Rockets & Astros Tonight, Farewell Fakers, LeBron Lame Again

Friday on The A-Team, Adam Clanton and Adam Wexler preview tonight's Astros and Rockets games, examine the latest Lakers news, chat with MLB.com's Brian McTaggart, and much more!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
I feel naked. And that's how I'm starting the show today.
On a good Friday. It is the eight team Sports
Talk seven ninety. Here's what happened. Okay, it's Friday. There's
a lot going on today, and specifically in my world,
there's a lot going on. You guys have busy days
sometimes that you just and some days you you know,

(00:23):
you've heard the phrase you wake up on the wrong
side of the bed. Right, They're so nice, You're so nice.
I don't care what you guys say about Adam Wexler.
He's a nice person. I left my laptop on the
table in the kitchen where I usually do my show prep.
I'm not gonna blame anybody, but I am going to
say there were more distractions than usual today and I
just left it there as I rushed out the door

(00:46):
because my son was home. I'm not gonna blame anybody.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
What's what's the saying that people say when it obviously
is the opposite. I hope this doesn't offend anybody or
no disrespect to you, but no offense.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
But no offense. But I'm not gonna blame you. No offense, Carson,
But hey man, it's just been one of those days.
It just has man enjoy it. No, I'm I am happy.
It's a big, big, big weekend. I would say specifically
for your Rockets, but don't don't undersell the Astros. I mean,

(01:18):
if we're gonna have surprises in the Al West, then
the team they're playing over the next three nights may
very well be one of them. Maybe they're just getting
off to a slow start, but yeah, I think Rockets
and Astros, we're in that sweet spot that time of
year where the Astros are just getting underway and the
Rockets are winding down. And October has also been similarly
like this, where the Astros are trying to play for

(01:40):
something real, real, big and shiny unless you're the commissioner
and you think it's a hunk of metal, while the
Rockets are starting their season. So we're in that that
sweet spot of the sports calendar here in Houston where
they're overlapping. And once again, I think if you're the Rockets,
for example, and we were kind of talking about this
with Matt Thomas on his way out the door in
light of what happened last night with Luca and I

(02:02):
don't know the severity of the hamstring injury. But even
if Luca was playing and was perfectly healthy, I am
dying to play the Lakers in the first round if
I'm the Rockets, because the other two options I just
don't think they match up as well against, especially from
a defensive standpoint, no matter what the Lakers have been
doing against terrible teams.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
Yeah, Rockets get to finish out this three game homestand
tonight with the Utah Jazz in Town, two on the
road out West, and then back home to finish out
the season. One team in the West that they could
see in the postseason. I know, technically I could say
more than one, but I won't because they're not going
to play Golden State in the playoffs. Golden State's not
going to be in the playoffs is Minnesota, and that

(02:43):
doesn't come until April tenth. They have been taking care
of business a little bit more regularly, pretty much after
their collapse against Minnesota in overtime. They've won their last four.
They're as healthy as they've been all season. As you
heard if you were listening earlier today with ima Udoka,
he indicated there is no issue with Alpera and Shangoon. Obviously,
you could have also seen. He's not listed on the

(03:04):
injury report. So his appearance on the e May's appearance
on The Matt Thomas Show with Ross, he didn't indicate that, yeah,
he's good to go. Just the same old issue with
the back just kind of got hit and he should
be fine tonight. But we will let you hear from
a big portion of that visit from e May coming
up at three point thirty about how they've been playing,
and most specifically about how their starting point guard is playing.

(03:28):
And there's no confusion who I'm talking about. If Reed
Shepherd's not in the starting lineup, then they don't have
a starting point guard. And that's been the same story
all season long. If you dribble the basketball and you
have a uniform on, it doesn't make you a point guard.
If you bring the ball up the court and then
pass it to somebody, that doesn't make you a point guard.
The Rockets have played with two point guards all season.

(03:49):
One's Aaron Holiday and one is Reed Shepherd. They might
not have either one of them on the court, and
that basically means they don't have a point guard at all.
Positionless basketball is something they've played a lot of this year.
When I meant or Kevin Durant or Alpera and shoon
Is handling a lot of the set up the offense responsibilities,
and as they've made it through to the final six
games of the season, I think they probably knew this

(04:11):
all along, but they let it play out. They know
that the best way to play basketball is with a
point guard, and that's why I think you've seen Reed
Shepard leaned on a whole lot more. He happens to
be coming off a career high nine three pointers made.
All of the shots that he made in that game
were three pointers. I mean they almost had to be.
Only one of them wasn't a three point attempt, but
that was a spectacular night from him. It also happened

(04:32):
to be on a night where he did not have
any turnovers, and you needed all that considering the other
team wouldn't go away. And you might see that again
tonight with the Utah Jazz, a team that has beaten
them once this season. Very different roster, though in very
different goals. When they played them the first time, Utah
wasn't getting sick when they won games. Now they are,
so they try not to do that at all costs,
and that's likely what you will see tonight with the

(04:54):
Rockets and the Jazz. The Astros will have their first
pitch a little bit later tonight. Dockets might even know
the outcome of their game without it going final by
the time the Astros first pitch is thrown tonight. Out
on the West Coast, they're in California to take on
the Athletics, which has been the case ever since they
moved in the American League West, but recently that means

(05:14):
Sacramento West Sacramento to be exact. The three games they'll
have in Oakland then or in West Sacramento, three games
in Colorado, and then four games in Seattle, all getting
started with the third spot in the rotation. Christian Javier
gets the ball tonight, and we'll get our first look at,
essentially when they're fully healthy, what does Joespota intend to

(05:35):
do with the lineup each day? Where does he want
to place everybody, How are they going to get the
at bats for everybody? And we'll really know more about
it as the days continue, presuming they maintain full health.
The expectation is that Jeremy Pania is essentially now good
to go if they want to play him. Tonight doesn't
preclude him from playing tomorrow afternoon. And similarly, the rest
of this road trip, you'll get six games in a
row and then an off day. You've got back to

(05:56):
back day games Saturday and Sunday, and then you're in
Colorad next week before that off day that I mentioned.
So I wouldn't think any of that really has a
lot to do with how they want to use PAINA.
I hope it means quite honestly, he plays every day.
That's the kind of player he should be. That's the
way your team is best. A healthy pain is in
the lineup every single day. Maybe there's three days over

(06:16):
the course of the season, five days you want to
put him on the bench as a reserve and use
him if needed, I suppose, and that might apply to
a few other players. But you know, my stance on
this is you're your best offensively, and whatever it takes
away from you defensively fine if you get your best
bats in the lineup. So I'll be curious to see
if Joe and the Astros feel similarly. We talked about

(06:38):
it yesterday when Chandler Rome visited it with us. We
will likely do the same today when Brian McTaggart visits
with us. His usual Friday appearance on the station will
take place during our program at five o'clock today, So
very much looking forward to that. A bunch of opening
days for teams that spent the season on the road
so far, and that means there's a bunch of day

(06:59):
games today.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
It is opening day for the Athletics tonight. Again.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
I don't know how awesome it's gonna be from an
atmosphere standpoint, but nonetheless, the first home game usually means something,
and you know, for to that end, just looking around
at some of the Major League Baseball activity today. Detroit
Tigers are at home and from ber Valdez pitching for
them today and he has made it two four to

(07:23):
two and ninety one pitch outing in which he was
not scored upon, gave up one earned run in his
first start, which was in San Diego, no earned runs
and no runs at all, only three hits today in
his second start against the Cardinals in Detroit. Just matter
of factly something to keep an eye on. Not because
they moved him, clearly, it's because they he's used to

(07:45):
be an astro. But this is one of the other
teams that I have no doubt will be in the
race for the postseason all year long, and they're pitching
is the reason why. And now he has made them
in my opinion, even though the numbers aren't there yet,
because the Yankee have been so good so far, I
believe that the Tigers have the best pitching staff in
baseball and he's a huge reason.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Why didn't you, well, I will say this specifically, didn't
you think that would be the case going into the
season or did you think it would be.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
A lot of people thought might haven't changed my mind
in eight days, so yes, you did think Detroit would
have the best staff in baseball?

Speaker 1 (08:19):
Yes? Absolutely, A lot of people that were done thought
the Yankees would, but they would always say well eventually
when they get healthy, which is just hilarious.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
I don't have much respect for the Yankees bullpen, so
I wouldn't I would have tried to separate the two.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
Maybe they're starting rotation, I think.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
I mean, I like Will Vess, I like a lot
of the arms and the power arms that they have
in their bullpen. I clearly think their starting staff is awesome,
and honestly, I think Justin Verlander is the worst one.
He's probably their fifth best starter, and that's pretty good. Uh,
the Yankees will have to see because they're going to
make so many changes throughout the year. But I was
convinced after seeing Cam Schlittler in the postseason, and he's

(08:57):
pitched even better than the numbers I just rattled off
for Frommer and his two starts. He's been unreal. And
without Carrett Cole and without Carlos Radon, they're not missing
an ace. They have an opening day starter. They have
Max Fried already and he's pitched well. So they're very
good up front. And we'll see about what the bullpen
looks like Bednar and Deval. They'll be all right. Their

(09:18):
last game is one of the recent examples of a
game they tried to blow. They had a four to
nothing lead and they give up three runs. Well you
still win.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah. No, I don't think they're going to be bad.
I just was never subscribing to the theory that they
were hands down the best, especially because kind of like
with the MVP race in the NBA, I'm like, did
Detroit's pat staff die? They're just they're very, very good,
and they got better over the offseason by adding the
pieces they did and to the MVP race.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
Obviously, what happened in the NBA last night, if you
were listening here yesterday, there's ten teams that are playing
extra basketball this year in the Western Conference. The four
teams that are set just not seed wise in the
play in tournament, and these six teams that are set
in the Western Conference playoff picture against seeds unknown. But
those ten teams are headed there. Eight of them were
on the court last night, and you had one matchup

(10:09):
worth watching, you thought, between the Oklahoma City Thunder and
the LA Lakers. It was an absolute blowout from the jump.
Lakers had eight turnovers in the first quarter and the
game was over in the first quarter, which is odd
in that Lukadancis clearly hurt himself in the first half
of that game.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
On multiple occasions.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
He was getting treatment and reaching for his hamstring, but
as JJ Reddick said after the game, he got medical clearance.
I wanted to see if we could cut into that
lead in the first few minutes of the third quarter,
so that's why he was out there and they were
getting clobbered still, and then he really hurt himself to
the point that he had to leave the game. And
then everybody started scrambling for their rule books. Okay, does

(10:50):
he have an injury exception? Is an independent doctor going
to come in and say he's going to be out
till May thirty first, and thus he gets an exception?

Speaker 1 (10:57):
And all sorts of people were trying to figure out
what it all means.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
But what it really means is what we've been talking
about for a month and probably have been talking about
in a little lesser degree since they instituted the sixty
five game rule. It impacts those individuals. It impacts the
other individuals that will slide into their spots when you're
talking about all defensive teams or all NBA teams or
potential other awards. I don't think somebody who should not
win the MVP will win the MVP because the top

(11:23):
two candidates are going to reach the sixty five games
played threshold. It does appear they probably would have gotten
nearly all the first place folks to begin with, and
talking about SGA and Nikola Jokic, but it will leave
several players shy Minnesota played last night without Anthony Edwards.
He will not play sixty five games this year. It
elevates the profile of Amen Thompson. It elevates the profile

(11:44):
of Kevin Durant, and it does likely mean this has
got to be the last year the NBA will have that.
You've got to figure all these things out before you
put him in, and it's impossible. It's the same thing
we're talking about with the tanking rules. So what it's
intended to do, and we think it's going to work,
it might, but what are the ramifications of it. I

(12:06):
do think more players are playing a little bit more
often than they have. I do think the sixty five
game rule has helped teams and the players involved play
a little bit more often than maybe they would have
in the past. But you're not going to play if
you're hurt. And most of these players were talking about
weren't just hanging out on the sidelines because well, I
could still get all my awards and I don't have

(12:26):
to go out there. You might kill myself when I'm
not really I don't know today, I'm not in for it.
And they did get the fans to see a few
more of them. We know that people are staring at
the primetime games, and all these players were out last night.
It's another example. You had no Anthony Edwards Luca ended
up getting.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Hurt when those injuries.

Speaker 3 (12:45):
Well, that's why I do think we're going to see something.
But the real reason is because contracts are based off
of certain awards. You want a max contract, you want
to be a max player, well, then you need to
earn a certain recognition following that season. They should always
in my opinion, it's unfortunate because two things were separated.
The vote was already given to the media for these

(13:07):
All whatever teams and the MVP, and yet it's tied
to how much money these players can make, and that
already is difficult. And then they took the aspect of
I guess not trusting the voters to determine. Well, he
only played sixty in my mind, is that enough for
him for me to vote for him in They should
have always trusted the voters to do that, because.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
That's how you don't have to put something this in place.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
So guys that would have otherwise maybe made an All
NBA team and elevated their status into well, now that
they want to pay me, I can ask them for
a Supermax. Well maybe maybe if you've made the team.
We'll see how it impacts Houston. Like I said, I
do think it impacts the men Thompson from an all
defensive standpoint to a small degree. I don't think there's
too many players in front of him that are going
to end.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
Up hitting that. And I guess I said it the
other day.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
I do think there's an outside possibility that a third
team selection on an All NBA team could be somewhere.
Amend is found and it just elevates Kevin Durant's ability
to land higher. He was gonna be All NBA. There's
fifteen spots. He's had one of the fifteen best seasons.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
In the NBA this year.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
I would hope the voters think, but when three, four, five,
six other players in his boat aren't eligible, maybe there's
a first team there for him. Maybe there's a second
team availability spot for him.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
I think Kevin Durant's season, he should be second at worst,
not saying he asked me on the first team, because
we did this yesterday with some of the names, but
I don't think there are well, I don't think there
are five other players better than him after those five.
Let's just put it that way. So we'll get into
a little bit more on the Rockets in the next
segment as it pertains to the Lakers in that injury situation.

(14:40):
Last night, Wex mentioned we'll get to Brian McTaggart of
MLB dot com what the Astros will do in Sacramento
and beyond this weekend. But starting in Sacramento, you know,
a whole lot more. We'll hear from emy Udoka as
he stopped by the Matt Thomas Show featuring Ross earlier,
and all of that to come on a Friday edition.
The last we heard is that Luca was gonna go

(15:02):
get an MRI. And see the severity of this thing,
Let's just say it's two weeks. I don't know if
it's like a grade whatever. Let's just say he's out
for the regular season. Yeah, exactly, Well, that would be
that would bleed into the postseason, wouldn't it two weeks?

Speaker 4 (15:21):
Ish?

Speaker 3 (15:22):
No, the first game of the postseason is the eighteenth.
The second if you play on the second day of
Game one would be on the nineteenth. To you get
real close, though, yes, quite obviously the season ends on
the twelfth. Today's the third, that's nine days away.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
If he's not playing for them, and I haven't looked
at their schedule to back up this statement I'm about
to make, why would you exactly, I'll do that. How
many of those games do they win? They're not?

Speaker 3 (15:46):
Well, if you obviously you're setting up Rockets fans to
tune in too.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Can they get to the three seed?

Speaker 3 (15:52):
I don't think they can get to the three seed,
and let obviously Denver and LA have to help them
a ton well because they won't have the tiebreaker over
either one of them.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
Right.

Speaker 3 (16:01):
Okay, So now these teams that don't lose very often,
because that's why the Rockets have only flip flopped with
the other team Minnesota fifth and sixth for a week
or two. Now, well, Denver has games against Oklahoma City, Portland, Memphis,
and San Antonio twice. Hard to say what those outcomes
will be. It's easy to say, well, they have three
games against the two best teams in the NBA. If

(16:23):
those teams are using all of their players and then
trying to win every game, and if they're still in
a tight race with one another, which they are, odds
are pretty good that they will be trying to win
those games. But I can't say that for certain. There
is again that silly sixty five games still has an
impact in some of these scenarios because of those two
players and the games that they have already missed in

(16:44):
order to get there, if they care, if that's something
they put ahead of putting themselves in the best position
to win an NBA championship, which I doubt you know.
SGA with his game played last night, that was game
sixty five for him, he's now played in sixty five games.
Victor Wembinyama has played in sixty one games with five

(17:04):
games remaining. He can miss one game or none, and
obviously their last game he was resting or he was
ill or I can't remember the reason they gave, but
he did not play, so that's something to consider. And
in LA's case, their remaining games are similar, not quite
as difficult, but one game against the Thunder, one game
against the Suns, and seemingly three games on the other

(17:25):
side of things, the Jazz, the MAVs, and the Warriors.
The Rockets I think would quite obviously be looking at
a necessary win over Minnesota, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Utah, Memphis Golden
State and ending the season on a ten game winning streak.
If they really truly get the help necessary, they would
probably also have to do their part and essentially win
every game. So if you're thinking those things can happen

(17:47):
and that is what the schedule says, yeah, I would
absolutely be attempting it. I think the Rockets have no
intention of not getting after it, not trying to win
every night, not trying to beat Utah and Philly and
Golden State and everybody else it's on their schedule, including Minnesota.
I don't think they're gonna be sitting guys. I don't
think they're gonna be minutes watching guys very much, if
at all, but more to try to be playing their

(18:09):
best basketball, which is what they're currently doing right now.
So I bet you they don't want to get away
from that.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
Well, No, and here's the thing with the with the
Luca injury, if he's out for an extended time, I'm sorry,
but like Lebron's not gonna carry them to the third
seed guaranteed. I'm not saying they're gonna lose it. But
if Denver's trying to get up into the third seed
and the Lakers falter and the Rockets do what you

(18:37):
just got done, saying that they would try to do
and should do well, in the Rockets finish no worse
than fifth. In that scenario, I would say, which is
where they are right now, and they might get to four,
but that means a four or five matchup in all
likelihood with the Lakers. Should the Lakers falter like I'm saying,
what I'm saying is no matter where they are, the Lakers,
I think that's what you should be wanting for your

(18:58):
first round matchup, whether Lucas with them or not.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
Yeah, I definitely wouldn't do anything from a basketball standpoint.
I don't like messing with the karma. I understand you
probably might be in a situation where we'd drop this
want to boom.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
It's only one game, we're getting ready for the playoffs.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
We can do this and we get the matchup we want,
and you know the old you get what you wish
for and then look what happens. I do agree that
is the team that they are most likely among those three.
I really I said it yesterday, so I don't want
to change my opinion. I think the Wolves and the
Lakers are the same from a matchup standpoint, and that's
with Luca. Clearly without Luca, it does change. The Lakers
become the easiest of those three teams to beat, not

(19:34):
saying the Rockets would even be favored to beat them,
although I would pick them. Yeah, I think that that
would be ideal. Again, if the Rockets are playing their
best basketball and doing things they didn't do in two
games they could have won against the Lakers or in
the most recent game they could have won against the Timberwolves, well,
just do the things you could have done in those games,
and you'll be in great shape.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
These are teams.

Speaker 3 (19:54):
They don't match up badly with these teams. They really
don't even match up badly with Denver. I think it
becomes too difficult in the postseason. You've seen some of
the runs that the Nuggets have been on the last
couple of years, because their best two are as good
as any team's best two league wide, especially in crunch time.
What do you want to do here? We have five

(20:14):
minutes left, it's ninety six apiece. I don't know why
don't we have nobody on our team ever touch it
unless they're wide open for three point land and keep
it in Yokichen Murray's hands the rest of the game. Perfect,
We're all set. No team in the NBA can do that.
No team has a big and a point in a
setup like that like they do. I think it's the
absolute best setup that any team in the NBA has,
And that's why I don't ever write them off. They

(20:36):
haven't won the title over and over and over again,
and sometimes when they do, they're like, we got to
get rid of this coach. Then, so again, they're not
fool proof and they're not championship. But that's not a
team that strikes me as an ideal team to beat
down the stretch. Well, the reason the Rockets lost to
the Lakers here at home twice late was because they closed,
and that's what I think Denver can do on any

(20:57):
given night. I don't think the Lakers can be great
of a closing team. If Number seventy seven is in streets,
I think that kind of goes without saying.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Is the league's leading scorer.

Speaker 3 (21:07):
He's one of the toughest defendive defensive assignments in the NBA,
and he's been bothered by this hamstring injury throughout, So
even if he returns at any point, it is one
hundred percent a concern every time he hits the court
until the twenty twenty six twenty seven season begins.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah, and here's the thing, this is what just guts
me about those losses to the Lakers, both of them.
I mean, you did both of the games, would you
say the Rockets were playing their worst basketball of the
season at that time, or at least maybe coming out
of playing some of their worst basketball the season. The
turnovers were horrendous.

Speaker 3 (21:42):
They were, but they also had the lead in the
fourth quarter of both games were they weren't so bad that, like,
they didn't get blown out. Then nothing happened except they
got out played for five six minutes in the fourth
quarter both times. Yeah, and I feel like they had
to come back a lot in one of them, but
they did.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, And I feel like that right there kind of
tells the story of at least the Rockets matchup against
the Lakers, because I admit it when I look at
the Lakers schedule during that streak of whatever it was
nine games in a row they won before they got
their doors blown off last night with Luca. By the way,
don't act like Luca wasn't on the floor when they
started getting completely reamed by the thunder who by the way,

(22:19):
I have my issues with them. We'll get to them next. God,
I thought Warriors fans were insufferable. Okay, see, they can't
act like they've been there before because they just got there.
That fan base sucks. They suck online and now apparently
they suck in person. We'll tell you about that next.
Among other things. In the best of X.

Speaker 5 (22:40):
The A on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
Well said last night, Oklahoma City fans have maybe gone
to another level. I think anytime I see them and
I just run across them on social media occasionally, I
love the fact that I'm just not on there as
much anymore. I should have done this years ago. It's
like a necessary evil in our business. Now WEX who's

(23:11):
on social media all the time. He would just tell you, well,
you're just following the wrong people. Just filter it out
and you won't have to see that.

Speaker 3 (23:19):
Not do you see all this stuff? That's what I
usually say. That's w How do you see this? Why
do you see this? I have an algo? You have
an al go, but still, man, well, sometimes I cant
you can leave yourself locked on the following portion of
your ex platform rather than the for you portion.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Well, here's the thing you wouldn't see as much. Here's
the thing in my defense on you.

Speaker 3 (23:36):
Have people to be mad at, and what will we
do for five six segments a day or hours.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
Sometimes I'm looking at something legitimate NBA related, and then
those people, whomever they may be, whatever fan base, whatever contingent,
whatever opinion they bleed in in the comments like anything.
I mean, you you run across that, even sure with
your sterling sports on only algorithm. No nonsense.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
You gotta admit you send me a lot of stuff,
and often my responses yeah I.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
Saw that, or I'm not clicking on that. That is
also a commoner mess up my algorithm. That's never why.
I just oh, what's the other what's the real reason
I don't want to watch this? I don't want to
see that? Come on? That's offensive. No, Austin Reeves last
night took offence to a fan who was mauthy. That's

(24:30):
being the nicest I could be. He's sitting in a
place where he's he's got floor seats.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
He is not in the front room, but he's got
floor seats right behind the bench or right behind the basket.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
The Lakers bench. Oh well it looks yeah, I guess
it's mind the stanchion because that's the left. You're right, and.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
Austin Reeves teammate number seventy seven. Luca obviously at this
point the game had been hurt and unable to continue.
The fan indicated that he wasn't buying it.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
He's not hurt. Who's not hurt?

Speaker 2 (24:59):
Man?

Speaker 1 (25:00):
I mean that's basically how he sounded like an ignoratus
and I listen, far be it from me to take
out for the Lakers or Luca. Come on, now, this
is me, but like, this is the kind of stuff
where and this is just go for Oklahoma City Thunder fans.
This has happened in Utah with Russell Westbrook multiple times

(25:21):
with multiple teams. I might add, didn't he originally get
into that scrap with the Utah fan verbally when he
was a member of the Thunder.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Yes, I would also it's I don't like what this
fan said, but there's nothing that you just would hope
people are a little bit less brave, but there's nothing.
I'm not going to ask for the officials to eject
him like Lebron Well.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
I think there's a.

Speaker 3 (25:46):
Big difference between what was said to Luca. Oh, he's
not heard, he's not hurt. We got to get this
fan out of here. It's disrespectful, yeah, but it's not
over the line, which is what Austin Reeves said. Essentially,
what happened with Russell is way beyond. It's not even disrespectful.
It's so far much more than yeah, get these guys out,
get these fans out of here.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
That he's looking Maxweld for what he said, which that guy,
by the way, you shouldn't ever go into the stands.
The pistons will tell you that. But I don't blame
Vernon Maxwell if the guy said what he said in
that situation, there's certain things. It's like, well, if you
get punched by the guy you said that about, I
don't feel bad for you, not saying it's right, not

(26:23):
condoning it, but I also understand to some extent. So
that's what happened last night. Wex described like where this
is coming with Lebron's watching the whole thing, Like Lebron
and you know, there's several people on the in the
bench area that are hearing what's going on along with
Austin Reeves, and Austin Reeves is basically just saying, you know,
have some respect. He's hurt right now. Can you not

(26:46):
be an a hole? For just these thirty seconds of
the game. Yep. And as is the case when these
kinds of things go down, people had absolute thoughts. And
look again, I don't think that that fans should be,
you know, not allowed to voice their displeasure or you know,

(27:07):
whatever you want to say, however you want to describe it.
But when OKAC fans are like, nah, that the disrespect
mid game is crazy, Austin Reeves is trying to hoop
and bro turned into a stand up comedy roast. I
don't think it was that either.

Speaker 3 (27:25):
Or we could look at it less about the fan
and more about Reeves and say.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
Good for him.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
Yeah, a lot of people were teammates players. Yeah, I'm
I'm all for it. He didn't do it, and he
didn't I don't really think in any way escalated the situation.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
He just spoke to him. I mean, he'd walked over
to him, but he didn't even swear at him. He didn't
need to be held back, and he wasn't about to
go into the stands. But yeah, he did want to
get a little closer when he was speaking to him.
This guy said, LBJ just waiting to point at the fan,
and Boom escorted out fan was lucky it was Austin
Reeves and not Lebron. That's probably true this guy, I

(28:01):
get it. Reeves actually played for the University of Oklahoma.
I have no problem with him. Luca is sort of
a whiner and disliked I get that too. Fans get
up for that kind of rivalry. I get that too.
He's very diplomatic.

Speaker 3 (28:14):
Well, we got two of the best three records in
the NBA. I don't know if they're two of the
best three teams. They certainly are not if Lucas not
part of it. Lakers looked very fraudulent last night. Yeah,
I guess the best team in the NBA. And again,
this was a little more than just they got beat.
The game was over five minutes in, and normally a
fifty win team this late in the season is not
getting worked like that. In fact, I believe the thunders

(28:36):
victory to that level was the well the largest. I
think it's the second largest victory over a team with
fifty wins. I think that was the number in the
last twenty five.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Years, not their franchise. He's in the NBA. Yes, wow, yo,
what was the total? The final margin?

Speaker 3 (28:56):
The second largest win in NBA regular season history against
the team that entered with fifty plus wins.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
They beat them by forty three.

Speaker 3 (29:04):
Well, they had a double figure lead in five minutes,
they had a twenty point lead seconds later. He was
this thirty point lead while Lebron, Luca and Reeves were
still somehow second half in the game.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
Oka see is literally garbage, both the team and their fans.
What a waste of life this moron his fan is now?
Is it okay?

Speaker 3 (29:24):
This is the thirty ninth home game, thirty eighth home game.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
Of the season. We're getting down to the end.

Speaker 3 (29:31):
The Oklahoma City's fans like, are we generalizing a little
bit much? This was one out of seventeen thousand, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
On one night. Here's where the whole okc aura and
it's not good comes into play. And some people said
that in these comments, like as a Thunder fan, I
hate the fans that make it look like all of
us are that way. This new era of people are
weird as hell. That's really well said. It's true about
a lot of fan bases, not just in OKAC and

(30:01):
not just in the NBA.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
They are climbing out of their basements and doing some
of this stuff in person.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
Now, Like my thing is, they do get generalized because remember.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
When like we don't know it because I don't know
what the words were. But this, this happened in a
different way. Like I said, I don't know what words
were said or if Luca actually knew who this was.
But when we were in Houston, there was a fan
right there along the sideline, second row across from the
Rockets bench that he was clearly going back and forth
with during the game as he was dropping forty on Houston.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah, I wish that fan wouldn't have even started because
Luca was like, oh, Luca's one of those guys. Durant's
that one of those guys.

Speaker 3 (30:41):
Durant will definitely talk to fans, it's usually much more
he's destroying their team. Yeah, basketball related, he'll talk to
the other team, he'll talk to the other team's bench,
he'll beat his chest in front of their bench. There's
so much of that going on, and I think most
of the people involved, certainly the basketball players involved, they
know where to take it. They don't usually put it
out there where it's somewhere where it doesn't belong. The

(31:02):
fans that don't have as much of a handle on that.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
All fan bases have these types of goons, unfortunately, and
then this guy who gives a bleep what the fans say.
They're getting paid bleep loads to play the game. Every
arena or stadium and every sport has a hole fans
mixed in with the real ones. So he's on the
side of these guys get paid a ton of money.
Deal with it, even if you're there, are dealing with it,

(31:25):
that's what he's Wait, there's a big difference between saying
deal with it and take it. Was dealing with I
think he's saying to take it.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
Yeah, that's not I'm not usually on that page. And
you know, did the fan not? Also, I've unless I'm
mixing up some of my fan player interactions.

Speaker 1 (31:43):
Was there not a what was there? What are you
going to do about it? In this What are you
gonna do? Bro? Yeah, that's what I thought. I was
gonna have the audio played, but it's one of those.
It wouldn't have sounded good over the radio. It's too
much noise involved, it's a time out, it's an NBA arena.
What do you want to do about it? Bro?

Speaker 3 (32:00):
I mean, like the player is, it doesn't matter who
the player is. It doesn't matter if the players Jeff Green,
Austin Reeves, Reed Shepherd, anybody, Jalen Duran. You're in a
lose lose situation.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
Because if you do do something about it, well, you're
just gonna they're gonna end up winning in court and
you're gonna get suspended.

Speaker 3 (32:19):
And then if you do want to get into who
the player is, the second loses, you could actually lose
the fight.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
That's I don't know. I don't know who this fan is.
Austin Reeves might be underrated, though, I'm so Mike the
fan be I don't know who this guy is. Yeah,
I bet he's I don't know if you need a
forklift to get out of his seat as the family guy.
A gift that was attached to this caption was watch
more if he's an MMA fighter on the side of
his CrossFit.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
Dude, I don't know, Just be better. Just don't get
into an altercation.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
Yeah about that doesn't seem too hard, all right? Uh?
Speaking of getting into altercations, how much are bats going
to get into altercations with baseballs flying out of the
park in West sacer Over the next three nights, we
will discuss that aspect of what I think is going
to determine how well the Astros do or don't do
one way or the other. That is straight ahead.

Speaker 6 (33:12):
The at on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
Going back to what we were talking about last segment,
I misspoke. They both swore each other at one point.
There's another video that kind of shows the lead up
to it, as Lucas on the ground and the fan says, Luca,
now you don't want to play defense, and Reeve says,
yo stfu. You know what that stands for. X stop talking,

(33:37):
yo stfu. He's bleeping hurt. And the fan goes, bleep
you that was his response, and Reeve says, bleep you
have some respect. The man is injured, what's wrong with you?
And the fan says, don't interact with me? What? Oh man.
I know they're not all like that, but I choose

(33:59):
to believe they are. And okay, see, I'm just petty
like that, all right. I was thinking last year when
the Astros went to West Sacramento and they got roughed
up with just home run after home run after home run.
I can't remember when that was, but I do feel

(34:19):
like it was later in the calendar. I e actual
summer months. I don't know. I mean, I honestly don't
know for sure, but this is when we were like, oh, man,
A's have some young talent, you know there, They've got
some hitters that really seem to have the Astros pitcher's number,
that kind of thing, because the ball is flying out
of the park in two of the games. Yeah, two

(34:40):
out of the three that they won. I mean, you
lost a series in Sacramento to the A's, did you not?
Uh no, you did not, So you won two out
of those three. It was a four game series, so
you split, and you yes, you split. Now I take
it back. You did lose a series on the road
at the Athletics. And again, maybe it was the other series, Okay,

(35:04):
I might be getting these mixed up. When was the
one you're talking? The four game series was win? That
was when they won. They had two walk off wins.
That's the one I'm thinking of.

Speaker 3 (35:11):
Actually, the Astros scored twenty four runs in the other
two games.

Speaker 6 (35:16):
Geez.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
That's why I was so maddening, because right your team
crushed the baseball. The Astros went out there and scored
twenty nine runs in four games. The Athletics scored sixteen runs,
but you split.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
If they split, they got two walkoffs and that was win.
That was in the middle of June. Okay, that's what
I thought. That's the important part here. I know that
much is made about warm air and all that kind
of stuff, different parts where the ball is gonna fly
out or carry.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
Dodger Stadium famous for this, Well, you also have a stadium.
I mean, I don't say it because I think it's funny.
I say it because it matters. You're playing in a
minor league ballpark. That's the other things it has. I mean,
if you're in the upper deck, what are you five
feet away from home plate? If you have the worst
seats in the house, you're twenty feet in the air,
Like there's not tiers and tiers and tiers of seats.

(36:08):
And then way way way down there there's home plate,
the pitcher, and the batter. As in it's like playing
outside your house in the backyard. You're playing in a
huge field down the street at the local school. There's
whatever wind conditions, whatever conditions, you got them all because
the stadium's not there to create anything, doesn't block anything,

(36:29):
it doesn't do anything.

Speaker 1 (36:31):
The lighting is poor for one thing.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
So it does affect outfielders, I think quite a bit,
but it's still more or less about you know, how'd
you play that day. I mean, you're both playing under
the same conditions. But it can produce this says, there's
a little bit of Colorado aspect to playing in a
ballpark like this in that you know, the Astros were
a good example. They just scored twenty nine runs at
four games. They're gonna score twenty nine runs at every
ballpark they go to. They might do it in Colorado

(36:54):
and you might get hot somewhere else. But you know,
Mauricio hit a moonshot there, Cam Smith homer there. It
didn't hit a whole lot of homers the rest of
the year, those two guys. I think that's why I
bring this up. I think the ball is gonna be
flying out of there this this weekend. I think I
hope it's the Astros doing the majority of it. But
because of what you just got done saying and what

(37:14):
we've been talking about, and the Astros are tied for
second in the majors after seven games, you know, with
with nine home runs they could get I'm not saying
they're gonna hit nine home runs this weekend. But if
they hit four or five, would it really surprise you
during the surprise three series hit less yeahs.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
Of the other factor is their pitchers are awful.

Speaker 3 (37:37):
Springs is probably the best one they have, and Lopez
and Morales have had moments, but they're not good, and
hopefully you get to them. Plus two of those three
are lefties. You're sending out almost an exclusively right handing
hitting lineup. That's the strength of your lineup to begin with.
And you obviously have the opportunity to play Matthews if
you want over low Berfito, if that's what you decide
to do in the outfield. Granted, if you do that

(37:58):
in the outfield, well then some that should be in
the lineup isn't going to be because Jordon Alvarez is
now your designated hitter. So these are all things to
look at here. But yes, I wouldn't expect this to
be a pitcher's duel today, tomorrow afternoon or sat A
Sunday afternoon.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
Not at all.

Speaker 3 (38:13):
I think the way the Astros offense was going is
probably going to continue. I do think the way the
Athletics offense was going is going to change. Their offense
was going nowhere. They faced two good teams. They played
six games on the road, and they didn't play very
well in them. They don't walk a lot and they
strike out a ton. That pretty much should play in
every ballpark. So hopefully that will continue. And if the
Astros take care of those two elements, they've been one

(38:33):
of the better teams as a pitching staff and getting strikeouts,
they've been not nearly as good as throwing strikes enough
to keep guys from walking. It was a little bit
better against the Red Sox, it was abhorrent against the Angels.
Don't walk as batters hit a solo homer, hit five
solo homers, don't get twelve runs on five swings because
you put runners on base. And if the Astros take

(38:55):
care of that, then I think they head to Colorado
with at least seven wins, taking two of the three
games in that series. At least one National voice looks
at the Astros and says, up, same old Astros, They're
gonna be there when it counts the most.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
Do you agree? And we'll hear from him next.

Speaker 6 (39:12):
The eight on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
Ninety SCN simulcast underway as well. So Hello, to you
guys who are viewing the show out there, we're taking
up until six o'clock tonight, a lot of Rockets basketball
and Astros baseball in the first hour of this program,
with a little Lakers sprinkled in because you know that's
how that's what we do here on the show. But

(39:36):
it's a lot of it. As it pertains to how
the seedings are gonna shake out in the Western Conference,
We're not gonna know until the final day of the season,
just like last year. I'm guessing, I mean, maybe it'll
sort itself out, but I'm guessing I don't know if
the Rockets are gonna know who they're facing in the
first round until the final day of the year. That's
a pretty safe bet, i'd say, left because with all

(40:01):
the half games involved and all that kind of stuff,
we'll be.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
Done with that pretty soon and then they'll crop back
up again. It's more about the Rockets. All three tiebreakers
they're gonna obviously come into play, and there's not additional
parts of it, because there will be a season series
to victory for one team and all of the tie
breaking situations they could end up and they lost the
season series to the Lakers. They lost the season series
to the Nuggets, and the season series will be determined

(40:25):
on April tenth, when they played the Minnesota Timberwolves. Because
it's an odd number of games, the winner of that
game wins for the second time, so they would win
the tiebreakers, so that you'll already know without waiting to
see what else. If there's a three way ties, this
record and all that stuff's going to be out the
window where these guys are. Yeah, I mean three days
left in the season, four games left. Three Yeah, we
probably won't know by then, but I wouldn't be shocked

(40:47):
if we hit the last day of the season. The
Rockets already knew, regardless of the outcome against against the
Memphis Grizzlies, where things stand for them.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
Yeah. And I think again, like we said, I don't.

Speaker 3 (40:57):
Really care to be honest with you, because if the
Rockets play like they're currently playing, then they have a
chance to beat any of the three teams they could
be seeing and includes Denver will be the biggest challenge,
but it definitely includes Minnesota in LA.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
Yeah, and especially I know all the things that you're
talking about right now are I.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
Would love to look past it and say, well, I'd
like to be the sixth or the three regardless of
who's there, because I want to be on the opposite side,
and I want to roll through San Antonio because then
I want to see the Thunder after they've been through
two series. The longer until we have to play them,
the better, I mean, number of ways to look at
I don't know that everybody looks at it that way,

(41:36):
and you know side of it, and I don't think
they match up particularly well with the Thunder, even though
they've beaten them. I think they match up a little
bit better against the San Antonio Spurs. Spurs have that
one thing that they can do that really even Oklahoma
City hasn't even tried to do the way that they
defend Houston. But I also think the Rockets know that
and have changed how they do things so dramatically now.

(41:58):
That was basically during the time where they didn't know
they somehow didn't know where to put him in Thompson.

Speaker 1 (42:03):
I think they know that now. Conversely, I think they
have the one guy who, for whatever reason, doesn't not
only doesn't fear going up against Victor wimban Yama has
a lot of success against them, Shingoon for whatever reason,
kind of has his number he doesn't like. In other words,
I'm not saying Victor Woman Yama has played poorly against
the Rockets every single time, but his record against them

(42:24):
suggests they're one of the teams that get him more
often than not.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
Like, I'm fine if everybody recognizes, even with whatever their
head to head says, san Antonio and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
City is better. They're the better team.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
So you might want to tell Victor Women Yama.

Speaker 3 (42:40):
Simply put, facing anybody else would be easier.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
Yeah, not a lot easier.

Speaker 3 (42:48):
I'm not disrespecting the Spurs, who are gonna win sixty
three games this year. They're awesome and they've handled Houston
at times. But Oklahoma City's better than they are.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
Well, some people in San Antonio.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
For everybody else, well, san Antonio is looking at it
from more different perspective. We're only looking at that team.
I'm looking at the whole league, and the whole league
dictates my answer. San Antonio is looking at one team.
Is that one team better than us? Well we beat
them more than they beat us, so no, that's fair.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
Yeah, And if you're a Victor Women Yami, you think
that's enough to get you the MVP Award. That's one
of his main points.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
I'm what a shame a player who's awesome thinks he
should win the MVP.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
Can you imagine?

Speaker 2 (43:26):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (43:26):
I didn't say that. I said he's using the fact
that his team beat that team's three out of four
as somehow.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
That should matter. I guess, of course it should matter.
You're making a case. Why would you not use that?

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Do you think David Robinson and the Spurs beating the
Rockets five out of six times? Yes? Kids, once upon
a time, that's how many times you would play these
idiots was one of the main reasons why he won
the MVP Award that year over the six seeded Achim
Olaijuan's Rockets. We'll where were the Spurs in the seeding?
Fair in the number one seed in the West.

Speaker 3 (43:58):
And this year it's one and two operated by two
or three games, and that years one and six separated
by ten games.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
Whatever.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Yeah, the Rockets time, it matters less. It's you don't
even have to get there. They're they're comparable players. And
one team led his teams to the best record in
the West. The other one is the sixth best record,
But they're not right next to each other. They're not
competing for the same spot in the postseason, So you
can weigh how much you want to use that as
an argument piece. These are not just the two best
teams in the West. These are definitely the two best

(44:27):
teams in the NBA.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
And they're both playing killer basketball right now down the stretch,
still fighting with one another. I mean, san Antonio could
have been dead and buried a long time ago to
this Thunder team that's gonna win sixty six games and
they're gonna need to win sixty six just to secure
the one seed. Yeah, these teams are out there and
you've handled them. That's fair to me. But when you
look back on that situation, because Hakeems so thoroughly outplayed Robinson,

(44:51):
people are like, and he said it himself, it's like
marri Oelli told me, look at that, he's got your trophy.
In reality, the regular that year, the Spurs won sixty
games or fifty nine, whatever it was, and the Rockets
had like forty six wins because Hakeem was hurt and
then Maxwell punched a guy, and then they traded for
Clyde and then Hakeem got hurt again and Clyde was

(45:11):
carrying the team, and Maxwell's like, I'm out after one
playoff game. I mean, well, happen.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
You get to all that stuff in the postseason. It's
not relevant to an MVP situation. But yet it was
a topic. Well that's a different that's a totally different discussion.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
I'm just saying, it's it's laughable to me that Victor
winmben Yama, not that he got up there and tried
to state his case. Whatever, more power to you. You think
you're the MVP of the league.

Speaker 3 (45:35):
He absolutely did exactly that. He stated his case and
these most certain terms ever.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
I've just never heard of a guy winning an MVP
award because his team beat another team three out of
four times, and that's one of the three reasons he
gives for winning that award that year. That's the dumbest
thing I've ever heard in my life. Who was gonna, Okay,
you don't if I'm a voter, I don't. Damn right,
that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. So what would
you gives the real creator If you want to give

(46:02):
me real reasons why you're the MVP, it's.

Speaker 3 (46:03):
A little easier in the other analogy that we're using,
because they're literally play like this.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
How about all this talk about you got to play
sixty five games to get these awards. How about play
more than twenty four minutes a night you pansy? How
about that he does? How about a count? No he doesn't.
He's got a minutes restriction.

Speaker 3 (46:20):
Well, twenty four is half of a game, Yeah, which
is these.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
Guys over here are playing thirty eight regularly and he's
never going to touch nobody's playing thirty eight minutes a game.
Kevin Durant is. No, he isn't. Yeah, he is.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
I mean, if we're going to the specific numbers, that's
that's that's a little bit more than he plays and
wemby average is a little under thirty.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
If you're supposed to be the MVP of the league,
you should play more than thirty minutes a night in
an NBA game. If you're the best player.

Speaker 3 (46:46):
You're trying to win a championship. Also, so how they're
using him is impactful in that.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
That's the San Antonio thing. It started with Kawhi Leonard
with load management. That's what they're doing. It's just a
different version of it.

Speaker 3 (46:57):
And the analogy to using two analogies, and one I
think makes a lot more sense to utilize head to head.
That's the other analogy, because Dream and David Robinson are
playing each other. I'm in the post, who's defending me?

Speaker 1 (47:13):
You?

Speaker 3 (47:13):
You're in the post. Who's defending you me? It's like
a literal who's the better player? Would you just, hey, Robert,
would you throw it into Dream? Hey, Rando, spur throw
it into David. Let's find out who's Yeah, we can
literally find five post ups a game on each side.
Who is better, who's more valuable, who's throwing out to
somebody for a wide open shot, who's drawn the defense,

(47:34):
who's got eighteen boards?

Speaker 1 (47:36):
We don't have that with Victor and Shay right clearly, No, no, no,
I know that. And this, to me, this conversation isn't
about Victor Wimbin Yama versus Shay Gil just Alexander. It's not.
I know that's what it ends up being because that's
who's in contention for the award. This conversation, to me,
and it's been this way multiple times with this guy,
and this is part of why he rubs me the

(47:56):
wrong way. He's i don't think I've ever seen a
guy be this arrogant who really hasn't done anything. I
know they're gonna do something this year, and they've already
in a lot of people's eyes, done it because I
see the articles. Are they a championship contender this year?
And they may very well be? But like, okay, then
then you can start talking like this. But like for

(48:17):
him to state as his case for MVP when he's
not even playing X amount of minutes per night because
they're afraid he's gonna get hurt or whatever the reason is,
I don't even know what the reason.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
Can't you look at what they're doing and say, man,
they're doing it right? Sure, I guess the record, that's exactly.
But we're not talking about the team. We're talking about
an individual award, and I have.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
A huge fun of it.

Speaker 3 (48:38):
I'm not gonna win, so this whole conversation should be moot.
I don't even think he's gonna be close. Then why
is he talking about it? Because he was asked about
it and he's a really awesome player. Guys, this is
Shane and Nicols Award. Let me know when those guys retire.
I respect them too much. To even answer that question.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
That's what he should have said. Can you imagine it
would have been smarter, It would have sounded better.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
Rockets aren't playing the Thunder and not playing the Nuggets,
They're not playing the Spurs anytime soon, so they really
what they could say about that themselves is over all
they have to worry about is the way they're playing.
There was a straw poll if you want to wrap
up this MVP conversation from all of your favorite people,
and it was you get one hundred votes from the

(49:21):
people that ESPN reached out to, and eighty eight of
them gave their first place vote. Really the only one
that matters to Shay, So twelve people out of one
hundred didn't think Shae should win the MVP. Only twelve
twelve percent didn't vote for Shae as the MVP.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
Eighty eight percent did. Of those twelve, how many voted
for women Yama just out of curiosity two thirds eight
of twelve, So they had Joker third or did the
Some of these idiots have Luca.

Speaker 3 (49:52):
Eight people voted for Victor, three people voted for Nikola,
nobody voted for Luca, and one person voter for Jaylen Brown.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
They work for Boston Media as soon I don't. They
don't have the breakdown for you. You know what funny. You
know what's funny about Jayleen Brown is he should get
more credit than he's getting for what the Celtics have
done this year. Please out Jason Tatum. This is what
I go through every year.

Speaker 3 (50:17):
Like with the SIAMO, he was he was a contender,
Well nobody thought he should win it. So not a contender.
If nobody thinks you should win the award, you're just
one of the other players. And I think everybody in
the league this year is just another player from an MVP.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
Standpoint, other than Jokic and Shay. Yeah. I mean, it
could be wrong about Victor.

Speaker 3 (50:33):
He will probably get more first place votes and maybe
I'm forecasting, but Shay's gonna win and that's that.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
Yeah, that's unfortunate too for a myriad of other reasons.
So obviously we did not get to Eduardo Perez giving
the Astro some credit, but we'll do that when we get.

Speaker 6 (50:49):
Back the AE On Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
Ninety, it is the eighteen Sports TX seven ninety sc
h n over on the TV side, simulcast continues as
we take you up until six o'clock tonight. He's WEX.
I may see. Josh Jordan is our producer Astros Baseball. Tonight,
Christian Javier looking to bounce back in the opener of
a three game set against the Athletics in West Sacramento,

(51:19):
and we talked about that. I you know what, props
to WEX for finding Actually this was Josh that brought
this up. I'm sorry, sorry, I'm taking the props away
from you and I'm giving them to Josh. Josh had
brought up the ESPN Power rankings yesterday. It's not a
lot of chatter about that on social after the show.
How the Astros were, I believe, fourteenth in the power rankings,

(51:42):
behind teams that they had directly beaten or had better
records than. Well, they were behind the Boston Red Sox
specific swept and they were also behind the Mariners, who
are in third place in the division right now.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
Yeah, if you looked over the top thirteen teams, pretty
even the Astros obvie for different reasons. They just didn't
put a whole lot of stock into the games. You know,
they didn't put a whole lot of stock into well,
the season's started.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
I mean Seriously, if that were a preseason power ranking,
I don't think I could have really had problems with it.
I mean I still.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
Wouldn't as before the season. Okay, well, now they're five
and two and just are leading the league in runs score. Well, now,
what do you think of them?

Speaker 1 (52:25):
Oh? Of course you think less of them? Got it?
It's crazy, It's okay, yeah, no, it is behind the
Rangers too, right, right? The Rangers are better than them
according to that list.

Speaker 3 (52:35):
And the standings definitely otherwise they were a half game
better than the Rangers.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
Rangers four and two.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
Yeah, not like they were bad, but yes, being behind
them seemed a little ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
So uh, EDWARDO. Perez, I always ask you this, your
thoughts on this national sports figure.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
Well, he's a little bit different in that he played
and coached and now is a voice. So I think
he has a pretty good handle on a lot of things.
I think he's pretty I like him, and I think
he's been pretty good in the booth. But if he's
going to weigh in on the Major League Baseball season,
I'm down.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
Okay, Well, this is what he had to say about
your Houston Astros.

Speaker 7 (53:14):
These are guys that are used to playing in October.
The culture is there, paying that Alvarez Altuve Korea. The
top of the order culture is there. The big question
is will the bottom of the order be able to
hit and that remains that remains to be seen. I
like the depth that they have that they can use
these oct parades, they can use Christian Vasquez. Those guys

(53:36):
are going to play big. I love the defensive aspect
of a guy that hasn't played yet in Nick Allen,
just sitting there waiting.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
Just in case something has to happen.

Speaker 7 (53:46):
But still, at the end of the day, this all
comes down to a brave O'Brian King and blobah. If
those guys can can shut it down at the end,
Joe spot is going to find himself in a position
that a lot of people thought they.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
Were gonna be.

Speaker 3 (54:02):
I think one thing to note in this is very,
very possible. I don't think any people like EDWARDO or
the Power Rankers viewed this Astros team like there was
even a shred of a possibility. It could be the
best team he's ever had. This Astros team could be
Joe's best. It could be his worse too.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
I'm not sorry to tell something crazy.

Speaker 3 (54:24):
If last year's team was healthy and this team is healthy, Like, really,
the only way I think you would put last year's
team over this year's team is the work you got
from Fromberg versus the work you're not sure you're gonna
get from Burrows, Emi, et cetera. This team is in
at least as good a position offensively, again, presuming full health,
because I already know what full health Christian Walker twenty

(54:46):
twenty five was. That wasn't very good, and I already
know that for some other players, and I don't know
that that's going to repeat that. I've said this for
weeks going into the season, and it didn't take much.
Christian Walker is gonna be better in twenty twenty six,
and so far, so good. One hundred and fifty five
games to go, way to go. I get it all.
But he also said something else fairly interesting, and I
definitely agree with it, and I think it's it's just

(55:06):
the way it is with most teams. I mean, here's
our five or six best hitters, and we count on
them to essentially help us win games offensively every single day. Well, okay,
then what now? Not everybody's gonna be able to go
one through nine. Not everybody's gonna have competent hitters at
the bottom of the lineup, and you just kind of
work your way around it. Do you put a pretty
good hitter in the nine spot when you flip the
order over for all of your best hitters, do you

(55:28):
have somebody down there that will consistently get on base?
So essentially you have a second leadoff hitter, because hose
al Tuve is gonna lead off the first inning, or
Jeremy Payne, You're more likely he's gonna lead off the
first inning. Well, and then what well, then he's probably
gonna come to bat after somebody else has already batted
in the inning. And if those players are consistently not
getting on base, we're gonna have a lot of zeros
in certain innings. And so far, that is what the

(55:49):
bottom of the order has been unable to do. And
basically it's Cam Smith, Joiner Diez, Jake Myers and the
other outfielder a low Brafiedo or Bryce Matthew and low
Berffito's gotten off to I would call a very good start.
He's gotten on base, he hasn't struck out a lot,
He's got five hits, two of them are extra base hits.

(56:10):
And remember one of those doubles was basically a single
that he said, well, I'm just gonna outrun the play,
and he just motored it out of the first base
box and moted it on to second base before the
outfielder could get a ball that was ninety feet shy
of the wall. He just hit it between two fielders
and he saw it as a double off the bat,
so he turned it into a double. But somebody in
that group, at least one, you'd like to say two

(56:33):
when they need to be a little bit more reliable.
Bryce's got two hits and thirteen at bats, Jake's got
four hits in nineteen at bats, and Jiner Diez has
three hits in nineteen at bats. They're not getting a
whole lot. It's a weak same positive as negative. Let's
see how it plays. But we certainly have nothing from
a track record standpoint on all of those players other

(56:53):
than Jiner that suggests, well, they're about to have a
really good offensive season. But they're gonna be out there
every day, so it'd be nice if one of them did.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
I think Jiner, I don't want to say he's getting
a free pass right now. But speaking of guys that
looked like they did last year, very very early on,
it's getting offset by, Hey, these guys that are healthy
are doing what we thought they would do if they were,
you know, healthy.

Speaker 3 (57:18):
I mean, his pass is the one that stands out though,
because why are the other astros doing so well because
they're patient. Now he's been a little bit more patient.
I think we maybe could credit him for that, but
he's still I don't think that's something he'll ever be
And I don't even really truly blame him.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
I wish he had a little bit better handle on
the zone.

Speaker 3 (57:37):
You don't have to swing at everything they throw, and
then you might see a little bit of that coming,
but you really just be more conscious of well, swing
at the pitches that you can hit, swing at the
pitches that you can drive, swing at the pitches that
are in the zone. And I don't think he's particularly
good at that yet. But he's also played five games.
He has three hits in.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
Five games, yes, three RBI.

Speaker 3 (57:55):
He hasn't driven the ball pretty much at all, except
for the sackfly, which was a very good at bat,
and he swung at the first pitch on that at
bat and he did his job. Though, don't want to
go other than Jordan, which I'm fine giving all the superlatives,
and with no regard to how few games he's played.
I don't really I'm not ready to say anything definitive
about any.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
Of the players, good or bad. They've played a week's
worth of games. Yeah, I mean, this is the time
of year. We go way too overboard one way or
the other. Like I've been a guess yiner had eight
three for nineteens last year, maybe seven five. Man, it
happens all the time for him. Yeah, and he just

(58:37):
doesn't have anything else to look at. Well, these are
the only games we've played this year. If he was
a better defensive catcher from the standpoint of throwing guys out,
do you think that would be?

Speaker 3 (58:46):
Like, I think that he actually is being mislabeled in
that regard.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
You think he does it more than we give him
credit for, or more.

Speaker 3 (58:53):
I think they're not stealing bases on him, They're stealing
it on the pitchers.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
That's fair. That is fair.

Speaker 3 (59:01):
He can improve in certain areas of catching. His pop
time has kind of varied a lot during his career.
It should be better, but his arm is good. His
accuracy is fine. Yeah, Stealing bases on the pitchers, Yeah,
and I think the pitching staff finally, because it's basically
all new except for Hunter, they're going to respect that
a little bit better this year because the team has

(59:21):
been telling we can't keep doing this.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
It was unbelievable how much you could steal. There would
be small ball to death games last season and which
you couldn't come back, like another team would bunt three
times in a row against you.

Speaker 3 (59:34):
I mean it was sold because I know it's like
a double or triple and you might kick the ball,
which they did. Yeah, we're getting into so much of
the just plays. Play some baseball, you know, give us
more to look at and then we'll have some more
things to draw from.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
But no, jeah anderdy As is not.

Speaker 3 (59:48):
It is amazing that he's regarded as a lesser defensive catcher,
and I think it's totally fair. The game preparation, all
the behind the scenes things that we talk about all
the time. We know that Martine was out standing at.
You know that Brian mccannon was great at. We know
that Christian Vasquez is good at. These are reasons why
they still are out there but you still have to
realize I hear it and I want to make note

(01:00:11):
of it. He's caught, you know, five of their seven
games he catches Hunter Brown, and you hear Hunter talking about, well,
he's done a great job. He did an awesome job
with me. You know, fifth game of the year, it's
Lance mccullor's first start. Who is behind the plate for Lance?
Who helped him plan for this for two weeks knowing
they were going to face Boston. Who did he applaud
after the game for saying stick to the plan?

Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
Yiner?

Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
Like, if they want to blow smoke and make it
up and say it publicly, so we have to fall
for it, Fine, but I don't really think that's what
they're doing. Yeah, mean Hunter, I said it all year
last year. He gets basically nothing but negative commentary all year, Yiner.
The way he catches and everything about it and preparation
and framing. And yet every fifth day we talked to

(01:00:57):
the Hunter Brown, the starting pitcher, and he's talking about
what a rat job you Heiner did behind the plate
every time, as.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
He caught him almost every time.

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
Last year's best picture on your team wants to work
with for whatever reason, It's true felt.

Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
Like, oh man, we miss Maldy in that regard because
he was so revered by a lot of the pictures
on this staff. We'll leave it at that. We have
got to catch up with the head coach of the
Houston Rockets. Actually that already happened. Matt Thomas and Ross
Vieiel Viial did that. So what we'll do is replay
a portion of the ema U Dooka conversation on the

(01:01:31):
Matt Thomas Show featuring Ross when we come back as
the Rockets will wrap up this homestand against the awful
no good, very bad Utah Jazz tonight inside Toyota Center
here in about thirty seconds.

Speaker 3 (01:01:43):
But do want to pass along this update regarding the
astros esach perettis placed on the bereavement list, so they've
taken this spot on his roster and recalled Shay Whitcombe.
Presumably Shay Whitcomb will be with the team in advance
of tonight's game and likely available off the bench, and
the surplus of available players for not as many spots

(01:02:05):
has been alleviated for the time being. But paraitis placed
on the bereavement list in advance of tonight's game, so
we'll be away from the team for an undetermined number
of days.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
Me thinks that Jeremy Paine is going to start playing
in every game now.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
He already was, and this I don't know what the
news is, but obviously it's probably not very no so
very sad in the case of peretis leaving the team.
We'll talk a little bit more of that obviously as
we continue, but wanted to get you a portion of
email you Doaka's visit on the Matt Thomas Show with
Ross earlier today, the weekly visit for the head coach
of the Rockets. You can catch it in full via
Sports Talk seven ninety or via the iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
You should be subscribing to all of our programs.

Speaker 3 (01:02:44):
That's the easiest way to get all of our content,
including these interviews. Of the conversation we have for you
here begins with his thoughts about how outstanding the basketball
that's being played currently by Reed Shepherd has been.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
He's been playing great in either role and then really
take a big jump this year, and we love to
see the development, the growth, confidence, aggressiveness, and the challenges
he's taken on. And so a lot of times happens
a lot in their second year, getting more opportunity this
year obviously with Fred being out, and love to see
the progress that he's making.

Speaker 8 (01:03:15):
What did you ask him to do in the off season.
I know that the sample size was so small last
year and you obviously had a different roster with Fred
being out. There was gonna be even with Fred being in,
you were going to give him a better run of things.
What what did you ask him specifically to do that
maybe has finally paid off here in this second season
for him.

Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
Yeah, the main thing is learned to learn to handle
the physicality on both sides of the ball, and that's
you know, something that comes with time and strength and experience.
And you know, he has to be able to handle
pressure when they're they're picking him up full court and uh,
handle them coming downhill when he's when he's guarding. And
so he's really done a great job of embracing that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
But other than that, it was.

Speaker 2 (01:03:52):
Be who you are, who you were in college, high
school and why we drafted you, and you know, be
confident and aggressive. Obviously one of the best shooters we
have and in the league and general and so want
him to play towards his strengths and improve on the
areas he had weaknesses in and so he's taking on
that challenge. Did a lot of defensive work in the offseason,
which a lot of guys don't put in that work
on the defensive side of the ball, and so it's

(01:04:12):
fan dividends.

Speaker 8 (01:04:13):
He's blocking shots, and I mentioned to you a couple
of days ago, you got four or five guys that
are trying to lead team. Have the team leading block shots.
That's something you'd obviously don't practice. And it also takes
you know, a little bit of guesswork, but also being
in the right place, right time that you don't find
yourself when guys in foul trouble. Has that been a
sneaky part of your team's defense here is your ability
to REMP protect the way that you have.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
Yeah, definitely, especially when you don't look at a you know,
a guy that's playing major minutes that he's a typical
REMP protector.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
Obviously Clint is still really good at it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
His minutes are at Auburn level or even Steven when
he was playing. But it's great to for our guys
to utilize their length and some of their just natural ability.
Obviously when you have a point guard, you know, quote
unquote point guard. As I'm in on the ball, you're
gonna get quite a few blocks. And then Tari Jabari
I'm sorry, Kevin using their length as well, and all
those guys that are contributing to us being a really

(01:05:03):
good shot blacking team, although it's not coming from just
one guy.

Speaker 9 (01:05:06):
Tarry Easton of course had the resurgeon for a couple
of games. Shooting didn't go the way he or anybody
would have wanted. In the last game just one for
seven from three, But overall, just what you've been seeing
from him and this resurgent and why it's so important
to the team as a whole.

Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
Yeah, because nobody can do the things he does naturally
for our team. I mean, I'm N's a great defender
and they go about a little bit differently, but the
ability to disrupt their offenses caused havoc there and just
use his natural instincts as his high level. And so
for him it was getting back to being who he
is and not just relying on jump shots to get

(01:05:41):
out of the slump. But you know, starting defense, turn
defense offense, obviously crashing the glass, getting out for some
easy baskets, kin to the free to line, all those
things that will make the jump shots fall eventually, and
he did all those. His activity level was great, and
then obviously jumper is gonna come back. You don't shoot
that high level as he did for three fourths of
the season and just disappear just going through a minor slump,

(01:06:02):
doing the other things to get himself back into it,
and now the threes are falling again.

Speaker 9 (01:06:06):
Rockets head coach Emaa Doka with us here on Sports
Talk seven to ninety. I don't see Alprin Shingoun listed
on the injury report, so he should be good to go.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
Yeah, he's good.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
They just took a bump to the back area that
he obviously had some discomfort in a few weeks ago
and so got treatment, got some time to rest, and
it's good to go.

Speaker 8 (01:06:25):
This outbeat jump shot, the three point or has come
into play at two of the last three games. As
you see them, is it good time for him to
shoot them? Is that the ball leaving his hand? Better
combination of both, because let's face it, he was good
for about the first month two months from three and
then kind of went down on a downward tremp and
now it's picked up the.

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
Last two couple of games.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
Yeah, I mean know, it comes down to confidence. All
of our guys put a ton of work on these shots,
and so it's not like they're taking them for the
first time in the game. I think with him, you know,
we love him rolling and pick and rolls and you know,
spacing out and just him rolling collapses pocket whether he
has the ball or not, and it leads to open
shots for everybody else. So you know, we love them
to do that. But when you're playing on the perimeter

(01:07:06):
some and initiating some offense and then all the attention
that Kevin and some of our guys get them in
attack in the basket leads to some of those kickouts.
And the main thing is take the shot you want
and be confident taking it. If you're not going to
take it, you go into a second secondary action or
attack downhill. But if you're gonna, you know, pump Pike,
nobody at times we want you to let the thing go.
You put in all the work and now it's paying

(01:07:26):
dividends as well.

Speaker 8 (01:07:27):
You got a Utah team very someone in Milwaukee that's
got a be set a number of injuries or obviously
I was thinking about next season, do you use the Hey,
Milwaukee came in here and hit ten threes against us
in one quarter. You cannot have the same sort of
not necessarily the same sort of but hey, don't take
these guys lightly because.

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
They could come and make a ball game of it
as well if they need to.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
Yeah, I mean, that's the message, and it's happened too
often to us this year, you know, playing up and
down to the level of competition, and you know, you
look at the Chicago game, they hit a bunch of
threes early. Washington Wizards, they hit a bunch of threes early.
So we want to come out and be aggressive regardless
on defense and not just go to the emotions, follow guys
around and hope they miss shots. This the NBA guys
are putting in a ton of work in They're in
the NBA for a reason, and they'll make shots if

(01:08:07):
you don't deter that. And so we want to come
out aggressive and do better than we did in that game. Obviously,
New Orleans is a good blueprint of respecting the opponents,
and because there's Zion Williamson and desount Tay Murray and
certain guys are out there, same thing with the Knicks,
and we want our guys to have the same mindset
regardless of who's playing.

Speaker 9 (01:08:22):
Seedings can fluctuate a lot down the stretch here in
the West. How much does that influence your philosophy or
try to not pay attention to it at this point
in terms of wanting wins or balancing rest and also
even potentially playing for matchups.

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):
For us, it's just to play great basketball at this time.
We're playing better right now and still can sharpen some
things up. No doubt, our assist number is off the chain.
I think that taking the care of the ball has
been great, So we two areas were really want to
improve and can be consistent with. I think that's good.
But at the same time, you obviously look at the standings.
Some some things you can't control, so you really just

(01:08:58):
want to play good basketball and be healthy. So for
us as the goal, you know you'll get you'll get
some rest with the playing tournament now, you get get
some more extra time off after the season. So we
need to continue to win and you know we'll see.

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
Let the tips fall where they may. As far as seating.

Speaker 3 (01:09:13):
As you would expect, I think many head coaches would
approach it. There what you were listening to at the end,
you know, try to play your best basketball, see how
things shake out, and go from there. Obviously, they've got
plenty of history against the three teams they're likeliest to play,
and last night's Sun's loss. I'm sure we've mentioned a
couple of times, but the Sun's loss did cinch up

(01:09:34):
the fact that, well, the top six teams in the
West are now set. We just don't know the order.
The Rockets will not be in the playing tournament. Technically,
that means they clinched a playoff birth with that loss.
They will see Phoenix again. Let's just determine if the
Rockets win the season series three to one or four
to nothing, as they have swept the first three games
from them and anticipating trying to get a fourth win
over them, if there is a more movement in the

(01:09:55):
standings to be had, or more importantly, continue to better
basketball to be played.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
We'll lock back in.

Speaker 3 (01:10:01):
On the other side, what we mentioned at the top
of this segment on how the Astros get after it
against the Athletics based on that recent news, we'll do that.

Speaker 10 (01:10:09):
On the other side, the eighteen, Friday afternoon in Major
League Baseball, producing a lot of Hey, our team is
back home for the first time this season, a lot
of home openers.

Speaker 3 (01:10:24):
The Astros will be involved one in one later on
this evening, one of the last first pitches of the day,
because there's a bunch of afternoon baseball today, but they
will be taking on the Athletics. We've been talking about
it since their season began, and then a little bit
more over the last two days, since both the Astros
and A's have been off since Wednesday. The absurdity of
the offensive start for the Oakland Athletics offense. Their lineup

(01:10:46):
for today is in their leadoff hitters hitting fifty nine,
third through nine looks like this one seventy four, one
sixty seven, two hundred eighty three, one eight, two seventy
seven and one forty three. And these are their everyday players.
They're gonna be in the lineup every single day. There's
really nobody that would not normally be there that their managers, ah,

(01:11:10):
we got to get them a start today.

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
This is their group.

Speaker 3 (01:11:13):
Their two hole hitter is hitting three seventy five with
a fourteen hundred OPS and has five homers.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
And eight RBI.

Speaker 3 (01:11:20):
The rest of the lineup combined has one home run
and seven RBI. It's insane how nobody on their team
but one guy is doing anything offensively. They're striking out
a ton most in baseball, and they're walking very little,
the least in baseball. But they got four lefties in

(01:11:41):
the lineup. They have Shay Langeleers, one of their right
handed hitters, all set to face Christian Havevier tonight.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
Is it bad that I feel like they're either going
to get better tonight or Christian's going to dominate, and
there's no in between. They're gonna get better this weekend.

Speaker 3 (01:11:55):
I would be really surprised if the Astros were able
to And if that happens, means the Astros will have
made one full turn, the second turn through the rotation
and gotten a gem from Hunter Brown five innings of
just two runs allowed and he win behind Mike Burrows,
and then this weekend three four.

Speaker 1 (01:12:13):
And five go.

Speaker 3 (01:12:13):
If they don't get well against any of these three
Astros starters, and maybe it's just the bullpender, nobody at all,
that would be a little surprising to me. I am
not saying they're gonna murder the Astros pitching, but they're
gonna do a little more damage than they did in
their first six games.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
I just I know there's a lot on Christian Xavier
trying to bounce back, and his first outing it ended
up getting salvaged because that was the game they stormed
back in against the Angels. But if you're rooting hard
for Christian Xavier to return to form, I feel like
this is the best chance he's going to get in
the early going of the season. And yet, if you're

(01:12:48):
the Athletics fans and you're wanting to see that offense
that we've talked about was so explosive at times last year,
well maybe this is your best chance because of the
way Christian Xavier has pitched in recent outing. Yeah, just
throw strikes. I mean, that's job one.

Speaker 3 (01:13:02):
If they hit it over the fence, if they, you know,
base hit you to death, that's fine.

Speaker 1 (01:13:07):
Just don't put him on base.

Speaker 3 (01:13:08):
It's been a real problem for him since his return
from injury, and it was in his last start. It
obviously usually means you're going to get out of being
able to get through five or six innings because your
pitch count's going to go crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:13:20):
But it just puts you in a bad position. Every
single inning.

Speaker 3 (01:13:23):
You're constantly pitching with traffic, You're constantly throwing extra pitches
in those individual innings, and that's always a concern, even
though he's now this far removed from injury, and I'm
sure he of all people, it's just because you brought
it up. He's on the mound giving up runs left
and right and watching the scoreboard for his team not change.
Still a zero on the board. Now it's five to six.

(01:13:43):
That's six nothing. Well, maybe that feeling won't be shared
today because the Astros they get to hit first for
the first time this year. They are also facing a
left handed pitcher. They've seen him before, Jeffrey Springs. They've
had some success against pretty much everybody that the A's
will use this year, in any year at some point,
so I think they're fine. We mentioned this that the

(01:14:05):
Astros noting this in their game notes. That Isach perettis
placed on the bereavement list and Shay Whitcomb has been
called up to take a spot on the active roster.
He got off to a Shay Whitcomb like start. I
guess you could say he was in all six games
so far, that have been played by the Space Cowboys.

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
He's hit two homers. They both came in one game.

Speaker 3 (01:14:24):
He's got eight hits in twenty six at bats, and
he struck out ten times in twenty six at bats.
That's probably why he's there and not here regularly. But
of all the players offensively that they have at Triple A,
he's absolutely the first one in line. I do think
this is an opportunity if the bats come, and you
never know if they will. You also don't know how

(01:14:44):
long Perettis will be away from the team and how
Joe will use him. I don't think he'll try to
figure out a way to get him into the lineup.
Here's a tiny bit of positional flexibility. He can play
that same side of the infield. He can't play short,
which he was doing again this year. He can't play third,
and if they had to, they could put him in
the outfield. But he's He and Nick Allen are probably

(01:15:05):
not going to be utilized a whole lot for the
time being, and they will lean on everybody else. You
can have your Don Alvarez as your designated hitter today,
I would assume Jeremy Pania is batting first and playing
shortstop today. Carlos is back over at third. I'll two
visit second lefty on the mound, So I would guess
that Bryce Matthews is your left fielder today. Jake cam

(01:15:26):
Christian and whoever Hobby wants to throw the ball to
if he wants to go with an all Christian battery, by.

Speaker 1 (01:15:33):
All means, that's so well. Oh, here's the pitch from Christian.

Speaker 3 (01:15:38):
Oh, it's a number in front of the plate, and
Christian picks it up and he fires on to.

Speaker 1 (01:15:42):
Christian for the putout at first. That's awesome. I love
that on Good Friday. Yes, all right, the villain. The
villain is back. What if I were to tell you
what would be the most apropos game for Steph Kirk
to make his long awaited return for the Golden State Warriors.

Speaker 3 (01:16:05):
The Rockets play the Warriors on the road after their
game against the Utah Jazz, so it would be that game.

Speaker 1 (01:16:10):
Well, it's Sunday. Let's hear what Shaan's has to say
about Steph Curry's return from a knee injury.

Speaker 11 (01:16:17):
LAKA, I'm told Stephan Curry is expected to be clear
to make his return to the lineup on Sunday. Against
the Houston Rockets. I had one source tell me all
systems are a goal for Steph Curry.

Speaker 1 (01:16:29):
He's missed over two months.

Speaker 11 (01:16:30):
And twenty seven consecutive games with the persistent right knee issue,
and the Warriors team doctors they've all supported anything Stephan
Curry has wanted, even.

Speaker 1 (01:16:40):
If he elected to shut it down.

Speaker 11 (01:16:42):
But he has been determined to return no matter how
late in the season. This is a Warriors team that's
twenty three and sixteen with him in the lineup and
thirteen and twenty.

Speaker 1 (01:16:50):
Five without him.

Speaker 11 (01:16:51):
They feel that they get him back in the playing tournament,
they will have a legitimate chance to get to the playoffs.

Speaker 1 (01:16:56):
They're gonna do what they did last year, aren't they.
They're gonna play in the play in tournament. They're gonna
get some random low seed after they get out of
the play in and then they're gonna upset somebody and
it's gonna be the Spurs. Well, I don't think that's
going to be the case. I'm just kidding.

Speaker 3 (01:17:15):
Well, they can't play the Spurs unless they improve their position.

Speaker 1 (01:17:19):
Because that's what happened last year. They will seventh seed.

Speaker 3 (01:17:22):
But they're not going to be the seventh seed this
year unless they're playing in the seven eight game, which
they're not currently slated to do. Only the seven or
eight team can be the seventh seed, because whoever wins
the game gets the seventh seed, the eighth, ninth or
ten seed one of those three teams, or the loser
of the first game. Anybody can be the eighth seed
of the actual teams that make.

Speaker 1 (01:17:42):
It, Unlike last season, in all likelihood, they'll go out
with a whimper in the play in situation. Yeah, I mean,
Steph Curry came back. Great. They were twenty three and
fifteen when he was out there. Awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:17:55):
Now what were they when he was out there with
Jimmy Butler Versus what were they when he was out
there after Jimmy Butler's season ending injury, which is still
as of today, season ending.

Speaker 1 (01:18:05):
That's all that really matters.

Speaker 3 (01:18:06):
I don't really care what they did when they were
both on the floor, just like I don't know what
the Rockets are gonna look like with Fred and Kevin
on the floor. I don't know, but it's not relevant.
I know why Sham's reported it the way he did,
as he has been also late on the story. Just
over and it's worthwhile to tell everybody, but you're really
giving him information that's not relevant.

Speaker 1 (01:18:26):
I just hate that he's gonna come back against the Rockets.
I don't even think he's gonna do anything. It just
annoys me. I mean, I'm all for it. Go beat him.

Speaker 6 (01:18:34):
You're better.

Speaker 3 (01:18:34):
They are exactly, But you're gonna see them, probably for
the first time with Kristaps in the lineup because he's
been playing, so that is a little bit different, and
it doesn't take away from the fact that Butler's not
out there. But nonetheless, if Golden State's a factor in
this year's postseason, I would have absolutely floored. Last year,
the Rockets couldn't beat him. That's all there was to it.
That's not gonna happen this year.

Speaker 1 (01:18:54):
All right, we will come right back. Four o'clock hour
is straight ahead. Is a Kansas City Royal the best
or worst teammate ever? After what he had to say
about a teammate over sleeping and then being scratched from
the lineup, we'll discuss next the A team on sport

(01:19:16):
over on the television side, he's wex. I may see
Josh Jordan with you up until six o'clock tonight, Astros
Athletics getting underway eight point forty will be the first pitch,
and we'll have that for you here. Actually, we will
have that for you over on news radio seven to
forty KTRH. I'll have you the Rockets game here on
Sports Talk seven nineties. They'll take on the Utah Jazz

(01:19:37):
at home. It's the finale of this three game homestand
they should be sweeping the competition out of the building,
just like the Astros did with the Red Sox. I
should hope so Wex will be on the call on
that one tonight with MT This story with the Kansas
City Royals, I mean, who is the Ryan I think

(01:20:00):
overslept missed a flight with the Texans once here in Houston.
I believe that's the last Houston athlete that overslept that
we know about, at least when you heard that a
member of the Kansas City Royals lineup got scratched from
the lineup because he overslept in a baseball game, what

(01:20:23):
was your first what was your what's your initial thought?
How hard? I mean it was a day game, That's
my first question.

Speaker 8 (01:20:30):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:20:30):
I mean people, I think people look at it like
my gosh, you've got eighteen hours at the ballpark before
the game's even played, but you're expected to be at
the ballpark at a certain time and he wasn't. My
only thought was, I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often.

Speaker 1 (01:20:46):
But again, even if it's a day game, like how
late do you have to be out or just how
tired do you have to be to oversleep for something
like that, unless you're just like taking a pregame nap and.

Speaker 3 (01:20:57):
That und it's like normal human behavior to me, to
be honest with you, And I'm being dead serious, like
he overslept, Yeah, unless he's made up some story, which
I don't think is the case.

Speaker 1 (01:21:06):
Yeah. I mean, look, it's it's not your typical job.
So I know that even though we all look at
it every day, maybe.

Speaker 3 (01:21:14):
During baseball season, you're wondering, okay, or the Astros playing tomorrow,
So then what time are we on the air. Every
single day they leave the park, they have to be
told up on the board via group text from the
equipment manager, from the bench coach, be here tomorrow at
this time, because we have a blank first pitch every

(01:21:35):
day for six months, each new day, here's your time.

Speaker 1 (01:21:39):
To be here.

Speaker 3 (01:21:40):
Yeah, you might have a bunch of seven o'clock games
in a row, so you need to be there at
the same time those days.

Speaker 1 (01:21:44):
But you have to check every day. Do you think
that Vinnie Pascas? Did you like him before the World
Baseball Classic? I liked him a lot. That's why I
did too. Then I saw the World Baseball Classic, not
only how he performed, but how he carried himself. And
I'll admit I'm a little biased since I have a
family in Kansas City. I thought he was awesome. And

(01:22:06):
then I saw this SoundBite that he gave after the
game about his teammate that overslept and got scratched from
the lineup. Yeah.

Speaker 12 (01:22:15):
I mean, you got a thirty six year old catcher
who's preparing to DH today and then his world gets
a little rocks that an hour and a half before
the game, he's not going to be not gonna be dching.
So your credit to Salvly today for being ready. First
and foremost, we're glad Carter's okay, right.

Speaker 1 (01:22:31):
I mean that was kind of.

Speaker 12 (01:22:32):
The initial thought when you're trying to get ahold of
his parents and everything like that to him. Just make
sure everything's okay. But once you find out he's okay,
it's okay. Right, it's a growing moment. He's really young.
There are some things that cannot happen, and that's one
of them. So he's gonna have to wear it on
the chin, same way anybody would have to. So it
can't happen, and you know, hopefully it doesn't happen again.

(01:22:54):
But it's one of those things that you just can't
afford mistakes like that in this game. So just got
to move forward the best that he can.

Speaker 1 (01:23:02):
I know, I know he feels really bad. You know,
he'll learn from it. So he's talking about Carter Jensen
and as you heard, he was slated to be the
starting catcher, Salve Salvador Perez was supposed to be the
dh that day. That's a big deal if your catchers
all of a sudden having to call a game because
the guy that was gonna catch and call that game,

(01:23:24):
you can't find him, which is how Vinnie described it.
We're trying to call his parents, trying to figure out
what's going on. Is he even okay? And that's legit,
by the way, since I've had some unfortunate occurrences in
Major League Baseball recently. But like, I think I like
him more. But I saw some pushback on social from

(01:23:47):
baseball fans there that they didn't like the way he,
I guess addressed that situation. I didn't personally have a
problem with it.

Speaker 3 (01:23:54):
Yeah, I mean, I don't really want to seek out
these people on social media to find out what they
had a problem with, because I can't even imagine, Yeah,
what do you want? You're this is the leader's supposed
to say. This is perfect. Like, he couldn't have nailed
it any better. Everything he said was right on the money.
This is exactly what you want from inside your clubhouse.
We're behind him, We're not mad at him. This is
what happened. He overslept. We're professionals. We can't have that.

(01:24:16):
He knows that he'll learn from it.

Speaker 1 (01:24:18):
Like he literally hit.

Speaker 3 (01:24:19):
Every single possible thing. But but it was he didn't
have to be told. He does not reading from a
guide book.

Speaker 1 (01:24:24):
That's just who he is. Yeah, he understands the situation perfectly.

Speaker 3 (01:24:27):
He's an awesome face of the franchise Caliber media outlet.
Obviously the face of the franchise is wit But I
just mean this, of course you want to go to him.
He's very this is perfect. How could you have a
problem with this? I don't want the answer. It's a
rhetorical question. I don't I don't need to seek anybody out,
and you don't need to call in and tell me.

Speaker 1 (01:24:45):
No, no, no, I have something better. So I started thinking, Okay,
who would be the best candidate to oversleep on the astros?
And then who would be the one that got up
in front of the media and did that in response
from the end one of his teams.

Speaker 3 (01:24:57):
I definitely know the second answer. I know who the
Vinnie was be Carlos. Now the equivalent of that would
probably be somebody that's like Carter Jensen, is a younger player.

Speaker 1 (01:25:10):
I don't really know which one of them you want
me to pick? Throw them under the bus.

Speaker 3 (01:25:14):
I mean, there's only a couple to pick from. It's
probably I mean, is it Shay, is it Bryce? Is
it Joey Cam?

Speaker 6 (01:25:21):
Sure?

Speaker 3 (01:25:21):
And Cam's actually been a major leaguer for longer than
every player I just mentioned, so I would probably say no,
not him. He just went through an entire season of
looking at the whiteboard, all right, got to be here
at this time, and the other guys have been up
and down a little bit, but they've just had a
little bit less major League service time than he does
because he was there for two hundred days last year.
But it wouldn't most likely be somebody like that, and

(01:25:42):
I thought Jensen, he spoke with the media after the game,
said it was tough to apologize to players as he
saw them throughout the day. Obviously put the team in
the bind. It's not about me, It's about the team.

Speaker 2 (01:25:51):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:25:51):
If I have to set a million alarms, I will.
But he overslept, and yeah, they said, well, how was
it when you realized what had happened? I was in
full panic mode. I got out of place as fast
as I could to get down here. It's just it happens. Luckily,
it doesn't happen often. And obviously, even more fortunately, there
wasn't any negative reason for well why isn't this player here?
Because Vinnie did describe what I imagine every ball club

(01:26:14):
as clubhouse would be like, especially those that are closest
to him. They're like, well, this is really odd. I'm
worried this could be really bad.

Speaker 1 (01:26:24):
But it wasn't. In all your time of doing morning radio,
did it. Did you ever oversleep. Hundreds maybe that was
my first thought.

Speaker 3 (01:26:32):
You could hear me almost say hundreds a lot, Yes,
no question about it.

Speaker 1 (01:26:37):
But did you like were you late to the start
of the show? I had, Yes, I was late to
the show more than once.

Speaker 7 (01:26:42):
It was.

Speaker 3 (01:26:42):
I was there by six oh five. I would did
excuse me a five o'clock show, okay. And I was
like Carter Jensen.

Speaker 1 (01:26:48):
I was young.

Speaker 3 (01:26:49):
I was young, and I lived if I lived to
the station as close as he lived to the ballpark,
then he would live under the overpath. Yes, that's how
close I lived to the radio station.

Speaker 1 (01:27:03):
That's probably why you you over slept if the producer
and and I always appreciated it, and I always lied
to him when he called at four fifty six, and
I would say, of course, I'm up.

Speaker 3 (01:27:13):
I'll be there in a second. But I would be
there by five oh one or five oh two.

Speaker 1 (01:27:18):
Were you sold?

Speaker 3 (01:27:19):
No, of course, not that it would have never happened ever,
And I hated to do that to my co host.
But I'm not gonna I'm not gonna lie to our listeners.
I mean, I guess mostly a five am show, I
did wake up way too tight or not at all.
Some days, and he was awfully nice to offer up
that phone call when necessary. Are you up or are
you coming in? And I would always say of course

(01:27:40):
and yes, was it Jonesy No much older gentlemen. Okay, oh,
I know you're talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:27:46):
I think you have to grease up the wheels everyone now.
And then yeah, yep, I know you're talking about, Like
that was my worst nightmare. I'm talking about I'm going
to sleep the night before because you know what it was,
You're hosting an early morning talk show and I'd never
do I could never do five. I would just say, no,
I'm going to do something else. What you want me

(01:28:09):
on the air at what time? Please? Absolutely? Yes, Dix
is bad. And it's like the thing was when I
was doing the mornings, I was I was like one
exit away from the station and that was close. It
wasn't as close as what you're saying, but it was
close enough, and like it was just panic though, like
you're like, oh no, it's just the worst.

Speaker 3 (01:28:29):
And I would know how close Compact Center is to
twenty four Greenway.

Speaker 1 (01:28:34):
I call it the summit. That's how close I lived. Okay,
were you at it was?

Speaker 3 (01:28:41):
There's an apartment buildings beyond the Summit and twenty four
Greenway was home base.

Speaker 1 (01:28:47):
Got it very easy. What years were this, Well, I
was like Carter, I was in my twenties. Yeah, but
what years were these? I at least know that the
late nineties. Okay, okay, man, you were doing a lot
of work Greenway at that time.

Speaker 3 (01:29:01):
I had three jobs and they were both in the
same building. That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:29:05):
What a time to be alive.

Speaker 3 (01:29:06):
And then when work would end, I would go to
the Summit for basketball games, hockey games.

Speaker 1 (01:29:13):
I was working for the hockey team they played right there.
I want that I.

Speaker 3 (01:29:16):
Shared a full day without being more than five minutes
away from my residence.

Speaker 1 (01:29:19):
You probably got amazing gas mileage.

Speaker 3 (01:29:23):
When the last time you filled up six weeks ago.

Speaker 1 (01:29:28):
Haven't got it town lately? No, I just it was
it was going to bed the night before though, because
you had stayed up to watch the Rockets play in
Portland or something like that. Just also keep this in mind.

Speaker 3 (01:29:40):
During the time where I needed a five to eight
or a four forty five wake up call, I was
not using my iPhone to set my alarm.

Speaker 1 (01:29:49):
It was old traditional plastic recitangle have an iPhone nor
did anybody else? Right? Right? And the thing is those things,
if they didn't have a battery backup, like that's why
home alone worked. They home alone would never happen. Like
if you've ever seen the meme of what home alone
would be like in twenty twenty six, yep, it takes like,

(01:30:10):
first of.

Speaker 3 (01:30:10):
All, would we also assume that the criminals weren't two
of the dumbest people walking the planet?

Speaker 1 (01:30:16):
Watch out Joe Pesci's It's gonna hear you.

Speaker 3 (01:30:18):
But yeah, the whole idea of like listening to Carter
Jensen explain it. If I've to set four alarms, I've
set a million alarms, like, it's oh great, no problem,
I'll set ten different alarms on this one device. I
might even have a burner phone I can use to
set ten more alarms. I don't know anybody that had
three clock radios next to their bed, even two. Everyone
you have one, and now maybe you souped it up

(01:30:41):
or got an upgraded version and you had two alarm
avails on your AMFM clock radio.

Speaker 1 (01:30:48):
Teresa used to hate the sound of my morning alarm.
It was absolutely brutal. All right, we'll leave it at that.
We will come right back. Hey, guess what we have
a josh Hater update from josh Hater. That's next. How
much team mass josh hater right now? Have they blown

(01:31:11):
a save? I don't think so, that's correct. They have not.
Have they made it a little bit more dicey than
it needed to be. Uh yeah, absolutely, no question about it,
undred percent, which is something he would He has done
a lot he has.

Speaker 3 (01:31:26):
It's not been a good start to the year for
Brian a Bray that is, unfortunately and painfully obvious. He's
yet to have an outing. I think they would be uh,
you know, start to finish happy with He finished his
last outing and in such a positive way that hopefully
that is a sign of things to come. But he
began his outing by allowing another home run. He gave
up a home run to the pinch hitter of the
first batter he faced in the uh his last appearance,

(01:31:48):
to Anthony, and then he struck out the next three batters,
all swinging and all while just crushing the strike zone. Finally,
but his other two outings also there were issues. Each
time he was pulled for one of his outings because
it was not the Brian Abra they expected to see.
It was a little about the results, clearly, but his
velocity wasn't where it needs to be, and there was

(01:32:09):
something not quite right. Joe Spott addressed it here on
Sports Talk seven to ninety when he had his weekly
visit with Matt and Ross earlier this week. It's not
something physical, he said. He had a very clear conversation
with a braw and he said, I'm not hurt. Everything's fine,
But finding the parts of your mechanics that are off

(01:32:32):
is sometimes a difficult thing to do, and sometimes it
happens a little bit more frequently at the beginning of
a season. And that's what he described it as, and
maybe he found it in that last outing, But the
answer is really, of course he's elite. Josh Hater makes
everything about this bullpen that much better. Those are three
more outs you kind of expect to get. It gives
you more flexibility with when guys throw. Brian King's pretty

(01:32:56):
much your next best reliever after a bray while Hater
is out, and I thought Joe was and Josh Miller
smartly deployed him in his most recent outing. He didn't
come in the eighth inning. He came in in the
seventh inning. Where the pocket of hitters was better, they
thought better suited for him to face, and he crushed it.
Then Tang came in in the eighth inning, and then
a Brew in the ninth inning. And when you have

(01:33:16):
hater and they'll probably have Bennett Sussa back first if
he doesn't have any setbacks. Well, now, all of a sudden,
you really can pick and choose your moments. This guy's
even better against the lefties. This guy, even though he's
a left he gets right. He's out very well. And
now you also have a nice mix. That's four lefties
plus a bray who at the back end of your bullpen.
And it sure looks like aj bluepaw is an extremely

(01:33:39):
important part of your bullpen. However you'd like to use him,
And I might be able to say same thing about Weiss,
and I can't be much more pleased.

Speaker 1 (01:33:46):
How could anybody be much more pleased?

Speaker 3 (01:33:48):
Though?

Speaker 1 (01:33:48):
With what Cody.

Speaker 3 (01:33:48):
Bolton did who three innings to keep them from using
anybody else in the bullpen.

Speaker 1 (01:33:54):
When he followed Hunter Brown, Yeah, the other night, Todd
actually pointing out bullpen's an excellent shape right now there,
and a phenomenal shape.

Speaker 3 (01:34:01):
Day off preceded by two days where you only needed
one reliever each day.

Speaker 1 (01:34:07):
Yeah, I'll take it. I'll take it anytime. But I'll
also take Josh Hater as soon as he can get back.
So what's the status of his health? Hey? Zeus or tease? Almost? No,
not quite? What did I do wrong? It's Louise, Oh oh,
I misspoke? You're right? Well, he provided this audio. I

(01:34:28):
just want to make sure he was Josh Hater.

Speaker 3 (01:34:29):
And his wife Maria doing a charity event yesterday, a
shopping spree for kids over at Academy KHOU. Louis Ortiz
and KPRC Nick Mantis were among those there to collect it.
And you'll hear from Nick in this sound vice, but
we did collect it from Louis. Josh Hater updating on
his current situation.

Speaker 13 (01:34:48):
I have a few book friends this week, which is
very exciting for me and being able to get my
reps in, be able to get stronger as much as
I can, to be back as soon as possible.

Speaker 12 (01:34:58):
There's no timetables, just kind of a how you feel
going through these bullpens and see what happens after that.

Speaker 13 (01:35:03):
Yeah, ultimately it's trying to break that tissue up. Make
sure it's recovering well. My bullpens have been really well
my last book when I touched into the nineties, So
that's exciting for me. Making sure that when I come
back there's no setback.

Speaker 3 (01:35:19):
It's exactly what you want to have happened. I'm glad
he said it, and I think everybody's on board with it.
This is think about the timeline we're on. Pitchers and
catchers report early February note of a setback, the fact
that he's been shut down from pitching, and they've gone
from there. We're all most I mean, I guess another
seven to ten days will be almost two months from

(01:35:41):
that from when he got to spring training, and he
has not had any setbacks in that time. Biceps tendinitis
after the capsule strain shortened the season last year. And
that's all I've ever said, that's all you're trying to do.
If he comes back on April first, I don't want him.
I wouldn't want him to get hurt again. If he
comes back on June, I'm gonna say the exact same thing.

(01:36:02):
I don't really care when it is. I just wanted
them to do the best things that they can to
ensure if he gets hurt again, it's not related to
what we just went through. If he has some other injury,
if there's a recurrence of this injury, there's nothing more
they should have or could have done. All the scans
are showing this, all of the rehab assignments and bullpens
are showing that. And to hear him say he did

(01:36:23):
something in a bullpen that he never does. If people remember,
you know, McTaggart, Chandler, Matt Chris, Matt, Thomas Ross, all
the people that were you know, sending back video from
spring training and some of his work off the mound,
it was pretty easy to tell he wasn't throwing how
hard he normally does. But as he's described himself just today,

(01:36:43):
just that you heard I threw ninety in a bullpen,
I don't normally do that. So just looking at him
throwing in the mid eighties, you might have thought, well,
he's not letting it loose exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:36:53):
He's not there yet.

Speaker 3 (01:36:54):
They're trying to do all the things necessary, and even
in a bullpen, he really doesn't necessarily let it loose.
When he's in the astro's bullpen getting ready to come
into a game, getting hot, it'll be much closer to
letting it loose than when he's throwing a bullpen.

Speaker 1 (01:37:09):
Yeah, the no setbacks thing, it kind of reminds me
to a much much smaller and less lengthy of time
extent to Lance mccullar's junior where you were just holding
your breath hoping there aren't any setbacks. But unlike Lance,
I don't. I don't anticipate any. The only thing about
this situation that just concerned me is it feels like

(01:37:29):
it's a carryover from last year.

Speaker 3 (01:37:31):
But I mean, I don't know if it is or
it isn't except for what they've said, and they said one,
I mean, I know we all separate injuries. It's very
much two separate injuries, and again one worse than the other.
The only thing that should be of greatest concern, And
again I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:37:45):
I'm not a doctor. They didn't do anything to correct
the problem, nothing surgical, They did not have surgery for it.

Speaker 3 (01:37:53):
They felt like rest and rehab would get him to
where he wanted to be, and he was on course
to do that. This injury then occurred during the off
season later in the off season, which is why we're
where we are today.

Speaker 1 (01:38:03):
But yeah, I don't have any.

Speaker 3 (01:38:05):
Reason to doubt where he is. I think it's a
very serious situation. I don't want my You wouldn't want
your ninety plus mile an hour left handed reliever having
biceps tendonitis. That doesn't sound like something that you just
get over and never reoccurs again. But he hasn't had
a history of injuries. He's pitched a lot for Houston,
he pitched a lot for Milwaukee and San Diego and
everyone before that, and he's been a pretty healthy pitcher.

(01:38:26):
The injury last year was clearly something that helped derail
the Astros and he's I mean, I don't expect him
to pitch May fifteenth, maybe at the earliest, because they're
going to.

Speaker 1 (01:38:38):
Bring them along slowly exactly, not as a lot slow,
a lot more slowly than they're bringing along Jeremy Pania.

Speaker 3 (01:38:45):
Well, Pena also is not like, Yeah, those injuries are
so dramatically different, Like you're scanning it to see if
something's broken or not, and it was and didn't need
surgery to heal.

Speaker 1 (01:38:55):
It's healed. He's good to go. Hey, props to the
Astros for finding the break on the initial scan, though,
unlike with Jordan Alvarez last year, Jeremy.

Speaker 3 (01:39:04):
Jeremy didn't even know it was broken. He tried, he
just kept on playing.

Speaker 1 (01:39:07):
Well, Jordan didn't either, did the same thing, and then
they determined it was broken.

Speaker 3 (01:39:12):
Well that was after they looked at it. Yeah, go
ahead and take some VP.

Speaker 1 (01:39:16):
Really look harder, all right, you mean after they looked
at it harder. I h I do feel better about
the medical situation this season. And I'm not saying it
was all Jeremiah. I just maybe it's just as simple
as there's just not as many guys that are on
the shelf. There's plenty, but not nearly like last year.

(01:39:37):
And I'm talking about to start the year. It feels
like from the beginning of last season it was.

Speaker 3 (01:39:41):
Yet five guys start the year on the IL because
of an injury that took place after the season ended.

Speaker 1 (01:39:49):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 3 (01:39:49):
Niel Delos Santos was actually sent to Corpus to continue
his rehab. Joe Spotta updated earlier this week. He just
basically needs to go on back to back days and
once he does that it's over that hump, then there
will consider putting him on the active roster. The situation
with Nate Pearson, who is now throwing. I think he
Joe said he had a live VP and that went well.
He was added to the roster during the off season

(01:40:11):
and then had a procedure and that's what set him back. Obviously,
we're talking about Josh Hater Bennett Sussa had the oblique
injury just before the season started, but he and Josh
stayed back specifically so they could continue there. You know
what their program is, live vps, and I think SUSA
is coming along much more quickly than I think initially hoped.
So sometime before the end of the month, he should

(01:40:32):
be with the team and the one position player the darn
World Baseball Classic got Zach Decenzo. Then he's partner there
with Team Italy. The elbow sprain why he did not
start the year healthy.

Speaker 1 (01:40:43):
Hate it when that happens, all right, So yeah, hoping
for a much healthier Astros team as the season rounds
into the month of April and we get on into
the marathon. A team that's not healthy the Los Angeles Lakers, mean,
no matter what the severity is, I feel like they're
gonna be missing some time from Luka Doncic. But that's

(01:41:05):
not what was on Lebron James's mind the other day,
and it's very interesting when you consider what he said
about this particular NBA city in the past and what
he said about it a few days or so ago
on the golf course. Of course, it was all picked
up because he's Lebron. Anytime he's talking, there's a microphone

(01:41:25):
in front of him. And by the way, I may
or may not happen to agree with him about this
particular NBA city, but it's what he wants to do
with the team there that is of interest, and that
is straight ahead. Gave the final line for from er
Valdez earlier or if he was still in the middle
of his outrevid six runs zero point seventy five era.

Speaker 3 (01:41:45):
Yeah, he gave a run in his last outing. He stinks,
what a bum to and oh when he is on
the bump. He got the win today, his first.

Speaker 1 (01:41:52):
Did you feel like Detroit was a real possibility for
him when he was a free agent or was that
left field?

Speaker 3 (01:41:59):
I pretty much much didn't for two reasons. I didn't
think Detroit would be big spenders, considering, why be spending
money on other players? If you have the best player,
just spend the money on him plan he.

Speaker 1 (01:42:11):
Could rub him the wrong way that they are spending
that money on other players.

Speaker 3 (01:42:16):
It might in the off season, I hope it doesn't
during the season where he helps them win.

Speaker 1 (01:42:21):
The World Series. Wouldn't need that happen.

Speaker 3 (01:42:24):
The other reason why I didn't think it was a
possibility is and maybe I just I was guessing and
misread it. I didn't think someone who knew him that
well would say, yes, let's go do this, and that's
Aj Hinch. What he does know is what everybody knows.
You give this guy the ball thirty times, we're gonna
have a chance to win thirty times or twenty eight times.
You're not gonna find many pitchers that can give us that.

(01:42:46):
But he also knew the day to day stuff, you know,
the type of clubhouse persona he has, and anything else
that you might want to go along with it that
can be good or bad.

Speaker 1 (01:42:54):
Aj just knows it all.

Speaker 3 (01:42:55):
So I was a little I did not think that
that would necessarily be the direction that particular team would go.
But it was much more about the first side of it.
They've already made the playoffs without him, They've already been
one of the teams because of schoogle that they could
do this and they could be a long term, a
long run in the postseason, and they're super young offense.
They just decided, well, okay, let's let's go for it

(01:43:17):
for this one year with Turk and him.

Speaker 1 (01:43:19):
You know, aj Hinch had extensive conversation maybe conversations with
Joe Spota about the extracurricular stuff. I guess, I mean
he what wouldn't he know Caesar sala is our situation,
what really happened. But if you did not know what
really happened, well, what I'm saying, we all know what

(01:43:41):
really happened. We can we can make anything, we can
play up anything to be the reason for why a
guy hasn't been signed late. I mean, if a guy's
as good as he is, usually didn't take that long
to get signed in any sport, And.

Speaker 3 (01:43:57):
I mean baseball is kind of a different animal with
a you know how teams operate. You just never know
it's gonna It happens to somebody every year, doesn't it.

Speaker 1 (01:44:05):
Somebody?

Speaker 3 (01:44:05):
Oh my, I can't believe this players and sign was
taking so long, was taking so long and didn't happen
with Alex bre This just the last offseason like, no,
the reasons are always different, but this he actually has baggage.

Speaker 1 (01:44:17):
Yeah, but I don't think before last season that was
his It might have been the case. I'm just saying publicly,
I don't think people looked at from or like baggage guy.

Speaker 3 (01:44:26):
No, but publicly, if they were paying attention, they looked
at as less than ideally suited to stay mentally stable
on the mound. Yeah, he would lose it mentally quite
often for a picture. With that much talent, he could
be talked back into it. His catchers could help him,
he could help himself. I'm sure he went to seek
help for trying to stay more locked in when things

(01:44:46):
don't go his way. But there were days where he'd
go out there, Oh, he's throwing great today. Uh oh,
he just had to feel the ball and he threw
it away. It's all over now. It happened way too often,
and every time he started the last probably two years,
if there was a ball hit in the area where
the pitcher should be making the play, everybody correctly freaked out,

(01:45:08):
expecting something bad to happen, just because he had to
feeld a ball and throw it first.

Speaker 1 (01:45:13):
It was a nightmare, very talented, very volatile, and.

Speaker 3 (01:45:17):
Again it really only manifested itself in some overt awful way.
He had bad outings and he kind of went against plan.
Here's how we want to approach it. Why aren't you
throwing this? But what he did with salas or everybody
knows what happened there on his own decided to he
was mad, and he took his frustrations out on the player.
I think some of his frustration was with that particular player,

(01:45:38):
even though it should have been his own frustration. And
you can't do that's that's the kind of stuff. They
did a really good job publicly of not having it
turn into something worse because everybody's backing the same person.

Speaker 1 (01:45:52):
Yep. But publicly they didn't bury the other. Yeah no,
as usual. Astro's very diplomatic, and neither one of them
an Astro. That's true. Well, we knew one of them
wasn't gonna be the other one was a little bit iffy.

Speaker 3 (01:46:06):
And what a shame for for all. I mean, this
had nothing to do with why he's not here.

Speaker 1 (01:46:09):
That the incident.

Speaker 3 (01:46:10):
They were never gonna pay him that money because that's
just didn't seem like the way that they would operate.
They haven't paid Hunter Brown, they haven't paid Jeremy Penia,
and then all the players who clearly aren't here, they
weren't paid either. He wasn't going to be the guy
that they went out of their way to give an
extended long term deal to, so we knew he was
on his way out regardless.

Speaker 1 (01:46:27):
And I hope that what you've said about that situation
comes to fruition at some point. Maybe soon they got
to eventually pay somebody, don't they. That's a great question. Well,
there's two candidates right now that you're thinking about arguably
three paynia and they're all Boris guys, Brown and Emi.
Oh yeah, well Emi is very distant third right now. Sure,

(01:46:52):
but he's in a contract year yea, anybody.

Speaker 3 (01:46:58):
Right, So it's it's it's situation, and obviously those other
two guys are much more at the front of the line.
Dana Brown was asked that earlier this week his weekly
visit on the Morning Drive about where things are, what
they want to do with Hunter Brown, very specifically, and
he said what he has said in the past, we'd
love to have him here where he described it this way,
Dana said, we're having a lot of internal discussions about this,

(01:47:20):
but he had also acknowledged Hunter Brown I say should
say Hunter Brown had said during the off season when
he was talking with Chandler Rome on his podcast, that
there have not been any discussions. They have not negotiated.
There's not a deal sitting in front of him for
he and his agents to look at and decide what
they want to counter with.

Speaker 1 (01:47:38):
They haven't for some reason.

Speaker 3 (01:47:39):
That's not where things are, and quite honestly, it's where
they should be. I don't know what you're waiting for.
I don't know any reason to do that. It's not
going to benefit you or him. You shouldn't want him
to perform in a way that gets you a better deal,
and you shouldn't want to wait for him to perform
in another very positive way that dramatically impacts.

Speaker 1 (01:48:00):
The deal before it gets more expensive.

Speaker 3 (01:48:02):
But the player you you're not reluctant relying on the player.
Just put the deal in front of him, start the process.
They can say no, and they're going to no matter
what the Astros offer. Michael Scott, negotiations in place always
decline the first offer. We don't even want to hear

(01:48:22):
what your first offer is. What's your second offer. That's
exactly how they're going to do it. But you didn't
even hear what they said. It doesn't matter. I'm just
thinking of Michael Scott.

Speaker 1 (01:48:32):
It worked.

Speaker 3 (01:48:33):
He got Idris Ilba to give him even more money.

Speaker 1 (01:48:37):
Negotiating on behalf of Hunter Brown.

Speaker 3 (01:48:40):
Can you imagine if it Hunter in the room, the
Michael Scott paper Company was the agent for Hunter Brown.
He would be flanked by Pam and Ryan and he
would win.

Speaker 1 (01:48:50):
Company. Cannot be worth that much money. Ryan was the
worst character on that show, right.

Speaker 3 (01:48:56):
I mean what he creed with such a small character,
but he had every time he was on camera it
was magic. He was not the worst character on the
show because that was obviously. It was obviously. I'm surprised
I didn't immediately say who it was. She got hit
by a car that Michael was driving.

Speaker 1 (01:49:12):
Why do you hate Meredith because she was always flashing
you fifteen let's give a number.

Speaker 3 (01:49:19):
Fifteen characters on the show. We love the show. Fifteen
good characters. Someone still has to.

Speaker 1 (01:49:24):
Be the worst one. But you think it was her,
no question, debate over. But Ryan was such a slimeball. Yeah,
but he had much more to do with what happened.

Speaker 3 (01:49:32):
He started the fire, he got the job that everybody
wanted when Jan ultimately got fired.

Speaker 1 (01:49:39):
And in real life he was a writer. I don't
think Meredith was. No, Yes, she was the worst character,
no question about it, flashing us or not. I thought
it would be quit closer than this to you, the
temp into a full time gig. See woof? What was it?
Isn't that what he created?

Speaker 6 (01:49:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:49:56):
What was the acronym though? Woof? I don't know. Yeah,
but what was the advantage? What was it? What did
it stand for? I don't know. We have to research that.
During the break, all right, fine, uh when we come back. Hey,
one golfer thinks the golf world is being too easy
on Tiger Woods, and I I've done a little bit
more to research myself some of that videos. That's next.

Speaker 5 (01:50:24):
The eight on Sports Talk sevens talks seven to ninety
s chn Over on the TV side of things.

Speaker 1 (01:50:31):
Uh, wex. I know by now you've seen all of
the various footage of Tiger Woods having din't I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:50:40):
He didn't flip it. He just buy the camp footage.
We unfortunately don't have any footage of the accident itself.

Speaker 1 (01:50:46):
I can't believe that too. It's a very exclusive place
area that he was driving. You would think they're just
by nature be more cameras. That would have cost something.

Speaker 3 (01:50:53):
I mean, I wouldn't necessarily think that. Why don't you
think there's do you think Big Brothers watching everything?

Speaker 1 (01:50:59):
It is watching everything?

Speaker 3 (01:51:01):
I mean, random accident in my neighborhood is unless someone's
ring camera was there when you were.

Speaker 1 (01:51:06):
Talking about things like that catch things and maybe somebody
does have it, But well, Tiger's gotten to them. Don't
you think TMZ would have it by now because they
had this if Tiger got to them first. I don't
think Tiger got to anything other than the pill pocket.
You don't think he got to them first. Do you know?

Speaker 3 (01:51:21):
Does everybody know who he told? The officers who he
was on the phone with casually the accident and after
they had started their conversation with him.

Speaker 1 (01:51:32):
I was just on the phone with the president. He's
walking towards the officer from like down the road, and
the officer says, and I quote, Hey, we need you
to hang out down here with us. Have you been
in a car accident before? Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:51:43):
What was your relationship status at the time, which time
go with a few. Uh, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (01:51:51):
Just pick one. I was, I was single, okay. Were
you dating anybody at that time? Yeah? Yes, yep, perfect,
exactly what I was hoping for.

Speaker 3 (01:52:00):
So after you got in the accident and made sure
that the other person was okay because you obviously knew
that you were okay, did you call your girlfriend's former
husband's dad. No, that's what he did. Ye he called
his girlfriend's former husband's dad. And that's President Trump. That

(01:52:22):
is who did you call when you got in an accident? A?
President Trump? B my girlfriend's ex husband's dad or c
A and B. He did both with one phone call.
To be fair to him. I mean, that's a pretty
powerful person to call, no matter.

Speaker 1 (01:52:43):
Who's in there. You want from President Trump. Oh, that's
what I was wondering. What did he say? Crazy? Do
you think he called him Eldrick? You know, like, no, no, Eldrick,
Come on, man, we can't have this. You gotta do better.
You gotta do better.

Speaker 3 (01:52:58):
They probably asked him, are you okay to play the masters?

Speaker 1 (01:53:02):
Why do you assume that that's all that's what he
would care about in that moment.

Speaker 3 (01:53:05):
When you're when you're at mar A Lago, next will
we be able to play eighteen.

Speaker 1 (01:53:10):
I don't think he's gonna be at mar Lago anytime soon,
at least not driving himself.

Speaker 3 (01:53:14):
Was Vanessa that's her name, right? Was she in the
car with you? Is that what he asked? Would have
asked that? Would that would have been a good question,
as she.

Speaker 1 (01:53:23):
Is the bosk. She would have probably said, was Kai's
mom with you? The mother of I would argue his
favorite grandchild. You know, they have favorites. Everybody does. They
don't admit it, but they do.

Speaker 3 (01:53:34):
It's so Kai's eighteen nineteen, she's about to I think
she's to Miami or yeah, you're right, she'sou And then
Baron is twenty one.

Speaker 1 (01:53:45):
Or two and six foot ten? But is that roughly accurate? Sure?
I honestly don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:53:50):
But one of them is his son and the other
one is his granddaughter, right, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:53:58):
Well when you got a big family, those things can happen. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:54:00):
So he was on the phone with President Trump, and yes,
I've seen all the body cam footage. But a former golfer,
big time winner, just thinks we're going too easy on him?

Speaker 1 (01:54:08):
Is that what I'm letting believe? Yeah? Nick Faldo, Uh,
says that, Well, look, here's what he says, because and
I get where he's coming from, because when you talk
about any athlete, what's the one thing we always say,
when of course I'm not talking about flipping your latest
range rover in this case, that's just happens to be

(01:54:30):
what we're talking about here. But whether you you're I
don't know you got the baggage we were talking about
with Fromber or you've got something in your.

Speaker 3 (01:54:38):
Personal slipped your range rover or throwing a baseball ninety
one miles an hour at a teammate, whichever.

Speaker 1 (01:54:45):
Yes, Nick Faldo, who is a three time Masters, three
time British Open winner and spent the Harrison Ford of golf,
get off my plane looks just like him, spent ninety
seven weeks as the world's number one golfer in the
nineteen nineties. Is that? Oh he's good? Is is that
a record? Still? I don't know how that works.

Speaker 3 (01:55:08):
Come on, now, I don't know who look at the subject.
Do you think Tiger spent less than ninety seven weeks
at number one? Probably not? But I mean I don't
know this for a fact. I'm being super condescending. What
if I'm wrong, you being super condescending. Okay, so he's
got to what did he have to say?

Speaker 1 (01:55:24):
There are two sides to this right now. There's one side,
let's care for Tiger, and then there's got to be
a responsibility and the big a word accountability side as well.
This is a serious thing and issue. He's done. The
PGA Tour statement was so predictably weak. I love it
when athletes or former athletes take shots at the entities

(01:55:47):
they played for. I really like that. And you know
how they show that the tour will look after him
as they have always done. There has to be some
accountability forget about golf and everything. He's right, of course,
this is a time honor tradition in professional sports. We're
going to cater to. We're going to coddle, we're going

(01:56:10):
to slow go it, we're going to easy touch it,
We're going to whatever you want to call it. I mean,
the PGA Tours statement pretty pretty vanilla, pretty weak. It
is probably an appropriate term. I never even saw it. Well,
now you're gonna make me look it up on the fly.

Speaker 3 (01:56:32):
But I can give you Tiger's statement, and keep in mind,
I think Nick said this, and we might have said
it in a different way the other day when we
first talked about this. We don't ever say, oh, man,
can you believe what happened to Tiger? It's nothing's happening
to him. He's making it happen, He's doing. It's all
on him. All of these incidents are They're his fault,

(01:56:52):
They're his doing, They're his inability to be on the
path to stay away from this all on him. I
know and understand the seriousness of the situation I find
myself in today. I'm stepping away for a period of
time to seek treatment and focus on my health. It's
necessary in order for me to prioritize my well being
and work towards lasting recovery and committed to taking the
time needed to return to a healthier, stronger, and more

(01:57:14):
focused place both personally and professionally. I appreciate your understanding
and support. Ask for privacy for my family, loved ones,
and myself at this time. With that statement, he also
noted that not going to be playing the Masters, which
was the intended couple weeks from now.

Speaker 1 (01:57:29):
And I'd say this is the most biting statement that
Nick Faldo made, but I get it. Having been somewhat
around this type not exactly this type of thing, but
you know, addiction, I think, if not all of us,
who are you know, you mean listening whatever. It's kind

(01:57:51):
of like. If you haven't directly dealt with it, you
probably know somebody who has by proxy. You've been, you know,
you know what addiction can be like, the roads that
people that are addicted can go down, no matter what
the substance is. And I feel sorry for Tiger. He's
living twenty four to seven in pain. I asked him
that years ago, even before the La accident, which was

(01:58:14):
in twenty twenty one. But as you just said, wex
it's all been self inflicted. I think something should be done,
and a little bit more seriously than waving him off
to a tropical island and saying welcome back in three
or four months. Oh, I thought you met.

Speaker 3 (01:58:28):
The rehab facility was welcoming him back two hundred and
eighty one weeks at number one consecutively.

Speaker 1 (01:58:33):
That's what Tiger did. That's more than ninety one ninety
seven whatever it was. It is all right, Well, we'll
see if this one sticks. As far as rehab for Tiger,
we will get me in too.

Speaker 3 (01:58:44):
Didn't even Brett Favre get over painkiller addiction. I had
a double bagged and Tiger has so far not been
able to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:58:51):
Maybe you'll have a Wrangler endorsement waiting on him should
he come out the other side. We will come out
the other side of the break with Brian McTaggart of
MLB dot Com. His weekly visit is next the A
on see it is the A team as we are.
Also on sc h N. WEX has departed headed on

(01:59:12):
down to Toyota Center for the finale of that three
game homestand the Rockets are on. They'll take on the
Utah Jazz tonight. That'll tip off at seven. Of course,
later on tonight out in Sacramento, you're gonna have the
Astros beginning the first and I guess longest well, one
of the longest road trips of the season in Sacramento

(01:59:33):
against the Athletics. It's gonna be Christian Javier going for
the Astros tonight and Brian McTaggart of MLB dot Com
joining us as per usual now normally it's for the
on Deck show and we'll obviously air this a little
bit later on, but I figured I'd let let you
get in here earlier, Brian, and let's start right there
with Christian Javier. This guy has tried to battle back

(01:59:54):
from so much, as so many pitchers have on this
Astros roster, and it hasn't. It's been mixed bag of results,
let's put it that way, but probably not the type
of outing he wanted in his first start here in
twenty twenty six. How much pressure do you think he's
putting on himself to try and get back to old
form here tonight.

Speaker 4 (02:00:14):
Yeah, I think he probably is just out of human nature.
I mean, he's you're right. I mean he was out
over year, and you know he came back last year
and you know, had his ups and downs in spring training.
Even though he put up some pretty good numbers, you know,
the stuff just didn't look the same like it was
last year's. Velo's down a bit. I mean, he's a
guy that's got that rising fastball that looks like it

(02:00:36):
comes a little harder than it is and we've seen
that at times, but just not getting the swings and
misses like we've seen before. But you know this is
a chance. You know, second start, we saw that Mike Burrows,
you know, made some improvements in his second start. Hunter
Brown got better in his second start, so I'm anxious
to see how he does in the second start, and
not only that, E may too later in this e

(02:00:58):
I two later in this series, and his second start
as well, because he didn't even get.

Speaker 1 (02:01:02):
Out of the third any Yeah, it's interesting because you
talk about really the three guys that are about to
go in succession, and we had question marks about all
of them for different reasons. What did you see from
Emi in that first start? He said he was nervous himself,
and what do you hope to see from him in
game two of the series?

Speaker 4 (02:01:23):
Yeah, I mean I think you got to chock it
up to nerd. I mean, he's pitching in the big
leagues for the first time ever, and he even said
he watched all these guys on TV and now he's
facing them, So it's not just a guy making his
major league debut. It's a guy who's debuting for the
first time in a new country, so a lot going on.
So yeah, I mean, he's just got to be in
the strike zone a little bit more and not wat guys,

(02:01:44):
just just throw more strikes.

Speaker 7 (02:01:45):
You know.

Speaker 4 (02:01:45):
He had a good couple of innings and then you know,
things started to get away from the third. He walked
a couple of guys and they went ahead and yanked them. So,
you know, a chance to do it against a lineup
that has got some guys who can really swing it.
You know, Nick Kurtz killed them last year. You know,
I think he hit five hundred against the Astros and
hit like nine homers, and Langoleers is off to a
hot start, So this is not It's not. Even though

(02:02:08):
the A's aren't probably one of the teams people are
looking at the contend to this division. They do have
some guys that can swing the bat. So it's going
to be a challenge for all three of these starters.

Speaker 1 (02:02:16):
Yeah, I do want to get to that offense or
lack thereof this season, I guess in just a minute.
But as we're talking to Brian mctagger of MLB dot Com,
got to ask you about Lance McCullers Junior. So many setbacks,
so many restarts, resets, you feel like you're taking out
the cartridge from the original Nintendo and blowing in it
to try to get the thing to work. He had

(02:02:36):
to feel, and I think a lot of people in
that clubhouse and even Astros fans felt good for him
to have. Like I'm gonna say it right now, nobody
saw that start from Lance mccullor's junior coming. I don't
think No.

Speaker 4 (02:02:48):
I don't think so either. I mean, you know, maybe
Lance did and his family, but to pitch seven innings,
strikeout nine and and just be as good as he was,
and yeah, good for him. I mean, he had so
many setbacks, and I think one of the biggest things
for him was just the fact that he wasn't hurt
this offseason. He just had he had a normal off
season getting ready for the season. On the last four
or five years, it's always been rehab and grinding through

(02:03:12):
rehab and all the stuff that comes with that. And
he's still he was still working hard in the weight
room and getting his work in, but he didn't have
to worry about his health. And now he's sort of
you know, he's changed his mechanics a little bit. Uh,
you know, the way he pitches, and he's not a
guy that's gonna pitch out of the zone anymore. He's
going to come at you with the two seamer and

(02:03:33):
the four seamer, maybe not as much the breaking stuff anymore.
Like we saw when he threw all the curve balls.
He's gone away from that a little bit. But it's
interesting because he said in spring training like, I don't
want to strike people out. I don't want to chase strikeouts.
I want to get early contact and get out of here.
And he ends up striking nine guys out his first
time out. So he still has swinging this stuff, and

(02:03:53):
let's see if he can build on that great first
start that he had.

Speaker 1 (02:03:57):
No no, no doubt about it. You're on Albarett. It
was said it all last season. Man, this team is
just snake bitten with injuries. And if they had been
even remotely healthy, I just thought it was hilarious that
the Seattle Mariners had to come in and sweep the
Astros basically on one of the final weekends of the
season to barely win the division for a team that

(02:04:20):
just could not get out of its own way from
an injury standpoint. If the Astros are even like twenty
percent healthier in some way, shape or form, I think
they win the division last year. And if you're on
Alvarez plays even half more or you know, fifty percent
more games than he did last year, I think you're
talking about the Astros winning that division. Not only is

(02:04:40):
he back, the guy looks like an absolute freak. I
know we're only seven games in, but he looks very
much back to his old self. And he said he
saw some things while he was out, like made an adjustment.
This is just insane that this guy could actually maybe
be better.

Speaker 4 (02:04:56):
Yeah, his first week, the way he's swinging about him,
he's swinging the bat like a guy that wants to
win the MVP this year. And I think you're absolutely right.
I mean, he played forty eight games last year. I
actually missed playoffs by one game. There's no doubt. If
he's in the lineup the entire season, or even if
he misses fifty games, they make the playoffs. And I
agree with you, they probably win the division. You know,
he came back in the middle of September last year

(02:05:16):
and was mashing, and then he stepped on home plate
against the Rangers and sprained his ankle. But and that
was just like that was like the death knell of
the season for me right there. That and losing Hater
down the stretch. But yeah, I mean, if he can
keep this up, he could be poised for his best
season ever. I mean, I think he's a guy that
he hasn't hit forty homers in the season yet, but

(02:05:38):
he's on his way. I mean he should have two more.
I mean the ball hit the roof, and man, he
smoked one the other day the dead center that would
have been out of twenty five other parks. So he
is so dangerous right now. We've we're already seeing teams
walk him. He's just when he comes to the plate,
you got to sit up and watch him.

Speaker 1 (02:05:53):
Does he have the record for most balls hit in
places you've never seen in that stadium before? Are both
good and bad?

Speaker 4 (02:06:03):
Yeah? I hit the one in the upper deck a
few years ago, I guess his rookie year down the
line and they put a seat up there, and then
they took that out for a club. And then the
ball on top of the batter's eye in the World Series.
Never seen hit one there before, never seen hit one
there since. And then the ball.

Speaker 6 (02:06:16):
That hit the roof.

Speaker 4 (02:06:17):
I mean, we've all seen balls hit the roof at
dyke In, but that was way down the field. That
thing was all the way way over the fence. If
you looked at the right fielder, he was standing at
the fence just waiting for it to go over his
head and the roof bailed him out. But yeah, you're
exactly right. He's there's not a ballpark in America that
can hold him, even one with the roof.

Speaker 1 (02:06:36):
No, it's been pretty incredible to see what he's done
in a very brief time, all things considered as an
Astro and hopefully keep stacking those statistics and helping the
Astros win more games. We're talking to Brian McTaggart of
MLB dot Com this offense. I know it's very early,
but kind of that's kind of the theme carrying over
from from the questions about Jordan Alvarez, just some of

(02:06:58):
these guys that weren't healthy last year at times, just
them being in the lineup, but you have that ageless wonder.
Jose al Tuove, Wex and I were talking about this yesterday.
He's convinced that if the Astros make the postseason that
many Ramirez, you know, all time home run postseason leader,
that mark is going down. You you agree with that.

(02:07:20):
If Jose al Tuove just gets the reps in the
postseason and it's not two games and out like it
was against Detroit a couple of years ago, that that
record is going to get smashed.

Speaker 4 (02:07:29):
About the home run record, yeah, yeah, uh yeah, I
think I think he's two behind him. Yeah, I would agree.
If they get to you know, a five game series,
seven game series, he's going to do that. You got
you know, in twenty twenty two when they won the
World Series, Josel Tuov did not have an RBI in
the playoffs, which that's.

Speaker 6 (02:07:47):
Crazy, which is really mind boggling.

Speaker 4 (02:07:49):
I don't think that would ever happen again. But yeah,
I think if I think if they can get in
a you know, make another little bit of a run
in the playoffs, that that streak would that mark would
be Jeffard. I think it's twenty nine homers for Manny.
But Correa said an interesting thing the other day about
about al tuo Bay was that he's benefiting from the
the ABS system. You know, he's walked more times than

(02:08:09):
he's struck out, and in last year he struck out
twice as many times as he walked. But he's also
he's not chasing out of his zone, he's not swinging
in the zone as much. He's taking more pitches and
that's all part of the philosophy and the Astros have
had all off season in the spring to make the
pictures work and taking more pitches, but he also knows
that he's got the abs in his back pocket. Now

(02:08:30):
we've seen him challenge a couple of times on pitches
that were around two inches off the plate and he
got both of those calls. So I think pictures are
having to come into him a little bit more. I mean,
he's five six, his strike zone is shorter than other
guys that I mean, it's all it's all measured now,
it's computerized. He does not have the same strike zone
as his teammates, So I think that is that is

(02:08:52):
something that he's taken advantage of so far. Very early,
but definitely off to a big start for al TV.

Speaker 1 (02:08:58):
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because with him
individual and you kind of answer the question there at
the end, but with the team and then just across
Major League Baseball. But since you cover the Astros, we'll
just keep it with them. It is very early, sample size,
very small, but I do feel like you know, that
lends itself to what Joe Aspot has talked about and
what we've kind of seen the Astros look super patient

(02:09:21):
in their approach at the plate, and it doesn't really
matter who you're talking about. I can't really pinpoint one
guy who looks like, ah, he's swinging at everything or
he's rushed. Like the team wide approach at the plate
I think has lend lent itself to this success. Early on.

Speaker 4 (02:09:36):
Yeah, it's like they've all become He saw Peretis at
the plate, taking lots of pitches and working counts. You know,
we saw early in the spring when they hit Graaperu
lee play they were you know, they were getting like
seven to eight walks a game and Joe was getting excited. Yeah,
I mean most of those bats were by guys who
weren't going to make the team. But clearly it's something
that the new hitting coaches and they're new, the way
they overhauled their hitting and the offseason, it's something they

(02:09:57):
really stressed. It was something they got away from last year.
Just way too many strikeouts, not enough walks. They got
to keep it up over I mean, it's only what
April second or third, so we have a long way
to go. But yeah, definitely the new approach on offense
is paying off because they're getting a ton of guys
on base real.

Speaker 1 (02:10:14):
Quick before I'll let you go three in Oakland, not Oakland.
You know I was going to do that at least
once during this conversation. Three in Sacramento, three in Colorado,
and then the big one four in Seattle. Astros record
after they come home from these ten games.

Speaker 4 (02:10:31):
Let's see, I'll say, I'll say six and four. I mean,
the Rockies aren't really good. Seattle is going to be
a tough matchup. But if you can go six and
four in a ten game road trip, so you would
come home eleven and my matth round eleven.

Speaker 1 (02:10:44):
And four, that sounds right to me. On the fly
think eleven, thank.

Speaker 4 (02:10:48):
You would eleven and yeah, eleven and six. Year I
knew that is okay. Eleven and six. I think you
take that. I mean, if you're can at least split
on a ten game road trip, I think you'll be
happy with it. But if you can do well this series,
beat up on the Rockies and then you know, try
to get a split at Seattle, I think they'll take that.

Speaker 1 (02:11:05):
It's Brian McTaggart of MLB dot Com providing us a
ton of insight and even a little bit of on
the fly math. Brian we appreciate the time, and we'll
catch up with you next week on the on Deck Show.
Thanks again, all right, thanks Adam, Brian McTaggart MLB dot com.
We will come right back and continue here, react to
some of what he had to say and get into

(02:11:25):
some conversation about the NBA as well on a Friday
edition of the eighteen.

Speaker 6 (02:11:31):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (02:11:36):
Tune into the Astros on Deck Show coming up in
a little bit, as you'll be able to hear that. So,
by the way, it's over on news Radio seven forty
k TRH Rockets Basketball here tonight on Sports Talk seven ninety.
I know it's that time of year, especially with the tournament,
although that freed up a little bit. Sorry about that,
U of H fans, but it's that time of year

(02:11:56):
where you gotta find where everything's airing, and tonight's one
of those nights. So good stuff from Brian McTaggart there.
I am just chomping at the bit to see how
all three of these pitchers doing this weekend series. And
you know what I was actually thinking, he'd say he
would give the Astros a little bit of a better

(02:12:17):
mark on this road trip. He said six and four,
but I can't really complain if they do go six
and four, to be honest with you. So we shall
see soon enough that thing will get underway. Eight forty
first pitch out in Sacramento. So I was going to
talk about something else here, but we kind of got
an update on that situation. And listen, this absolutely effects

(02:12:44):
is permanent too. Is important when discussing your Houston Rockets,
and I had a feeling this would be the case,
and here we are, chams breaking. A few minutes ago.
Los Angeles Lakers star Luka Doncic is out indefinitely due
to a left hamstring injury. He will miss the remainder

(02:13:08):
of the regular season, and his status is uncertain. Beyond that.
I did look, I don't want to see anybody get hurt,
but I also know that the Lakers were getting absolutely
gassed up going into that game against the Thunder last night. Now,

(02:13:32):
is it a huge surprise that they lost to the
best team in the NBA. No, is it a huge
surprise that they got blown out by the best team
in the NBA. Absolutely not. Would it have happened whether
Luca got hurt one way or the other. Yeah, Thunder
we're going to destroy the Lakers. I don't particularly think

(02:13:55):
the Lakers are going to be that competitive against the
best in the league because I don't think the Lakers
are a good team, and I know Wex disagrees with
me on this. I know that their defense has gotten better.
I'm using air quotes if you're watching, and I get it.

(02:14:15):
Beating the Rockets in consecutive games on consecutive nights does
not help my argument, but I'm sorry, like this non
murderers row that they were on when they were winning
all these games, it's just not I know, you can

(02:14:37):
only play the schedule in frank, I get all that,
but I just don't think that the Lakers magically unearthed
something other than here, Let's let Luca shoot the ball
an insane amount of times, which by the way, is
what they should do on offense because he's by far
their best player, and just hope for the best and

(02:14:58):
hope that the mix and matching of the three best
players on this team Luka, Dancic, Austin Reeves and then
whatever Lebron gives you on any given night where he
doesn't decide to go into business for himself and stat
Pad is gonna get you wherever you want to go.
The promised Land you were never gonna win a championship
is that nobody was winning a championship coming out of

(02:15:19):
the West with Oka see stacked the way they are,
and that includes you, two San Antonio Spurs fans to stop.
I realized that you won three out of four times,
and so your best player thinks he should be the
MVP because of that. But the odds of anybody beating
the Thunder four times in a seven game series and

(02:15:39):
coming out of the West are very very slim. It sucks.
It feels a lot like how it was when the
Warriors were in their heyday. The only difference is back then,
the Rockets for a two year period were actually stacked
to do just that to beat the Warriors, and should have.
In twenty eighteen, there should be a third banner in

(02:15:59):
Toyota Center. Maybe James Harden is still playing here. I
don't know, but history certainly would have been rewritten in
my opinion, if Chris Paul's hamstring doesn't go south, and
that's ironic since we're talking about Luca's hamstring keeping him
out for the regular season, which again at this point
it's a handful of games, I believe five or so
for most teams. But no matter what happens with their seeding,

(02:16:27):
the Lakers getting out of the first round without Luca.
In other words, Lebron James in his forties and Austin
Reeves and a bunch of Jimoakes. Since I know there's
at least one listener out there that hates it when
I refer to players like that, is just not I
don't see them beating any of the teams they'd have
to beat. Let's forget about the matchups with whoever it

(02:16:50):
could beat, like the teams that are mathematically and where
they are within the standings of the Lakers in the
Western Conference playoff seating. They're not beating any of those
teams four times in seven games. I just don't see it.
Lebron could turn the clock back, he could actually try
on the other end of the floor that's not known

(02:17:10):
as the offensive end, all that stuff, and they're not
They're not taking anybody out. And that's why I wanted
the Rockets to match up with them. Now. I really
want them to match up with the Rockets, because if
you don't have Luca going off for forty fifty sixty
points against the Rockets because he always tends to apparently

(02:17:32):
what do you have The Rockets were thrashing the Lakers
when Luca was on their roster last year without him
and with Lebron doing whatever it is he's doing. I
just mean, unless DeAndre Ayton's gonna turn into Kareem, I
don't see that going very well for them, And if

(02:17:54):
he's out for the regular season. Talking about Luca with
a hamstring, again, this is not an injury that is
is you know what this sounds like to me? And
again we don't know the classification. We just know that
he's out for the regular season and he's out indefinitely.
This sounds to me like what happened to Chris Paul
to the point where it's not a tweak. You're not

(02:18:17):
playing through it. And if you can't get back on
the floor at this time of year when you're trying
to lock down that third seed in the West so
that you can play a lesser team as opposed to
slipping to four or five where the matchup's going to
be horrific or worse, I just I don't see it.

(02:18:37):
I don't see him coming back in time, and even
if he did try to give it a go, there's
always like, think about this, a player that has that
injury that relies upon you know, obviously his legs to
shoot as well as he does, but then the movement
to get to your spots to get the ball to
get open for those shots, whether they're from the outside

(02:18:59):
or the inside. Mean, he's been taking a lot of
shots at the basket this year, as Wex pointed out yesterday,
from a statistical standpoint, all of that is playing into
your mind if you're him and you're wondering, Okay, when's
the next step I'm gonna take that's gonna reaggravate this thing.
And that's best case scenario. That's best case scenario. If

(02:19:20):
it's more serious than that, you're not even gonna get
to that point because you're not gonna be allowed on
the floor to even try to get to that point.
And so this is why with with Lebron where he's
at and with Austin Reeves. Look, the guy can be
effective at times. The guy can also be horrible at times.
He was terrible. Last night. Austin Reeves had a particularly

(02:19:42):
bad game against the Thunder, and I get it. A
lot of teams have bad games against the Thunder. There's
no shame in that. But yeah, all those all those
O'shay Jackson's out there, all those Lakers fans who thought
they were gonna go on some magical run. Yes, that
that fantasy, which is what it was before he got hurt.
Took a big hit, big hit with this injury last night,

(02:20:06):
and I don't wish it upon anybody or any team.
I do realize how lucky the Rockets are to have
gotten the relatively clean bill of health from much of
this season from Kevin Durant. What a cruel joke that
would be if something happened. I'm not even put in
the universe. Knock on something here, but facts are facts,
and nobody knows that better than the Rockets. Hey, a

(02:20:29):
hamstring can really hamper what you're trying to get accomplished
in the postseason. There's I will. I don't know if
there's a more cruel Houston sports moment. And I know
there have been very, very catastrophic losses in Houston sports history,
but I feel like all of those, in some way,

(02:20:51):
shape or form kind of paleling comparisons. Like if you
want to talk about the Oilers in Buffalo thirty five
to three. Well, that wasn't because somebody got hurt. As
a matter of fact, it's because you let a backup
quarterback beat you because their quarterback was hurt but playing
well enough to beat the Warriors in six games in
all likelihood, because they almost beat them in Game six,

(02:21:14):
and then the Warriors forced a game seven. Remember Chris
Paul got hurt in Game five. At the very tail end,
you had a three to two series lead. You're going
out west to play the Warriors in the Bay Area
and you could wrap it up there. You didn't. You
came home for a Game seven on your home floor.
You got screwed by Scott Foster and company. That's way
more cruel in my opinion. So, yeah, nobody in Houston

(02:21:36):
wants to hear about Luka Dancic's hamstring injury. Feel sorry
for him and whatnot. That's the NBA, that's sports, and
it sucks sometimes, it really does, and it's your turn
to have it suck for you Lakers fans. I believe,
don't know if it's going to keep him out for
an extended period of time in the postseason, but if
he's not in the postseason. Then I don't think the
postseason will be an extended period of time for the

(02:22:00):
Los Angeles Lakers. We will get some of the things
we have not gotten to today. It's called in case you
missed it, and it's coming up next as we enter
the final half hour or so the week here on
the program.

Speaker 6 (02:22:11):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (02:22:16):
Sports Sports Talk seven ninety scchn as we are winding
things down here on a Friday edition of the program
Astros Baseball. Later on tonight over on news Radio seven
forty k TRH Rockets Basketball coming up with coverage getting
underway at the top of the hour here on Sports

(02:22:39):
Talk seven ninety. And in case you missed it is
what that music means, and that means it's time to
go to our good friend Josh Jordan. What's up, Josh?
What's going on? Ac Happy Friday? My man?

Speaker 6 (02:22:48):
You too?

Speaker 1 (02:22:50):
All right, here's what I got for you.

Speaker 14 (02:22:51):
And by the way, Brian McTaggart, that was fantastic last segment.

Speaker 1 (02:22:54):
I thought that was a good interview. Good job, my man.

Speaker 14 (02:22:56):
How about he's sucked pretis going on the bereavement. That's
gonna be the first thing here we hit on it briefly,
but I think that's important because we thought there were
gonna be big decisions to be made about, Oh, Jeremy
Paynia's back, and how's Peretti's gonna play, and they're gonna
want to put jord On in DH on the road.
Looks like Joe Spotta has got three more DA's before

(02:23:17):
he has to worry about that. I was looking at
Chandler Rome's Twitter feed saying that he has to miss
at least three games, so that means that's the entire
series with.

Speaker 1 (02:23:25):
The as, Yeah, you won't have him for the A series,
and it's it's interesting because you haven't had to deal
with what is basically, I don't know if it's the
biggest subplot of the season going into the year for
the Astros, but it's certainly in it's a top three storyline,
meaning your crowded infield. You there was all these rumors

(02:23:48):
you were gonna try and trade Estac Perettis al offseason
and it didn't happen, and I'm glad it didn't. And
now ironically he's the second guy in that crowded infield
to be on the shelf for some reason, and it's
it's kind of keeping Joe Aspata off the hot seat,
if you will, for making U that kind of decision. Obviously,

(02:24:11):
Jeremy pania Is is looking like he's going to play,
be playing more and more every day type that that
type of thing, and that was the first guy that
we were talking about. Now you've got this, but again
it's coming. It's like that that faint light that's getting
closer and closer, and it will be interesting to see
how the Astros deal with it. But provided they're finding

(02:24:34):
ways to win and provided this offense, because again remember
it's very small sample size, I get it, but this
offense has been explosive even for the small sample size,
and Estac Pretis hasn't been a huge part of that explosiveness.
So I guess imagine what it'll be like when they
get his back going whenever he does get back, that's

(02:24:55):
the good news, it is.

Speaker 14 (02:24:56):
And the thing with Perettis is he just gets quality
at bats, even if he's not putting up big numbers
and he's clutched. He's said when he has had some hits,
he's been very good. And who would have thought the
Astros are pretty much top three in every offensive category
so far this year, and that's with Paynya not playing
that much. But I think they are going to miss
Perettis for sure. He just he's a clutch dude that

(02:25:18):
works in it bad. But Jeremy Paynia, you saw what
he could do last year. He was your best player
for a lot of the season.

Speaker 1 (02:25:24):
Yeah, his injury was not the most significant, but it
might have been the second most significant in my opinion.
You know, Jordan Alvarez is going to start there. But
going back to kind of something that we touched on
with Brian McTaggart. I don't know if it's the ABS
that lent itself to this, especially in the case of Altuve,

(02:25:45):
but how many times his whole career Jose al tub
trying to ambush that first pitch and it's like, man,
this guy is super patient all of a sudden, And
I don't know if it's because he knows he's got
that ABS in his back pocket. Brian McTaggart mentioned the
strike zone. We talked about this back when we knew
it was going to go forward. You put Aaron Judge

(02:26:08):
and Jose l Twove side by side. Basically the biggest
player in Major League baseball and the smallest from an
everyday batting standpoint, and you saw how those strike zones
are going to be different for those guys. And I
think the conclusion was come to by a lot of
people that hey, high in the zone is going to
be a difficult situation for Altuve. And every time somebody

(02:26:29):
would say that, I'd be like, why how many home
runs has he hit that were at his neck when
they got to the plate and wound up in the
Crawford boxes or wherever else. So I don't know if
the ABS situation has made this entire team patient, but
it has been insane to watch as they have. They
just had a very patient approach at the plate and

(02:26:50):
he's one of them. Yeah, for me, I think I'm
agreeing with you Al two.

Speaker 14 (02:26:55):
I think when he gets hosed by umpires, it's usually
low strikes.

Speaker 1 (02:26:58):
Yeah, And that's what it was the other day. Yeah,
I was.

Speaker 14 (02:27:00):
And that was a point that the Astros didn't have
any challenges left in one of those scenarios. So I
think with al tuve Kreya said something in that Chandler
Rome piece that it's hard for these pictures to throw
it in your strike zone, So make them come to you,
and you're also not getting those one or two inches
off the plate calls anymore. Like pitchers can't keep going
there because it's not getting called by most umpires, and

(02:27:22):
when it is, it's getting overturned.

Speaker 1 (02:27:24):
I have thought for the longest time that this would
overwhelmingly benefit the hitters versus the pitchers because of what
you're talking about. I still maintain, Yeah, what would Greg
Maddix have ended up being a Hall of Famer after all?
I mean, I kind of I guess. I tend to
agree with what Weck said and that yes, because he
was so, But man, how many of those strikeouts, looking especially,

(02:27:51):
came with a guy not even taking the bat off
his shoulder for that pitch, and it was so far
out outside the zone, low and away like he would
always do. Guys like that aren't gonna get those calls.
And if they do, and the hitter is or whoever
you know, has got an eye for it, and a
lot of these guys do because they are insane, you know,

(02:28:13):
studies of the game and the zone itself, pictures like
that that relied on that, They're gonna have to find
a different way to get guys out and I think
it's gonna be a lot harder than some of these people,
and just observers in general think. I agree.

Speaker 14 (02:28:26):
And with Maddox, it was a perfect storm of his
sinker had so much run so where if you were
a right handed hitter, it start off the plate and
come back towards the plate, so you get that plus
the umpire giving you an inch or two. And then
that was even nastier against lefties because it looked like
it was almost gonna hit you and then it'd break
over the inside corner. So I'm a big Maddox guy,
but I get your point. He just had everything working

(02:28:48):
where he could take advantage of it, and people don't
talk about that a lot. He didn't throw that hard,
but he had a lot of movement on that sinker,
which made.

Speaker 1 (02:28:54):
It really hard to square up. Yeah, and let's face it,
we're all being robbed of what we as baseball fans
deserve almost more than anything else when it comes to
this topic. Yeah, it's great to see C. B. Buckner
get humiliated, but come on, man, Angel Hernandez gets out
just before this like that guy. He needed to get

(02:29:18):
his just desserts and never is going to be held
accountable for what an absolute bleep show he was as
an umpire behind the plate.

Speaker 14 (02:29:26):
Yeah, so it's it's changing now. I like that these
guys have to be held accountable. And the other thing too,
I love how the fans are into it. I thought
because of the game speeding up and people liking, hey,
it's a shorter game, it's two hour and twenty minutes,
I was thinking people would be kind of, hey, it's
taking lot. No, they like watching and cheering when that
gets overturned.

Speaker 1 (02:29:45):
I saw something earlier to Dan social media. Somebody. It
was a baseball writer I think, and he put a
he compiled a list, and he was basically touting all
of the things that Major League Baseball has changed about
the game and that they should get credit for this
and basically be applauded. You know, the pitch clock, the abs,

(02:30:07):
you know, challenges in general, just a lot of stuff.
And I was like, yeah, but each one of these
things I'm seeing on this itemized list, and there was
like eight, nine, maybe ten things. They all took for
wayever to get implemented into the game. So zero credit
to you, Major League Baseball. We could have been getting
these calls, right, you know, decade, well maybe not decades ago,

(02:30:28):
but definitely years ago. The technology has at least in
its infancy form, been around far longer than it's taken
for this to actually finally be implemented. Yeah, I agree,
one hundred percent. All right, we'll leave it at that.
We've got one more segment to go here on a Friday,
we will call it a week. Somebody thinks Lucas faking.

(02:30:50):
Somebody prominent on national television thinks he's faking this injury,
or at least could be faking this injury. And oh,
by the way, they're on one of the networks that's
in bed with the NBA, so this should be fun.
We'll hear from him next. If you were wondering what
the specifics were on the Luka Doncic injury. And again,

(02:31:11):
this does affect the Rockets. The Lakers are not solidly
in that third seed yet they just they're just not.
The math is not the Rockets haven't even been mathematically
eliminated from getting the third seed, nor have the Nuggets.
You know, it's very tightly compacted. And now according to

(02:31:34):
Cham's it's a Grade two left hamstring injury. Now again
there's different degrees varying degrees of this type of injury.
But as I understand it, that's some sort of a tear,

(02:31:59):
that's a part shall tear, that means the muscle, that
means everything involved. You're not playing. So this will be
the reason I know. Look at his agent is making
a statement. Bill Duffy, longtime basketball agent. This season, Luka
Dancic has performed at a historic level, leading the league

(02:32:22):
in scoring, carrying the Lakers to third place in the
Western Conference, and placing himself in the middle of one
of the most tightly contested MVP racism memory. No, it's
not to ensure that Luca's incredible accomplishments this season are
rightly honored and he can be considered for the league's

(02:32:42):
end of season awards. We intend to apply for a
quote extraordinary circumstances challenge to the sixty five game rule.
Luca missed two games this season for the birth of
his second child in Slovenia. His daughter was born on
December fourth, on another continent, and yet he was back
in the United States competing with his team on December sixth.

(02:33:05):
Luca has gone to great lengths to show up for
his team and this league. This season. His record breaking
season deserves to be noted in the history of books.
Despite last night's unfortunate injury and other extraordinary circumstances. What
were the other extraordinary circumstances we look forward to getting
or we look forward to working with the NBA Players

(02:33:27):
Association in the league office to ensure a fair outcome
in this matter. I got news for you, Bill Duffy.
He's not getting a considered for any postseason or a
regular season awards. The rule is the rule until it changes.
Nobody cares that your player got hurt with a hamstring
injury and is not going to be considered. That's just
the way it is. You might not like that rule,

(02:33:47):
and it might be changed because of that, but it's
not changing this year, and so you don't get some
special Did he just make that up extraordinary circumstances challenge
or is that an actual thing? That's what I want
to know. Hey, uh, could you imagine if it like
a pro agent pro athletes agent like Bill Duffy, for example,

(02:34:07):
just started making stuff up on the fly. I tend
to think it's real, otherwise he wouldn't have put it
in the statement. But it sounds like it's made up right, Hey,
make it take it. We're calling our own fouls here.
That was a charge? Why because I said, so, Hey,
my guy can't play sixty five games, and I know

(02:34:30):
that's the rule, but I'm just gonna make up an
extraordinary circumstances challenge so that he can still be considered
for the MVP Award. He was going to come in
third four. How's that sound? That's what it sounds like
Bill Duffy did. So there you go. There you go.
Lakers fans enjoy that. Speaking of which, that's gonna make

(02:34:50):
this SoundBite sound even worse. Now, I will admit I
have not heard this shet because I try to stay
away from this unless it's this show, and then I
can play and make wex mad. He's not here, so
it's not even gonna have It's not gonna land its
intended punch, but it's still gonna be fun anyway. Stephen A.
Smith apparently was at least suggesting that maybe, just maybe

(02:35:17):
Luca was faking it. Luca was fibbing. This hamstring injury
wasn't real. This is what noted NB, A guy who
covers the league says a technical term. This is what
noted NBA journalist if you want to still call him that.

(02:35:38):
And ESPN employee had to say about one of the
league's brightest stars going down with what we now know
is a Grade two hamstring injury, and it was almost so.

Speaker 15 (02:35:54):
That it is a good thing that Luca actually got
hurt and had to get taken in the third quarter,
because when we saw him holding this hamstring in the
first half, a lot of us were like, wait, man,
now that that wasn't happening when you were dropping thirty
plus the last twelve, thirteen to fifteen games.

Speaker 1 (02:36:12):
But suddenly, now your damn hamstring is hurt. We were
looking at it would have raised that brown like, I'd
like to give him the benefit of the doubt that
that was tongue in cheek, but it didn't really sound
like it. And it kind of goes back to what
I was talking about dropping thirty forty against some of
these awful teams and the rockets. He put forty on

(02:36:33):
the rockets and it wasn't particularly inefficient either. He was
just clowning them. They were playing like crap. Defensively, they
made it happen. And oh, by the way, they turned
the ball over like a bajillion times both nights. But
I don't know. I don't know if that's a good
look for one of the most prominent voices on one

(02:36:53):
of the most prominent networks, who is in bed prominently
with the national basketball So snociation be saying that about
Luca on the morning that you don't even know the
results of the MRI. Buddy steven A. Smith, he makes
like twelve million dollars a year, which is just something
that should make all of you sick. Pocket change. That's

(02:37:13):
ashtray money, as they say, remember when cars had ashtrays?
I do.

Speaker 14 (02:37:19):
I have one, and it's like perfectly clean. Yeah, well,
my truck's not super new, but it's not super old either.

Speaker 1 (02:37:26):
Yeah. What year is it? Two thousand and eight? Okay,
I wonder when they stop putting them in vehicles. I
guess I could google that. Don't smoke, it's disgusting. There's
plenty of other vices out there for you. Just don't smoke,
and if you do, quit do what Tiger does. There's
your don't do what Tiger does? What are you doing?

(02:37:47):
We do not condone or endorse Tiger Woods's behavior, especially
in recent days. So you have it Grade two strain
for Luka Dancic, which uh, I don't know if Steven A.
Smith ends up making an apology or respond I doubt it.
He doesn't usually apologize for much of anything, but that
that was in light of what we've now found out

(02:38:08):
in the last like I don't know thirty minutes, not
even that I think this this thing with the was
Sham's dropped this about nine minutes before the segment started,
So I don't know if I don't know how that's
gonna go down, But that's that's pretty interesting to see
that that Steve and A Smith would come right out
and say that, and not normally when he says something

(02:38:28):
so demonstrative like that, it feels like it's he's kind
of tongue in cheek. He's kind of wink wink at
the camera or whatever. But I don't know. And look,
far be it from me to get after a bona
fide Laker hater. I'm not gonna do that. But I mean,
nobody's crying over here in Houston that the Lakers' best
player got hurt. We are, we are wanting to keep

(02:38:51):
it in the universe that our guy, who's a lot
older by the way, a lot longer in the tooth.
Don't want anything happening to him. It would be a shame.
So we shall see again. A reminder tonight Rockets basketball
here on Sports Talk seven ninety. It's a seven o'clock tip.
You'll have the launch pad getting underway in a matter

(02:39:11):
of minutes, and then WEX will get you ready with
the network coverage on over at Toyota Center, I should say,
and then he and Matt Thomas, I have a call
for the seven o'clock tip. News Radio seven forty kt
RH is where you'll be able to find the Astros
and athletics. That is a eight forty first pitch out
in Sacramento. So the Astros on deck show with yours

(02:39:35):
truly will beginning underway, I believe around seven thirty or
so over on News Radio seven forty KTRH. Late start
for the Astros. Appreciate you guys listening all week long.
Appreciate you guys listening today. Thanks to Brian McTaggart for
coming on and for WEX for Josh I may see.
It is the A team here on Sports Talk seven ninety.
Enjoy your Easter weekend. We will come back in on Monday,

(02:39:58):
to talk about it all, then m the A T
one Sport