua.
It sucks, but that's where you're at right now. And
I just would have answered it fifty other different ways
than the way he did. They haven't won.

Speaker 4 (02:28:01):
Tuo has played okay in one game this last week,
not very well in the other game. They got many
more problems than that. It's the same stuff for them
that they should get clobbered.

Speaker 3 (02:28:12):
Well, I hope that Tyreek gets over sixty six and
a half yards receiving when they do get closed.

Speaker 4 (02:28:17):
Well, when you're down by a lot, what do you do?
You throw the ball a lot. And when you throw
the ball a lot, and Tyreek Hill is a receiver,
you're looking for those yards. I would suspect that is
exactly what will happen. Tua is the has the third
highest completion percentage in the NFL. That's what he could
be hanging his hat on. He chose to just talk
about how awesome Josh Allen is. Otherwise we'll hit you
with in case you missed it, next here on the

(02:28:39):
A Team and remind you, as always during the second
straight summer of fun, we got tickets for you to win.

Speaker 2 (02:28:46):
The Age. On Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (02:28:52):
Half way through the final hour of the show and
a half hour out from the Astros on Deck Show,
we get to in case you missed it, some items
we've not yet discussed for those that need further discussion,
like an update from Joe, a spot on a couple
of ailing astros, and an update on exactly the phrasing
of the question to Tua when he said, dude, he's
top tier. The question was about Josh Allen's skill set,

(02:29:16):
as in, what do you think of Bill's quarterback? Josh
Allen's skill set was the last question to Tua during
his weekly availability, which happened yesterday. They're playing tomorrow, so
that's what generated his Man, this guy is unreal and
I can't do half the thing that he can do,
so good luck to our defense. Oh he didn't say that,

(02:29:38):
but he kind of basically went out setting it, so
you can you can see where that can be taken
in the way that it was, all right, what do
we have today?

Speaker 10 (02:29:46):
Cole let's go on to the Diamond.

Speaker 21 (02:29:47):
We got an update on Eastach Parredes again. You heard
earlier on the show with Sean Salisbury that there's expectation
he could be cleared by the start of the Seattle
Mariner series. Nothing setting stone to chef, but Joe Spot
I want to go a little bit more in detail
about how his potential All Star third basement is feeling
going into the final shots of the regular season.

Speaker 11 (02:30:08):
He is doing very, very well.

Speaker 21 (02:30:11):
I was just telling gentlemen right here in Spanish that
I think every day he comes in feeling better.

Speaker 11 (02:30:16):
He's like he's recovery time is better, you know, getting
getting ready for his daily.

Speaker 2 (02:30:25):
Routine is is getting easier for him.

Speaker 19 (02:30:29):
So he is.

Speaker 3 (02:30:31):
I'm really happy where where he's at, if I'm not mistaken.

Speaker 4 (02:30:36):
He also added that he would ask Peretis not to
run one hundred percent on the basis given the nature
of his injury.

Speaker 21 (02:30:47):
Yeah, he said that, And he also said we're at
a wait and see moment on if he will be
cleared in time for Friday's game.

Speaker 4 (02:30:53):
And remember he did this before, isaka a lesser strain.
Clearly he had a hamstring injury. He wasn't put on
the il and that the Astros thought he would be
back sooner than that. He did come back only after
a couple of days, but he was clearly instructed to
take it easy on the base paths and he was
able to play those games, get a little bit healthier

(02:31:14):
as he did, and not miss any additional time because
of it. This strain this time was to his other leg,
and I don't think they were related in any way,
but it's definitely it's a tough situation to say we're
bringing him back when everybody involved knows he's not one
hundred percent and running is something we don't want him
to do, and running is going to be a part

(02:31:36):
of every time he puts the ball in play when
he's batting, which is probably the only thing he's going
to be doing as the designated hitter.

Speaker 3 (02:31:43):
How right him and Jordon make it back for the
postseason and neither of them are even eighty percent. But
they just hit bombs, and they can just jog around
the bases, or they just.

Speaker 4 (02:31:54):
Go back to rules when they were kids. But where's
the designated runner? Can't he just stand right next to him,
take your swings and then tell this guy to.

Speaker 3 (02:32:02):
Go Oh, you can put a selected runner in. But
the problem with that is he goes to the bench
after that.

Speaker 5 (02:32:06):
Well, you gotta get him to first.

Speaker 3 (02:32:07):
Usually that means someone who runs for him from the
moment the ball strikes the bat.

Speaker 4 (02:32:13):
Joe Spotta. Additionally, I'm sure there is more. There was
one thing of significance that already took place in Major
League Baseball two day, the early game, Big surprise, the
Chicago Cubs were involved in that game.

Speaker 5 (02:32:26):
They took apart the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Speaker 4 (02:32:28):
And when they're eighty eighth game of the season, they're
not going to catch the Brewers, who have long since
put themselves into the postseason. Technically, mathematically, yes, they still could,
being four and a half games back of them. Milwaukee's
playing tonight, but what they both have done.

Speaker 3 (02:32:44):
Now is clinch a playoff birth. The Cubs and injured
Kyle Tucker are headed to the postseason. Yeah, we were
looking at the celebration earlier on the monitor in here.

Speaker 5 (02:32:55):
Find to the show.

Speaker 4 (02:32:56):
Taylor McGregor of Marquee Sports Network was interviewing Craig Council
the others. Though she went the the you always have
the option as a reporter inside the celebratory clubhouse, she
chose to wear a raincoat.

Speaker 18 (02:33:10):
Well.

Speaker 3 (02:33:11):
A couple of things that I noticed, first and foremost,
I never want to see Justin Turner without a shirt
on again for any reason. And celebrations for that guy
over the years. Yeah, that's great. And secondly, I asked
you the question, you think think Kyle Tucker's in there like.

Speaker 4 (02:33:26):
You've been in the Astros clubhouse. I'm sure more than
once with Kyle Tucker in there.

Speaker 3 (02:33:31):
I don't remember seeing him.

Speaker 4 (02:33:32):
I remember seeing him, I remember talking to him, and
it's it's really unlike anybody else.

Speaker 5 (02:33:37):
Heck, the year Michael Brantley was.

Speaker 4 (02:33:40):
Not a part of it because of injury, he seemed
more excited than Kyle Tucker was.

Speaker 3 (02:33:45):
I believe I got both of those two guys you
just mentioned to say good morning for my World Series
recap morning after video, and you're right, even Doctor Smooth
Uncle Mike had way more energy about that.

Speaker 4 (02:34:02):
I think the best part of having Kyle Tucker in
a clubhouse that is celebrating is for the other thirty
guys to say, this is our chance to get him
worked up, right, go dump champagne on his head and
poor Beard because let's go Kyle.

Speaker 3 (02:34:16):
This is fun.

Speaker 5 (02:34:17):
We're winning. Let's see something buddy.

Speaker 3 (02:34:20):
When what was the home run that he hit in
a game they won in the postseason again, the double
homer game against the Philly No.

Speaker 2 (02:34:25):
They lost that game though.

Speaker 3 (02:34:27):
The only reason I bring it up is because we
were meeting with him to ask him questions after the
game against the curved wall inside the clubhouse. Mm hm
And I got the first question and it wasn't a question.
I said, nice moonshot and he goes, thanks, thanks, Hey wax,
Hey man. Do you think I should piss off Ac?

Speaker 5 (02:34:45):
I mean sure, I want to talk about big dumper.

Speaker 3 (02:34:47):
He did last night? What he did last night? What
did he know? He some fake meetups? Almost hit as
many homers as one of his teammates did in last
night's game, almost but not.

Speaker 21 (02:34:57):
White held the record belt by Mickey Manola has now
so passed it that was eventually held by Ken Griffey Junior.
The Seattle Mariners catcher hit his fifty fifth home run
of the season and the second ending against the Kansas
City Royals, setting him past Mantles mark for a switch
hitter that has stood since nineteen sixty one. The Mariners
would go on to win twelve five, which is the
tenth straight win for Seattle in a race for the MVP,

(02:35:19):
which could still belong to the Seattle Mariners catcher. Every
home run counts, but he is going to be a
part of not only single season history out in Seattle,
but also just baseball history in general.

Speaker 3 (02:35:31):
For a switch hitter, what's the highest number of home
runs he's hit prior to this season? What do you
think we've Yeah, so you're already less in the thirties.
I mean every time this happens, don't you have to
ask the question?

Speaker 4 (02:35:44):
I mean, your genesis or your basis for answering the
question without any researches.

Speaker 3 (02:35:51):
We'll look at him. Of course he's doing it, but
you can't do that with him, can I disagree? And
here's why his nickname was given to him prior to
this season. Yes, I don't look that way. He's more
spelt this year. He lost weight in the offseason.

Speaker 4 (02:36:06):
This will be the fourth consecutive season he began his
career in twenty one in something Else. So his fourth
consecutive season with an increase in his home run total
and his RBI two.

Speaker 3 (02:36:16):
By the way, that's all where you get mad at
me for just putting it out there, Adolas Garcia with
the numbers to back it up before and since. And
I'm hardly the first baseball fan to just make crap
up about a team cheating. We deal with that all
the time here. I mean al Toovey, he had a
buzzer on. That's how he got the home run in
the nineteen ALCS. Right, that's the only way that means,
the only way of the ARA could have hit twenty

(02:36:40):
more home runs than he ever has before in a season,
and counting is just good old fashioned hard work.

Speaker 4 (02:36:45):
Even though he has made improvements every year. He went
from twenty seven to thirty from year one to two,
he went from thirty to thirty four in year two
to year three, and then went from thirty four to
fifty six.

Speaker 2 (02:36:56):
Right, this year, one hit one.

Speaker 3 (02:36:58):
Say that and he's back to being a bomb next season.
If he's back to if he's every next year, is
a good player. If he hits thirty next year, that's
a nice total, and it will strengthen my argument that
he had a really good year. That's not what I'm arguing.
What do you argue, I didn't.

Speaker 4 (02:37:13):
Say he's gonna finish second, the first in the MVP,
right second.

Speaker 21 (02:37:16):
How about your savor that until after the commercial break
right here on in case you missed it, The Age.

Speaker 2 (02:37:23):
On Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (02:37:33):
The final segment of a Wednesday edition of the eight
team Sports Talk seven ninety Tomorrow night, Week three in
the NFL already gets underway. It hasn't been the best year,
but twenty twenty five is flying by. I'm convinced of it.

Speaker 4 (02:37:47):
The whole season of football, but mainly the year. Once
football starts to get to the end of the year
rather quickly, it all year. One hundred days still kick off,
fifty days still kick off, and now we're already two
weeks in and more weeks into the college football season.
Or Stone Cold Locks will come back your way this
Friday afternoon at four point thirty three weeks in, fifteen
selections have been made by each of us.

Speaker 3 (02:38:09):
We have almost identical records through those three weeks.

Speaker 4 (02:38:13):
We'll get you updated on that and give you our
thoughts on the weekends games. Final segment of the show
mentioned we've got tickets to give away.

Speaker 3 (02:38:19):
We will do that here.

Speaker 4 (02:38:21):
Tickets to go see Monster Jam October eighteenth at NRG Stadium.
Those four pack of tickets also include pit passes.

Speaker 3 (02:38:29):
That's pretty sweet. Tickets on sale now.

Speaker 4 (02:38:31):
Ticketmaster dot com also have a pair of tickets to
go see low Wayne Carter six North American Tour that
is coming up here very quickly tomorrow, September eighteenth at
the Woodlands Pavilion. Tickets also are on sale now ticketmaster
dot com. Should you not win them. Here we talked
about somebody that absolutely positively is doing it clean for
the Seattle Mariners. It is fifty sixth home run of

(02:38:54):
the season yesterday, one of two Mariners to have a
multi homer game yesterday. Cal Ray has fifty six home runs,
which is more than any switch hitter in Major League
Baseball history.

Speaker 3 (02:39:07):
Mickey Mantle had fifty four. He's now in his rear
view mirror.

Speaker 4 (02:39:10):
He also tied the franchise record for the Seattle Mariners
for home runs hit in a single season.

Speaker 3 (02:39:18):
Whose record did he tie?

Speaker 4 (02:39:19):
We mentioned that name last segment seven one three two
one two five seven ninety seven one three two one
two five seven nine. If you know the answer to
that question, whose franchise record single season home runs did
cal ralely tie with his home run yesterday and possibly
will break here in Houston over the weekend if he doesn't.

Speaker 3 (02:39:38):
Do so even the next two days.

Speaker 4 (02:39:40):
If you know the answer to that question, that's the
number you dial se one three two one two five
seven ninety and select your winning at tickets. So we're
looking for two winners to go see each of those
two shows.

Speaker 2 (02:39:51):
You a Jimmy Kimmel fan.

Speaker 4 (02:39:53):
Uh, Jimmy Kimmel. The Man Show seemed harmless, funny and raunchy.
It seemed okay. I'm not so sure what he did
in between that and his late night talk show.

Speaker 3 (02:40:05):
Nothing.

Speaker 4 (02:40:05):
I don't think was he in some movies? I mean,
he's been here and there, and he's obviously a comedian.
He did appear on Entourage that also seemed relatively harmless
and helped get home video solutions. A shout out on
the program helped get Johnny Drama out on stage. He
had a comment about lamar Odom's calves, and he's been
linked to obviously. He's currently married and has been for

(02:40:28):
a long time.

Speaker 3 (02:40:28):
It's a huge time.

Speaker 4 (02:40:29):
Relationship with Sarah Silverman seemed to produce a lot of
laughs most of the last So we're a year into
Donald Trump president current after how many years of Joe four?

Speaker 3 (02:40:43):
How many years was he president? Not any other thing,
just he was in office four years, but the auto
pen was in charge.

Speaker 4 (02:40:50):
In office for four years, and then the four years
prior to that with Donald also, so he did not
like those We're at least nine years into an ex
dream late night talk show host focus on, well, all
of my monologue jokes have to be political one way
or the other, no matter who is in currently in office.
They've definitely focused in on that more than ever before.

(02:41:13):
And many unfortunate, extremely sad, negative emotional things have happened
in this country over that time period, and all of
the late night talk show hosts, but definitely him.

Speaker 3 (02:41:25):
I think Jimmy is the least amount of what you're
talking about, but they've all done it.

Speaker 4 (02:41:29):
They've done it. I think Colbert before and he's still there,
but he's going was less direct and vindictive and personal,
and I'm firing the arrows at you versus I don't
like you, so I'm telling all these jokes that make
you look bad. And then Jimmy did not really seem
to ever have any issue about making it super direct,

(02:41:51):
super personal. Hear my views and I'm there, don't match
the president's views, and this is what I'm going to
use in my monologue, jokes.

Speaker 3 (02:41:58):
Or otherwise, and he at it again. Well he's not anymore,
He's canceled indefinitely. I'm just like, I'm more stunned just
because of what we do for a living. It's it's
an entertainment thing, it's a broadcast thing. I saw some
like rumblings earlier today because the chairman of the FCC

(02:42:19):
was talking about this is basically effectively our boss in
some ways, sure, because what we are able to say,
what we are able to do is in part controlled
by the whims of this person. And I was like, ooh,
that's you don't usually see that, right, and considering you know,
I'm presenting the general picture of some of the comments
and jokes and things that have been said over a

(02:42:40):
long period of time. But it's still in this instance,
it's more about well, it's your views can be absolutely
can be different.

Speaker 5 (02:42:47):
You can send a viewpoint you want all you.

Speaker 4 (02:42:50):
Want, but you still have there are things you can't
do and you can't say and if that line has
been crossed, and it's a little bit cloudier, I think
with Colbert, even though it was obvious the viewpoints were
different because of the CBS angle and the financial commitment
angle and what he was literally talking about how they
were in the relationship there made it a much different situation.

Speaker 3 (02:43:09):
So comparing the two, I don't think it worked the
same shift essentially. The funny thing about Colbert, though, is
going back and watching the clip which they painstakingly tried
to scrub from the Internet, of when Trump came on
his show before he was running for president and Colbert
kissed his backside repeatedly. So I was I'm stunned that

(02:43:31):
they did it, is what I'm saying, Like you hear
it might happen that they did it, And the way
you described how he has been is perfect, because that's
been the difference between it.

Speaker 4 (02:43:42):
Just I mean, don't I think I think everybody knows.
Maybe I pay not enough attention, but I definitely don't
pay a lot of attention to it. But it is
still it was easy to see it's on sometimes that
I usually say, can we watch something else?

Speaker 3 (02:43:55):
Yeah, I know, I'm looking for something else in this.
Kimmel did some funny bit on this show before it
became that, and I you know, a man's show stuff.
It's like, well, if you're gonna be consistent, then some
of that stuff aged very poorly. I mean, if we're
gonna be honest about everything that's happened in this country
since then. But yeah, I'm just sitting here stunned that
they actually did it like Disney, ABC. No, You're You're done.

(02:44:19):
I actually thought that he was gonna be the next
one to go, like Colbert. But it's weird because Colbert
is like, well, I'm gonna write out my contract. I mean,
he's getting paid either way, and by the way, obscene
amounts of money for relative to the quality of some
of these programs. I'm biased because I'm a Johnny Carson guy. Well, yes,
it's a very different world back. It's an extremely well

(02:44:41):
paid gig. If you have it, there aren't very many
of you. Yeah, I just wonder like if CBS is
going to try and replace or are they getting rid
of the show?

Speaker 2 (02:44:52):
Are they not?

Speaker 4 (02:44:53):
I mean I have not read up on this at
all other than a headline or two saying and they've
just pulled the show indefinitely.

Speaker 3 (02:44:58):
I just I saw it on the break and I'm
just like, stunt, I just did not expect to see
that today, so I just figured i'd bring it up. Yeah,
in case you missed it.

Speaker 4 (02:45:05):
Right there, close things out here on the A team,
we send you into Astros on Deck obviously just as
important an evening of baseball as any of the last several.
We are acting like, oh the playoffs these when Gordy
was in hewhere, when Seattle comes here, those are playoff games.
So are tonight's. Soar the games against the A's, soar
the games against the Angels. In my opinion, to end

(02:45:26):
the season, the Astros open tonight with eighty three wins,
the same total as the Mariners, one more than the
Red Sox, one less than the Yankees, only two less
than the Tigers. There is so much still in play
for the Astros, should they, as Dana Brown hopes, get
and stay hot the remainder of the season, not just

(02:45:49):
to make the playoffs, not just to win the division,
possibly to get themselves out of even having to play
in the wildcard round. And some of that could unfold
here tonight on Sports Talk seven to ninety Space City
Home Network, as well with the ballgame on the Tube.

Speaker 2 (02:46:02):
Cost Royals give us some help.

Speaker 5 (02:46:03):
The Astros on deck.

Speaker 3 (02:46:05):
It is next

Speaker 2 (02:46:08):
The AG on Sports Talk seven ninety