The A-Team: Ronel No-No, SayWhat?! and Congrats Ime

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named athim talking Your Teams series, Adam Clinton
and Adam Wexler r the A teama team, not one, not two,
not three, not four, butmore than Lebron could ever imagine.

(00:23):
Home runs yesterday from the Houston Astros, only three guys hit one, all
three of them pretty meaningful individually.Jeremy Panna went over the fence in a
Major League Baseball game, regular seasonor postseason for the first time in three
hundred and sixty eight played appearances threehundred and twenty nine at bats, and
that was his first at bat ofthe game, and he knew it.

(00:44):
He talked about it after the game, talked about it with MT a few
minutes ago, noticeably made note ofit to himself and everybody else when he
came back to the dugout looking upto the skies and then the other two
guys each hit Tumra two home runs, Kyle Tucker and Jiner Dz both hit
two home runs. Hey, doesanybody who want to send me a cute
Dusty Baker meme? Today? Doesn'thave to be that one does have to

(01:07):
be that way because you should havebeen playing this whole time. And God
bless America. Why was this sucha thing. Why is it still a
thing? Because he's awesome? Okay, the only reason it matters is if
you think he should have started everysingle playoff game and it would have made
a difference. Yes, now that'sperfectly fine. But here's the all the
other regular season games he didn't playin and the five that he's played in
this year. Yeah, which isa very limited number. And yet he's

(01:30):
the best catcher in baseball in twentytwenty four. I mean, so far,
it's not. I mean again,I am aware of how it s
the only one that's caught no hitterand called he's the only one that has
a two homer game, if I'mnot mistaken. I mean, do you,
honestly do you think he sent dustyattacks last night? I don't think
his relationship was in my mind thatthe mind is his relationship. That has

(01:53):
nothing to do with it. Here'sit again, I go back to the
regular seagu He could have started onehundred and forty games and they would have
done what finished second in the AmericanLeague to the Orioles exactly like they did.
Correct. But here's the problem Ihave. It's fine, for me,
and I'm I don't care this much, but I know people that do,
and it's perfectly fine for them tosay something like that. Today,

(02:15):
even before a no hitter out,we don't even bring it up. You
have to finish everything that happened thathas nothing. You're not letting me finish.
This is what you do. Ialmost said it already seven minutes in.
What difference does it make? Theyhad a no hitter and they scored
ten runs and they finally got awin and everything fell into place. And

(02:36):
why do we care what happened withDusty last year? How does that impact
today at all? Because for fourdays, for four games, you actually
had dumbasses saying Dusty Dusty, JoeSpotty came and manage you like it's that's
the stuff that happens, right,So we got to come back at them
today absolutely, or not mention themon Friday Show or Monday Show, which

(02:58):
we properly didn't. If they're sodumb, why are we talking about them?
Because I was still seeing it goinginto last night's game, and it
was dumb. Then it's dumb now. So you spent a couple of days
at the Yard, one at streetFest, and then the game, and
then the other day we did ashow there from from the ballpark as well,
and before you came in on Mondayafter the four losses. Yeah,

(03:20):
actual person, Did an actual personsay something to you, yes about hey,
yes, what do you think Dusty? Multiple people did me too.
I can't lie, and it definitelyhappened. That's that's part of why I
listen. I know where you're comingfrom, and I don't even blame you,
but I just you're not saying itas if it isn't happening, and
I'm not trying to protect That's whyI'm saying it happened. I heard it.

(03:42):
They said it to people that,you know, I don't think are
idiots too. This is not JoeSchmoe guy. I saw on Twitter,
Like you know, I think alot of people assume sometimes. Did they
say it as a joke? Youthink Dusty's laughing? But you want me
to read the actual message because I'mgonna have to clean it. Did you
have a verbal conversation? So yeah? I thought so yeah. I It's
how about why don't we ask didDusty send a text to Joe congratulating him

(04:05):
on his first win? No waywhy not. I that's his bench coach.
But here's the thing that's the problem. Where Dodgers as a member of
the Giants as they did yesterday,well it's not really on Dusty, but
work there. They do have BlakeSnell, so they got that going for
them. No, I when whenI know things about that particular relationship,

(04:29):
Hence why I can say with fullconfidence he's not going to be sending Joe
a text message. I don't thinkpeople In fact, I know people don't
understand how complex that situation was andprobably still is to this day. And
that's why when I see that stuff, I kind of smirk because there's a
lot of truth to it. Nottruth, Uh, there's a lot of
validity to it. That's probably abetter word. Look, we're gonna celebrate

(04:53):
a no hitter. We're gonna celebratethe Astros actually getting a victory for the
first time all season. I justevery time I saw Listen, I saw
a buddy of ours last night inthis business send out a message about it,
essentially saying they we should all bedoing what we're doing, which is
celebrating to win. But you can'thelp but think where the what was the

(05:16):
reason in fact, somebody else sentme the quote last night that was that
was Dusty Baker talking about why hewasn't playing Y or Diz last year.
Do you know the one where thecity's gonna thank him later They're they're not
thinking he's like an easter Bee call, but doesn't feel like that. No,

(05:38):
why easter Bee was a bleeping curseword on top of curseword disaster for
the franchise. Dusty was an unbelievablyhumongous winner, including a championship. Could
not be more polar opposite. Hedidn't win anything until he got here.
Anything does does open you up towhat do you consider anything? You mean,

(06:00):
he didn't win a World Series.I just think that there was a
like more than the most smattering ofAstro's fan base that worshiped this guy.
And I don't really, I honestlydon't understand it, because did he have
this resume of all these things bothinside the game and outside the game?
Yes, And I realized its firstsegment of the show, and people are
gonna be like, why are wetalking about Dusty Baker after he was about

(06:21):
to say it. I get that, but I I can't not know that
people are saying this to me inthe midst of a no hitter. I
can't ignore it, especially when Ihave a pulpit. I just I can't
not share that it's it is fascinatingto me. It's honestly one of the
most fascinating topics in the history ofHouston sports. Since I've been doing this.

(06:43):
It's just as fascinating. And whenI say fascinating, I mean maddening
as drafting Vince Young. It's justas fascinating as it moves Steve Francis to
the two. There are people outthere, all the timers, no idea
what I'm talking about right now.That was a thing, a driving topic
in what we do for a living, just like Martin Maldonado versus yinor Diaz
was last year. And the manthat was keeping this catcher from playing as

(07:05):
much as he did is why thisis a topic. But congrats to Renel
Blanco, for sure. What dowe have to do? What do we
do with talk Kyle Tucker's to Homers? We just don't have to anything because
just a regular guys say it's abouttime. Where was that issue during the
playoffs last year too? I mean, seriously, last night was about redemption
for a lot of guys, notjust Joe Spota, not just spot redemption.

(07:30):
I was waiting for it to register. Suriously. I had to.
I can't help myself, do you. Hey, Joe, you got your
first win last night. You canfeel a little bit more comfortable when you
meet with Jim about keeping your job. Could you imagine that conversation if you
don't win soon, we're gonna we'regonna, we're gonnaf you. We're gonna
have to let you go, Letyou go. I feel like there are
some people that think that might havehappened. Look, the Astros aren't gonna,

(07:53):
like just go off on a fifteengame winning streak now necessarily, but
it does feel a lot better thanit. Need to do something like that
very fast, though. Why ifyou win two out of three of this
series, you're still just two andfive. If you win a couple games
against the Rangers next weekend, you'restill under five hundred. Eventually you need
to string the I know you stillhave one hundred and fifty seven ago,

(08:15):
but is what it takes. Famouslysay wins, just win serious, not
to spring mark grab a sweep here. Well, now that you've had one
against you, you gotta go getone. Well again, they won last
night and they're planning parades up therein New York. It's it's clear to
me, and it were really funny. So that's a lot it is.
That is the That is the absoluteexample of it's a long season. Just

(08:35):
don't freak out if your team isthe Astros and don't be planning parade routes.
But what is it called up there? The the Canyon of Champions?
What I have It's been a whilesince they've had. Yeah, that canyon
of here. No, no,no, that's that's at the ballpark.
I'm talking about the actual parade routeroute there was like it's called the Grand
Canyon. It's not even in Texas. You know. You would ruin the

(08:56):
end of the segment with a dadjoke most of the rest of it too,
right, I did that. Ithought that was me. Now we've
been taking it. This is Thisis the material and the content that you
guys crave here on Sports Talk sevenninety and we got plenty more of it
to go here on a Tuesday editionof the A Team Sports Talk seven ninety.
Speaking of streaks, the Rockets willtry to start a new one tonight.
So that is something we can getto. We've got Rob Zombie Alice

(09:20):
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(10:31):
Sports Talk to seven ninety, goesup Stars, Rockets, basketball lives here,
All right, MTNA, See ifI can make Wex's head explode one
last time and then we'll move on. But since you asked, I got
another message during the break about thistopic, and I don't think this part.
I'm not gonna say this person's nameto protect the innocent, but they

(10:54):
had a pretty long back and forthabout the dusty thing with someone else that
was on the other side of things, and this person said that he told
the other person. I told thatguy we one hundred percent deserved to troll,
having gone through the multi bleep wehad to deal with last year,
and the person was obviously on theother side of the fence. I think

(11:15):
it wouldn't really matter as much tome if I didn't see and hear as
much of the dusty truthers as Icall them, puffing their chests out over
the weekend. Like if you're anAstros fan and the first thing you think
of is to say, whoa Dustywouldn't have done this? Or Joe's spot
like in the first weekend. Firstof all, your brain dead, you
just are. That's just a ofall the things you could be upset about,

(11:39):
because there were plenty, and wejust talked about them all yesterday.
Hey, why did the Astros getswept by the Yankees the first four games
of the season. Well, here'sthe list. None of it had to
do with Dusty Baker, And Iwould say, I mean, if you
want to put a percentage on it, wex how much percentage of it had
to do with Joe Aspota five seven? I'm trying to be nice. What

(12:01):
number does he wear? Nineteen?I don't know, let's go with that.
Okay, Really, you're gonna givethem nineteen, which just to make
it as random and dumb as you. We're gonna go bullpen, We're gonna
go Why don't you go with themost important one, the bats roster?
He doesn't play correct, They playlike, how much does Dana Brown get
if we're gonna do this, Well, usually that's when you say roster,

(12:22):
you would, but his offensive rosteris perfectly fine. That's not Dana's fault.
It's not his fault that Alex Bregmanand Jordan Alvarez are still waiting for
the season to begin tonight's Game six. They've been absolutely horrific at the play.
He's just letting everybody else have theirflowers. So that's not Dana's fault
in any way. Providing Joe withreasonably proven options in the bullpen is something

(12:46):
that he definitely did not do,only at the back end. And then
again, now it's not on Dustyor not on Dana or Joe that the
trustworthy bullpen arms he did provide Joewith. We're all awful, right.
The best game of the season fora bray you, Presley and hater was
yesterday because they got to watch itand didn't have to pitch in it.

(13:07):
No offense to the good outings thatthey've had, but they've pitched in every
game but one that's the one theywon. I mean, is there anybody
on the roster, since we're justgiving that general term, that has had
just there's nothing good to speak ofto start the year through five games.
However, Wow, you know whatI'm saying. Day after they get their
first win, score ten runs,hit, five homers, even up their

(13:28):
run differentially and get a no hitter. We're trying to find the worst thing
going. They are still one four. I put it on Greg Kessinger.
He's now oero for one. Whatabout Montero, I mean he gave up
a homer. He inherited a mess, did he not? No, it
was with a one run lead.I thought Hunter Brown left some men on

(13:52):
basis. That was his second appearance. Okay, first appearance was the after
Martinez walked a guy to make itfour to three. Then he got out
that inning. That was the secondMontero came in and said, ninth place
hitter. I should meetball this guypure right over the fence. Gosh.
I just I get it. Iget where both sides are coming from.

(14:13):
But I mainly get the ones thatwere like, hey, why weren't you
playing you on your Diaz last year? I get that because I just maybe
if if Dusty hadn't made that statement, it wouldn't be that. But for
sure, you nailed it with theeaster bee comparison, because it's like,
oh, you'll laugh later, No, we won't, and we're not going
to thank you later either, Andit does stand to reason. I can't
tell you what would happen, butthere's reasoning behind it. Add another one

(14:35):
hundred at bats one hundred and twentyfive played appearances to his regular season and
have him become the regular catcher.Take whatever impossible to decipher, determine lumps
you're getting from the pitching staff becauseoh my god, he has to catch
everybody. Now, Justin's got tofigure out how to throw pitches to him.
Heck, Martin could have caught thatone day a week. But if

(14:56):
he gets all that extra activity duringthe regular season and then just goes right
into the postseason as the everyday catcher, the guy who's expected to catch every
single inning of the postseason, whichis normally what they do with your everyday
catcher in the postseason, right,then he's probably not gonna have as awful
an offensive performance in the postseason ifhe will. And again, it's some

(15:20):
fair, some unfair, because leadinginto the postseason, while he never became
the everyday catcher, the regular catcher, he was clearly getting regular at bats
because he was still in the lineupthree days a week, four days a
week, sometimes five. It justwasn't five or six, it was more
like three or four. Because hewas dhing quite a bit and playing catcher.
I just think that you look atthe numbers he did put up in
that limited role, and then youlook at again, admittedly a very small

(15:45):
stample size, but like, who'shotter coming out of the gate than Yin
or Daz at the plate? Yeah, nobody. Uh, there's not a
catcher in baseball that's out playing him. I don't know that at the end
of the season he's gonna rank numberone, but there's an exceptionally short list
of catchers. I expect other peoplein the Major League Baseball national landscape to
consider better than jan Diaz, andif they do, they're gonna have to

(16:07):
prove it with some kind of statisticalbacking, whether it's with the pitching staff,
the team's performance, or his ownindividual offense because some of the other
I mean Adlee Rutchman's the first namethat comes to mind in the American League.
Everybody's ready to put him in theMVP race because they like him,
because he's a top pick, becausehe's played well. He played period,
but well he was already entrench bylast year. But he plays on the

(16:29):
best team like Yaner this year,isn't on the best team if he was
on the team the last couple ofyears, he would have the Orioles are
the best team. He's got nothingbut stars all over the field with him
for five games and they're well,their record isn't even necessarily but they're they're
going to be awesome, and theyare awesome, and their roster's full.
He's not. I don't know howhe would win the MVP. There's too
many good players there. It's justlike what Altuve has the MVP. That's

(16:52):
it. Yeah, it's not thateasy to win. And he saw it
from just as Cody Bellinger. Iwanted to figure out. I couldn't get
it out in the Twitter verse fastwhen he stole that hit for Aaron Judge
that last series, when he hitthat one hundred and fourteen mile an hour
rope up the middle and I'll twoof it, just duck his glove up
caught it. It's nice stole thatfrom him too. Oh well. The
best part of all of this isthat there's finally something to say, not

(17:17):
what are they doing wrong? Theydid everything right last night. It makes
it very easy when your pitcher isgetting soft contact all night long, when
he's confusing hitters with his off speedpitches. The guests just keep swinging over
the top of their offense. Obviouslyput him on easy street right out of
the gate. You know, Tuckerto go opo. Yaner's first home run
was an absolute mammoth shot onto thetrain tracks and on a pitch well up

(17:41):
and out of the strike zone.He can do those things for them both
to have too homers for paying youto get off the home run zero for
such a long period of time.And add additional to that, he drove
in two more runs. He's hadan awesome offensive start to the season.
Their defense was terrible. I thinkis fair to call it. Through the
first four games the year. Bothteams were by the way in that suit

(18:02):
yes and then but then yesterday,I thought the play du Bond made when
Renelle did not let the ball gopast him and he gloved it and it
went right out of his glove andwent into Dubond's in the eighth inning,
right after he'd come in as areplacement for Jose Altuve. It is a
defensive replacement situation. Quite honestly,he's a better defensive player than Altuve is
at second base, and he madethat play. It was nice that the

(18:23):
catcher was the one who hit it, and he's by far the slowest player
on the team and made it alittle bit easier to get the out.
I I'm appreciative of Jose Obray whomaking his play in the ninth in a
no hitter. I think it gaineda little bit of extra Wow, what
a play. Most first baseman justlean over, glove it and throw it

(18:44):
to first. It was not anunbelievable play. He kind of just fell
over. Yeah, that's probably afair description of light. He was sitting
on his butt when he had tomake a good throw and he did.
Who is it that made a shotthe other night, Oh, Josh giddy
from his backside, from his backside, And that wasn't even the most ridiculous
shot hit against the Rockets in aweek now, because Luca's scoop shot from

(19:07):
inside the three more ridiculous. I'venever seen that in my life, and
I've seen a lot of NBA games, I've never seen something like that.
Speaking of which, Rockets will beback in action tonight, but today is
all about Renel Blanco. We hadto give this kid some love considering how
he got there, and just let'sjust talk about his last week. If

(19:29):
you just strip everything away and youtalk about his last week of his life.
A week ago Monday, he hadonly one child and zero no hitters
and only seven other starts. Nowhe has two children and a no hitter
and an eighth start. Yeah,it was pretty incredible last night. So
yeah, plenty more on the astrosto discuss as we continue here on a

(19:49):
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(21:17):
every Rockets game, more Sports talkseven to nine hand streaming on the Ihart
Radio ad Home of your Rockets.Hey Wex, Hey man, you know
what was awesome about last night?I couldn't tell you because there's so many
things to guess. What was andwhat is? I guess I should say
Renel Blanco's e r A right nowit's zero points zero zero, and so

(21:41):
that's important when you start talking aboutthe fact that his team is one and
four and has only one team aheadof them or I guess, in this
case, behind them when it comesto starters e r A after five games,
Yeah, one team ahead of them. I know, But you know
what I you know I say thatthey're ranked second, the team ahead of

(22:04):
them is ranked first. Yeah,but you know, now I have to
do this. I guess I can'twait to hear what's next. They're one
eighty four e r A second inMajor League Bay for starting pitchers, and
they have a one and zero recordto show for it as a group of
starters. None of the other starterslost were tagged with the right. There

(22:26):
were four bullpen arms that got aloss a piece. And is this does
this contribute or take away from theargument you always make about well, actually
it's more record. I guess youmake that argument about with with starting pitchers
or just pitchers in general versus er A. I mean, ERA is
usually a little bit better indicator ofhow you pitched an average that you hate

(22:49):
so much. I don't hate it. We just have better story. We
have better numbers to look at.It's not a bad number, but other
numbers tell you more. But thatis fascinating because it's it's a little the
same. Right if you take RenelBlanco out, which is a big takeout
because he just threw a no hitter, I mean the astro starters, Yeah,
they've got a great It was alow er, but they didn't pitch

(23:11):
very much. No, getting himto go nine innings is insane at this
point the season first started the season, first five games the season, nobody
else in baseball that did that,So there's other starters weren't weren't expecting to
do that either. Getting Fromber throughsix was probably an expectation. He got
four and two thirds, you know, Hunter Brown. Getting Javier through six
was probably the expectation, and hedid that because they didn't give up hardly

(23:33):
any hits a run. He gaveup no runs. Hunter Brown probably expected
him to pitch into the sixth knowingsome of his history and what played out.
He ended up only pitching four innings. You know, JP Frantz pitched
more than probably people would have expectedbecause he got into the sixth inning.
And this is a guy who hada little bit of a shortened spring training
because of his coming to camp witha little bit of an issue. And

(23:56):
then obviously he got nine full inningsone hundred and five pitches from Renel Blanc
and twenty nine and a third inningsfrom the first trip through the rotation.
You know, thirty innings five timessix. If everybody wants six. That's
what you would average is right atthirty, and they were just under that.
What is an issue and not?It wasn't an issue. Yesterday he
issued two walks. They're starting pitchersare among the leaders, and walks aloud.

(24:19):
Half of them came from one guythe first game, six of them.
But if they have an ERA anywherenear this the rest of the season,
they unbelievable shit. And conversely,you know, the bats. This
is why the Yankees series was sofrustrating, because everybody just wants to say,
well, what the bats were saddening. They weren't silent, and just

(24:41):
like in twenty twenty three, oneof the biggest hang hang ups I always
had with the Astros because they weresuccessful despite of it or in spite of
it. They're getting guys on base. Jordan Alvarez is getting on base,
not the way you're not with hisbat necessarily, but they're just not driving
them home. There's a difference between, you know, runners left on base

(25:03):
and just not doing anything. Idon't think the bats were silent or I
don't think the necessarily all the atbats were bad. You just weren't driving
them in in clutch moments, oryou needed to drive them in, and
you weren't. Even with yesterday's exploits. Obviously there were runners on for a
couple of those homers, not necessarilyin scoring position for all those hits.
With everything they did yesterday, they'retwenty sixth in Baseball in ops with runners

(25:29):
in scoring position. They're hitting twotwenty two gross. It's awful, and
that's why they lost them. Here'sthe stat that tells you nothing, but
he normally tells you everything. They'vescored the same number of runs as their
opponents twenty one in twenty one.Given up, you should be two and
three, three and two. Maybeyou got lucky and went four and one,

(25:49):
or you got super super unlucky andwent one and four. That's why
I feel like that, and againstwhy sample size you have a ten tohing
game. That's obviously why. Thisis why they they were minus ten.
This is why I said the Yankeesaren't that good and the Astros aren't that
bad. Well, see, Idon't think they're that good because of what
I saw. I think they're thatgood because I just think the Yankees are

(26:11):
gonna have a good season because Ithink their players are more capable of performing
this year than the group they hadlast year. And this is all two
months of no Garrett Cole at least, I'm fascinated to see if it holds
up. It has so far afterleaving Houston. They haven't played a game
at home yet, so clearly they'rewinning the World Series. Just ask their
fans or me apparently, No,no, no, no, no,
I just I'm hoping. See.The good thing about this is just kind

(26:37):
of like last year. And Isaid this, I said this during spring
training, I said, is RenelBlanco gonna end up being this year's JP
France? Well? JP France didn'thave this good of a start last to
his regular rotation career. Yeah.JP France is one of the few guys
in the Astros rotation who hasn't throwna no hitter. He's not Fromber,

(26:59):
He's not Hovy, he's not Blanco, He's not Verlander, all four of
them. It is insane that theythe rotation yet five of the last seven
Is that what it was in MajorLeague Baseball for the last seven or for
the last seven combines and admitted morethan every other team in baseball combined.
Well, they must be cheating again. That's the only well, how did
this is new? What you tellme? What it is? The favor

(27:22):
that I saw last night? Theyscuffing the ball better? I got you
one better, the best one Isaw last night of all the stuff I
saw. It helps when you knowwhat pitch is coming. It's so good
it helps him him to throw.That's why it's funny. See. I
I enjoyed that one a great deal, probably more than I should. But

(27:42):
uh yeah, it gives you,you know what you probably should have enjoyed
almost as much as last night's nowhitter. Mm film Aton's outing Phil Maton's
outing Rangers and Rays last night ina lopsided game. At this point,
please tell me I'm right. FilmAton, tell me I'm right. Threw

(28:03):
a ball that was not very farinside. Because some hitters like Anthony Rizzo
or Adolas Garcia eat the plate whenthey stand on it and try to hit
baseball. I'm so mad. Iget hit all the time with my big,
roided up body and huge head.So he hit him on the hand
and he very visibly upset Astro.Film Aton current Astro more like it.

(28:26):
That was just wearing a raised uniform. That was nice. It was nice
to Phil to pick things up.I there was a ranger who got hit
in the last night's game on aswing and broke his wrist. That's too
bad, Josh Young out how longis you give me? Out? Months
and change? Didn't really give atie. I haven't seen the timetable yet.
We got our own problems here inHouston. I don't care. I
don't well, I'm only saying itbecause that's their next opponent. They're playing

(28:49):
against them. Yeah, okay,and he wore out the Astros in the
ALCS, one of many. DolasGarcia, I want every part of that
smoke. I want your roided upself. Wrote this on our show doc
today so we would be sure totalk about it. These are my words.
Adolas Garcia is absolutely juicing and theped pop is going to be tremendous.
And then I put a link foreverybody else to read during the show

(29:11):
if we needed it. That wasdid that? Yeah, I wrote that
on that, not me. Thoseare my words. So I played the
role of WEX today. You're juicingand the pop is going to be tremendous.
Tell me I'm wrong, I mean, I can't. People are picking
up on it. People are makingmeans It's ridiculous. This guy. I
saw something last night and I've heardthis before. That's the only reason I'm
bringing this up. Somebody had apicture of him and they talked about the

(29:33):
traps. You see that. Youknow what I'm talking about, right,
But the thing is, Oh,these are like the same sleuths who you
were so mad at about the buzzers. Look at the wrinkle in his jersey.
Okay, time out. We're talkingabout muscle development and the size of
a guy's head versus confetti. Thatwas Reddick. Reddick had the actual he
still had the tape on. Otherpeople like Altuve had the jersey wrinkle.

(29:56):
One has validity and the other onewas Yankees fan. It's bitter again.
I mean Adulas Garcia. If he'snot using something illegal, I'll be shocked.
At this point. There's no efingway that's normal. And all you
have to do is look at thesize of Barry bonds his head and tell

(30:18):
me that that's not the same exactthing. Is the substance the same?
No, because he's got a goodchemist just like Barry did. And tell
Barry's chemist got rated by the Feds. Are we going Balco? Tell me
Balco two is happening. Please tellme I got news for you, Wex,
I got news for a lot ofother Astros haters out there. Adulas

(30:40):
ain't gonna be the only one ishe is? He on like a triple
dose since last postseason. He justsaid his eleventh homer and back to the
twenty three postseason into the first fewgames of this season eleven homers normal,
so he got like additional do hey, these games are super? Should I
get Can you give me some more? Can you rub some more cream?
And can I get some more?Clear? Telling you man, it's it's
not a matter of if. Butwhen I've been kind of just in a

(31:03):
zone. No, he's not.He's the Renault Blanco zone, the injection
zone. Put it here in thisbuttalk. I'm telling you man, it
is. I kind of did ittongue in cheek last year. But like
my guy is, it's not swool. It's about Trout. He went four
to seventy plus with a homer yesterday. Yeah, and she looks like a

(31:25):
normal human being. He does getin comparison, huge head, big chest.
Give me Homer's guilty Yeah, giveme give me the before and after
exhibit pictures of Mike Trout. Allyou really have to do is go to
the clubhouse guy and say, hey, you were here when they signed A
Doles. Hey you were here whenMike Trout was a rookie. Right,
what hat size did he have?Then? I realized, guys get bigger.

(31:51):
I realized that what but they don't. Their heads don't. That's the
sign, the sign. It's thateasy. Hey, you know what,
you know what grew over the offseason, my skull. Nobody ever says that
that was my school, my style. So yeah, I'm telling you right
now I am. And you knowwhat, as we get closer and closer

(32:12):
to that series next weekend, whichI think we should go to, I'm
starting to think we should go there. We can't very busy, Yeah,
we both are, unfortunately for thepurposes of this conversation. But I don't
know. I just I'm going tokeep an eye on that, being the
Internet sleuth that I am, Andby sleuth, I mean I have eyes.
That's it. That's all it takes. Look at a Dolas Garcia's skull.

(32:36):
It's mutating in front of our eyes, all of us. You can
either choose to ignore it. Youcould accept reality that guy is absolutely doing
something. I have no doubt inmy mind. All right, wrap up
the three o'clock hour coming up next, don't forget say what in the four
o'clock hour and Rob Zombie Alice Coopertickets to give away. You're gonna need
to know your sports trivia to getthose tickets. That's in the four o'clock

(32:58):
hour. But wrap up three o'clockare next, im Clinton weer A continued,
they've balled football Sports Talk seven foryour own teams. I do not
yet know if he's been beaten outfor Western Conference Player of the Month.
Has he yes? Of course heyes, he had a buy who Luca

(33:22):
guy? What a you know what? They don't deserve him? Well,
we'll see how long he's there ifthey have another flame out. Thirty two
and a half points per game thismonth was best in the West. That's
Luca. Next was Jalen Green attwenty seven to seven, so he was
among the nominees. What what wasthe team record? Since I was told

(33:44):
no against Luca, So what wasthe record? Thirteen and two? And
then what was Luca's teams record?His team's record was eleven and four,
okay one without him? Though,are done talking to you? Because his
team the regular season, his teamwas better, therefore he should have been
the MVP. Well, Jason Kidddid not win Western half. Later,

(34:06):
Russell Westbrook averaged a triple double fromthe sixth seeds. He in season should
have I don't want to completely pooppoo them, but compared to end of
season awards, they no, theydon't. It's nice to win. I
just think Rockets had a nominee anddeservedly so for all three awards that were
announced today, and Men Thompson wasamong the West nominees, but the kid
in San Antonio was the winner.Let me ask you. Jalen Green a

(34:28):
nominee for Player of the Month,Luca was the winner. And e May
was a nominee for Coach of theMonth and won it because he coached the
best team this month. Tell mewhat you said during the commercial. He's
been a head coach for eleven monthsof NBA basketball and he's won Coach of
the Year in three of those elevenmonths for two different organizations. He want
he wanted to close out twenty twentytwo. He won it in February and

(34:49):
they had a combined award March April. For that twenty twenty two season,
he won both of those months.March April and October November are a thing.
Yeah in the NBA. Well,you played two or three games,
so that makes sense. And thenthis year he obviously won for the thirteen
and two months they just put together. They have eight games remaining Minnesota Tonight,
the Warriors have a two game cushionon the Rockets. They will be

(35:10):
here in Houston on Thursday. They'replaying a lot of games on the same
nights over the next couple of games, so we'll be focused in on a
bunch of that stuff. They gota stretch of four games against Texas,
started with their close win over SanAntonio on Sunday. They've got Dallas sandwiching
the game against Houston, so Dallasand then again on Friday against Dallas,

(35:32):
and then the Rockets get Dallas rightafter that when the Houston goes to Dallas
Sunday afternoon. So Dallas is gonnahave a lot to say about who's sitting
in eighth when we get or intenth, excuse me, when we get
here next week. You're doing thatgame on seven ninety correct, on the
fourth the Golden State game. No, the Dallas game. Uh, the
Sunday Dallas game. I told youI don't like to a thought you on

(35:54):
ahead. I only say that becauseisn't that going to be a two thirty
dart that's just screams nationally televised.But I can't believe it's an NBA TV
game. But that's not real nationallytelevised. NBA TV was invented so that
they could put a crappy Eastern Conferencefirst round playoff matchup on a channel.
That's what that was. For theanswers. Yes, every remaining Rockets regularly

(36:17):
scheduled home game or game on Sunday, I'll do on radio for you,
and thanks for giving me nothing butroad game the rest of the way.
One other game. No, justI misspoke when I said home there on
the road this Sunday. Oh okay, I'll do that one on the road
the final Sunday of the year atthe Clippers. But yeah, you may
udoka the the So a lot ofpeople, a lot of Houston sports fans

(36:39):
I've noticed, have likened the Rocketsand the Texans trajectories to each other in
different ways, like they're both obviouslyin the in the midst of a rebuild
that they both could probably argue atthis point has been super accelerated for different
reasons. Texans obviously got the biggestpiece they needed to in their quarterback.

(37:00):
Yeah, it's so different, eventhough what happened is the same. Both
of them had no chance to winthe two years that preceded this year.
For both of them, the Rocketsweren't trying to win, but they were
trying to build. Thus the fourplayers they drafted in those two years where
they couldn't win any games. TheTexans weren't trying to build. That's the

(37:24):
reason they weren't winning. It wassmart reason. There's no reason to try
to win six or seven games.They didn't have a quarterback. They weren't
building any realistic base of talent.The base of talent that they have on
this team has all basically come.Maybe you could go back to last year's
draft clearly because of guys like Harrisand Petrie if you feel like Petre's in
that mix, But most of itis this year very different places they were

(37:46):
coming from. The Rockets were forcedinto doing it, basically, and it
was gonna happen at some point.Harden actually accelerated it because if you kept
re signing him, I can't imaginewhere this team would be. You would
you people wanted him resigned this year, I know, had he never left,
I mean if they if they said, all right, it'stop working here.

(38:06):
Could what else can we do foryou? Could you imagine emy Udoka
and James Harden, He would havekilled him. Thus he decided not to
allow it to happen. I amthe system. Well, then you're going
to be playing somewhere else. That'swhat emy Udoka said. He is once
as he has done every year ofhis career since the Rockets became a contender,
and this will be his fourth timeto say it with a fourth team.

(38:29):
His team does have a chance towin it all. Kawhi is like
getting his knee he looked at today, So that'll that'll be taken care of
soon. Not the favorite, probablynot. They're not winning anything, but
they have it. I mean,look at who they have and tell me
they don't have a chance to winthe West, all right, they have
a chance to win the West.Conversily, since this is the first time,
he's definitely not being counted on tobe the guy down the stretch in

(38:52):
a game six or seven, puttingthe ball in the basket, which has
been his famous shortcoming. All youneed to know about the Clippers is that
right now, you cannot tell mewith a straight face. If I were
to ask you who do you trustmore in a playoff series between them and
the Thunder, you have to saythe Thunder. That's all you need to
know about the Clippers. I trustShay more than anybody on the court,

(39:14):
so thus the Thunder, I wouldagree. And that's with Kawhi, that's
with Paul George, that's with JamesHarden and that's I mean. And again,
when you start talking about the teamsin the top of the Western Conference,
I don't. I don't. Maybeyou do, I don't. The
Clippers don't come to mind, noteven immediately. It's it's Denver. Like,
if you're gonna ask me right now, who's gonna be pound for pound

(39:35):
the best you're gonna be able towin four out of seven games? First
team, I'm still going with Denver. Experience, reigning champs, and Nikola
Jokic is a freak and can doit in the postseason, unlike Luca Dennis.
It's just been fine. In thepostseason. This team just wasn't very
gay. He's white James Harden exceptwhite James Parks season. Why his performances
have been great in what he's hitteam done. That's not his fault.

(39:58):
James is the reason a lot ofthe times where his teams have faltered late
in the series, he's helped themget there. I don't want to discount
that, but my gosh, oneof those game sixes and sevens are just
like I can't believe players you're talking. You're saying that that's not the case
with Luca. No, it isnot the case with Luca. In my
opinion, that is what I'm saying. He's had some stinkers that I think

(40:20):
you're not remembering in the postseason.Are you saying I'm misremembering? Yes,
yes I am. Roger isn't Thatis he the one that used that term
at is correct in front of theFEDS? Yes, Congress, that's what
it was. Whatever. Yes.Different. The first season he went to
the postseason, they did not wina series. He cratered in Game six.
Luca did by only scoring thirty eightpoints. Cratered. What was his

(40:44):
shooting? The next year, whenthey also did not win a series.
He just laid down and died inGame seven, scoring forty six points,
dishing out fourteen assists, and grabbingseven rebounds. Just gave up. Sounds
good to me. He's phenomenal inthe postseason. He puts up good numbers
in the postseason. He's not phenomenalor because he would have won if he

(41:05):
was phenomenal. He got to theWestern Conference Finals in twenty twenty two.
I will argue this to my death. I'm not really arguing because I don't
really think you're arguing now. I'mnot, But I do think that it's
the same reason. The best teamis the Nuggets, then the two next
best teams haven't won anything, haven'tdone anything. I don't. I put
the Timberwolves in the same category.I know we gotta go break. I
put the Timberwolves in the same categoriesI put the Clippers. Prove it to

(41:29):
me. In fact, the Timberwolvesare less trustworthy. The only one of
the Wolves that's had any kind ofpostseason experience, I wouldn't say he's had
success because it's Rudy. His successgetting his brains kicked in by the Rockets
twice, tried guarding James Harden behindhim again though that went really well for
you, all right, four o'clockhours straight ahead here on the eight team,

(41:52):
two lifelong Houston sports guys named athim talking your teams, Adam Clinton
and Adam Wexler. Are d ateam? A team? It is the
A team here on Sports Talk sevenninety in Houston, Texas, home of

(42:13):
Renel Blanco and his no hitter andhis eighth try at it. Okay,
every time you go out there,you dry for no no. Well,
shouldn't that be the goal of everypitcher? The goal should be winning in
a lot of ways. To winwhat's your as? No hitters, as
they should be still called, aren'talways an automatic victory if you don't give
up to me, if you didn'tgive up any hits that you threw a

(42:36):
no hitter, by the way theymanaged to score without one, I know
still threw a no hitter. Iknow. I started the three o'clock hour
by wet blanketing the festivities of theevening. Yeah, I'm gonna do this.
Soundarmit for you righty? For thisI am. Did you notice what
happened on the final out? Uh? One of the things that I noticed
was the first player out of thedugout to run into the scrum and the
hug fest between Diaz and Renelle wasJose al Tuve, the always excitable,

(43:02):
awesome team leader, mister happy thathe is. He was the one springing
out of the dugout. Fact granted, some of his teammates were already in
the field and a few others werein the men and yeah, I'm talking
about before that the actual play itself, Renel Blanco reached for the Guerrero grounder
bounder and then pulled his glove backbecause he's figured, well, I know
where he's positioned. I goofed onthe last one, so might as well

(43:24):
just let this one go there.I could have gone very poorly if that
hits his glove right, So youcould definitely and he said it after the
game that he did that on youknow, he it wasn't an accident and
we're not seeing things. He intentionallypulled his and who did he throw it
to? Jose Brad And was itif you look at that replay, was

(43:45):
just definitely, Oh, he's definitelycatching that or was there a little doubt?
I mean it was not the bestthrow. It was a little rush.
It well, Bray, you missesthat catch and it could have happened,
but I never thought he was goingto it got there. It got
there on the fly. That's enough, man. I was just thinking about
that, though, with as muchgrief as that guy's gotten on the day.

(44:06):
He got his first hit, right, But could you imagine if he
out hit the entire other team onthe final out, Jeff Bagwell would have
been getting crucified today. It wouldn'teven been his fault. Like, I
just thought about that because it reallythere was a little bit of doubt to
it. He had a really stretchand again, you said it yesterday,

(44:27):
you were excited about his bat,not so much excited about his defense.
That was a play that Uly onethousand percent makes every single time it was.
I mean, yeah, I thinkyou're making more of it. I
mean, he leaned over and conscioussaying when I looked at the play,
I'm like, ooh, that couldhave been at least in question. You
know, Vladimir Guerrerot did try tobeat it out. I mean, I
don't think his team was going towin if he paster. That is vlad

(44:49):
Junior, No, not at all. Everybody did what they need to do.
They're a handful of good plays.They're really you know, the earlier
play Dubond made off of the glovewas the most spectacular play of the afternoon.
There's just very little trouble, alot of cans of corn, a
lot of soft contact. Springer wasflying down the first baseline as usual.
They did a great job the battery. I thought Yiner really did try to

(45:12):
after he walked Springer for the secondtime there in the ninth inning with two
outs, after he'd retired every singlebatter since Springer's ab in the first twenty
six in a row. He didtake his time. He did tell him
to, you know, catch yourbreath here. You know, clearly he's
tiring because he wasn't ready to throwone hundred and five pitches. He still
had plenty in the tank, butthat was well over what they would have

(45:32):
wanted him to throw. Joe spotHa said after the game he was very
close to his limit, but hewasn't saying what exactly it was. I
have a feeling if Guerrero just singled, they definitely were taking him out.
If he had reached via walk.I think that Espata and Miller and the
coaches would have really had to consider, you know, how much more can
we do? Because he was overone hundred pitches for your opening outing in

(45:55):
the season. It's a ton andstill even though he got the most work
in camp up. Yeah, andit was. But it was the least
amount of pitches for a no hitterin MLB history, or was it not.
I bet you one hundred and fivenot the lowest number. I thought.
I never saw any somewhere. Icould be wrong on that, but
yeah, it was. It wasobviously much needed. I just thought that

(46:19):
it was. It felt like youcould have spread all of that out and
I'm talking about both pitching and hittingover the course of the first four games
of the year, and maybe you'rein a better spot. It just looks
like, man, all at once, everything's fine again. Yeah, they
were. They're now near the topof the leaderboard and home runs because they
had five of them. They'd onlyhit two in the first four games.

(46:39):
Franber's no hitter was a ninety threepitch outing. Well, I take care
of that. Wow, that isefficient, Yeah, very much. So.
Are you ready for the brutal truthabout last night's festivities? For as
it pertains to our show and thepeople who host it. I did not
know it was going on, sopeek behind the curtain. I'm watching it,

(47:04):
and I'm putting together a extravagant legosituation with Junior, and so we're
watching it. What's that theme?Batmobile? Okay, we were building the
engine so and he did it everypiece by himself. I'm very proud of
him. And we followed the instructions, all that good stuff. So I
have it on and I'm watching.It's not like on in the background.
I've got the audio up. I'mactually stopping the building and he's getting mad

(47:27):
about it because I'm watching plays andI hear Todd say twenty one straight,
you know, twenty one straight retiredAnd to me, for whatever reason,
I didn't even I didn't look atthe inning to have it register. I
thought, okay, maybe guys gothit earlier in the game, because I
started watching the game after it hadbegun, and I'm like, it never
occurred to me that this was apossibility, to the point where I left

(47:52):
helped him, you know, brushhis teeth, do the bed thing,
get it into bed. Mom wasgetting him to sleep. But that night
and I come in and I seethem celebrating, and I'm like, wait,
he threw a no hitter. Ihad no idea, what I know,
I know what a way. Sothat does bring this typical conversation up
with no hitters and superstition and broadcasters, players have their own. And Jeremy

(48:15):
Paine had talked about it in avery hilarious way after the game. He's
like, around the fifth inning,I was saying it to myself the whole
game, he's got a no hitter. He's got a no hitter. As
long as I don't say it tohim, it's fine. That's how he
thought it. And if you listento you were obviously watching a little bit
of it with Julia, Jeff andTodd, and we played you the highlights
from Robert and Steve earlier to openup the show. They said it multiple

(48:37):
times when it got to the state. Once you get past the fifth inning,
you sometimes you say it. You'dprobably say he's retired the first twelve
in a row, or he hasn'tgiven up a hit yet, But they
flatter times tweet his thing out thatalways people get mad at him. You
know, the thing about that isas dumb as all that is. Because
we've talked about this ad nauseum becausewe've been able to with all of the

(48:57):
no hitters that they have been thrownrecently. You ever think about the fact
that that graphic doesn't just get madeaccidentally in two seconds. They were working
on that all game, at leasta before completely. I hate, like
even getting up after the twenty sixthout to video what's gonna happen, even
pre writing a post to be ableto send it. I hate doing it.

(49:22):
You feel like you're responsible if somethinghappened. I didn't even want to
watch it on like an MLB dotcom or ESPN dot com because the notifications
right there on it and it saysno hitter. Yeah they I mean,
I hate I don't like any ofit. I don't personally say it,
but when you're a broadcaster, youcan see how each of ours dealt with
it differently, and Todd and Jeffhave always done it that way, and

(49:43):
I assume Robert and Steve have similarly, and they do get a lot of
practice, and they threw a nohitter despite one of the two sides saying
it whenever it warranted. When yougo, when you finish an inning,
when someone makes a great end,you know, three more outs to complete
the no hitter. He's still gota no hitter. I mean, you
could say nobody's reached base safely.There's a lot of different ways to do
it, but I think it's prettyclear that a lot of people don't feel

(50:05):
like there's any outside forces that haveany impact. One of the best photos
of the night, other than theones of Renel Blanco and his mother embracing
that was really cool that she wason hand. But you know, to
have the shot of the big screenwith that graphic with his face saying no
hitter with the team celebrating underneath it, which is that's just an epic shot

(50:28):
in you know, credit to whoevergot that shot and posted it for the
Astros social media. Evan usually outthere on the field, mister t There's
a lot of good photographers in thistown. Karen Saw she wrote a good
story about how the chronicles were reactingto this and kind of getting everyone involved
in making and some of the stuffthat she posted was just incredible. Well,

(50:49):
she had to get in the car, that's true, and she had
done that, sure, but yeah, but now with the pitch clock,
I mean, I've I have beenexperienced this trying to get here for our
show, and I'm like, ohmy gosh, is anybody gonna get a
hit when we take over early?Because MT can't be bothered right exactly,
I'm like, there is there's waytoo much freeway in front of me and

(51:13):
not enough outs left for me tomake it. Now, it's never been
that bad, but yeah, likeit's that's that's not an accident that that
stuff happens. And the whole superstitionthing. Like two hours in one minute,
by the way, for the twentyseven outs of the Jays and twenty
four for Houston. He was justlike he was mowing guys down. Yeap,

(51:34):
low pitch innings. Obviously no traffic. Like we said, the bats
were so casual, not a tonof full counts. If you happened later
in the game they made contact,they got him out. He was like
an efficient NBA shooter and not avolume guy. You don't have the chance
to walk around the mound and youknow, pound your glove and you just
go you throw because that's what thepitch clock does. Is he the astros
ace coming out? Now? I'mkidding, but he sure did look amazing

(51:58):
last night. So good luck withthat on Encore, your first start of
the year, and Joe Spota againhis first win as a manager as a
no hitter. Just crazy, crazystuff over at minute made last night.
All right, we got crazy stuffcoming up next because we've got say what
straight ahead here on the eighteen.It's the team Clinton, Adam Wexler,

(52:20):
Fine Sports Talk seven ninety, yourRockets, your astros. Your voice said,
what what? Bro? What areyou talking about? Man? Double
day you say what one moment signsto segment time. And on Tuesdays we

(52:51):
have fun with say what. Somebodydid something, somebody said something, and
man, are we shaking our headsabout it? Like uh yes to The
NFL told us who the highest paidouts players were with the distribution pool for
the performance based pay players, andnobody made more than a million dollars on

(53:12):
that, and rock Perty basically dubbedhis salary. But I don't think everybody
realized that was just the top twentyfive payouts. You know, every player
in the NFL, in some formof fashion is eligible to receive some amount
of performance based pay. And ifI hated our show and wanted nobody to
listen, I would tell you exactlyhow performance based pay works and how the

(53:37):
system is laid out, and theindex that players have that they can calculate
it off of. But I'm notgoing to do that. I'm just going
to tell you that a certain player, as reported by Adam Schefter, who
played very little football last year,was among the players and nearly everybody that
did receive a check for his performancebased pay that players, Jets quarterback Aaron

(54:01):
Rodgers, based on his performance hisperformance based pay, which comes to him
in addition to the salary he's duefrom the Jets under the contract he plays
for. So this is basically abonus. Brock Perty got almost an eight
hundred thousand dollars bonus. John Simpson, you know, some players got some
really sizable checks for performance based pay. Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers received eighty one

(54:25):
dollars and fourteen cents in performance basedpay. It's a league wide pool of
money, and they felt with hisnearly all nearly a full drive's worth of
snaps but not quite, he deservedeighty one dollars and fourteen cents in performance
based pay. So I felt likeit was it strikes me as odd that

(54:49):
he got anything. I kind ofunderstand the system, and it does help
under make me understand it a littlebit. But he was ozer, for
one, was sacked, generated zeroyards of offense. Right, Why does
so? It's based on your performance, which I assume if you take zero

(55:12):
snaps you get zero dollars. Howdid his performance based pay index go up?
Because is this like writing your namecorrectly on the SAT you automatically get
a two hundred. Well, Schefterexplains sort of the thinking behind this.
So the system that we're talking abouthere, it's the performance based pay system,

(55:32):
that's what they call. It.Rewards all players based on their playtime
and base salary. So if aplayer has a low base salary and plays
a significant number of snaps, heearns more. Right, Rogers is the
opposite. He's got a huge salaryand played zero point thirty three percent of
snaps. Yeah, he played foursnaps. So to me, that's telling

(55:55):
me he should be contributing to apool and getting who's docked. Who is
the lowest paid player on the Jets. Whoever it is, makes multiple hundreds
of thousand dollars a year, Well, he should give him that check.
He could use it. I'm justso if he made eighty one dollars with
four and forty cents snaps? Yeah, what if he's was out there for

(56:17):
four more useless snaps? Now hejust it. He gets one hundred and
sixty she's out there for forty snaps. Now he gets eight hundred and ten
dollars or eight hundred and eleven dollarsand forty cents. Draft Kings Sports Book
replied to Schefter's tweet, eighty onedollars for running with the flag, because
that's basically what he did. Hecame out of the tunnel, has the

(56:37):
American flag spotlight and you know,green lasers all over the place, and
the hey, terror's achilles. Soyeah, I mean eighty one dollars doesn't
go as far these days, Iwouldn't you. You might get a dozen
eggs for that, presuming it's evenif it's inaccurate the amount, which I'm
sure it's not. Don't you thinkAaron will have some hilarious response to this,

(57:02):
Um, Well, he's not makinghis weekly appearances on the Pat McAfee
show as of right now, outof season, so right, so maybe
it'll be a social media post.He'll probably frame the check something like that.
So we're now in draft month.It's April second. The draft is
twenty three days away or twenty fourif you don't have a first round pick.

(57:22):
For now. For now, we'repretty confident the Bears hold at one
and take Caleb Williams. Yep.I think we're very confident that the Commanders
also hold at two. But accordingto the odds makers, at least at
FanDuel, the odds have flipped onthe quarterback they will take from previously Jayden

(57:43):
Daniels. Now the favorite is DrakeMay. And I don't want to get
anybody to, Oh, I'm runningto my account right now to fire on
this. Please don't. It's meaningless, it's based on nothing. That's as
you generate any kind of run toexactly what does Vegas know? Because that's

(58:04):
what we say Vegas. And I'mdone with that because it's not Vegas anymore.
Because there's too many outlets now,Fox, bet ESPN, bet FanDuel,
DraftKings, on and on and onand on. What are the betters?
What is the market? No,everybody's trying to generate money for them,
and now they're in such competition witheverybody else. Although I know there's
a lot of people out there thatprobably have multiple accounts, so they utilize

(58:25):
multiple outlets to do so. Butthey're still the principle, like, you
know, if the Dodgers are thefavorites to win the World Series, that's
not because they're trying to make moneyoff of people necessarily as much as it's
they feel like there's these reasons whythey're going to so they're making the wager
to their advantage as much as theycan as the house basically. But yeah,
I wouldn't put any too much nonein stock in this. I actually

(58:50):
think those two teams will definitely hold. I think that Jaden Daniels is the
Commander's pick, and I think that'swhen the draft gets fun. Three.
Yes, I don't. I'm noteven convinced there's a trade there, but
I don't. I'm not one hundredpercent that that team is being the Patriots
they have. I don't know ifthey feel they have a long way to

(59:10):
go. I think they do,and maybe I'm wrong. The Patriots should
just draft whichever quarterback wasn't taken firstor second among those three, and then
if they do, then Arizona's inthe same position. I'm trying to tell
you New England's in Arizona. Theyjust traded number three last year because they
knew they needed to restock everything.We're gonna keep Kyler Murray and we're gonna

(59:32):
give him a chance, just notthis year. And the Bird Gang guy
is gonna have to have a badseason and we know it and it's not
on him. Well, now theyhold the fourth pick. If they're dead
set on Marvin Harrison Junior and theythink they can get him some more other
than four. If one of theother quarterbacks didn't get drafted three and Harrison
still there, I don't know howthey feel him and neighbors and things like

(59:52):
that. But there's so much forMonty Austin Marty, the GM of the
Arizona Cardinals, to do, justlike there was last year, because we
know there were other teams. Iwould hope there were other teams because if
there weren't, and Nick was biddingagainst himself with his friend Monty, they
worked together. Then. Like I'vealways said, I don't I don't hate

(01:00:12):
the trade. I don't think there'sanything wrong with the trade. You got
Will Anderson, that's awesome. Yougot the best defensive player in next year's
draft with next year's pick by usingit a year early. But I can't
also think they didn't give up alot. I thought they gave up a
lot. It's a trade I woulddo over and over and over again.
But I think they gave up alot. You're still because of the players
is better then and now, isbetter than anybody his position coming out.

(01:00:37):
Oh yeah, I mean, Imean, look at the quarterback, quarterback,
wide receiver, wide receiver, JoeAlt. I mean, let me
know when the defensive player is goingoff the board. I wish Joe Walt
was playing for the Texans. Ithink that's pretty unlikely, but I hear
you. I just would really likehim on the offensive line. That's possible.

(01:00:59):
There's one. I'd probably set theover under at one and a half
defensive players taken in the top ten, and I take the under. Yeah.
Yeah, it's that kind of draft. It's just that's it's just,
I don't know, for whatever reason, you don't have the monsters coming out
this year that you normally do.Yeah, they'll be good players, and

(01:01:19):
they'll be you know, difference makerseither at the edge or in the secondary.
I'm sure, but not like therehave been in nearly every single draft
before this one. I'm trying tothink, like, when was the last
time a monster was taken that wasoutside of the top ten defensively? We're
just like because at that point,it's like, wait, what because if
human is one of the early defensivedraftees, yeah, but not a top

(01:01:44):
five, top ten guy who endsup just killing it having an amazing career.
Michaeh Parsons, That's probably the bestexample I could think of. But
where was he taken? Eleven?Right? Even that the numbers, I
think you're right, But even then, I mean, it seems because JJ
was taking eleventh, wasn't he ina draft that was insane? Absolutely insane?

(01:02:06):
And it wasn't because Nick Fairley wasin it, because that's who I
wanted them to say. Did youleave Nick Fairley on the board? Oh
my goodness, it was he gotbooed. JJ got booed. Parsons was
twelfth right after justin Faitz's and again, but why did all these defensive players
the first defensive player went eighth?What draft was this? This was twenty
twenty one quarterback, quarterback, quarterback, tight end, wide receiver, wide

(01:02:28):
receiver. That is literally this draft? YEP, Bowers neighbors Harrison three quarterbacks.
Well, Nick needs to trade backin which one of them do they
need? Well? He needs Idon't know, he needs an offensive line
before he gets it. I thinkI think that's you know how I feel.
I do. I do that veryclear, and it's just and that's

(01:02:49):
fine. You're not alone. Ilove CJ that much. I love him,
I love Lamp. That's how Ifeel about CJ. Stroud. All
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men to every Rockets game Sports Talkseven ninety streaming on the iHeartRadio home of
Rockets Basketball. And this was theWrestleMania. But there was like Alice was
handling Jake's prop was he not itwasn't a prop. It was an animal.

(01:04:42):
Well, that to me is hisprop, is it not. That's
what he comes to the ring with. But it's live, I'm aware most
proper it was not and it usuallyis not. Small. No, it
was a moa constrictor're mongus. He'sthe bigger than Alice on the wrestler.
Well, everything's bigger than Alice.He weighs like eighty five pounds to this
day. But yeah, I thinkif if I was in that era,

(01:05:03):
if I was Jimmy Hart and Iwas like liked to the Mouth of the
South, I liked Halloween, Iwould probably go as Alice Cooper for Halloween.
It's an easy costume, very likeeven I could pull it off to
this day. Throwing some black eyemakeup, you're good to go, some
leather and whatnot. By the way, I ran into Jimmy Hart outside of

(01:05:23):
a bathroom in the Superdome, notthe Silver Dome, the Superdome the second
time I went to WrestleMania New Orleans. But now we've filled our quota for
bathroom references. We need one aweek. Nick Taturo took care of it
last week with the chanting that hegot by the Houston Fan and I gotta
go Bruisy Chant just amazing. Itwas the most surreal thing ever. But

(01:05:45):
yeah, Alice Cooper and Jake theSnake Roberts and you got to remember it
because it was such a humongous building. The ramp wasn't even a ramp,
it was just an insurance path toget to The ring was so long that
most of the wrestlers rode in amotorized cart that was like fashion like a
miniature ring had the ropes around itjust for that building. Except for the
Ultimate Warrior. Who did he evenfight that night? Oh you know what,

(01:06:09):
I can't even remember. I knewyou were gonna ask me that,
and I cannot remember who he fought. Oh my gosh, this is so
pathetic of me, because the mainevent was Hulk and Andre, which was
awesome because Hulk body slammed on ordid he fight King Kong Bundy? Did
he fight? I want to findout. Junkyard Dog trying to guess timely

(01:06:31):
wrestlers. Now those guys were boththere. I believe Honky talk Man.
I think it was the Honky TonkMan. What like, Seriously, how
far down the list of we needsome more characters did they get to before
this guy? And he was agreat character. He really was. It
was. But that's hilarious that thatwas his name. Sorry, yeah,
it was second before the main event. And yes he did fight honky tonk

(01:06:56):
Man, the greatest intercontinental wrestler ofall time, just ask him by Jimmy
Hart. I think about all thesegreat wrestlers and their personas and their names,
and the Ultimate Warrior. We justrattled off a bunch of others.
May he rest and the honky tonkMan I know, and he dressed up
like Elvis. He sang like hewas an excellent character. I guess,
very popular. I guess, well, there's no he was. My favorite

(01:07:20):
honky tonk Man match of all timewas when he got squashed at about thirty
seconds by the Ultimate Warrior, whowas a surprise opponent for the belt.
Also a very good character. UltimateWarrior, Yes, a lunatic, absolutely
perfect. Perfect. When we're likeit's slow and there's not a time going
on, I'm gonna make Dan playthe audio of the Ultimate Warrior long after

(01:07:45):
he's retired. He's basically doing aboot camp and he is treating the I
mean they are kids, they looklike maybe eighteen nineteen twenty year old guys,
and he's he's telling them how theyshould squat, and he's being very
colorful with his language, and he'she's not getting the reaction out of them

(01:08:06):
that he wants, so he juststarts just dropping every bomb you can think
of, and he's screaming at thetop of his lungs, right, and
there's like there's maybe ten kids ifthat. I'm like, none of these
people are ever coming back to yourgym. I'm using air quotes. It's
just tremendous. And those those listeningthat know what I'm talking about. I

(01:08:26):
have seen that, they know whatI'm talking about. It's just I don't
know why it's so entertaining to me. He's just screaming at the top of
his lungs and just just f bombsover and over and over, Like what
is this accomplishing. They're dying,they're like passing out because they're not roided
up like you. There's a guywho was roided up. His words,
not mine. That guy huge shockerthat he died of a heart attack at

(01:08:48):
a young age. Unfortunate, justsaying all right. The eighteen continues here
on Sports Talk seven nine. He'sstill a lot to get to. We
did well. We talked a lotabout different American League teams. We have
not touched on the Oakland A's andwhat they are doing with their organization.

(01:09:09):
This is the most Oakland a storyever for this week. They're just keep
They're gonna keep doing this until theyfinally leave the city. And this is
just the latest example of that.We'll get to that when we come back
next year. On the eighteen,Adam Clinton, we our eighteen returned on
Sports Talk seven ninety Headtech, yourRockets play here. It is the eighteen

(01:09:32):
Sports Talk seven ninety. So Igot I got a confession to make about
this Oakland A's story on our rundown. This is not the same story that
I was thinking of, but it'sit just goes with the entire theme of
that organization. So the Oakland A'sare not running their organization. Well,

(01:09:56):
that's not a news flash. Everybodyknows that it's been that for a while.
The thing is, I think somepeople think and tell me if you
agree with this, and I'm noteven talking about like you know Vegas sports
fans, you know the people thatroot on the Raiders, each and every
week the NFL season. Is Vegassports fan even a thing. I know
they're trying to make it a thing, but and I know there are residents

(01:10:17):
there obviously, but I just don'tthink of it that way. I think
it's an attraction that is somewhere waydown the list of reasons you would go
to Vegas that just happens to bethere to fill your time. That's how
we're going to Vegas for that stuff. They're hoping that the people that live
there are Knights fans first because theywere there first, and now are Raiders
fans, and in about four yearsthey'll be A's fans. Probably believe the

(01:10:41):
Tropicana had their last hurrah this week? Are they doing the detonation thing?
They tearing it? I'm not sureabout what's around it and how to manage
that, control the thermite and allthat exactly, but yes, it's it's
on its way down and it's stillagain not one hundred percent set that the
A's are going to have a playto play there. They definitely don't have
a place to play next year orthe year after or the year after.

(01:11:04):
That's my thing. I know it'sa smaller stadium but it's still a stadium.
How long does this thing take tobuild? It's gonna be nice.
I know it's gonna be nice.I did see the renderings. Isn't the
scoreboard like on the roof for something? Basically? Yeah? How long did
it take to build the Texans Stadium? How long it takes to take to
build? Minute made? It's theystarted in ninety nine. It was ready

(01:11:27):
to play in for the two thousandseason. Right. That doesn't sound right?
Are you sure? Definitely not sure? I just we knew they were
leaving the Dome in ninety nine.I remember I actually went to the top
of a building downtown. Instruction beganin ninety seven, I believe. Okay,
so then I stand corrected. Thisis a three year thing. Still
to this day, they haven't gottenany faster building major League Baseball stadiums.

(01:11:51):
You know. The fastest thing onthe planet to get built and torn down?
Gas station. Oh there's gas it'snew. They're gonna do this.
They're gonna the one over at ChimneyRock in fifty nine. Shell Station,
right, Okay, that thing wasa dump. Great place to get mugged,
great place to get mugged. Reallynice part of town. Okay,

(01:12:12):
Chimney Rock and fifty nine. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.
It, I know exactly what you'retalking about. Not a good place,
I mean, okay, you know, I'm right. It's a huge city.
I'm probably not gonna rate that oneas one of the worst places.
I didn't say it was the worst, but I also didn't say it was
the best. So I filled upthere numerous times. It was always a
shell station and then one day,boom, there's barbed wire gates, chain

(01:12:34):
link fence. Clearly there's construction goingdown. Three days later done. So
you work rockets games as I do. Dan does the same, which means
there's many nights post eleven pm midnight, and everybody else in the world that
has fun at night they also drivehome late, but not us. We're
working right, So every once ina while you'll be I don't not getting

(01:12:54):
I can't even risk it. Idon't want to risk it. I'm not
waking up in the morning and sayingI'm sure I'll make it to the gas
station. So a lot of timesat night you'll need to get gas on
your way home. So smart peopledo right. You're driving the car is
good, you know how much isleft. Most of our newer vehicles really
do tell you exactly how much left. But if this is all to set
up a believe it or not lastRockets game, I think I came home

(01:13:15):
from it was one of those nightsI need to get gas. So I'm
trying to decide do I want toget it here closer to home? I
want to pay five dollars a gallonfor it wherever. I want to give
you a believe it or not usuallygiveaway, though, so I'll try,
but I think I'll know the answer. When I pulled into the spot and
got out of the car to addressthe pump with my card. The car

(01:13:38):
that was already there was a fourdoor sedan. There was a person in
the driver's seat who'd gotten out todo the gassing. There was a person
in the passenger seat and multiple peoplein the back seat, and there was
somebody in the propped open trunk.Believe it or not, I obviously believe
it. Believe it? What kindof car? So good trunk? And

(01:14:01):
I noticed that it was open,like maybe they needed to get like sometimes
you use your I'm getting gas too, and I'm gonna throw away all the
trash that's built up in the caror in the trunk. I thought they
had gotten the Tuppen fill up Teresaand Brooklyn's vehicles. Yes, it used
to just be the mom. Nowthe daughter does the same thing. Guess
what that little side pocket in yourdoors a garbage can is not a garbage

(01:14:25):
can, and it's definitely not whereyou want to stick an open container of
nutella, so that when I scoopedmy hand in there to get all your
crap out of there that's accumulated fromthe last time I filled up your tank
for you. I don't wear nutellahome, but I did that night.
It was it was there was somebodyon their phone, let's texting, looking
at Twitter, just hanging out inthe trunk. Was if that were an

(01:14:48):
old style eighty station wagon with thewood I know, but you know the
back swung open and it was awhole ass seat back there. Yes,
Like how many how many rides towherever in the country that you took?
I mean, did you have one? No minivan? If we graduated from
the minivan, but it's rare,and that was the one vehicle you have.

(01:15:11):
You're facing the other way right thewhole ride. How do you not
puke now if I did that,because you can handle it. First of
all, if I'm not in controlof any vehicle that I'm in at any
given time, I'm going to puke. It's just because nobody keeps it as
cold as I do. Nobody drivesthe way I do, which is controlled
violence. Nobody I have to like. If somebody's like, you want to

(01:15:32):
ride, I'm like, no,wait, I'm the only way you're getting
home. That's fine, I'll walk. That's where what was your a's story?
Oh? So, obviously this isall to talk about the fact that
they sent Estuary Ruez down to theminor leagues despite the fact that he's you
know good. This is the typeof decisions they're making. Led the league

(01:15:57):
in steals last year, three forseven so far this year with a double
in a triple, four fifty sevensluging percentage through three games. He'll hit
maybe one homer this year. Let'ssee what I'm looking at his numbers here.
Well, he got again to dowhat he does, which is steel
bases and past offenses with his speed. He's got to get on base.

(01:16:18):
So, as GM said, wesaw some better bats in the springs to
use his skills. He needs toget on base. He needs to be
able to do that on a consistentbasis. I'm hoping leading off every day
at Triple A. It's not along stay for him down there now.
The story from the paper, thelocal ragout there ties him Ruiz and one
of their other players who's not beenplaying, mister Rooker. You guys remember

(01:16:41):
Brent from last year's squad, oneof their few reasonably good hitters. I
usually love guys named Brent. Bothof those two players get this, have
been spotted wearing bracelets, and onthose bracelets they are given to them by
organizers of A's fan protests against ownership. The Last Dive Bar is one such
group. These are the bracelets thatthey've been seen wearing on more than one

(01:17:04):
occasion going back to last year sofar. Be it for us to not
allow two plus two to equal four. Oh you guys don't like us.
Oh you guys think we snak asowners will go hit the miners punk.
They really aren't trying to go playin a mural, bro because that's the
message they're said. Did you seeI mean this is you just said it.

(01:17:27):
They don't have a place to playbeyond this year. So the kind
of stuff that we're talking about,I mean, this kind of stuff could
keep happening, but maybe not.You know, fans in the coliseum parking
lot yelling out to the owner Rottenhell Fisher, maybe that could be avoided
once they go to Sacramento or SaltLake City or wherever they were going to
play their home games. Well,let's face it, like they're gonna go

(01:17:48):
to Vegas, and all the onlypeople that are excited about that are like
the ten people who are actual Vegasresidents and sports fans, and then people
like us who think, oh great, We've got an excuse to go watch
the Astros play in Las Vegas.Now that's it. They're not going to
have. Like I'm sure there areRaiders fans, and I'm sure the what's

(01:18:10):
the hockey team there again, theNights, the Golden Knights. Yeah,
Like, I'm sure there are peoplethat live there that are like, oh
cool, professional sports, But eventhose people have to think how far down
the list is it before I getto I want to go to a professional
sporting event versus all of the thingsthis city has to offer. Yeah,
for crying out loud, you couldgo see a show. Well, depends

(01:18:32):
on the show that you're talking about. Oh, some old, washed up
musician who has a residency, probablysomething like that that Matt Thomas has on
his playlist, no doubt, DonnieMarie. I think they're still there doing
a thing. All right, Sowe will get to our Football at five
conversation. I don't think the Raidersof Vegas will show up, but you

(01:18:53):
never know. Our Football at fiveconversation is next to start the five o'clock
hour. Next you lifelong Houston sportsguys named Adam talking your Teams series Adam
Clinton and Adam Wexler are the ateam. Ay, you're right at Bustle

(01:19:15):
Football. It's five o'clock. Somefive o'clock football. Professional football in America
is a special game. Football atfive conversation underway here on Sports Talk seven

(01:19:40):
ninety as we inch closer towards theNFL Draft. Talked earlier about the fact
that the Texans, what is againforty three? I can't remember this this
number? Is it forty seven orforty three? Neither forty two? Yes,
all right, I don't know whyI cannot remember that. And that
is ten or so picks in tenexactly into the second round on the second

(01:20:04):
night. I'm telling you, like, I understand what Nick Cassario was doing
or wanting to do. Man,not having to pick the first night is
so underwhelming, and yet you're gonnabe watching it wondering if by the end
of the night they will I don'tthink I'm going to like, I don't
think they're gonna do that. Idon't think so either. But they have

(01:20:27):
the Obviously they still have the sameamount of value that they did before.
Roughly some say they have a littlebit more. So if they wanted to,
they certainly could. I just youknow, I don't know why you
would do it this way. Iwouldn't have will not just sit there until
Draft night and wait until you canmove back from twenty three to where you

(01:20:47):
want to be and still get somethingout of it, because now a team's
specifically moving up for that, andI think the value would have gone up.
Also, don't you think that teamsare more apt to make dumb decisions
that will benefit you on Draft nightbecause there's added pressure. I think that's
the thought. Yeah, And that'sbasically what I said, And he might
feel the exact opposite. I knowwhat I want, so I'm gonna go

(01:21:10):
make sure I can do it.Because if I'm sitting there at twenty three
and I only want to pick attwenty eight because there's still six players here
that I want, I don't wantto waste the value by doing it now.
Well, I can't find a teamto trade with at seventy nine.
I can't find a team to tradewith a twenty eight. I can't find
then what do you do now?He doesn't have to worry about that.
Yeah, I mean, it'll befascinating to see what they finally do with

(01:21:31):
it. But at the same time, man, that's underweight when you're wanting
so badly to see what the nextchapter looks like after the type of season
you have. And again I cautionedTexans fans, I've thought this a lot.
I'm gonna say it out loud,and it's not setting you up for,
you know, a soft landing orsomething like that. But I mean,

(01:21:54):
when you have the type of yearthey did top to bottom, from
the draft to even some free agencydecisions, to obviously what C. J.
Stroud and Will Anderson Junior did,amongst other draft picks. To the
head coach, to his staff,to the fact that everybody in the league
was flirting with trying to hire awayyour offensive coordinator from you. All this
stuff went their way, like therewasn't a lot that didn't go the Texans

(01:22:17):
way. The only thing you couldreally point to is health. Tank Dell
plays the entire season. Who knows, maybe he is, maybe it is
different. Maybe you have a chanceagainst Baltimore, I doubt it. But
who played almost an entire season ormore than half of the season with a
non starting right tackle, although Ithink George Fan played very well. But
so now you've got the first playschedule. Now you've got all the expectations.

(01:22:41):
C J. Stroud's not gonna surpriseanybody or sneak up on anybody,
not that he really did. Towardsthe end of the year. At that
point, you're like, Okay,after the Pittsburgh I think it was they
knew, you know, week three, uh, that four or five,
they'd beat Jacksonville in week two onthe road, the big win, Okay,
and then they beat Pittsburgh here athome. But all of that out
the window. Now, yeah,I think they knew, And you're right,

(01:23:01):
I think the big difference kind ofmaybe you visualize it this way.
Last year, they made a bunchof moves in the offseason and free agency.
They added a lot of players Rankinsand Jimmy Ward and you know Hote,
Noah Brown, Robert Woods, ShaqMason. They really added a lot
of Sheldon Rankins, Dalton Schultz,and you still knew the best new players

(01:23:23):
on the team were coming on Draftnight or Night two. You didn't know
both of them were coming on Nightone, but you knew. The biggest
reason they're going to be better inthe future, immediately or otherwise was because
of the draft. And it's alock one hundred nine thousand percent lock.
That is the exact opposite. Thisyear, the reason they're going to be

(01:23:44):
improved is because of what they didin free Next year's best new player was
just signed. It's probably Danielle Hunter. If it's not Hunter, it's Deniko
Audrey. If it's not Autry,and on down the list, and if
you have to go further down thelist, then you screwed up. But
it's not coming for It wasn't comingfrom number twenty three either. It wasn't
coming from a trade up. Ifthey felt like they had the assets to
even do that, which I don'tthink they did, nor should they have

(01:24:06):
wanted to to give up anything inthe future. That's the biggest difference.
You aready, you know what theteam is going into the draft. We
didn't not have a clue what theteam was going to be like going into
the draft. We didn't even knowthat Davis Mills wasn't the number one.
We didn't know. You didn't knowwho they were. You knew, you
felt very strongly they were drafting aquarterback, but you certainly didn't know who

(01:24:27):
it was gonna be, and thenturned out you got the right one.
And that's that's what to me,that's how they've gone from being a team
you knew nothing about and everything surprisedyou to they want a division, they
have a first place schedule, They'regoing back to the playoffs. They want
more than just being among the finaleight. So they went out and signed
real star level veteran talent. Thebest new parts of the team are the

(01:24:49):
guys they signed in free agency,not the draft, and they honestly with
the restructures that they've done and thefact that there are still five or six,
maybe three or four difference making playersout there, starting with Justin Simmons.
These guys are gonna play in theNFL next year, somebody's going to
sign them. I don't I wouldn'trule out the Texans being involved in one

(01:25:13):
other fairly major free agent acquisition oroffseason acquisition non draft. Really, there's
just no to me with what theyhave spent wise in cap space this year,
next year, the stupid void yearsthat they are taking advantage of they
can, And to me, it'swhy wouldn't you. I don't think you're

(01:25:33):
hurting any of your future options.If you're the team going out and getting
one of the still possible game changingplayers that's out there, that's I think
they should strongly be considering, becausewhen they don't and that player signs for
one of the other eight best teams, you'll see that they're doing exactly what

(01:25:55):
I'm thinking. I just feel like, if you're saying that, and I
agree with it, why you halhis money? Why didn't you? Why
was there a cap I guess essentially, if that's indeed what happened on Saquon
Barkley because of the position, uhprobably it feels like that was a marriage
that was supposed to happen and bothparties sound like they wanted it to.

(01:26:16):
So why are we like he hewound up with a lesser wife or whatever,
Well he did, or we theTexans did, somebody did somebody?
I mean you signed you went fromthe Giants to the Eagles, who were
just recently removed from the Super Bowl, just recently removed from being the top
seed. I mean, Texans soundpretty good, and they are, you

(01:26:38):
know, question not terrible. No, it's not. And you're in the
division, so that makes it.But like, I wonder if you were
to pull like one hundred NFL fansnot from Houston, let's just take them
from anywhere in the country. Youhave to pick one, Jalen Hurts or
c J Stroud. I wonder whothey're taking to put on their team.
Yeah, you're starting your franchise.I mean, why would you take Jalen

(01:26:59):
Hurts? I think some people would. I wouldn't, right, So why
would they do that? Well,I just because he's accomplished, maybe into
the Super Bowl. Maybe maybe.No, I really do watch the games.
I mean the reason why I'm saying, gosh, I'm sounding pretty conceited
with my belove for CJ. He'splayed seventeen games, fifteen regular season games,

(01:27:23):
two playoff games. Yep, that'sa little quick to definitively answer,
but all the guys that have playedlike that, it was the definitive answer.
That's why they are who they are. Well, I never heard Saquon
Barkley talking about how much you wantedto play with Jalen Hurts, but I
did hear him say how much hewanted to play with c J. Stroud
Off. It should not be aknock on Hurts as much as it is
all. Plus, this is aboutCJ. Right, it really is,

(01:27:44):
and it always has been. It'swe just think that much of him.
But man, I'm I don't knowit just to me, that's how this
comes off. It has since theday he signed there. Just to finish
off my thoughts since I'll attach namesto it. Xavian Howard obviously has remained
unsigned, so is Stefan Gilmore,and so of Justin Simmons. Those are

(01:28:05):
basically the three players the one yousaid, Zavian Howard okay, local oh
yeah, and Gilmore, who Ithought had to find enough season. I
don't think he's quite the player thathe's been, but he's still like plus
he's better than the player you Ithink would be replacing in Nelson, although
Nelson is also still available, don'tbelieve he's coming back, But somewhere in

(01:28:26):
the secondary they could absolutely find helpat least in those three names. To
the comments I made about they havethe ability to go do that. Still
as free agency, it doesn't everend. There's no up Sorry, you
guys aren't signed, and we're notsigning any players anymore. The NFL is
closed up shop. And with Nelson, isn't that about like two percent his
play on the field and ninety eightpercent familiarity with the scheme and the team

(01:28:49):
and all that kind of stuff.I mean, because there's better options even
in the draft, do you butyou're always taking it. When you go
into it like that, then nowyou're forcing I have to take this player
because I have no other options anymore. Unless all these players are still available
and you've been close contact and youknow what's gonna cost sitting there After all

(01:29:09):
that, then you're kind of answeringyour own question about him. You're trying
to upgrade and maybe ultimately you can't. Not the worst fallback option. No,
they've signed several other corners, obviously, Okuda is the player. They'd
like to take over that role,so it's not like they don't have anybody
to play there. It's only Aprilsecond. I'm glad we're back to the

(01:29:31):
spot because man, April second,the last few years, I don't care.
Oh, there's several months until theTexans die again. Can't wait.
It's way different now. It justchanges everything when you have that franchise guy.
All right, we will get tosome of the things we have not
gotten to when we come back.We call it in case you missed it.
And speaking of a franchise guy,how about a franchise checking account.

(01:29:53):
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and you can get them all.Roadside assistance twenty four to seven, dark

(01:30:16):
web monitoring, mobile phone protection.They give you shopping rewards and travel and
leisure discounts. They are able towaive monthly charges when you use your debit
card a certain amount of times topay, which why wouldn't you go everywhere
with that debit card from Primeway FederalCredit Union and get set up with the
best checking account in the entire cityso that you can realize what they're telling

(01:30:40):
you that Primeway Federal Credit Union istruly out to help its members. And
one of those ways is with thatlist that I gave you of those checking
account features, and the list isso much greater than that. Those are
just some of the things I've mentioned. But you go to PRIMEWAYFCU dot com,
you can see about three far moresuperior checking accounts out there against the
so called competition. That's all yougotta do. Go to the website PRIMEWAYFCU

(01:31:02):
dot com, find that user friendly, easy online application located right there,
and get yourself on the way totaking advantage of everything I mentioned in so
much more PRIMEWAYFCU dot com. I'mpleasing Adam Wexler our eighteen returns the Astros
fans here you hear the woods.Oh it's just those crazy Houstonians. Find

(01:31:23):
Sports Talk seven ninety that music canonly mean one thing. It's time for
In case you missed it here ona Tuesday edition of the A Team Sports
Talk seven ninety and that means Danis on the spot. I think we've
got a real humdinger today in caseyou missed it. I mean, we've

(01:31:45):
got audio, we've got local news, soup to nuts. We got it
all. You see, all right? Uh So email Udoka taking some monthly
hardware. You guys were talking aboutearlier with Jalen Green possibly be Western Conference
Player of the month. Well,you guys, of course think that's gonna
go to Luka Doncic. Well emyUdoka saying, hey, don't forget about

(01:32:05):
me. You know they went thirteento two under my tutelage. So for
the month of March, emy Udokais your Western Conference coach of the month,
the Eastern Conference coach of the month. This is kind of a feather
in the cap, emy Udoka hisformer assistant Joe Mizzoula, who went twelve
and four with the Boston Celtics.Well, irony there that they went at

(01:32:26):
the same month. But yeah,I it is. It's a fine line
you walk, right because everybody justgenerally regarded Phil Jackson and Greg Popovich's is
like two of the greatest coaches ofall time until they didn't have the talent
that made them the greatest coaches ofall time? Right and Phil, in
fairness to Phil, Phil walked awaybefore that happened. Yeah, but then

(01:32:49):
Phil went to New York and washe was a disaster because he didn't have
the talent. So I get whatyou're saying, but it's like, look
at Greg pop of it right now, he's got Victor waman Yama. Now,
but there's still what eighteen eighteen winteams? No, wait, what

(01:33:09):
were the two players that it's it'sDevin Visell is out the rest of the
year and so hand. So yeah, he does still have Brandham is brand
I'm gonna be starting now, Ibelieve so and Jana. That's for Matt
Thomas. There you go. Butyeah, like look at imy Udoka and
the talent he had obviously in Boston, Oh my gosh, this guy in

(01:33:30):
his first year, his only year, but the Celtics takes him to the
finals. Well, then he comesto Houston and he got Dylan Brooks and
he got Fred van Vliet and thoseare two big additions. But I still
think that he has done a heckof a job here because when it comes
to his style, his approach,accountability, and just not really giving a

(01:33:51):
bleep who he offends with on anygiven night. Comments about like when Jabari
Smith got the suspension for three thepunch, well you might want to land
it like he does not care andI love that about him. So well
earned. And like Wex mentioned,he's now coached a total of eleven months

(01:34:12):
in two different organizations and he's wonthis award three times. Crazy. All
right, let's go to a coupleof Astros news notes. Welcome back or
in this case, I guess forthe first time this regular season, Welcome
Dylan Coleman. He is now partof the Astros active roster because JP France
and MTV Jess are expecting, soJP is on the paternity list. Also,

(01:34:34):
one more step for Justin Verlander,a bullpen coming up on Thursday.
After that, he is expected tobe full go for a rehab assignment.
That is fantastic news, and hecannot return to the rotation fast enough.
Again, a rotation that the startershave the second best era in all of
baseball but only have a one andfour record to show for it, and

(01:34:58):
that one was absolutely spectacular. Lastnight. I think we all I think
we all gathered that Renel Blanco wouldbe contributing a zero point zero zero era
to that overall cause, but theyactually have been very good from an era
standpoint. It's just no wins toshow for it. And that's probably more
about middle relief and or the bullpenin general than anything else. Watching that

(01:35:21):
game last night was almost like beingon an elevator where you're like, do
I get off on this floor?Like with him, as the pitch count
got to the eighth inning, you'rekind of like, all right's he gonna
send him back out. He's gonnaget somebody loose in the bullpen. But
credit to Joe of saying, hey, you brung us man, go ahead
and finish it off. You knowwhat's funny about that is that I think
a lot of a lot of timeslast year is that a lot being relative

(01:35:45):
term, I feel like there wasa handful of times where Dusty pulled a
starter that was obviously he had.You know, sometimes it's about pitchcount all
In fact, a lot of timesit's about pitch count, but like a
star that could have been left inand maybe we see what happens. I
feel like that happened more than afew occasions last year. That's just how
good the Astros pitching has been.And it's just you know that the teams

(01:36:12):
are looking at this around the majorsand they're like, you got to be
kidding me. They found another guy, They found him in a car wash
and the Dominican eighth star he throwsa no hitter. And again, that
wasn't a terrible Blue Jays lineup.Was it complete? No, but they
had some real guys in that lineup. Didn't matter. They did not get
a hit last night. Yeah,it worked out well. I mean started

(01:36:32):
off a little rocky with the leadoffwalk to George Springer, and when that
happened, I was just kind oflike, Oh, we're gonna do this
again, aren't we? And thenhe completely mowed everybody down the cambio.
The change up a real nice pitchlast night for Renel Blancout. All right,
so a couple of bits of nationalaudio, but we're going to localize

(01:36:53):
it as well. We're gonna breakit off into wings. This first bit
of audio is the eight team wingbecause I'm I'm not gonna lie listening to
you guys back here behind the boardwith the headphones on. Sometimes I hear
a sneeze or a cough or somethingthat maybe the cough button didn't cover enough.
But in this case, Dan Orlovsky, who I completely forgot, people

(01:37:15):
were wondering aloud if he broke windon a Monday night football broadcast this season,
well earlier today he was on fromhis car with the Pat McAfee show,
and this ensued. I'm gonna letyour ears be the judge. It's
impossible to be at the top atboth of those, essentially, like it's

(01:37:41):
situation. What do you mean?I did not start two times? Are
you guys to be serious right now? Are you messing with me? All
right? So let's go to thetape, because I did go ahead and
condense it, so the sound itself, I'm gonna play it and let's see

(01:38:05):
what we judge it as now.Dan contends that it was his windshield wiper,
which I will say, once itstops raining, you will get kind
of like the dragging of the windshieldwiper, which I don't know if you're
it doesn't sound like that, butdoes your wife? Although I mean it
is kind of like, all right, you ever sat like in a leather

(01:38:25):
chair and it will make that noise, and then you try to do it
again and you can't. So ofcourse everybody's like, ah, you broke
wind you farted. Yeah, Imean, I know, I know what
you're talking about, but I don'tthink that's what happened here. Like I
play it again, I just itdoesn't sound like windshield wipers to me.

(01:38:53):
He's totally ripped. He totally heblew it out. Man, That is
one hundred percent what happened there.Hopefully he's not going carnivore because those protein
farts. Who then he tried toplay it off. That's good man.
Rob's dead. We need to getDan on the show. I've tried numerous
times. He's always he's mister TVman, he's a diva. Now I

(01:39:15):
will continue to try. I willcontinue to effort. As the word you
threw out there yesterday. All right, let's go to Matt Thomas Wing and
Matt is probably going to bring thisup on his show tomorrow because we're I'll
just go ahead and say it.Matt has been a jinx before. He's
talked about how oh you know thisguy never missed this from the free throw
line, and then sure enough,Clank misses off the free throw line numerous

(01:39:38):
times. Well, Matt, you'vegot good company because John Cruck. Last
night on the NBC Philadelphia broadcast betweenthe Phillies and the Reds, there was
a hitter for the Reds that wasup, and Kruck thought that was the
right time to be able to delivera particular statistic about set. Hitter didn't
go well, no grant slam forSpencer Steer. Let's hope that could take

(01:40:00):
use the two to one ball andfeel pretty well. Hit Merrifield going back.
It is gone a grand slam forSpencer Steer. So you're gonna be
working with Matt a little bit lateron tonight. They're up in Minnesota.
I'm assuming Minnesota is like any otherNBA team. Two straight opponent miss free
throws, free donuts. I don'tknow what it is, but that's kind

(01:40:24):
of one of Matt's things. Butis Matt a mush? Is Matt's in
the same category as John Cruck rightthere? Well, that was like a
reverse jinx. I guess that isbrutal when that happens, you know it's
it's with free throws. Clearly,that's what we're always trying. I did
it. I'm you gotta pick andchoose your times. Yeah, the other

(01:40:45):
night, about the only thing thatLuca didn't hit was three free throws.
I think he was two of five. And I was like, aghast And
I was like, well he's Mattsays he's seventy nine percent on the broadcast,
and I'm like, yeah, butlike that's eighty percent essentially, So
if you missed three in a game, that's a big deal. And yet

(01:41:08):
we were trying to jink him rightand left because well we couldn't get him
to miss anything else. But yeah, that's a fun thing to do.
Craig Ackerman used to do it onthe radio broadcast and still clearly does it
on the TV side. In fact, he's been very successful with it.
He's he's very good, but heknows you don't. There's certain guys you
just don't even try it with becausethey're like automatic. I mean, the

(01:41:30):
closest guy that the Rockets have isFred Van Vliet. But man, it
used to be like an absolute.You remember when Harden would go the line,
he never missed, he never misseda free throw. Same with Chris
Paul. Chris Paul is automatic.There's just some guys I wouldn't even try
it with so but I guess Lucais one of them that you kind of
can. He's in that in betweenphase. Shout out to Brian McTaggart because

(01:41:53):
he did about the sixth inning lastnight say hey, you know, got
a no hitter going on here?Tags has been the ben feature of bad
luck and he did follow it upafter the game of well, I didn't
jinx this one. He does.Yeah, and you know what, he
ain't afraid. He is not.He has done it so many times and
it's gone south as it does alot of times, and it's it's he

(01:42:13):
was. I'm pretty sure he didit for justin Verlanders in Toronto, you
know, the where the bleep isToro game my birthday? Oh really August.
Yeah, we were watching it inNashville at Martin's Barbecue late August.
I want to say, yeah,that was awesome. Yeah, that was
that was pretty cool. He wasdealing that day. What is it about
the Astros throwing no hitters against Torontotoo? It's a point done one there

(01:42:34):
and now one here, so they'reprobably sick of it Guardians And then uh
oh yeah, that one that happenedin the World Series. Didn't they get
Joe Biagini from Toronto? They did. That's why they're doing that to you,
Toronto Toronto fan, because you yousent the unfunniest member ever of the
Astros organization. Joe Biagini's Sean WilliamsScott, who looks like Fozzy. He

(01:42:56):
looks like Stiffler Shaw. William Scott, by the way, he was in
a no hitter. He took partin a combined no hitter. It's just
Joeyajanie weird, weird, weird,weird. He kind of looks like a
Fozzy bear. And Sean william Scottproduced a child, walka walka walker.
All right, were done. That'sit. I guess we are done with

(01:43:16):
In case you missed it, weare not done with the program. Thirty
more minutes to go. We willcheck in with Joe Espada when we come
back next. Are here on theA team as he joined the Matt Thomas
Show earlier today. For I guessit's not his first weekly visit, but
it's his first weekly visit of theregular season, so we will catch up
with him and some of what hehad to say when we come back is

(01:43:38):
Kyle Tucker catch every Astros game onSports Talk seven ninety mile Tatre the Glover
and streaming on the free iHeartRadio app. A team rolling along here on a
Tuesday edition of the program, oneday after Renelle Blanco throws the first no
hitter of the Major league season.Guys with the memes into today, by

(01:44:03):
the way, pretty pretty ruthless.It's video footage. Guy's absolutely losing his
mind. Dusty Baker reading the newspaperthis morning and seeing Yaner Diez hit two
bombs and caught a no hitter.Do you see the one of the kid
on the roller coaster looking back?Yeah, well that's a good one.

(01:44:25):
That's a classic. He really was. I mean, okay, so here's
the deal. I'm not gonna we'renot gonna throw shade at Dusty Baker.
But good for Joe Aspata. He'slike he had the last laugh so far.
Okay, I'm gonna lose my firstfour games as a manager of the
the Houston Astros to the Yankees.Yeah, but my first victory is gonna
be a no hitter from a kidin his eighth start. He was on

(01:44:49):
the Matt Thomas Show earlier today andactually shared a story about how he gave
Renelle Blanco the lineup card from lastnight as kind of a token after the
no hitter. Yeah, you knowwhat I thought, the night was all
about Ronel Blanco. He had theuh he took the official line up cart.

(01:45:11):
I'm okay with with with just acopy, so I'm going to high
copy. We had a toast withmy coaches. We had a very special
moment after the after the bowl game. I kept my uh my lineup card
here. I got an offensicide byMLB, and you know, the jersey
got a sticker. You know,we we said, we all celebrated together

(01:45:35):
and hopefully we can create some momentumand and we get and we could win
a couple of games in a rowhere in the next in the next few
nights. Yeah, because they weren'tdoing that against New York obviously, just
the absolute worst. Because again wewere talking about this earlier when WEX was
here. The fact that you feltlike it was you knew that it was

(01:46:00):
tough luck against New York. Itwasn't like, oh, New York just
came in and you know, beatthe brakes off of you every which way.
You got a lot of stuff gopoorly, not you know, ball
bouncing, not your way, thatkind of thing. And so you know
how they responded, in the waythey responded said a lot about their character.
And Joe spot I mentioned that todayas well. You know, if

(01:46:26):
this series or the Yankees series orsomewhere in June July, it goes under
the radar. But that's not theway we envision our season. You know,
we knew that the Yankees were goingto come in here, you know,
playing their their best baseball. Uhthey added some pieces to their lineup
would make them make them a morecompetitive of a better club. But you

(01:46:47):
know what I thought, we played. We played hard, we were we're
one pitch away, one swing awayfrom winning two of those games. And
and and the character of our teamshow last night after a tough series,
we come out, we sunk thePats. Well, Ronelle Blanco set the
tone on the mound. That's exactlythe way a championship reacts and performs after

(01:47:13):
a top series. So proud ofour performance, proud of our effort,
and we need to continue, youknow, playing ar Brano baseball, which
is exactly what you guys saw lastnight. That's what we're used to seeing
the I mean, not necessarily ano hitter, although we're kind of used
to that of late, but justseeing that performance by the Astros on any

(01:47:33):
given night over the past seven plusseasons, that's more often than not the
team that you are getting. Exceptfor the fact that the starting catcher this
year is definitely not within question,although I guess it wasn't last year either.
It was going to be Martin Maldonadomost often, and this year that
is not the case. Ianer Diazand Joe Spatta with his young catcher's improvement

(01:47:57):
at that position, you know what'sin the off season. We brought him
him early here in Houston and wesat down, we had some meetings,
both him and Victor Tarantini with ourwith our staff, and and we went
over our pitching staff. We wentover certain lineups that he's going to be
facing throughout the season, ways tonavigate, explore different different lineups, different

(01:48:19):
pockets, you know, weapons thatwe had that our pitchers have, how
to get people out, and andjust to get him familiar with our with
with with our pitching staff. Nowwhen we go to spring training, he
was already ahead of schedule when hecame on playing with that aspect of the
game. Now it's it's controlling thevolume, you know, uh I,

(01:48:40):
we all know how valuable that thatis. It's controlling how many games in
a row he catches early in theseason, so we could keep him healthy,
we could keep him fresh mentally physically. That's going to be the challenge
right now for uh for youan airbeing smart, pregame work, how much
screens he takes in the cage,the volume of work that he does in

(01:49:01):
the weight room, because he isgoing to be in the lineup a lot,
you know, the days I don'tcatch him, you know, I'm
I would like to keep him inthe lineup at the DH So I also
need to be you know, awarethat at some point he's going to need,
you know, a full day offso he can recover and we could

(01:49:21):
keep him healthy and fresh for theentire season. I mean that's got to
be music to Astros fansiers. Evenwhen he's not catching, I got to
get him in the lineup, likeright, like, how about putting a
good here. I never understood thatthat thinking last year, well he's young,
or you know, martinam like allof the would be reasons for keeping

(01:49:46):
Yiner Diaz shackle to the bench andthen you know, maybe pinch hitting him
in situations and you know, expectinghim to just provide. They're all out
the window, Like five games in, they just are. I don't I
don't think it's too early to saythat, Like he's not. He's the
hottest hitter on the team already.If you were a guy that was dead

(01:50:10):
set on him playing, you wereupset, and you know, he got
into the postseason, he didn't playwell or what have you, that'd be
one thing. Or if he cameout this season and he was kind of
scuffling like the rest of the team. But he's been the one guy at
the in the lineup that you can'tcriticize, and he hit two bombs and
caught a no hitter last night.I'll never understand why they didn't playing more

(01:50:32):
last year. I know why.I just don't get it, and I
don't agree with it, and Ihate it, and I do think it
would have changed the season. Ido, I do. I'm not afraid
to say it. And you know, I'm just glad he's part of the
part of the mix now. I'malso glad that Jeremy Paania is showing some
life. He too went yard lastnight, and uh, well more before

(01:50:53):
we go to break Joe Aspota onJeremy Pania's swing, because again we talked
about that in this offseason. Wetalked about it with Blumber, we talked
about it with Chandler Rome, thetweaks that they made to his batting stance
and just his approach in general.And obviously it paid off last night in
the form of his first home runsince early July of twenty twenty three.

(01:51:14):
And Joe A. Spotta speaking onhis young shortstop as well, he swing
looks right now. It's short ascompact, you know, not a lot
of movements. He's hitting the ballsto all fields, hitting the ball hard
to all fields, and he's stayingin the strike zone. If he does
all those things, he's going tofind himself in a good position to put
some good swings in hit balse hard. And I couldn't I couldn't be any

(01:51:36):
happier that. You know, thework he's putting in the off season,
he's paying give it in for himin early this season. And you know,
another guy like Janiar Diaz, mygoodness, his kid. The power
he has, his ability to getbarrel to the ball is it's very impressive,
all right, what Joe A.Spotta is telling fromber Valdez ahead of

(01:51:57):
tonight's start number two, Plus wewill hear from Jeremy Pania when we come
back next here on the eighteen.You've got more at Adam Clinton and Adam
Wexler on Sports Talk seven ninety Homefor your Home Teams, final segment of
the A Team here on Sports Talkseven to ninety. The moving parts continue

(01:52:21):
as the Astros and the Rockets overlapon our network family of stations. So
the Astros will obviously be on SportsTalk seven ninety tonight, but the Rockets
taking on the Minnesota Timberwolves will beover on News Radio seven forty k t
r H. That's where I willbe. Wex is doing things on the

(01:52:42):
TV side, but we'll get youready for Astros with the on Deck Show
coming up here at the top ofthe hour as they try to take two
in a row after losing four straightto start the year. And one of
the reasons they were able to getthat win, that elusive victory last night
was obviously Renel Blanco, and youheard Joe Spotta talking about that, but

(01:53:03):
also the fact that Jeremy Pania camethrough with his first home run since early
July, and uh Paanya joining theMatt Thomas Show earlier today here on Sports
Talk at seven ninety and obviously withtheir new manager, who's not so new
because they're all they're all familiar withJoe Spotta, but Paenia and company very

(01:53:24):
happy for their manager's first win.Joe deserves it, and Joe, he's
been great for us since the firstday. And know, and it shows
a lot about him because even thoughwe had a tough first series, you
know, you never saw it onhim. You know, I feel like
he's been here before. You know, he's always been he was poisoned,
and you know, he's just motivatedteam to keep going. You know,

(01:53:45):
when our when our leader, whenour captain, when our manager, boys
school comic collector and he puzzles andJoe, Joe did that for us.
Yeah. Look, he is aguy that I think a lot of people
thought was the obvious choice because ofthe familiarity, because of the players liking

(01:54:06):
to play for him and all thatkind of stuff. There. You assume
a lot and I don't know thecomplexities of that situation. I don't know
if you know they really basically,I don't know how far outside the organization
they really did. Look. Iknow they made some interviews, I know
that some big names were bandied about, But I don't know if it was

(01:54:26):
like a situation where they really weretrying to get somebody else or if this
was Joe Aspot's job to lose.I tend to think of it as the
latter, but you never know.Anyways, as it pertains to paina look,
there there are elements of a nohitter that have got to be positively

(01:54:46):
terrifying if you're a baseball player inthat situation. And let me explain what
I mean, Dan, I knowyou you're probably familiar with Adam Sandler's albums.
Sure, yeah, So back inthe day, there's one of the
skits on on one of Adam Sandler'salbums where he is he's playing in the
outfield and the ball keeps coming tohim. Oh, I thought you're gonna

(01:55:08):
go to the candalope. No,no, no, no, no,
no, tell it for a mama. No, I'm not going that route.
No, there's a skit where theball keeps coming to him. And
he's not gonna catch it. Heknows he's not gonna catch it. And
every time he doesn't catch it,you can hear the players around him on
the team just absolutely killing him becausehe's not making this routine. You know,

(01:55:30):
can of corn catch if you will? And uh, I gotta tell
you it's routine these guys. Howmany times just on a given day do
you think Jeremy Pania throws to firstbase and drills or throws to another player
around him. I mean, it'sit's so routine, and yet you've got
to make that play, especially whenit's a no hitter, especially as the

(01:55:53):
plays and the outs keep passing byand you're getting closer and closer to one
of the coolest things in sports andbe elusive at times, and we all
know about when things have gone wrong. Sometimes in the very late stages of
a no hit bid, you don'twant to be the guy that is the
one that screws it up. Andso Pania talked about that with Matt Thomas.

(01:56:14):
You know, playing defense in themiddle of a no hitter, you're
just locked in. You know,it's just throwing a no hitter. You
just kind of want to make theplay for him. You know, you
kind of want to be the theperson that makes the last out, make
the dog and play. You know, I know everyone's active. Dubon,
you know, two plays coming intothe game. That's funny how the game
works. You know he was onthe game, comes in the last inning

(01:56:35):
and gets two plays right away.But I say, you just want to
make the play. You want tomake the play, You definitely do.
And you know who else wants tomake the play? From ber Valdez,
who is Look if you're talking abouthaving pressure on you coming into this season,
and maybe you're putting it a littlebit on yourself. Maybe it's a

(01:56:59):
little bit because of what happened lastyear. Maybe you know things didn't go
well for you in your first outingof this year. Look, other than
golf, I don't know a gamethat can get more mental than Major League
baseball. There's absolutely mental miscues thathappened in the NBA and in the NFL.
But man, if you're starting pitcherand things, you just can't get

(01:57:19):
that elusive victory or you just wantto have a start, that is you,
right? I don't know if fromberis, if there's anybody more qualified
to say that kind of stuff abouthow things have gone for him more than
him of late, and Joe Spottaaddressed that earlier today, the Astros manager
on his message to Fromber ahead oftonight's game. You know what I think

(01:57:42):
the most important for Bramberg and Iwill be just get the ball in the
zone. You know, he getsthese pitches in the box, he's going
to be in really good shape.I thought he's stuff in Game one was
really good, but you know,it just couldn't command, couldn't control the
strike zone. So if he getsthe ball in the zone, induces some
early ground balls, getting breaking ballover, he's gonna be just fine.

(01:58:06):
Hope that's the case. Tired ofseeing things not go his way and things
not go the Astros way four outof five to start the year, But
they got a pretty good bounce backlast night, and here's hoping for two
straight as the Toronto Blue Jays willbe the opponent once again tonight, game
two of that three game series,before obviously a very anticipated weekend set up

(01:58:30):
in Arlington, a rematch against RotisGarcia and the rest of the rest of
it. Come on, Dan,I'm not crazy. I'm starting to see
it more and more. This isbecoming a thing. And I knew that
I would be the ringleader, butit's easy to to just say, oh,
that's his clan being a homer againfor Houston because they lost to the
Rangers. Like everybody that's looking atthis guy and making observations, particularly online,

(01:58:54):
like it's the whispers are growing louder. I just want to know what
the nutrition and work plan is.I mean, that's what I want to
know. Where were your air quoteswhen you said nutrition and workout? You
think that guy eats bad food forhimself? The way he looks. I
don't know, Like you know,there's been some guys who is it that
I was talking to? Oh,I was talking to Vernon Maxwell a couple

(01:59:16):
weekends ago, and the guy's fiftyeight and shredded right. There's not a
lick of body fat on that guy, And I'm like, what do you
eat? And I told him,I said, I don't want this to
sound strange, but I've been wantingto ask you this for a long time
because he looks like I mean,he looks like it's nineteen ninety four.
The only thing that is difference ishe has hair now. He used to
have the bald look. He toldme straight up, he eats like garbage.

(01:59:44):
He just does his workouts and they'reintense. You've ever seen. He's
posted videos of them, and I'mlike, how, how you can't be
eating that stuff at fifty eight andjust working out and expecting to look like
that a lot of it and he'she admitted a lot of it's genetics,
you know, Jeremy Payne, genetics, doles Ca, you know, DoLS
Garcia. I'm not so sure.He hasn't always looked like that, and

(02:00:08):
it's been very alarming, but weshall see. If all right them to
go away Bell, they will,they will. I'm not worried about them,
not worried about them in even theslightest and I'm looking forward to that
series next weekend in Arlington, alongwith the rest of the series with them
and throughout here in twenty twenty four. We've got the next chapter of Astros
Baseball right around the corner here onSports Talk seven ninety and again, as

(02:00:30):
I mentioned, Rockets basketball coverage gonnabe getting underway very shortly over on news
Radio seven forty ktright. So thatmeans I've got to get out of the
way because Ross vi Real is gonnaget in here and just entertain the crap
out of you. It's gonna beHe's telling me to get out, so
I'm getting I'm gonna beat it here. In a second, I'm gonna go
grab some food. But yeah,thanks everybody who participated in the program today,

(02:00:53):
for Dan, for wex I maysee. It is the A team
here on Sports Talk seven ninety.We'll be back at it again tomorrow after
at three o'clock. Keep it herefor Astros baseball, for Rockets basketball,
head on over to News Radio sevenforty k t RH and have a great
night for those

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