September 10, 2026 • 39 mins
Thursday on The Dan Mathews Show, Dan and Josh reacted to the Astros’ disappointing loss to the Phillies, looked ahead to the series finale, and shared their thoughts on C.J. Gardner-Johnson’s comments about facing his former team.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Dan Matthews Show.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
3-2 to Schwarber. And he lifts this to right and
you can kiss that one goodbye. Kyle Schwarber with his
10th career Grand Slam. And the Phillies lead 11-6.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Not ideal.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Not ideal to say the least. And with that, we
say away we go.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Welcome on in. It is the morning drive. Actually, no,
it's not. That was the Matt and Ross. See, I mean,
what are we on now? We're on episode nine of
us being together, Josh Jordan. And I mean, the first
two days I tried to get it out of my system.
And now today, for whatever reason, I must have gotten
hit in the head, whatever it is. And I just
(00:49):
I completely reverted back to six to ten.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
You know what?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Well, it's a short show today. I blame a spotter
for that. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Brian King was pitching at the forefront of my brain. No,
it's the Dan Matthews show, Sports Talk 790. I at
least got those two parts right. But what the Astros
did not get right is, I mean, again, you know, Josh,
it's one of those where, as I pointed out last
night on Twitter, it wasn't on the hitters at all.
(01:23):
Give yourself a 4-0 cushion against one of the best pitchers,
not just in the National.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
League, but in baseball.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
You give yourself a 4-0 cushion.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Find a way to hold on. Find a way. I mean, unacceptable,
I think is the word to use.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Unacceptable.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Unacceptable. Where you have a lead, and look, I'm not.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Going to say that you gave up a four-run lead
against a bunch of slappies.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
You didn't. It's a really good ball club over there.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
And that's a team that, in a pretty tough National League,
was able to claw and fight their way back into
being a respectable postseason contender. And you just give it
right back. I mean, you need your ace to be
an ace. And I'm sorry, Hunter Brown was anything but
an ace last night. Struck out seven?
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
You got to get people out. That's your job.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Now, you could say the same thing for Christopher Sanchez,
but guess what he was able to do?
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Able to keep it right.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
There at those six and then get through six and
then set up his offense to be able to come
back against an Astros pitching staff that, I mean, it
was really on two guys last night. Hunter Brown's got
to be better, and we'll talk about this a little
bit more in about 10 minutes, but spend a little
bit right now. That needs to be the last time
that Brian King pitches a meaningful stretch of games for
(02:47):
the rest of this season. You cannot count on him.
He cannot get Major League hitters out. And he literally
could not get a Major League hitter out last night.
He faced, what, four hitters, I think? All four of
them reaching base. Every single one of them. No high leverage.
No keep us in the game.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Nothing. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I mean, it's just at this point, and as I've
told you, Josh, I don't understand why right there, and
me and you talked about a little bit before the
show today, why you're not just going AJ Blue Ball
in that spot.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
You know what?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
You're not good enough right now as a pitching staff
to play matchups.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
You're not. So I don't want to hear about matchups.
I don't want to hear about any of those things.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
You don't have guys that can consistently throw strikes and
get people out.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
So for the few that you have, rely on them.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
I mean... You cannot continue to blow games like this.
You cannot do it. The only saving grace is that
Seattle is six games back of you and the Rangers
lost yesterday.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
But no more, I trust this guy because you know what?
That trust should have eroded about a couple of months ago.
Comes out of that Rangers series and you think, well,
you know, he's just going through a rough stretch.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Maybe the Rangers just got his number. Okay, fine. I'll
give you that.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
He hasn't been the same since. So I'm sorry. You
cannot use him anymore. And at the same time, you
got Miguel Uola up here. Why aren't you using him?
Is Alembra Santa up right now? I'm trying to remember.
I don't believe so.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Why isn't he? Why isn't he?
Speaker 5 (04:32):
Great question, because Brian King's been down to Sugar Land repeatedly,
yet you keep putting him in the game.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
I mean, that is a.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Spot right there where not having Steven Okert really hurts you.
There's no question about it. But why not Bennett Sousa then?
He pitched to one hitter the night before. One.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
Single, solitary guy. Why not anybody else? I would have
rather seen Tatsuya Imai in there. I just spot a man.
This is why people call in and say the things
they say. This is the perfect example. Every single person
in the world that was watching that game went, well,
this is over. He's putting in Brian King.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Well, I mean, and that kind of was the feeling
because one run lead, you're not feeling good and then
you're rewarded for such pessimism. When Luis arrives leads off
of the double down the left field line. So yeah,
I mean, it sparks up a six run inning where
a couple of those runs are charged to AJ blue ball.
Cause a blue ball comes in and gets JT Rio
(05:28):
Muto striking out.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
So that part was nice.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
But then he promptly walks Brian De La Cruz to
bring in a run to give the Phillies a lead.
And then he gives up the, what we just played
for you right there, the grand slam, the Kyle Schwarber.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
And that was curtains. I mean, you're down 11 to
six at that point.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
I mean, getting six runs out of this offense, you
feel like should be enough to be able to help
you win a game. And I mean, look, it sucks
from a personal standpoint, because There's probably not a nicer
guy in that clubhouse than Brian King. And you can
root for guys like Brian King, who found a way
to be an effective pitcher in Major League Baseball. I mean,
he had bounced around and then finally came here to
(06:10):
Houston and seemingly had found a spot. Right now, he's
not in that groove. He cannot get Major League hitters out.
And that was proven again yesterday. But I mean, the
positives from last night, Cam Smith seems like he's swinging
a good bat right now. I mean, that home run
the right center field was incredibly impressive. And he didn't
just hit a home run like he crushed it. It
(06:32):
was off the back railing there near the Phillies bullpen.
I mean, you hit a ball like that as a
right-handed hitter. You absolutely got in the one and he did.
And I mean, at that point with Brown, after he
just went through the scoreless fourth inning, I mean, you're
thinking to yourself, okay, you know, maybe you're out of
the woods of this thing. And maybe you're going to
(06:54):
be able to do kind of like what you did
last night, where they made their fierce comeback, but you're
able to find a way. And that's not the way
that it went. So frustrating to say the least. I mean,
a couple of hits out of Jeremy Pena and Jordan Alvarez.
I mean, that part is nice. Pena, his second one
coming a little bit later in the game when it
wasn't in doubt, you were already down 11 to seven.
(07:16):
I mean, Isak Paredes, that was nice. The two run
homer and an RBI single. So three runs batted in
out of him. So those parts, I mean, at least
the guys that you need to count on in your lineup,
they produced last night. And that's nice to see. It's
going to be tough this afternoon, though. You got Zach
Wheeler going for the Phillies. So, I mean, that's what
makes last night's loss hurt even more. And I hadn't
(07:36):
even mentioned that history was accomplished last night. Jose Altuve,
just the second Astro in franchise history to reach 2,500 hits,
double the straightaway center field to accomplish such feats. And
now the chase for Craig Biggio continues on for Jose Altuve.
So if you're an Astros second baseman, chances are, well,
(07:57):
one day you could possibly be a 3,000 hit man.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Well, at least that's the hope.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
But anyway, I know there's no correlation other than just
they both played the same position.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
I get it.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Before any of you comment and call in. But I mean,
it's again where... I mean, we've had this stretch now
for about the last couple of months and last night
was kind of part and parcel with it where you've
had winnable games and you haven't been able to win
said winnable game. I mean, you're lucky that you were
(08:30):
able to hold on the night before because we would
be talking about don't get swept by the Phillies today
against Zach Wheeler with Christian Javier on the mound. That
would be a really bad place to be. And was
telling you before this road trip even got started that
you needed to, at no worst, go 500 this week. Well,
this is going to make it pretty tough because Tampa
(08:52):
Bay has not been kind to you. It's a tough
place for hitters. They have a really good pitching staff.
So you lose this one, you're in a position where
you got to go two out of three in Tampa Bay.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
That's not a good place to be.
Speaker 6 (09:04):
So.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
This is where the Astros sit at the moment.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Like I said, it was an afternoon game yesterday, of course,
with Wednesday night football happening there in Seattle as the
Mariners beat the Rangers. So they gain a game on you,
but you at least keep two games ahead of the Rangers.
And that's what also makes last night frustrating is the
White Sox lost. So you could have, I think, gone
to within a half game of the second best record
(09:31):
in the American League. And then the Rangers losing too.
So Like I said, I mean, you've had opportunities to
be able to pad this thing and.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
To be able to put yourself in a much better position.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
And those Diamondbacks losses and then this one last night,
you got to find a way to be able to
stop these because this is postseason baseball, as I mentioned
in yesterday's show.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
You do this in the postseason, you're done. You're going home.
You're getting swept. You're not even.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
winning a single game in the postseason so in certain
cases you're asking guys that might not be up to
the task to be able to handle the task but
when your offense gives you six runs you win that
ball game you find a way to be able to
win that ball game and i mean as i mentioned
Your ace was not your ace last night. I mean,
(10:21):
that that four run third inning told you as much.
And then he gives up the solo homer with two
outs to Trey Turner, which I mean, again. It's one
of those where I mean, if you give up a
run or two, I get it, but you can't have
that inning go the way that it did. And I
understand that it was a lot of Phillies putting the
(10:42):
ball in play, finding holes and doing all of that.
But I mean, it was good situational hitting something that
has eluded this team for a really long time. Like
that would be nice. You know what Victor Rodriguez and
Anthony Iaposi should do? Take video of that inning runners
in scoring position. This is what you do. You see
a hole to the right side, poke it through the
hole in the right side and be able to get
(11:04):
somebody home.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
That's what you do. So yeah, the error from Walker
didn't help either that just arise, man, just because he's left-handed,
you're going to put in Brian King. What are we doing?
I looked at a hundred Brown was at 90 pitches.
Like if your life was on the line, would you
rather have a hundred Brown come back out with 90
pitches or put Brian King?
Speaker 3 (11:23):
What are we talking about? You know what the answer
is to that.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
And as I said earlier in this segment, I'm not
doing the matchups thing anymore. You cannot with a straight face,
go to a podium anymore and say matchups. You don't
have matchups. You're not good enough to be able to
get people out, okay? When you're good enough and you've
got guys that can be able to execute such matchups,
then you can use matchups.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
But you know what?
Speaker 1 (11:47):
I don't care if they're right-handed, left-handed, ambidextrous, whatever they are.
If they can get outs, they're in in that situation.
Don't give me splits. Don't give me matchups. Don't give
me any of those things. I want outs.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
That's what I need.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
And Brian King cannot get people out. And just to
add on to that, sometimes guys just have a bad year, Dan.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
That happens.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
Sometimes you have a down year. Brian King having a
really down year. That's why he's been back and forth
to the minors. You can't put him in in a
situation like that and expect a better result.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
You just can't.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
You just touched on it right there. I mean, I
trust my guys.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
You do?
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Well, because the shuttling between here and Sugar Land kind
of says differently. I understand inspiring confidence. You know where
I can inspire confidence? Give a guy a clean inning
when you got a five-run lead. That's where I can
inspire confidence. Not when I'm up by one and I
really would like to be able to get this game
and try to send it to a chance to sweep
them today. But with Zach Wheeler going, if you lose, okay, fine.
(12:48):
Two out of three against a really good Phillies team.
It was a mind boggling decision.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
I'm not going to lie.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I mean, I think that most of you listening to
me know that I've been a Joe Espada supporter, but
that was one I absolutely did not ride with last night.
and it turned out to be as such. Jim and Memorial,
see you right there. Work in.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
You want to join them? 713-212-5790. Again, it's 713-212-5790.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Okay, the guys that you can count on here, well,
that list might be short, but definitely do believe that
there are guys, regardless of the situation, you can go to,
talk about that, get you in on the phone lines,
and then also to get you set up for Astros
and Phillies, the finale coming up this afternoon. We're only
going an hour today because 11 o'clock, I hit you
with Astros on deck, so we got that coming for
(13:32):
you right here on your home of the Astros, Sports
Talk 790.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
First pitch, he rips it to right center field, moving
away from Crawford, and that is going to get down.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
That's 2,500.
Speaker 6 (13:43):
Altuve races for second base. It's a double. 2,500 hits
for Jose Altuve in his career. What a swing of
the bat. 21st double of the season for Jose Altuve.
And a huge hit in his career. They're going to
get that baseball out. He's going to keep it for posterity.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
There have been nearly 24,000 people who have played Major
League Baseball all time. And only 103 of them have
gotten 2,500 hits in their career. Congratulations to Jose Altuve.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Absolutely. Well, unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
The Astros really did subscribe to this 38th special song
because they held on loosely to leads. Because they had
a 4-0 lead, then they were tied. Then they had
a 6-4 lead, and they would very soon give that
one up, too, as they lose last night 11-7. But
as you just heard right there, we stan Jose Altuve.
We love Jose Altuve. Career hit number 2,500 for him, but...
(14:49):
All in all, not enough as the Strohs lose that
one 11-7. And now today, this afternoon, going to try
to take a very tough rubber game of this series
as Astros on deck is about 40 minutes away from
getting on your airwaves as it'll be Christian Javier against
Zach Wheeler for the finale of this one. Texans on
the practice field again. getting ready for the Bills on Sunday.
(15:12):
As I mentioned, I know a lot of you want
to be able to get in on the phone line,
so let's give you that opportunity at 713-212-5790. Again, it's 713-212-5790.
Jim Ann Memorial wants to get us started.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Jim, good morning. How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Good.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Good.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Could barely hear you, but now it's better.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
I just wanted to say I subscribed to Josh's podcast.
I just wanted to say you both are touching on.
I don't have really much to add, but I think
the biggest thing is productive outs. I mean, how many
times does this lineup strike out? You know, you look
at our teams of the past, and the biggest thing
(15:55):
opponents used to say was how long our lineup was. Because,
like you said, with the Phillies, that inning, they put
the ball in play and made productive outs. I'd also
like to talk about De Los Santos and King. Do
we have anybody else? I mean, and what do you
(16:17):
guys think of, you know, when a guy is struggling
with power or what have you, I know Jordan is
our best hitter.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
I love Jordan.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
But I think it would benefit him just to have
a couple of days off. I mean, Dusty Baker used
to do that. He'd give a guy a couple of
days off, and he'd come back, and he'd be on fire. But, yeah,
that loss hurt. When you score seven runs on this team,
you've got to bring home victories. You just never know
(16:46):
with this team. They lose to sub-500 teams, and then
they beat teams that are good. So I just don't
know what to think. But I love listening to your show,
and best of luck on your new time. And that's
all I got.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
I appreciate the call, Jim.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
I mean, in terms of off days, he's going to
have one coming up on Monday. I think for right now,
until you lock up whatever your postseason fate is, that
Jordan Alvarez is out there. He wants to be out there.
He should want to be out there. And I mean,
at least last night, it was encouraging to see him
get a couple of hits because I have wondered if
(17:23):
indeed fatigue is starting to get to him just a
little bit, Josh. Like I have wondered that, but I mean,
it's not just him. I mean, it's other guys in
Major League Baseball that are going through the same thing too,
where Yeah, you get tired.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I get that.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
But, I mean, he's in the lineup today, which is
not a surprise, and he's right there in that second spot.
And pretty much all the regulars are going today, except
for Yainer Diaz is not going. It'll be Christian Vasquez
catching Christian Javier. Yeah, I guess he's a DH, so
I'm kind of like, did he really need the day off?
Speaker 5 (17:56):
Most of the time he's a DH. Look, they just
had Monday off the other day. Today's Thursday, and they're
going to have another Monday off. Like I said— you
clench the division, then you can start giving guys days off.
I mean, that's first and foremost.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
I mean, yes, you'd like to catch the White Sox,
but getting into the postseason is the most important thing here.
So when that happens, then yes, you can use any
of the extra guys, which you just brought up two
of them, one position player, one pitcher when you expanded
your roster, but If you want to be able to
go that route, then go that route. But I mean,
as for right now, I need him in the lineup.
(18:31):
And last night, like I said, it was good to see.
It was nice to see him be able to have
the single to start off the game. And then he
quickly gets erased with an Isak Paredes double play. But still,
I mean, later on in the game, the RBI double
there to get the run scoring started there in the
third inning. I mean, these are nice things to see.
But again, as I've said, for the slumps combined that
(18:54):
he and Jeremy Pena have been going through you need
those guys to get going I mean it's just it's
it's a matter of fact they need to get going
because as you saw last night well you're probably in
a position where you got to score a lot more
runs than you have been recently because again your pitching
is just not good enough offense wasn't the problem last
night though you know you score seven runs in a
(19:14):
game Hunter Brown's your starting pitcher like that's on the
staff and the managing in my opinion Well, and then
as we mentioned too, I mean, just talking about said
staff and managing, I mean, in this case, Brian King
is who you decide to go with there in the
sixth inning. And as we mentioned, I mean, you just,
you cannot trust him. It's just, it's not even negotiable of, oh, well,
(19:38):
you know what? He just needs to make these mechanical tweaks. No,
he can't get people out. Like, I mean, it's not
like he's going to all of a sudden develop a
plus fastball or an out pitch to be able to
help them. I mean, if you're going to make any
adjustments whatsoever, that's going to have to come in the
off season, but I cannot count on him in any
such spot. I mean, you go to him in the
(19:58):
10th inning the other night and what happens? You go
to him last night.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
What happens?
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Like when you have a guy who is struggling to
get people out, I can't use him in such a spot.
And Ennio De Los Santos has been shaky, sure. But Josh,
if he had gone with Ennio De Los Santos there,
I would have been a lot more confident. I mean,
if you even go A.J. Blue Ball for an inning
right there, just give him the clean inning.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
That's fine.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
But you absolutely, and maybe this is a lesson learned,
I don't know, but you absolutely cannot do this in
the postseason. You're in a similar spot, which more than
likely you would be, and you go to Brian King,
go ahead and chalk it up as a loss because
you're not winning that game.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
You can't use last resort guys just because they're left-handed.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Well, I'm sorry. You can't do that.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Well, and that's, that's exactly it.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
I mean, it's, I guarantee you that was probably the
answer and we'll have a reaction from Astros manager, Joe
Espada as part of Astros on deck coming up here
in about 30 minutes. But I mean, you're not going
to go to Josh Hader there. You know that, I mean, that's,
One of those where in the postseason, you could be
in a tough spot and you use your closer to
come in. But that's more or less just you're using
(21:15):
them to come in and be able to get you
out of an inning and then maybe go back out
there for the next one.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
But very rarely.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
I mean, that's mostly you're doing that in a desperation,
keep our season alive type of situation.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Not right now.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
But I mean, like I said, I would have been,
I mean, I understand that Sousa has not been great,
but I go Bennett Sousa there. If you want lefty
on lefty, which I'm sure that that's probably the response,
then Bennett Sousa is your guy.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
That's who you go with there. Not Brian King.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Not at all.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
I mean, go with... I mean, at this point.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Like I said, you've got De Los Santos out there.
What is Miguel Yola doing? I like that idea, Dan.
Go with him. There's not really a big book on
him yet. He's got good stuff.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
That's the thing.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
How are you going to trust guys if you don't
use them? I mean, you know, I understand not using
Tatsuya Mai. I get that. And last night showed you
that there is no trust in Tatsuya Mai. Joe Espada
knew this game is over. I just need somebody to
get the last six outs for us, or at least
with those guys at the plate. And that's when he
used them. And he does walk the first two guys.
(22:27):
But then after a Josh Miller visit, able to settle
in and strike out three. So, I mean, that part
of it's nice. The walks are not great, but still,
I mean, go with him. I mean, it's almost anyone
else except for Brian King at this point. Because I
understand how your bullpen is taxed right now. And not
(22:47):
having Steven Okert really hurts. And you hope that you're
going to have Okert back on Tuesday because that's when
he's eligible to come off the IL. And he has
been throwing in West Palm Beach. So it'll be great
to have him back. But I mean, just that was
mind boggling to me. I mean, it was I was
coming back up here to do the 10th inning show.
And it's one of those that walking from the car
(23:09):
to the elevator, I'm looking it up on the at
bat app and seeing the play by play there.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
And I see King in and I'm like, this is
not going to go well.
Speaker 5 (23:17):
Same thing happened to me. I literally said that. I
saw King warming up, starting to run on the field.
I looked at my phone. I was like, oh, the
Seahawks-Patriots game is about to start. I'm going to put
that on because the Astros just said, we're giving up
on this game.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
This is over. And sure enough, it didn't take long
and it was over.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
And you put Blue Ball in a bad spot where
he's got to come in with the bases loaded against
a nasty lineup. Schwarber gets him. I just didn't like
how that was handled at all. It was something I
first guessed, Dan. It wasn't something in hindsight. This was
just so obvious. What are you doing before it even happened?
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Not good. Not good, to say the least.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
But the Astros hoping for more positive results today. Again,
like I said, it's going to be Christian Javier against
Zach Wheeler.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Not going to be easy. Wheeler 12-5 with a 3.23 ERA.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
But Hopefully, Christian Javier can kind of tap into that
magic that he had during the 2022 World Series. It
would be nice to see that guy again. It really
would be nice. It'd be very timely to get that
guy back on the mound. 713-212-5790 is the number to
get in.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
713-212-5790.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Permission to get into a little bit of Texans. Like
I said, I mean, we do have a short show today,
but I mean, a former Texan is trying not to
give bulletin board material, but he thinks he's being slick.
We'll talk about that right here as we continue. It
is the Dan Matthews Show on a Thursday, Sports Talk 790.
Dan Matthews Show, Sports Talk 790. We'll be with you
(24:45):
for a little bit longer before we hit you with
Astros on deck coming up at 11.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
We're truly delivering that for you.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Christian Javier getting the start this afternoon against Zach Wheeler
for the Phillies as the Strohs trying to get a
tough rubber game in this series before heading down to
Tampa to take on the Rays for three over the weekend.
You also have the Texans on the practice field getting
ready for the Buffalo Bills.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
On Sunday at Reliant Stadium.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
7-1-3, 2-1-2, 5-7-90.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
And at least for the Astros, I mean, clearly trying
to get a huge win today. It's one of those
where they've had to deal with people talking trash about
him before because CJ Gardner Johnson clearly is a guy
that used to be a Texan and is now at
(25:36):
the Buffalo Bills. And yesterday he practiced for the Bills.
So it does look like he's going to play in
this game. And he was asked of anything about his
former team. And he said that he was not going
to give any bulletin board material. However, with him kind
of sideswiping those questions, there was one that he was
(25:56):
asked of what he thought about CJ Stroud last season.
And he said, next question, which in the NFL, a
player saying next question is either they don't want to,
in a sense, make themselves guilty of talking trash or
doing any of these things like it's they just they
(26:18):
don't want to answer the question so they just say
next question and it seems like this is done in
the nfl much more than any other but what that
perceives to me is that he doesn't respect cj stroud
whatsoever i mean if nothing else you can give the
obligatory oh good player you know he he's he's a
young player he's trying to find his way in the
nfl did some really good things I enjoyed being around them,
(26:39):
any of those things. But I mean, if you next question,
just an innocent, innocuous question like that, that's what that
tells me. But the part that's laughable to me about
all of this is the perceived self-importance to believe that
anybody cares what you think about the Texans from your
time here.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
CJ, you were here three games, three games.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
And clearly it got to a point where the Texans said,
We can't have this guy on our defense because you
want to continue to freelance?
Speaker 3 (27:11):
You're going to continue to get us beat. So see
you later. Goodbye.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
It's been nice knowing you. We're not going to know
you anymore. They don't care. You could say whatever you want.
It's not going to add any fuel to this game.
It's not like the Texans are going to win and
then in the locker room afterwards, they're going to say, yeah,
we wanted to do this to shove it to CJ
Gardner Johnson. I mean, that's a mouthful enough to be
able to say, but I can almost guarantee you that
(27:36):
unless there is some sort of maybe, you know, fight
like Javon whims a few years ago with them, something
like that on the field that CJ Gardner Johnson won't
even be mentioned in the post game locker room scrums,
win or lose in this one. He's just not even
going to be at the front of anyone's mind. It's
just going to be about what they either did or
(27:57):
didn't do.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
And that's as far as it's going to go.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Yeah. He's an afterthought.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
He was traded for Kenyon Green by Howie Roseman, who's
basically the best GM in football, traded him away for
Kenyon Green.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
That should tell you everything.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
And when I think of the next question thing, I'm like,
was that Drew Rosenhaus that started that?
Speaker 1 (28:18):
I think it was because, I mean, he did it.
And again, I mean, the NFL is the ultimate copycat
league where somebody hears or sees something and they're like, oh, hey,
I'm going to start doing that. Cause yeah, I want
to say that he did it with Terrell Owens. That's
what I'm thinking too. Yeah. And it was like when
Terrell Owens was going through his whole thing in Philadelphia.
So that's where I think that started. But I mean,
(28:41):
you do have, and a lot of times too, it's
usually done in a joking manner. Like I'm trying to remember,
was it Derek Ward? Was that the running back? That
the Texans had for a time. Yeah, that sounds right.
And players every once in a while during scrums with
the media will jump in and ask like a funny
question or do anything to kind of like, you know,
play along with it. And I think it was Jacoby
(29:03):
Jones that asked one and he.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Goes, next question.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
You just, you know, just playing along with the joke
right there. But I mean, but like, why do you
even need to next question that? I mean, you asked
me how I feel about somebody that maybe I'm not
the biggest fan of, but at least I can go
ahead and be professional enough to say, yeah, they're good
at their job.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
They're fine.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
I mean, clearly I've been very critical of certain people
in this business, but I mean, if I actually don't
have a problem with the way that people do their
job and I don't necessarily personally like them, then I'll
leave the personal side out of it.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
I'll just say, yeah, you know what? They're really good
at their job. That's as far as I leave it.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
He's disrespecting him.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
You're right.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
No, that's 100% what that was. So in effect, where
you're like, I'm not going to give any bulletin board material.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
You just did. You just did.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
But I can also guarantee you that the person who
could care the least is number seven. Because I don't
think he's going to care about a guy who was
basically the same value as.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
An extra in a movie talking trash about him.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Like, do you think that, you know, Tom Cruise would
care what an extra has to say about him? You know,
what Timothy Chalamet said? would care what an extra says
about them. Matthew McConaughey, anybody like that. I mean, I
could go on continuing naming names. They don't care. You
were on the field for probably a huge reason why
that final touchdown was given up. I mean, I need
(30:32):
to go back and look at the play, but against
the Rams, you set up the Jaguars in week three
to be able to get that. And then you're trash
talking Baker Mayfield and you as part of the defense,
give up a long run to Baker Mayfield to be
able to set them up for what would turn out
to be the game winning score against you in that
Monday night football game. So the Texans clearly saw that
(30:54):
you were a liability to their defense and they moved
on from you.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
That's their right.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
And they funny enough, got a lot better as a
defense after CJ Gardner Johnson was not.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Part of it.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
Didn't he go to the Ravens and get cut, but
for after a cup of coffee before he ended up
with the bears last year, I feel like I remember that.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
No, he's, I mean, he's definitely bounced around and I mean,
I don't think he's a bad guy. I just think
that he's kind of a knucklehead is probably the best
way to describe it with him. And I mean, we
all know people like that, that it's like, they're not
bad people. Like they're not maliciously bad people, but they
seemingly always have one foot on the banana peel. He
kind of, he kind of seems like that, that he's
(31:32):
that guy that just happens to take a step to
his right.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
And then pow, there's a rake right there. Like that's,
that's what he is. Constantly.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Constantly probably oblivious to a lot of things.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
And values himself way more than really anybody else does.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah, I just Googled it.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
Ravens signed him to their practice squad on October 7th, 2025,
released him one week later.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Well, hopefully the hotel room was nice that he was
staying in there in Baltimore because that's about all he
really got to enjoy. Some crab cakes, perhaps? I was
going to say, yeah, you can head over to Jimmy's.
That's a good spot right there in Baltimore, be able
to get that. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, you
go to Maryland, you got to get those crabs. I'll
tell you what, of all the seasonings, Old Bay might
(32:20):
be the best. Old Bay on basically anything makes it
so much better. It's one of the most versatile. That,
Tony Satchery's, yeah. It's good stuff. You can get some
mileage out of it for sure. Saison, if I'm even
saying it right, Now, you know, that's a good one.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Adobo.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
That's, that's another good one.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
See, we could, we could almost do kind of a, um,
you know, Matt and Ross in the morning style, uh,
power rankings of spices.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
And I think we'd get some good ones.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
They had quite a discussion about Arby's this morning that
was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Really?
Speaker 3 (32:52):
What was the take on Arby's?
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Matt liked it. Nobody else really did. See, that's the thing, too,
is I'm right with Matt on this.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
I like Arby's. I really do.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
But I almost feel like that people are kind of
in the obligatory answer phase of that. where, you know,
somebody mentions Nickelback. Ah, I hate Nickelback. It's like, do
you really feel that way? Or do you feel obligated
to say it that way? And I feel like that
Arby's is kind of pigeonholed in that exact same way.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
The roast beef sandwich is fantastic. The horsey sauce. Let's go.
The jalapeno poppers. Yes. The curly fries. Uh-huh.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
All of it.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
You get my point here? They have a lot of options.
I will give them that. Arby's slaps, man.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
It slaps. And I mean, It's one of those two
that it's more of a Southeast thing like Hardee's and
like places like that. It's not so much here. Like,
if you see one here, you're kind of like, oh, man,
you don't see those very often. But, no, I'm an
Arby's guy. Matt Thomas, if you're still out there listening,
I'm with you on this.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
I got your back.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
All right, 713-212-5790. Again, it's 713-212-5790. What a coup it
would be if you were able to do this today,
if you're the Astros. But also, too, as well, it's
not like you're out of the woods just yet. We'll
talk about that in 15 minutes from now. We're jumping
into Astros on deck, get you set for the finale
in this series. All that, much more still to go
(34:13):
right here. It is the Dan Matthews Show, Sports Talk 790.
All right, spending a couple more minutes with you here
on the Dan Matthews Show before we send it over
to me on Astros on deck. That's coming your way
in less than 10 minutes as we get you set
for the Astros and the Phillies in the final game
of this series up in Philadelphia. It'll be Christian Javier
(34:34):
throwing against Zach Wheeler. as the Strohs would really like
to be able to bounce back. But one thing that
I will give you, and you'll hear me say during
Astros on Deck, it's no secret that Zach Wheeler is
really good. But the three times that you faced him
during the regular season, well, you've beaten him once, so
you've done it before, which means you could do it again.
(34:54):
But he is a career one-and-one against them in three
regular season appearances. It's got a 1.00 ERA, though. So
if you think you're going to score a lot of
runs today against Zach Wheeler, but then that's the funny thing, Josh.
You know, I'm telling people last night, hey, hammer that under,
that 9.5 with Hunter Brown and Christopher Sanchez on the mound.
(35:17):
And then we weren't feeling very good because, well, you
only needed to get through about 3.3 before that was
out the window.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
As a matter of fact, it wasn't even a third.
It was 3+.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Because you get Dalton Varshow on with the leadoff bunt single, which,
by the way, two bunts laid down last night. So
the callers at 713-212-5790 who call for bunts, congratulations.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
You got two of them last night. It was your day.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
You got Barossa laying one down for a sacrifice, which
did actually work because, I mean, I will give him
credit for that. You luckily were able to score four
runs with two outs. So congratulations.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
You win that one.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
And then, of course, Dalton Varshow laying down a drag
bunt there to be able to get on base. And
then Louisa Rice, I think, tried to do like a
little glove flip or whatever it was. It gets past
Kyle Schwarber and you get Dalton Varshow on second. And
then Cam Smith promptly putting one into the right center
field bleachers. So, you know, those parts were nice. So, yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
You got to 10 combined runs.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
You hit the over before you had even gotten out
number 10 of the game at that point. Vegas knew, baby.
I thought about that last night.
Speaker 5 (36:25):
I was like, Dan, I was just talking about the
over-under being a high total. And sure enough, it was
a high-scoring game.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
So Vegas knows. They know. If you had told me
that was the score the night before with Andrew Painter
on the mound, and even though Hayden Wisniewski has been
really good, then I would have said, okay, that makes sense.
Because that one I think would have been a little
bit closer to night one, but it just shows you
how weird baseball is. So anyway, it's going to be
a tough one this afternoon. I mean, look, it's one
(36:54):
of those that you're looking for boosts any way that
you can get them. And this would be a massive
boost to be able to get out of here with
a series win.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Huge.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Because then there's not as much pressure to go into
Tampa Bay. Because at that point, you lose two out
of three to Tampa Bay. You're kind of like, okay,
three and three week. It was a tough stretch. get
the Royals next week, get the Braves at home, and
then try to be able to handle those games before
you head back out, which, I mean, then it's going
to be two in Seattle where it's not been easy
(37:24):
for you. And then for whatever reason, the A's have
seemingly had your number where it's not only out in
Sacramento at that rinky-dink stadium that they have, but also
here at Dyken Park, too, as well, as they've now
proven two years in a row in the month of
August where they can come in here and beat you
in a crucial series.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
So, You've got that working against you.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
So you'd like to be able to head into that
final week, like I said, where things are figured out.
And you've got the opportunity to be able to do that.
I mean, the Rangers still have some tough games left
on their schedule. Handle your business where, I mean, today,
if you get a similar offensive performance, I think that
you probably see Joe Espada employ his bullpen a little
(38:04):
bit differently where it's not going to involve Brian King,
I would think. But, I mean, that you see him
go about his business a lot differently. I mean, I'm
watching MLB Network in here, and they were showing Ronell
Blanco thrown on the field. I mean, maybe you go
Blanco out of the pen if you need a couple
or three innings to be able to bridge things up today.
I could absolutely see that, and that would be welcome
(38:25):
if he's able to give you good stuff on the mound. Now,
that's a huge if, because you definitely do need that
to be the case.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
Anyway, that is going.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
To close the book on us here on the Dan
Matthews show for the day, but the Dan Matthews show
now transitions into Astros on deck. That's coming your way
right here. He is young Joshua Jordan. We're still hanging out,
but I'm Dan Matthews. We'll be back at it tomorrow.
Lee Sterling, Paramount Sports, going to join us. Also going
to have Aaron Wilson for his weekly visit and still
(38:54):
efforting to get a couple of other people on. One
Buffalo guest and then also two. One NFL as a whole.
So definitely want to get you set up for Sunday.
We will do all of that. Plus get you ready
for the Astros and the Rays. That's all coming your
way right here on your home of the Astros and
the Rockets. Sports Talk 790. Goodbye now.
Welcome to the Dan Matthews Show.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
3-2 to Schwarber. And he lifts this to right and
you can kiss that one goodbye. Kyle Schwarber with his
10th career Grand Slam. And the Phillies lead 11-6.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Not ideal.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Not ideal to say the least. And with that, we
say away we go.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Welcome on in. It is the morning drive. Actually, no,
it's not. That was the Matt and Ross. See, I mean,
what are we on now? We're on episode nine of
us being together, Josh Jordan. And I mean, the first
two days I tried to get it out of my system.
And now today, for whatever reason, I must have gotten
hit in the head, whatever it is. And I just
(00:49):
I completely reverted back to six to ten.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
You know what?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Well, it's a short show today. I blame a spotter
for that. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Brian King was pitching at the forefront of my brain. No,
it's the Dan Matthews show, Sports Talk 790. I at
least got those two parts right. But what the Astros
did not get right is, I mean, again, you know, Josh,
it's one of those where, as I pointed out last
night on Twitter, it wasn't on the hitters at all.
(01:23):
Give yourself a 4-0 cushion against one of the best pitchers,
not just in the National.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
League, but in baseball.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
You give yourself a 4-0 cushion.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Find a way to hold on. Find a way. I mean, unacceptable,
I think is the word to use.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Unacceptable.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Unacceptable. Where you have a lead, and look, I'm not.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Going to say that you gave up a four-run lead
against a bunch of slappies.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
You didn't. It's a really good ball club over there.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
And that's a team that, in a pretty tough National League,
was able to claw and fight their way back into
being a respectable postseason contender. And you just give it
right back. I mean, you need your ace to be
an ace. And I'm sorry, Hunter Brown was anything but
an ace last night. Struck out seven?
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
You got to get people out. That's your job.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Now, you could say the same thing for Christopher Sanchez,
but guess what he was able to do?
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Able to keep it right.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
There at those six and then get through six and
then set up his offense to be able to come
back against an Astros pitching staff that, I mean, it
was really on two guys last night. Hunter Brown's got
to be better, and we'll talk about this a little
bit more in about 10 minutes, but spend a little
bit right now. That needs to be the last time
that Brian King pitches a meaningful stretch of games for
(02:47):
the rest of this season. You cannot count on him.
He cannot get Major League hitters out. And he literally
could not get a Major League hitter out last night.
He faced, what, four hitters, I think? All four of
them reaching base. Every single one of them. No high leverage.
No keep us in the game.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Nothing. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I mean, it's just at this point, and as I've
told you, Josh, I don't understand why right there, and
me and you talked about a little bit before the
show today, why you're not just going AJ Blue Ball
in that spot.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
You know what?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
You're not good enough right now as a pitching staff
to play matchups.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
You're not. So I don't want to hear about matchups.
I don't want to hear about any of those things.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
You don't have guys that can consistently throw strikes and
get people out.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
So for the few that you have, rely on them.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
I mean... You cannot continue to blow games like this.
You cannot do it. The only saving grace is that
Seattle is six games back of you and the Rangers
lost yesterday.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
But no more, I trust this guy because you know what?
That trust should have eroded about a couple of months ago.
Comes out of that Rangers series and you think, well,
you know, he's just going through a rough stretch.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Maybe the Rangers just got his number. Okay, fine. I'll
give you that.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
He hasn't been the same since. So I'm sorry. You
cannot use him anymore. And at the same time, you
got Miguel Uola up here. Why aren't you using him?
Is Alembra Santa up right now? I'm trying to remember.
I don't believe so.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Why isn't he? Why isn't he?
Speaker 5 (04:32):
Great question, because Brian King's been down to Sugar Land repeatedly,
yet you keep putting him in the game.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
I mean, that is a.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Spot right there where not having Steven Okert really hurts you.
There's no question about it. But why not Bennett Sousa then?
He pitched to one hitter the night before. One.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
Single, solitary guy. Why not anybody else? I would have
rather seen Tatsuya Imai in there. I just spot a man.
This is why people call in and say the things
they say. This is the perfect example. Every single person
in the world that was watching that game went, well,
this is over. He's putting in Brian King.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Well, I mean, and that kind of was the feeling
because one run lead, you're not feeling good and then
you're rewarded for such pessimism. When Luis arrives leads off
of the double down the left field line. So yeah,
I mean, it sparks up a six run inning where
a couple of those runs are charged to AJ blue ball.
Cause a blue ball comes in and gets JT Rio
(05:28):
Muto striking out.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
So that part was nice.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
But then he promptly walks Brian De La Cruz to
bring in a run to give the Phillies a lead.
And then he gives up the, what we just played
for you right there, the grand slam, the Kyle Schwarber.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
And that was curtains. I mean, you're down 11 to
six at that point.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
I mean, getting six runs out of this offense, you
feel like should be enough to be able to help
you win a game. And I mean, look, it sucks
from a personal standpoint, because There's probably not a nicer
guy in that clubhouse than Brian King. And you can
root for guys like Brian King, who found a way
to be an effective pitcher in Major League Baseball. I mean,
he had bounced around and then finally came here to
(06:10):
Houston and seemingly had found a spot. Right now, he's
not in that groove. He cannot get Major League hitters out.
And that was proven again yesterday. But I mean, the
positives from last night, Cam Smith seems like he's swinging
a good bat right now. I mean, that home run
the right center field was incredibly impressive. And he didn't
just hit a home run like he crushed it. It
(06:32):
was off the back railing there near the Phillies bullpen.
I mean, you hit a ball like that as a
right-handed hitter. You absolutely got in the one and he did.
And I mean, at that point with Brown, after he
just went through the scoreless fourth inning, I mean, you're
thinking to yourself, okay, you know, maybe you're out of
the woods of this thing. And maybe you're going to
(06:54):
be able to do kind of like what you did
last night, where they made their fierce comeback, but you're
able to find a way. And that's not the way
that it went. So frustrating to say the least. I mean,
a couple of hits out of Jeremy Pena and Jordan Alvarez.
I mean, that part is nice. Pena, his second one
coming a little bit later in the game when it
wasn't in doubt, you were already down 11 to seven.
(07:16):
I mean, Isak Paredes, that was nice. The two run
homer and an RBI single. So three runs batted in
out of him. So those parts, I mean, at least
the guys that you need to count on in your lineup,
they produced last night. And that's nice to see. It's
going to be tough this afternoon, though. You got Zach
Wheeler going for the Phillies. So, I mean, that's what
makes last night's loss hurt even more. And I hadn't
(07:36):
even mentioned that history was accomplished last night. Jose Altuve,
just the second Astro in franchise history to reach 2,500 hits,
double the straightaway center field to accomplish such feats. And
now the chase for Craig Biggio continues on for Jose Altuve.
So if you're an Astros second baseman, chances are, well,
(07:57):
one day you could possibly be a 3,000 hit man.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Well, at least that's the hope.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
But anyway, I know there's no correlation other than just
they both played the same position.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
I get it.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Before any of you comment and call in. But I mean,
it's again where... I mean, we've had this stretch now
for about the last couple of months and last night
was kind of part and parcel with it where you've
had winnable games and you haven't been able to win
said winnable game. I mean, you're lucky that you were
(08:30):
able to hold on the night before because we would
be talking about don't get swept by the Phillies today
against Zach Wheeler with Christian Javier on the mound. That
would be a really bad place to be. And was
telling you before this road trip even got started that
you needed to, at no worst, go 500 this week. Well,
this is going to make it pretty tough because Tampa
(08:52):
Bay has not been kind to you. It's a tough
place for hitters. They have a really good pitching staff.
So you lose this one, you're in a position where
you got to go two out of three in Tampa Bay.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
That's not a good place to be.
Speaker 6 (09:04):
So.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
This is where the Astros sit at the moment.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Like I said, it was an afternoon game yesterday, of course,
with Wednesday night football happening there in Seattle as the
Mariners beat the Rangers. So they gain a game on you,
but you at least keep two games ahead of the Rangers.
And that's what also makes last night frustrating is the
White Sox lost. So you could have, I think, gone
to within a half game of the second best record
(09:31):
in the American League. And then the Rangers losing too.
So Like I said, I mean, you've had opportunities to
be able to pad this thing and.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
To be able to put yourself in a much better position.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
And those Diamondbacks losses and then this one last night,
you got to find a way to be able to
stop these because this is postseason baseball, as I mentioned
in yesterday's show.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
You do this in the postseason, you're done. You're going home.
You're getting swept. You're not even.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
winning a single game in the postseason so in certain
cases you're asking guys that might not be up to
the task to be able to handle the task but
when your offense gives you six runs you win that
ball game you find a way to be able to
win that ball game and i mean as i mentioned
Your ace was not your ace last night. I mean,
(10:21):
that that four run third inning told you as much.
And then he gives up the solo homer with two
outs to Trey Turner, which I mean, again. It's one
of those where I mean, if you give up a
run or two, I get it, but you can't have
that inning go the way that it did. And I
understand that it was a lot of Phillies putting the
(10:42):
ball in play, finding holes and doing all of that.
But I mean, it was good situational hitting something that
has eluded this team for a really long time. Like
that would be nice. You know what Victor Rodriguez and
Anthony Iaposi should do? Take video of that inning runners
in scoring position. This is what you do. You see
a hole to the right side, poke it through the
hole in the right side and be able to get
(11:04):
somebody home.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
That's what you do. So yeah, the error from Walker
didn't help either that just arise, man, just because he's left-handed,
you're going to put in Brian King. What are we doing?
I looked at a hundred Brown was at 90 pitches.
Like if your life was on the line, would you
rather have a hundred Brown come back out with 90
pitches or put Brian King?
Speaker 3 (11:23):
What are we talking about? You know what the answer
is to that.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
And as I said earlier in this segment, I'm not
doing the matchups thing anymore. You cannot with a straight face,
go to a podium anymore and say matchups. You don't
have matchups. You're not good enough to be able to
get people out, okay? When you're good enough and you've
got guys that can be able to execute such matchups,
then you can use matchups.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
But you know what?
Speaker 1 (11:47):
I don't care if they're right-handed, left-handed, ambidextrous, whatever they are.
If they can get outs, they're in in that situation.
Don't give me splits. Don't give me matchups. Don't give
me any of those things. I want outs.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
That's what I need.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
And Brian King cannot get people out. And just to
add on to that, sometimes guys just have a bad year, Dan.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
That happens.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
Sometimes you have a down year. Brian King having a
really down year. That's why he's been back and forth
to the minors. You can't put him in in a
situation like that and expect a better result.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
You just can't.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
You just touched on it right there. I mean, I
trust my guys.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
You do?
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Well, because the shuttling between here and Sugar Land kind
of says differently. I understand inspiring confidence. You know where
I can inspire confidence? Give a guy a clean inning
when you got a five-run lead. That's where I can
inspire confidence. Not when I'm up by one and I
really would like to be able to get this game
and try to send it to a chance to sweep
them today. But with Zach Wheeler going, if you lose, okay, fine.
(12:48):
Two out of three against a really good Phillies team.
It was a mind boggling decision.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
I'm not going to lie.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I mean, I think that most of you listening to
me know that I've been a Joe Espada supporter, but
that was one I absolutely did not ride with last night.
and it turned out to be as such. Jim and Memorial,
see you right there. Work in.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
You want to join them? 713-212-5790. Again, it's 713-212-5790.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Okay, the guys that you can count on here, well,
that list might be short, but definitely do believe that
there are guys, regardless of the situation, you can go to,
talk about that, get you in on the phone lines,
and then also to get you set up for Astros
and Phillies, the finale coming up this afternoon. We're only
going an hour today because 11 o'clock, I hit you
with Astros on deck, so we got that coming for
(13:32):
you right here on your home of the Astros, Sports
Talk 790.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
First pitch, he rips it to right center field, moving
away from Crawford, and that is going to get down.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
That's 2,500.
Speaker 6 (13:43):
Altuve races for second base. It's a double. 2,500 hits
for Jose Altuve in his career. What a swing of
the bat. 21st double of the season for Jose Altuve.
And a huge hit in his career. They're going to
get that baseball out. He's going to keep it for posterity.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
There have been nearly 24,000 people who have played Major
League Baseball all time. And only 103 of them have
gotten 2,500 hits in their career. Congratulations to Jose Altuve.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Absolutely. Well, unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
The Astros really did subscribe to this 38th special song
because they held on loosely to leads. Because they had
a 4-0 lead, then they were tied. Then they had
a 6-4 lead, and they would very soon give that
one up, too, as they lose last night 11-7. But
as you just heard right there, we stan Jose Altuve.
We love Jose Altuve. Career hit number 2,500 for him, but...
(14:49):
All in all, not enough as the Strohs lose that
one 11-7. And now today, this afternoon, going to try
to take a very tough rubber game of this series
as Astros on deck is about 40 minutes away from
getting on your airwaves as it'll be Christian Javier against
Zach Wheeler for the finale of this one. Texans on
the practice field again. getting ready for the Bills on Sunday.
(15:12):
As I mentioned, I know a lot of you want
to be able to get in on the phone line,
so let's give you that opportunity at 713-212-5790. Again, it's 713-212-5790.
Jim Ann Memorial wants to get us started.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Jim, good morning. How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Good.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Good.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Could barely hear you, but now it's better.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
I just wanted to say I subscribed to Josh's podcast.
I just wanted to say you both are touching on.
I don't have really much to add, but I think
the biggest thing is productive outs. I mean, how many
times does this lineup strike out? You know, you look
at our teams of the past, and the biggest thing
(15:55):
opponents used to say was how long our lineup was. Because,
like you said, with the Phillies, that inning, they put
the ball in play and made productive outs. I'd also
like to talk about De Los Santos and King. Do
we have anybody else? I mean, and what do you
(16:17):
guys think of, you know, when a guy is struggling
with power or what have you, I know Jordan is
our best hitter.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
I love Jordan.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
But I think it would benefit him just to have
a couple of days off. I mean, Dusty Baker used
to do that. He'd give a guy a couple of
days off, and he'd come back, and he'd be on fire. But, yeah,
that loss hurt. When you score seven runs on this team,
you've got to bring home victories. You just never know
(16:46):
with this team. They lose to sub-500 teams, and then
they beat teams that are good. So I just don't
know what to think. But I love listening to your show,
and best of luck on your new time. And that's
all I got.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
I appreciate the call, Jim.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
I mean, in terms of off days, he's going to
have one coming up on Monday. I think for right now,
until you lock up whatever your postseason fate is, that
Jordan Alvarez is out there. He wants to be out there.
He should want to be out there. And I mean,
at least last night, it was encouraging to see him
get a couple of hits because I have wondered if
(17:23):
indeed fatigue is starting to get to him just a
little bit, Josh. Like I have wondered that, but I mean,
it's not just him. I mean, it's other guys in
Major League Baseball that are going through the same thing too,
where Yeah, you get tired.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I get that.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
But, I mean, he's in the lineup today, which is
not a surprise, and he's right there in that second spot.
And pretty much all the regulars are going today, except
for Yainer Diaz is not going. It'll be Christian Vasquez
catching Christian Javier. Yeah, I guess he's a DH, so
I'm kind of like, did he really need the day off?
Speaker 5 (17:56):
Most of the time he's a DH. Look, they just
had Monday off the other day. Today's Thursday, and they're
going to have another Monday off. Like I said— you
clench the division, then you can start giving guys days off.
I mean, that's first and foremost.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
I mean, yes, you'd like to catch the White Sox,
but getting into the postseason is the most important thing here.
So when that happens, then yes, you can use any
of the extra guys, which you just brought up two
of them, one position player, one pitcher when you expanded
your roster, but If you want to be able to
go that route, then go that route. But I mean,
as for right now, I need him in the lineup.
(18:31):
And last night, like I said, it was good to see.
It was nice to see him be able to have
the single to start off the game. And then he
quickly gets erased with an Isak Paredes double play. But still,
I mean, later on in the game, the RBI double
there to get the run scoring started there in the
third inning. I mean, these are nice things to see.
But again, as I've said, for the slumps combined that
(18:54):
he and Jeremy Pena have been going through you need
those guys to get going I mean it's just it's
it's a matter of fact they need to get going
because as you saw last night well you're probably in
a position where you got to score a lot more
runs than you have been recently because again your pitching
is just not good enough offense wasn't the problem last
night though you know you score seven runs in a
(19:14):
game Hunter Brown's your starting pitcher like that's on the
staff and the managing in my opinion Well, and then
as we mentioned too, I mean, just talking about said
staff and managing, I mean, in this case, Brian King
is who you decide to go with there in the
sixth inning. And as we mentioned, I mean, you just,
you cannot trust him. It's just, it's not even negotiable of, oh, well,
(19:38):
you know what? He just needs to make these mechanical tweaks. No,
he can't get people out. Like, I mean, it's not
like he's going to all of a sudden develop a
plus fastball or an out pitch to be able to
help them. I mean, if you're going to make any
adjustments whatsoever, that's going to have to come in the
off season, but I cannot count on him in any
such spot. I mean, you go to him in the
(19:58):
10th inning the other night and what happens? You go
to him last night.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
What happens?
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Like when you have a guy who is struggling to
get people out, I can't use him in such a spot.
And Ennio De Los Santos has been shaky, sure. But Josh,
if he had gone with Ennio De Los Santos there,
I would have been a lot more confident. I mean,
if you even go A.J. Blue Ball for an inning
right there, just give him the clean inning.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
That's fine.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
But you absolutely, and maybe this is a lesson learned,
I don't know, but you absolutely cannot do this in
the postseason. You're in a similar spot, which more than
likely you would be, and you go to Brian King,
go ahead and chalk it up as a loss because
you're not winning that game.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
You can't use last resort guys just because they're left-handed.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Well, I'm sorry. You can't do that.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Well, and that's, that's exactly it.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
I mean, it's, I guarantee you that was probably the
answer and we'll have a reaction from Astros manager, Joe
Espada as part of Astros on deck coming up here
in about 30 minutes. But I mean, you're not going
to go to Josh Hader there. You know that, I mean, that's,
One of those where in the postseason, you could be
in a tough spot and you use your closer to
come in. But that's more or less just you're using
(21:15):
them to come in and be able to get you
out of an inning and then maybe go back out
there for the next one.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
But very rarely.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
I mean, that's mostly you're doing that in a desperation,
keep our season alive type of situation.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Not right now.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
But I mean, like I said, I would have been,
I mean, I understand that Sousa has not been great,
but I go Bennett Sousa there. If you want lefty
on lefty, which I'm sure that that's probably the response,
then Bennett Sousa is your guy.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
That's who you go with there. Not Brian King.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Not at all.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
I mean, go with... I mean, at this point.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Like I said, you've got De Los Santos out there.
What is Miguel Yola doing? I like that idea, Dan.
Go with him. There's not really a big book on
him yet. He's got good stuff.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
That's the thing.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
How are you going to trust guys if you don't
use them? I mean, you know, I understand not using
Tatsuya Mai. I get that. And last night showed you
that there is no trust in Tatsuya Mai. Joe Espada
knew this game is over. I just need somebody to
get the last six outs for us, or at least
with those guys at the plate. And that's when he
used them. And he does walk the first two guys.
(22:27):
But then after a Josh Miller visit, able to settle
in and strike out three. So, I mean, that part
of it's nice. The walks are not great, but still,
I mean, go with him. I mean, it's almost anyone
else except for Brian King at this point. Because I
understand how your bullpen is taxed right now. And not
(22:47):
having Steven Okert really hurts. And you hope that you're
going to have Okert back on Tuesday because that's when
he's eligible to come off the IL. And he has
been throwing in West Palm Beach. So it'll be great
to have him back. But I mean, just that was
mind boggling to me. I mean, it was I was
coming back up here to do the 10th inning show.
And it's one of those that walking from the car
(23:09):
to the elevator, I'm looking it up on the at
bat app and seeing the play by play there.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
And I see King in and I'm like, this is
not going to go well.
Speaker 5 (23:17):
Same thing happened to me. I literally said that. I
saw King warming up, starting to run on the field.
I looked at my phone. I was like, oh, the
Seahawks-Patriots game is about to start. I'm going to put
that on because the Astros just said, we're giving up
on this game.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
This is over. And sure enough, it didn't take long
and it was over.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
And you put Blue Ball in a bad spot where
he's got to come in with the bases loaded against
a nasty lineup. Schwarber gets him. I just didn't like
how that was handled at all. It was something I
first guessed, Dan. It wasn't something in hindsight. This was
just so obvious. What are you doing before it even happened?
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Not good. Not good, to say the least.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
But the Astros hoping for more positive results today. Again,
like I said, it's going to be Christian Javier against
Zach Wheeler.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Not going to be easy. Wheeler 12-5 with a 3.23 ERA.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
But Hopefully, Christian Javier can kind of tap into that
magic that he had during the 2022 World Series. It
would be nice to see that guy again. It really
would be nice. It'd be very timely to get that
guy back on the mound. 713-212-5790 is the number to
get in.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
713-212-5790.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Permission to get into a little bit of Texans. Like
I said, I mean, we do have a short show today,
but I mean, a former Texan is trying not to
give bulletin board material, but he thinks he's being slick.
We'll talk about that right here as we continue. It
is the Dan Matthews Show on a Thursday, Sports Talk 790.
Dan Matthews Show, Sports Talk 790. We'll be with you
(24:45):
for a little bit longer before we hit you with
Astros on deck coming up at 11.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
We're truly delivering that for you.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Christian Javier getting the start this afternoon against Zach Wheeler
for the Phillies as the Strohs trying to get a
tough rubber game in this series before heading down to
Tampa to take on the Rays for three over the weekend.
You also have the Texans on the practice field getting
ready for the Buffalo Bills.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
On Sunday at Reliant Stadium.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
7-1-3, 2-1-2, 5-7-90.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
And at least for the Astros, I mean, clearly trying
to get a huge win today. It's one of those
where they've had to deal with people talking trash about
him before because CJ Gardner Johnson clearly is a guy
that used to be a Texan and is now at
(25:36):
the Buffalo Bills. And yesterday he practiced for the Bills.
So it does look like he's going to play in
this game. And he was asked of anything about his
former team. And he said that he was not going
to give any bulletin board material. However, with him kind
of sideswiping those questions, there was one that he was
(25:56):
asked of what he thought about CJ Stroud last season.
And he said, next question, which in the NFL, a
player saying next question is either they don't want to,
in a sense, make themselves guilty of talking trash or
doing any of these things like it's they just they
(26:18):
don't want to answer the question so they just say
next question and it seems like this is done in
the nfl much more than any other but what that
perceives to me is that he doesn't respect cj stroud
whatsoever i mean if nothing else you can give the
obligatory oh good player you know he he's he's a
young player he's trying to find his way in the
nfl did some really good things I enjoyed being around them,
(26:39):
any of those things. But I mean, if you next question,
just an innocent, innocuous question like that, that's what that
tells me. But the part that's laughable to me about
all of this is the perceived self-importance to believe that
anybody cares what you think about the Texans from your
time here.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
CJ, you were here three games, three games.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
And clearly it got to a point where the Texans said,
We can't have this guy on our defense because you
want to continue to freelance?
Speaker 3 (27:11):
You're going to continue to get us beat. So see
you later. Goodbye.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
It's been nice knowing you. We're not going to know
you anymore. They don't care. You could say whatever you want.
It's not going to add any fuel to this game.
It's not like the Texans are going to win and
then in the locker room afterwards, they're going to say, yeah,
we wanted to do this to shove it to CJ
Gardner Johnson. I mean, that's a mouthful enough to be
able to say, but I can almost guarantee you that
(27:36):
unless there is some sort of maybe, you know, fight
like Javon whims a few years ago with them, something
like that on the field that CJ Gardner Johnson won't
even be mentioned in the post game locker room scrums,
win or lose in this one. He's just not even
going to be at the front of anyone's mind. It's
just going to be about what they either did or
(27:57):
didn't do.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
And that's as far as it's going to go.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Yeah. He's an afterthought.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
He was traded for Kenyon Green by Howie Roseman, who's
basically the best GM in football, traded him away for
Kenyon Green.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
That should tell you everything.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
And when I think of the next question thing, I'm like,
was that Drew Rosenhaus that started that?
Speaker 1 (28:18):
I think it was because, I mean, he did it.
And again, I mean, the NFL is the ultimate copycat
league where somebody hears or sees something and they're like, oh, hey,
I'm going to start doing that. Cause yeah, I want
to say that he did it with Terrell Owens. That's
what I'm thinking too. Yeah. And it was like when
Terrell Owens was going through his whole thing in Philadelphia.
So that's where I think that started. But I mean,
(28:41):
you do have, and a lot of times too, it's
usually done in a joking manner. Like I'm trying to remember,
was it Derek Ward? Was that the running back? That
the Texans had for a time. Yeah, that sounds right.
And players every once in a while during scrums with
the media will jump in and ask like a funny
question or do anything to kind of like, you know,
play along with it. And I think it was Jacoby
(29:03):
Jones that asked one and he.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Goes, next question.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
You just, you know, just playing along with the joke
right there. But I mean, but like, why do you
even need to next question that? I mean, you asked
me how I feel about somebody that maybe I'm not
the biggest fan of, but at least I can go
ahead and be professional enough to say, yeah, they're good
at their job.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
They're fine.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
I mean, clearly I've been very critical of certain people
in this business, but I mean, if I actually don't
have a problem with the way that people do their
job and I don't necessarily personally like them, then I'll
leave the personal side out of it.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
I'll just say, yeah, you know what? They're really good
at their job. That's as far as I leave it.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
He's disrespecting him.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
You're right.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
No, that's 100% what that was. So in effect, where
you're like, I'm not going to give any bulletin board material.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
You just did. You just did.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
But I can also guarantee you that the person who
could care the least is number seven. Because I don't
think he's going to care about a guy who was
basically the same value as.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
An extra in a movie talking trash about him.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Like, do you think that, you know, Tom Cruise would
care what an extra has to say about him? You know,
what Timothy Chalamet said? would care what an extra says
about them. Matthew McConaughey, anybody like that. I mean, I
could go on continuing naming names. They don't care. You
were on the field for probably a huge reason why
that final touchdown was given up. I mean, I need
(30:32):
to go back and look at the play, but against
the Rams, you set up the Jaguars in week three
to be able to get that. And then you're trash
talking Baker Mayfield and you as part of the defense,
give up a long run to Baker Mayfield to be
able to set them up for what would turn out
to be the game winning score against you in that
Monday night football game. So the Texans clearly saw that
(30:54):
you were a liability to their defense and they moved
on from you.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
That's their right.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
And they funny enough, got a lot better as a
defense after CJ Gardner Johnson was not.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Part of it.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
Didn't he go to the Ravens and get cut, but
for after a cup of coffee before he ended up
with the bears last year, I feel like I remember that.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
No, he's, I mean, he's definitely bounced around and I mean,
I don't think he's a bad guy. I just think
that he's kind of a knucklehead is probably the best
way to describe it with him. And I mean, we
all know people like that, that it's like, they're not
bad people. Like they're not maliciously bad people, but they
seemingly always have one foot on the banana peel. He
kind of, he kind of seems like that, that he's
(31:32):
that guy that just happens to take a step to
his right.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
And then pow, there's a rake right there. Like that's,
that's what he is. Constantly.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Constantly probably oblivious to a lot of things.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
And values himself way more than really anybody else does.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah, I just Googled it.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
Ravens signed him to their practice squad on October 7th, 2025,
released him one week later.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Well, hopefully the hotel room was nice that he was
staying in there in Baltimore because that's about all he
really got to enjoy. Some crab cakes, perhaps? I was
going to say, yeah, you can head over to Jimmy's.
That's a good spot right there in Baltimore, be able
to get that. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, you
go to Maryland, you got to get those crabs. I'll
tell you what, of all the seasonings, Old Bay might
(32:20):
be the best. Old Bay on basically anything makes it
so much better. It's one of the most versatile. That,
Tony Satchery's, yeah. It's good stuff. You can get some
mileage out of it for sure. Saison, if I'm even
saying it right, Now, you know, that's a good one.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Adobo.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
That's, that's another good one.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
See, we could, we could almost do kind of a, um,
you know, Matt and Ross in the morning style, uh,
power rankings of spices.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
And I think we'd get some good ones.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
They had quite a discussion about Arby's this morning that
was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Really?
Speaker 3 (32:52):
What was the take on Arby's?
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Matt liked it. Nobody else really did. See, that's the thing, too,
is I'm right with Matt on this.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
I like Arby's. I really do.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
But I almost feel like that people are kind of
in the obligatory answer phase of that. where, you know,
somebody mentions Nickelback. Ah, I hate Nickelback. It's like, do
you really feel that way? Or do you feel obligated
to say it that way? And I feel like that
Arby's is kind of pigeonholed in that exact same way.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
The roast beef sandwich is fantastic. The horsey sauce. Let's go.
The jalapeno poppers. Yes. The curly fries. Uh-huh.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
All of it.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
You get my point here? They have a lot of options.
I will give them that. Arby's slaps, man.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
It slaps. And I mean, It's one of those two
that it's more of a Southeast thing like Hardee's and
like places like that. It's not so much here. Like,
if you see one here, you're kind of like, oh, man,
you don't see those very often. But, no, I'm an
Arby's guy. Matt Thomas, if you're still out there listening,
I'm with you on this.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
I got your back.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
All right, 713-212-5790. Again, it's 713-212-5790. What a coup it
would be if you were able to do this today,
if you're the Astros. But also, too, as well, it's
not like you're out of the woods just yet. We'll
talk about that in 15 minutes from now. We're jumping
into Astros on deck, get you set for the finale
in this series. All that, much more still to go
(34:13):
right here. It is the Dan Matthews Show, Sports Talk 790.
All right, spending a couple more minutes with you here
on the Dan Matthews Show before we send it over
to me on Astros on deck. That's coming your way
in less than 10 minutes as we get you set
for the Astros and the Phillies in the final game
of this series up in Philadelphia. It'll be Christian Javier
(34:34):
throwing against Zach Wheeler. as the Strohs would really like
to be able to bounce back. But one thing that
I will give you, and you'll hear me say during
Astros on Deck, it's no secret that Zach Wheeler is
really good. But the three times that you faced him
during the regular season, well, you've beaten him once, so
you've done it before, which means you could do it again.
(34:54):
But he is a career one-and-one against them in three
regular season appearances. It's got a 1.00 ERA, though. So
if you think you're going to score a lot of
runs today against Zach Wheeler, but then that's the funny thing, Josh.
You know, I'm telling people last night, hey, hammer that under,
that 9.5 with Hunter Brown and Christopher Sanchez on the mound.
(35:17):
And then we weren't feeling very good because, well, you
only needed to get through about 3.3 before that was
out the window.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
As a matter of fact, it wasn't even a third.
It was 3+.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Because you get Dalton Varshow on with the leadoff bunt single, which,
by the way, two bunts laid down last night. So
the callers at 713-212-5790 who call for bunts, congratulations.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
You got two of them last night. It was your day.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
You got Barossa laying one down for a sacrifice, which
did actually work because, I mean, I will give him
credit for that. You luckily were able to score four
runs with two outs. So congratulations.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
You win that one.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
And then, of course, Dalton Varshow laying down a drag
bunt there to be able to get on base. And
then Louisa Rice, I think, tried to do like a
little glove flip or whatever it was. It gets past
Kyle Schwarber and you get Dalton Varshow on second. And
then Cam Smith promptly putting one into the right center
field bleachers. So, you know, those parts were nice. So, yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
You got to 10 combined runs.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
You hit the over before you had even gotten out
number 10 of the game at that point. Vegas knew, baby.
I thought about that last night.
Speaker 5 (36:25):
I was like, Dan, I was just talking about the
over-under being a high total. And sure enough, it was
a high-scoring game.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
So Vegas knows. They know. If you had told me
that was the score the night before with Andrew Painter
on the mound, and even though Hayden Wisniewski has been
really good, then I would have said, okay, that makes sense.
Because that one I think would have been a little
bit closer to night one, but it just shows you
how weird baseball is. So anyway, it's going to be
a tough one this afternoon. I mean, look, it's one
(36:54):
of those that you're looking for boosts any way that
you can get them. And this would be a massive
boost to be able to get out of here with
a series win.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Huge.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Because then there's not as much pressure to go into
Tampa Bay. Because at that point, you lose two out
of three to Tampa Bay. You're kind of like, okay,
three and three week. It was a tough stretch. get
the Royals next week, get the Braves at home, and
then try to be able to handle those games before
you head back out, which, I mean, then it's going
to be two in Seattle where it's not been easy
(37:24):
for you. And then for whatever reason, the A's have
seemingly had your number where it's not only out in
Sacramento at that rinky-dink stadium that they have, but also
here at Dyken Park, too, as well, as they've now
proven two years in a row in the month of
August where they can come in here and beat you
in a crucial series.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
So, You've got that working against you.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
So you'd like to be able to head into that
final week, like I said, where things are figured out.
And you've got the opportunity to be able to do that.
I mean, the Rangers still have some tough games left
on their schedule. Handle your business where, I mean, today,
if you get a similar offensive performance, I think that
you probably see Joe Espada employ his bullpen a little
(38:04):
bit differently where it's not going to involve Brian King,
I would think. But, I mean, that you see him
go about his business a lot differently. I mean, I'm
watching MLB Network in here, and they were showing Ronell
Blanco thrown on the field. I mean, maybe you go
Blanco out of the pen if you need a couple
or three innings to be able to bridge things up today.
I could absolutely see that, and that would be welcome
(38:25):
if he's able to give you good stuff on the mound. Now,
that's a huge if, because you definitely do need that
to be the case.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
Anyway, that is going.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
To close the book on us here on the Dan
Matthews show for the day, but the Dan Matthews show
now transitions into Astros on deck. That's coming your way
right here. He is young Joshua Jordan. We're still hanging out,
but I'm Dan Matthews. We'll be back at it tomorrow.
Lee Sterling, Paramount Sports, going to join us. Also going
to have Aaron Wilson for his weekly visit and still
(38:54):
efforting to get a couple of other people on. One
Buffalo guest and then also two. One NFL as a whole.
So definitely want to get you set up for Sunday.
We will do all of that. Plus get you ready
for the Astros and the Rays. That's all coming your
way right here on your home of the Astros and
the Rockets. Sports Talk 790. Goodbye now.
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