Silver Boot Sticks In Houston, Texans Gain A New Friend

Wex and AC return Thursday afternoon to disccus the Astros' sereies sweep and Silver Boot Sweep over the Texas Ragers, Clayton Kershaw's retirement annoumcement, the status of Friday's showdown from Daikin and more

Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Nolan, multipot the magnificent roller coaster ride.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
That is Houston Sports.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Chill late down for the only homegrown afternoon team is
Talking Your teams. Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the
A Team A.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
It is the A Team Sports Talk seven ninety. I'll
be screaming for the rest of the show. You know
how I know Matt Thomas is back in town. I
didn't turn the volume down on the headphones before I
plug them in, and now I can't.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
Hear out of either of my ears.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Welcome into a Thursday edition of the show. Somebody stop
the Houston Astros. Nobody can. They won again last night.
They swept the Rangers all as well. They're gonna sweep
the Mariners after an off day. The Mariners are gonna
forfeit the rest of the season. The franchise will be folded.
It's all coming together right now. Wex I feel good.

(01:28):
I feel way different than I did three nights ago.

Speaker 4 (01:31):
That's good. Nobody can stop the Astros provided nobody is
the Texas Rangers. They could not stop the Astros on Monday,
Tuesday or Wednesday, from scoring five or more runs in
all three games for an offense that's been incredibly inconsistent
throughout the season, they are on a roll. It has

(01:51):
coincided with the arrival of Zach Cole. Whether or not
it's because of him and anything he's personally doing, that
doesn't matter. They are doing it, and they scored runs
in Atlanta, they scored runs back at Dyke And Park,
and the Astros have put themselves back in first place.
They already controlled their own destiny because of the games
coming Friday, Saturday, and Sunday against Seattle. They would have
put themselves in first place with victories there, winning the series,

(02:15):
which also would win them the season series. All those
things were already in front of them. But because they
were winners last night, and finally, the ten game winning
street for the Mariners came to a conclusion last night
thanks to a big run scoring eighth inning from the
Kansas City Royals. They got a seven to five victory
last night. Hopefully they didn't expend all of their offensive energy.

(02:36):
They're in the midst of their game currently and they
have been up to bat three different times. They have
not scored in any of those At bats so far,
but the Mariner has been up to about four times
and they've only managed one run. One nothing Mariners midway
through the fourth inning of their game today. All that
will do will determine exactly what these standings are. When

(02:56):
first pitch comes tomorrow from Hunter Brown of the Astros
opposed by Brian Wu. The Astros will they're already hold
a full one game to one game lead in the division,
or the two teams will once again be tied. They
would be tied against each other five and five, so
the tiebreaker will be determined regardless from the weekend series.

(03:16):
Who wins the division well, it definitely will not be
decided over the weekend. Keep this in mind though. If
one of the two teams sweeps, they'll essentially have a
four game lead with six games to play. If the
Mariners win today. Obviously that number changes slightly for them
if they don't win today, but that's what the Astros

(03:37):
could do. As they make their way out of town
for one final road trip. There is a chance that
the Astros or the other division winner, whoever it might be,
can continue to play themselves into not needing to play
in the wild card series. That depends on what the
Detroit Tigers or their division winner decides to do, because

(03:59):
they aren't they aren't definitely going to be it. Well,
they've lost five and a half games this month to
the Cleveland Guardians, and the standings the Guardians are the
best team in baseball. All of a sudden, They've gone
twelve and four this month, and they're playing the Tigers
again today and beating them again today. Oh wait, the
Astros sitting at home, and really truly sitting at home

(04:21):
not only an off day, but an off day during
a home stand allows them to truly sit at home
should they show, choose or goog do whatever it is
they'd like to do. But the Astros can gain another
half game on the Tigers, and obviously they're already ahead
of the Guardians. Should the Guardians just blow past the Tigers,
that would mean the Astros likely are ahead of both
of them, So whomever wins that division might still not

(04:43):
be in the Astros way. The Astros do not have
the tiebreaker over either one of those teams, so, if
you were wondering, did not win the season series against
the Guardians, did not win the season series against the Tigers,
but within range with nine games to play is absolutely
what we'll still be on the line there. Yankees and
Red Sox and Astros Mariners are all very tightly packed
together for those three wild card spots, and clearly the

(05:04):
Guardians or Tigers are also in that mix. What the
Astros probably did was eliminate the Rangers from that mix.
They just simply came to town and they ran into
the Astros, which has happened to so many teams so
many times. For a team that had played very well,
surprisingly mopping the floor with Milwaukee not too long ago

(05:26):
earlier this month, and then they came to Houston, they
certainly had what looked like a nice spot in their
rotation due to face the Astros in the three games,
including Jacob de Gram for the fourth time in thirteen
meetings this season. The patient Astros and the not very
sharp Jacob de Gram having trouble finding the plate until
he had to two with three balls and counts. The

(05:49):
Astros finally took advantage of a pitcher who was not
sharp who is very good, and that's how they got
off to a good start, the early lead and making
their way through a sweep to open up whatever everybody
pointed to as the most important home stand of the season.
Halfway through they have three wins. If all the way
through they have three more wins, then you're gonna like
what happens over the next couple of weeks when the

(06:09):
Astros win the division and head onto the postseason. Was
over at Texans practice earlier today, so we'll give you
a little update on where things stand there, and of course,
a couple of key factors going into this game. A
little follow through on one of the things I had
to say yesterday, a little explainer on the team that
takes the ball away most in the NFL, whom the
Texans will be playing this weekend. Bunch of other things

(06:32):
going on on the outskirts of sports with Tom Brady
and the transfer portal and Texans safety Jimmy Ward, and
a bunch of other things going on. But obviously we
start with the Astros. Keep finding a way for now,
and you're only as good as your last game, You're
only as good as your next day. Is starting pitcher.
If you thought the Rangers had things lined up nicely

(06:54):
for the Astros with who they got to throw at them,
both the Mariners should be happy with the three, so
they send to the mound Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and
the Astros are throwing Hunter Brown Fromber Valdez and Jason
Alexander for their three game series against the Mariners beginning tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
Well, I think, first and foremost, going into the series
you just mentioned coming up after they're well earned, I
guess off day I said this earlier in the week.
I still mean it, even with fromber struggles of late.
These are the three guys that if you're an Astros
fan and you've watched the season closely, you definitely want
to be going in a series that is by far

(07:35):
the most important three game series of the entire season
until the next one.

Speaker 4 (07:39):
But I mean this one just it just means more
against the Mariners.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
In this case, it really actually does because this while
it doesn't determine whether or not the Astros make the postseason,
it absolutely probably definitely determined who wins the division.

Speaker 4 (07:55):
I think he's down to these two. Well, it's two
games to one. It doesn't do a whole lot, I know,
but I just it does give one team a two
game advantage though, because the tiebreaker plus the additional win
would give you two games up with six to play.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
What was the situation because I've already forgotten between the
Rangers and the Astros prior to the series, weren't they
like a game and a half back of this Stros?

Speaker 4 (08:17):
I can't remember what the exact deficit was. There were
two and a half games better two and a half,
so it's a little two games that's different than virtual
tie half whatever going in to tomorrow's Yeah, Plus, the
Mariners are really really good. The Rangers have been awesome.
The Rangers will most likely finish above five hundred. Not

(08:38):
a guarantee, you know.

Speaker 3 (08:40):
And again it's funny because well, if they only had
these guys Astros.

Speaker 4 (08:44):
Don't want to hear that Astros have a record a
role as soon as those guys were out of the lineup.
Isn't that crazy? Though? Yeah, hashtag average with Alvarez, as
I've been telling you for weeks. So what we want
if the Astros also have gotten on a roll, as
they've said, unfortunately goodbye to Alvarez for an undetermined amount
of time.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
So we want the guy who effectively clinched the twenty
twenty two World Series to stay on the shelf. If
I am to understand this line of thinking, which is
fake of course, yeah, pretty much, all right.

Speaker 4 (09:16):
I do like what I've heard from from Josh Hater.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
I do sort of like that we might be very
very close to seeing Esak Perettis. But at the same time,
I like what the Astros have done of late. It
turns out when you hit with runners in scoring position,
it's a good thing for your team. I know that
sounds ridiculous. That's the difference. The pitching has been, you know,

(09:44):
relatively consistent most of the year, depending on who you're
talking about, all year, not just stretches, and it's been okay,
are they hitting with runners in scoring position? I mean,
I know we can strip away everything and analyze it
and we have to death, but I just feel like
that's what it's come down to. When the Astros have
been playing good baseball, that's what they're doing.

Speaker 4 (10:04):
They hit the ball over the fence. Well, they hit
two home runs yesterday. Not everything, no, but when you
hit the ball over the fence, you win.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
But even we, you know, we make we we kind
of make fun of the singles Korea the single artist,
But when he hits those singles with runners on base,
they've they've come home, and.

Speaker 4 (10:21):
Not very often I mean, his RBI production here is
as uninspiring as it was there in Minnesota. I just
eye test tells me he's been better here, though. Well,
I'm not saying that at all. He's been light years better.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
Okay, But I guess I'm misunderstanding what you're saying. I'm
saying he doesn't drive runs in, Well, if they're not
there to drive in. He had thirty one RBI there,
He's got nineteen more here. He's probably gonna finish with
a mid fifties.

Speaker 4 (10:47):
RBI total this year, and he's going to play in
one hundred and forty five games. Yeah, but he.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
Played all way more games in Minnesota to get that number,
and he's probably doubled that production on a pro rated
scale since getting here.

Speaker 4 (10:59):
About an RBI every third game there, about an RBI
not quite half his games. It's definitely gone up, no
question about it. Got everything's gone up. High batting average,
higher on base percenters, hire slug, higher OPS, higher ops plus,
light years better here. He just hasn't driven in as
many runs for the spot in the order is the
way that they've designed it that I thought that he
would have. And he's been up in a lot of

(11:20):
those situations. Far be it from me to you know,
wet blanket Carlos Correa, who's been fantastic since he'd been here.
He's one of their best defensive players on the infield,
just one of them, Christian Walker. Two more scoops in
last night's game play Jeremy Kana out running both Jesus
Sanchez and Carlos Correa to catch that foul ball, then

(11:40):
finishing off the game on the shot from Josh Young.
They they are doing the things that they were actually
built to do and got even better at when they
made that trade for Carlos Korea, and it's a good thing.
Jose Altuve the last couple of games at second base
has come up with some nice plays. Also, you don't
make it harder on your pitchers, then you're gonna win

(12:00):
a lot of baseball games. And for as much as
you said they have pitched well or fairly consistently, that
is definitely true. But it also helps when you get
three straight games where you're out front early and you
get what you want from your starters. Christian Haavier just
gave him a quality start. I know it doesn't sound
like much, but six innings only allows two runs. The
game before that, you had aj blue Ball and Colton

(12:24):
Gordon giving you six innings and they allowed only one run.
And you got the same type of strong starting pitching
to open up this series. Sure, you scored seventeen runs,
but starting the game getting the kind of pitching that
you did. And this was the worst start in months
from Jason Alexander. He still only allowed one earned run

(12:45):
into the fifth inning. I mean, he's good recipe. It's
a simple recipe. It's a good recipe. It's baseball, So
it's not easy to constantly put that out there bullpen.
For the most part, you had the one game where
you allowed a six to nothing game to turn into
a six to five game. Not all on the bull been. Essentially,
it was one particular performer when he thought he was
out of the inning, but it was not called to strike,

(13:06):
and then he couldn't get out of the inning. But
the last two days and or the last two games
around that against the Texas Rangers, they took care of business.
More taking care of business, and more baseball for everybody.
Should it continue? Just getting started here today we will
hear from Brian McTaggart, who joins the station each and
every week did that earlier today with the Matt Thomas Show,

(13:28):
and so we'll share a little bit of what he
had to say. Signer segment comes your way at four
thirty as per usual, jump into football at five at
duh and we're now one segment out from Best of X,
and it will be a peak behind the curtain to
one of everybody's favorite moments here throughout the sports year.
It happens a lot here in Houston, but in this case,

(13:49):
for the first time, I think it needs a peak
behind the corner, behind the curtain and needs a little
bit of an explainer, And I'll explain it when we
get to Best of extra two to thirty The Age.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
On Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
Ninety, Becketa here on a Thursday edition of the program.
It's Sports Talk seven ninety. We'll start the simulcast at
the top of the hours as kind of gut wrenching,
slash nerve racking as the end of the middle game

(14:24):
in that series what the Rangers was Gosh, that was
satisfying to sweep them out of town. They're just awful people.
They're terrible people. Like we talk about this in society.
Sometimes they're the worst of the worst Rangers fans.

Speaker 4 (14:40):
I mean, they're treating us like everybody treated Notre Dame
or Duke or the Yankees. Before the Astros treated the
Yankees like trash, and now nobody cares about the Yankees.
Viva Empire. Yeah, we can't beat you. Everybody wants a
piece of you. Everybody. Oh my god, another game with them,
Another another run of the Final Four, another World Series.

(15:02):
Ah enough for ay, They've got their own network. This
is ridiculous. Well that's who the Astros are, basically to
the Texas Rangers, even though they're like the only team.
I don't even think Detroit beating them in two playoff
games matters. The Astros have lost two games in a
playoff series plenty during the Golden era of Astros baseball.

(15:23):
It just never happened in a wild card series because
they were never in one. You caught them on a
down year. Well you caught them on a down year.
So you not only caught them in a down year,
you caught them in a series nobody wants to be
a part of because of two days of baseball, one
hundred and sixty two games or one hundred and sixty
one like they played last year. Six months. But if
you're not good on these two days, then your entire
season is over, even if you're one of the best

(15:44):
teams in baseball, which they might not have been last year,
but it applies to any team that's in that series.
You know, the Rangers actually had to go out and truly,
even in a baseball since, outplay them and say definitively,
if you win a seven game series, you're the better team.
They were the better team. It's still doesn't seem possible.
We can't believe some of the things that unfolded during
those seven games, but that is the cold, hard truth.

(16:05):
And then they went on and claimed a World Series championship.
So of all the teams, like the Mariners should hate
the Astros much more, and they will, especially after sick.
I would agree, the team that can't claim the silver
Boot is much more fun to dislike because if they're
dislike for you, the Rangers are much more fun to

(16:26):
dislike than their Mariners are. Very satisfying, I would agree,
And from the baseball sense, like I said, it dropped
them to seventy nine and seventy four. You know, if
the Guardians win again today, it pushes them even further
ahead of the Rangers. The Red Sox, Astros and Yankees,
or Red Sox, Mariners and Yankees in the wild card
position are also pushing further away from the Rangers. The

(16:47):
Rangers got magic, absolute magic this season from their pitching staff,
and they're not going to go to the playoffs with it,
and it's not gonna happen again.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
De gram was healthy all year and pitched well for
the most part.

Speaker 4 (17:01):
Excepfinitely played the Astros, and the other three times he
was very good.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
Well they I think the reason I say that because
in essence it's well, no, it's not even in essence
he did. He his last two outings against the Astros
kind of reminded me of those nights where and I'm
not gonna say it's exactly like this, where like Hunter
Brown is pitching his butt off, but he makes a
couple mistakes, so he loses because those mistakes flew over

(17:27):
the fence, like but they got to him, Like they
hit home runs off of de Grom.

Speaker 4 (17:32):
Well, they hit six homers off of de Grom, Right,
they only scored ten runs off of de Grom, five
of them came yesterday. So he starts five runs the
first three times he faced them. The work they did
against him yesterday made his overall numbers look much more gettable.
Three seventy era is good, but not nearly as strong
as his season ira, So it is fair to say
they got to him. They got full a healthy season

(17:54):
from de Grom, They got the best season of native
all these life, for as much as he was healthy.
For those things are not going to repeat themselves. It's
a little bit like what I talked about at this
very time about the Mariners from twenty twenty three to
twenty twenty four. Their pitching staff is by no means
bad this year, but it's not like it was last year,
when you basically just tried five guys out there all

(18:15):
season long and they were all having good seasons, and
it just wasn't the same this year. If their pitching
had been anywhere close to what it was last year,
the Astros would be five or six or seven games
behind them without question at this point in the season.
But usually it doesn't work that way. This isn't the
old days where you had four starters throwing two hundred
and seventy five innings and thirty five forty starts, and

(18:37):
then you just do it all again the next year.
Those times have long since passed. Guys don't even strike
out two hundred and fifty batters hardly in a season.
There's not going to be another three hundred game winner.
There's almost never a twenty game winner. It's just so
dramatically different. But they did get something. I don't think
anybody expected to that level, and in their case it
was unfortunate. In the Astros case, it was typical and awesome.

(18:59):
You know. The Rangers had what I thought could have been,
pitching wise, a fantastic finish to this season, and the
Astros put a stop to it. That's the best part
about it. This is control your own destiny was twofold.
The Astros are firmly entrenched in the race for the
division as much as they have been all year because
they swept the Rangers and they ended their season while
doing it. You know, the Rangers making the playoffs is

(19:20):
a long long shot at this point, and that just
means fewer teams to concern yourself with as the drama unfolds.
I've run through all the teams that are in it.
Obviously a bunch of them are playing one another. The
Mariners playing right now. Cleveland and Detroit not quite finished
with their game today. Toronto, who's a good bit up
on everybody else, a four game lead over Detroit, so

(19:42):
five and a half game lead over Houston. They haven't
clinched anything yet. There are teams in the National League
that are already know half of them they're going to
the postseason. Nobody in the American League has gotten there
quite yet. Nine games remain for your Houston Astroway is.

Speaker 3 (19:57):
The Guardians by far the most surprising plot, if for
no other reason that it's happening right now at the
very tail end of the season.

Speaker 4 (20:05):
Yeah, it's one hundred percent the most surprising because, like
most years, they're not trying to win. They're not sitting
there at the deadline going what can we do to
make our team better. They're watching their closer get suspended,
They're watching another player get suspended. They're sending Shane Bieber
to Toronto. And then they got on a winning streak,
and then they can't lose, and then they keep getting

(20:26):
clutch hitch and then people start to remember, oh, yeah,
Jose Ramirez is one of the five best players in
the American League.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
I forgot because he plays in the most underrated outfielder
in the American League.

Speaker 4 (20:36):
He hasn't had the kind of year that would suggest
that a little bit less production from him than I
think they thought they would. He's a fun player to
have on your team because he seems to make a
lot of good things happen. But it's fantastic for this.
This is drama. The Astros haven't been in this much
drama for this Golden era last couple of years. A
little more drama than you would like, but it's the

(20:57):
same drama they're in right now. I'm all for it. Guys,
are locked in here with us. Got Astros baseball coming
your way all weekend long from Dykin Park here on
Sports Talk seven ninety. And we have to probably go
until at least at least the final series of the season,
the final weekend of the season starting a week from
tomorrow in Los Angeles, maybe even to the final day,

(21:18):
to know exactly where the Astros are traveling to, who
they might be playing, and when they might be playing,
if they might be playing in the postseason. And we
can't wait to continue to discussion on that best of
X though. Halfway through this hour number one, as we
do each and every day comes your way next and
has a lot to do with the Astros sweeping the Rangers.

(21:38):
That's next.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (21:47):
Did you all see this putting out between five and
posts a day, four hundred people were arrested for things,
so they said on social media, history repeats itself type
begils succeed. Never doubt that you're.

Speaker 5 (22:02):
The one who post call one Bilby, You're the best X.

Speaker 4 (22:08):
Nothing's gonna ever top you know you're the best X
posting ever seen day. You're the best of the breaking
the entire internet shade after two thirty on a Thursday,
any day here on the A teams shade after two
thirty brings you best of X wex AC and Cole

(22:30):
here with you. And wanted to get a little bit
of assistance to everybody out there, at least to a
couple of people out there who may not be aware.
Last handful of years, those of you out there have
really truly been treated to something extra special. When you
wake up each morning following a Rockets victory, Texans victory,

(22:50):
most importantly and most obviously an Astro's victory, it's become
affectionately known as a good morning video. I think everybody's
familiar with it, but if not, they usually come after
an Astro's victory, and there's a little bit of sarcasm involved.
It's definitely a bit. It often comes with responses, replies,
and comments from those outside the market that have no

(23:14):
clue what it's all about. That usually provides us with
best of X material when it's a team that you
don't see very often or as very thin skinned fans,
so all of them almost always gives us some true enjoyment.
This is a little bit different this time, but for
those who are unaware, On Monday, the Astros played the
Rangers and beat them. On Tuesday, the Astros played the
Rangers and beat them. On Wednesday, the Astros played the

(23:35):
Rangers and beat them. And so that resulted in the
fancy fingerwork of Adam Clinton on a very lengthy, well
done as usual good morning video. And I can tell
you it read like this in the caption good morning
to everyone but Arlington, Seattle and anyone else trying to
shut the Astros party down. We say, when it's over

(23:56):
and you're not invited ever, enjoy your off day, Houston,
Big weekend ahead hashtags and emojis that follow cleaning the Devil,
some fire h is up, attention is mounting. So that's
like ninety nine point eight percent of the bit. The
point two percent of the bit is sometime after I

(24:19):
fire up the X platform or head on over to IG,
I will then watch the good Morning video, about which
I have no idea. I'll get a full once through
and then decide, Okay, I'll contribute my tiny, tiny, tiny
portion of what this is all about. Yeah, giving yourself
enough credit. Well, tweet the good Morning video, and the

(24:39):
last line of my caption always reads good Morning. The
first line or two or three is usually stuff that
doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I think almost
everybody has picked up on exactly what that is. But
before I get to that, I just want for those
who may not have had a chance to get it already.
This is most of what you get from a Good

(25:01):
Morning video, albeit shortened for the program.

Speaker 5 (25:05):
There's a lot of things lighting enough for us to
go on a nice run in the playoffs. I think
uh plaid Astros a couple of times in the whole series,
and they've they put together a nice little run in it.
It's coming to an end, and it's time for us
to uh to take over the West.

Speaker 4 (25:30):
I've seen it was from Dallas. Pull up is necessary
of yours where I'm from.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
FRIENDO, there are the line drawing bag that's gone.

Speaker 4 (25:46):
I'm gonna kill each and every one of you.

Speaker 6 (25:49):
And the only disappointment in it for me is that
I don't only get to do it once.

Speaker 4 (25:56):
It's a lot of words. If it's some sort of person,
moy just we played the air of the good Morning video.
That's what it's made of. It's made of highlights. It's
made up of lines from movies, television shows, gifts, other
things that people in the sports world, like athletes on

(26:17):
the other team, Jack Peterson in this case, if you
watch the video as it was made, you would have
heard from one of the broadcasters for the Texas Rangers.
But really, movie lines and music. Music is always a
part of it, very specific and very well edited. To
the beats of the music. You might hear, Oh, this
is an uptick O. They're about to smash the drums.

(26:37):
I guess Jeremy Pange is about to connect for a
home run. It's awesome, awesome stuff, but I wanted you
to hear that to help explain my small, small contribution
to the good Morning video. There's music in there most
of the time. Thankfully, the music chosen has lyrics. Again
peek behind the curtain. My quote tweets include lyrics from

(26:58):
the music in the Good Morning video. Sometimes there's two
or three musical choices in there for me to choose from.
Maybe there's some Metallica, maybe there's a song I sadly
don't know after shazam it. Then go find the lyrics
and it happens. Because all I can do is I
am not gonna ask Ac what is this song. I'm
gonna figure it out myself if I don't know automatically,

(27:20):
or it's a song that a lot of people knew,
and you've probably heard of some of those songs. So
today my quote to tweets was welcome to the Final Show,
hope you're wearing your best clothes, good morning, and it
got some responses. RK said, last show question Mark, T
said final what r said, Final show question Mark. So

(27:46):
rather than answer any of these people, very good people,
good follows and great friends of the program on the
X platform, I figured I'd answer them here and let
them apparently be sad about it for a little bit longer.
Those are lyrics from a song heard in the video,
the Good Morning Video. It's very simple stuff.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
Just not you crying.

Speaker 4 (28:12):
It's a sign of the time. All right now, listen close.
Welcome to the final show.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
I hope you were in your best.

Speaker 4 (28:23):
Code no and in sight for the eighteen those that
were worried. Not a final show, but merely a caption
clever or not to today's installment of the Good Morning Video.

Speaker 3 (28:37):
Well, you did yourself a disservice here, and I'm gonna
explain it. You didn't include said line from the Rangers broadcaster.

Speaker 4 (28:48):
I took Jared out because.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
That's kind of the key and it was a very
serendipitous thing.

Speaker 4 (28:54):
Well, I didn't want to give them everything here on
the show. I mean, if you'd like to hear everything, yeah,
just head on over to the social that Adam Clinton
or a Adam J. Weshing youst minutes of it. Yeah,
it's all there for you.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
Uh, my wife had an event last night, so after
I got the kid out of bed, I start, you know,
I finished watching the game obviously, and it was very
serendipitous because she walked in after coming home and she
just wanted to catch up and I was just putting
highlights together because I was doing three games, not one,
and uh, she was looking at something on social I

(29:26):
think it was TikTok and that that song came up.

Speaker 4 (29:30):
And I've never used any Harry Edward styles song.

Speaker 3 (29:33):
Do you know there's a cardboard cut out of him
in my stepdaughter's room that terrifies us at night when
you see the silhouette in front of the window when
you're just walking by in the dark. Yep, she's a
big fan. I've never used a Harry Style song of
any kind for any video.

Speaker 4 (29:46):
Not very sportsy, no, but but they have a message
that fits into the The.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
Rangers broadcaster was saying in May, it's it, that's it,
it's over. This will not be a year in which
the Astros win the AO West again. So I was like,
all right, let's take his and Jock's fat words and
use them against them.

Speaker 4 (30:09):
Very easy to do. So when you wipe them out
of competition, claim the silver Boot for the ninth consecutive season.
Because last night's win also gave the Astros their seventh
and thirteen tries against the Rangers, that is a season
series victory. That means they get to keep the boots
in the team store for all two.

Speaker 3 (30:28):
I would argue it further cheapens their Fluke title season
as they keep not defending it.

Speaker 4 (30:35):
Well, one time, one option. You have one year to
defend it. They failed and that's that.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
And don't use injuries as an excuse because the team
that just puts you out the Pastors had more of
them than anybody.

Speaker 4 (30:45):
Yeah, really isn't even close. And unfortunately it does keep
you from seeing and has you wondering, well, man, if
this happened in spite and with all these injuries, what
could this season actually have been? Certainly a lot of
things would be different, probably over third base most importantly,
things would be very, very different, but always fun to discuss.

(31:06):
We always appreciate you following along both here on the
A Team and on our socials and hope to send
you many many more Good Morning Houston videos from your
sports teams that you love Here at.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
AH the eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (31:32):
It is the A Team.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
Sports SOX seven ninety Top of the Hours simulcast will
begin over on Space City Home Network in the meantime.
WEX mentioned this in the opening segment. I wouldn't say
it was flying under the radar because I think as
recently as like I don't know, half hour ago, maybe

(31:53):
this was one of the top side stories on ESPN
and other places have this, the grand jury declining to
indict Jimmy Ward in that domestic violence case up in
Montgomery County. My question is this doesn't surprise me from
the standpoint if we see this kind of stuff happen

(32:14):
all the time with athletes. They get arrested, you know,
for something. There might be a case there, there might not.
That's what grand juries are for. You find out whether
or not you're even going to go forward with something,
and then sometimes it doesn't happen. But okay, now that
this has happened and he's remaining on the NFL's commissioner exemplst.

Speaker 4 (32:33):
Well, again, this only happened today. The NFL is not
going to operate anywhere there near that fast and this
is one of the cases still pending. Good point, that's
a civil case still exists. The twenty million dollars in
damage seeking civil case. Same parties are involved in the
existence of some of the same events are involved here,
But this case was no build it is obviously some

(32:56):
sort of It is definitely some vindication for the accused
in this case, Jimmy Ward. It doesn't necessarily take us
to an NFL decision yet because of the other case,
their own investigation, which a lot of times when you
get to this point months ago, oh there's a case
filed against him, Well, the NFL's opened their investigation into this.

(33:17):
They open investigation by opening up a Manila folder if
it's nineteen twenty seven and put it on their desk,
and then they don't do anything, and then the legal
process runs its course, and then they Okay, yeah, no,
we've been investigating for months, and you know, we'll have
a you know, we're working on it. We'll get to
something here shortly. Then they do their quote unquote investigation

(33:40):
and then they'll have a decision. But I don't know
that one is immediately coming because of the existence of
the civil lawsuit that is, the one that was filed
by Tony Busby. We've given you some of the particular
sitting in that case. But the attorneys involved on Jimmy's side,
I think have an idea of where this might go.
That's the idea that they jested would be the case

(34:01):
for this case turned out to be exactly what happened.
There's no definitive word from the Texans. Aaron Wilson's reported
a couple of times on an injury front, Jimmy Ward
is not necessarily ready to participate, not ready to be
on the field. The status of a player on the
Commissioner's List keeps him off the practice field and obviously
off of the active roster entirely. But he had an

(34:22):
offseason injury that he was still trying to work through
when camp began, still trying to work through when the
regular season began. So I don't think it's a matter
of as soon as the league clears him, if that's
in fact what they determined, they will do or issue
a whatever length suspension. I don't think it sends you
to okay, Jimmy Ward is ready to go. I don't
think that's necessarily the case. But they are thin in

(34:44):
the secondary specifically, I shouldn't say one over the other,
they're thin in both spots. You still have Jalen Reid
on the injured list designated to return. He obviously has
not made his rookie debut, seen him out at practice,
but he's not yet participating in practice. You obviously got CJ.
Gardner Johnson back for the opener, and he has played
without limitations through the first two games.

Speaker 7 (35:04):
M J.

Speaker 4 (35:04):
Stewart behind him, but now Jalen Smith missed his second
day of practice. He's the first corner off the bench.
When Jalen Peatree, who's technically the slot corner listed as
a safety, stepped off the field this past week, is
Jalen Smith who stepped on. He's the only other corner
who's gotten reps in each of their first two games,
and no practice Wednesday, no practice Thursday, trends towards not

(35:25):
playing on Sunday. Trimon Smith would be next in line
among active roster players. You have some options on your
practice squad through elevations, but in general this position this
secondary as a group, not the deepest group and currently
not the healthiest group, so something to consider as they
move forward. I wondered if Jimmy Ward would have a

(35:45):
spot on this team, and the more things have changed
for the positive from a legal standpoint, and the more
things have changed from a negative health standpoint, it seemed
more and more likely that there could be an avenue
for him to put his jersey, his Texans R back
on this season at some point. Yeah, I'll be interested
to see what.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
You know what you mentioned that the NFL is not
operating under the same schedule, so to speak, But it
is the first hurdle. I mean, he's on that list
because of this case. Now that that's not going to
in essence be a case, even though you mentioned the
civil case still exists, I do wonder if, like and
I honestly, my biggest question in all this is where

(36:26):
the Texans stand, because a lot of times teams will
operate differently depending on I'm just gonna say it, how
much they need that player, how much talent that player
brings to the table at what position, and you know,
it's it's unfortunate. But I always point to the Greg
Hardy situation in Dallas because you put up with some

(36:46):
grotesque stuff because the guy could play at the time.

Speaker 4 (36:49):
Well, I don't think the Texans will put up with
anything if this player is not found to have been
guilty of what he's been charged with, or the civil
case proves him to need to make payments, or however
they rule on it, they'll say, Okay, he went through
the legal process. He turned out that he wasn't guilty
of these things or found not innocent, and then they

(37:10):
would move on and they would play him. I think
it'll be a very different situation, but the league will
probably make it easier for them. Yeah, we know he
wasn't found guilty, and we know this was no build. Okay,
here's a one game suspension, and the Texas will say
we respect the league's decision and look forward to Jimmy's return.

Speaker 3 (37:25):
Maybe they'll do like the Eagles. Well, can he just
already say time served? Not in this case, he's had
a two game suspension. All Right, Three o'clock hour is
coming up next. We will reset. We will tell you why.
I specifically, I'm low key worried about Sunday's game in Jacksonville.

Speaker 4 (37:39):
That's next.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
The A team on Sports Talk seven ninety two lifelong
Houston sports guys named at him talking your team.

Speaker 4 (37:52):
He's so very.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the.

Speaker 4 (37:59):
A Just as we get this Three o'clock hour started
here on Sports Talk seven to ninety and the simulcast
on Space City Home Network. I have not seen this
play ever in Major League Baseball. That just happened in
the Mariners Royals game. Mariners just took a two to
nothing lead. JP Crawford lined a ball right at first

(38:22):
baseman and right past first baseman Vinnie Pasquantoni, and it
brought home Victor Robless from first base. But it's why
was Victor Roebliss at first base two nothing lead Mariners
top of the eighth inning. It's been an absolute pitchers duel.
Of the two starting pitchers were Nails, Kolich and Castillo. Unfortunately,

(38:44):
the two hits that the Mariners had in the game
through seven innings came back to back and the second
one a double driving in Josh Naylor. That was the
only run of the game. So why was Victor Roeblis
on first base? Well, because his manager told him to
go pinch run for Dominic Canzone. But why that was
Dominant Canzone on first base because after he grounded out,

(39:05):
the Mariners challenged a shift violation, oh my gosh, and
got it overturned and he got first base on a
shift violation committed by the Royals defense. So he was
awarded first base whose seat weren't on the dirt. Michael
Massey had some sort of violation. I sure the video exists.

(39:26):
I've not found it myself, but I will be interested
to see exactly what happened, because, like I said, it's
not often that a team even asks for it. I
can't recall a team even asking for it, let alone
asking for it and getting it. So now the Royals
need a pair of runs to get extra baseball on
either the bottom of the eighth or ninth or simply
three at some point over the course of the day

(39:48):
to keep the Mariners from bringing a winning streak of
one to Houston. Their ten game winning streak was ended
last night. I think everybody knows that by now. That's
why the Astros have a half game lead in the
division pending today's result. If the Mariners hold on to
this two nothing lead and win the game, they will
come to Houston with the identical eighty four and sixty
nine record that the Astros already possess after three straight

(40:11):
wins over the Texas Rangers. Lines up to a fantastic
three game series of pitching. Brian Wu George Kirby get
the ball out of the gate for the Mariners first
two nights, opposed by Hunter Brown and from ber Valdez.
Hard to make it much better of a matchup than
that Logan Gilbert and Jason Alexander in the final game

(40:34):
of the series. Evening games all three nights, we'll get
you into tomorrow night's seven o'clock seven to ten first
pitch with the Astros on deck show and they will
have first pitch an hour earlier each of the other
two nights, So three night games over at dyke In
Park to close out the home regular season portion of

(40:56):
the Astros schedule. If they make the playoffs and they
land a five or six exceed they won't have any
more home games unless they emerge from the wildcard round.
If they land in the four spot or win the division,
they'll guarantee themselves additional postseason home games. The four spot
or the three spot or the two spot, all of
which are in play for the Astros, would have them

(41:17):
playing either in a wildcard series all of those games
if they're three or four, or opening up the division
series as the home field advantage teams opening up with
games one and two, which begin over the weekend. Nine
games to go before we get there and lots to decide.
The Tigers Guardians game concluded with the Astros gaining a

(41:38):
half a game on the Tigers again. One game separates
the AL West leading Astros from the AL Central leading
Detroit Tigers, though the Tigers of the tiebreaker, wouldn't this
be the most unlikeliest of.

Speaker 3 (41:55):
Just the whole scenario is insane to even think about
that it's possible, let alone that it might have.

Speaker 4 (42:00):
Yeah, nine days from now, nine games from now will
come in on Monday and say, yep, second best team
in the American League. The Houston Astros will be having
some workouts at Dykin Park this week in preparation for
Saturday's Game one against I don't know it well, absolutely
could happen. The second best record in the American League
by this injury riddled team is absolutely attainable.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
And you know the crazy part is even though after this,
the uh, the Tigers are going to have a three
game series at home against the Braves, they go on
the road for the final six of the year. They're
gonna play this same hot Cleveland team again in Cleveland,
and then they go to Boston to finish the season.
It's absolutely in the astros favor should they take care

(42:45):
of business.

Speaker 4 (42:45):
Yeah, the Tigers quite simply just haven't played good baseball
here lately, they're having a terrible month and the teams
around them, most notably Cleveland. I mentioned the scenario as
it relates to Houston, it's definitely worth mentioning the scenario
as it relates to the guard Gardians. They still have
three more games with them, and winning the game today
draws them even closer. They are three and a half

(43:07):
games back of the Tigers with twelve games remaining for
or ten games remaining for the Guardians and nine games
remaining for the Tigers, and three of them are against
each other. That's essentially the difference that that still holds
in their division.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
Tigers have lost six of seven, I mean, and two
of those losses were to Miami.

Speaker 4 (43:29):
I mean.

Speaker 3 (43:30):
The only win they have is a too nothing went
over the Miami Marlins on Sunday, swept by Cleveland, and
like I said, that's their remaining nine games. I never thought, Okay,
this is Detroit's year, even as they were leading pretty
much the majority of the season in the AL. I
just I was like, they're good, and they were good
last year and school bul and everything that goes with that.

(43:51):
But I just never thought, Okay, they get to the postseason,
they're gonna do damage not yet maybe is kind of
how I was looking at it. In fact, you know,
I wonder how this season would have gone differently had
they come up with whatever was needed to push that
Bregman deal across the finish line.

Speaker 4 (44:08):
I mean, they had him, and Bregman said it, and
then Boston came in with essentially as the negotiations went.
I feel comfortable saying this, Boston came in with an
unbeatable offer. Nobody was going to beat that offer. He
just hadn't seen it yet. He and Scott Boris did
not expect it, did not see it coming. I'm not
sure what made Boston feel compelled to go and put
it in front of him, but I think it's obvious

(44:29):
now that they thought he could help him win, and
they're likely headed to the playoffs because of it, largely
because of it. But yeah, he was ready to sign
with the Tigers on a very very good deal, a
deal that I think was better than the one that
he was offered from any other team, including this one,
but not as good as the deal he got from Boston.
It just pushes further into the future when he'll have

(44:50):
the huge guaranteed money in front of him, he's guaranteed
one hundred and twenty million if he does nothing, but
he's more likely going to take the first forty this
year and parlay that into a bigger guarantee from somebody,
maybe the Red Sox. Moving forward, they're in the midst
of their game with the Athletics. They beat the Athletics
last night. They lost to the Athletics the day before.
The A's are beating them currently today. Unfortunately already sliding

(45:13):
into their spoiler role, which I hope they don't play
against the Astros early next week. Last thing on, the
Tigers twenty six and thirty in their last fifty six games,
and by virtue of them losing all week to the Guardians,
that season series is now tied. So if the Guardians
win the series, they still have remaining just win the series,

(45:34):
don't have to sweep the series to earn the tiebreaker.
But if they do sweep this series, man, are they
in a good position to have one of the biggest
meltdowns if you're talking about Detroit and the most remarkable
run to the postseason. If the Guardians are able to
finish that off, it's a seven game winning streak for
the Guardians, and again we'll keep you posted on how
things change if they hopefully do. In the Mariners Royals game,

(45:57):
which is now in the bottom of the eighth inning,
all taking place as the Mariners know they've got a
flight to catch to the h after this game concludes.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
Jonathan India sucks. Why did he even act like he
was gonna walk? It was right in the zone as
he struck out on a three to two pitch.

Speaker 4 (46:12):
Happened last night to some of the good guys too.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
Yeah, I'll tell you what, man, I might buy a
Bobby Witt junior jersey after that performance.

Speaker 4 (46:19):
He's awesome and player. Well, he signed his long term deal.

Speaker 3 (46:23):
Yeah, I just I don't know if I'm more surprised
that they offered.

Speaker 4 (46:30):
It or that he signed it. It's still I think
the kind of deal even a less revenue generating team
can afford to make. H he's not one of gonna be.
I mean, I think it's a really it's still a
good team deal. And when you get these guys this
early to sign it, you're actually paying for their best years,
only you're not paying for Well, we're gonna we're gonna

(46:52):
give him ten years and we'll get six or seven
good years, like a Pools deal, which was awful from
the moment the Angels gave it to him, and you
know some of the other deals later. It's the only
way to get him. So you're paying him seventy million
to be good for four years and then like three
million to be bad for six years. You have to
look at it that way when actually the money is
spread out and you're still paying him twenty seven thirty

(47:13):
four thirty six million on the backside of a deal.
And there really isn't that concern for the Royals. With
Wit gonna be one of the faces of the American League.
I think if the Royals can, the Royals really do
have the type of team that should have done a
little bit better. Offense is their biggest problem, and outside
of Wit and Perez, I don't know that they are
enthused about anybody else's offensive season. They got a great

(47:34):
season from Mikale Garcia and it hasn't mattered much. They're
not done, but they're also like the Rangers, getting very
very close to being done because the Guardians keep winning.
The Guardians all this greatness I've talked about Cleveland, they're
on the outside looking in. Yeah, they're the seventh best
team in a sixteen playoff picture, no guarantees they get there.
Either mentioned the pitching matchups this weekend a lot to

(47:56):
look forward to. You mentioned there's a little bit of
concern for you, at least concerning the Texans matchup this weekend.
A loss in Jacksonville would do most to me, the
most damages. You just flat out your own three. You
got a lot of teams left on your schedule and
where those games might be. I don't expect the Texans
to win those games. So you take the three losses

(48:18):
you've already absorbed if you don't go to Jacksonville and win,
and you add a couple of more that you do
not expect to get and likely will not get. Now
you're at five or six or seven with the other
eleven games on the schedule, you're leaving yourself with almost
no margin for air, almost no margin to account for
a significant injury or two or three that might take
place over the final fourteen weeks. It is absolutely not

(48:41):
a must win, but I do believe the Texans are
in enormous mathematical trouble if they're trying to make the
postseason or just even win this division. Where Indianapolis beats
the Titans this weekend, they're three and zero, and you
will have already suffered a loss inside the division, and
you're sitting at a three, and you want to make
the postseason and you want to win this division, well,

(49:03):
losing to Jacksonville has no way to do that.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
The last team to start the season oh and three
and make the postseason, you're twenty eighteen Houston Texans.

Speaker 4 (49:11):
What were they? Ten and seven? Eleven and six? Oh no,
they didn't play seventeen games that year, did they? Were
they the six team to make the playoffs or did
they have a seventh team getting in? The rules were
totally different back then, As I said yesterday, come on,
I'm almost positive they were nine and seven. Well, I'm
sure they were whatever and whatever. It's just I don't
really care what a team under totally different rules did

(49:33):
versus teams trying to do that now, when the playoff
picture is different, and obviously you've got an additional game
on the schedule. Starting on three in a fourteen game
schedule is much different than starting in oh and three
in a sixteen or seventeen game schedule, which the Texans.
I do believe will avoid this weekend. Plenty of things
on that very front, very specific to one item in particular,

(49:54):
Jags v. Texans is next the eighteen on Sports to ninety.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
Eight team rolling along here Sports Talks seven ninety Space
City Home Network. I know we have Brian McTaggart from earlier,
but I feel like you wanted to get to something
before we play that.

Speaker 4 (50:21):
I absolutely do. I mentioned something very specific about the
Texans yesterday on the show, all this stuff about their
offense needed to get going, and they needed to put
more points on the board and capitalize some of the
big plays they had this last week as opposed to
in Week one, and they did do all these things
without having to so far truly concern themselves about turning
the ball over having it taken away. Now, the one

(50:42):
takeaway that they have was massive end of the football
game against the Rams, or one of the two takeaways
they had in the Rams game. The other was stolen
literally a very much a takeaway pass to Jayden Higgins,
looks like he's got it. Nope, it got stolen. Durant
took the ball from him. And then this last week
it was not an issue. Thanks to Levante David dropping
the ball, but Jacksonville's number one of the NFL and takeaways.

(51:04):
I pointed that out yesterday, but I feel like I
did our listeners a disservice by not providing some context,
and with a small sample size you've only played two weeks.
It made me think, all right, let's look into this
a little bit. I watched a lot of Jacksonville's first
two weeks. I have actually partaken in a lot of
the red zone, which we talk about quite a bit
here on the show. So I kind of knew already

(51:26):
what I was going to find when I put the
Wexler research team on this. You know, the Jacksonville Jaguars
have been playing against these last two weeks. Opened this
season with Bryce Young, and their Week two opponent for
three series, not even three full series, was Joe Burrow,
and then it was Jake Browning. So seventeen series against

(51:50):
Jake Browning and Bryce Young, three series against Joe Burrow.
None of their six takeaways came while Joe Burrow was
on the field. All six of their takeaways have come
from Bryce Young, ed drives or Jake Browning led drives,
fumble from Bryce along with a couple of picks and
then three picks of Jake Browning last week, seventeen points

(52:10):
off of turnovers, those six that they've generated. If you'll allow,
even as CJ. Stroud everybody's telling us how awful he is,
if you'll allow for me to buy into well, he's
better than Jake Browning and he's better than Bryce Young
that I don't think the Texans have to be like this.
This team is really punching the ball out. This team

(52:33):
is really getting I mean, I'm not trying to tell
you it isn't gonna happen. But two games into the
season I can say with confidence Jacksonville's probably not going
to spend much of the season, most of the season
at the top of the takeaway ladder. That's where they
currently are, only team in the league with six takeaways.

(52:53):
I don't think that is It's always a concern because
you're playing football. Don't let the other team take it away.
But I'm not trying to pay a picture like I
did yesterday without context that they can't possibly have a
turnover free game against the vaunted Jaguars defense.

Speaker 3 (53:08):
Well, don't let the other team take it away, but
also don't give it away, which is two entirely different things,
especially when you're talking about a guy under dress.

Speaker 4 (53:15):
And in my in my estimation, they have one giveaway
and it wasn't even a turnover. Last week, CJ Stroud
under all sorts of pressure and for I don't know
what reason, he just kind of dumped it off over
the middle to three Buccaneers, right into the hands of
LaMonte David. No reason for him to drop it other
than well, that's why he's on defense. Yeah, hit him
right in the hands, he dropped it. That should be

(53:36):
a pick. That's a giveaway. They got away with the turnovers.
I don't think they gave it away in either sense.
The pass that was intercepted hit the Texans receiver in
the hands first and was stolen by the Rams defensive back.
And the second turnover was Dariagan Bowali was essentially going
to the ground to preserve time and get the ball
back to the huddle, and it was taken away via

(53:58):
the punch. That's why coach and love he was one
of the one of the loudest about it. I'll give
him credit for this. Even when you asked him about
turning out turnovers and interceptions and fumbles. He was like,
he wanted you to realize their takeaways. We want to
take the ball away. We're not turning the other team over.
We're taking the ball away. That's what the Texans two

(54:18):
turnovers have been. They are to the definition of the word,
they are takeaways by the Rams defense. You want to
get to Brian Taggert. Brian Taggert viding the show this morning,
as he does each and every week, The Matt Thomas
Show with Ross, and today it was, in fact, the
Matt Thomas Show with Ross. You can catch it in
its entirety at Sports Talk seven ninety dot com over

(54:39):
you the iHeartRadio app. The conversation in part begins here
with what a possible postseason roll should the Astros get there,
might look like for Zach Cole.

Speaker 8 (54:50):
See, I don't know Ross's going to be interested because
the kids obviously pretty fearless. So I'm kind of anxious
to see what he can do this weekend. I mean,
I'm sure he's going to be in the lineup once
or twice. But then again, he you know, these are
very these are huge games, and he's still trying to
feel his way through the big leagues and and uh,
and he's facing all all this elite pitching when he'd

(55:11):
barely been a triple A. I mean, all of a sudden,
he's facing the grom and you know, Louis Castillo and Brian.

Speaker 4 (55:18):
Wu maybe tomorrow night.

Speaker 8 (55:19):
So, uh, this is the best pitching he's ever faced
in his life. And he's he's having figured out figured
out in games that matter hugely to the Astros. So
but I mean, he's not he's he's he's not scared
of anything. So I you know, I think the Astros
will give him a shot at least in one or
two of these games and see what he can do.

Speaker 9 (55:37):
Brian McTaggart Astros dot Com with us here on Sports
Talk seven to ninety. On the pitching side, it feels
like this time of year, we're always talking about how
the playoff rotation is going to line up, So asking
you about that, and then specifically with Fromber, if he's
really good the next couple of starts, I think he's
the two guy. If he's really bad, how much do
you think he can slide? And what if he's just
kind of somewhere in between.

Speaker 8 (56:00):
Yeah, I still think if he has a couple of
good starts, under his belt, then yeah, he's going to
be the number two guy. You know, Alexander can't take
anything away.

Speaker 4 (56:08):
From what he did.

Speaker 8 (56:08):
I mean, they're they're winning every time he takes the ball,
and that's what we want as well. And uh, you know,
Christian Javier Is has two pretty good starts under his
belt now six innings.

Speaker 7 (56:19):
Uh.

Speaker 8 (56:19):
I think he's a guy that maybe at the back
end of their rotation if you need a four starter,
would be in there as well. But yeah, I mean,
I think the next two starts are pretty huge for
Fromber to see just where he will slot in in
the playoff rotation. I mean, a lot of it's going
to depend on how they use them in that final
week of the season. They you know, do they have
to use them in the final weekend and in Anaheim
if they have to win those games and it looks

(56:41):
like this thing definitely will go down to the wire,
and you know it might that might decide for them
how they line up their playoff rotation for the wildcard
series if you know, if they have to, you know,
use Hunter Brown or Fromber in the last couple of
days of the regular season.

Speaker 6 (56:53):
What do you see with maybe Peretti is coming back.
How much hose L two of adh will we see
you between now and the end of the season, regardless
of whether or not the parties can come back. I mean,
I think if Predis comes back, he's gonna d h H.
I don't see him play in the field. I mean,
he's not gonna play third base over Korea. I mean,
I guess, I guess he probably wouldn't DH.

Speaker 8 (57:16):
Every game and then and then maybe that's where you
can get two Bay back in the d H spot
and off second base. But I don't I don't think
Partis is gonna He's obviously not gonna play short, second
or first, and you're not gonna take care off third.
So uh, pretis is gonna be d H only will
he play every game? It maybe depends how he feels
how he's swinging the bat. But jose L two Bay

(57:37):
has played a lot more second base in the second
half of the season as he did in the first,
and I think of the playoffs, that's where we'll see him.

Speaker 4 (57:44):
I think it'll be interesting.

Speaker 8 (57:45):
If they have a lead in a playoff game, you know,
do they do they pull Al two Bay and put
Urias or Dubon or somebody who's a little bit better
in their defensively. You know that remains to be seen,
but you know, having that bat partis in the lineup.
If he can work counts and use that pull power
and hit the ball close to the way he did
before he got injured, that could be a game changer, all.

Speaker 6 (58:06):
Right, Size up the bullpen, it feels like to me,
especially with the way Brian King has pitched really all
season long, and the fact that somebody guys have been hurt.
He's your eighth inning guy, I bray you as your ninth. Generally,
give me your thoughts about what you've seen from this bullpen.
I would say the undertone to me is it's really
been heavily worked, and you need somebody to give you

(58:27):
one or two of those guys this weekend, to give
you some length to give these guys a rest, especially
if they're gonna have to play another bullpen game sometime
next week out in California.

Speaker 8 (58:36):
Yeah, they do, and I think the best thing that
could happen for them is if they if they can
run down the Tigers and get the number two seed,
which is now back and play. I mean, they're only
a game and a half behind the Tigers and then
you get that buy and now you're gonna rest everybody
for five days before you start the division series.

Speaker 4 (58:53):
But you know, they have a couple of guys.

Speaker 8 (58:54):
In the bullpen now who can give them multiple inning outings.
We've seen it, you know, from Colton Gordon. JP Franz
can throw two or three in So you know, I
think guys like that could be important here over the
next week if it's a blowout, or even if it's not,
if you just need somebody to give you two innings
to make that bridge, to get the king and get
their brave.

Speaker 4 (59:15):
You now have guys that are capable of doing that.

Speaker 8 (59:17):
But you know, if they have to fight tooth and
nail all the way down the next Sunday and use
all these guys over the next weekend in Anaheim and
then get on a plane and go to Seattle or
go to New York or whatever, it could be really,
really tough. So I know there was one Astros uniform
member it told me he was watching the Detroit game

(59:37):
closer than any other score because they feel they can
run down the Tigers and get that number two seed,
which would be absolutely massive because you would get the
days off and you'd open the division series at home.

Speaker 4 (59:48):
Didn't know at the time that the Tigers would lose again,
which they did. So the spread between the Astros and
Tigers and the standings is one game. The tiebreaker essentially
makes it two, but the Tigers also aren't necessarily even
going to win their division, although the tiebreaker would say
the same between the Astros and Guardians and that they
do not have it. It was glad for our Space

(01:00:09):
City Home network viewers that the graphic we had up
there was still accurate said the Astros have a half
game lead over the Seattle Mariners. Technically that is still true,
and we knew it would change by the result of
their game, which isn't in yet, but I'm sure we'll
tell you more about it when we come back. On
the other side.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
The ag on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
Oh boy, it's playoff series this weekend, kind of figured
that's the way it would be, even if they had
lost today. It was always going to kind of feel
like a playoff series between the Mariners and the Astros.
But Mariners get to win because man Royals could not
get anybody home in scoring position today.

Speaker 4 (01:00:57):
Yeah, if you don't score, you don't win. Baseball is
pretty simple sport most sports. They did not score, they
did not win, two or nothing. The final today great
pitchers duel, but it was won by the Mariners. Got
one run early in the game, would have held up
that got that second run in the eighth inning. Even
though Kansas City put a couple of runners on against
the Munos in the ninth inning, they could not get

(01:01:17):
them home. And their season is well, it's all even.
They're an even steven team. The Mariners have the same
record as the Astros. Actually they fall to a game
under five hundred, but heading into tomorrow, Astros and Mariners
have the same record. They also have the same season
series record. Winner of the series wins the season series,
the tiebreaker that goes with it obviously will move on

(01:01:40):
to their next series. Both teams will leave town after
the series, but will have the division lead by either
one game or three games, depending on how this series goes,
and with that lead comes the tiebreaker. So if the
Astros win the series two games to one, they essentially
have a two game lead with six to play. If
they win the series three games to none, they essentially

(01:02:03):
have a four game lead with six games to play,
and obviously the same will now apply to the Mariners
if they are on the winning end of this three
game series also within reach. As I've mentioned a couple
of times, where we stand heading into the weekend, Red
Sox have eighty three wins, Mariners and Astros have eighty
four wins. Yankees and Tigers have eighty five wins. And

(01:02:25):
those are five of your six playoff teams. The Blue
Jays have eighty nine wins. That's how closely packed together
all of these teams are. Zero teams have clinched, No
division champions have been found. The Guardians are hotter than
all of them. They just won their seventh consecutive game
today and drew even closer to the Tigers. They are
three and a half games back for the Central Division lead,

(01:02:47):
and with the Astros sweeping the Rangers, with the Royals
falling under five hundred with today's lost, they're seven teams
fighting for six spots, and the Astros at eighty four
and sixty nine, have a better record than two of
those seven teams, the Red Sox and the Guardians, who
currently sit in sixth and seventh place.

Speaker 3 (01:03:07):
I just I guess it's not I mean, anything can happen,
and teams fall out of contention for a variety of reasons.
Usually though, it's either you're injured or you're the Mets.
I feel like teams like Detroit that have been, like
I said earlier, right there at the top all season long.
I figured this was the next logical step in their

(01:03:29):
evolution to becoming one of the powers in the American League,
and it has just completely fallen off. While at the
same time, the Guardians have come out of nowhere. What
did you say twelve and four this month? I believe
now thirteen thirteen or four? Sorry, I shorted them a
win the Guardians and you said it earlier. They don't
they had. They were spinning off parts of their team.

(01:03:51):
This is a weaker version of this squad than before
when they weren't winning.

Speaker 4 (01:03:56):
They could have been the team that just waited for
Shane Bieber to get healthy. Instead, they moved him to
the best team in the American League. He now pitches
for the Toronto Blue Jays, And well, so it was.
They did not expect this. They operated like it wasn't
going to happen, and they've done that for years. I mean,
as much as they've maintained a pretty competitive team and

(01:04:18):
that they I don't know how much they knew in
advance of the Class A suspension coming down, not that
he was having a great year, which also left a
lot of people wondering because he was essentially untouchable the
year before. But they decided not to be the team
to pay Francisco Lindor big money, and he has been
awesome as a New York Met. They have obviously kept
Jose Ramirez all these years. He's been awesome as a guardian,

(01:04:41):
but there's so little else there that they know that
they have and know they can build on that. It's
just who they are and they're competitive, and I just
don't expect them to be the team in that division ever,
and they're gunning to try to be that team over
the final nine games of the season and obviously as
it plays for the Astros. Just keep this in mind.
After this series conc ludes the Padres lost to the

(01:05:02):
Mets today, the Dodgers will be ahead of the Padres,
most likely when Seattle leaves town, maybe when Seattle gets
to having La visit them. They finish the season with
the series against the Dodgers, but the Astros not only
need to take care of Seattle because they're playing them
and that's the best way to ensure that they don't win.

(01:05:23):
But they're playing Colorado immediately after the Astros. They're going
home to Seattle to play three games with Colorado Rocky sweep.
They're going to win three of their final six. I
guarantee you the Seattle Mariners will win at least three
of their final six games. I'd be shocked if they
won less than four. I'd be shocked if it was

(01:05:44):
only three, because I don't think the Dodgers are gonna
come there with a tremendous amount to play for. If
they're up three with the tiebreaker over the Padres when
the three game series begins and they can't move themselves
in the standings anywhere else and they're the three seed,
well that's probably how they're gonna play that weekend. So
it's to me it's more imperative because the Astros can't
say that about who they have left. I have no

(01:06:05):
idea what the pitching plans or offensive plans are for
the Angels or for the Athletics, but I do know
at different times this year, in the first ten games,
they've played against both of those teams. It has not
gone well the Astros, because they swept the Rangers, finally
got over five hundred inside the division. There have been
equals on the field to the teams in their division

(01:06:29):
this season. That's all they have left.

Speaker 3 (01:06:31):
They've looked human finally for the first time in probably
a decade plus. And it just all of that that
we're talking about, and so much more goes into a
just juicy weekend matchup, which, as you mentioned, all of
them are going to be night games, including the Kapper,
which could mean a whole it could just mean more

(01:06:52):
on Sunday night when it's on national television. This is
what Major League Baseball guns for every single year when
they make these division games late in the season, and
they just kind of sometimes hope that it's this happened
two years ago. Astros actually needed some help and the
Mariners gave it to them. But the Mariners were playing

(01:07:13):
the Rangers that day, I believe, and the Astros, I
can't remember who they were matched up against. I want
to say Arizona, that's right. Yeah, And but this is
you talk about directly affecting and being in control of
your destiny.

Speaker 4 (01:07:25):
It doesn't get any better than this.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
And the pitching matchups are also, you know they they
are appropriate for a series of this magnitude.

Speaker 4 (01:07:34):
Yeah, and if things stay the way I think they will,
Astros throwing Brown beild as in Alexander Games one, two,
and three Friday, Saturday, Sunday. They have an off day
before they begin their series with the Angels or with
the Athletics on Tuesday, so the final six days of
the season without a rest day. A travel day is
not included. They go from Sacramento to La Thursday to Friday,
but the way the rotation is lined up, not knowing

(01:07:55):
what the Astros plans are, not knowing what the standings
could look like if they would actually have another bullpeni
ish day, whatever the case may be. If Brown and
Valdez pitch as they should Friday and Sunday, well, the
option to pitch them again on Thursday and Friday of
the following week would also allow for Brown to pitch

(01:08:16):
Thursday rest, Friday, rest, Saturday, rest, Sunday, rest Monday, and
on the fifth day be your game one starter. If
they are in a wild card series followed by Valdez
and Alexander and however they want to shape it up
after that. I think that's how they're gonna have to
play it. And I think it also means when you
get to the final two days of the season, I

(01:08:38):
don't think there's any scenario where Hunter Brown or from
for Valdez is getting the baseball, whether it's in relief,
whether it's a short start, short rest start. I think
you're gonna, ultimately, if those games are meaningful, will be
relying on somebody else.

Speaker 3 (01:08:52):
I'll give you my prediction on how this exact series
this weekend is gonna go when we come back, among
other things here on a Thursday of the.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
Show The Age on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 10 (01:09:13):
I'm going to give you a choice here wex, do
you want to clown on Longhorns media coverage or do
you want to hear me make a wild prediction about
what Jim Crane's going to do with some of his
money this offseason.

Speaker 4 (01:09:31):
I mean, the easy one is the first one, and
we've got two more hours of the show. The other
one probably deserves more of our attention. So why don't
you just mash the Longhorns of media? First? All right?
Orange Bloods dot Com rate.

Speaker 3 (01:09:43):
The reputa reputability right these college football These are fans
involved in people that you know they I don't want
to rate them.

Speaker 4 (01:09:51):
This is what college football is. This is just what
it is. People talking about college same There's hundreds and
hundreds of them, and the people that want their information
love their information. It's not a good or bad thing.
It's just what it is with college football, especially in
a college football town.

Speaker 3 (01:10:06):
Well, even for those kinds of entities I e. Leaning
heavily towards positively reporting on my team that I cover
at Tiger droppings or anything else out there, this is
bad even for those standards. I mean, we've all watched
arch Manning through his first three games. We've all seen

(01:10:29):
and not seen what makes us come to the conclusion
that he's just it's not good. He's not good. He
might change that impression as the season goes on. But
that's the other part of this. I don't know that
he's given you any reason to think that he will,
especially because he's playing the easy portion of the calendar
right now. I know Ohio State was one thing, but
I mean, shouldn't he put up seventy points against the

(01:10:50):
Bearcats this weekend to prove everybody wrong, or at least
make them stop talking about the fact that he's underwhelming
every week.

Speaker 4 (01:10:56):
It's not gonna happen, but sure well.

Speaker 3 (01:11:00):
Orangebloods dot Com tweeted out the following and around eleven
thirty eleven forty or so yesterday morning got a million
views of this so far, and.

Speaker 4 (01:11:11):
Again that's another reminder of why it's out there.

Speaker 3 (01:11:14):
Yes, for sure, clickbait if you want to call it that,
whatever you want to call it, here's the caption. Arch
Mannings tough start to the season looks very similar to
the start of Joe Burrow's.

Speaker 4 (01:11:27):
Twenty eighteen season.

Speaker 3 (01:11:30):
Burrow went on to win the Fiesta Bowl and then
the National Championship the following season. And they have of
course put the graphic of both these players in their
college uniforms with the statistics of their games through the
first three weeks side by side.

Speaker 4 (01:11:46):
So the words you said, it looks like the first
three games of Joe burrows season, But in no place
on this post is there any video of what it
actually looks like. We put some numbers up to tell you.
We can tell you these statistics look comparable, even though
they to a lot of people do not. That's not
what a season looks like. That's what the numbers look

(01:12:07):
like from whatever numbers you want to pull. And I'm
not even gonna go reference them because I understand what
they're trying to do. It doesn't even matter if they're
accurate or not. It's why I rail on the polls
in college football as often as I do. It's for
the same reason I would rail on this. I'm sorry, man,
there's just very few AP voters. I think zero is
the total. I think there's very few college coaching voters.

(01:12:29):
I believe zero is also the total that are without
vision they have eyeballs. It's absolutely okay the way, absolutely
okay to watch the games. I promise you. It's okay.
You're not going to get reprimanded for actually watching these
people or these teams that you're voting on, actually play
the game of football. Watch a guy drop back, watch

(01:12:50):
them throw a pass. How does this get handled? How
does the ball come out? How does that defensive back
play out? Does this offensive player look? What is this
guy's blocking like? It's okay to use your eyes, It's
okay to watch football. It's okay to come up with
your own ideas about what you're actually seeing, because I'll
give you the benefit of the doubt that you're a credible,
reputable viewer and an analyzer of what you are watching.

(01:13:13):
I don't really care to compare the numbers because it's
not going to tell you about the performance a player
is likely to have in the future. Sark saying this week,
what he looks like in practice is not what he's
looking like in the games, and we've got to get
that more in sync. Yeah, that makes more sense, and
we have to take his word for it that he
looks better in practice, because what he looks like, you're

(01:13:36):
using the word looks that means you're seeing it. I've
seen it, You've seen it, Cole seen it. Our listeners
have seen it, their opponents have seen it, their future
opponents have seen it. It doesn't look like there's a
rainbow of excellence on the horizon. Not saying it won't
be there, but nothing about what you've seen. Oh, if
he just makes this, if he just fixes this, there

(01:13:57):
is no If he just does that, every single thing,
in my opinion, and I don't know how many things
that is, they all look bad. It looks like he's
throwing the ball. He looks like he doesn't know how
to throw the football. Yeah, like, no, he's never been coached,
That's what it looks like. The decision making looks like
he's not studied film, like he needs to. The decision

(01:14:19):
making of when to keep the ball and when to
hand off the ball, when to scramble, when not to scramble.
I mean almost to the point where you realize you're
wearing two different color jerseys. Right throw to these guys.
Because some of the ball placement is just outrageous. It
doesn't mean he's destined for disaster ball and it's going

(01:14:39):
to be the most overrated career in the history of
college football. I don't believe that for a second. I
firmly believe better football is ahead because it's almost impossible
for it to go in the other direction. But I
think it clearly this still has nothing nothing to do
with the hype. Just watch him play and watch what
he did like last year. It's definitely worse than last year.

(01:15:03):
But if you're trying to say, what I saw last
year briefly made me believe this quarterback is going to
be unbelievable. He should definitely be in the Heisman race
before ever being the number one guy. That's that's lies.
That's not what he looked like last year. Again, last
year's a Manning portfolio looked significantly better than this year's portfolio,

(01:15:25):
but not to the level that he was being hyped
at to begin with.

Speaker 3 (01:15:29):
Well, not surprisingly, some of the responses to this tweet
are all timers.

Speaker 4 (01:15:34):
We have the.

Speaker 3 (01:15:36):
Ever popular Winnie the Pooh meme with the caption as
when he reads from the paper that this was apparently
posted on. Well there it is dumbest bleeping thing I've
read all day. We had Calvin say there is no
way this isn't satire.

Speaker 4 (01:15:54):
We had this is my favorite one. Casey's a parody account.

Speaker 3 (01:15:59):
Casey says, you got ten thousand steps in, buddy, because
that was a long bleeping walk. I yeah, there's no
defending that even. I mean, I'm trying to think of, like,
what the most home horrific thing I've ever seen on
the internet would be. You're talking about Joe Burrow, who
had like and again the next season was the legendary one.

(01:16:20):
I get that, but like, give give me somebody.

Speaker 4 (01:16:23):
Who's excited about the twenty twenty six long Horn season
now shired up.

Speaker 3 (01:16:28):
Based on what this is the ultimate Just look at
a box score, as you're saying.

Speaker 4 (01:16:31):
And where was Joe at at this point in his career,
with who he was playing for. He just got there.
He was just on the field. He had barely played
before that where he had been previously, unlike Arch, who well,
he hadn't had a ton of playing time. That's definitely fair.
Which he also has been with Sark and with this
team for not even just one full season, but two

(01:16:52):
full seasons, running this offense, going to practice every day,
studying film every day, with the same coach and offensive
system for two years. And now he's out there on
the field playing really unsatisfactory football.

Speaker 3 (01:17:05):
And he was three and zero, with two of those
wins coming against top ten teams in those first three games,
while Arch has the loss to Ohio State and none
of the teams that Joe Burrow played were San Jose
State or UTEP.

Speaker 4 (01:17:18):
Just to kind of put this into context and hopeful
things do change, and they do need to change quickly.
The Longhorns have an evening game we'll have for you
here on Saturday night against Sam Houston State. They're in conference.
Portion of the schedule begins after that eat them up Cats,
quite a challenge. Ifay upset Texas, what are we gonna
do on Monday? I cannot take out? Hey, you shut

(01:17:39):
up over there, Cole.

Speaker 3 (01:17:40):
All right, four o'clock hour coming up next, we will
finally get to why I'm worried about Sunday's game for
the Texans in Jacksonville.

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):
The Age on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 2 (01:17:52):
Ninety two lifelong Houston sports guys named at him. Your team,
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the A team.

Speaker 4 (01:18:11):
Four o'clock out.

Speaker 3 (01:18:12):
We're underway here on a Thursday edition on the program
it's Sports Talk seven to ninety and Space City home Network.
Wex is over there ac right here. Cole Thompson is
your producers. We take you up until six o'clock tonight. Astros,
with the night off, having swept the Rangers out of town,
they await the winners of today's contest between the Royals

(01:18:34):
and the Mariners. The Mariners got it done to nothing,
so they come to town in a virtual tie with
the Astros. And it's safe to say this will be
the most important season the Astros have played all year long.

Speaker 4 (01:18:48):
But is it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:50):
Possible to say that after this season or after the series.
The next series is the most important simply because of
what happens.

Speaker 4 (01:18:58):
Yeah, that's the obvious sit situation. When you're into the
final nine games and nothing's been decided. You're actually two
teams with the identical records, So distancing yourself from the
other can't happen in three days. It just can't. The
Matsa is otherwise, So what happens in this series will
help go a long way towards that end, especially if
one team dominates the series, wins all three games, that
puts them essentially four games up, because the tiebreaker will

(01:19:20):
be earned by that three games, and the tiebreaker that
gives you a four game lead, you'd only have six
games remaining. All six of those games are once again
the imbalanced schedule. It took a while to get it balanced.
Three games ago, the Astros and Mariners both had six
games remaining at home and six games remaining on the road.
When this series concludes, the Astros will have six games

(01:19:43):
remaining on the road and the Mariners will have six
games remaining at home, and that has not bode well
for the Astros trying to catch them over the final
six games. Their final two series come against Colorado and
the La Dodgers. If you are unaware, because we haven't
talked to a lot of Rockies baseball this year, They're awful.
They're the worst team in baseball. They're among the worst
teams ever in baseball in a number of different ways,

(01:20:04):
including wins and losses. They passed one hundred and ten
of those already and more to come. The Astros finish
with two teams that have been very competitive for the
last three months, the Athletics first and then the Angels,
to close out the season in those two to three
game series, so it is extremely important. It's very unlikely,
but not impossible mathematically for the team that loses this

(01:20:26):
series to still win the division. And additionally, the team
that loses this series is absolutely still in the wildcard chase,
absolutely still in the hunt for the postseason. Like the Mariners,
who finally had their ten game winning streak snapped yesterday,
They're not going to win every game they play. The
Guardians are not going to finish the season on a
sixteen game winning streak. They're on a seven gamer right now.

(01:20:48):
But if they slow down at all, they're seven teams
fighting for six spots. The Astros are one of those seven,
and they have a better record than two of those seven,
same record as a third, and only one fewer win
than two others. Odds are very much in their favor
to have baseball after they finished with the Angels. All
they have to do is what they did the last
three days. They got good pitching, especially starting pitching. They

(01:21:12):
got timely hitting, and they weren't relying on any one
player to give them that hitting. Jeremy Panna had an
unbelievable series. A Janer Diaz has thirteen RBI in fifteen
games this month. Carlos Carea hitting just barely under three
hundred for the month, and even though Jordan Alvarez was
killing it before this series, he did not contribute any

(01:21:34):
at bats in this series. He stood at the plate once,
he walked, and then he walked gingerly to the clubhouse
after that. You do have Zach Cole. We heard a
little bit about him from Brian McTaggart's visit earlier. They're
facing three more right handers, six games at home, all
six games right handed pitchers for the opposition. Not really

(01:21:56):
sure how he can't be out there for minimum two
of those. Outfit your outfield with me. Jake Myers is
going to play center field. You have left handed hey
Sue Sanchez, you have Moresio Dubon, if you so choose,
you have Cam Smith, a right handed hitter, if you
so choose. I don't know what scenario would put Zach

(01:22:17):
Cole on the bench, unless, because these your last three
small left field opportunities, to put Jose Altuve in left
field with Sanchez and Myers and then put Dubon or
Ureus at second base, and maybe one of the three
games they'll do that. I wouldn't expect it for more
than that, But I don't know how much outfield Altuve

(01:22:39):
is going to see in West Sacramento, where the balls
fly everywhere, or in LA where they mash balls everywhere.
As one of the top three home run hitting teams,
thus a fly ball team, I think it's it's probably
beneficial to have somebody else in the outfield while keeping
Altuve in the lineup. You do still have the designated
hitter option, but Zach Cole is a left handed hitter.

(01:23:00):
He's gotten off to a nice start, the offense has
been significantly better for the six games he's been in
uniform for. Just keep doing it if it ain't broke.

Speaker 3 (01:23:09):
But going back to talking about al Tuove, if the
ball is anywhere near him in West Sacramento, I think
it's just going to be going over his head.

Speaker 4 (01:23:16):
Probably. I feel like that late night starts the first
two games of that series, then a mid afternoon game
on Thursday. Very rare. I think it's the only one
they've had all year. A two thirty five first pitch
on Thursday of next week. Are you working that day?
I'm not. You are? Oh, that's right, you're gone. I
forgot about that. I will be accompanying the University of

(01:23:36):
Houston Cougar football team to Corvallis technically Eugene First for
their game Friday night, so we're flying during the show.
I will be unable to contribute, but the Astros are
playing during the vast majority of the show. You'll just
handle the Astros tenth inning show and whatever eighteen responsibilities
come after their two thirty five Central Time first pitch,

(01:23:59):
which will be minimum.

Speaker 3 (01:24:00):
Well, you know what, I hope by then things are decided.
It'd be nice, but I don't think.

Speaker 4 (01:24:03):
It's heading into their fourth to last game of the year,
where today they're all tied up, like there's no way
everything's going to be decided.

Speaker 3 (01:24:13):
No, but I think you have a good idea, Like
it's gonna take a miracle for the Mariners to pull
it out.

Speaker 4 (01:24:18):
Maybe the division can be clinched. A three game sweep
and two additional wins or one additional win could leave
you five games up with four games to play. Yeah,
five games up because of the tiebreaker.

Speaker 3 (01:24:31):
As far as my prediction I mentioned earlier, here's why
I thing's going to happen.

Speaker 4 (01:24:35):
I hope I'm wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:24:37):
I think the Asters are going to win Tomorrow night,
and I think the Astors are gonna win on Sunday night. Yeah,
there's one other game. What do you think I think
is gonna happen there? And who do you think is starting?

Speaker 4 (01:24:47):
That's George Kirby against fromber Valdez, Right, Valdez has a
significantly better era this season than George Kirby. But you don't.
You don't think he's gonna win. You don't think the
Askers are gonna win. I hope he bounces back.

Speaker 3 (01:24:58):
Like what if I to tell you right now, I
have more confidence in Jason Alexander against the Mariners than
I do from Ri Valdez.

Speaker 4 (01:25:06):
It's not even unfair to say no, it's on point
to how they have pitched. We've talked about it quite
a few times. The Astros have given the ball to
Jason Alexander every trip through the rotation for the past
two and a half months, and he continues to deliver.
You could probably argue successfully. His last start was among
his worst, and he's pitching in the fifth inning and
has to be lifted with two outs having given up

(01:25:27):
one earned run. Three runs are on the board, one
earned run over four and two thirds. Nearly all of
his starts previous to that where six inning starts. Nearly
all of his starts prior to that, we're quality starts.
And every one of those starts, including that one that
had come after a loss by the Astros. The losing
streak of whatever number it was, ended every time nine
consecutive times. All nine times he's been given the ball

(01:25:49):
after an Astros lost, the Astros have won that game,
which clearly means he's put them in position to win
a Game's not going out throwing complete game shutouts. He's
not giving him eight innings of one run ball. He's
giving the team a chance to win on the days
he pitches. And when you're not Hunter Brown who you
need more from, and you're not from Berveldez who you're
asking for more from, you're one of the three four

(01:26:10):
to five guys. In his case, he was probably the
ninth most likely guy, tenth, twelfth most likely guy to
start a game this year for the Astros. That's all
you want. Ryan Gusto did it, Colton Gordon did it.
Aj Blueball is doing it now. Just give the team
a chance to win, give them five innings, give him
six innings, keep them in the game. He's been a
little bit better than that. To do him a real service.

(01:26:31):
And I'm like you, I expect the same thing on
Sunday night.

Speaker 3 (01:26:35):
Be honest when you answer this question, one hundred percent
need a from the herd answer on this. What's going
to bother you more this weekend? Josh Naylor's face or
his earring.

Speaker 4 (01:26:46):
It's definitely not his earring. Really, I not that's what
I thought you'd go with.

Speaker 3 (01:26:51):
Why, Well, he already has the face and then he
made it worse by putting the earring on it.

Speaker 4 (01:26:56):
It's not worse, just a piece of jewelry guys wear
during games. Difference where jewelry and their ears during games.
Just to show you some fool rings while playing baseball
during games, and some of them aren't even the athletic kind. Well,
I think I don't think you use your ears a
whole lot. I don't think you use your the area
underneath your chin, your neck area a lot, so you

(01:27:17):
can put jewelry there. I don't really want to wear
something on the fingers I'm using during the baseball game.
But everybody needs to know that you're married some too.

Speaker 3 (01:27:26):
Yeah, sometimes on television especially, Yeah, that it's it's gonna
be wild.

Speaker 4 (01:27:32):
Uh, And I'm I'm fully.

Speaker 3 (01:27:35):
Expecting the crowds to reflect this. I mean, it's it's
as good as it gets from a matchup standpoint, it's
as good as it gets from a you know, suspense
standpoint into the season, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:27:51):
Heck, even the weather's gonna be a little.

Speaker 3 (01:27:53):
Bit nicer just because we are getting into the late
stages of September.

Speaker 4 (01:27:57):
I'm not saying they're gonna open the roof. Let's not
get carried away here, but.

Speaker 3 (01:28:01):
It's I don't know, I think it's gonna be I'm
I'm a little sad that I won't be able to
attend any of these games this weekend because I'm gonna
be out of town, but boy am I going to
be keeping an eye on it.

Speaker 4 (01:28:10):
Maybe do what you did against the Rangers. And again
this is always easier said than done. Not only did
they take the early lead, and each of those three games,
they scored in the first inning of each of those
three games, which they've never done. And I do respect
what the Rangers brought to the table. Pitching wise, you
know Mark Lighter has pitched a lot or Jack Lighter
has pitched. There's three of them. I said the worst

(01:28:32):
one first. Sorry, Mark, He's pitched a lot better the
second portion of the season. That's a perfectly legitimate right
handed started to throw out there and it only got
better from there, and the Astros continue to put themselves
in a good position. It does. I say it's easier
said than done, but it's the only inning of the
entire game, other than use of pinch hitters, that you
can set up yourself that Joe Spot can intentionally say

(01:28:54):
here's who I want to bat. You get to pick
who you want to bat to start the game. You
don't get to pick the rest to the innings. Otherwise
you'd pick the same guys every single inning, and boy
would baseball be fun if that were the case. Jeremy
Panna had an awesome series. Case closed, your offense is
likely good when he does that. He was great and
saved his best game for the finale last night. I
think because the defense homer from JP has not happened

(01:29:17):
very often. Yeah, it was.

Speaker 3 (01:29:19):
It was electric, and he ended the game on a
spectacular defensive play. And that wasn't even his only spectacular
defensive play of the night. We'll get into the Texans
in a couple of ways when we come back.

Speaker 2 (01:29:34):
The Age on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (01:29:46):
All right, Wex, I'm worried about Sunday. You've known this
for a while now, Colts Titan Sunday afternoon noon. What
are you worried about?

Speaker 3 (01:29:52):
It's going to be brutal to see if the Colts
can stay undefeated, even though they got all the help
in the world last week.

Speaker 4 (01:29:58):
They got to do over the Texans and Jaguars. Oh yeah,
Also that also happens play at noon on Sunday. Jaguars
looking for win number two, Texans looking for win number one.

Speaker 3 (01:30:11):
Quick question on Travis hunter. Does he continue the type
of play on both sides of the ball, by the
way that makes you think probably wasn't good to take
him as early as they did, or have him even
be hyped to be taken as early as they did,
or as has been the case so many times in
the history of the Texans unlucky or just ridiculous luck franchise.

(01:30:37):
Does he have this breakout game in some way, shape
or form.

Speaker 4 (01:30:40):
Yes, Statistically speaking, there hasn't been a whole lot there
offensively for him. I do think that's a factor of
who he plays with in them all getting used to
this new offense to a certain extent. Been targeted fourteen
times as a wide receiver. He's got nine catches. He
only has fifty five yards, means nothing deep down the
field has gotten done. That's less than seven yards of pop.
This is not a whole lot of productivity. It's so early.

(01:31:02):
I'm not even down on that. The only reason I
would be down on him in general is that I
just you know, you're you're drafting him in the top five.
You moved up to go get him in the top three,
so that must mean you think he is an all
world talent. You don't get drafted him number two. Overall,
I should say, you don't draft players that are really
really good at number two. You draft players that are

(01:31:23):
going to change your franchise because they're some sort of
best in the business at their position. You're going to
draft Derek Stingley Junior because he is the best corner
in football. You're gonna draft Will Anderson Junior because he's
the best edge rusher in football. Are certainly in the conversation. Oh,
by the way, a disservice to Will Anderson Junior for
the first fifteen days of the season on the air here.

(01:31:44):
He's having an unbelievably productive season for the Texans off
the edge, arguably one of the five most productive seasons.
No matter what Patrist said the other night, I mean
he was he didn't make the play in front of
the line of scrimm israd rather allowed him to get
the first down. But all the things you hate hearing about,
all the metrics, all the other numbers, they look unbelievable.

(01:32:07):
If Roy Anderson junior, they need to win games. But
Travis Hunter coming out of college, I just don't think
anybody considered him that his unique skill set is that
he can play another position when his position's not playing,
you can keep playing him on defense. Well, if he's
not a shut down corner, he doesn't get drafted second.

(01:32:29):
If he's not an elite wide receiver. Heck, even if
he is, he shouldn't be drafted second. Wide receiver is
Getting drafted number two overall is extremely rare. So why
did you draft him number two overall? So your roster
would be in better shape? So you could line up
your wide receiver two and your cornerback two but not

(01:32:49):
need two roster spots for it. I mean, there is
value in that. There is definitely some value in that,
because you've you've cleaned up two holes with one player.
But you're gonna tell me he's going to be able
to give you that for at least the first five
years of his NFL life. That's the contract that you
will have given him, four years plus the option year.

(01:33:10):
I mean, if he's a never wide receiver one or
never cornerback one. The only way that that's even alright
is if he's truly doing that for fifty sixty seventy
five percent of your offensive snaps and seventy five percent
of your defensive snaps, which is not currently what he's getting,
and nor would I expect him to at this point
in his career. But that you're I just think I

(01:33:30):
probably have opted for a more of a sure thing
at any one position rather than a non elite talent.
And maybe I'm in the minority that doesn't think he's
a non elite talent. I think he's exceptional player. I
think he's a really really good player. You drafted a
player in a position, you expect him to be among
the best at his position or positions. I'm not sure

(01:33:51):
that ever happens. Well, I'm again.

Speaker 3 (01:33:54):
If this were the Titans game in Week three, of
course I would feel better for a couple of reasons.

Speaker 4 (01:34:00):
One it's the Titans. Two it would be here, and
I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:34:04):
It's not that I think Jacksonville has some overwhelming home
field advantage, because whatever that would be, they have the
opposite of that and have basically their entire existence.

Speaker 4 (01:34:13):
The Tarps will be out in full effect.

Speaker 3 (01:34:15):
I'm sure half the people will be in the swimming
pool at one end of the stadium.

Speaker 4 (01:34:19):
I mean, you remember vividly, because you're good at this.
When the Texans went to Jacksonville in twenty seventeen and
lost forty five to seven. Right, they really lost a
game to the Jags forty five to seven. Well, if
you don't, I'll just tell you that's the last time
they lost in Jacksonville twenty seventeen. That's a handful of
seasons ago that we don't want to do the match
after Deshaun's injury. I'm assuming mm hm. So it was.

(01:34:43):
The point is they don't lose in Jacksonville. It's weird.
They're eighteen and four against the Jaguars period since twenty fourteen.
Why do I feel like it's gonna happen this week?
Because the Texans haven't given you enough confidence in how
they've played. The Texans off hasn't given me enough confidence. Yeah,
I mean, I'm definitely not on board with the defense

(01:35:04):
quite as much as everybody else is. They do have
some individuals that have had good starts to their season.
They are not allowing a ton of points. You give
up seventeen and a half points per game, your record
probably shouldn't be zero to two. You probably wouldn't lose
two games in a row at other points in the season,
no matter who you played. They have played two playoff teams,
and I think both are going back to the playoffs
this year. But they still didn't make enough plays on defense.

(01:35:27):
They're not taking the ball away like they need to.
They've done that one time this year. They don't have
any interceptions this year. The plays that they have forced
a couple of fumbles that they have not been able
to get. But they also don't get the other team
off the field. Just around fifty percent third down conversions
in both games. Awful red zone success for their defense,

(01:35:48):
meaning the other team is scoring touchdowns four out of
six times. That's losing football. I'm not trying to say
they're not elite. I'm actually taking it all the way
to the other end. That's bad football. That's not good
football at all, let alone with the elite talent that
they have. I'm not quite as worried abouinst Trevor Lawrence's offense.
I do think ATN provides some matchup problems if they

(01:36:09):
use him out of the backfield, which they have done
over the years and certainly have done so this year.
I'm not I still couldn't figure it out as everyone
was going through fantasy football drafts. I could not believe
this was still a question, But Jacksonville played it up
this way, Well, we think ATN will be the number one,
but we're not sure how they're going to use Bigsby
and use it was it should have never been a question,
and now it can't be a question because they traded Bigsby.

(01:36:31):
But he's a he's a number one running back, a
number one running back talent, and that's what he's done
so far this year. He's had a really really good
start to his season, two hundred and fourteen yards on
the ground already through two games, including what is one
of his assets that not every back has. He has
the speed to turn short into long runs. He has
a seventy one yard run this year. He's a he's

(01:36:52):
a challenge.

Speaker 3 (01:36:53):
Well, if you want some silver lining, good news, glass
half full whatever. In the September article ever written because
this happens usually every year, some sort of version of this,
Bill barnwell Over at ESPN wrote like a ranking with
like really in depth analysis of each team. There's ten

(01:37:17):
teams that are zero two and he kind of ranked
the teams that have the best chance of still making
the postseason with the seventeen game schedule and the extra
playoff opportunities and everything else.

Speaker 4 (01:37:28):
Number one is the Chiefs.

Speaker 3 (01:37:30):
I don't think there's any really an argument with that,
just based on nothing else other than their track record
if you want to go there. But the Texans are
number two. But here's the interesting thing. The paragraphs plural
written below each one of these teams in their synopsis
of you're supposed to be explaining to me why you

(01:37:51):
think they can still make this versus not. I don't
see anything under the text. All they do. All Bill
does is talk about all the things that we've been
talking about all this week and all last week, everything
that's wrong with the Texans and everything that's wrong with
the Texans in spite of them making attempts, as he
put it, in the off season to change those things,

(01:38:11):
and it all, you know, a majority of this is
not getting that pressure on CJ. Stroud and allowing him
to do what he's trying to do. Nick Cassario rebuilding
the line over the off season, that's a loose term.

Speaker 4 (01:38:25):
He did rebuild it. It's just not very sturdy and
I wouldn't want to hang out in that building very often.
It's probably gonna fall over.

Speaker 3 (01:38:31):
Is the phrase rearranging the chairs on the Titanic.

Speaker 4 (01:38:35):
I mean they they bought new chairs and then they
go yeah, because these new chairs were Oh my god,
did you not see the entire section over there? Look
at how awesome these chairs aren't. Now, they're more expensive,
but they're awesome. You definitely want to sit in them. No, no, no,
I want these shares over here. That's the bargain bin dude,
that's what I want. That take me over there, Sell

(01:38:55):
me one of those. That's what I want. Give me
one of those chairs, clown's. That's what the Texans did,
all the same freezing water. Yeah. Uh. They put one
player in place on this year's Texans offensive line that
has a future here, and it's Ursery. Yeah, and he
is now the starting left tackle, will be a second
start at left tackle. I think the only thing left
to determine is if they're going to give the job

(01:39:17):
back to Jake Andrews a limited basis. He's practiced this week,
Jared Patterson. I didn't think there was anything wrong with
the way he played. Some of the numbers. Advanced numbers
say he allowed zero pressures last week, so I'd presume
I'd want to keep him out there if he's one
hundred percent healthy, and then you'll get to send the
same five guys back out there to start the second

(01:39:38):
game in a row. Not that it was great, but
that still usually produces and builds confidence in the group
that's doing that. But whatever you see here in twenty
twenty five from the Texans oh line with Ursery starting
at left tackle, the shuffling of the deck chairs is
going to happen again heading into next year.

Speaker 3 (01:39:54):
Oh good, can't wait for that. All right, I'll tell
you who's getting Fromber's money from Jim Crane when we
come back with our signature segment, What's up with that?

Speaker 4 (01:40:03):
That's next.

Speaker 2 (01:40:05):
The eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (01:40:11):
A new signature sevement called.

Speaker 1 (01:40:17):
What's up with that? What's up with that?

Speaker 4 (01:40:21):
What's up? I say, it's up.

Speaker 3 (01:40:28):
With that?

Speaker 4 (01:40:30):
One thing I would add here that wouldn't normally fit
in this signature segment on a Thursday, What's up with that?
It's just some news that came out from the one
of the three remaining teams the Astros have on the schedule,
the Angels. I don't know that the rotations would have
lined up this way anyway, but last night the Angels
game their best picture on my estimation, Jose Soriano took

(01:40:51):
a line drive off of his forearm and they placed
him on the IL. Today it's fifteen day IL. There's
less than fifteen days left in the season. When the
Astros and angel Let's get together, he will not be
participating in that series. He has faced the Astros, I'm
sure most of you recall a couple of times this season.
Faced them once there, gave up a run in six

(01:41:11):
and two thirds, faced them once here in Houston at
the end of August. Gave up one hit in that game.
Like I said, I don't know that he would have
lined up to pitch against the Astros or how they
would have used their staff in general, but I know
now he won't pitch against anybody the rest of the year.
A tough literal almost break for him. They're calling it
a contusion, but he'll finish his season just ten and

(01:41:35):
eleven with a four to twenty six ERA. One of
the best pitchers on the road in baseball so far
this season. So one of the items you'll be paying
attention to. We'll see what the Athletics have in store
for the Astros when they get there. What the Angels
have in store for Houston when they arrived. There obviously
more important things in front of that. Mariners, Astros dead heat,
same record as played against tomorrow night at Dyke and Park,

(01:41:57):
Hunter Brown and Brian wu An elite pitching matchup set
for seven ten right here on Sports Talk seven ninety
and on Space City home network, your home for Astros Baseball.
So what's up with that? And you said a couple
hours ago on the show, you gave me an option
and I passed on it then and then you tease
it going into this segment, So it's time for the

(01:42:18):
follow through. We know Jim Crane has money, he owns
a baseball team. Yeah, and we know from Berveldes would
like to make a lot more money guaranteed moving forward
with or the Astros or with somebody else because it's
that point in his career where free agency is in
his future and it does not appear the Astros and
his agents ever really truly got together on trying to

(01:42:39):
sign anything up long term before free agency hits. So
Jim cran and his money, what are his plans in
the future?

Speaker 3 (01:42:46):
Well, who is I mean, there's been a lot of
there's been a lot of talent that's come through the Astros.

Speaker 4 (01:42:53):
You better believe it. This is Houston. Lots of talent.

Speaker 3 (01:42:55):
There's lots of talent, that's true, especially at DIYK and Park.
There's lots of talent there. But one of the outside.

Speaker 4 (01:43:01):
Like tank and jersey very popular. What else? I go
to a lot of games. I know what the look is.

Speaker 3 (01:43:09):
I know I'm asking for the social media. You mentioned
their jersey in the tank? What else is unbuttoned? Well, yeah,
sometimes tied off at the waist.

Speaker 4 (01:43:16):
I mean, what's the rest of the combo? What's the fit?
Most of the time it's shorts that are not particularly long.
I never miss it, just constantly on brand. Yes, a
lot of talent in Houston on the Astros. It has
come through. I was talking about over the last handful
of years, and coming through means they've ended up elsewhere.

(01:43:37):
There are a lot of good, longtime Astros that are
playing really good baseball elsewhere over the last couple of years,
including JV.

Speaker 3 (01:43:44):
By the way, well, do you recall how many starts
it took for him to get his first win.

Speaker 4 (01:43:49):
I know it's a team record. I know he wash
to ten at least.

Speaker 3 (01:43:52):
Sixteen starts and he's going to turn forty three this February.
We already know that the Astros haven't even approached fromber
about an extension.

Speaker 4 (01:44:03):
M h. I think it's this is the closest to
George Springer.

Speaker 3 (01:44:06):
I think I've seen for a star power player that's
definitely not going to wear Astro's uniform next season. I
just think it's a foregone conclusion, and so he's not
getting that money, nor is he going to get the
amount of money that he's been making from the Astros.
So that frees up some cash and you're going to
need a start to replace him.

Speaker 4 (01:44:28):
I wouldn't recommend this, but seeing as how.

Speaker 3 (01:44:33):
Justin Berlander went on record ted A actually yesterday technically
and said, yeah, I'm looking to return for a twenty
first season next year. The quote was, I would hope
somebody would offer me a contract. Now Jim crane Will
might be the guy to do that.

Speaker 4 (01:44:50):
Only one team could offer him a contract now, his team,
the San Francisco Giants, and I get what he's trying
to say there. It was an easy decision. Finally, I
would think for Justin Verlander because of what he has
done since then. He actually started the year zero to eight,
and you mentioned it was in seventeenth start where he
got his first win and then went back and forth
with a few he ended up. The team continued to

(01:45:13):
lose when he pitches, but then he started pitching like
Justin Verlander. Right his last five starts, his era is zero.
It starts with a zero point eight. Seven five starts,
he's given up three runs total and has pitched into
the sixth inning or better, and four of those five
seven inning starts, each of the last two. Now you

(01:45:35):
know me, I'm still kind of a not nice person.
So when his brother noted that what a start JV
seven innings, no runs this guy is dealing, I was
tempted to say, yeah, that was pretty awesome. One hundred
and seven pitches, he got twenty one outs and he
didn't give up any runs. Well, the guy pitched against
got all twenty seven outs, only gave up one hit,

(01:45:56):
and it only took him ninety seven pitches to get there.
They actually went to extra innings, tied it nothing. It
was zero zero going into the tenth and eleventh inning.
But I would not wager any amount of money on that.
I would take the opposite. The Astros and Justin Verlander.
The only way you're getting together for a third go
round with Justin Verlander is if you're signing him to

(01:46:19):
an exceptionally low, exceptionally low salary contract, as in multiple
other teams are willing to give him more. The Astros
cannot be the team that offers him the most money
unless nobody's negotiating.

Speaker 3 (01:46:34):
I would as for them. I agree with you, that's
what should happen. But this wouldn't even be the first
time that Jim Crane's gone out and gotten him and
it cost too much.

Speaker 4 (01:46:45):
I mean, the money he got from the Giants this
year is somewhat reasonable, but it shouldn't be going up,
and it's already at a point I wouldn't want to
pay him that. Three seventy five years is fine, that's
a I want him in the rotation. If you give
me a three seventy five year and his next start
will be his twenty eighth start of the season. He
obviously pitched yesterday, so's it at least one more start

(01:47:07):
in a healthy season for him. That's a full season.
The Giants definitely got their money's worth. That is a
good signing. Are you gonna bet that same kind of
money that it's gonna be a good signing next year.
And granted it wasn't a fluke that they weren't winning
a lot of his early starts because he couldn't get
out of the fifth inning and almost all of them,

(01:47:27):
or if he did, it was taking him forever to
do so. He got a lot better as the season
war on, which is unlikely to happen for a picture
of his age, but it just did, and he is
He's a unicorn. Comparing him to other pictures of this
era seems silly. There aren't any guys like him. What
he's done is is kind of unmatched. There have been

(01:47:48):
seasons where other pitchers have outpitched him, but the start
of his career to where he sits today and doing
things at this age and still getting guys out and
still giving back to back seven inning outings. I mean,
has anybody on the Astros given him back to back
seven inning outings this year?

Speaker 3 (01:48:01):
I mean, I look at how you're talking Jim cranean
into doing this. I mean yourself, I'm not.

Speaker 4 (01:48:07):
I'm saying it's so unlikely you're betting on it happening
a second consecutive year. I wouldn't bet on it. Back
to back seven inning outings from the Astros this year.
I'll start with Hunter. He's looking for his first and
he can't do it in this start because he didn't
go seven in his last start.

Speaker 3 (01:48:28):
I hope it doesn't happen. I agree with you that
it shouldn't happen. All the reasons is very clear as
to why it just can't happen. They have far more
pressing That's how I feel it is. Jimothy loves justin.

Speaker 2 (01:48:45):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (01:48:52):
You're gonna have a chance to hear from some of
the Texans that talked either yesterday or earlier today, both
in the locker or at the podium. Thursdays for the
Texans in advance of Sunday football, that's coordinator Day, That's
Frank's Day, That's Burkie's Day, that's the other Nick Ceas Day.
And they all got grilled today with questions about their

(01:49:14):
most recent outfits. Performances. Probably wasn't too bad for Matt Burke,
although last couple of minutes maybe probably wasn't too bad
for the conversation with Frank Ross, who, by the way,
was out there throwing Bebes at practice as he usually does,
helping to work out the wide receivers. The special teams
had a special special Sunday performance. Helped make a field goal,

(01:49:37):
hit the upright pink, blocked a punt, and had multiple
spectacular rescerns returns actually forced a second poor punt. It
was a great day for them. It should have led
to victory, I think. And then there's Nick Kayley. Like
I said, we'll get to a little bit of what
he had to say in response to some of the
obvious lines of questions he needs to receive at this

(01:49:58):
point in his two game NFL career. No change. As
I suggested earlier to the Texans injury report was out
there for practice the same six players that were limited yesterday.
I saw all six of them out there today and
suspected they would be listed the same way they were.
Kamari Laster, Jalen Petrie, and Jalen Smith in their secondary

(01:50:20):
all at least moderate concerns heading into the weekend. A
serious concern for Jalen Smith. He didn't practice yesterday, didn't
practice today. Has a hamstring injury. Won't surprise me at all.
If on tomorrow's injury report, he's listed as out and
will miss his first game as an NFL player. I
suspect each of these six that were limited, Andrews, Darryl Taylor,

(01:50:42):
a Laster, Petrie Kirk, and Barrios will all be available.
Andrews is the only one I'm curious about, and that
he's an interior line and if he's not starting, they've had.
Patterson obviously was his backup, so he was obviously active
for Week one and he ended up playing, and then
he started last week without Andrews. I would suspect even

(01:51:03):
if Andrews isn't starting, is if he's healthy enough and
they choose to not start him. I don't know that
they will. He'd still be active and would obviously replace
an injured Pattison or maybe even an ineffective Patterson if
that were to take place, But I would suggest moving
to I don't know. I don't know that it makes
much difference. But I didn't really notice why Andrews beat

(01:51:25):
Patterson out to begin with during the preseason in training camp.
Very hard to determine that with what we get to
see in grade, I don't know that there's much difference,
So it's probably a minor point. I don't think there's
any injuries to be concerned with if you're a Jacksonville
fan either. The wrist injury for Brian Thomas continues to
be noted, but I don't think it's a risk injury

(01:51:46):
that has had him be almost invisible for their first
two games, and love to see a third straight game
like that. That's thought's always the concern with a talented
player like that and obvious miscommunications between he and his quarterback.
It's going to get fixed. Presumably it won't get fixed
against the Texans secondary, but it's going to get fixed

(01:52:07):
at some point. Due all, he.

Speaker 3 (01:52:10):
Can't out coach Tmiko this week, like did you think
Dimico got out coached last week overall? Or even you
can pick one, or.

Speaker 4 (01:52:18):
Belief we can dig inside one element to begin with,
because with the availability of so many of the players
and Todd Bowles now this week, everybody was saying, so
did you do it on purpose? So did you let
him score on purpose? And they would not say yes,
but they didn't deny. It is the line of thinking
for most of the media there, and I saw some
of the interviews and in the manner in which the

(01:52:38):
questions were asked how they were answered, how everybody laughed after. Well,
that's what you're sticking with, hunh, that's the story you're
sticking with. I think maybe after Nick Chubb hit the hole,
and after he was in then within fifteen ten five
yards of the end zone, maybe there was a thought
put in the player's minds, go ahead. It's okay now.

(01:53:02):
But on second and nine and the Texans are handing
off to a running back who's gone nowhere the entire day,
and you have three timeouts and it's in front of
the two minute warning, I just don't think that's the play.
How about forcing third and nine up down or up
one point with more than two minutes remaining if you

(01:53:23):
call time out, which I wouldn't because then it allows
them to run the ball again. I would let the
two minute time out come, and then they can force
you to call time out if they run it, or
they can get the first down by running it, which
is very unlikely. It just doesn't seem like that's the
smartest play. I know what everyone's thinking during the play.
Maybe I could see a decision being made, and essentially

(01:53:44):
it's just left to Antoine Winfield to try not to
go chase him down or bring down a bigger player,
which also would be a question out coached him whose
players played better? Well, this is reality. The other team
had a better quarterback in both games the Texans have
played this year. I don't know. I'm not even saying
that for how CJ's performed. That's about the other player.

(01:54:07):
The other players just better than Yeah Brooks. Baker Mayfield
is a better NFL quarterback today than CJ. Stroud is,
And clearly Matt Stafford is the same. And they the
Rams finished the game on a pass from Stafford to Nakua.
That's how they won the game. Third down conversion, easy throw,
easy catch. They out schemed them on that play and
the players executed it. And the final drive of the

(01:54:28):
game with all the plays that Baker Mayfield made, let
alone all the ones he made the rest of the game,
he made the players to win the game. Him personally,
with the help of some of his line helped him
gain fifteen yards on fourth and ten. That's how the
game was at least extended, if not one for the
Tampa Bay Bucks. Like, did he get out coached or

(01:54:48):
did the players that he had out on the field
make more plays and are better.

Speaker 3 (01:54:53):
Yeah, it's tough, Like I don't look at Demiko and say, oh,
this guy can't manage the clock, or this guy's x's
and o's or just a try. I if the x's
and o's is a topic of conversation on the offensive side,
you've ever noticed he's never really questioned because it's there's
so much attention focused on not one, but now two

(01:55:14):
coordinators who aren't getting the job done.

Speaker 4 (01:55:16):
I think most of the time, I've liked how he's
handled the clock, not every time and not always perfect.
And keep in mind that there can be two sides
that let him score. Well, if you know that, if
you think they're gonna let him score, if you've you've
given this advanced thought, which they have enough people in
the organization offensively, you absolutely should have given this some thought. Okay, okay,
that we can't score if we get in position to score,

(01:55:38):
we need to not score. But run through that again.
So Nick Chubb breaks through is on the front side
of the two minute warning. Are you telling me he
needs to go down at the twelve or thirteen to
make because if you're saying he's going down inside the ten,
then that's awful because they have all three of their timeouts,
and you have no more room to get a first down,

(01:55:59):
to get the clock to zero. You run it on
first down, you run it on second down, you run
it on third down, and they call time out after
each one of them. You kick the game leading field
goal with one thirty five left? What good does that do?
You score? And they did, and they let them, according
to some I want to say, I truly believe they
did not. And when they snapped the ball, I definitely

(01:56:22):
don't think Tampa intended from the twenty five yard line
to let the other team score with more than two
minutes remaining and all of their timeouts against a team
whose offense had done nothing basically for two hours.

Speaker 3 (01:56:36):
I know that it's all these teams prepare in just
excruciatingly detailed fashion. I just am of the opinion that
a lot of this kind of stuff is so split
second you're not I don't think anybody on the field
was saying, hey, if he breaks through on this run
that we know they're going to, you know, run by

(01:56:57):
the way a running play let him.

Speaker 4 (01:56:59):
That wasn't happen, right. It has to be coached and
taught long before you're on the field on Sunday, and
maybe it did, maybe it didn't. If he was out
coached by Todd Bowles and Sean McVay, So be it.
The Texans are owing too, What are you gonna argue against?
They're on and two. The other coaches have two wins.
Football at five an extension of this conversation, a few
items from inside the Texans locker room. When we come

(01:57:20):
back here on the eighteen.

Speaker 1 (01:57:24):
The A team on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 2 (01:57:26):
Ninety Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the eighteen.

Speaker 4 (01:57:42):
For's a game tonight? Yeah, lopsided game on paper, that's
for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:57:47):
You think it'll meet, You think it'll uh, You think
that's how it's gonna play out, because there is something
to be said. I know, look, Buffalo's fantastic.

Speaker 4 (01:57:58):
Like a dolphin backed into a corner.

Speaker 3 (01:58:00):
That is so good because it was what I was
going to say, not that phrase. I was going to say,
you know, the dolphins are desperate, very wounded animal.

Speaker 4 (01:58:09):
But how would you wound a dolphin?

Speaker 11 (01:58:10):
How would you maget dolphin beat backed up into a corner.

Speaker 4 (01:58:13):
That's the point of the nonsense statement, unless they're in
a tank like Snowflake snowflake, So this seems totally ridiculous
if they pulled off the road upset tonight. Yes, they're
probably three and two on the season two weeks from now.
Who do they playing next? The Jets and the Panthers.

(01:58:35):
I don't let me say this very carefully.

Speaker 3 (01:58:39):
I don't think the Jets are good, but I don't
think they're awful defensively.

Speaker 4 (01:58:43):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 11 (01:58:45):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (01:58:45):
They've played one awful defensive game against Aaron Rodgers of
all team to open the season, and last week, I
don't know what you'd say, because they just let the
Bills get out to such a strong lead, and their
offense was clearly the bigger problem. They literally couldn't even
move the ball. They had three completions from their quarterback,
who ended up leaving much later in the game and
is out this week. Former Houston Texans starting quarterback to

(01:59:08):
Rod Taylor is getting another NFL start this week for
Aaron Glenn's New York Jets. David has nine lives. I
don't think they're gonna win. I don't think their defense
is very good, and I don't know why I would
expect them to be able to slow down the Bills
offense to a range where the Dolphins could outscore them.
You know, the Bills did not play well defensively against Baltimore.

(01:59:29):
I think we know why. They did play much better
defensively last week. Similarly, I think way we know why.
I think their defense is probably average, but they're usually
put in a pretty good position because their offense puts
them there. That's what happened last week, and I think
that's what Miami has to avoid tonight. Falling behind multiple
scores to the Bills to start a game is just
it's no place to be. We know what Tua thinks

(01:59:51):
of the Josh Allen and all the world that he
can do that too. I can't. I would suspect if
if he wanted to lock in on this game, and
maybe you dropped down some mt Bucks on it, I
would think long and hard about Buffalo being the play
to cover. I'll lean into the.

Speaker 3 (02:00:11):
The most talked about national storylines on the Miami side
of things, and I'll give you a choice. What happens first,
Tyreek getting traded or McDaniel getting whacked.

Speaker 4 (02:00:20):
I think McDaniel getting fired, and I knew it would
come up at some point soon. If the Miami Dolphins
fire Mike McDaniel in season. I'd say there's about a
seventy five percent chance. Their interim head coach is a
former Houston Texans coach who's on the staff. Well, Bobby
slok is a consultant on offense with their passing game.

Speaker 3 (02:00:40):
You hired him to consult your offense on purpose based
on what qualifications he's an oc.

Speaker 4 (02:00:47):
We really liked what you showed last year in years.
Let me let me look at your resume real quick,
and then I'll dig more into an offensive coordinator for
one of the most fantastic rookie seasons in NFL history
and a playoff berth. And then the next year you
have the same record, went back to the playoffs and
won a game for the second straight year. Okay, that
looks pretty good. But now I'm gonna look exactly where
your offense ranked and what you're gonna look as a

(02:01:08):
film and see your tendencies, and note that you were
asked to leave. You did get fired, but that's the guys.
You know people, they know people. I know, he knows offense.
You can be a part of my staff. It's a
great way to get you back going. I doubt the
Dolphins would go that route, even though Slok went on
head coaching interviews each of the two seasons or during

(02:01:29):
the first season he was here with the Texans. Is
that what I had to think about? Now, Well, you
become hot, hot commodity, so people talk to you.

Speaker 7 (02:01:36):
Now.

Speaker 4 (02:01:36):
He didn't land either of those jobs. The Texans ultimately
gave him a raise to stay for his second season,
So job well done. I actually think it's realistic that
they will put the other guy that's there in charge
that's been with the Texans. He played for the Texans.
He was the featured performer on the award winning world
renowned Anthony Weavers show some time ago that I hosted

(02:01:57):
with him, not with me. It was with Matt Jackson,
that is correct, but I attended some of those. Anthony
Weaver is the defensive coordinator for the Miami Dolphins and
is in line should he continue to be well regarded
around the league as a head coaching candidate, and has
also been on head coaching interviews. I do think Mike
McDaniel's gonna get fired because I just don't think the

(02:02:17):
Dolphins are gonna start winning football games tonight. They're gonna
lose maybe you win the next two, then you've got
the Chargers. I mean, there's just too many teams that
are better than them that play on their schedule, and Tua,
unless he's playing special football, they have a hard time winning.
They don't have a special team, so they need special
quarterback play. They need a healthy group around him. You
already have the nagging stuff with Waddell. They haven't really

(02:02:40):
unleashed a chan yet, and I don't know if they're
trying not to go overboard with him. He's been more
of a pass catcher than a runner so far this year,
and he is a special talent. Tyreek's a special talent,
but it hasn't really been on display these two weeks.
They made a game of eight against New England last week, clearly,
and we're blown out in Week one. It's good to me.

(02:03:01):
It's good for Houston that I don't believe they'll be
in it. I don't know what to make of Cincinnati
yet another couple of games with Jake Browning, I think
we'll have a definitive idea, but I'd like to think
that's another potential team that's not in it. The Steelers
are who I thought they were in week two, not
who I thought they would be in Week one when
they were awesome offensively. I mean, we're starting to this

(02:03:23):
Bill Barnwell article. You got to actually look at what's ahead,
not what are their problems and what might be fixed.
That's part of it, But look at who are they
competing with? Like, who's keeping the Texans the one in
two Texans if they win this week out of the playoffs.
It's not Denver and the Chargers. They're going to the playoffs.

(02:03:43):
They're not keeping the Texans out, they're in. I'm talking
about the teams that are in contention with Houston to
make the playoffs. Denver should be two and oh. They
blew it last week against the Colts. The Chargers are
two and oh. The Chiefs are a team that you
have to consider now because they started ohing two. And
it's all these other second and third place teams that
you're really talking about. You're not talking Buffalo is on
your schedule, so it's nice to beat them, but you're

(02:04:05):
competing with them for the postseason. You're competing with the Patriots,
you're competing with the Steelers. Are these teams really so
good that the nine and eight Texans or ten and
seven Texans aren't gonna land a wild card spot if
they don't win the division.

Speaker 3 (02:04:23):
Ten and seven is gonna happen again, and they're gonna
win a playoff game again and then be done. Well.

Speaker 4 (02:04:30):
Before we get to some of how hard it's going
to be to do certain things the way that they're
currently playing, let's ask one of the particulars about how
they're currently playing. Nick Keyley, meeting with the media today
as he does each week, the offensive coordinator two called
games under his belt. Now that's it after the first
two weeks and clearly a lot of offensive ineptitude because
they're just not succeeding nearly enough offensively. I will start

(02:04:54):
with his thoughts on the general offensive woes right out
of the gate.

Speaker 7 (02:04:58):
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, just staying on schedule,
I think, you know, and I thought we made progress
in that area, but still, you know, too many second longs.
Still not as efficient as we want to be collectively.
So i'd say starting with that, you know, and trying
to stay on schedule. See, you have the you know,
the whole the whole call sheet at your disposal, really
that you've worked on throughout the week.

Speaker 4 (02:05:16):
Staying on schedule means not bad down in distance, not
obvious down in distance for past rushers to be on
the field on third down, and not long down in
distance where everybody knows what you're gonna do, and it's
hard to succeed in that realm. He's actually right. They
did improve. They had fewer egregious down and distance situations,
but they were equally as unsuccessful. They were two for

(02:05:39):
nine on third down in week one, and they went
out and went two for nine in week two. And
I told you this Monday or Tuesday after the game.
That's the worst in the NFL. The worst thirty one
teams are better than Houston at converting on third down.
Unsustainable if you plan on winning football games, which I
believe they still plan on doing. What stood out the

(02:06:01):
most about some of their failures was what happened inside
the red zone. Four plays first from the eight, then
three from the one, and no points. Failing in the
red zone. What did you think of that? Nick Well,
I would.

Speaker 7 (02:06:15):
Say, like, you know, we get down there, we ran
the ball obviously stuck in a run, you know, didn't
really gain much on it at all. Then he get
into a third down situation, you know, and at that point,
I have a lot of confidence in the guys that
we have on the team. So called a red zone,
low red zone play that we have a lot of
belief in, and it didn't work out. You know, Again,
our process, I feel confident in the process, gets to
fourk down, same thing, call a low red zone a

(02:06:38):
third down, call it third and fourth down. Play didn't
work out the way we want it. So again, got
to assess those things and move on and learn from it.

Speaker 4 (02:06:46):
The second of those two red zone plays, to hear
him say, didn't work out the way we wanted it,
I think that's twofold. Clearly it didn't work out. They
didn't score, they didn't connect, but I don't think the
play actually was executed the way they needed to be heard.
Something that Demiko Ryan said to the in house media
over the course of the week in describing both the
third and fourth down plays. The third down play was

(02:07:06):
a play that they I can see why they'd be
confident in, and a lot of people were a little
perturbed that it was a double move. Nico's already in
single coverage, just run a slant throw in the football
I would tend to agree with that. To make it
as simple as possible, you do have to account for
what's happening at the end of the line. Where's the
linebacker lined up, where are the other players there? Is
there truly a passing lane or is the double move

(02:07:28):
somewhat necessary so then there will actually be somewhere to
send the football. But Dimiko said, we had success with
it's play. We like we actually got what we wanted.
The ball was not thrown where it should have been.
Had CJ made a good pass while not under pressure,
that's touchdown. It just wasn't executed on that end. And
the fourth down play, I don't know that anybody on

(02:07:48):
the left side of the field who was supposed to
check this guy. Where was Higgins supposed to go? Where
was Collins route set to go? None of it really
looked like they did what they wanted to. And the
play call, I'm not going to gloss over. I do
not like that play call at all. Rolling the opposite
way of how you throw the football. He's not a
left handed quarterback. I don't want him rolling left into

(02:08:09):
that part of the side of the field with the
end zone. He really only had two targets, both of
them were covered, he had to make a throw to
one of them, he might have been able to complete
it to Higgins. I don't even know if he would
have gotten the end zone if he did, and the
angle to find a path to Collins obviously was too
tight for him to even get his hands on the ball.

Speaker 3 (02:08:26):
More than one person I saw thought that at least
on one occasion, if not a couple, during those four downs,
maybe he should have just tucked the ball.

Speaker 4 (02:08:36):
But he was also in the shotgun, so you're asking
him to gain four to five yards, and yet you're
asking the running back, who's that run was also out
of the shototun you couldn't consider lining up under center.
I'm thinking they're tipping their pitches.

Speaker 3 (02:08:52):
As one person put it earlier on the X app,
all right, we will break it right here, will continue
talking about how about another older pitcher and what he's
going to do with his future plans next year. We'll
do that and give away some tickets and more coming
up next.

Speaker 2 (02:09:08):
The AE on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (02:09:17):
It's the A Team on a Thursday edition of the program.
We's ac Cole Thompson with you Space City Home Network
and Sports Talk seven to ninety bringing you this type
of content right here, Clayton Kershaw is finally retiring effective immediately. Well, no,

(02:09:37):
he said he's going to do it at the end
of the season after the Dodgers once again failed to
purchase a championship.

Speaker 4 (02:09:43):
Well, like most of Major League Baseball, they're hoping for
extra baseball. Los Angeles Dodgers are not one of the
National League teams that have clinched a playoff berth Yet,
how could they have not clinched it thirty ago? Well,
they still have a chance to set the all time
record for wins right, just kidding now, Phillies have won

(02:10:06):
their division. Brewers and Cubs will participate in the postseason,
although that division has not yet been decided, and there's
a two and a half game difference between the Dodgers
and Padres. With the Dodgers in front, Dodgers have one
of the remaining games today to play. They've got their
game with the Giants. The only other game that matters
to the Astros is the Yankees game later tonight. Just

(02:10:27):
to determine exactly where the Yankees fit in with the
other four teams that are slotted two through six currently
in the American League. So Clayton Kershaw is calling it
a career. I won't have to say this all that often,
probably once more when he gives his speech, but he's
going into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He's definitely been
one of the best pitchers of this generation. We just

(02:10:47):
got through watching the Hall of Fame voters finally elect
Billy Wagner to the Hall of Fame, who had one
notable statistical performance strike against him his postseason performance. He's
not a very good postseason pitcher, very limited sample size,
but enough of it that a lot of people held

(02:11:08):
it against him, despite the fact that everything he did
in the regular season was so obviously Hall of Fame worthy.
Not saying you should separate the two completely. I'm not
saying one matters more than the other, but that's how
it was. Clayton Kershaw a two p fifty four career. Er.
He's thirty seven years old, pitching in his eighteenth season,
and he's currently ten and two with a three point

(02:11:28):
fifty three er. Last year, he was hurt most of
the year. Other than that, he's got year after year
after year of being sensational four straight years. He could
have won the Cy Young during the early portion of
his career's career, he won three. He's finished second twice.
He's a Hall of Fame pitcher, no question about it.
He doesn't even have one hundred losses in his four

(02:11:50):
hundred and forty nine starts two twenty two and ninety six.
It's a winning percentage. I would say pretty much every
active player would be jealous of all that being said.
And I gave you so numbers very specifically, a two
fifty four regular season era. It only goes up by
two runs in the postseason, only four forty nine postseason

(02:12:11):
era in a huge sample size thirty two starts. That
is a season of Major League baseball. He's participated only
against the best teams. Let's be real, you only pitch
against the best teams in the postseason, so I can
understand it being skewed a little bit. But you're the
best of the best.

Speaker 3 (02:12:29):
Best, So your regular season stats got fat and happy
against the also rans, is what you're saying now.

Speaker 4 (02:12:34):
If that were true, I would say yes, and I
want to But he's had plenty of outstanding starts against
everybody in baseball. You can't produce those numbers if you're
not doing it. To the very very good teams during
the regular season, but the very very good teams were
doing it to him in the postseason, and he gave
up thirty bombs in those one hundred and ninety four

(02:12:54):
postseason innings that he threw. Astro's had a couple of those.
He had a very dis pointing postseason career. Durio lengthy
career for someone who had such an unbelievably successful regular
season career. I'm not sure who else I know other
pitchers have had down moments and have had poor postseasons

(02:13:15):
and a poor postseason career, but only so many people
to even compare him to because of the level of
his regular season play the last He's been in the
league for eighteen years, so during the last twenty years,
all major leaguers pitchers and position players, there's five of
them who've had a better regular season than him. Maybe
jv maybe Otani, maybe maybe a couple of maybe Max Scherzer,

(02:13:37):
who I would say, No, Kershaw has been a better
regular season pitcher than it, more regular like, it's just
he's that he's been that good and there's a significant
drop off in the postseason, isn't he No? Because I
think James Harden has been unbelievably awesome at the beginning
of all these series. And when he's so good that
they don't have to play a game six and seven,
it matters.

Speaker 3 (02:13:58):
Clayton Kershaw won the early game in the Astros and
then what happened in Game five? Tell you everybody, yeah
that was and you could see it on his face
when when Guriel hits that that just a bomb ties
the game with a three run homer of the Crawford

(02:14:18):
boxes in Clayton's face. If I am allowed to translate
on the fly, here are you kidding me again? On
this stage, it's happening.

Speaker 4 (02:14:26):
And remember the season you like to forget, where the
Astros fell short in Game seven against the Rangers, and
then the Rangers went on to play the extremely unmemorable
World Series against the Diamondbacks. Correct, you know one reason
why the Diamondbacks were there because they beat the Dodgers
because Clayton Kershaw went out there and he started their
series for them against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Do you remember

(02:14:50):
how that one went? Not well for him? You're that's
the nicest you've ever been to Clayton Kershaw. You just
said it did not go well. He got bludgeoned. This
is Game one of their nlds, you know, an opportunity
to move on the best of five. Yeah, so you're
gonna have a chance. He faced Merril Kelly. Kelly helped

(02:15:10):
deliver shutout inning after shutout inning after shutout inning. He
also got to pitch on a very popular street it's
called Easy Street, after the Diamondbacks batted and they gave
the ball to Meryl Kelly in the bottom of the
first inning. He was pitching with a six to nothing
lead because Clayton Kershaw retired a batter in Game one

(02:15:31):
of their d the last postseason game he's participated in.
He got it out.

Speaker 3 (02:15:37):
He wishes he had that Game five performance against the
Astros that night. At least he got to the I
think it was the fifth inning, fourth inning when Guriell
hit that home run.

Speaker 4 (02:15:45):
I don't remember. That's by the way, I watched that.

Speaker 3 (02:15:49):
Since we're on the topic, I watched like one of
those you know, consolidated highlight reels of that game the
other night.

Speaker 4 (02:15:57):
Again, hadn't done it a condensed game. Well, it wasn't
a condensed game.

Speaker 3 (02:16:00):
It was like when somebody like you know, does their
own version of just the scoring plays and that game.
We talk about it in folk lore here, which we
should because I still think it was the greatest World
Series game ever. I mean, put an up against it,
we can at least debate. The fireworks didn't happen until

(02:16:22):
like four innings later. It was all Dodgers and Kershaw
to that point, until it wasn't.

Speaker 4 (02:16:29):
That's what always happens. Likelihood is he'll obviously pitch again
in the postseason, very likely that the Dodgers eventually will clinch,
probably going to win the division, likely though they will
be opening up the postseason as a wild card team
and will need to avoid losing two of their first
three or their postseason will be over. And that's what
he could be up against and to make their season.
And I know injuries are a part of every team season,

(02:16:51):
but the other injuries they suffered were extremely hurtful to
what their overall cause was, clearly, but he's on a
roster with Hall of Famer Shoheo Tani, Hall of Famer
Freddie Freeman, Hall of Famer Mookie Bets, and they're all
currently even though Mookie is having a very very very
clear down year they're not under they're not bad players yet,

(02:17:13):
they're not on that side of their career yet, there's
still the keys to how great they are. Along with
Will Smith, and that's what he's been able to play with.
He's also a lifer there that's become exceptionally rare in
Major League Baseball. We might have a few of the
younger players headed that way because they got contracts so early.
Maybe there's nowhere for Fernando Tatis to leave for. Maybe

(02:17:36):
there's nowhere for Bobby Witt Junior to leave for. I'm
sure Aaron Judge will be a lifetime Yankee. This is
pretty unique. He's also a pitcher. Very few others out
there that will do that. Are you?

Speaker 3 (02:17:46):
Are you like me when you look at Aaron Judge
since you brought his name up, and you like he's
quietly getting old.

Speaker 4 (02:17:53):
Well, he's also heading He's finishing a season unhealthy, needing
a procedure, needing to answer questions about what twenty twenty
six might look like with an injury that clearly, I
mean defensively, he can't even throw the ball. I cannot
believe he's played any innings in the outfield, and yet
they have put him out there on multiple occasions what

(02:18:13):
he's doing. But all this he is getting old. He's
having the best offensive season in the American League again,
and it's same as last year, same as two years ago.

Speaker 3 (02:18:23):
I mean, and Yankees fans later on years from now
are gonna look back the way Astros fans look at
Jeff Bagwell and Lance Berkman and to a lesser extent,
Craig Digio, because when it came to the postseason, this
guy sucked. There's no other way around it, and there's
no sugarcoating it. And Berkman, I think, actually has a

(02:18:44):
far better reputation than those other two guys.

Speaker 4 (02:18:46):
Ohman's Berkman has all time postseason.

Speaker 3 (02:18:49):
Moments, Astro's postseason to be to be clear, because I
don't whatever he did in those other uniforms does it
matter to me? Uh But yeah, I mean insane home
run that should have sent the Astros to the World Series,
but then Brad Ledge came in but.

Speaker 4 (02:19:06):
Still got there.

Speaker 3 (02:19:07):
Yeah, after they wasted roy Oswall start in Game six
instead of Game one of the World Series, Roger Clemens
tweaked his hamstring in the cold weather and they got swept.

Speaker 4 (02:19:15):
It all would have been different. I very much agree.
I really do think that. I definitely do too. People
that watch the series know they know, yeah, we have eyes. Again,
remember the not being blind portion of the show.

Speaker 3 (02:19:27):
It is important when it comes to, you know, watching games.
All Right, we will get to some of the things
we have not gotten to. We call it in case
you missed it, it is straight ahead.

Speaker 2 (02:19:36):
The eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (02:19:43):
Time for in case you missed it here on Sports
Talk seven to nine. In case you missed it, we've
got a four pack of tickets to see Monster Jam
along with pitt passes. That's sweet October eighteenth over at
NRG Stadium. You can also get tickets over ticketmaster dot com.
They are on sale now, but we hope you win them.
And the final segment of this show coming up in
a little over ten minutes, we'll give you an opportunity

(02:20:04):
to win those seats based on something you A loyal
listener of the A team here on Sports Talk seven
ninety will know because they heard us talking about it
on the show. What do we have And in case
you missed it today, Cole.

Speaker 11 (02:20:15):
Let's go back to Nick Cayley's press conference earlier today.
One of the things that was really bothers some for
many Texans fans and even for me out there, is
you decided not to go heavy on the offensive line
because if you want to bring in wet So you
draft two Iowa state wide receivers and Jayden Higgins and
Jalen Nol and you give up a future third round
pick to move up into Day three to.

Speaker 1 (02:20:35):
Draft Woody Marks.

Speaker 11 (02:20:36):
Combine, they've played less than forty snaps and they only
have one explosive play through eight quarters of action. So
when you think that you can't get anything moving with
Daria Gumblewale and there's not a lot of positivity with
Justin Watson, got to ask yourself what's going on to
why these rookies aren't seeing the field? And Nick Caylee
provided a little bit more context on what we could

(02:20:59):
be seeing moving forward for the trio of future maybe
role players with the Texans.

Speaker 7 (02:21:05):
I think, again, yes, those guys have done a really
good job, okay, and we have opportunities.

Speaker 4 (02:21:10):
I think a lot of our guys can do really
positive things with the ball in their hands.

Speaker 7 (02:21:13):
So again, week to week, package the package who we
have available and will continue to grow.

Speaker 4 (02:21:17):
I've been pleased with all those guys.

Speaker 7 (02:21:18):
And I've said that before and that's the truth. So
we just got to keep continuing to get better and
working at.

Speaker 4 (02:21:23):
Those things, all right. You know I'm a numbers guy, right,
Cole you are? Yeah? What so you hit the people
with some numbers there. So I'm curious on both of
the sets of numbers you hand it out, what do
you categorize as an explosive play? Twenty plus yards soundfield?
So two of higgins three catches are for twenty plus yards,
so that's two explosive plays. Obviously, Woody Marks catches for

(02:21:46):
thirty seven yards. That's another explosive play. That's three and
that's the only catch wood he has. He doesn't have
any explosive runs the play count. Rather than getting into
how many they've been on the field for and things
like that, Let's note this. We haven't mentioned Justin Watson
on the injury report this week for a reason. He
is not on the injury report because he's not on

(02:22:07):
the roster. He's already been placed on IR. Justin Watson
is essentially the reason that those rookies maybe not Woody
Marks as much. Obviously, the two wide receivers that's one
of the reasons they've seen the field less.

Speaker 3 (02:22:20):
Now.

Speaker 4 (02:22:21):
I know you have the return of Christian Kirk and
Braxon Burrios. So did anything really change with the personnel
they want on the field. That's for them to decide.
I can't tell you what their decision will be, but
I'm not sure if there are concerns about assignments on
plays where they're extremely unlikely to see the football, like
Jayon Higgins needs to block down on this player so

(02:22:42):
this play can succeed, or the particular route that needs
to be run hasn't been I don't know that I've
seen anything from a route standpoint, I would agree. I
think the trust they claim they have in them has
not matched the offensive snaps that any of the three
of them have gotten. I will say this and say
it by asking this, Don't you expect Woody Marx to

(02:23:03):
be there, same number two running back and same number
two option to Nick Chubb again this week with Damian
Pierce being a healthy scratch? Shouldn't? And to that end,
do you not also see an opportunity for an exceptional
pass receiving talent that Woody marks clearly is he was
his entire college career in two different places. He certainly

(02:23:24):
looked fine catching his thirty seven yard pass this past weekend.
If darre Ogunbowali is your third down back and in
seven of those instances he was asked to block and failed,
Woody Marks sure looked like he made a couple of
awesome blocks, not only in the game, but in the
opportunities he had during preseason and joint practices. He actually

(02:23:45):
saved CJ on one of those two plays. Isn't it also,
wood He's not just potentially taking snaps from Chubb because
he is third or fourth drive of the game. They'll
start that drive with Woody Marks on the field rather
than Nick Chubb. But shouldn't you all be taking snaps
away from Darry Well?

Speaker 11 (02:24:02):
Funny you sh mention that because of one of the
questions asked Nick Kaylee today was on the actual role
of Woody Mark's moving forward.

Speaker 7 (02:24:08):
I think, you know, he's done a good job since
he's gotten here. I think that he's going to continue
to improve in those facets, and I have a lot
of confidence. And then Danny does a great job with
those guys. He's got a great guy obviously. You know
when you look at Nick and Darry that had a
lot of experience in this league to model from.

Speaker 11 (02:24:23):
I would hope that that is a sign of saying, hey,
I'm not going to give away any information, but I
said Darry's name, probably should have said somebody else, because
he's not going.

Speaker 4 (02:24:32):
To be seeing the field that much. This week seven
of sixty three snaps in the opener for Woody Marx
Game two, when unfortunately the offense only had forty nine snaps,
but his snap count went up to thirteen, which was
twenty seven percent of the offensive plays. I think it
will go up again somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty
thirty five percent. I don't know what that number will

(02:24:53):
be because I don't know how many plays they'll have,
but I think signs do point to seeing a little
bit more Woody marks on the field. They weren't very
successful running the football, so they'll continue to use multiple
players until they find something.

Speaker 3 (02:25:05):
What you remember when I don't want to call it discovered,
but kind of because he was stashed there. Arian Foster
was on the practice squad. He was I'm not saying
that he's gonna be the next Arian Foster. What I'm
saying is on what I'm kind of asking more of.
Is it just as simple as you had eyeballs on
you in practice when you made a good play and

(02:25:27):
therefore your reward, Like, how hard is it, especially as
a running back to get the types of reps we're
talking about other than well, the guys in front of
me just aren't that good, so we're gonna go to
this guy.

Speaker 4 (02:25:40):
Yeah, I don't think they're at that point yet with
Nick Chubb. And clearly there's a huge hole because Joe
Mixon is not a participant in what they're doing this year.
Just back to Arian Foster, just as a reminder to everybody,
I reminding myself as we do this, just to the
particulars of it. He spent that twenty two thousand and
nine season on the practice squad until he ultimately was
not two thousand and nine and two thousand and eight

(02:26:00):
season until he was yes two thousand and nine until
he was ultimately used late in the year. Well, two
thousand and nine was his first year, most of it
on the practice squad. He burst on the scene with
a couple of great late games and then he was
often running after that. But they went in there, they
went into that season in year two of Steve Slayton,
and I think people remember that he was exceptionally productive

(02:26:23):
as a rookie. He had a really nice guy too,
by the way, he was so funny. He had almost
sixteen hundred yards of offense that year along with ten
touches West Virginia West Virginia Pat White. So there wasn't
really a spot for him to be a part of
what they initially wanted to do. But nobody really had
a successful year. He missed a ton of time. The
non kicker Chris Brown was on the team at the

(02:26:44):
time from Colorado. He also was relatively on chrisque. He
not a K the kicker with a K, the runner
with a C. I just think the other than Ursery,
who just flat out has to be on the field.
It's not you know, he's he's the best option they have.
He happens to be a rookie. He's playing. I do
think we get there at some point, but you know,
more to why don't you play these guys? Why don't
you play these guys? Why don't you play these guys?

(02:27:05):
It's Thursday, right tomorrow, I mean Thursday of the week.
We have one more day to really get into the Texans.
It's a walk through practice. So tomorrow, Yeah, but tomorrow
on the show, we're gonna talk about the difference the
Texans offense will feel because Christian Kirk is gonna play
his first game someone you went out specifically get to
get for this team, for this offense, for this quarterback.

(02:27:27):
I haven't seen the field yet because he's been hurt?
Can he negate the offensive line issues? If you call
the right plays, you get the snap, you throw the ball,
you don't even make a read because you already know
this player's wide open or he's your hot reed, Yes
he can. I sure hope that's how it goes. He's
gonna have to. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think that
will be something we'll see that not definitively back, but
everything points to both he and Braxton Barrios being beyond

(02:27:49):
their hamstring injuries and while listed as limited the last
two days, I assume both will be ready to go
and active on Sunday against in his case Christian's case,
his former team, the Jacksonville Jaguars. Wrap things up on
the show with that ticket giveaway and one other major
item we haven't talked about yet. What could that be.

Speaker 2 (02:28:11):
The Age on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (02:28:19):
Last second of the show here on a Thursday edition
of the A team leading you into another edition of
the Nightcap Astros Baseball Tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday to close
out the regular season portion of the Astrosdikin Parks schedule,
All Seattle, all the time. Three outstanding pitching matchups, and
the two teams are in a dead heat after the

(02:28:40):
results from earlier today in Kansas City, Mariners shut out
the Royals. They got to eighty four and sixty nine
with their two nothing victory. The Astros were sitting at
eighty four and sixty nine each. Teams have nine games remaining.
For Houston that's three at home and six on the road.
For Seattle it's three on the road and six at home,
and obviously those three are here in Houston beginning tomorrow

(02:29:01):
night I mentioned we had tickets to give away, so
let's do that first before we dive into one other
item that just will not go away, nor should it
go away until the NFL finally makes it go away. Well,
we do have tickets to go see Monster Jam October eighteenth,
along with pit passes, and this is a four pack
of tickets for you. Tickets are on sale now ticketmaster

(02:29:23):
dot com. It's October eighteenth, a NRG Stadium and listening
to the show, you'll know the answer to this question.
Among the things we have discussed over this afternoon of
the program. Earlier today, we were talking about a little
bit about the matchup tonight between the Dolphins and the
Buffalo Bills. The Bills have done nothing but when the
Dolphins have been done nothing but lose, and there seems

(02:29:45):
like there's a bit of unrest in Miami because there
is a question was asked to me by Ac what
do you think happens first Mike McDaniel is relieved of
duties or Tyreek Hill is is traded from the Miami Dolphins.
I was quick to answer, and if you were listening,
you know my answer. And if you weren't, since I

(02:30:07):
love you, it's fifty to fifty. Which one did I say?
Which happens first? Here in twenty twenty five for the
Miami Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel is asked politely to leave
he's fired, or Tyreek Hill is asked to go play
great football for some other franchise he has traded. I

(02:30:27):
gave an answer to that question earlier on the show.
If you know the answer seven one three two one
two five seven ninety seven one three two one two
five seven ninety and Monster Jam viewing will be yours.
We turn our attention to someone who used to torture
the Miami Dolphins with his play AFC East foe, Tom Brady.
Tom Brady now works for the league as a broadcaster.

(02:30:51):
He's outfitted by the Fox Sports Network and they pay
him a tremendous amount of money to listen to Kevin
Burkhardt for most of the game and then had some
flavor while the analyst role is performed by him. And
he also is a part owner of the franchise that
calls Las Vegas home, the Las Vegas Raiders. Everybody saw
him in the booth. I'm not sure why nobody realized, Hey,

(02:31:15):
tom Brady's involved. Guess what he's going to be doing
at games? And apparently he even didn't realize they weren't
going to realize this until they saw him on camera.
And I don't know that he quite went like he
was at a Coldplay concert and really tried to make
sure nobody saw him. But it did seem like there
was some slunking in his chair that was done after

(02:31:35):
he realized he was on camera. So last year they
had a different head coach with the Raiders, right, and
this year he, Tom and others decided to go in
a different direction. So probably partially involved, were heavily involved
in the decision to tell Antonio Pierce, thanks for all
your work, but your services are no longer needed here
in twenty twenty five. So Antonio Pierce is internal on

(02:32:00):
this decision, internal on what he's saying. He was there
last year while Tom Brady was also there last year,
and he basically said because he knows, because he did
it for me and others here. Yeah, of course he's
telling people inside the Raiders organization things he's learning as
a broadcaster. This to me, actually should finally, it should

(02:32:24):
have already happened, but this will finally tell the people
who have the biggest problem with it and want the
NFL to do something about it, to do something about it.
I don't think it's as big a deal to fix
this as the NFL is making it out to be.
Just tell him to stop doing it, and I don't
mean stop telling people. You want information about these two
teams figure out how to get it. You're not going

(02:32:45):
to facilities, you're not sitting in production meetings, you're not
allowed to go to practice, you can't go on the sideline,
you can't do any of that stuff that every single
other broadcaster can do because you're not like them. You're different.
You have a different job that they don't have. Some
of these other broadcasters literally don't do anything else. Some
of the reform players, some of them have lives, some
have family, some of them play golf. Not you. You

(02:33:06):
are an owner for another NFL team. If Kevin Burkhart
wants to sit on every moment of every practice that
he's allowed to, in every single production meeting, and he
wants to tell you everything that's said, then that's how
it's gonna be. And there's only so much we can
do about it. Because we're not telling you to sell
your ownership stake and we're not telling you to stop
taking Fox's money. That to me is the best, reasonable,

(02:33:27):
still not ideal solution, and I think the NFL is
actually probably heading in that direction. Which gig makes him
more money, Well, that depends on what he plans on
doing with his ownership. Steak, does he want to continue
investing more and more in getting a bigger steak. And
then when I mean it's a family business, when is
that going to turn into money? Because you're you're making

(02:33:50):
your money when they sell the team? Right? Is Davis
gonna sell them a team?

Speaker 3 (02:33:55):
That's what I'm saying. I'm getting down to what this.
I mean, he's gonna have to choose or the choice be.

Speaker 4 (02:34:01):
Made for him. I've kind of given you a possible solution.
Is it as big?

Speaker 7 (02:34:06):
Like?

Speaker 4 (02:34:07):
I read all this stuff that a couple of different
people have written about it. Mike Florio is among them,
and he made this point which I think is awful.
And I don't mean he's awful. I mean, if this
is really how the NFL sees it or the people
that are mad about it sees it, man, are they
doing it wrong? They're only upset to a certain degree
because it's the Raiders and they don't matter and they

(02:34:27):
don't win. And I think that is completely the wrong
way to look at it, as in they're just waiting
to make a bigger deal out of it, to be
more mad about it, to say, how could you let
this happen when the Raiders are good? Do you think
you think the NFL is looking at the Raiders as
though they don't matter, and they know. I think the
people who aren't trying to force the NFL to do

(02:34:47):
something when it seems so clear something should be done
aren't being loud enough yet because they don't care enough yet,
because it's just the Raiders.

Speaker 3 (02:34:55):
Let me let me ask you this choice, which right now,
because they're both both of these stories are in the headlines,
and I realize that we don't necessarily have all the
clarity on one of these things. Which do you think
people should be more an uproar about when it comes
to situations not on the up and up. Tom Brady's

(02:35:19):
whatever you want to call this with the NFL, are
Kawhi Leonard's non having to show up endorsement where he
got paid an additional twenty eight million by the team
that won his free agency.

Speaker 4 (02:35:31):
H the ladder. I think, what if what is assumed
by a lot of people who don't have the details.
I'm one of them. It looks as a commissioner apparently
looks really bad, and the more details that come out
make it look like, well, here's your path, here's where
the money came from, Here's where the money went. Here's
the timing of it to when this happened and where
the punny ends up with Kawhi. I mean, if you're
skirting the rules of the salary cap, which may have

(02:35:55):
happened here, then the other owners are going to be
angry and the commissioner will hand down an ex dremely
harsh punishment.

Speaker 3 (02:36:02):
You did you use the phrase here that is apropos
skirting the rules?

Speaker 4 (02:36:06):
Well, this is an in and what's the salary cap?
For one? Answer could be it's an attempt to keep
all the teams on the same page. And you can
do this, and you can do this, but you all
are under the same constraints of the salary cap, so
you're operating under the same rules. Well not if you're
skirting the cap, you're cheating.

Speaker 3 (02:36:22):
Getting at is one of these actually will hurt the
league that it's it's involved with. And the other one
is Tom Brady not getting to go to production meetings
or going to production meetings. I mean Spygate was way more,
oh yeah than this, Like this is like the only
the fifth worst thing that Tom has been evolved from
a competitive standpoints in the.

Speaker 4 (02:36:40):
NFL balls Yeah, uh no, this n NBA thing I
think will be dealt with much much differently if it
comes to be that it is what we think it is,
and that's what we currently think it is. I think
to be sure, Nightcap comes your way. Next here from
us again, momentarily here from us at length, when we
hit you back at two o'clock tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (02:36:59):
The e G on Sports Talk seven ninety