Grazing Garcia, Glazing Arch & Grasping With Longhorns' Reality

Wex and AC come back from the weekend to react to the Astros' split with the Los Angeles Angels, the reality of Texas football and the status of the Texans' offensive line entering Week 1. Plus Spencer Arrighetti joins the show in Hour 1 while Jacksonville.com's Demetrius Harvey hits the airwaves in Hour 2

Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Earls Nolan, multed by the magnificent roller coaster ride.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
That is Houston.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Sports Chill laid down for the only homegrown afternoon team
is Talking Your Teams? Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are
the A teams?

Speaker 4 (00:35):
A What's Up?

Speaker 5 (00:59):
Houston?

Speaker 6 (01:00):
It is a Tuesday edition of the A Team. It's
Sports Talk seven ninety. It's Space City home network in
about an hour from now, and it's you with us
wex Ac Cole Thompson on a Tuesday after the holiday.
I hope you guys had a very very good one.
Hope it was productive. Hope you got your fantasy drafts
in like we did last night. How do you feel,

(01:20):
by the way, after that last night, wex.

Speaker 5 (01:21):
Are you gonna be? You're gonna be.

Speaker 6 (01:23):
You're gonna be banking some money after the picks you
made at the Sports Talk seven ninety fantasy football draft.

Speaker 5 (01:28):
I doubt it?

Speaker 6 (01:29):
All right, that's really good optimism, like to hear it.
I don't know what to make of the Astros because.

Speaker 7 (01:35):
After all this time, well there's only twenty four games left.

Speaker 6 (01:39):
Tell me this, because we were sitting there last night
talking about I just made a comment about this. It's
not like we sat there and talked to work the
whole time. But Luis Garcia, of all the guys that
have come back after long, long, long layoffs for that
injury specifically, but just really any injury that's taken a
lot of time away, how am I wrong to be

(02:01):
as excited as I am that he looked as good
as he did.

Speaker 7 (02:03):
A couple of difference, as I would point out, welcome
back to from the weekend, just because we're diving right in,
and I'm all for that. You have the longest rehab
of anybody, Not for how long he missed how many setbacks,
not for how many setbacks, Oh that was Lance right,
for how many times he threw the baseball, Not for
the Astros. Here's a simulated game. Yeah, here's live BP.

(02:24):
Here's a rehab start for the Coast League team. Here's
a rehab start for the A ball team and the
Double A team and the Triple A team and the
Double A team and the Triple A team, and the
Double A team and the Double A team and the
Double A team and the Triple A team and the
Triple A team. And then he pitched for the Astros.
What if Lance or Christian Javier or any one of
the other rehabbers that came back made their first appearance

(02:44):
with the Astros during their tenth rehab outing, as opposed
to their sixth or seventh or eighth, which was the
case with them, even for Spencer Araghetti, who will join
us in twenty seven minutes this afternoon, our guest from
over at dyk In Park in advance of the series
starting with the Yankees. It's just a different timeline for everybody.
And he kept going and going, and they extended his

(03:06):
thirty day rehab assignment ten more days, and then they
extended his rehab assignment ten more days, and then they
extended his rehab assignment ten more days.

Speaker 5 (03:14):
I would hope it worked.

Speaker 8 (03:16):
Now.

Speaker 7 (03:16):
You don't always have the opportunity to do that in
order you always need to.

Speaker 5 (03:20):
But all these pitchers are trying to come back for.

Speaker 7 (03:23):
A team in the absolute thick of a Pennant race
and a drive for the postseason. So every start they
make for the Astros is enormously important. If it's April,
May June and you're trying to come back for the Marlins,
or you're trying to come back for any one of
the teams that isn't sitting atop their division, which is
all but six of them, it's a little bit different,

(03:43):
and so the Astros were trying to, you know, do
the best for Luis, but recognizing what it could mean
for the team. They also had to worry about all
their ridiculous forty man roster spots and everything that else
they've been through because of all the other injuries. So
it just worked out that maybe he had a little
bit more time to get a lot little sharper. He
had a whole lot of changes to his makeup from

(04:04):
a mechanic standpoint, how he was throwing off the mound
or the armslot, he was using the shape of a
lot of his pitches. And he also did something that
each of the four rehab group pitchers we talk about constantly.
No offense to JP Frantz. We don't talk about him
because he hasn't pitched here yet. But lancemcullors, Christian Xavier Spencer,
Arraghetti and Luis.

Speaker 5 (04:27):
He threw strikes.

Speaker 7 (04:28):
I know it's it's it's easier sitting here watching television
in a comfortable room on camera, but he threw strikes.

Speaker 5 (04:38):
That's that's a huge thing.

Speaker 7 (04:39):
Have some confidence in your ability to get guys out,
have some confidence in your guys behind you to make plays.

Speaker 5 (04:46):
He threw six innings yesterday.

Speaker 7 (04:48):
And the Angels went down one, two, three in the first, second,
the third, the fifth, and the sixth. He faced the
minimum in recording fifteen of his eighteen outs. Obviously, he
gave up two gopher balls and a hit and all
three runs in the fourth inning his second time through
the lineup, But that was huge to get six innings.

(05:10):
All he did was follow the line this homestand so
far crazy and that they aren't seven to zero basically
with how they've pitched. Their starting pitching has been sensational
time as way it was, it's been tremendous. It was
very unexpected with how they'd been going, you know, to
get fromber on track for his game. Hunter Brown closed
out an awesome month, Jason Alexander closed out an awesome month.

Speaker 5 (05:32):
And you were hoping for.

Speaker 7 (05:33):
Araghetti and Javier and now Luis Garcia to give you something,
and each and every one of the pitchers that you
sent out there did so and only needed to. They
used one each each of them got one start.

Speaker 5 (05:45):
He needed to get out of the first inning.

Speaker 7 (05:47):
Yesterday he was great, and they also had one of
their best, most productive per inning offenses. They could have
scored twelve runs, no problem. It's not gonna say it
was their best day of offense by any means. But
you hit two balls over the fence, gave your bullpen
some insurance. Kimberl almost made it not even work because
a breo had to at least stand up a second

(06:07):
time in the game. But you got a five run
lead for the ninth inning. You scored over and over
and over again runs in six of the eight innings.
You came up to the plate. Like I said, they
could have gotten one or two more big hits, and
all of a sudden, the game's really blown wide open.
And when Garcia gives up his three runs, it probably
doesn't even matter. You could have already had a comfortable
lead at that point. Instead you were actually trailing briefly

(06:29):
at that point. It was a great day for him. Obviously.
It was good that the bullpen continues to get back
in shape a little bit, because they still don't have
more days off until at least after they finished the Yankees.
The Yankees come to town with a slightly better record
than the Houston Astros, but the Astros also hit the
field today with a three game lead in the Division,

(06:49):
a four and a half game lead over the Rangers,
who have sent their most important players to the injured
list and have won six in a row while doing so.
No Simeon, no Sea Novivaldi, and there on a six
game winning streak. Heading into their game tonight, they're at
seventy two and sixty seven. The Mariners are at seventy
three and sixty five, and again, the Astros are three
games better than them at seventy six and sixty two.

(07:11):
Having said all that, last night, while we were doing
our draft, we were watching the final game of Week
one of the.

Speaker 5 (07:18):
College football season.

Speaker 7 (07:19):
It was a laugher, and we will also be laughing
about it today because that seems like the thing to do.
We like when team accounts at the professional level. The Astros,
the Rockets, the Texans, and other teams in their respective
leagues eat other teams up on social media, and it
was a great weekend of college football. But not until

(07:40):
last night did one of those teams, those outfits, those organizations,
those universities really get after the other team on social
media and even though Best of X will be an
interview with Spencer Arraghetti today at two thirty, we will
get into what at TCU football has been doing the
last twenty four hours, and it is all awesome. It's

(08:00):
obviously game week in the NFL Thursday night, Friday night,
Sunday day and night, and Monday night football On the
NFL side, Texans be on the practice field tomorrow, Thursday
and Friday before their trip to Los Angeles.

Speaker 6 (08:14):
CJ.

Speaker 7 (08:15):
Stroud playing a game in Los Angeles for the first
time since becoming an NFL quarterback. One of two very
good mid afternoon, late afternoon tilts in the NFL playoff teams,
the Texans and the Rams, and as was announced over
the weekend and unfortunately expected over the course of training
camp from a health perspective, they'll be facing Matt Stafford.

(08:37):
He will be starting for the Rams, and we had
a lot to discuss looking forward to that one.

Speaker 6 (08:41):
Yeah, I do want to get into the layers of
that onion for sure. You mentioned the weekend that was
in college football.

Speaker 5 (08:51):
I think just like.

Speaker 6 (08:52):
People were very very quick to crown him, if you
want to call it that. I think people are probably
being a little too quick to throw dirt on the
grave of arch Manning's college career after one game, I
thought you were talking about Belichick. Well, I'm not gonna
even make the fifty jokes. That just got into my
head as soon as you said that. But I don't know.

(09:13):
It's I think, obviously the answer is somewhere in between.
But as you're watching that game on Saturday, how can
you not help but think why were people hyping this
kid all offseason like they were.

Speaker 5 (09:25):
I wasn't wondering why. I knew why, and that's why
we joked.

Speaker 7 (09:28):
I mean, I don't know how other shows in this city,
in Austin and College Station and everywhere around the country,
anywhere in SEC country. I'm not sure how they approached it.
The hype for the Longhorns, I thought we appropriately approached it.
People talking about best since Tim Tebow or this team
got a whole lot better and arch Manning's going to
be the second coming, and how can he possibly stay

(09:49):
for a second year. He's gonna be the number one pick.
Thinks you're going to be great. He stayed there for
two years. Sark's offense, it's it's unbelievable. There are anybody
who said that obviously had not watched him play. They're
saying it to say it, And I'm not saying his
play up until YESTERDA or Saturday's game was poor by
any means. I'm just saying, you're just you're not basing
it on anything, You're just saying it to say it.

(10:09):
And so many of the loudest voices happen to work
for the network that covers their games, and so they
were completely out of control. But I mean, I can't
even begin to tell you how poorly I think things
went for Arch. I don't have any comment about the results.
It's not about losing the game. It's not about the

(10:30):
play calling, both of which obviously are huge storylines, but
strictly to arch manning that nothing about what he did
in that game where he threw the ball, the decisions
he made throwing the ball, the decisions he made and
read options, and his throwing mechanics f across the board.
Yeah awful. And some of those things aren't overnight fixes.

(10:53):
Some of those things are, like you said, how could
these people think what they're thinking?

Speaker 5 (10:57):
Did you watch how the ball was coming out of
his head?

Speaker 6 (11:00):
Did you decide like David Carr like no, like Uncle Rico,
are they gonna put well that's better?

Speaker 5 (11:05):
Actually, yes, touche a think Ina put ladders up.

Speaker 7 (11:09):
Because the team he's played for for two years didn't know.
Are they hiding some sh I can't believe I'm even saying,
are they hiding some kind.

Speaker 5 (11:17):
Of shoulder injury? It seems ridiculous.

Speaker 7 (11:19):
But I've gone back and rewatched some of his throws
from last year and just how he throws the football,
and it wasn't all that dissimilar. And even the touchdown
play that got reviewed and stood up to the review
as a touchdown. He's getting a lot of praise for
that throw. I mean, they scored on it. It was fine.
It was so much better than the rest of the day.
But man, that was about his disappointing as showing for

(11:42):
all of those things I just mentioned in a game they.

Speaker 5 (11:44):
Could have very very easily won.

Speaker 6 (11:48):
I don't know why I didn't take the under like
I did on every other game, because that is the
reason I took so many unders on those games and
the picks was because of the rock ust, the butterflies
the first week, all those cliche factors that aren't actually
usually cliche, especially on the college level, they do come

(12:08):
into play, especially at the quarterback position. So I thought
it was going to be over for that particular game
when you did have two juggernaut defenses, which by the way,
the Longhorns acquitted themselves very nicely on that side of
the football, hence the final score.

Speaker 5 (12:23):
What an idiot, What a jackass pick for me to do.

Speaker 6 (12:26):
Look, yeah, we'll go over on that one and everything
else will be an under you idiot, Clanton.

Speaker 5 (12:30):
So that's that.

Speaker 7 (12:31):
We got a four hour show for you today. So
we'll obviously jump back into that. Just one of many
games this weekend that does matter nationally. Mondays usually the
top twenty five polls come out, but because there was
a game last night, they just came out within the hour,
a little bit over an hour ago, I should say.
So we'll let you know where things stand heading into Hey,
we actually know something about these teams because we've seen

(12:52):
them play versus total guesswork, and in college football, guesswork
is more difficult than ever because as the roster changes
dramatically from one year to the next, with nil transfer
portal and obviously young quarterbacks getting playing time, with as
many strong football teams as they have so far this season,

(13:12):
and many of them coming out on the losing end
of it. Had four teams in the preseason Top ten
lose three of those in games against fellow top ten teams,
So it was a fantastic weekend. Doesn't really shape up
to be a comparably fantastic weekend this weekend. There's only
one matchup between Top twenty teams, and that, of course,
is where the Lee Corso Lists game day crew will be.

(13:35):
All of the future game days will be Lee Corso
List get into what that final performance from him was,
and it was quite a performance, not for everything you
just saw on camera, but for the fact that all
of the games that he picked were correct, every single
one of them, including his headgear choice with Brutus going
up top his dome. We gotta le to get to today.
I mentioned Spencer Araghedi as guest number one. It comes

(13:56):
on in about fifteen minutes from Dykin Park. We'll check
in with Demetrius Harvey from the Florida Times Union as
we began our AFC South tour. He covers the Jaguars
will make our way through the rest of the division obviously,
the Texans are heavy favorites to win it, so some
of our guests will hopefully help tell you why and

(14:16):
all the other parts of Welcome back from the weekend.

Speaker 5 (14:18):
Here on the A team.

Speaker 7 (14:19):
We have to get to today. We will as the
show unfolds here on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
Ninety The A teen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (14:33):
All Right, you know who's not living a semi charmed
life right now? Actually he probably is. He's making a
lot of money, arch manning.

Speaker 5 (14:41):
Ut Is.

Speaker 6 (14:43):
They have tumbled to number seven in the AP rankings.
They have tumbled. Tell me this seriously, wex did you
think it would be further or do you think they're
right where they need to be?

Speaker 5 (14:54):
It's all about everybody else.

Speaker 7 (14:56):
You got submit. They played games. I just told you
last segment. You don't know anything about these teams. You
can pretend you did, but you don't. I didn't either,
I pretended I did. It's well, voters do. I don't
blame them for it, but now you have information. It's
the same thing every week. I would practically tear up
what the week zero week one polls look like, just
get rid of them completely and then go with what
you saw and you know people that actually vote. Unfortunately

(15:19):
they also it's like the coaches who vote. I don't
know which sixty three coaches are on the list this year,
but hypothetically, just pick one. Well, what did he do
this weekend? He coached a football team. He was very
locked in on one game, and presumably there was only
one top twenty five team on the field. If you
were Texas, then there were two. If you were LSU,
then there were two, and so on and so forth.

(15:40):
But they don't and unless some staffers voting for that,
how much attention are they paying to the rest of
the league and even the writing group voters. They're usually
covering a game, they're at a game, they're on site,
and it's going on when other games are going on. Now,
I respect a lot of their opinions, and I think
they know what they are talking about. And that's why
when we have guests on, they have a pretty good

(16:01):
idea of it. But it's not like they can't nobody can.
I can't watch all the games. They can't watch all
the games. It's the best system we have. But we
have information on these teams now, so you know, Penn
State and Georgia and Oregon and most of the rest
of the teams in the current top ten, or to
those teams among the current top ten, they didn't play anybody,

(16:24):
so you have less information about them because you already
know they could roll the balls out and they're going
to beat the team that they had on their schedule,
and they all did very, very handily. Almost all of
them covered. Penn State had what Texas A and m
had happened to them late in the game, covered easily
throughout the game. Then at the end of the game
they give up a touchdown that reversed said cover, but
Penn State was too. They stay at two. Georgia, they're fourth,

(16:47):
they got a first. They moved up one spot, I
suppose and accurately. But you have a lot of information
about Ohio State because I think you still respect Texas.
You have a lot of information about Clemson because I
think you very much respect LSU. You have a lot
of information about Notre Dame because I think there's a
lot of respect for Miami, who, while they did start
a new quarterback, very different than most of the other

(17:07):
first time starters. For all of these programs that had
first time starters, like Arch like Car with Notre Dame,
like saying, with Ohio State, you had a national championship
team member in Carson Beck and a guy who's played
for Georgia the last couple of seasons starting for them.
Miami's a pretty darn good football team, and it's almost
surprising their only fifth, but Ohio State, Pennstead, LSU, Georgia,

(17:31):
and Miami as your top five in that order.

Speaker 6 (17:33):
That's totally reasonable, by the way, just to and I'm
not trying to take anything away from the Buckeyes at all,
or specifically Julian saying, but like it, like it shows
you how good I think, Like I was talking about
in the last segment, uts defense is like, it's not
like they blew them out, as fourteen to seven was
the final.

Speaker 5 (17:51):
Neither team was lighting up the scoreboards.

Speaker 6 (17:53):
So I'm not going to sit here and say, oh,
Julian saying's definitely better than arch Manning or something like that.

Speaker 7 (17:57):
He very well could be though this year, and he
was great. Honestly for what he was up against and
how he performed. I thought he was fantastic. Did not
run the ball. I'm sure he will in other games
when the opportunity exists. I don't know that he would
have done it against Texas, but he never really needed to,
so that never really happened. I thought it was a
really well designed scheme that they used against the Texas defense.

(18:19):
They obviously didn't do a whole lot. They didn't turn
the ball over, which was huge. The one turnover that
arched through early in the game, obviously or in the game,
was turned into seven points.

Speaker 5 (18:29):
They lost by seven points.

Speaker 7 (18:31):
That's pretty expected, and because you're reliant on how that
one person plays on offense, not knowing and not having
the information defensively is a little different. I think it
was pretty obvious that both teams would have good defense.
As I had a conversation with somebody who I think
knows college football very well, it was wondering, what, you know,
what do people think about the Ohio State defense? I

(18:51):
thought they were very good and are going to be
He thought otherwise, I'm not really sure what about them,
not only with who their coaches that Patricia had a
fantastic weekend, nobody he hadn't been propped up like that
in a long long time.

Speaker 5 (19:05):
Even though he still puts a stupid pencil in his ears.

Speaker 7 (19:08):
Laminated piece of cardboard that he can't use his pencil
on the second best pencil of the weekend, of course,
still wins best pencil. But that's a good defense, and
they're gonna give up more than seven points, I'm sure
many times the rest of the year. But that's not
how I would grade is a defense good or not.
It's gonna happen quite a bit. Both of these teams

(19:30):
are very good. Clemson Texas Notre Dame or Texas Clemson
Notre Dame all lost, all lost. The top ten teams
now all lost teams in the top five this week,
but they all stay inside the top ten. And the
reason they stay inside the top ten is because I
don't think people believe in the other teams in the
top twenty yet more of a they knew to go

(19:50):
out and prove it and they just didn't have the
opportunity to do that. With whom they faced. They obviously
all won, and Iowa State, for that matter, is won twice.
I didn't include out Alabama in that they all won
statement because a they're not in the top twenty and
B they did not win and they did not look
good in not winning to Florida State, who comes in
at fourteen this week, who did look like a totally

(20:14):
different team. They were a two win team a year ago,
a year after, they didn't lose any games when it mattered. Again,
I'm not holding their Bowl game loss to Georgia against
them when they didn't have any players and they got
blown out.

Speaker 5 (20:25):
But I was entertained. I hope everybody else was.

Speaker 7 (20:29):
There are a lot of interesting things individually to speak of,
but again focusing on Texas, they just need better quarterback play.
They need him to fix a lot of the things
that I'm being serious, looked broken in his performance. They're
gonna be able to run the ball receivers, but probably
need to do a better job of route running and
being more precise with what they're doing. They did not
get open. It was by no means all on Arch.

(20:50):
It was by no means all on the players. I
don't think there were a lot of things the coaches
had in mind to do that they made adjustments on,
or just simply had the wrong ideas going into this game.
The season with twelve teams making the playoffs, they're gonna
be three to one three weeks from now. The season
is far from over for all of these teams.

Speaker 5 (21:10):
Got a long way to go, got a long way
to go.

Speaker 7 (21:12):
Well, when you open up the opportunity to win a
national championship to twelve teams after the regular season instead
of maybe two, maybe four, that's very different.

Speaker 6 (21:22):
Yes, all right, let's open up the conversation with Spencer Araghetty.
We will have him on as promised when we come
back here on a Tuesday edition of the program.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 7 (21:37):
Let's get right to it here. Halfway through our number one.
You know what time it is here on the A Team,
Adam Wesler and Adam Clan. It means it's time for
our Astros guest on a Tuesday after the long holiday
weekend coming from the ballpark, Spencer Araghetty, Astros starter joining
us here. Spencer, you got Adam and Adam as I
just mentioned, and I think I have to start with this.

(21:58):
Considering how the last six games went, could you tell me,
other than your own, who is your favorite starting pitcher
over the last six days among your teammates, because it
was just a wonderfully fabulous one pitcher to the next
performance every day from Frober to start this last six
game stretch to what we saw yesterday from Luis.

Speaker 8 (22:20):
Yeah, man, I don't think I could pick a favorite.
It's just awesome watching everybody go out there and take
the rocks at the tone and just give the boys
a chance to win. Obviously, that's what we're trying to
do every time we go out there. But it's beautiful
when you see one through six go out there and
get it done night after night.

Speaker 7 (22:35):
Is it a little bit different, especially from your perspective,
when you can go out there and do what you've
done considering how many months away it's been. And then
similarly with what Hobby did with his six innings of brilliance,
and then again same for Luis.

Speaker 8 (22:48):
Yeah, man, I mean all credit to those two guys.
I felt like it was an eternity waiting the three
months I had to wait to pick up a baseball
again and get back to what I love. But I
mean taking a year, two years from doing it and
then being able to come back and have success right away,
like that's just again, all credit to them. They're fantastic competitors,
they're great teammates, they're great athletes, and I'm just I'm

(23:11):
really stoked to them.

Speaker 6 (23:12):
In a weird and kind of awful way. Did it
help as you were going through your injury that so
many of your teammates were also hurt.

Speaker 8 (23:22):
Yeah, I was definitely less lonely in West Pompon, and
usually that's not where you want to be in the
middle of the year. But it was nice having a
group of starting pitchers down there kind of all doing
the same thing. France was there, Garcia Javier, I mean,
and all of us are kind of just like, you know,
doing it together. So that definitely does make it easier.
Obviously we all want to be on the field all
the time, but when it comes down to that kind

(23:43):
of situation, it's nice to have company.

Speaker 6 (23:44):
And you're rattling off names that it's just like those
are front end guys. Those are guys that the Astros
have leaned heavily upon at one point or another in
recent seasons to win a big amount of games.

Speaker 5 (23:56):
Do you feel like, I mean, it's kind of easy
to say this with.

Speaker 6 (23:59):
The calendar flipping this September, but do you feel all
you guys are finally getting healthy at the right time
and everybody's kind of going to come together and gel
at least as far as the pitching side of things.

Speaker 8 (24:09):
Yeah, man, I mean, I firmly believe. And again this
is only my second time around, in the second time
around with the big league club, but I think it's
the hottest team, not the best team necessarily on paper
that matters, and I think that we're definitely on the
pitching side trending in the right direction. I'm really excited
to see where that takes us.

Speaker 7 (24:25):
You are very, very very into everything that goes into pitching,
the mechanics of it for yourself, the pitch usage, shape
of pitches, execution of pitches. Over the year plus you've
been a major leaguer, We've had a chance to talk
to you about it quite a bit, as have most
of the reporters covering the team. Do you think that's
an asset for you with how involved and how much

(24:47):
I guess mental work you put into all that.

Speaker 8 (24:50):
Yeah, I like to think so. Obviously, a lot of
the stuff that you just listed off, other than than
executions kind of like a hypothetical. But I think that
having that background and having that like thought process going
into the games or in between games, I think that's
really helped me be able to make smaller adjustments. And
then obviously once you go out there. It's about whatever

(25:12):
you can execute that day. And I feel like I've
had enough time now appear to have a little bit
of both, like have the hypothetical talks with Bill Murphy
and with Josh Miller and with some of the other
pictures about like oh, this might be good or that
might be great, and then being able to take it
out there and go see what really works in the arena.
It's kind of like a nice blend between the two.

Speaker 9 (25:32):
Now.

Speaker 8 (25:33):
I think that that's been the reason why I've been
able to have success up here, because when I first
got called up, obviously I was pretty much all theory
and haven't done it yet, and the results weren't good,
and obviously I had to kind of take a look
in the mirror and see what was on and see
what was working what wasn't. Then it kind of just
came down to me throwing the pitch that I believe
in in the moments where I needed the most. And

(25:55):
there's no computer program that can tell you that, Unfortunately,
it's kind of just a gut feeling and what I
or you're going to execute whatever you're going to get
to a good spot in a good count. That's really
what matters the most.

Speaker 7 (26:04):
Talk with Spenceraghetti here on Sports Talk seven to ninety
on the A team you just mentioned when I first
got called up, well, when you first got called up,
Carlos Carrea was a Minnesota twin. When you returned from
the IL this year, Carlos Carrea was your third basement.

Speaker 5 (26:17):
How you like that.

Speaker 8 (26:21):
He's a man. I mean, obviously the defense speaks for itself.
That game in Baltimore, I think he saved me quite
a few runs. Had a lot of hot shots at
him over there at the corner, and I mean he's
just he's incredible as a person, leader, teammate, all of it.

Speaker 5 (26:35):
He named it.

Speaker 8 (26:35):
I mean, he's a man. I grew up watching him
play for the Astros and having him back in the
clubhouse with us has been something of a dream comforter
for me. So it's really awesome.

Speaker 5 (26:43):
You can say he's got a total hose. It's fine.

Speaker 10 (26:48):
He does.

Speaker 8 (26:49):
He does. Yeah, man, he lets it rip at me
when I'm on the mound to a lit'tle stand back
there on the cut in the corner of the infield,
and he pointed me, so I know it's coming to me.
In the first base spin when We're telling them all around.
After I throw my last warm up pitch and he
throws a strike, Man, it's probably better heater than mine.
Some days.

Speaker 7 (27:07):
Are you saying that's a little bit different than your
brief time with Esac over there, and likely your period
with Alex over there?

Speaker 8 (27:14):
Man, Alex allows it. You knows that he's not trying
to let it, he's not trying to throw it hard,
but he shows it accurate and he throws it in
good time. Alex Is Ax is a great third baseman too,
back as well.

Speaker 6 (27:24):
The diplomatic spencer Arraghetti here on Sports Talk seven ninety.
You know not to you know, first things first, obviously
the Yankees are in town, but you're slated to pitch
in the opener at Texas later on this week, and
you look at the standings right now, and they're closer
to Seattle than Seattle is close to you. Guys, I've

(27:44):
got to think that somebody that's as competitive as you
likes the fact that this is a race this late
in the season. But I got to tell you there's
a lot of Astros fans that are they're used to
it being more comfortable this time of year. Do you
like the fact that everything is so bunched together this
late in the year, I wouldn't say I like it.

Speaker 8 (28:01):
Obviously. Last year was a little bit of a different situation.
We knew come to September. We were just trying to
play our best baseball and being a great spot going
into the playoffs. Obviously, right now, like you said, it's
a tight race, and I do love it. I love
the fact that I can go out there and it
means a lot. It feels like it's the playoff game
before the playoffs start. Yeah, I think that that's gonna

(28:22):
be awesome for me. That's what pitching against Texas felt
like last year too. There was a few games here
at minute Made where it was like sold out crowd
Friday night division rival in town, and I love that feeling. Man,
There's really nothing in the world that beats it.

Speaker 7 (28:35):
Is There something to be said for your body and
your arm being a touch fresher at this point in
the season, just simply because you missed the time in
the months off.

Speaker 8 (28:45):
Most definitely, And I feel like I kind of got
like the spring training starts and the other stuff out
of the way. I'm starting to feel like I'm catching
my rhythm a little bit, and I feel great. I'm
bouncing back, great, feel ready to go every time it's
my turn to take the mound. And obviously that's a
luxury and not everybody has at this stage in the air.
I mean, Hunter's at one hundred and sixty innings. He's
still weathering it like a champ, just because that's the

(29:07):
diesel fuel in him, you know. But I definitely feel
lucky to be a little bit fresher than most when
it matters the most.

Speaker 7 (29:13):
What do you do on days that the diesel pitches?
How do you go about your day? And how much
attention are you paying to him and his emotions which
are always outward and awesome on the mound.

Speaker 8 (29:25):
I just sit back and enjoy the show man. You
always know what you're going to get when he's out there,
and it's nothing but fuel and compete.

Speaker 6 (29:32):
I've always wondered this, and since you're a starting pitcher,
I'll ask you this question because you don't seem like
the type, but I'm going to get to the bottom
of it. Are you one of those guys that doesn't
want to talk to anybody on your day that you start?
Are you approachable and do you think that's still a
big thing in the majors or is that kind of
tapered off.

Speaker 8 (29:50):
I think it's like a case to case basis for
the most part. I mean myself, I'm probably somewhere in
the middle. Like there's a couple hours when I show
up where I'm cool to talk with everybody, you hang out,
excuse me, mess around a little bit, but then once
it gets closer to game time, I'm pretty locked in.
I got the headphones on, I'm in the in the
media room doing my scouting report, making sure I know

(30:10):
everybody like the back of my hand, and then once
it's time to go out there, I'm pretty to myself.
I think that's still a big thing for a lot
of guys as well. I mean, I'm sure that you've
heard this before, but I watched JV last year, and
if somebody looked at him the wrong way on it
start day, you hear about it the next day, not
that day, because he's not going to break his focus.
But I mean, I think there's something to be said

(30:32):
about that. Hunter's probably a little bit more like like
JV than he is like me. But I definitely i'd,
like I said, I'm somewhere probably right in the middle. Again,
there's a time and place for focus as well.

Speaker 5 (30:44):
What kind of words would they use.

Speaker 8 (30:50):
Trying to get me in trouble?

Speaker 7 (30:51):
I think we know the answer, probably rhetorical. We can't
ask you what's what's coming out of those headphones on
game day?

Speaker 11 (30:57):
For you?

Speaker 5 (30:57):
What are we listening to?

Speaker 8 (30:59):
Oh? A lot of like two thousands and nineties rock.
I really I've kind of always liked that, kind of
grew up on it because of my dad, raged against
the machine, malice and chains, you know, that type of vibe.
But I'll do rap music sometimes too. If I'm really
feeling myself.

Speaker 6 (31:20):
Trying to think of, like, who's your favorite alternative group
from the late nineties early two thousands, then.

Speaker 8 (31:27):
I think Alison Changed probably really gets me going.

Speaker 6 (31:30):
Is there a particular track I knew you were going
to say that that's awesome?

Speaker 1 (31:35):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (31:36):
Yeah, you seem like a rooster every start, like it's
gone to battle.

Speaker 12 (31:39):
You know.

Speaker 5 (31:40):
Love that, love to hear that.

Speaker 6 (31:42):
Well, Spencer, we really appreciate the time, good luck the
rest of the way. It's so good to see you
back out there doing your thing and obviously rounding into
form real quick on that your last start it was
kind of touching go that first inning, but it looked
like you bounced back after that and you looked like
the guy that we were used to seeing before the injury.
Is that how you felt that win or what was
your assessment your last start?

Speaker 8 (32:03):
Yeah, I felt like myself again. I feel like I
had I mean the one in Miami, it was like
first one back in the big leagues. Nerves are a
little bit higher than normal. I feel like I made
some dumb pitches and some dumb counts, But the other day,
I feel like I really got back to what made
me successful last year in the second half. And I'm
sorry to feel like myself every day so.

Speaker 6 (32:23):
Well as I can speak for all three of us,
we all hate the Rangers. So go ahead and do
your thing on Friday, and we're looking forward to it.

Speaker 8 (32:30):
Awesome man, thank you.

Speaker 5 (32:31):
I will all right.

Speaker 6 (32:32):
Spencer Raghetti here on Sports Talk seven ninety. Good conversation there.
We will react to that when we come back on
a Tuesday edition of the show.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
The Age on Sports Talk seven ninety with you with Dom.

Speaker 5 (32:48):
Great stuff with Spencer Araghtti.

Speaker 7 (32:49):
If you missed it to we'll be able to catch
it on Sports Talk seven ninety dot com or via
the iHeartRadio app because you subscribed to the eighteen podcast
and that's where it is found. Some of you listen
that way each and every day. Certainly appreciate you in
order to find us on the dial seven nine zero
on the A M side. We got a lot to
get to off of what he had to say and
in general obviously started off with a question about the

(33:10):
starting pitching Hunter Brown, the opener of this homestand against Colorado.
Six runs allowed, and then it seemed like that's all
they allowed the rest of the way, because that's all
they allowed the rest of the way from each of
the six guys, including Spencer that got the ball, no
hit baseball from Christian Javier. Six innings of spectacular pitching,
even giving up three runs from Luis Garcia, the only

(33:32):
non quality start over those last six or seven, because
technically Hunter's was a quality start.

Speaker 5 (33:38):
And that for the runs were unearned.

Speaker 7 (33:40):
The only one that wasn't a quality start was merely
because the Astros wanted to get Jason Alexander out of
a jam in the sixth inning, so he only went
five and two thirds, but an opportunity to win every
single one of those games based on how your starting
pitching went, and you might be able to say the
same thing about the opponents. And that's why the Astros
didn't win more than just four of those games, splitting

(34:01):
the four game set with the Angels and taking two
out of three from the Rockies. Their offense was obviously
in yet another funk throughout much of this homestand the
manner in which they scored their eight runs in yesterday's
game is a lot more like I do think this
team can play without going over the top. I'm not
saying they're gonna hit four hundred with runners in scoring
position every day. I'm not saying they're gonna hit two

(34:22):
home runs every day, but just a couple of pick
me ups here and there. A two out double to
bring home or run, a two out hit to make
sure you're not squandering first and second with nobody out
you're not squandering you, a no out bunt to get
a guy into scoring position that you don't execute properly.
Just a bunch of little ways to make sure you're

(34:44):
not going back to your pitcher going on the mound
and knowing, well, I should be up one nothing, I
should be up five nothing, I should be up four
to nothing something like that, and their starters responded pretty
well to pitching in nothing but basically tight situations. Was
at the game on Sunday. Unfortunately, the Stros' bats were not.
I do think they faced an outstanding starter and he's
got the six best era Soriano does on the road

(35:07):
this entire season. That's what it looked like that day.
We saw Lance mccullors out of the bullpen for the
first time. First inning was clean, although lengthy, and a
second inning obviously got into trouble, gave up a couple
of runs and a little bit closer. Game was less so,
but the Astros weren't doing anything offensively and it just
got that much more difficult after his appearance.

Speaker 5 (35:26):
Don't know that it's long term.

Speaker 7 (35:28):
They were able to expand the rosters like everybody will
for most teams that didn't play yesterday, that comes today.
But that's how Luis Garcia is on the roster, it's
how Taylor tremmell is on the roster. They obviously were
in a six man rotation even without Lance mccullor's being
a part of it. And it's all among the things
they have to consider moving forward, how do you want
to continue? You know, aj Bluebaugh also pitched.

Speaker 5 (35:50):
In that game.

Speaker 7 (35:50):
With Lance mccullors, I would expect he's available, if not today,
but soon probably in the Yankee Series. A little bit
different with Lance, not only in the number of pitches
he threw, but how they want to use him as
a bullpen arm, all things related to his injury. But
as they go down the stretch, these are questions that
slowly will be answered, and part of that answer is

(36:12):
all those pitchers that otherwise would have been here if
not for them being hurt, the four left handed pitchers
that have been hurt over the last couple of months.
While with the Astros, I would suggest you're not going
to see any of them during the regular season. I
don't know if everybody was already under that impression, but
the update from the Astros on Brandon Walter and John
Rooney and Bennett Susa and Josh Hayter, none of them

(36:34):
are throwing. I don't think any of them are expected
to be throwing at this point in time for their
respective injuries a pair of elbow inflammations, the pronator strain
with Susa, and obviously the shoulder capsule strain with Hater
doesn't mean none of them could potentially be available for
the postseason, but I do think it's probably Hater and
nobody else. I don't think Susa, Rooney, or Walter will

(36:55):
be throwing any twenty twenty five pitches for Houston.

Speaker 5 (36:58):
It's a little bit of a guess. Josh said as
much anyways.

Speaker 6 (37:01):
I mean, he wasn't exactly being a doctor, but he said,
it's going to take this long before I even start
picking up a baseball, and then it's going to take
this longer ramp up. And that timeline is right in
line right now.

Speaker 7 (37:10):
But gone on also that he doesn't have a left
elbow issue. Each of the other ones are left elbow problems,
and I think they are, especially for a guy like Susa,
even for a different reason. He missed an entire year
a year ago, came back and as the best season
of his career. Brandon Walter was injured for much of
twenty twenty four, came back and was enjoying the best
season of his career. I think they're going to be

(37:32):
very careful, overly careful, if that's even if the timeline
even suggests that. Maybe I just don't think that they'll
they'll unfortunately have those guys available to him well.

Speaker 6 (37:42):
And as diplomatic as Spencer eric Getty was about certain topics,
even we probably couldn't have gotten him to be well.
He probably would have tried, but you mentioned it, like
save for yesterday with Luis, these guys, these pitchers were
electric for the most part.

Speaker 5 (38:02):
I'm saying they got no run support.

Speaker 6 (38:04):
The offense is just like and I look, I get
when guys are in and out and you're having to
juggle things, but like, the Astros are healthy enough now
that they should be able to They don't have to
put up eight runs every game, but they should be
able to put up because again it goes back to
what we always talk about, there's guys on base. Like
every inning they're they're leaving guys stranded every single inning.

(38:25):
It's why they lost the two games in between they
I mean, it was insane how many guys they were
leaving on.

Speaker 7 (38:30):
They hit singles, they don't walk as much as they should,
and they don't hit behind the runners way most teams will, especially.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Team Lifelong Houston Sports guys named at him talking your
team's Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the A Teams.

Speaker 6 (38:59):
Welcome in two hour number two on a Tuesday edition
of The A Team. It's Sports Talk seven to ninety.
It's now Space City Home Network. As the simulcast has begun.
If you missed any or all of the opening hour,
well you already missed the interview with Spencer Arighedty and
Mike I declare. It was fantastic, had nothing to do
with us and everything to do with his answers. But yeah,
you'll be able to catch that on the podcast asap,

(39:22):
on the website and lots of other places we can
get that to you. Good stuff from him, as he'll
be starting the opener of the Rangers series once the
Astros leave town. First things first, they've got the Yankees
starting tonight for the opener of three, after splitting a
four game set that wrapped around the holiday weekend with
the balt or with the Angels, I should say almost

(39:43):
said Baltimore Orioles with the Angels over the weekend, bookending
two losses in between with the win yesterday and a
win on Thursday. And then of course it's Texans game
week finally. But we were talking a lot about the
college weekend that was Arch Manning falling flat on his face.

(40:05):
Just nothing out of the ordinary from that game between
Texas and Ohio State, and nothing that I didn't expect
to see. I guess maybe I thought I'd be pleasantly
a little bit more surprised by Arch at some point,
but it just never really came to fruition, and even
when they had a chance to shockingly win that game
near the end, but just the decision making, just the

(40:28):
overall look of Arch Manning in the pocket and what
he was not able to do is something that I'll
take away from that. But like you said, over the weekend,
wex a top five defense from Ohio State, and they
looked like it. The Texas Longhorns have a very good
defense as well, but you're not playing defenses like that

(40:49):
most of the time in the early part of the season,
so something had to give.

Speaker 5 (40:54):
He didn't have to play like crap. Well that's fair.

Speaker 7 (40:56):
I mean, I'm not doing a sugarcoat at all. That
was a terrible performance.

Speaker 5 (40:59):
Defense.

Speaker 7 (41:00):
It's had a lot to do with it, but he
just played bad. He just played badly. He looked like
an awful quarterback. He didn't look like a great recruit,
didn't look like a guy had been on campus for
two years, didn't look like a guy who knew the
offense very well.

Speaker 5 (41:10):
He just looked terrible.

Speaker 7 (41:11):
There's no other way around it. You can play great
defense all you want. You can have an inexperienced line
in front of you all you want. You can have
an NFL head coach scheming you up and spending all
off seasons scheming you up. All these things happened, but
you still don't have to play the way he did.
First pass the game, Guy's absolutely wide open. You only
missed him by ten yards. You only under threw him

(41:32):
by ten yards. The interception, I've seen it analyzed, not
only live in game, but by many after Oh it's
like the receiver or the dB ran the route. If
he underthrows it by five yards, he under underthrew it
by at least five yards. The easiest interception ever. He
did run the route. But if the balls where it's
supposed to be, the only player that has a chance
to catch it is your player. But his player had

(41:54):
no chance to catch it because he had further to
come back to the ball, because there was now where
it nowhere near where it needed to be. In the
red zone play calling. Unfortunately, the trademark of Sark, which
some have pushed back against, and I'm kind of there
no longer there. It was awful. I don't even want to.
I want to, and I don't want to. I'm here
on the radio, and we analyze things, we give our opinions,

(42:16):
and I cannot believe this many years into their respective careers,
these moron offensive coaches, and Sark is one of them,
for the play call he sent in on fourth and goal.
You cannot be this mathematically stupid. It's math. It's the
easiest thing ever. It's concrete. I know that if you
have two here and I have two there, and I

(42:39):
put them together, I get four. Math is concrete. It's
just like the All Star break in Major League Baseball.
You're not splitting the season into halves, two equal parts.
You're splitting it into two parts, but they're not equal,
so they're not halves. It's the same reason that ticks
me off about fourth and goal. From inside the one,
how many thousand pounds was your center trying to block

(43:02):
all by himself and that's where you decided to run
the football. I mean I knew that before they lined up,
and it was even worse. After they lined up, Sark
talked about, well, we didn't want to let them substitute there. Great,
you think they didn't employ any defensive tackles on third down?
All of their defensive tackles are one inch over the football.
They could have licked the football if they wanted to

(43:24):
before it was snapped. And then they bring their other linebackers,
an other interior linemen all over the football. You've got
your five guys blocking and they've got nine guys over
the football. Do you not know math, how are you
going to get in with your weakest offensive player strength wise,
that's who if you chosen to carry the football. Ohio

(43:44):
State at first and goal, guess what they did. They
handed to their running back and he ran through a
huge hole on the left side of his line.

Speaker 5 (43:50):
But not until fourth down cause.

Speaker 7 (43:52):
He created He said, I don't know, I got this
massive playbook, I got these massive players. Maybe try something
that might work. And fourth and goal is different than
fourth and one from the fifty And these coaches still
add that into their conversation, went questioned about it, Oh,
we had a fourth and goal. Oh, you had a
fourth and one earlier that we got and then the
worst of all, Hey man, arch said it. Players say it,

(44:15):
They'll never stop saying it. I'm convinced of this, hey man,
that's on us. We got to be able to get
a yard. No, you don't have to be able to
get a yard that way. You got to add that
to your statement. How are you going to get a yard?
It wasn't even difficult for them to stop you. You
took the snap and you fell down. Play over, stupid, stupid, stupid.
You got a billion other plays to call, a billion

(44:36):
other players to utilize. Heck, snap the ball and jump
over the top, expose the football because the second across
is the goal line.

Speaker 5 (44:43):
You're in. It's a touchdown. Plays over.

Speaker 7 (44:45):
We've seen quarterbacks do that, mannings do that. Nonetheless, one
play call didn't lose them the game, just like last
year's game where yours got stripsacked by Sawyer. I guess
you could say didn't lose them the game. But man,
they did a lot of things wrong, and you're it
was fourteen to seven. But I can't get over the
performance and all the other parts of playing quarterback, mechanics,

(45:08):
field vision, decision making on read options, all those things.
They were so embarrassingly bad throwing angle.

Speaker 5 (45:15):
This don't forget the throwing angle. It was just all
it was just awful.

Speaker 7 (45:18):
They're gonna win this week, they're gonna win next week,
and they're gonna win the following week. But man, they
have to figure out what they're I really do mean
this after one week. And I'm not mister panic guy.
You guys pretty well know that that's me.

Speaker 5 (45:32):
I use that all they have.

Speaker 7 (45:33):
I think they have way more work to do. And
they actually and they still have this. Go look at
the SEC from this past week and the sixteen teams,
the other fifteen teams that are there. If you stink
in the SEC and you're at the bottom of the standings,
or you're not Alabama or Texas, who technically at zero
and one are at the bottom of the standings, if

(45:53):
you're one of the worst teams, you're on Texas's schedule
this year. They have them all. All these patsy speak
that the SEC has all the back end teams. They
also have Georgia and Florida. They had better be ready
for those games. We'll find out a ton about OU
this week. The college football game of the week, it's
not the game of the week on the Stone Cold
locks this week, even though it's the only Top twenty

(46:15):
five matchup, but Michigan at Oklahoma. I think both of
those teams may be a touch overrated, but I think
they're both very good football teams. They're both breaking in
new for them quarterbacks. Michigan a literally new quarterback and
obviously Matira has a ton of college football experience, but
not with Oklahoma yet.

Speaker 6 (46:34):
Mention the Yankees are in town for the start of
three fromber Goes opposite Max Freed. Astros had their way
with Max Freed the last time they faced off against him.

Speaker 7 (46:44):
The last time they faced off against him without jord
On Alvarez.

Speaker 5 (46:47):
Right, Yeah, I think so, just like tonight.

Speaker 7 (46:52):
Does he need rest's let's hear Joe Spotty will address
that when the Astros skipper speaks with the media a
little bit later this afternoon. Designated hitter today is one
of your two catchers, jain or DS. Your catcher today
is a Sar Salazar. He'll do the catching for from
ber Valdez paying your career Altuve. Altuve will be asked

(47:13):
to use his glove Christian Walker at first. Uh Diaz
Bat's fifth Reus is your second baseman, so now you
know where al Tuve will be with his glove, Cam
Smith's and right Dubon's in center and Sesar Bat's ninth.

Speaker 6 (47:29):
I like the Astros in this series because of their
starting pitching, but if the offense does what it did
prior to basically yesterday, it could be a long series.

Speaker 5 (47:39):
Yeah, you're you're going to in a game like this.

Speaker 7 (47:42):
Other than whatever the reason is for jord On, jord
On with bad against every pitcher. He also Happs to
be unbelievable against lefties, technically better against lefties than righty's
over the course of his career, so that's certainly not
the reason he's not in tonight's lineup. But the Astros
have eight right handed hitters in tonight's lineup against left
Max Freed.

Speaker 5 (48:00):
Obviously, Hey, sus.

Speaker 7 (48:01):
Sanchez is sitting Salazar doing the catching because I think
they want to give Janer Diaz the day off from
catching with Victor Karattini, probably back no later than the
road trip, possibly back before this homestand ends. But Salazard
had quitted himself very well catching. Obviously, he caught from
ber Valdez during his seven innings of shutout. Baseball earlier

(48:25):
than this home stand. So he's back behind the dish.

Speaker 5 (48:27):
Tonight and calling the game.

Speaker 6 (48:29):
I mean, I can't I can't speak enough about how
that that went the last time out. But yeah, I
think it has become or has become, a very very
interesting race, not just in the AO West. By the way,
shout out to the Mariners for just getting walloped last
night and giving that game back to the Astros that
the Astros squandered the night before.

Speaker 5 (48:48):
Where are the Mariners playing these days?

Speaker 13 (48:50):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (48:51):
Oh, they're playing minor league baseball in Tampa. Oh that's right.

Speaker 7 (48:56):
Well, how many runs did Tampa score in that minor
league ballpark last night? That's that's what I thought.

Speaker 5 (49:01):
Well, I couldn't the Big Dumper do more?

Speaker 7 (49:04):
They had a ten nothing lead before the Mariners even
scored in last night's game. The Rays is where they
are there in Tampa Exhibition Stadium is probably a better
way to put it. But yeah, Rasmussen one of the
best the Rays have to offer against Brian Wu, the
best the Mariners have to offer, and yeah, an opportunity
to extend the division lead. It is at three, it

(49:27):
is only four and a half over the Rangers. Rangers
are at the Diamondbacks later on tonight.

Speaker 5 (49:32):
But the suddenly surging Rangers.

Speaker 7 (49:35):
They are on a six game winning streak, so they're
not only just four and a half back of Houston,
they're only one and a half back of Seattle for
the final wild card spot.

Speaker 6 (49:47):
It would be the most funny thing ever if they've
passed up the Mariners with Corey Seeger and Marcus Simeon
on the shelf, oh in Nate Uvaldi, the bum.

Speaker 7 (50:00):
Heart like what they're doing is clearly not the expectation
when two of the more experienced bats in their line.
It's not like either one of us having a great season,
but you lose something. Those as are out, They technically
don't lose anything. They've won six games in a row.
Texans heading into the season some financial changes on their roster. Yes,
we'll have one of those for you coming up next

(50:20):
here on the A Team.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 7 (50:29):
This is the A Team on a Tuesday, our first
show of the week following yesterday. We have a chance
to talk a little football here. Adam Wexler, Adam Clint
here with you on the A Team mentioned the Texans
change their financial structure just to touch. Davis Mills has
been reups for an additional season with an additional year
on his extension, so he's now signed to the Texans
through this year and the upcoming twenty twenty six seas

(50:52):
and inside the AFC South is where we're going. We'll
make the tour around the division over the course of
the week leading up to the season. We start in
Jacksonville with Dimitris Harvey joining us from the Florida Times Union.
Jacksonville dot com is where you'll find his work and
some of that work was running through the entire Jacksonville
schedule earlier today and I definitely want to get into that, Demetrius.

(51:12):
But first, if you'll allow, if you're on and you
can hear us very well, need to answer this two
questions real quick. Tell me who are these two gentlemen
speaking that you hear right now, duo.

Speaker 10 (51:27):
And they will elevate our ecosystem.

Speaker 7 (51:31):
Who are those two gentlemen? Are listeners here in Houston?

Speaker 13 (51:34):
Just heard from Jack Warris, head coach Lean Cohen and
general manager James Gladson the New brain Trust.

Speaker 7 (51:42):
What are your thoughts about the New brain Trust in Jacksonville?
Before they each go into their first NFL games this weekend.

Speaker 13 (51:50):
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, in all seriousness,
it felt like it was time for the team to
sort of do a clean house. You know that not
everybody likes that term, but that's sort of what they did,
where they brought into young, innovative personnel people you know
in the head coach and Leanne Pellenho's only thirty nine,
and then James Gladstone, I think.

Speaker 5 (52:08):
Is only thirty four.

Speaker 13 (52:09):
So you know, those are two young, up and coming
guys who are supposed to transform this franchise. And I
feel like from what I've seen throughout obviously since both
of them were hired back in February, you know, up
until now, it just seems like they at least know
exactly what they want out of their team. They have
a vision, and there's a reason why they turned over

(52:31):
nearly half the roster when it comes down to the
fifty three men roster, and so yeah, you know, so far,
it seems like they're on the right path. But you know,
it doesn't really matter until the games happen.

Speaker 5 (52:41):
Certainly not Texans.

Speaker 7 (52:42):
On their schedule in Week three, they open the season
with the Panthers. Two big things clearly on tap for
the GM and the head coach. That kind of will
play out over time, the clear desire to make it
work and give Trevor Lawrence the opportunity to make it work.
But I'll start with the question that rested on the

(53:03):
GM's shoulders. He went all in in this first draft
and went up the board and took Travis Hunter, who
was probably not one hundred percent as the season begins,
but we'll see time on both sides. So starting there,
what'd you think of that bold stroke and just what
do you think of that that player's immediate and long
term future.

Speaker 13 (53:22):
Yeah, it was kind of it was kind of Blatstone's
first kind of show me sort of move and in
terms of you know, he had the talk about being
bold and to talk about, you know, what he has
a vision for in terms of this franchise, and he
really showed it to everybody on that day to make
that bold decision to move up, sitting away at first

(53:42):
round pick to the Browns and take Travis Hunter and
then to the Jaguars.

Speaker 12 (53:45):
Spread it.

Speaker 13 (53:46):
Yeah, this is this entire time ever since you know,
Travis got on campus or on with the franchise, you know,
back in May. They had him sort of learning both
sides of the ball. This is not a situation where
they're kind of just throwing him out there on offense
or thrown him out there on defense. No, he's in
the meeting rooms of both and his position groups, and

(54:07):
he's practicing on both sides of the ball. And so
far that experiment has has looked good. Obviously, we have
to know what it looks like in a game. But
you know, they they they've tested it out a couple
of times. They ran him in team drills. You know,
at one point he's a wide receiver and then on
the next play he's at corner. It's really, uh, it's
really fascinating to see, honestly, but yeah.

Speaker 5 (54:29):
You know it.

Speaker 13 (54:30):
It's a situation where I think that they're gonna just
try it out, and I don't really see them letting
go of the rope until Travis maybe tells them and
you know, maybe this will work out.

Speaker 6 (54:39):
In all the success or failure I think of the
jagsill ultimately comes down to Trevor Lawrence. And on September two,
twenty twenty five, what what does Demitrius Harvey think of
where Trevor Lawrence is in his career.

Speaker 13 (54:55):
Yeah, I think he's in uh, he's in that sort
of middle ground spot where he's either going to see
Chris Winn at this point, you know, it's your five
and he knows it, and he said, it's it's go time.
You know, this is the time. You can't have a
season like he had last year where he missed the
seven games. You can't have a season like he had
the year before where he was banged up to end
the year, and then they don't want to miss the playoffs.

(55:16):
You know, he has to be healthy first and foremost,
and then he has to make the right decision.

Speaker 5 (55:19):
With the ball.

Speaker 13 (55:19):
You know, coming into last year, he was one of
the most turnover prone quarterbacks in the league. I think
he had sixty turnovers over his first three years in
the league.

Speaker 5 (55:27):
And that's that's.

Speaker 13 (55:28):
Something that you know, a guy like Josh Allen can overcome,
but Trevor hadn't shown that.

Speaker 5 (55:33):
He has the ability to do that. But with saying that, you.

Speaker 13 (55:35):
Know, I've seen Trevor every snap he's ever played for
or the Jaguars, in practice or in a game, and
I really do feel like he's a guy who can
propel your franchise, and I think that he can be
a franchise quarterback.

Speaker 5 (55:47):
So we'll see if they have the pieces this year.

Speaker 7 (55:50):
I said earlier, it feels like they want to do
everything to allow him to succeed. And I thought a
couple of years ago when they went all in on
free agency and all the money they spent on Christian
Kirk and a groom in the group they brought in there,
I thought that was then, and then I look at
their skill guys currently, So I'm curious what you think
of that first round picks on wide receivers.

Speaker 5 (56:09):
The last two years.

Speaker 7 (56:10):
They obviously hit big on Brian Thomas, and the hope
is they'll do the same with Travis Hunter. But it's
clearly just year two and year one for them, respectively,
the two backs that probably split time, and then their
group of tight ends. Do you think they have a
just an offense as a whole? Is this a plus
roster on offense or much more middling or below average?

Speaker 13 (56:30):
Well, I wouldn't call it below average. I think that
they've invested enough in the wide receiver position, like you said,
with Travis Hunter and Brian Thomas, I do think Klie
Travis as a wide receiver. I think Kylie more of him,
probably as a corner, but you know, I think both
both positions suit him well.

Speaker 5 (56:46):
And then when you look at the.

Speaker 13 (56:47):
Tight end position, I think Liam Cohen has shown in
his time with the Bucks, and then obviously Sean McVay
has shown in the past that the tight end doesn't
necessarily have to be a focal point of the offense.
And I think they do have a tight end in Britain.
Strange who can become that sort of safety blanket. So
to to overall answer your question, I do think this
is an offense that is a little bit above average,

(57:09):
or it can be, but we really have to see
it all come together. They shifted the entire offensive line essentially,
you know, three out of five are two out of five,
and really three out of five are pretty much Brandon
new It's it's gonna take some time, but I do
think that this cast of players is probably better suited
for Trevor Lawrence and his development maybe than the last one.

Speaker 6 (57:29):
You talk about the offense specifically a running back position,
especially with the way they they drafted, but also who's
been there and who's going to be a free agent
at the end of the year.

Speaker 5 (57:40):
What what do you make of that room right now?
The running back position.

Speaker 13 (57:44):
Yeah, that's a question that everybody has, you know, it's
a it's a it's a room very much in flux.
I wouldn't, you know, for fantasy football purposes, I wouldn't necessarily,
you know, select from that group, just because you don't
really know. You know, by week six it could be
base On two and getting more or the slaps. By
week ten it could be Tank Bigsby. You really don't
know what to make of it. But what I do

(58:06):
know is that all four of those backs have shown
by the abilities, you know, throughout training camp and throughout
the preseason. We've seen Tramsy team obviously for the last
few years, saw what Tank Bigsby could do last year.
But Basee Tuton, his speed is very evident, his power
even is very evident, you know. And then Laquaid Allen
has done a great job at pass blocking and catching

(58:27):
out of the backfield.

Speaker 5 (58:28):
You know, if you.

Speaker 13 (58:29):
Guys think about it, you know, with Travis Hunter being
able to play on both sides of the ball, that
kind of frees up a spot on game day. So
I wouldn't be surprised necessarily if the Jags go into
the game day with four running backs up.

Speaker 7 (58:41):
He went through the exercise over Jacksonville dot Com the
Florida Times Union of running through every game this season,
and these two numbers don't seem like that matchup. But
I think with your reasoning behind it, which I'll ask
you to give to our listeners, maybe it does five
and one finish in the division for the Jaguars, including
a split with the Texans home and home, and then
eight to nine is all they finished with overall, which

(59:03):
is still doubling their win total from last year. But
how did you rationalize that?

Speaker 13 (59:08):
Yeah, you know, I don't think very highly of this division.
I think that the Texans, you know, have shown faults
obviously in the past, and the offensive line questions and
there's some there there, there's some extra questions with that franchise.
But you know, I think highly of them enough for
them to split with the Jaguars or even sweep them potentially.
But as far as the Titans and the Colts go,
I just felt like the Jaguars should have an advantage.

(59:29):
You know, Daniel Jones in Indianapolis, and then you have
a rookie quarterback with Tennessee. So you know that in
terms of the division, I felt like that was sort
of more in a vacuum in a bubble. And then
the rest of the games, yeah.

Speaker 4 (59:40):
You know, they they can't.

Speaker 13 (59:41):
Get over the hump against some some teams that that
maybe they should, like the Cardinals or or or what
have you. But they do defeat a Panther's team, they
defeat the Texans. I feel like that that would be
a pretty solid start to the season. And yeah, you know,
I don't think that this team is necessarily ready to
push throughout the entire year, but that late season push
could come up, and you know, it's only one or

(01:00:03):
two wins that could completely flip it over to a
playoff team.

Speaker 7 (01:00:07):
Four of the final six games of the season are
inside the AFC South, only against the Titans and Cold
so it certainly could play out that way. I'll look
forward to hopefully catching up with you again this season
two matchups between the Jags and the Texans, and look
forward to reading more of your work.

Speaker 5 (01:00:20):
Appreciate your time today, Appreciate you guys. Have a good one.

Speaker 7 (01:00:24):
Demetrius Harvey Jacksonville dot com, Florida Times Union our first
stop on the AFC South Tour here on the eighteen.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
The eighteen on sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (01:00:43):
It is the a team Sports Talk seven ninety Space
City Home Network. Thanks again to Demetrius Harvey, Jags reporter
for the Florida Times Union Jacksonville dot com. So he's
got I'm assuming Texans, Jack Colts, Titans.

Speaker 7 (01:01:02):
I would have to guess on how he has the
Jags and Titans beyond definitely the last two of the
four because the article itself, and we obviously didn't ask
him anymore, was just literally going through each game this
season had them starting two and one wins over the
Panthers and Texans, both at home.

Speaker 5 (01:01:18):
Basically, he thinks the.

Speaker 7 (01:01:18):
Jaguars will be awful on the road, we'll take advantage
of the two quarterback situations in Indianapolis and in Tennessee,
and will be well below five hundred for much of
the season.

Speaker 6 (01:01:29):
It's hard to argue with that, just as it pertains
to the Texans, because no matter what's been going on
with these two organizations from two thousand and two on,
that has actually been the quote best rivalry in the
division because the Colts kicked the Texans heads in for
like the first ten years plus, and the Titans did

(01:01:49):
for a large chunk of that as well. It felt like,
no matter what was going on, there was a split
almost every single year. I don't have the numbers in
front of me, I do, but it feels like that.
How oft am I No, No, those numbers. You didn't
give any But you're dead solid perfect on the analysis
of what their record has been against those three teams
during the time they have existed. What do you think

(01:02:12):
the actual numbers are? And it's thirty six games? So
if I'm talking about that, I'm looking at I don't know,
seventeen eighteen wins for the Texans against the Jags.

Speaker 7 (01:02:26):
Way more than that. Really, I said thirty six, I
meant forty six. Oh well, now that the numbers have changed,
that's a very important let's say, I'm gonna say more
so the thirteen thirty two and one against Indianapolis.

Speaker 5 (01:02:42):
Golly, Peyton Manning kicked the crap out of Texans.

Speaker 7 (01:02:45):
They're twenty two and twenty four against the Titans.

Speaker 5 (01:02:48):
And a lot of that's been made up in recent years.
So what do you think they are against the Jaguars.
What was the Titans record again? Twenty two and twenty four.
Is there a tie in there.

Speaker 7 (01:02:57):
The only tie they have in the division is the
one I gave you, Cindy.

Speaker 6 (01:03:00):
I'm gonna say they've got twenty seven wins.

Speaker 7 (01:03:04):
They're thirty one and fifteen all the time. They've been very,
very good against them over the course of time, and
I honestly think they, you know, the Texans should. I
wish they were in a position where they would dominate
the division to the point of going six and zero
with her. As Demetrius pointed out, offensive line, I'm not
ready to go there. So that's their problem. And this

(01:03:27):
first week, which we're going to get into every day
this week, we're already down to just four days of shows. Uh,
the matchup again for their offensive line, it's a pretty
sizable one, pretty significant issue for them. I don't know
the answer to this call. I hope the answer is yes.
Do we have time for the Joe Aspota replay here,
let's hear from Joe Aspota made his weekly visit on
The Matt Thomas Show with Ross here's your manager, Joe Aspota.

Speaker 12 (01:03:51):
Yeah, and you know, during during that period, you know,
I've seen players in my experience where they start creating
you know, these doubts and securities about am I able
were going to be able to get back on the
mound right, especially after a few setbacks that he had
while his recovery, and they starts taking getting themselves and
and then and for us, for me who have known

(01:04:13):
Louis for a very long time and knowing you know
the character of the human and how strong mentally he
is and you know, a man of faith like you know,
it's for us to continue to encourage him that things
are going to be okay. It's going to take some time.
And when you see someone overcome those challenging and getting
back on you know, seeing him back pitching again, you know,

(01:04:35):
it's it's special because these guys have worked really hard
to get to the major leagues, to have success of
the major leagues. We have seen Louis being a really
good pitcher here for many many years, and just to
see him accomplished right he did yesterday, it was very
special moment.

Speaker 14 (01:04:48):
You know, Joe, I don't want to give away company secrets,
but people are like, well, you know, his velocity wasn't
as good as it was pre injury, and I'm thinking, well,
my god, his arms been in a sling for a
long period of time and maybe he'll never beat to
that point. But have you been told about what that
could be or is he going to be a guy
that can tap out at ninety two? And let me
tell you, Joe, as you know, there are guys in

(01:05:09):
Major League Baseball as long as the command is good,
you can live with ninety two at the big leagues.

Speaker 12 (01:05:13):
For me, this is what I tell everyone, like, we
need to give him time. It's two years this guy
hasn't pitched on a major league mount. He has over
you know, he has had setbacks, he's coming back from
a very ugly injury. Sometime he takes pictures time to
get back to their normal, you know, v low and
you know show what they showed two years ago. For

(01:05:35):
me is I was just proud of the fact that
he works his tail off to get back on the
mount and through six innings, I guess a good lineup
and we should celebrate that. The velo that all this stuff.
We just got to give her some time.

Speaker 14 (01:05:50):
You've had of the last week's skip, A lot of
guys get on the base pass the runners in scoring
position numbers were just not to your level.

Speaker 5 (01:05:57):
And I'm sure, the frustrations.

Speaker 14 (01:05:59):
Uh yesterday was one off, but I think if you're
going to win this division, you got to have the
numbers better.

Speaker 5 (01:06:05):
Is an approach?

Speaker 8 (01:06:06):
Is it?

Speaker 12 (01:06:07):
Tell me?

Speaker 5 (01:06:07):
Tell me where it is.

Speaker 14 (01:06:08):
I don't even know what possibilities are about why this
team has struggled at times, and especially in the last
week with getting guys on but not able to touch
the pay station.

Speaker 12 (01:06:17):
Yeah, you know what, For me, it's like we are
getting we're getting the guys on. So our approach when
we're trying to get people on base, understanding our capabilities
and our strength as individuals and as a team, we
have really good approaches. But one people get on base,
sometimes we tend to get away from who we are

(01:06:37):
as individuals and know our strength and witnesses and also
recognize what pictures are trying to do to us. So
when we when we try to do a bit more
of what we can do and we try to get
the big hit when we don't really need to. We
could just get what the pictures gives us. Let the
guy on deck get the jump done. But sometimes in

(01:06:58):
the moment we want to be we want to be
in that spot, We want.

Speaker 8 (01:07:02):
To be the hero.

Speaker 12 (01:07:02):
We want to get the big again. I appreciate that
about the players. We want to be in the moment
and we want our guys to have that desire to
be in that spot. But also you have to kind
of control yourself, your emotions and get pitches that you
can handle, because the pictures they recognize that, and theyre
going to try to get us to, you know, swing
at pitches that they're not our pitches.

Speaker 9 (01:07:22):
Jordan Alvarez looking pretty good at the plate, looks like
he's drawn a lot of walks, had the home run
as well. Just overall, how are your conversations when been
like with him? Is he just back to the same
old Jordan or is there still a little bit of
work to be done.

Speaker 12 (01:07:34):
Yeah, you know, I think he you know, he is
physically and mentally in a good spot. I think we
need to steal monitor he's workload. He has missed four
months before returning, and we want to make sure that
we have him there for for this, you know, for
this month and and and and and postseason, if you know,
if we get to that point where we could play

(01:07:56):
deeping to October. We want to make sure that we
we take care of his body and make sure that
we building him, would build him up properly because we
want to keep him from the long run. But right now,
what I've seen is that that's have.

Speaker 3 (01:08:11):
Been really good.

Speaker 12 (01:08:13):
He feels good in the outfield, his body feels good.
But we got to steal monitor. He's worklow here as
we try to get him back and some of the
players who are also working in the self getting back
here to our lineup.

Speaker 6 (01:08:25):
Pretty much as your answer does it, we'll get Joe
just previewing what the lineup would be a few hours
ago here on sports.

Speaker 7 (01:08:31):
Available and hopefully necessary. A lot of their arms on
the back side of a game, they call them the
armbarn out there where their bullpen guys are. They throw
from the right side. It also doesn't matter which side
they throw from. Hopefully the game presents. Yeah, I think
this would be a good opportunity to send ord On
up to the plate.

Speaker 5 (01:08:51):
Pinch it, walk off. That'd be cool.

Speaker 6 (01:08:54):
I'd rather this the game not be in doubt, so
that doesn't have to be the case. If you're going
to give a guy like that, the day off is
Max freed, so I'm sure he's wanting to get a
bounce back performance in relative to the last time he
faced the Astros. We'll discuss that and more as we
continue here during the three.

Speaker 1 (01:09:10):
O'clock hour on The A Team, The A Team on
Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (01:09:21):
So, basically, according to Joe's spot on, I'm paraphrasing a
mighty just mighty lot, it's slowed management tonight for jord
On Alvarez.

Speaker 5 (01:09:30):
That is accurate. People aren't liking that on social media.

Speaker 7 (01:09:35):
I don't like it, but I it's fine.

Speaker 5 (01:09:37):
I get it. Well, if he's just dhing, isn't that
is not just dhing?

Speaker 6 (01:09:41):
I know, but if you were, wouldn't that be the
happy medium for something like this?

Speaker 7 (01:09:45):
I mean if he was dhing every game, maybe, but
he was on it. I mean like he was on
his feet almost all day yesterday.

Speaker 5 (01:09:52):
I just can't. I can't. How do you say that
with a straight face? My face was not straight. I'm
on TV. You guys know that. I just it doesn't.

Speaker 7 (01:10:01):
Yeah, I've all players to load manage. I'm not load
man Well, first of all, look at who they might
al Twovey's one hundred. You want to load manage him, Okay,
I guess I don't think he needs it. I think
it's foolish. Carlos Correaz playing third base. He's basically played
every game. He's missed one game. He shouldn't be load managed.
He's getting arrest he plays third base. Now, that's how

(01:10:23):
you've load managed him over to third base. And jord
On Alvarez is I think he's played. He's been in
left field three times now. He also knows where the
wall is, by the way, we'll get to that a
little later. I wouldn't be load managing him at all
unless you're doing it for the unfortunate but obvious, unspoken

(01:10:45):
and secret reason.

Speaker 5 (01:10:46):
He's had a flare up.

Speaker 7 (01:10:48):
Well, there's a he's told you or the doctor. I mean,
if the doctor said, look, he's fine, he's one hundred percent.
But with the uncertainty of the center this injury, with
the non surgical fix that we fixed it with by
not doing anything, we would advise you against having him

(01:11:09):
go up there and take all those swings every day,
somewhere between eight to fifteen swings a game, although his
numbers actually probably less than they would have expected. I
didn't expect teams to pitch around him as much as
they have, but they absolutely are at least once a game.
He hasn't at bat where there's nothing to swing at,
and he just takes the font stitches and he walks
up there, and again, I don't know why you would
treat him like that.

Speaker 5 (01:11:30):
He's not Mary Bonds.

Speaker 7 (01:11:31):
He's a major league baseball player that could produce like
some of the best, but he's not. I mean, you're
making him have an on base percentage of five hundred.
You're making his ops go over the thousand because you're
putting him on base so often just by not pitching
to him. But it's the right thing to do when
the Astros are slumping around him, and they were absolutely
in a miserable slump without him. They've added Korea started

(01:11:54):
last month, they've added yourd on for the end of
last month, and their offense was awful. Worst offensive month
of the season by a lot. This past month of attack.
To see that coming, they didn't even have one hundred
runs in their twenty eight games during the month. There
were only two teams down at that bottom end of
the not being able to hit the center and remark
on runs scored.

Speaker 5 (01:12:13):
But yeah, he's not in the lineup tonight.

Speaker 7 (01:12:15):
Heavy right handed looking against Max Freed, best matchup in
baseball tonight with two All Star pitchers out there, two
of the best in baseball for the last decade, and arguably,
along with Tark Schoobel, they're probably the best left handed
pitchers in baseball over the last handful of seasons, and
off of what Jordan or Fromber did in his last start,
hopefully that is more of the same that they get

(01:12:36):
tonight offensively. If I told you how poorly the Astros
played offensively, probably worthwhile to mention how the Yankees performed
offensively last month. At least they lead the majors and homers,
which is not very surprising, but they lead the majors
and homers by thirty one homers with another twenty five

(01:12:58):
games still remaining. They have the reigning Player of the
Week in the American League and Cody Bellinger, and they
led all of baseball in homers this past month fifty
nine bombs, more than two per game. Do strikeouts now
they led the majors and strikeout No, not quite. They
were fifth in the Majors in strikeouts. This past month.

Speaker 6 (01:13:20):
Been their mo for like a decade now, basically since
Judge got there, right, They're gonna hit.

Speaker 5 (01:13:26):
A ton of home runs. I don't care. Strikeout all
you want.

Speaker 7 (01:13:28):
We're gonna hit a billion bombs. We're gonna score a
billion runs. They're they're a top scoring team. I mean,
my favorite number the last couple of years, probably last
year I think it was. I believe they were twenty
ninth in batting average last year. Maybe it was the
year before, only ahead of the Athletics. But they still

(01:13:50):
score because they hit the ball over the fence. And
this year's team because Trent Grisham looks like a major
leaguer again, because they've Cody Bellinger's playing at a very
high level again.

Speaker 5 (01:13:59):
Judge could still win the MVP SA fifty. He'll hit fifty.

Speaker 7 (01:14:03):
Since Stanton's been in roughly everyday player, he's been awesome.
And even though Anthony Volpi thinks fielding is stupid and
hates it and loves to be terrible at it, they
got nothing but twenty home run hitters in their lineup.
They just hit about two forty and they strike out
all the time. But when you face off against twenty
twenty three, they hit two twenty seven. As a team, Yeah,

(01:14:24):
but they outscored the team that hit worse than them
by almost one hundred runs.

Speaker 6 (01:14:27):
But when you face off against elite pitching, that doesn't
mean anything.

Speaker 7 (01:14:32):
Unless they have juiced baseballs for your home playoff games.

Speaker 5 (01:14:35):
Which they will. They might. Goldilocks is the correct term
for them.

Speaker 7 (01:14:39):
It is hard, like how do they manage to get
the balls in circulation when the opposing team is on
the field and whip them back out of circulation when
the other team is batting. I mean, that's not that easy.
So easier said than done.

Speaker 5 (01:14:52):
I don't know. I don't you.

Speaker 7 (01:14:54):
I kind of have to have the bat boys in
on it and the umpire in on it. Think about that,
or you just say I don't care. They can hit
home er, We're just gonna hit more.

Speaker 6 (01:15:02):
It wouldn't be the first time that a whole bunch
of people in a stadium were in on a system.

Speaker 5 (01:15:06):
The people in the stadium are in on it.

Speaker 6 (01:15:08):
Well, you just mentioned bad boys for example, they're on
the dugout, they're working. You think the bad boys that
minute made at the time heard what was going on.

Speaker 5 (01:15:15):
I unless I don't. I don't even want to say
what I was going to say.

Speaker 7 (01:15:18):
Of course they did, but they were sitting right next
to They were as close as anybody with their seat.

Speaker 6 (01:15:22):
It's not that close. It's it's down the line, especially
the third the third base side.

Speaker 7 (01:15:27):
Well, the bad boy for the opposing team, sure, maybe
they didn't hear it. But the bat boy for the Astros,
which I'll admit I assumed, is who you meant?

Speaker 5 (01:15:34):
Well, I meant yes.

Speaker 7 (01:15:36):
I mean he's sitting right next to AJ's. The only
guy that ratted was Are you asking me if AJ
heard it? Of course he heard it every game. I'm
just saying they used it. Every game they used it.
You have the playoff games when they didn't use it.
I need to keep telling people that.

Speaker 5 (01:15:52):
Well, why did exactly? Because they're dumb. They used it.
That's it.

Speaker 6 (01:15:56):
Okay, go look at the numbers. If nothing else, it's
not that hard John Boy.

Speaker 7 (01:16:00):
Well, now you're saying because they used it, they were better.
Some people dispute that simple fact.

Speaker 5 (01:16:05):
They were better on the road. Weren't they that year?

Speaker 6 (01:16:09):
Doesn't that dispute the fact that's being disputed. It's it's
a it's stupid, idiots. It's very cloudy.

Speaker 5 (01:16:14):
Use your head. It's like the water in McCovey Cove.

Speaker 6 (01:16:17):
But the US Playoffs Game five, they could totally hear anything,
let alone a trash can way down in the dugout.
Ask Kenley Jansen if they use it or not. I
wish more people could just go see. By the way,
I'm doing eighteen bingo right now, I wish more people
could go see the setup down there. You realize how
relatively far away the trash can in question was relative

(01:16:39):
to where a home plate is. It's not like people are.

Speaker 7 (01:16:42):
Like twenty feet from the brick walls between twenty feet
from the front steps of the dugout, Like where AJB
is that roughly about right twenty and you go down
those but it's twenty feet away, but it's also down
a staircase yep, and then and then further back after
that with a wall. I mean, it's the when you
go down the staircase, it's right there.

Speaker 5 (01:17:01):
That's weird. We'll put it this way.

Speaker 6 (01:17:03):
Remember the video we all have seen when they were
playing the White Sox and like nobody was there. That's
why you could hear it so clearly in a regular game,
clearly with the audio pumped up on a YouTube video.

Speaker 5 (01:17:13):
Right, Like, I mean, come on Game five against the Dodgers,
get out of here, just get out of here, all.

Speaker 6 (01:17:19):
Right, four o'clock hour coming up next, we will reset,
we will hear from Joe Aspata. We're also going to
get to what wex teased in our say what signature segment.
I'll give you a hint, and involves an LA Area
rider saying something dumb about the Astro Stadium the.

Speaker 3 (01:17:35):
A teen on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 1 (01:17:37):
Ninety two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adham talking your
team stairs. Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the eighteen.

Speaker 6 (01:18:00):
It's the four o'clock hour here on a Tuesday edition
of the eight Team Sports Sox seven ninety Space City
Home Network.

Speaker 5 (01:18:06):
He's wex I may see.

Speaker 6 (01:18:07):
Cole Thompson is our producer until we take you up
until six o'clock tonight. Astros and Yankees getting together for
the first of three Fromber and Max Freed. Your pitching matchup.
No Jordan Alvarez in the lineup for Houston tonight. He
is available, but essentially load management. In any minute now,
Joe A. Spot is going to be speaking with the

(01:18:27):
media gathered there at Dyke in Parks.

Speaker 5 (01:18:29):
Maybe we'll hear a little bit more.

Speaker 6 (01:18:31):
But if you heard the clip we played from him,
earlier today on The Matt Thomas.

Speaker 5 (01:18:34):
Show with Ross.

Speaker 6 (01:18:35):
Basically, that's what it comes down to, load management against
admittedly a left handed pitcher, where the Astros lineup is
going to be very, very right handedly heavy tonight. So
that's something to keep an eye on as this series
gets underway, especially when you consider that the Mariners. I'm
just fascinated by this Rangers thing. I don't think it'll last,

(01:18:56):
but the fact that the Rangers are closer to the
Mariners than the Mariners are to the Astros right now
going into play tonight is pretty incredible given the injury
just the sheer volume of injuries that the Rangers have
dealt with, but just who the injuries are two.

Speaker 5 (01:19:12):
They're some of their best players.

Speaker 7 (01:19:13):
Yeah, it's very not what should have happened, which is
why I rarely get into the very very popular conversation
of I think the schedule favors this team, well this team,
it doesn't matter, especially this year. There are a lot
of things to point out in Major League Baseball that
show you exactly what we've been trying to tell you,
and I think most of you do realize that there's

(01:19:34):
no favorite in the American League.

Speaker 5 (01:19:36):
There's no obvious choice.

Speaker 7 (01:19:37):
There are gonna be six teams in the American League
that make the playoffs, and each one of them has
a chance to win the American League pennant. The Astros
are not great, right, They're good their first place, They
played roughly five hundred baseball for more than a month.
They basically have one good month. They went nineteen and
seven in June. And there are two games within above

(01:19:58):
or below five hundred every single month the entire rest
of the season. And even saying all that, the Astros,
the Tigers, and the Yankees, those are the only three
teams in the American League that win their home games
more often than they lose and win their road games
more often than those The only three American League teams

(01:20:20):
that have winning records both at home and on the road.
Run differential usually a pretty good indicator of how good
your team is. The top three teams in run differential
in the American League the second place Yankees, the third
place Red Sox, and the third place Rangers. If it

(01:20:41):
was run differential like maybe your fantasy football league is
for tie breakers with point scored or against or even
point differential, the Yankee or the Rangers expected win loss,
which is basically run differential, is eighty and fifty nine,
as eight more wins they should have based on their

(01:21:02):
run differential, and it's also eight and a half games
better than Houston's expected one loss. They're only twenty if
only outscored their opponents by twenty The Rangers have outscored
their opponents by ninety four runs.

Speaker 5 (01:21:15):
I'm glad they don't do it that way.

Speaker 7 (01:21:17):
Shows you they've pitched extremely well, lost a bunch of
close games, and I have a hand full of blowouts,
But this is that's that's a team on the outside
of the playoff picture. The Rangers are seventh in the
American League and they have the third best run differential.
All these teams are not dissimilar in enough major ways.

(01:21:38):
Tigers have the best record in the American League right now,
and when you get to the playoffs, you'll face tark
schoob bl If everything's set up right, then they win
and finish first or second game one, and then they'll
still need two more wins at least, if not all three,
where he'll pitch maybe once more, which I mean mis
has been okay. They're pitching staff's okay, Like every team

(01:22:00):
every one of them. They have holes, much more so
than I think in years past there's been clearly much
better Astros teams that have reached the playoffs, but I
think they've also gone into the playoffs against much better
Yankees outfits and other Red Sox outfits than the ones
these organizations currently have.

Speaker 6 (01:22:18):
Yeah, Look, it's the thing is, the Astros haven't been
able to put the Mariners away, and the Mariners haven't
been able to take advantage of the Astros being largely mediocre,
which just tells me everything I need to know about
that division, because you're talking about the team that's in
third in that division right now and any factor in
the A's which will be factors they're playing the Astros

(01:22:39):
down the stretch. I think they play the Mariners as
well down the stretch, and they're good.

Speaker 7 (01:22:44):
Like I said, I don't think any I personally don't
think it matters who you're playing. It's all about you.
It's all about how you're playing. The Astros just they
welcomed in. When the Angels got here, they were in
last place. When the Rockies got here, they were in
last place. The Astros went four and three against them
because they had nothing to do with who they were playing.
They couldn't score against any one of the seven pitchers
that started, not one of.

Speaker 5 (01:23:04):
Them, all of which had inflated the ras.

Speaker 7 (01:23:06):
Even Kokuchi, they could have scored twelve runs against them,
and they they got enough to win the game against
him and played add on in the one they had
one beginning now they scored in five of the other
They had small innings five different times, and those coming
against Kokuchi. They're just they at this point. I mean,

(01:23:27):
we're not figuring out who the Astros are. They have
been this for the entire season kind of no matter
who's in the lineup, but who's available to them. So
be ready for this to come down to it. The
athletics remaining schedule includes inside the division only the Angels
and Astros.

Speaker 6 (01:23:45):
Okay, for some reason, I thought the Mariners played them.
So the Mariners only play the Astros as far as
other AOS teams down the stretch, or am I wrong
on that they play the Angels too, don't they?

Speaker 7 (01:23:57):
The Mariners remaining schedule, because I just got finished telling
how extremely important I find it. They have four games
against the Angels, three games against the Astros remaining. Here's
why the Mariners have struggled to surpass the Astros. They
suck when they're not at home. Cleveland, they're not going
to the playoffs. They lost two out of three to Cleveland. Tampa.

(01:24:18):
They're not going to the playoffs. They're in Tampa this weekend.
If they don't win one of the next two days,
that's another loss. Series series before that on the road,
swept by the Phillies. Series before that in New York
and williams Port they lost two of those three games.
Series before that in Baltimore, they lost two of those
three games. They had an eight game winning streak. The

(01:24:40):
first seven wins came in Seattle. So it isn't about
who they're playing. But they finished this road trip in
Tampa and go to Atlanta after that, and they're only
remaining road trip is against the Royals, who are right
behind the Rangers in the wildcard race, and the Astros,
who they trail twenty four games remaining for Houston three

(01:25:01):
game lead the Mariners have, in my opinion, have to
sweep them. If the Marriagers game don't sweep the Astros, yeah,
that's that series is here, right, So if the Astros
sweep them, division's over. That means you got a six
game lead with eighteen other games to play. If they
take two out of three, you got a four game
lead with eighteen other games to play, or twenty one

(01:25:21):
other games to play.

Speaker 5 (01:25:24):
The math is definitely working against them.

Speaker 7 (01:25:26):
Yeah, I mean they would they would have to go
on an unbelievable run, which they clearly have. They have
a long winning streak. They do often display the pitching
capable of doing that. But in addition to that, one
thing almost brought it up with Spencer Araghetti when we
had him on because he was talking about Carlos Carrea
over at third base. If you've watched some of these
games where the Mariners have come out on the wrong

(01:25:48):
end of it on the road and just recently or
any part part of the season, not a good defensive team. No,
give a lot of extra opportunities to the opposition constantly.

Speaker 5 (01:25:58):
And it's everywhere.

Speaker 6 (01:25:59):
It's not to all the infield and messed up this
double play or just this couldn't scoop. They're do stupid
stuff in the outfield, Yes they do. I mean Julio
Rodriguez is at the top of the list. Not much
for a taking the right path to a baseball. Now,
He's no zach Netto when it comes to trying to
catch a throw from the first basement like he did yesterday.

Speaker 5 (01:26:19):
That was hilarious zach Neto.

Speaker 6 (01:26:21):
For a guy who plays on the Angels, which is
basically just an inconsequential team, tod what the Astros are
trying to do.

Speaker 5 (01:26:27):
He annoys the Bejesus out of me.

Speaker 7 (01:26:29):
Yep, he's a He's easy to put on your I'll
get this guy out of your team. I don't want
to say hate, but he would certainly fit there. But yeah,
that's what the Astros have on tap. They've put themselves
in this good position with enough of the season going
the way it has. There were a lot of moments
over the four games since we last spoke, or three
games over the last handful of days that put them

(01:26:50):
in this position. What they got from cam Smith has
been a little bit on the uptick, a little more
of it defensively than offensively, and honestly, you know, getting
it a late home run from Jose al Tuve, getting
Ramonoius to not only hit the homer, but he's hit
the ball extremely well. You go back and look at
what was done and what wasn't done by Dana Brown

(01:27:12):
at the trade deadline.

Speaker 5 (01:27:15):
You can. You have to.

Speaker 7 (01:27:17):
I think you have to be in the pat him
on the back for the thought the three offensive players
position players they traded for made absolute perfect sense. You
knew the deficiencies of Sanchez. You probably don't want him
batting against lefties. Ever, you felt like he could help
you offensively, and he's capable in the outfield in both corners,
and that's what he's been. Carlos Korea, I think has

(01:27:39):
been exactly what you hope for. I don't even think
more or less. I think he's been exactly what he
was for the most part in Minnesota. He'd be surprised
at how often he's been out there and how many
at bats he has and how many games he has.
His Harvey I total is outrageously low for the opportunities
that I think he's had this year. But he's been
awesome at third base. You knew he would be even
though he hadn't played the position. He's been fantastic over there. Heck,

(01:28:02):
one of the know this past weekend, both he and
Lance mccullors having to catch rockets off the bat in
that same game, and then Eureus is. To me, he's
basically Mauricio Dubon, but better. Better at the plate. I
think Dubon is a phenomenal second baseman, and I think

(01:28:22):
Eurius is better.

Speaker 5 (01:28:23):
Well, he's a gold Glover, is he not? But so
is Maurici. That's true. They both have won that.

Speaker 6 (01:28:28):
Yeah, it was nice to see him do something offensively yesterday.

Speaker 7 (01:28:33):
Curius, I think he's been good. I think he's been
like he's The home runn he hit was typical of
so many others, except this one went over the fence.
I can count three times at least, I believe where he's.

Speaker 5 (01:28:46):
Hit the ball. How far away is that? Three hundred
and seventy five feet?

Speaker 7 (01:28:49):
All right, I'll hit it three hundred and seventy four
and a half feet, and I'll get stranded on second
instead of having a two run homer. I'll maybe drive
in a run, but I'll get stuck in. He's been
so close, he's driven the ball so tremendously well. Both
of his hits in yesterday's game one went over the
fence and one hit the fence. Something else also hit
the fence, and unfortunately that was Taylor Ward's face.

Speaker 5 (01:29:12):
And that's why he was cut so.

Speaker 7 (01:29:13):
Quickly and immediately knew they needed medical attention out there
to them. We'll readdress that situation coming up at four thirty.
But a few other items both on the Astros and
the Texans we've not yet gotten to, especially this particular
matchup this weekend with a very particular defensive lineman that
has already had his way in one way against the Texans.

Speaker 5 (01:29:33):
I'll explain that next.

Speaker 1 (01:29:36):
The Age on Sports Talk seven ninety eight.

Speaker 6 (01:29:45):
Team rolling along here on a Tuesday edition of the program,
Joe Spota speaking to the.

Speaker 5 (01:29:49):
Media right now.

Speaker 6 (01:29:50):
Among other things, each perettis Josh Hater getting their follow
up imaging done today on their respective injuries. That's according
to Joe via Channeler Room's Twitter account.

Speaker 7 (01:30:02):
Yeah, I heard Robert and Steve yesterday during the broadcast
mentioning that the tomorrow, now today was the day that
the expectation was Esoch would get that follow up imaging
and hatered similarly, that was what they initially said. Got
to just give it time to calm down, as they say, medically,

(01:30:23):
and then see where things stand at that point in time.
And in the case of Hater, maybe it opens the
door in a couple of days for some sort of
slow throwing program to see if there is a possibility
with twenty four games left and an Esoch's case a
similarly with a running program, I don't think he would
be at that point no matter what the MRI says,
just based on the severity of the injury. But it's

(01:30:45):
why he went this route. It's why he hoped to
find a way back to their roster and hope to
give Joe Espada a lot of thought before each and
every lineup that he puts together. He's got gold Glove
caliber second baseman available to him and Ramonarius and Mauricio Duban.
He has Carlos Correa as his everyday third baseman. He

(01:31:09):
has two left fielders in Jose Altuve and Jordan Alvarez,
and then he would also have Esach Perettis, who doesn't
play left field, doesn't play second base, might be able
to play first base every really remote once in a while.
And then you have your designated hitter spot you can

(01:31:32):
make it work. Jose's in second, Jordon's and left Esak
is your DH and Carlos is at third. That's pretty
much your only option, and you clearly are giving something
away at second base defensively if you do so, and
potentially also in left field with Jordan.

Speaker 6 (01:31:51):
Yeah, and I I'm still I know this is like
a very, very minor thing. I feel like Victor Carrattini's
gonna factor in somehow. He's just and I guess that
would just involve Joe switching up the catching duties more
than anything else.

Speaker 5 (01:32:09):
It's the simplest way to do it.

Speaker 7 (01:32:10):
You mean he's gonna play more than jain Her. I
guess is that what you mean? I don't know of
more but fifty to fifty at least, I feel like
I doubt it personally do you?

Speaker 5 (01:32:21):
Who?

Speaker 6 (01:32:21):
Do you feels more clutch right now or has been
in twenty five? That's rhetorical. I'm not gonna fall for.

Speaker 5 (01:32:26):
Well then why wouldn't you do that?

Speaker 8 (01:32:27):
Then?

Speaker 7 (01:32:28):
I do think there is some perceived value definitely by
this team for exactly the reasons you said, Even though
it would be great for him to come through clutch
with runners on second and third and the second inning
or fifth inning or sixth inning, but Keratini as a bat,
a left handed bat off of their bench where you

(01:32:49):
get to pick where he hits. Because he's your bench hitter.
I think they hold some value in that. Jannerdy Az
is just a Major League Baseball player on your roster.
When it comes to when you want to pinch hit him.
He I don't think anything different of him as a
clutch hitter.

Speaker 5 (01:33:01):
He's just a hitter.

Speaker 7 (01:33:02):
I do value from a clutch gene standpoint. Victor Carrottini,
you can't ignore he's done. No, you can't. He's been
like as catchers go, the last eight weeks around the
American League, he's been one of the most productive catchers
all around the whole league. He's he helped them tremendously.
He also helped them balance the lineup. And for that reason,
with the excessive amount of right handed pitchers they would see.

(01:33:25):
I do think the opportunity is there. Your case is
probably still the right one. Like the soundness of it,
the theory behind it. We're gonna face right hand pitching three
out of four days. I'm gonna get Yordon in the lineup,
I'm gonna get Haeslus Sanchez in the lineup, and I'm
gonna get Victor Carrottini in the lineup, and that helps
balance it out.

Speaker 5 (01:33:42):
That makes perfect sense.

Speaker 7 (01:33:43):
I bet you we don't see it quite like that,
because Jordon will give them the balance all by himself,
so to speak. That they don't feel like they need
an additional lefty in Victor to do so. Victor's good
enough behind the plate. He's not gonna throw pretty much
anybody out ever, nobody is. Well, you've seen Yiner at
least twice on this homestand brilliant throw super pop up

(01:34:06):
time right on the bag doesn't matter. The runner's practically
already standing up at second base, so practically already put
his foot on the bag and bouncing up. But he's
significantly better at that. And I do think that's a
very important part of the Astros defensively, that they need
to be at their best.

Speaker 5 (01:34:23):
We'll see.

Speaker 7 (01:34:24):
I think it's an interesting plot of this lineup to
follow because I can't deny what you're saying makes makes
perfect sense.

Speaker 6 (01:34:32):
Is Yiner struggling at the plate at times just a
matter of just being one of those parts of the year,
or is there something more to it, because man, he
was getting some serious hate online this weekend.

Speaker 5 (01:34:46):
Definitely don't pay any attention to that.

Speaker 6 (01:34:49):
Well, yeah, I know, I'm just saying that the reasons
he was getting that hate is just it looked like
he was swinging at whatever.

Speaker 7 (01:34:57):
Are the people you're talking about, brand new where they're
just born melt their first day on the X platform. No,
I thinks swings too much. What do you guys think.
I've met him, and I've talked to him, and I've
watched him as a major leaguer.

Speaker 5 (01:35:10):
Are you new here?

Speaker 6 (01:35:11):
Okay? Put it this way. Has it been that predominant
the entire time.

Speaker 5 (01:35:15):
His entire career? Absolutely one hundred.

Speaker 6 (01:35:18):
Like There's been times where he's been a little bit
more discriminate, as it were.

Speaker 7 (01:35:21):
He's he had a He's basically been a flippant and
I hope that continues.

Speaker 5 (01:35:27):
This month.

Speaker 7 (01:35:28):
He opened the season awful month of April. May was fine.
His ops was seven ninety five. He hit two eighty,
no problem. He wasn't very good in June. Then his
ops was eight forty two. In July he hit two
ninety again that's great, as August wasn't very good. And
now it's a new month, so hopefully this is a
good month.

Speaker 6 (01:35:49):
I remember, and I just got done saying this about
Victor Carrattini. I was just pining for him. To be
more of an everyday catcher his rookie year, Dusty's last year,
and everybody first year here, yes, his first year, sorry,
and everybody was killing Dusty for not using him more,
and it just I guess it's born itself out.

Speaker 5 (01:36:11):
You're talking about Krotini. No, I'm talking about Yer. Back
when you said Karatina, I'm sorry, sorry, I misspoke. When
Yer was a.

Speaker 7 (01:36:19):
Rookie and obviously a plus offensive player, and Martin Maldonado
was just slightly below average as an offensive player. Just
so close, so close, that's very, very nice. It was
not just that's different in this case. It wasn't just
people on Twitter astros. Twitter doesn't like this. I think
respectable people had questions about why you would do it.

Speaker 5 (01:36:41):
I said it.

Speaker 7 (01:36:42):
I'm sure it was within the last two weeks because
Martin Maldonado VI Joiner Diaz plus Dusty has come up
a lot. I think Dusty did it right. I think
he made the right call, and I think he made
the right call for all the right reasons. You might
have had different games. You might have had more offense
int of those games, but I think you would have
had poorer pitching and different things would have played out.

(01:37:04):
You also don't have an option of going to Martine
off the bench. You would never use him as a
pinch hitter. You certainly could with the ironer. But I
thought Dusty he was right. That's I mean, that's all
I would say. He was right in my opinion. Let's
see what we think about what Joe Spotta.

Speaker 5 (01:37:17):
Says about giving Jordan Alvarez the day off.

Speaker 12 (01:37:20):
Good good, good to trying to keep an eye on,
you know, total volume and how he covers, how he
bounce suspect. But he's you know, he's ready to come
off the bench and you know he'll be in you.

Speaker 5 (01:37:32):
It's all just a day off.

Speaker 6 (01:37:33):
Nothing, basically what we all thought based on his comments
earlier here on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (01:37:39):
That's all there is to it. I still want him
in the lineup. I'm sure Joe does too. They wouldn't
kill him if he was.

Speaker 7 (01:37:45):
They're not looking to just keep him alive and breathing.
He sure, I'm pretty sure you think he's in bubble wrap.
I mean, we went through this earlier when we first
heard from Joe's spotted talking about this. I would there's
two they're not enough games left. You have enough off days.
That's the management I would use. That's the Again I'm
not hearing from the doctors, though, I'm saying that without

(01:38:07):
the knowledge that they have, without whatever information they were
given about how to try to keep this at its best.
His hand his unsurgically repaired.

Speaker 5 (01:38:16):
Hand, not surgically repaired.

Speaker 7 (01:38:18):
They're trying to keep it in place. They're trying to
keep him in the lineup as often as possible. So
I only say that without that knowledge they have more
than I do. I would assume that's got to be
a big reason why he.

Speaker 5 (01:38:31):
Gets an operation this offseason. I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 7 (01:38:35):
I'm glad we're talking about the astros, so I'm allowed
to speculate on that. I would think so, except I
don't know why the timeline has so much to do
with it, because if he needed surgery on this, and
obviously they did not know that at any point in
time to the point they didn't have any at all,
But it seems like it had, had it that been necessary,

(01:38:57):
that they should have known about that in the first
few weeks an he probably would have been out for
the year. He probably would have been out the same
amount of time. It feels it not. It clearly wasn't
cut and dry. That's what I would say. It wasn't
obviously he needed it. It wasn't obvious that he didn't because
after the bone healed, they still didn't really know what
was wrong with him. They still didn't really know what
was creating the soreness.

Speaker 6 (01:39:15):
He feels like a guy where he's good once he
gets the operation done, but he's needing operations on like
all sorts of parts of his body.

Speaker 12 (01:39:23):
He was.

Speaker 6 (01:39:24):
It was both knees right, and it was this It
was this creaky question. And then he got him surgically
repaired and they've been fine ever since.

Speaker 7 (01:39:32):
He has had different but persistent problems with his hands
as a major League baseball player. That's just what's happened.
There's no question about it. We're two years into the
a spot of managerial train with the Astros, and the
previous manager, Dusty Baker, had countless media availabilities talking about
Jordon's hands.

Speaker 5 (01:39:52):
That was two years ago.

Speaker 7 (01:39:53):
Jordan had countless media availabilities at his locker talking about
his hands, or at the uh wall in the clubhouse
talking about his hands. Left hand, I don't know, right hand,
I don't know. Does it feel good.

Speaker 5 (01:40:04):
I don't know it.

Speaker 7 (01:40:06):
It's been persistent. Presumably the fix is surgery, but I'm
speaking way out of turn. I don't know that.

Speaker 6 (01:40:15):
Speaking of walls, I'm glad you brought that up because
there will be one that is a great topic of conversation.

Speaker 5 (01:40:21):
Next segment, it's our signature segment. It's say what you know.

Speaker 6 (01:40:24):
We'll involve a certain wall inside Dik and Park, the
a team.

Speaker 1 (01:40:29):
On Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 15 (01:40:34):
This is Adam and Adams Weekly, choked through mind buckling
moments that make you go, what what Tide?

Speaker 2 (01:40:47):
What is here? What are you talking about?

Speaker 5 (01:40:49):
On a Tuesday way?

Speaker 11 (01:40:51):
What?

Speaker 5 (01:40:52):
Adrian?

Speaker 3 (01:40:52):
I dare now say? What?

Speaker 5 (01:40:58):
What's the post of thing? Did you get to here? O?

Speaker 7 (01:41:01):
Best of X being cut short to non existent because
Spencerraghetty joined us at two thirty. I know what we
are getting to, So I'm not asking the question. I'm
just presenting these as options. We're gonna get to the
X handle and admin for TCU football because they are
absolutely killing it. After TCU football absolutely killed North Carolina.

Speaker 5 (01:41:26):
Last Jordan's Boyfriend's team.

Speaker 7 (01:41:28):
Correct Probably Best of X material was found on at
Ben Verlander at Justin Verlander had a pretty good outing
the other day. But from a best of X standpoint,
Ben has been walking down this path for quite some
time and he found a home with it with one
post in particular.

Speaker 5 (01:41:48):
But we have to go this route.

Speaker 7 (01:41:50):
Taylor Ward ran into the metal scoreboard manual scoreboard over
at dik And Park on a Sunday afternoon on ramon
Urius's line drive. He hit it face first and immediately
went down to a knee, immediately waved towards the Angel's
dugout to come out there, and then almost as quickly

(01:42:12):
got up on his feet and was clearly at least
coherent enough and thinking clearly that he started walking toward
his team's bullpen, which was only about ten steps away.
They were able to come out of the bullpen, Andrew Chaffin,
their lefty reliever, towel in hand, was able to immediately
put that to his face where he was bleeding profusely.
Had a cut just above his eye on his forehead,

(01:42:34):
and he clearly knew it immediately because he could see
it flowing out of his head when he was down
there on the ground. It took a long time for
both medical staffs to get out there and treat him
as best they could on the field. Kart comes from
the opposite end of Dyk and Park put him on
the back seat, and it only was on the outfield

(01:42:57):
warning track, both out there and back, and very slowly.
Because of the nature of the injury. This was an
extremely long delay. And it turns out I think best
case scenario kind of situation with Ward stitches to correct
clearly is okay, beyond the obvious, and it could have
certainly been worse. But it prompted some total tomfoolery nonsense

(01:43:20):
from a reporter who covers the Los Angeles baseball area,
Alden Gonzalez.

Speaker 5 (01:43:25):
There's an underscore in there somewhere.

Speaker 7 (01:43:28):
He says, feel terrible for Taylor Ward, and he posted
it and that was it. I'm just kidding, he said,
feel terrible for Taylor Ward, who once took a fastball
to the face and now had this happen.

Speaker 5 (01:43:43):
We're already going down a very bad path.

Speaker 7 (01:43:45):
He has roped us in already in recognizing that this comment,
this post, this typing work is.

Speaker 5 (01:43:51):
Going to be stupid awful.

Speaker 7 (01:43:54):
Yep, he adds, also again brilliantly written also the same
organization that thought it'd be a good idea to put
a hill in its outfield still has a medal out
of two out of town scoreboard in the field of
play returned return so he could get the word all
by itself stupid. All right, you want to go first,

(01:44:17):
you want me to, We're never I mean, we can
take this to six o'clock. We can probably tell I will.
We can go a long, long way with this. I'll
go with the comment that basically was the one I
sent your way, and it comes from Dustin Park's been
open for twenty five seasons. Twenty one and sixty four
games have been played there. I'm not sure all those
like I tried to figure out the number, but with
stupid COVID, I kind of gave up. I'll take his

(01:44:40):
word for it. This is the first time this has
ever happened. Sucks that it happened. But the whining about
the scoreboard he used a different word is misplaced, and
your take just sucks. It does suck. I've been to
a lot of games there. You've been to a lot
of games there. Fans who commented on this has been
to a lot of games there, and even more so,
we've watched a lot of games there and I would agree.
People have banged into the wall, people have been hurt

(01:45:02):
up against the wall.

Speaker 5 (01:45:03):
People through the wall.

Speaker 7 (01:45:05):
Michael Brantley, I nobody has that I'm aware of, has
faced first the wall like he did. Nobody that I'm
aware of has cut themselves like he did. And the
secondary comment that I sent your way, which is all
over this timeline as well metal out of town scoreboard
at Dyke And Park.

Speaker 5 (01:45:24):
And that's it.

Speaker 7 (01:45:25):
Nowhere else in baseball, nowhere else, even in the exhibition
in minor league ballparks that they're using this year. Nowhere
else does any ballpark cheaters or otherwise, people who put
hills in their outfield or otherwise, do they have anything
that could possibly injure a player. One hundred percent of
every ballpark in Major League Baseball, both along the foul

(01:45:48):
lines and in the outfield, are one hundred percent padded.
Some of them use waterbeds to make it even more
comfortable for the running into the wall players. And there
are a few out there, all of you, yeah, just
as nice. Some of them are phone pits. Just whatever
we can do to make sure there's no way you'll
get hurt. There are no brick walls in Major League
Baseball covered with ivy. There are no chain link fences,

(01:46:11):
there are no additional metal scoreboards. And for those of
you that are just tuning in the amount of sarcasm
I'm throwing on the radio right now, is a never
ending supply. Those things are all over Major League Baseball.
Not every park, but a lot of them. It's a
freak occurrence they could possibly have. Like, It's just it

(01:46:32):
boggles the mind, the attention. I know, I'm bad at
this game. I don't play as many games on social
media as clearly I should. This is game playing, it's
not though, This is trawling, this is farming for activity.

Speaker 5 (01:46:51):
I'm not even kidding when I say this. I think
he's dead serious.

Speaker 6 (01:46:54):
He's just that stupid, which is ironic given the last
word in his paragraph of drivel that he wrote, vote
first of all Taylor Ward, who once took a fastball
to the face that was the astro's fault too, apparently
because of this happening, And why would you even mention
that guys get hit in the head all the time?
It's baseball, which, oh, by the way, is the point

(01:47:14):
of this. Guys run into things all the time, it's baseball.
He plays left field. Maybe watch where you're going, because
he clearly didn't or he just didn't see the wall
coming at him. Attacking him with no remorse is what
happened here, according to Alden Gonzalez. Now let's talk about
the fact that he's comparing these two organizations and calling
them stupid for things they've done.

Speaker 5 (01:47:35):
Yeah, I agree with him. Tals Hill, that was stupid.

Speaker 6 (01:47:38):
Putting a light I'm sorry I was quoting somebody else
that didn't know what they were talking about.

Speaker 5 (01:47:42):
It wasn't a light pole, it was a flagpole.

Speaker 6 (01:47:44):
But whatever it was in the field of play on
set Hill also stupid.

Speaker 5 (01:47:48):
You know what else is stupid?

Speaker 6 (01:47:50):
Hiring an opioids dealer that killed one of your players.
That's stupid too, But nobody mentioned that because Astros Orange
team bad, they cheat and the Wall attacked Ward? Are
you kidding me? Dodgers Hank, because that's what he is.
Forget that he covers the LA area, He covers the
Dodgers for ESPN, and he did what he was supposed

(01:48:10):
to do every time he changed the narrative.

Speaker 5 (01:48:13):
There is no narrative, Alden, and.

Speaker 6 (01:48:15):
I swear somebody saved him from me attacking him online
with the fiery passion of a thousand sons, because this
guy is a jackass.

Speaker 7 (01:48:24):
Yeah, the the wall stuff tals hill, the flagpole similar
to the metal out of town scoreboard for each of
those twenty and sixty four games before Sunday, Right, nobody
ever got hurt on the hill. Nobody ever ran into
the padded flagpole.

Speaker 5 (01:48:41):
It's there. I would also agree maybe it's dumb, but
somebody pointed that out.

Speaker 7 (01:48:45):
Yep, they're dumb things in all ballparks, right. If they're
not dangerous and nobody's ever getting hurt, then why I
don't care in this particular discussion, somebody.

Speaker 6 (01:48:53):
Pointed that out twenty years and all that, and this
guy says, oh, no one's dead yet, so it's totally safe.

Speaker 5 (01:48:57):
Guys.

Speaker 6 (01:48:58):
Mariners fan of course, Hey, you know what, You shouldn't
get in a car then, because you could die in
it today. That's the logic. You can't get in a car.
It's dangerous and the astros created cars that kill people.
If that's what he's saying.

Speaker 7 (01:49:09):
Eric, we'll close with this, even though, like I said,
we could go till six if only there was a
warning track. Hope, this guy's okay, But this take is dumb.

Speaker 3 (01:49:19):
Agreed the eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (01:49:28):
I'd like to say, I still can't believe he sat
down and type that out, but I can.

Speaker 5 (01:49:34):
He had all thin.

Speaker 6 (01:49:36):
Gonzalez had a really hot take about something recently, and
I can't remember what it was about. Is something with
the rules of baseball or something something or other. He's
he's one of a kind. Actually he's not one of
a kind. There's several like him at ESPN. But yeah,
that was, by the way, Ramoniaius stopping at second base

(01:49:59):
pretty classy considering the situation, like when you had to well,
when you're running, he kinda get going. The guy's down
the balls like.

Speaker 7 (01:50:06):
Somebody else had the ball. Huh, the center fielder had
the ball or the shortstop had the ball.

Speaker 6 (01:50:11):
I thought the ball was lost that he could have
made it the third for some reason. Definitely not Okay, Well,
then I misremember how I saw that, But yeah, that
was what I was watching that. And you could see
when he got it, like before you saw the blood,
you knew the blood was coming with the way he
was reacting.

Speaker 7 (01:50:30):
Yeah, if you're hurt, you're down. He wasn't, so to speak, hurt,
and he was more. Oh my gosh, the blood's flying
out of my forehead above my eye.

Speaker 6 (01:50:39):
He passed concussion protocol, did he not. He's gonna be
back in like a day or two.

Speaker 7 (01:50:42):
Yes, Like I said, For him to react the way
he did, he was to me super coherent. He immediately said,
come out here. I'm bleeding right with his actions, and then,
knowing that well the dugouts pretty far away, he stood
up and slowly walked, staggered a little, but slowly walked
towards there. And that happens to be where the bullpen
door is, right there in that corner below the donut.

(01:51:05):
And they clearly you could see them rustling around in
the bullpen as soon as they heard it. I was
at the game. It's a pretty distinct sound. It's the
same sound you hear when anybody runs into that metal
scoreboard with their shoulder, their you know, their back, whatever,
And it's happened many times before. But it's not the
normal ballpark sound. Normal ballpark sounds are, you know, bouncing

(01:51:28):
off the padding. You really don't hear unless it's a
player and you're out there. You hear bad hitting ball.
You hear bad hitting something behind the plate, like the
catcher or the ump. You hear gloves popping. That sound
you don't hear very often, only a car crash. Probably, well,
it sounded like something was hitting metal.

Speaker 6 (01:51:45):
The thing is, we've been out there a bazillion times.
We've shot videos out there during the Astros postseason runs.
We were out there. The last time we were that
close was the the the auto show that Dyke and
Park cad recently where you're you were walking along the
warning track where there were insane vehicles all around the

(01:52:07):
perimeter of the field, and you know, I was down
there with with Teresa and Carson, and Carson just thought
that was so cool that he could actually reach out
and touch that wall. It's very very thin metal, and
I don't I'm trying to figure out which part of it,
the way it's designed, is what cut him.

Speaker 7 (01:52:22):
It's probably if I'm not mistaken, where you slide in
the numbers and just some of it is not.

Speaker 5 (01:52:26):
It's not smooth. This is the easiest way to describe it.

Speaker 7 (01:52:30):
In between some of the teams where they're listed in
between each of the places for the numbers, whether it's
the score or the the pitcher's number, they're all it's
it juts out. It's I'm not surprised he was cut,
and most everybody else that hits it hits it with
something that's covered, whether it's their head with their hat

(01:52:52):
or their body with their uniform. He hit it with
his face, which was uncovered.

Speaker 5 (01:52:57):
Yes, well he had a hat on it, but not
the same. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:53:02):
I hope for the best for him. That was awful
to see and glad he is. So what was it
twenty stitches he ended up getting.

Speaker 5 (01:53:10):
I didn't see the number. That's most WEX responsive. I
don't want to say yeah, I think so. I didn't
see the number.

Speaker 6 (01:53:17):
No, I think that Todd Kallis actually said that during
the broadcast of yesterday's game.

Speaker 5 (01:53:21):
That's why I bring up the number twenty. I didn't
see the number. He had a bunch of stitches.

Speaker 7 (01:53:27):
I mean, I'm already aware the cut was pretty pretty,
pretty nasty.

Speaker 6 (01:53:31):
I didn't see the number. I just I don't know
if there's ever been a more wex response to something.
You offered a number. I think it was twenty stitches,
wasn't it. I didn't see the number. It was a lot.
The guy's face was gashed.

Speaker 7 (01:53:44):
He's fine, now, Yeah, after the twenty stitches or whatever number.

Speaker 6 (01:53:49):
Gosh, all right, so you and I have talked about
the Texans first week opponent a little bit on the air.
Definitely a lot off the air. First of all, Matthew
Stafford will play and start, Well, what did you think
he was going to do coming in the second quarter
start after his one quarter suspension.

Speaker 5 (01:54:10):
He's not Arian Foster.

Speaker 6 (01:54:11):
He will play, remember that you're not playing the first
quarter or was it the first half?

Speaker 5 (01:54:16):
And then he had like a ninety eight yard touchdown
run or something stupid.

Speaker 7 (01:54:18):
And punch a guy in a previous game before transferring
to the Houston Texans, and the new team forgot he
had punched a guy in the last game and they
didn't realize he'd be suspended for the first half of
the next game. Oh, that's a totally different hypothetical story
with you of hn LSU. My bad, you're got all
this segment. Matt Stafford is going to be out there.
DeVante Adams is going to be out there. Asked Emiko

(01:54:40):
Ryans about his familiarity with them. He coached in San
Francisco when Sean McVay was there running his offense, and
obviously Matt Stafford was there as his quarterback. He's he's
very familiar with him. They had a joint practice against
them this past year. His offensive coordinator has worked against
their defense and practiced quite a bit. Obviously run to
a certain extent, not at the play caller, but Sean

(01:55:03):
mcvay's offense, Nick Keyley. The amount of data familiarity with
them is immense, and so the phrasing of my question
to Dimiko is, well, what would you do with all
that information?

Speaker 5 (01:55:14):
He said nothing.

Speaker 7 (01:55:16):
He went on to give his reasons why, but he's
basically saying they didn't play their guys during the preseason.

Speaker 5 (01:55:21):
We don't know what they look like. With DeVante Adams.

Speaker 7 (01:55:24):
He didn't have to say it, but he obviously he's
also noting Matt Stafford wasn't out there at all, so
he doesn't try. What he was explaining is, I'm not
trying to look back at game after game after game
of game film. I've seen this and they've done that.
They clearly do all that's part of any team they
would play. Was treating it more like any game they
would play, rather than I've got all this data. It's
not quite like a division opponent that may or may

(01:55:45):
not have made changes, and this year in the Texans Division,
that's almost throw out the window kind of stuff. You're
gonna face Nashville with cam Ward, You're gonna face Indianapolis
with Daniel Jones, and you're gonna face Jacksonville. And we
heard from Demetrius Harvey from Jacksonville.

Speaker 5 (01:56:01):
Dot Com earlier. We already knew this.

Speaker 7 (01:56:03):
But they've got a new head coach, he brought in
new coordinators. They're not a whole lot there. He wants
his guys to play fast, and that was his bottom
line explanation for it. Just go out there and do
what we do, play our kind of football. I don't
want to get bogged down with all that stuff. I
want our guys to go out there and play fast
and playing fast, being literal with their defense. Hunter al Share,

(01:56:28):
Christian Harris, will Anderson Junior on the edges and on
the front against probably one of the four slowest quarterbacks
in the NFL. Probably good recognition of when he needs
to move his drub.

Speaker 5 (01:56:42):
Thinks he's a statue. Drew Bledsoe is not active. I
don't know who else would be.

Speaker 7 (01:56:47):
Aaron Rodgers is probably slower, but I think Matt Stafford
has the possibility per snap taken to lead the NFL
in fewest yards gained on the ground by a quarterback
this season.

Speaker 5 (01:57:02):
I think so.

Speaker 7 (01:57:03):
I think Aaron Rodgers will just push past him. There's
a few other we don't like to run very often quarterbacks.
Jared Goff's actually one of them. But he can he
can move. He just doesn't in the framework of their
previous offense. But for the for the most part, I
think the matchup is great for that They're gonna I
think they're gonna want to get rid of the ball fast,
and you're gonna have Pook over the middle, and you're

(01:57:24):
gonna have Davante on some of the shorter routes, and
you're gonna utilize your tight end. And that's kind of
what I forecast in their attempt to keep the Texans
out of Matt Stafford's face. The other way to do that,
they will do a lot run the football. Texans probably
employ the very same plan.

Speaker 5 (01:57:42):
Football at five is next.

Speaker 7 (01:57:44):
That's where we start the Texans offensive plan against the
Rams The Age.

Speaker 3 (01:57:51):
On Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 1 (01:57:52):
Ninety Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the A teams.

Speaker 10 (01:58:07):
A final hour of this program will take it out
to Dyke and Park in one hour for the Astros
on Deck show.

Speaker 7 (01:58:18):
Ross Delareyal will have that for you Astros and Yankees.
But of course football at five each and every weekday
afternoon on this program, and we have the full five
and we're not talking to Chandler Rome. We will be
talking to Chandler Rome in his usual spot five o'clock
on Friday of this week, as we did last week.

Speaker 5 (01:58:32):
Do have a couple of early games coming up over.

Speaker 7 (01:58:36):
The course of the week, or at least one in
this series as they moved towards their trip out on
the road. But Texans and Rams this weekend. The NFL
will play football this weekend, and we'll do so every
weekend the rest of the calendar year and on end
of the post season. At the beginning of next year.
The week one schedule, which features the Texans at the Rams,

(01:58:56):
kicks off in just two days. Parsons old team and
Ron Jaworski's old team, we'll get together in Philadelphia.

Speaker 5 (01:59:06):
That's a random pull. Well, I just.

Speaker 7 (01:59:08):
Wanted to make it sound dumber of a player who's
long since been off of the Eagles. But Dallas and
Philly open up the game at open the season at
the Link on Thursday. The Chiefs and Chargers will do
so on Friday night from Brazil. Najee Harris off season
acquisition for the Chargers listed as a quote unquote full participant.

(01:59:31):
Kind of an odd week for the Chargers, and that
is Friday, but coming out of the offseason, a fairly
normal week of the days that they practice, full Sunday
slate of games and just one Monday night game in
week one. They're two Monday night games next week. The
Texans have the early kick, The Vikings and Bears get
Monday night, the Bills and the Ravens get Sunday night,

(01:59:54):
and there are four three o'clock or three twenty five
kickoffs on Sunday afternoon. Tennessee and Denver, San Francisco and
Seattle features blesser matchups. Detroit at green Bay, Houston at
Los Angeles Rams.

Speaker 5 (02:00:11):
Those are the featured battles that afternoon. Detroit.

Speaker 7 (02:00:15):
What are they going to look like after Ben Johnson
and the rest of the coaching staff left, And obviously
green Bay will probably have Micah Parsons on the field
despite a very legitimate back injury heading into this trade
and Obviously we're going to talk about Texans Rams. The
offense for the Texans smartly decided what we are doing
on the offensive line. It's not working. We have to

(02:00:38):
make major changes. They've made major changes. It seemed pretty
obvious for those that cover the team closely enough to
attend practice and use their eyeballs. But we now have
an unofficial depth chart to go by. So I can
tell you, based on the unofficial depth chart, the Texans
offensive line because I've seen it now on the unofficial
depth chart, this is what it's going to look like

(02:00:58):
when they hit the field against the Rams on Sunday afternoon.

Speaker 5 (02:01:03):
There will be a rookie out there.

Speaker 7 (02:01:05):
Ariantay ersri listed on the unofficial depth chart as the
starting left tackle. To his side at left guard is
Lake and Tomlinson. To his side is center Jake Andrews.
Next to him is ed Ingram, and next to him
at right tackle is Titus Howard. The exact setup many
of us have been telling you about four weeks, so

(02:01:27):
now that we can see it printed up in their
unofficial depth chart, we can go with it. Not unexpected. Now,
what are they going up against? And I'm sure they'll
get help from Dalton and Caid and Harrison. I'm sure
they're get help from Nick and Damien and Dare and
everybody else who plays, maybe Woody, but yes, how will

(02:01:47):
their offensive line fair against Jared Verse and the rest
of the I think outstanding. I would call their front
four top five in the NFL, and if it's based
on what took place late last year, it's top five
in the NFL. And one reason why I'm less concerned
about Ersree has nothing to do with Ersree at all.

(02:02:09):
I'm very concerned about it. I think it's a huge
disadvantage for the Texans and a monster advantage for the
Rams that that can be the matchup if they want
it to be. Verse actually lines up all over the
place because the Rams are smart and they move him
all over the place. He will rush on the interior,
he will rush from the opposite side, not always on
the blind side by any means. So it won't necessarily

(02:02:29):
be the only matchup for Ersree will be him. But
what it won't be is a matchup with Cam Robinson.
Cam Robinson played Jared Verse in the opening playoff game
and last playoff game for the Minnesota Vikings. Now he
again he was not lined up on him opposite him exclusively.
The NFL or the Rams were nice enough to mike

(02:02:50):
up Jared Verse for that game. Of course, I watched
all of it today in corporation for today's program, so
I got a chance to see how often he didn't
line up up against Robinson. I also know what Robinson's performance,
as graded by our bestest buddies over at PFF were.
He got a pass blocking score in that game of
thirty nine point five. Surrendered a pretty good adjective here,

(02:03:14):
jaw dropping twelve pressures and a sack thirty nine point
five pass blocking score. Like I said, he wasn't matched
up against him exclusively, but that also means when he
was matched up against other Rams edge rushers, he also
performed quite poorly. So rather than just send him right
back out there, so Cam Robinson would play in back

(02:03:36):
to back games at left tackle against the same player. Well,
they won a different route and they're gonna go with
Arianta Ursri out there. But in light of the fact
that Jared Verse was miked up, I figure there must
be something in there worth using. He was on the
bench talking a lot about the matchup, talking a lot
of mess talking to his teammates about what he was

(02:03:57):
talking about. But he actually did have a recorded conversation
with Cam Robinson, which he then described afterwards. And I
think you can pick up on it here'll you're a
little from Cam himself talking with Jared Verse.

Speaker 4 (02:04:10):
You're talking about without your double chips.

Speaker 3 (02:04:12):
Well out your double chips to me.

Speaker 8 (02:04:16):
I like you.

Speaker 5 (02:04:17):
I can't talk to you.

Speaker 4 (02:04:18):
I like you, okay't talk to you down the game.

Speaker 5 (02:04:20):
And a lot of time he's gonna talk to me,
Cam gonna talk to me. He'll be like, that's your
first time you get home. I said, yeah, that's your
first time without a chip. He's talking about can't even deny.
He said, that's just I blushed a little.

Speaker 7 (02:04:30):
He basically said, that's your first time getting back there,
Cam Diverse and Verse said that's the first time without
a chip, and he goes, yeah, because that's respect. I mean,
I could sit here on an island and try to
block you, but that's not smart. We're going to chip you.
And when he said that to him, that's that's why Verse,
when he was talking to his teammates on the bench,
he goes, hey, I kind of blushed.

Speaker 5 (02:04:49):
I can't even talk to him, he's too nice. He's
too nice, he likes him too much.

Speaker 7 (02:04:52):
He he would and you could see the there was
you know, anytime the other guard or the other tackle
O'Neil had shoved him after a play and he's like,
that's that's it, that's your one time. Don't do that again.
Curse word, No, don't do that. And to Cam it
was more about, hey man, you're really good. I'm doing
everything I can. We're doing everything we can, and I
think everybody knows what happened in the game. Obviously Sam

(02:05:13):
Darnold was incapable of operating behind that kind of pressure.

Speaker 6 (02:05:19):
That's what we're trying to avoid on Sunday here in Houston.
Like I just I would hate for them to have
gotten all those weapons and him not be able to
even get to them because of what you're talking about,
which is a top five at least front.

Speaker 7 (02:05:33):
Yeah, unlike what I've already said about arch Manning's first game,
I am alarmed. I mean would be extremely concerned if
that were the team I was rooting for. I am
it goes beyond the results of the game and then
the typical performance. You might say, well, there's a lot
of season le is only his first start. I actually
will take that with the Texans in this particular game.

Speaker 5 (02:05:56):
And it's not just Verse and it's not just Fisk.

Speaker 7 (02:05:58):
They are a really, really good and I think they're
gonna have a really well designed pass rush plan. I
don't think every team can do that. I don't think
every team has the weapons in the defensive front that
the Rams do. I think this is an awful matchup
for the first game this group is going to play together.
And remember, take these five offensive linemen I just ran through,

(02:06:20):
and tell me about the time they've spent on the
field together doing what they're going to be doing tomorrow
or Sunday. No NFL snaps period for ursery at any position,
let alone left tackle, the blindside protector. Tomlinson's got an
enormous amount of experience. He's the first time Texan. It's
his first time with these guys, his first time with

(02:06:40):
this line. Same with Jake Andrews, except far less experience,
almost no experience, even though he's been in the league
for two years. Last year was spent injured, then you
got ed Ingram. He probably knows Cam Robinson's plight. He
was on the Vikings offensive line for much of last
year before he was benched and traded to Houston and
Titus Howard playing a poposition he's familiar with and got

(02:07:03):
reacquainted with it again last year, but opened camp at
guard before they moved him back to right tackle when
Cam Robinson had his injury which has him he's perfectly
healthy now and he'll believe their swing tackle. But that's
what your offensive line is going into this game with
a new OC with a new offensive line coach, and
if I told you they got five new starters, that's

(02:07:24):
basically what they have.

Speaker 6 (02:07:27):
It sounds like to me that with mere days to
go before the start of the season, we are in
the Hope Springs eternal portion of the calendar for not
much longer, because anytime they go up against any sort
of formidable front, which they will many times this year,
it's gonna be a nightmare.

Speaker 12 (02:07:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:07:46):
Like I'm trying to I'm trying not to paint that picture.
I'm trying to paint it for Sunday only after they
play one game together. They have experience together, so does
their play caller, so does their offensive line coach. And
they're not playing the Rams every week. They're playing different
groups up clearly.

Speaker 5 (02:08:00):
I think that the.

Speaker 7 (02:08:00):
Buccaneers, Jaguars, and Titans to their next three opponents, then
the Ravens before they have their off week. I wouldn't
say any of these things about any of those teams.
I think the Jags edge rushers are awesome. I think
Walker and heinz Allen are a great duo and can
be great and are going to be difficult. That's also
the third game of the year, it's not the first
game of the year. There's time that you've put in

(02:08:21):
on this. There's figuring things out, like the rookie mistakes,
at least because he is a rookie for ursery. I'm
not saying they're gonna go away completely, but the first
snaps he's ever gonna take are against what I would
call And you look at their entire schedule and every
group they're going to go against. I really truly believe this,
not alarmist of me, but the first defensive front, the
first defensive line they face, I think it's the best

(02:08:44):
they will see all year. They have the Chiefs on
the schedule, they have the Ravens on the schedule, they
have the Bills on the schedule, they have the Broncos
on the schedule. I think this is the best and
it just happens to be Week one in their building.
So is that too much to overcome and get a
victory out. No, because they're small, harder than they've ever
been before. Getting rid of their offensive line coach was obvious,

(02:09:05):
and getting rid of their offensive coordinator was important and necessary.
And it's why you've heard some of the things that
CJ's talked about all off season so much, not just
because we're asking him specifically about it, but because it's
so important to what he's trying to do this year.
He's going to see it, and hopefully the five guys
in front of him are also going to see it.

(02:09:25):
And now he has the wherewithal and the go ahead
and the approval to make changes at the line. They
have an offensive coordinator who's going to help their offensive line.
They're not just gonna say, man, we're not gonna make
any adjustments today. We're not gonna teach you very good
technique and we know you're gonna have miscommunications and in
three hours it'll all be over. That's not how they're
going to operate this year. If we can't stop Jared

(02:09:46):
vers and Fisk and the rest of these guys.

Speaker 5 (02:09:48):
Then we're gonna move the pocket. Then we're gonna call
different plays.

Speaker 7 (02:09:51):
Then we're gonna keep trying to run the football because
maybe they'll be able to run the football to take
some of the pressure off. Guys don't pin their ear
ears back on third and two. They do on third
and eleven and third and nine. So get out of
those situations. That's how you combat that. Even with your
quite obvious issues. And they haven't even played a game,
and I'm using the word issues with a brand new

(02:10:12):
offensive line.

Speaker 6 (02:10:14):
I'm nervous, and you've made me more nervous as we
head in just trying to tell people what I think
Week one. Oh no, no, We're always going to be
transparent on this show. We'll continue to discuss all things Texans.
We'll get back to the Yankees Astros conversation as that
series gets underway, and a whole lot more as we
got about forty five minutes to go or so before

(02:10:34):
we make way for the Astros on Deck Show hosted
by Ross Verreal out at Dyke and Park.

Speaker 5 (02:10:40):
It's all coming up next.

Speaker 1 (02:10:42):
The eight on Sports Talk seven ninety one.

Speaker 7 (02:10:50):
Other thing on the Texans here on the eighteen X
and AC and Cole here with you. We didn't really
get into much, but it was reported earlier today that
Texans have loved the twenty twenty five performance of Davis
Mills so much that they've extended him for twenty twenty
six to the tune of roughly seven mil, which puts
him very very high in the pecking order of how
much money do you make as backup quarterback in twenty

(02:11:12):
twenty six, got an extension off of his rookie deal
last year. Now he's gotten an extension off of the
extension as he and his wife will be welcoming a
new baby into the world here not too distant future.
Congrats to them. But he keeps It's kind of like
a long snapper or a punter or a kicker. You
have one that works, you can find a nice place

(02:11:33):
to pay him financial scale and just keep going especially
on when he's on the young side, and he clearly is.
He's going into his fifth year this year. I had
no problem with it all. I think it's an easy,
simple way to do things. No backup quarterbacks are likely
to carry the team in a season long absence extended
ten week plus absence of your quarterback, but four to

(02:11:54):
seven weeks need a backup that might be able to win.
You have those games, keep you in all that those games.
I think Davis Mills can do that.

Speaker 6 (02:12:03):
Yeah, he's I mean the question always is who's going
to be better for you than whoever the person in
question is signing as the backup quarterback.

Speaker 7 (02:12:13):
And you just take a look around the league and
I'm the only quarterbacks that would have a potentially have
an advantage over him are guys that were once starters.

Speaker 5 (02:12:21):
Right, Well, that's what he was, and.

Speaker 7 (02:12:24):
I know they sucked and I know they started him
because they had nobody else. And I know he started
almost immediately because Tyrod Taylor got hurt so quickly in
Davis's rookie season. He has a ton of starting experience.
You know, like CJ and Davis Mills are roughly in
the same place on the Texans all time passing lists
because Deshaun and shab are usually one and two and

(02:12:48):
David Carr's in the mix somewhere.

Speaker 5 (02:12:49):
Just a place. It's not a numbers thing, Yeah, it's.

Speaker 7 (02:12:52):
Just they've they've played a similar Now you put it
that way, it sounds awful. Well, how many years? How
many years has CJ been the starter? Two years?

Speaker 8 (02:12:59):
Right?

Speaker 5 (02:12:59):
How many years was Davis the starter? Two years? But
how long? Passing touchdowns?

Speaker 7 (02:13:04):
First two seasons franchise history, Sean Watson is number one, CJ.
Strout is number two, Davis Mills is number three. Most
completions first two seasons. CJ's number one, Davis is two, Watson,
who is hurt for much of his rookie season, is three.
They're one, two, three in all those first two seasons
in franchise history categories their first two NFL seasons.

Speaker 6 (02:13:29):
But overall, how long is it going to take CJ's
who surpassed the Shawn and Matt shaub like touchdown passes?

Speaker 5 (02:13:37):
For example?

Speaker 7 (02:13:37):
I don't even numbers hististically it's going to take a
touch for Shab, but who they are like, He's already two,
and with any kind of reasonable season this year, in
my opinion, he will be one. He will be the
best quarterback in Texas franchise history following his third NFL season.
My perception of who he is as a player and
what he's done for the Texans, not necessarily statistically speaking,

(02:13:59):
because he's only start neighborhood of forty five to fifty games.
After three years, he will be the best quarterback they've
ever had.

Speaker 6 (02:14:05):
It's just so like and this is not an insult
to him in any way, shape or form. It's far
more a commentary on just the lack of the utter
lack of star power at that position for the majority
of this franchise.

Speaker 5 (02:14:19):
Last twenty years.

Speaker 7 (02:14:20):
Do you think he could give me a couple of
franchises who are similar to them, like five, six, seven, eight,
franchises that are comparably ill equipped to put great names
at the top of the list because it's unfair to
compare them to anybody else because they've been around for
thirty or forty or fifty two thousand and two.

Speaker 6 (02:14:37):
I mean, let's start with who we talked about today,
the Jags. That's gotta be one of them. Blake Bortles
was a huge chunk of that.

Speaker 7 (02:14:43):
The best quarterback in Jaguars history is Mark Mark Burnell.
That's and that's not much. I mean Trevor Lawrence is next. Yeah,
who was the guy that was there forever during this
era before portals uh left? Which yeah, Byron left witch
and left, which might still have a case over Lawrence

(02:15:04):
because their accomplishment Lawrence's accomplishments as their full time, five
year starting quarterback are so low.

Speaker 5 (02:15:11):
That's a good question.

Speaker 6 (02:15:12):
I've never really thought about that during the Texans existence.

Speaker 5 (02:15:17):
I guess who would be?

Speaker 6 (02:15:18):
I mean, Cleveland's got to be up there, except for
the amount of the sheer amount of quarterbacks.

Speaker 7 (02:15:24):
Their list is worse because you have a hard time.
The best quarterback they've had is Baker there for such
a short period of time.

Speaker 6 (02:15:33):
Right, he's probably already doubled the amount of time in Tampa.

Speaker 7 (02:15:38):
The accomplishments and the total stats because he's coming off
a forty touchdown season.

Speaker 6 (02:15:43):
Yeah, he's probably Wow, I don't know. I'm trying to
think the Jets.

Speaker 7 (02:15:50):
Jets would be comparable, but they've had some me like,
I mean, I hate to say it, but I mean, clearly,
Mark Sanchez rates fairly highly, but his is more on
the They want a lot of football games with him
as the starter. They advanced to the postseason with him
as the starter. Hard to believe, but it is still true.
He's like the last effective quarterback they had, isn't he?
It's bad it's only fair to compare them, you know.

(02:16:13):
The Cowboys, of it, have had only really two starters,
but they both were long term, relatively successful and.

Speaker 6 (02:16:19):
Uncular season numbers up. Yeah, now, I never I never
would have said the Cowboys.

Speaker 7 (02:16:24):
I mean to a certain extent, while both Deshaun and
CJ have each won two playoff games, I mean that
they in a shorter period of time. Clearly they accomplished that.
But that's so so is Dak, I mean, so is Tony.

Speaker 6 (02:16:40):
I don't know, I can't think of any off the
top of my head other than the ones I've mentioned, Like,
I don't.

Speaker 7 (02:16:43):
Want it to sound so sad, I'm trying to tell
people it's only been twenty years. The difference is in
none of the in one of those twenty years and
now two. But we're so early in it. They they
drafted their Andrew Luck, they drafted their Peyton Manning. Deshaun
was that was it. And he wasn't at the top
of the draft either, but he was clearly it. They
solved the problem. End a story. Ten years from now,

(02:17:04):
when his extension is over and he's already signed a
second one. We wouldn't have we haven't had to worry
about the quarterback position for the ten to twelve to fifteen.

Speaker 5 (02:17:13):
Years after we draft.

Speaker 7 (02:17:13):
It's what it's now they're in it again, luckily only
a couple of years later with CJ.

Speaker 6 (02:17:18):
It's what every organization is always after that doesn't have it,
and it's apparently a lot harder than it used to be,
I think.

Speaker 7 (02:17:26):
And that's where the Colts like it was almost a
karma is not the right word, but it's what. Eventually
it seemed like it has to happen to them.

Speaker 5 (02:17:34):
It's unfair they have it.

Speaker 6 (02:17:36):
Does season off and then they got another generational quarterback
or whatever you want to call him, and then what happened, Well,
he just decided to retire.

Speaker 5 (02:17:44):
Well, I mean.

Speaker 7 (02:17:45):
Literally after he retired, Andrew luck was their quarterback in
twenty eighteen. They have played six NFL seasons since then.
They have attempted to answer the question once in twenty
twenty two draft with Anthony Chardson. They were wrong the
three years after his departure, and granted one of those
years was a little tough to answer the question, considering

(02:18:07):
it was in camp with them, But then they answered
it with Rivers, They answered it with Wentz, answered it
with Matt Ryan. They brought in Minshew and Flacco. They
just kept ban dating the problem over and over and
over again. It sounds familiar. Until they drafted Richardson in
the top five. Was that was when you go for it?
Now that the Titans where they sit today, clearly they

(02:18:29):
had a good enough quarterback, especially since Derek Henry was
standing behind him. You know, Ryan Tannehill quarterback the Titans
team into the conference championship game. Coach Mike Rabel, they
were smart. It was time to move on. They have
not been able to answer that question. They clearly took
a reasonable swing eighth guy in the order type of
swing with Will Levis. It's a second round pick, but

(02:18:52):
early enough that you might have some belief that he
can be the guy. And then they took a real
swing clearly this year and they're gonna give I mean,
it's cam Ward's team, and that was evident from moment one.

Speaker 5 (02:19:01):
There was never any doubt that he would start. From
day one.

Speaker 7 (02:19:03):
Levis isn't even really on the roster because of the
injury situation, the surgery, and they have a reasonable roster.
If I was gonna pick a team whose future I
like the most, it would probably be theirs. After Houston
in this division. I don't love Jacksonville's future because they're
tied to Lawrence. I don't love the Colts future because
they don't have a quarterback. I'm not a huge cam

(02:19:24):
Ward fan. I think he was almost the number one
pick a little bit by default, but he's really not
that different than a lot of other top ten quarterback
selections we've seen.

Speaker 5 (02:19:34):
He just happened to be number one this year.

Speaker 7 (02:19:35):
There's team that needed him, and there wasn't much competition
for who would be the best one in this group.

Speaker 5 (02:19:40):
See.

Speaker 6 (02:19:40):
I feel like when you do that, when you're a
team like the Titans that takes that quarterback that you
just described in that scenario, and now again, it has
a lot to do with who's on the horizon coming
out of college.

Speaker 7 (02:19:52):
This next draft probably will be regarded as better, but
it might end up looking a lot like the Trevor
Lawrence draft.

Speaker 11 (02:19:59):
It's gonna be better at least coming out well, but
that's okay.

Speaker 5 (02:20:02):
So if it's if it's really better, wouldn't you wait? Well?

Speaker 7 (02:20:06):
I don't, cause it probably sounded like I was down
on cam Ward. I just don't think he's some generational,
unbelievable talent. Do I think you can win playoff games
and maybe win big with him. I mean, I'll find out,
but I'm more on the I would want to answer yes.

Speaker 5 (02:20:20):
I just there was no question about it. Who's the
best quarterback in this draft. He's it.

Speaker 7 (02:20:24):
He's definitely deserving of a top I mean, Anthony Richardson
went forth and now cam Ward went first. Like, I
can't say what a great idea it was for the
Colts to do that, and I did three years ago
and think this is some horrible idea, Like cam Ward's
NFL future sitting here today is clearly brighter than Anthony Richardson's.
He hadn't even played it down.

Speaker 5 (02:20:41):
That's stunning to me too.

Speaker 6 (02:20:43):
Even in the worst case scenario you could have thought
about for Anthony Richardson, I don't think it would have
been over this fast.

Speaker 5 (02:20:49):
It's over. I'm declaring it over.

Speaker 7 (02:20:51):
There's a nice write up I've not yet read in
the Athletic, a lot of interviews with NFL people about
why he kind of I've read it, but it sounds
like the tone of it is, why are teams making
it so hard and teams giving up on their quarterbacks
so quickly? In the NFL and obviously Anthony Richardson is
one of the reasons why it was written. But I'll

(02:21:12):
give it a once over and report back tomorrow on
the program. We got a butt load of things that
we have not talked about yet. That's why we have
our segment here at the five o'clock hour at five thirty.
It's called in case you missed it.

Speaker 3 (02:21:24):
We'll do that next the age on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 7 (02:21:29):
Ninety halfway home, final hour of the program.

Speaker 5 (02:21:35):
We hit you with in case you missed it. Also
a reminder final segment of the show.

Speaker 7 (02:21:39):
As has been the case for months and months and months,
we love you listeners. Let's get you out to see
a show. Let's get you out to see a performance.
Let's get you out to see a game. Got tickets
to the Cougar's next home game. Cougars will actually be
playing in Houston this weekend, but they are at Rice.
But they will be back home Friday night of the
following week. That's September two, when the Colorado Buffaloes will

(02:22:03):
be in town. Big twelve home opener, Hispanic Heritage Night
again next Friday night, September twelfth, tds U Stadium. We'll
have tickets a pair of tickets to go see that game.
Also have a pair of tickets to see Never Ending
Nineties with Ezra ray Hart. Give you all the details
on that over at Smart Financial Center. That one's coming
up on December thirteenth. Give a pair of tickets away

(02:22:24):
to each of those In the final segment of the show,
what are we having in case you missed it?

Speaker 5 (02:22:30):
Cole?

Speaker 11 (02:22:30):
All right, so we could talk about what's going on
with the eight people. They can make jokes about where
Alabama and how the dynasty is dead.

Speaker 5 (02:22:38):
We could do all those things, but.

Speaker 7 (02:22:39):
That's for the team and their fans themselves to handle,
because they are handling it very well.

Speaker 5 (02:22:45):
I don't want to even get into it right now.
I'm did you see the one?

Speaker 7 (02:22:49):
Did you see the one where they were so ticked
off at Sark for what's happened.

Speaker 5 (02:22:57):
Sark?

Speaker 7 (02:22:58):
Our guy saved your probably saved your life by giving
you this job out of the goodness of his heart,
resurrected your career, saved your life. And then when he
steps aside, you don't leave Texas to come coach at Alabama.
It's your fault and we're left with this guy saw
your fault.

Speaker 11 (02:23:17):
We can talk about all those things, but we're gonna
talk about Bill Belichick, We're gonna talk about TCU, and
we're gonna talk about UNC. What was supposed to be
a blockbuster showdown in Chapel Hill as Chapel Bill and
Geordahn Hudson make their debut as the King and Queen
of the Tar Hill City turn into a nightmare opening drive.

(02:23:39):
It was seven to nothing and then appreciated to be
a one handed show as Josh Hoover as Kiaran Barnes
as Shordan's Wire Sunny Dyke's proceeded to score forty eight
unanswered points in a forty eight to fourteen victory on
the road.

Speaker 7 (02:23:54):
So around seven twenty three last night, cole Ac, what
were you guys up to?

Speaker 11 (02:23:59):
I was chinking a butt light while watching as Go
Lopez found the end zone on a touchdown pass to Blue.

Speaker 5 (02:24:06):
It was Jake Johnson, Well, you're a little too far.

Speaker 7 (02:24:09):
That might have been seven twenty four, seven twenty five,
but you and I were enjoying our big brew and
our dollar tenders over at Big City Wings.

Speaker 11 (02:24:17):
Client was drinking some watermelon drink that.

Speaker 7 (02:24:19):
They have good phenomenal drinks there. Definitely try those cocktails
are otherwise. But at seven twenty three at Real, Skip
Bayless was on the X platform and he wrote TCU
was about to get blown out too much. MJ Comma
lt about to get most Randy Moss was also in
that very same suite and on set with the ESPN.

Speaker 5 (02:24:41):
That's been quote.

Speaker 7 (02:24:42):
Tweeted by at TCU football with a Stephen A. Smith
laughing uproariously, gift attached to it. And as you bring
in the Bill Belichick King and Queen, it's like sixteen
candles for those that have seen it, the old people
out there. Yeah, he's ted. He's king of the That's
what the King and Queen of North Carolina Football are

(02:25:03):
right now, you're the king and queen of what exactly?
And I brought up TCU football earlier and Cole takes
us back there. These are from their official account the
day before. It was tweeted by somebody if Matt Patricia
two days before has arch manning in hell, what do
we think Bill Belichick will do to the poor kid

(02:25:23):
at TCU. TCU football quote tweeted that, I guess we'll
never know.

Speaker 11 (02:25:30):
Carolina Football excited to showcase our program this fall on
Hulu more information coming.

Speaker 5 (02:25:36):
TCU football.

Speaker 11 (02:25:37):
When does the first episode come out? Wasn't really exciting,
wasn't really sure what to expect from Chapel Bill, But
after that drive, I have him as the second best
coach college has ever seen, just below Nick Saban. Precede

(02:25:58):
it by Seti Dyke Riding got a saddle.

Speaker 7 (02:26:02):
Our friends over to opt to stats killing it with
baseball numbers, they went to the football route next. TCU
is the only FBS team in the last twenty seasons
to have two to twenty five plus yard rushing scores,
a twenty five yard passing score, twenty five yard interception
return TD, and a twenty five yard fumble return TD,
all in the same game. First team in FBS in

(02:26:23):
the last twenty years to do that, and they added
Belichick had never allowed all of that over an entire
season as a head coach. TCU Football quote tweeted that
our own former and now current member of the Ring
of Honor, former Texan JJ Watt posted, if we put
all allegiances aside, Carolina Blue has to be one to

(02:26:45):
one on the draft board when it comes to college color.
That was quote tweeted by at TCU Football brilliant with
a picture of Hornfrog Great and JJ Watt Nemesis.

Speaker 5 (02:27:01):
Andy Dalton, you know JJ Watt Nemesis. I mean JJ
was his name?

Speaker 7 (02:27:05):
West Do you know the meaning of the word nemesis nemesis.

Speaker 11 (02:27:10):
So before we move on, our friend Sehan Jiraja, who
joined us earlier this week, brought up nine more things
that made this game bad. Bill Belichick allowed the most
points in a game in his career ever, Moving past
a forty seven to seventeen loss in the Buffalo Bills
in twenty twenty one, Belichick sucepted the second worst loss
of his career, trailing only thirty eight to three to

(02:27:32):
the Dallas Cowboys in twenty twenty three. Belichick is trailed
by thirty four plus points only four times in five
hundred and eleven games as a head coach, including last night,
his first game as a college coach. North Carolina allowed
the most points in the season opener in program history,
surpassing the forty one allowed against the two thousand and
one Oklahoma Sooners. Target lost by the greatest margin in

(02:27:56):
program history since September twenty seventh, twenty eighteen. Mac Brown,
the coach that was fired in favor of Bill Belichick
never lost a game by that margin in either his
first or second stint at North Carolina, and it continues.
TCE posted its best rushing performance in a game since
twenty twenty two fiestable win over Michigan. North Carolina recorded

(02:28:20):
its second worst rushing performance of fifty yards since twenty sixteen.
And last, but certainly not least, Bill Belichick is zero
to three in head coaching debuts in two score losses,
the first one dating back to nineteen ninety one when
he was the head coach of the Cleveland Browns.

Speaker 7 (02:28:37):
All right, couple things that it'll be in all TCU football.

Speaker 5 (02:28:40):
In case you missed it.

Speaker 7 (02:28:41):
Deadspin had earlier in the day posted a picture of
Bill at his press conference introductory press conference.

Speaker 5 (02:28:47):
Babe, wake up.

Speaker 7 (02:28:48):
Bill Belichick coaches college football today at TCU football with
a quote tweet, Babe, go back to sleep now. Not
to fall in line with everybody else, even though we
just did for ten minutes. For one minute it We'll
do what we're supposed to do. We'll talk about and
respect TCU football and Cole I'll ask you this close
out the segment after the opening weekend, plus the additional

(02:29:11):
games played by k State and Iowa State. What do
you think the Big Twelve looks like now, now that
you've seen them all play, seen a little bit more
from Iowa State and Kansas State. If you handicapped the
Big twelve, maybe gave us a top four.

Speaker 12 (02:29:24):
What is it?

Speaker 5 (02:29:25):
Utah Number one? Far and away.

Speaker 11 (02:29:26):
Offensively, they are night in a day difference from what
they were season ago. But this is off of crushing Nico.
Oh it is beautiful. Oh, it was fantastic. Nico's father
is probably already trying to get him back in the
transfer portal.

Speaker 5 (02:29:37):
Okay, so they crushed UCLA over the weekend.

Speaker 11 (02:29:39):
Number two, I'll go Iowa State. I think they are
the most complete defense and the offense didn't miss a
beat against South Dakota. Number three, I will go TOCU.
I had TCU already in my top twenty five ranking.

Speaker 5 (02:29:50):
I love Josh River.

Speaker 11 (02:29:51):
I think he's the most underrated quarterback in college football.
Jordan Dwyer, who joined the squad from Idaho, was awesome
last night. He had over one hundred and third six
receiving yards. That number four spots really interest in Arizona State.
I think it's Arizona State. I think that after this
week when we see them play in the SEC on
the road, I gets to Mississippi State squad that did

(02:30:12):
find a way to beat Southern miss They're.

Speaker 5 (02:30:14):
Gonna be your number fourteen.

Speaker 11 (02:30:15):
These are the four favorites that should be in Arlington
when all seven done.

Speaker 7 (02:30:19):
Very interesting. Well, I'm sure we'll know more about Arizona State,
as you put it that way, because this weekend, at
least it just means more in Missois State.

Speaker 5 (02:30:31):
That's in case you missed it.

Speaker 3 (02:30:35):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 7 (02:30:41):
Long standing tradition here better than a year running here
on the eighteen bottle seven of the show, we hook
you guys up. Appreciate you listening, Appreciate you firing up
the app Appreciate you being a part of the show.
And we offer tickets with our humble appreciation. We got
a pair of tickets to go see Never Any Nineties
with EZRAE Hart and Christmas Risks December thirteenth, Smart Financial

(02:31:04):
Center right there in Sugarland, members of Sugar Ray, Tonic
and Better than Ezra Biggest Hits performances along with festive
holiday favorites. Tickets are on sale nowt Smart Financial Center
dot net also have a pair of tickets to give
away to see the Houston Cougars take on Colorado. It'll
be their Big twelve opener. It's Hispanic Heritage Night that
is next Friday, a week from Friday, September twelfth, at

(02:31:26):
TDESU Stadium. You can find tickets at Uchcougars dot com,
slash tickets, or you can call seven one to three
go Koog's to get tickets. Come early, be loud where
Red was over there for their opener against SFA this
past Thursday night.

Speaker 5 (02:31:41):
I'm sure they'll get scored upon at.

Speaker 7 (02:31:42):
Some point this season, but it didn't happen on Thursday night.
So a pair of tickets to either of those of
your choice at seven one three, two two five seven
ninety if you can answer this question about something we
just talked about as a matter of fact last segment,
we're talking about college football. The last game of the
weekend in college football less than twenty four hours ago.

(02:32:05):
So if you were listening closely, you'll very easily know
the answer to this. And there are also other ways
to find out on the X platform. Just name either
of the national blowhards. I mean national talkies that we
mentioned that had one of their ex posts quote posted
by the good people over at TCU football. Name either

(02:32:25):
one of them national talking heads that we mentioned that
had one of their ex posts related to the game
quote posted on the x platform by the team at
TCU football seven one three two one two five seven
ninety seven one three two one two five seven ninety.
I know a lot of this will be covered as

(02:32:46):
we slide back into the conversation over the course of
the Astros on deck show that's coming your way next,
but the night ahead, as the Astros begin play and
wonder if they even need to bother scoreboard watching. I
can understand why you might want to, and we might
want to, but we'll see if they need to. They've

(02:33:07):
got the Yankees. Yankees and Astros are essentially playing for
the same thing. But additionally, if you've been paying attention,
the Blue Jays were hot. They rolled out to a
nice lead in their division, and then they stopped winning regularly.
The Yankees and Red Sox are both only two and
a half games back of them for first place. Those

(02:33:30):
three teams stand up pretty good chance of being three
of the six that make the playoffs. But they're now
really in a race for the division crown with those
two other teams are the Yankees, and the Astros are
clearly in a division race with two other teams themselves,
the Mariners and the Rangers. Mariners hold the last wild
card spot, but they're only a game and a half
better of the Rangers, and the Rangers and Mariners quite
obviously are both within four and a half games of

(02:33:53):
the Astros with a little over four weeks of baseball
left to play.

Speaker 5 (02:33:58):
Mariners are at the Rays.

Speaker 7 (02:33:59):
Their first pitch is about half an hour away. Brian wu,
the ace of the Rays, will pitch Rasmussen, who's been
very good this year. Drew Rasmussen is on the hill
for the Rays. They are playing in an exhibition spring
training caliber stadium. Blue Jays have already started, and I'm
sure they'll be done with the top of the first
at some point, but they've already scored four times. They
lost dramatically walk off fashion to the Reds yesterday. Remember,

(02:34:24):
the Astros have the season series tiebreaker currently with the Jays.
If they win any of the three remaining games with
the J's, they clinch it. If they win all three
remaining games, with the Jays, and everything else remains equal,
they'll pass the Jays in the overall standings because they're
currently three games behind them.

Speaker 5 (02:34:42):
So Jays at Red's, Mariners at Rays.

Speaker 7 (02:34:45):
Obviously, the Yankees and Astros Red Sox are hosting the
Guardians and they're just underway, and the Rangers later on
tonight have decided to go with Latts as their starter.

Speaker 5 (02:34:56):
They are at the d Backs.

Speaker 7 (02:34:57):
I believe there was a ra the troubling news that
I wasn't sure what the diagnosis was when I saw
it last night. The injury itself Arizona's Luris Guriel acl
tear ooh. He heard it while not making the play.
He seeded the play to the center fielder and looked
like he just slid behind him. But he actually got

(02:35:18):
hurt on the play, and clearly with an injury in
September or late August, that puts, you know, September it
was yesterday, puts some of, if not all, of next
season in jeopardy for Guriel.

Speaker 6 (02:35:29):
That's like not even the well, I wouldn't say it's
not the worst injury, but the Padres reliever that ruptured
his tendon in his quad, that major stuff going on.

Speaker 7 (02:35:38):
Yep, And clearly in Arizona's case, they're probably playing more
of a spoiler's role. They're not technically out of the
race for the wild card. But in the Padres case,
with their reliever, that was probably what most people call
the strength of their team. They can absorb it, so
to speak, but definitely a huge part of it. And
that's just a guy on the mound who just awkwardly
went down, and that's a pretty significant injury.

Speaker 6 (02:35:59):
Uh, let's see Shelby Miller leaving a game because of
a popping feeling in his elbow.

Speaker 5 (02:36:07):
It's that time of year, wex baseball season.

Speaker 6 (02:36:10):
Yeah, No, I don't think that just because it's baseball season,
some of this stuff needs to be happening now, Miller,
maybe because that's just been going on. I mean the
Astros are like, yeah, that's like the day of the
week for us. But by the way, you and I
were talking about, uh, the Dodgers starter tonight during one
of the breaks. You remember when we were having that

(02:36:31):
conversation about how good Clayton Kershaw is. Right now, he's
had a very good season. There's nobody out and it's
already two nothing. Pirates and there's runners on second and third.

Speaker 7 (02:36:40):
Man, you just pile on, like if it's the Pirates,
come on, man, who's going to stop the.

Speaker 5 (02:36:45):
Pirates from scoring?

Speaker 7 (02:36:46):
That's the Dodgers, aren't the unnecessary hatred of Clayton Kershaw.

Speaker 5 (02:36:51):
He gave up two runs to the Pirates. Who what?
Willie Stargill hit a two run home?

Speaker 12 (02:36:55):
Right?

Speaker 5 (02:36:56):
Was Roberto Clementy on first base? It was actually a
Tommy fam double. This score too runs, So.

Speaker 7 (02:37:00):
I mean it shows a Pirates some respect. Not everybody
can beat the Pirates. They're really, really, really good sixty.

Speaker 6 (02:37:10):
I was just told that, you know, Clayton Kershaw is
a better pitcher than you know, say Tonight's astro starter
on some guy's list on MLB Network.

Speaker 5 (02:37:17):
Maybe tonight get the the Dodgers got bad.

Speaker 6 (02:37:20):
Clayton Well, usually he rears his head at the start
of the postseason. So it's now three nothing Pirates, So
he's doing really well. There's still nobody out.

Speaker 7 (02:37:32):
He has had despite his efforts, tonight a pretty good season.

Speaker 6 (02:37:37):
Do you know why it's now three nothing? Because I
know why another run scored him. Mccutchahn reached on an
infield single to the pitcher, so Clayton Kershaw awesome rounding
into form postseason ready, he sucks.

Speaker 7 (02:37:50):
Do you think Alden underscore Gonzalez will ask him if
he treated this game like a postseason.

Speaker 5 (02:37:56):
I mean, I'm guessing right now.

Speaker 6 (02:37:58):
Since they're playing in Pittsburgh, which is widely regarded as
one of the best home gyms in baseball, Alden is
currently crafting a tweet about all the things that are
wrong with it and those are the reasons why Clayton
Kershaw's down three to nothing in the first inning with
nobody out and runners on the corners to the Pirates.

Speaker 7 (02:38:15):
The last place Pirates are a robust thirty nine to
thirty in their home ballpark.

Speaker 5 (02:38:20):
Nobody wins there.

Speaker 6 (02:38:21):
I can't wait till Alden is crying again because the
Dodgers again don't win the World Series.

Speaker 7 (02:38:26):
Dike in Park hosting baseball tonight. Yankees are in town.
Ross vill Real is there. He's got the Astros on
deck show that is next. We will speak with you
tomorrow at two o'clock

Speaker 3 (02:38:37):
The eight on Sports Talk seven ninety