The A-Team: Astros Sweep The O's, 3 Good Minutes with Sparky and GBU

Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named AdhamTalking Your Teams series, Adam Clinton and
Adam Wexler are the A Team Ateam. What a weekend for the Astros
encapsulated in just one day's worth ofhighlights. That's from yesterday. They did

(00:24):
the same the day before, nearlyidentically, allowing the Orioles to hit a
solo home run from the same playerboth days and absolutely nothing else. This
after allowing the Orioles to force theAstros to use some leverage relievers on Friday,
despite a nine run biggest inning ofthe season for the Astros. As

(00:44):
they I think the word is dominatedominated the Baltimore Orioles over the last three
days. Turned what had begun asa week of no way not You're not
really going to lose a bunch ofgames to the White Sox just one won
the final two games with Cago andA one all three games with the Orioles
head into an off day today,another off day coming on Thursday, and

(01:07):
an opportunity to make this mean somethingback with you here on the A Team.
Excited to be talking about this teamas we have been all year,
not just after all of their fivegame winning streaks. This is their second
one, but at any point duringthis season, because this is unlike any
other year this era of Astros baseballfans have ever seen. Did they think
they might be good in twenty fifteenor sixteen or seventeen. Yeah, probably,

(01:33):
we're okay, we might be init. Oh my gosh, we're
making a run for the playoffs.We're really close. And then in twenty
seventeen, obviously they were so closethat they made it and then made a
run for it. And they've madea run for it every year since,
and none of those runs have lookedanything like this one. Even the COVID
year. Two games under five onehundred sound familiar to anybody, The Astros
are currently two games under five hundred. They went to the playoffs two games

(01:57):
under five hundred in the shortened sixtygame season. They couldn't even get to
twenty nine and thirty one. Ittook them all the way till game seventy
eight, after they lost the firstfour games of the season to the Yankees,
to get this close to five hundred. But at thirty eight and forty
that is where they are heading intojust two games in four days, both
of them at home meeting. Thisday off is also a rest day where

(02:19):
there is no travel I don't haveto get ready to go anywhere. They've
got the next two days here athome. And obviously they've gotten some good
fortune in the fact that the Marinerswere on the road where they stink and
they lost a bunch of games,and the Astros have closed that gap.
They've closed the gap in the wildcard race. Give you the particulars on
all those numbers, but maybe whatwe also saw beyond the obvious was a
team that looked a lot more likethe team that well they went to the

(02:43):
Alcs last year and the year before, and the year before, and the
year before and the year before andthe year before and the year before.
A good baseball team against the Astroswas no match for the Astros. It's
crazy because it's the most twenty twentyfourth thing ever to seemingly struggle. I

(03:04):
mean, you did struggle to defeatin the opening of that you know team.
This is the other thing White SoxOrioles in back to back series.
While the Orioles aren't the best teamin the American League record wise or maybe
even overall, because the Yankees untilfurther notice can claim that title, but
what a contrast in competition. Andit's like, by the time you kind

(03:28):
of limped to the end of thatWhite Sox series, you were probably hoping
you could maybe like steal a gameor two if you're the you know,
against the Orioles. But for themto sweep the Orioles and to basically dominate
every single game, even with thatlittle hiccup Friday that was the almost comeback
by the Orioles where fourteen runs wasn'tgonna necessarily be enough until it was at

(03:53):
the very tail end because they justthat was just insane. But then,
I mean, you, you're thesuperior team these last two games, and
over the course of the weekend,it was not a fluke that you swept
a very very good Orioles team.And now, if you're like me,
Wex, I'm upset there off tonight. I want them to keep going.
I know that off nights are good, and they've been good for individual players

(04:16):
on this roster in addition to justseeing an off night coming up on the
calendar at any given time, butparticularly with the fact that it's the Rockies
as their next opponent, which I'mnot saying you take anybody for granted,
but I just would assume that theyplayed them starting tonight so that there's not
any sort of momentum killer. ButI just at this point, it's if

(04:38):
you're asking me to predict anything aboutthis season, whether from an individual performance
standpoint team performance, what they're goingto do, if this is going to
keep going, how long it's goingto keep going, I have no clue.
I'm just along for the ride atthis point. It's like you said,
it's unlike any other season during thisrun of frankly excellence by the app.

(05:00):
This season's been anything but. Butthey are close to five hundred,
and the fact that we're celebrating thatthis late in the year is alarming and
fascinating. Yeah, this is whyyou are with them, This is why
this is almost assuredly going to bedifferent for all the way up until September
to see what happens. Last year, you finally figured it out that we're
going to have to pay attention tothe wins and losses and the race and

(05:21):
the standings and the wild card andthe division all the way basically till the
last Sunday of the season. Andit just hasn't been like that it was
for different reasons last year. Neededto catch somebody, needed to push back
somebody, and at one point itseemed like all three teams could still be
thinking postseason. I don't think allthree teams in this division, any three
teams in this division will be thinkingthat it's still possible. With the Royals

(05:43):
and Twins not too different from theAstros and Rangers. The Orioles obviously seem
like that have a pretty good strongholdon one of the two spots that the
Ale East will claim, with theYankees grabbing the other. But there are
still things. With more than halfa season left, I joked about the
Astros have having a difficult time tryingto reach the halfway point at above five
hundred. Well, that possibility stillremains because they didn't lose any games since

(06:06):
I said that they needed to winevery single one of those games the next
two against Colorado in the first gameof the impending road trip, and if
they do that, then all ofa sudden, the first eighty one games
would have put the Astros a gameover five hundred, a season long eight
game winning streak, and an opportunityto just kind of say, well,
there's no end in sight, We'renot gonna win every game the rest of

(06:27):
the way. But if this isthe beginning of them putting the three things
together like they never have all season, well, it does seem like it
was just a matter of time,which is why I would never write them
off. And I'm not expecting thisto obviously be the turn of the right
direction. But the things that theyneed to do to get it stay have
it in the right direction, well, those are the things that happen around
the base as well. They fieldedthe ball well, they made things happen.

(06:48):
They forced the other team into lookinglike a little league outfit on more
than one occasion. They pitched wellagain for the most part, all things
considered, They've now had two ofthese starts for the We're gonna pitch one
game this year guys, and Ihope that's not true for sure with Jake
Bloss, but it could be.They won each of those games. They

(07:09):
won the five run first inning outburstBlair Henley game when they played the Rangers,
and now they won the Jake Blossgame where he had to leave the
game after he had a shoulder issuein his fourth inning of work. And
then they went out and put itall together, truthfully, with starting pitching,
relief pitching, offense, defense,and everything else that goes into it
the last two days and that's howbaseball is what it is. That's why

(07:30):
it is awesome. As Ac said, you're playing the White Sox and Orioles
and back to back series. Thosetwo teams could not present much more different
of a challenge, whether it's thepitching, the offense, or whatever.
And yet it's the game of baseball. Every day is different, every pitcher
is different, every matchup is different. They struggled more with Chris Flexen over
the last six games than really anypitcher that they faced, and that is

(07:54):
impossible to have forecast because it wasquite obvious he was the sixth most talent
of the six pitchers they faced overthis six game stretch where they won five
of six. Their last two gameswere fantastic. Basically, first thing in
line is the starting pitching. Youhave all star Renel Blanco going out there
and throwing darts. He's been doingit all year and continues to put the

(08:16):
numbers to back it up. Infront of the arrest of the American League
and Fromber's month of June, hehad one bad start, He's had four
excellent starts. Yesterday was excellent againstan excellent offense, and you get to
go into to today's off day gettingyour bullpen back on track. Fromber and
two newbies was all it was neededyesterday, two major league debuts to get

(08:37):
three in the eighth and three andthe ninth. That means everybody else had
Sunday and Today off before their seriestomorrow with the Rockies. Well, and
I think those two that you justmentioned, Renel Blanco and Fromber in Saturday
and Sunday's efforts, if you will, normally because of the way this season
has gone, because of and I'mnot just talking out for the Astros,

(08:58):
I'm time out for the Orioles andspecifically they're offense and specifically their offense coming
into this series, because they justgot done, you know, putting up
a gajillion runs against the Yankees andthe finale of that thing and taking two
out of three from the team that'sahead of them in their division and ahead
of them in the al standings,and they come in here and aside from
Friday, Astros fans should have probablyprovided you get good Fromber, and I

(09:24):
know it's a big provided despite whatyou just said about the month of June,
but provided you get good Fromber,the Astros fans should have expected that
offense to be quelled because those aretwo of the best pitchers in the American
League. When in Fromber's case,He's right. Reneuld's been the better,
one of the better pictures in theAmerican League all season, starting with his
first outing in which he threw ano hitter, and he followed that one

(09:45):
up with seven no hit innings withthat little hiccup, which by the way,
Edwin Diaz anyone, it looks dumberand dumber as we get further away
from it. I mean, RenelBlanco has been fantastic. So I know
the big, bad Orioles offense cameto town, but it doesn't really surprise
me that Saturday and Sunday they prettymuch got nothing considering who they're facing.

(10:09):
So yeah, we will talk aboutthat and a whole lot more from over
the weekend, the good, thebad, and the ugly, tickets to
give away and so much more ona jam packed Monday edition of The A
Team here on Sports Talk seven ninetyBack to Adam Clinton, had Adam Wexler,
the eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety. It is the A team here
on Sports Talk seven ninety on aTuesday Wait Wow, on a Monday edition

(10:33):
of the program, as the Astros, I think, as we all predicted
sweeping the Baltimore Orioles, I stillcan't believe what I saw. Like I
know, I just got done sayingAstros fans should have expected that from at
least two thirds of the starters inthis series. But you still had to

(10:54):
do what you did offensively. AndI know that Gordy mentioned this earlier the
morning, and you almost forget this, well you probably didn't, Wax,
but you forget that they did thiswithout Justin Verlander in the rotation. You
forget that they did this without KyleTucker in right field. They're not going

(11:15):
to want to hear about anyone else'sinjuries. Like I, like you said
in the first segment, I don'tknow what's going to happen from here on
out. Maybe they you know,just absolutely launched themselves to several games over
five hundred. Maybe they chase downthe Mariners. It feels like anything's possible
at this point. Maybe they losefive in a row after this. I
have no clue, But I doknow that part of the reason the odds

(11:39):
were against just things like this weekendhappening and frankly just this past week where
they're arguably playing their best baseball ofthe season. I have to argue that
because of the opening loss to theworst team in baseball, the Chicago White
Sox. I just have to.But it's just they are doing it without
some seriously vital piece is to awould be contending team or a team that

(12:03):
wants to go to the postseason andtry to make some noise at the very
least. And they're doing it inpart because young guys are coming through.
Joey lo Berfido. Forget arguing whereyou want to put him as far as
positionally at the plate. He's gettingit done. Chas McCormick's had his worst
season and maybe the worst season onthe team by anybody not named Josea.

(12:26):
Bray You, and he got itdone in a big way in one of
these games against the Orioles. SoI again, I go back to what
I said in the first segment.I have no clue what to make of
the Astros here in twenty twenty four. It's a They're like an enigma there.
What's the line from JFK that JoePeschi says, an enigma wrapped in
a mystery, wrapped in I don'tknow what the line was, but that's

(12:48):
how I feel about them. Idon't know what to expect, and so
I'm just along for the ride atthis point. There are a lot of
different storylines that have been a partof this season, to be sure,
and you touched on quite a fewof them. I've been on one the
whole year, and I think thisweekend could not have encapsulated it more.
It's not Dana, it's not Joe, it's not a brave new it's not
management, it's not the opponents.It's the players. There's no reason the

(13:09):
players can't play like they played wheneverthey want. I think they've wanted to
some other times, but it justhasn't come about the players. These are
capable players. The idea that they'vegot to go out and get something,
which Dana continues to say that theywill, which is great to hear.
I don't even know what he thinksthat is or how he's gonna do it.
Well, I know how he's gonnado it. He's gonna hope to

(13:31):
get lucky because they don't have theassets to challenge the other teams who are
truly going to mortgage their future.Finally, teams that just now are in
the race for the first time inyears, they have farm systems, and
they will be able to offer muchmuch more and probably are willing to offer
just about anything because they don't knowhow what it's like, and they certainly
don't think that. I don't believeanybody thinks what the Astros have done is

(13:52):
normal, because nobody else ever doesit. So these other gms are probably
like, Okay, we're in itnow, we might as well go for
it. Maybe we'll still be init any year, Maybe we'll be in
it in three years. I don'tknow, but I know we're in it
now, so we'll go out thereand get it. But Jeremy Pania hitting
a couple of balls to the wall, something we haven't seen for the better
part of the last six weeks.Janer Diaz with a three hit day.

(14:13):
Alex Bregman's batting average now almost exactlybetween two hundred and three hundred, rather
than resting right on that two hundrednumber, and we're looking at about fifty
games worth of him being the playerthat's much more capable, not an All
Star player, not an MVP caliberplayer, but the player he's been the
last four years, which is aplayer that helps you win games both offensively

(14:33):
and defensively. Clearly, the otherspot in the order, wherever it was,
and whomever it was, the personthat it was given to at first
base for most of the first seventyeight games of the season, did very
very little. You know, thefive home runs that John Singleton hit in
the span of about twelve minutes,Well, there hasn't been anything else from
him on either side of the abrapart of this team, and obviously Abrau

(14:54):
being in the lineup meant somebody elsewasn't in the lineup. Most of the
time. It didn't seem to be. They were playing a bray you now,
watching everybody else hit the way theyare, everybody else passing the baton
the way they are, things likethat that would be different. Nobody was
hitting hardly, anybody was hitting whilehe was embarrassing the franchise, not through

(15:15):
really any fault of his own,but more there by playing him as often
as they did both early in theseason and then to reprove to themselves that
it made no sense for him tobe out there. It doesn't automatically mean
you take him out of the lineupand all of a sudden Mauricio Dubon hits
three hundred for the entire season,which he continues to be doing, doesn't
do much else and doesn't hit fora lot of power, I mean offensively.

(15:37):
He's been an absolutely a savior typeplayer defensively for this team. But
we said it with Jeff on Friday. And even though there's some dumbs out
there, some of them even havemicrophones that don't have any idea what's going
on with this baseball team, butsay radical things on the social media platforms
or their own platforms, and thenthey're proven to be absolutely moronic when the
exact opposite happens. Do you thinkthis is about the time where the Astros

(16:00):
think Joey low Perfido will be outthere more often than not, like this
is the start of this is beforehe played on Friday, And if the
answer is an unequivocal of course notan I think so or not? It
could be the time he could havegone oh for ten rather than four for
ten, And I don't think there'dbe any reason whatsoever for them to find
at bats for Trey Cabbage, orfind at bats for Cooper Hammel, or

(16:23):
make sure Chas McCormick, even withhis two homer day and his three hits,
that's not what they're about anymore.That there's an opportunity for this player
to help the team, to makethem better, and he does that by
playing. Jake Bloss's opening start probablydoesn't even get into the fourth inning if
not for low Perfido's best catch ofthe year by an astro in left field

(16:45):
in the very first inning, whenhe thought, yeah, I could dive
into the wall and stop just beforeI crash into it. It was an
incredible play. Jake Myers had anotherincredible play coming in for a ball in
center. All these things are happeningall at once. So again, I'll
say, if the players just goback to who they were, they don't
have to be better than who theywere. Make a good defensive plays,

(17:08):
start hitting the baseball like you've beenhitting it most of your major league careers,
respectively, and this team's gonna looka whole lot better. Okay,
but here's the thing, and youknow the answer is obvious. And it's
not obvious Joey lit Braffido is gonnaplay more often than not, or more
at least now that he's on theroster of seemingly full time full time.
Yeah, never going back. Right, we all agree on that it's not

(17:30):
gonna be at first base. That'sbeen debunked many, many, many millions
of times. And I know it'sgonna be in the outfield, right,
Well, they're not going to beat first base, is clear for now.
If there's an opportunity, and Idon't, I don't think they have
any I don't. I'm not sayingthey're going to do it, but you
are going to be pushed into howdo we make it happen? Because you're
playing all these games without Kyle Tucker. You have two guys out of your

(17:52):
four three outfielders and DH that's fourplayers. Two of those guys are in
the lineup every day. That's Alvarezand Tucker. You are going to have
to try to figure out out who'shitting the best, who's playing the best,
what the numbers say every day onhow to get Myers, McCormick,
low, Perffito, du Bond onthe field. And you only have now
three spots to do it, providedyou never play Singleton again, which isn't

(18:14):
quite where they're headed yet. Butonce you say the lineup, we saw
the Singleton lists lineup. Granted Tucker'snot currently a part of it, so
it'll change when he returns. Butthe group they put on the field,
the nine batters they had out thereto close out this year, that's the
best they can do. And that'swhat they're doing. And Joe's putting out
the best possible group of hitters thathe has at his disposal. I don't
think that's it. Clearly wasn't thecase for way too much of this year.

(18:38):
And whose ever fault that is?And it's part management and part of
spot. Although he's in a kindof a tough spot, you need to
play him. I can't really sayno, and so he didn't well,
And part of what I'm saying is, you know Tucker's going to be back
eventually, and so then it's it'snot gonna like coincide with Okay, oh
look it's the trade deadline. Howconvenient we can send one of these guys

(19:02):
out as part of this log jamthat we have in the outfield. Anyway,
but that's what we all think isgonna happen if they're gonna make a
move, don't we I mean,you don't think they're gonna move an outfielder
to make a deal for like anysort of pitching help. Let's put it
that way. I don't. Soif they make that move, it's going
to be what not even sure thereis one, to be honest with you,

(19:23):
Okay, but they okay, saythey're going to make a move.
Hypothetically, how are they making thatdeal if it's not one of these outfielders?
Well, I mean, I'm notother teams GMS, which is good
for the Astros because they don't seeJake and Chaz and all these guys play
every day. They're going off whattheir reports tell them. They're going off
what they've seen in previous years.They're going off of the minor league reports

(19:44):
for anybody that's in the system.I'm not sure what a GM would see
in Jake Myers unless they just thinkthey can win every game one to nothing.
I mean, he's not by consistentenough offensive player for me to see
a ton of value in adding himin t Like that's gonna make me want
to give something up of value.I can understand and being a part of
a trade, but now the otherplayers in it are the ones you're really

(20:07):
the ones that you want. Sothen are the Astras even compelled to include
Myers in a trade. I mean, Chas McCormick would have to keep this
up from now until the end ofthe very absolute last minute of the deadline
for an opposing GM to say,I really like what I see. This
could really be something. We've gota surplus of this and he can plug
in right away and play every day. I mean, you're talking about two
non everyday players for the most part, and I'm not sure how they could

(20:32):
spearhead a deal that's gonna make yourteam better. What's gonna make your team
better, unfortunately, is super unexciting. They all are on the forty man
roster or the sixty day al that'swhat they're gonna in my opinion, you're
my opinion, that is what theAstros are going to do. They don't
have a lot of spots in theeveryday lineup to go find somebody obviously other
than first base potentially, and I'mnot sure what kind of pitching they think

(20:57):
is available since they've needed pitching fromthe Yankees series in March. Yeah,
that's true. No, it's hardto do. It's not sexy to say
getting healthy means getting better. Butit's hard to argue against that when you
consider who's not healthy right now,a lot of the big names especially.
I mean, that's something we needto continue discussing. I think missing Tucker

(21:19):
is clearly enormous, and the numbersof pictures they're missing also big. Who
they are, even Verlander? Imean, I'm he's just he's just another
starting pitcher to me. It's crazy. Twenty twenty four. Yeah, it's
crazy that we're saying. Unless thisneck discomfort really truly turned him into as

(21:41):
unsuccessful as he was as last twostarts, well that would be convenient because
it means he's better than what hewas showing. So, uh, we're
gonna start hearing from the Astros.As a matter of fact, we're going
to hear from Steve Sparks as well, who had several thoughts on what's going
on with this current version. Isay that of the Astros because there have
been several versions this year. Ilike this one the best so far,

(22:03):
so we shall see if they cancontinue this. And he has thoughts on
that a whole lot more when wecome back here on the A team Sports
Talk seven ninety the Bason for FreddieBaf. You listen to every game on
any device with our free iHeartRadio appoutstanding Sports Talk seven night Home of your
Rockets. It was a good weekendfor the Astros. Obviously Steve Spark who's

(22:26):
not a part of it. He'snot on the broadcast over the weekend.
Kevin Eschenfelder filling in, but hewas on with the Sean Salisbury Show this
morning, as he is each andevery week, And just because he's not
on the broadcast doesn't mean he's followingalong with what's happening. Yeah, Robert,
great to be with you here asthey get started with the series with
the Rockies. Fill everybody in onwhat happened with the Oriols. I didn't

(22:48):
pay any attention to it whatsoever.But here I am ready to do my
job. You think that's not happeningtomorrow. You know, I know you
do this when you're on vacation.You're first of all, you're never on
vacation. It's a total fluke justI didn't put any input into it.
I didn't make any suggestions. Aswith most, you know, weekend trips
or vacations in general, I watchedpeople make the plans, and then I

(23:14):
listened to people tell me what todo. We went to Dallas this weekend,
immediately after our award winning broadcast atMinute Made Park on Friday, so
by chance, the entire game wason during our drive. Yeah, which
I watched the entire way. Soyou watched it, you didn't listen to
it on the iHeart app. Idid a little of both, but for

(23:34):
the most part I was I waswatching it and listening to There weren't any
territorial restrictions that were imposed on yourphone. I don't know how this works,
not with the service that I usedto watch games. No, there
were none. So I was ableto both participate in any fun car activities,
play some heads up, you know, listen to some music, and
make sure my personal driver was ableto get us there and back and where

(23:56):
we needed to go that night.We should drive the whole way there and
back. That is correct? Isthat how you guys operate as a couple
when you're in the same car.And then on Sundays when we came back,
I didn't plan the brunch we weregoing to eat. Who was going
to be there when we were goingto go, When we're going to pack
up the car and leave, Ijust like I said, I listened to
directions and we left a little bitafter between one and two, which once

(24:21):
again coincided with Astros baseball. Andthen when that was over, I got
to watch Tennessee bet Texas A andM in the College World Series, so
it was perfect. Of course,when I'm on vacation, I don't keep
one eye on it. I keepboth eyes on it, fully and completely.
Is the reason she does most ofthe driving so that you can watch
sports. No, the reason isthirty minutes into the drive, she doesn't

(24:44):
want to hear me say I thinkthat's it. What do you mean?
That's about all I could offer.Maybe forty five minutes, maybe an hour
tops hoursaving that much. Not ahatred thing. It's a you get tired.
It's not a good long driver.Wow. Wow. See I used
to be really really good at it, and now I'm really really bad at
it. And at this happened asyou got a little older. You think

(25:08):
it's an age thing because it's beena while now, and I don't think
it's a lack of sleep thing.I think I sleep plenty. I just
am not real good at staying away. I cannot daytime, nighttime. It
doesn't matter. You know this becausewe've gone on long drives several times together.
They're such fun. You guys thinkthey aren't. They really actually are.
WEX in a vehicle is hilarious.But I can't be in a vehicle

(25:32):
that I'm not in control of.It's a huge problem for me. Yeah,
I do a little, a little. I mean, I'm just trying
to keep everybody safe, so Ido a little front seat driving. Like
you can see every all fifteen carsin front of you have their break lights
on. You see that, right, I just wanted to check things like
that when you weren't looking at yourscreen. Well, I have it in
a place where I'm doing both andnot driving because that would be unsafe.

(25:52):
But anyway, Yes, Steve StarksSparks, of course, was locked in
on the Astros, as he willbe again this week when he jumps back
into the radio Booth's huge hat tipas always for Esh Kevin Hestenfelder joining Robert
for the three games this weekend.This big part of the Space City home
network covers both the Astros and theRockets and does an awesome job filling in
essentially wherever he is needed on thebaseball side throughout the year, and he

(26:15):
was needed on the radio side,so Steve Sparks could have those three off
we back to get going. OnTuesday, was in for his weekly visit
with our crew in the morning onthe Seawan Salisbury Show. So three good
minutes here in the three o'clock hourwith our astro's guest from this morning on
the Sean Salisbury Show. That wasSteve Sparks here initially commenting on his takeaway

(26:37):
the takeaway from the weekend sweep ofthe Orioles. I think, so you
know, I think adding a changeup number one is a great pitch.
So you can almost tell him thatyou're throwing that pitch and it's still really
hard to hit, and because itmoves in different directions, it doesn't behave
the same way every time he throwsit. The other reason is is to

(27:00):
go from two pitches to three pitches, a guy can't sit on one and
adjust to the other. You know, when you have three, it makes
things so much more difficult as ahitter to try to sit on a slider
or whatever, and it makes everypitch that much better because you can't sit
on one of them. So,you know, I see so many swing
and missus with the slider. WhenI look at it, it doesn't look

(27:22):
great, but I see so manyswinging misses on it, so that tells
me he's tunneling it very well offof his fastball, so it's hard to
recognize. And number two is thechange ups. In the back of their
minds, you know, they justthink, man, I've got to make
sure this pitches up. And thenthe slider breaks off the plate, the
swing and miss, and here wego. He's seven innings deep again.

(27:45):
So I think it's for real.And I say that because I see so
much swing and miss I think sayingit's for real is a reasonable thing to
do. You and I have bothsaid that for quite some time, and
I don't know Steve has as well. And it's for all the reasons he
describe great hearing a pitcher describe thatin what's coming from him tunneling at things
like that, and obviously sitting inthe batter's box as the hitters need to

(28:08):
do. We're this deep end ofthe season the book continues to get written
on Renel Blanco, and every hitterin baseball is still sitting on chapter one.
Good luck, tough time hitting him, can't pick this pitch up mix,
his speeds well gets you off balance, is not easy to guess with,
and his stuff is excellent. Theseare all the things that mark a

(28:29):
pitcher that the manager and coaches ofan All Star Game would be wondering,
should we just go ahead and starthim in the All Star Game? There's
so little to distract from that.With him continuing to do what he did,
he was facing one of the pitchersthat would have been also in contention
for Renel Blanco's era dipped under CorbynBurns with their two respective efforts on Saturday.

(28:52):
Tan Or Hawck is the only pitcherin the American League among starting pitchers
obviously, that has a lower ERA. There are zero pitchers in the American
League that are tougher to hit.He and Luise Heel now both at one
sixty four batting average against, anda Heel's propensity to walk batters has him
just fourth in a whip. Andthere is Renel Blanco. Excuse me,

(29:14):
he's a little further back than thatwith his whip just over one. There's
Renel Blanco fifth, so he's inthe top five in the three most telling
statistical categories about is this guy awesome? Or what eer whip and batting average
against? And then I always askthe same question when we start talking about
this topic, how much does theAstros record penalize him? Which is dumb

(29:40):
zero point zero. It never does. It never should have any impact on
it. Why would it. Thisis an All Star game, you're not
you don't have to win thirteen gamesto get there. You don't know your
win total hardly matters at all.I hope I don't think it ever has
before. It doesn't matter that becausethey're also gonna have multiple All Stars,
so they don't need to swing himin. He's got eight wins. They
almost never lose when he pitches,so that ought of to me. That's

(30:03):
a benefit. I mean, I'mnot glad about it, but if the
Astros hardly win when he's not pitching, and then they almost never lose when
he it's the same Grek Cole.This is Garret Cole last year, but
you know Cole, they won Ithink eighty percent of his starts and the
team won fifty percent of their games, which means they won way less than
fifty percent of their games when hedidn't pitch. But you know, this
is like postseason awards. This isalways a factor to me in every sport.

(30:26):
It is not like a postseason award. I do not think it gets
selected in that way either. No, that's a good thing. I mean
I could be wrong, and certainlyother people might feel differently. But it's
a mid season reward for your midseason work. Very very individual. There
are some obviously some parameters to it. We do have to poke fun in
a good way with the All Starvoting, but also need to wrap up

(30:48):
the three good minutes with Steve Sparkshere as he gets into who is next
for the Astros. We will dothat when we come back on the other
side, So it'll be three goodminutes plus a stop set with Steve Sparks
here on Sports Talk seven night.I got a good minute for you right
here about another place you can watchRenel Blanco and the rest of the Astros
whenever they are doing what they're doingright now, which is winning a lot.

(31:11):
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(31:33):
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the Afternoon Team, covering your teamto last center failed. This is Sports

(32:37):
Talk seven ninety of Astros Baseball getsyou the remainder of the great stuff from
Steve Sparks. Astro's radio analysts joinedthe Sean Salisbury Show this morning, as
he does each and every week.Impressive three game sweep and now what how
do they sustain this winning streak?They got to sustain this, and how

(32:58):
do you do that? You gotto be careful. You got to make
sure that you don't exhaust guys.And I start to get concerned a little
bit with you know what double barrelmeans in baseball speakers. So you get
into a game and I understand this, I really do, just because of
where they started this season. Butwhen you get two guys up in a
four run game late and you sayto one guy, you're going in if

(33:22):
we don't score, You're going inif we score a couple of runs,
or you know, something like that. So it does a couple of things.
It makes two guys get hot.In essence, one guy's wasted.
The guy that doesn't get in getswasted and he's not going to be as
good and he gets taxed. Andthe other thing about this is the guy

(33:45):
who you're telling if we score acouple more runs, you're in. You're
saying, well, I can't getthree outs with the four run lead.
I mean, that's the mindset.And I understand this is a team game,
but to get the most out ofyour guys out of the bullpen,
to make sure that you play thosemind games too. To me, it's
impressive that some of those mind gamesrelievers that he's talking about essentially are Seth

(34:12):
Martinez, Taylor Scott, and thenon down the line of whoever happened to
be on the roster at the time. Yesterday, for instance, it would
have been Duben King and Contreras.Sometimes it's Mashinski. So it's been a
whole host of other guys, butfor the whole season it's been Scott and
Martinez. When the games are atcertain spots in the later innings, if
they haven't already been used in theearlier innings, that's kind of what he's
talking about, and Taylor Scott wasin that exact position this weekend when he

(34:36):
got up and then ultimately was notused based on the game situation. It
is important to realize what's what Stevesaid for both of the reasons. He
said, they're burning these relievers up, and I know Joe knows it.
I know Dana knows it, andI know Abrau, Presley and Hater know
it and Scott for that matter aswell, and it cannot it's it's so

(34:58):
unlikely that you're gonna be able todo that for another eighty four games this
year and have them be as successfulas they've been for the last sixty of
them, because I know what theireras for the season are, all but
Scott not particularly good, but allof their eras over the last fifty two
games, when the Astros have thefourth most wins in baseball. If anybody
hadn't realized that and see it onthe show, tweet every day, they're

(35:21):
thirty one to twenty one since theMexico City rebooth. They went down to
Mexico City, and they have beenten games over five hundred since then.
Granted five of those ten games camein the last five but at thirty one
wins, there's only three teams inbaseball that are won more games than they
have since that time since they beganthat stretch, and none of them are
inside the division. The Mariners havethe same number of wins. They've also

(35:44):
lost two more games than the Astroshave during that time. But expecting these
relievers specifically to be able to keepit up just from a physical standpoint and
for the mental side of it notto at some point get to them where
he's literally telling them, I can'twait for you to get these three outs
unless the other team's too close,then I can't use you. I mean,

(36:05):
but here's this deal, Like yousaw this with uh Montero this weekend,
well, the implosion with both ofthose relievers, Like I feel like
and what's what are Montero's numbers?For example this season? Four sixty era
twenty nine hits in twenty nine anda third twelve walks, twenty nine and
a third is how many he's pitched, That's right? And how does that

(36:28):
compare to some of these other namesthat we're mentioning less than every one of
them, That's what I figured.Significantly though right, Scott's at thirty seven,
Hayters at thirty four, Martinez isat thirty seven, a Breves at
thirty eight. So yeah, prettysignificant. Yeah, because he has been
prone to this as as often asany of them, probably a little bit

(36:49):
more. It was bound to happenas he he's of all of them.
This is true for any reliever.You pitch too much, you're gonna be
less successful, almost assuredly, nomatter what your stuff is. Uh,
he has shown. And I'll tryto get the Weschley research team to go
back on this, but I feellike this is accurate, especially from what
we've seen here in Houston. Whenhe's pitched too often, his numbers go

(37:10):
so bad so fast. He literallycan't get anyone out because there's no movement
on his pitches at all. There'sno action. That's what happened. If
he throws a strike, it's goingto get crushed. If he throws a
ball, he's going to load thebases on walks and the hitters know it,
and that's why they tee off onhim more often than any other reliever
on this team, Like he hasmore bad Oh my god, how did

(37:31):
you? This is killing them typeof outings. You know, Ryan Presley's
bad outings are because he's in therein a one run game. He walked
the first batter on two marchers andthen he gives up a one ringing hit.
While he's been bad at that thisyear in terms of what his batting
average against is, and boom,we're all hammering him for getting three outs
on four hitters and giving up arun. He had a really good time

(37:52):
of it again this weekend, ashe's done a way more often than people
think. But you do have tothey do need to be very, very
concerned with this, and it's justunfortunate in this dan age and baseball.
We're like jumping for joy. Hegot him seven innings, what about the
eighth to ninth. Every once ina while, there's been i think now
four because of the Ober complete game. Four complete games in the American League.

(38:15):
One of them was a no hitter, one of them was by Fromber
and two other pitchers. It justdoesn't happen. So every single day you
have a game, you need sixouts from somebody else, or three outs
from somebody else, or nine ormore outs, and it's bound to put
them in a bad position. Lastthing from Steve here is maybe looking at
the team as a whole. Theyclearly have had a bunch of guys in

(38:35):
a little bit better groove offensively.Alva is having a fantastic June, Bregman
now putting together a good solid fivesix weeks of playing well or hitting well
at the plate, and a fewothers, mister ambush himself, Jose al
Tuova first pitch, Bye bye homerun. But here's what Sparks thinks about
who needs to step up? AndI'll tell you one thing. I thought

(38:57):
this from the moment the Astros kindof turned the corner offensively without Kyle Tucker,
and it's been almost the whole month. He may mention it here and
I will echo it. As hecontinues with who needs to step up for
the Astros, I'm gonna say it'sKyle Tucker. And the reason why I
say that is, I mean,it's an obvious choice for his talent.
But the reason I say that isbecause Bregman's swinging the bat so well.

(39:20):
I think he stays in the twohole. I don't think Tucker goes back
to the two hole. So where'sTucker gonna go? He's probably going to
go to the clean up spot andwho's he gonna protect. Who's he gonna
protect, and that's Ordon. SoI think for the Astros to really take
over and to play great baseball,I think Kyle needs to continue to wrack
up the RBIs in big situations becausea lot of teams don't like to pitch

(39:45):
the jord on it for good reason. But Kyle Tucker's in the MVP conversation
as well, and I think forthe Astros to get it done, and
it might be the guy that hitsafter Tucker might be Yan or Diaz,
but those guys are gonna have topick up the slide because the first three
guys in this lineup right now,if Bragman continues to swing it the way
he is, it looks like he'sfound something. I think he can stick

(40:07):
with it. I think the Astrosare in really good shape, and I
think it starts to lengthen out now. I mean, I don't want a
dog or bray you, but nowwith him out of the lineup, the
Astros lineup looks more athletic and morelengthy. Again, couldn't have said it
any better. And what I wasspecifically pointing to from his comments. I
had the same thought over the weekendas they wrapped up Sunday's game, and

(40:29):
knew I was going to be talkingabout it today. And then when I
went and listened back to what hehad said, realized we have the same
thought. And I bet you andI hope, I'm hopeful that Joe Spotta
has the very same thought. Thisis what the lineup needs to be.
It's probably what it should have beenall year long. It's one that's very
familiar to the Astros for however manyyears they've used it. Al Tuove,
Bregman, Alvarez, Tucker. Thenyou can figure the rest out. No

(40:52):
need to give that too much thoughton any given day before any given matchup.
Just trot it out there and seewhat else you need to put behind
him. I need Tucker backase,but I know that's not going to happen.
Literally, it's not going to happenbecause he has a little bit more
time on the shelf. But assoon as he does get back, as
soon as the good Justin Verlander getsback and some other names get back into

(41:14):
just giving the Astros something the better. And that goes back to what you
were talking about. A couple ofcouple of segments ago. As the Astros
continue or to try to continue toplay as good at baseball as they played
all season, albeit very shorthanded.I'm just glad it's the Colorado Rockies next.
I mean again, if you're thinkingof the pitching and considering they had

(41:37):
to give a spot start to bloss, they're starting rookie Arraghetti every day.
Hunter Brown never lost his spot inthe rotation. Renel Blanco's essentially made every
start this year, his first yearas a starter. That does sound like
they're very shorthanded from a pitch startingpitching standpoint, and their injured list is
littered with starting pitchers. Their offenseoutside of Tucker essentially hasn't missed any time

(41:58):
all year, any significant time allyear. Guys have missed games. Guys
have sat. You had a bregnantillness for a weekend, and that's it.
Kyle Tucker is missing these games,the first real impactful or really anybody
in general time that's been missed.An update on Victor Carrattini, though,
as well, also warrants as weget into the four o'clock hour. Dana
Brown at his weekly visit with RobertFord on Sunday before yesterday's game. So

(42:22):
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Clinton and Adam Wexler are the ATeam A Hour number two underway here on

(43:54):
a Monday edition of the eight TeamSports Talk seven ninety wex ac with you
here in studio Dan Matthews, theshow Killer, our producer, back at
it after a little outing on Fridayover at minute made when we were sitting
there with Jeff Blumm for the firsthour. Didn't necessarily think we'd be on
the precipice of an astro sweep overthe Orioles. But that's exactly what unfolded

(44:20):
over the course of the weekend,albeit many twists and turns to get there,
and not the least of which wasFriday night's game, if you want
to use that description, because man, and you think you're doing pretty well
putting up fourteen runs, and yetthe game was in doubt down the stretch
because of a massive attempted comeback bythe Orioles. You got a major league

(44:44):
pitcher making his debut and getting injuredin the same game, and then you
had Renelle Blanco and from ber Valdezdoing what they do best when they are
at their best the next two nightsor days, I guess in this case,
and the Astros sweeping out of townone of the best and as we
mentioned in the first hour, wexhottest teams in baseball, the Orioles.

(45:05):
I mean they are legit. Weknew this was going to be the case,
but to see the Astros do whatthey did nonetheless still surprising just twenty
four hours, not even that afterthey did that yesterday. Very impressive to
win the three games. Winning thefirst game was hard. Jake Bloss haven't
really talked about him. I thoughtI was really impressed with his willingness to

(45:25):
pretend he was a major leaguer andhe got to do that very aggressively.
He's never faced major league hitters.The people in his own bench usually we
talk about, well, the otherteam hasn't seen him, so they won't
know what to expect. His teamhadn't seen him. He's throwing the guys
who haven't caught him. He's inthe dugout with people who not only haven't
seen him, they literally don't evenknow who he is. And it goes

(45:46):
for the coaching staff too, Andunfortunately, I would imagine it led to
him throwing more than one pitch,probably all of the pitches to his last
batter that he probably would not havethrown otherwise if they knew him, if
they knew that, Grimace wasn't aah, this is tough, I gotta
get this next out. I'm gonnait was I'm in pain. Grimace and

(46:07):
the feel for his shoulder when theyfinally caught the velocity drop on his pitch,
that's what really tipped them off.And that's why Joe Spot and the
athletic trainer went out to visit himand told him, it's we gotta get
you out of here. Six hits, two runs, a couple of k's,
and the first eleven outs of hismajor league career. He described it

(46:28):
as if he didn't feel like itwas anything too serious, and they even
described it fairly similarly, calling itsome inflammation, and as it happened that
night, more of just a littlehe felt something there, a little tweak
in his shoulder, But they alsodidn't hesitate to put him on the fifteen
day i l And that's not normallythe case when you really haven't gotten a
full view of everything that's going onin there. But they're also in a

(46:50):
little bit of a pinch, andthey have been all year. Another go
around where if you threw a lotof pitches for US tonight and you're a
fringe twenty six man roster guy,well you're out. We're gonna have to
figure something else out. And that'swhy they saw two more major league debuts
in the game on Sunday. Butthey got seventy five pitches from Sean Dubin
and Nick Hernandez in that game,and they still needed to make their way

(47:13):
through the rest of the eighth andninth inning to finish it off between Bloss,
Dubin, and Hernandez, who gaveup fourteen hits and eight runs between
them, and they still again didn'tpush it to where they didn't need anybody
else, and that's why Brian Abrayyou had to pick up his first save
of the season. I don't faultJoe at all for using him again and

(47:34):
in succession again, because you didn'tthese are It's not who you were playing.
It's not the momentum you gain fromit. It's what you lose from
a game. You have to winit. They didn't have to win it
at seven h nine. They hadto win it at ten to fifteen,
when there were three hours and fifteenminutes into that game that they'd scored fourteen
runs, had an eleven run lead. They did have to win it.

(47:57):
So he did have to go toa brave which essentially burned for the rest
of the series, which was fine. You were hoping that your two starting
pitchers would make it a little lesslikely that you needed all three of your
leverage relievers and all of whatever remaininginnings were there. But just on Bloss
himself, that he looked like aguy who will eventually be here and maybe
be here long term. I thinkSpencerrighedtty looks the same way. And yet

(48:19):
in each of their cases they've had, you know, Bloss a little unfair
to say this, but there area lot of growing pains usually with incoming
pitchers, minor league prospects, andeach of them are as was Hunter Brown.
But they're not Paul Skins, andthey're not Steven Strasburg. They're not
so obviously going to dominate at thislevel. And those pictures are because of
their arsenal. They got to learna bit, a little bit about how

(48:42):
to pitch. They got to mentallylearn how to go after hitters, which
it's pretty clear Hunter Brown is learning. And they got to trust their stuff,
their's stuff. Also, they gotto work on that to make sure
they execute it. But for aone timer like bloss is currently, and
we'll see if he gets back outthere again, they'll probably want to be
careful with a twenty two years oldwho again I pointed this out before he
made the start on Friday in Julyof twenty twenty three, he joined the

(49:07):
Astros. That's not even twelve monthsago. And yet he probably will get
another shot once he's back. Giventhe situation, I mean, it's more
likely than that, let's put itthat way. Well, that's that's a
good guess, because the timing onhim is pretty much unknown timing on Verlander
is I think safe to say whenhis IL time is up, which is

(49:29):
the first of the month, hewill not be activated. He will not
be pitching, and I don't thinkhe's even close to doing that. Could
be ten days, could be fivedays, could be twenty days. So
now he's not back yet. Youknow, Dana Brown again, it's unfortunate
we're this deep into the season andthere's so many on field things to discuss.
It's really just a Robert Ford hereSunday with the Astros our conversation with

(49:52):
doctor Brown of the Houston Astros medicalstaff, also doubles as their general manager.
It's basically a report on where's JPFrantz, How's he doing, How's
Kyle Tucker doing, How's Victor Kartinidoing, how's this picture. It's just
a NonStop list of players and whatthey're up to and how things are going.
So he had to give all thoseupdates. He actually spent some time

(50:14):
with Kyle Tucker, so hopefully hasa little bit better idea straight from doctor
Tucker. I guess who knows betterthan anybody what his situation is. This
is what Dana said about Tuck.You know, he's fighting through it.
Right now, he's at least movingaround. He's doing some indoor activities in
terms of exercises, no baseball activitiesyet. We really need them to get

(50:34):
back. But soon as as soonas the soreness goes away, he'll start
with his baseball activity. But youknow, I talked to him for an
extended period of time yesterday, probablyabout seven minutes. We just chatted it
up and he gave me a feelfor what he feels like and the fluid
that's around, you know, thearea. So ultimately he's feeling a lot

(50:54):
better, but we we certainly needto get him back. Hopefully that's sort
of subset those indoor activities. Unlikeaggregators of Kelly Stafford podcasts, they were
treadmill. He was running on thetreadmill. And again, we're two days
removed from that interview, will betwo more days removed from it when they

(51:15):
get to their off day on Thursdayas they make their way out of town
for the upcoming road trip. Andit's strictly up to kind of a pain
tolerance thing. If he's not outon the field doing baseball activities by the
time this coming series ends on Wednesday. I don't think there's any reason to
believe he's playing in the upcoming seriesbecause now he's at the point in time
where they would be concerned about histiming. I would leave it up to

(51:37):
the player entirely. I would neverforce them to go on a rehab assignment.
We went through this with Brantley abunch over the last couple of years.
We've seen it with Alvarez, whereit seems like Alvarez could go to
Antarctica for a month, come back, and immediately Homer. Some guys don't
necessarily need that to get their timingback. I'm hopeful he's one of them,
because you said it as well thatthe sooner he's able to play baseball,

(52:00):
I'd no offense to the hooks andSpace Cowboys fans. I think it
would make the most sense to haveit in an Astro's uniform as soon as
he's ready to play a game.You yeah, you mentioned the off day
coming up after this mini series withthe Rockies. They'll be in New York
to take on the Mets. Theywill likely not see Edwin Diaz right because

(52:25):
there won't be any safe situations forthe Mets, so he wouldn't be out
there, so it's not gonna bebecause he's facing a ten game. Band
was actually watching that game as ithappened, and the announcers were kind of
wondering why they hadn't thrown a pitch. They weren't sure what the delay was
for. This is Edwin Diaz,the closer for the Mets, coming into
the game to pitch the ninth inningwith the lead, and he basically never

(52:46):
made it to the mound, andthat is normal for a reliever coming in
to get checked as he makes hisway to the mound. They checked him,
They called all the umpires over,they explained it to him. They
basically were saying, no, man, we can't or no, it's not
gonna happen. And then they handedhim his glove back because the issue was
with his hand with the sticky substanceon his hand, which after the game

(53:07):
at Karapaza, the umpire crew chiefsaid, we know what it feels like
when rosin and sweat are mixed togetherand this wasn't it. And he said
after the game, that's what itwas, plus dirt that he rubs on
his hand. So it's like everyone, not like every one of the others
in what came about how it washandled individually, but what will come of

(53:30):
it will be exactly the same.He's gonna serve ten, he's not gonna
appeal because there's no reason too,because you can't win, and then it'll
be back. And I hope everybodydoesn't care. They've never cared with anybody
else before. They shouldn't care withRenel Blanco. They shouldn't care with Max
Scherzer, and they haven't. Thiswill be no different. Well, some
people cared when it's with Renel Blancobecause of what Jersey he wears, which

(53:51):
is stupid. Well they're actually theyactually don't care. And after we get
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eighteen continue continues on Sports Talk sevenninety goes up, Stars, Rockets Basketball

(55:43):
lives here now. The good,oh good, the bad, that's my
good and the ugly. Don't makeme good with the A team. We're
selling you the good the bad.Second time on a Monday, as we
get back from the weekend, wealways try to recap it with the goods,

(56:04):
bad, and the ugly, anythingthat might have taken place since we
last spoke with you Friday afternoon fromthe ballpark. I've got the bad right
there in the middle. Ac,you got the ugly day, and you
get us started with the good,short and sweet. Brian King, aged
twenty seven, Louis Contreras, agetwenty eight, major League debuts, both
scoreless innings. That is pretty simplistic, both on the roster. For the

(56:27):
first time in King's instance, thesecond time in Contreras's instance, he was
not asked to pitch the first timeand was able to return this time because
of the Jake Bloss situation. Hewas put on the IL as we mentioned
after his start, and that allowedfor the Astros to bring back Louis Contreras
without the ten days, and bothof them showed the ability to throw strikes,

(56:50):
especially King who made very quick workof the Orioles. Also a nice
pocket for that left hander out ofthe Astros bullpen that's not the closer,
Josh Hater that maybe they can havesome use for. So good for both
of them. They've had a lotof major league debuts this season. Those
were two more plus losses, threein a span of three days on the
mound for the Astros. I don'tknow if this is ugly or good or

(57:15):
bad. It's somewhere in between,which is why I will stick it right
in between the good, the bad, and the ugly, because I think
it now is just a matter ofwho are you and how do you view
this situation? It will come uphere in Houston at some point for a
stadium that was first in use foran NFL football team in two thousand and
two. It's twenty twenty four.It's come up in the home of champions,

(57:38):
with the Kansas City Chiefs and potentiallyKansas City Royals being wooed to leave
their current home due to their currentstadium situation, and Charlotte the home of
the extremely successful Carolina Panthers. Theyand their owner, who's extremely well liked,
laying it on pretty thick, youguys are picking up on this,

(58:01):
was asking for six hundred and fiftymillion dollars worth of renovations to make his
Playpen football palace the permanent home foreven longer for the team that earned the
first pick of the draft last year, the Carolina Panthers. They're going to
vote on it tonight, and it'salmost appears like he's gonna get it.

(58:23):
The owner who's mismanaged the team wasalready not well liked before he threw a
drink on a fan at a game, and before he decided to I'll just
head on in here to this restaurantthat has a very condescending marquee up right
now about anybody, could you letme do the draft, be the GM

(58:44):
for the Panthers so I could handlethings. He went in and talked to
the owner about that little marquee message. But all that being said, like
the one of the least successful ownersin terms of product and popularity, is
basically going to get what he wantswhen the vote goes his way and they'll
say, yeah, six hundred andfifty million, What do you guys?

(59:05):
Thinks that sound good to you?All in favor, all eleven of you
in favor. Let's give it tohim. Let's keep that football team here.
Can you imagine what life in Charlotteis like without those three out of
three hundred and sixty five days wherewe gotta win. We'd miss out on
those three days of the Panthers winninga game, maybe maybe two. It's
a three hundred and sixty five aday a year calendar, sometimes six.

(59:28):
But it looks like he will getit. Like I said, is that
good for the other owners? Isthat bad for the other cities, the
cities that aren't going to want tobe held quote unquote hostage? Well,
that's exactly what sounds like to meis happening there. All that does is
remind me that the Texans lost tothe Panthers last year, which could be
the ugly but it's not. Thisis actually something you and I were discussing

(59:52):
off the air during one of thebreaks and it's got a local flare spin
to it, if you will.The Raptors are giving Barnes a bunch of
money, which is fine. Teamscan make bad decisions if they want to
do such a thing, and Ithink you definitely think that's the case.
Here is they give him a fiveyear max rookie extension that could be worth

(01:00:15):
as much as two hundred and seventymillions agent. It guarantees him to twenty
five Thanks fact talker there. Iknew you would like both both sides.
Those extra forty five million dollars.Maybe some all NBA work, some stuff
like that. That's tall and ScottieBarnes future All NBA Team, All Defensive
Team, or earn MVP honors.That's my favorite one like it. I

(01:00:37):
mean that's typical of these contracts.They're all written like that. Yeah,
specific to Barnes. He turns twentythree in August. He made his first
All Star appearance. This past year. He averaged just a tick literally under
twenty points. He had eight rebounds, six assists a game. And this
is ugly because it's probably going toeat well, it's going to force the

(01:01:00):
Rockets hand one way or the other. I hope they don't let it.
They can make their own decision,but yes, I can be hard to
believe the agent wouldn't use this asa method. And Scottie Barnes totals for
three years versus Jalen Greens, they'renot very good. Greens are in many
ways better. But in a threeyear progression from his rookie season when he

(01:01:23):
was Rookie of the Year to hispast season, the year you mentioned he
made his first All Star game,Scotty Barnes has become a better player.
He shot the ball a little bitbetter. He was a reasonable three point
shooter at thirty four percent, whichis way up he was under thirty after
two seasons as an NBA player.If he shows any more progression, then

(01:01:44):
now he becomes a viable option asa three point shooter. And clearly his
all around game is pretty good whenyou're going for twenty eight and six on
a night. He also averaged ablock and a half per game, which,
for you know, any player inthe league there aren't that many averaging
more than a block and a halffor game. He's also only six'
seven, though I did have tocall ESPN stats an info to the carpet

(01:02:05):
when they wrote the article on himstill waiting for either a rewrite or yeah,
we goofed on that one. Inthe article, it says he average
nineteen point nine points, eight pointtwo board, six point one. It's
this one point three steals and onepoint five blocks. Barns and two time
MVP Janna Sono Dea Coumpo were theonly NBA players to average at least one
per game in all five of thosestatistical categories, according to ESPN Stats and

(01:02:29):
Info research. It took me aboutthree seconds to say, what about these
seven players who did it? Theydon't count were they not in the league
last year? One of them justwon an NBA championship, which again goes
back to the original point. Youcan make a bad decision if you want
to hand a player a whole bunchof money. But just like in the
NFL, just like at certain positionsin Major League Baseball, it can in

(01:02:50):
so doing indirectly hurt other teams thathave guys in the same draft class coming
up for a deal. And ifyou're Jalen Green agent and you're seeing this
and you're going to the bargaining tableor what have you with the Rockets.
This is again and I don't knowanything, and I realize what we do
on the side has nothing to dowith this. I'm telling you right now.

(01:03:15):
If you're coming to me and you'retrying to work out a deal and
we know the ema Udoka wants starpower, and you have the choice between
trading one of Jalen Green or Alpreaand Shngoon, You're trading Jalen Green if
I'm in charge, because his stockis never gonna be higher than it is
right now, and it's probably goingto help you avoid a situation like this,

(01:03:37):
because that could get potentially ugly.Jalen's gonna want more money than you're
gonna want to give him, isthe bottom offe at. He's gonna want
that contract, a max contract,and I don't have any reason to think
he won't desire that, and heshould. The one main difference I do
think is where you are and whatyou can do really not ever been a
problem. It wasn't this offseason.It wasn't in off seasons when the Rockets

(01:03:58):
were good. Players will come here, will play here. Maybe it's still
the same for Toronto. Maybe it'snot. They just got rid of their
best player this past season, withSiakam being traded to Indiana. Now their
new best players Scottie Barnes, andso they're paying for it because that's the
best they drafted him. That's theway they're going to get great players is

(01:04:18):
hope they win on draft Day,and that's pretty much. It's the same
way they got Siakam in the firstplace. The Rockets probably can go otherwhere
outs to do that. Paul Georgebeing connected to the Rockets is interesting to
me. Interesting is an interesting wordbecause you can take it anyway you want.

(01:04:39):
Yeah, I don't think I'm intothat. Yeah, I'm definitely not
into that, mainly because of hisage, mainly because he just played a
season with better talent and they didnothing. So why coming here a year
later would do anything different, Idon't know. And there is that,
all right, when we come back, we're gonna hear from Alex Breggman and

(01:05:00):
Astros manager Joe a spot up.Plus we'll give you we'll give you a
little insight into how you could winsome free tickets later on in the program.
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(01:06:55):
is game More. Sports Talk sevennine hand streaming on the iart radio app
Home of your ruck a team hereon a Monday edition of the programs Sports
Talk seven ninety year home for AstrosBaseball Astros. I wouldn't say they're the
hottest team in baseball, but they'reup there, and they do have a
season tying high or high tying.I guess they should say win streak almost

(01:07:19):
all of fight. What I thoughtfive was the max, that's right,
and that was that was the apexof the season until this point. No
real reason to hesitate on the Astrosbeing the hottest team in baseball. I
know the Guardians have also won fivein a row, but they weren't playing
the Orioles, and I guess theywouldn't have been had they not dispatched of

(01:07:41):
the then hottest team in baseball comingin, because that's what the Orioles were.
Yeah, I mean, their offensehas been on fire. They obviously
battered the Yankees, they then batteredthe Astros on Friday night, and then
they completely shut down. It's amazingthat they were able to do that to
a lineup of at least at thetop. And I know Henderson was moved,
but you know, to have Rutchmenget a five hit game in a
game in this series and they didn'twin that game, and Henderson was all

(01:08:04):
over you also in that game witha two homer game and all those two
run homers. But yes, Ithink it's easy, very easy to respect
the Astros five game winning streak.Three of them came against Baltimore. It's
a team under five hundred. Mostoften those teams are probably not very good,
and they're gonna be there most ofthe year. Rangers maybe have an
opportunity to get back to respectability,and I was talking to some people in

(01:08:28):
Dallas. Unfortunately, over the weekend, we were going out somewhere to go
watch some kids softball, and youknow it's gonna be warm out there,
and you know, they didn't knowthat. I would definitely have my own
hat if I needed it. Idrove my car so I had hats in
there. But I saw them.My father in law walk by with a
handful of Caps ball caps. I'mlike, he's like, you need a

(01:08:51):
hat. I go I might.It isn't gonna be that one. He's
a Rangers World Series champion hat.Obviously I wouldn't be wearing that. Why
did he think you would? Oh, he thinks he's funny. That's hilarious.
Sometimes he wouldn't like me very much. But I was able to manipulate
my way out of that very veryeasily. But they did get Max Schurzer
back yesterday. Josh Young is notfar behind, and that's something just like

(01:09:13):
Houston. Eventually we'll get some oftheir pitchers back, and eventually we'll get
Kyle Tucker back. Young's missed almostall of the season, so that would
be a huge boon to them.They sit a half game back of Houston.
Specifically to the numbers, the Astrosare six back of the Mariners.
Rangers are six and a half theAstros. As it relates to the Wildcard
race, the bottom portion of thewild card race has changed pretty much on
a daily basis. Baltimore is inthe top spot in the wild card race

(01:09:36):
at four, but five, six, and seven are the Twins, Socks,
and Royals, Red Sox, andthey're separated by just a game and
a half, and then the Astrosare next. That's how far up the
standings they used to be looking downat the Angels, A's and White Sox
and nobody else. Now they havethe same number of wins as the Rays,
win more than the Rangers, twowins more than the Tigers, three

(01:09:58):
wins more than the g and areonly four wins behind both of those team
teams I mentioned for that top spotor even the yeah, the top spot
or bottom spot, last remaining spotin the wildcard race, just five wins
behind the Twins, who hold spotnumber five. That's how a five game
winning streak can change your fortunes.Alex Bregman's season has certainly changed dramatically after

(01:10:20):
he got out there at the beginningof the year and was the worst offensive
third basement in baseball. Arguably hewas giving a Bredio a run for his
money, and well, where youshould be versus where you are. And
yet during this stretch of games wherethey won thirty one times in fifty two
games thirty one and twenty one thirtyone wins is fourth most in baseball.

(01:10:42):
Since they went to Mexico City,he's clearly been a different offensive players.
OPS is over eight hundred, whichis right in line with his last four
seasons. He's hitting two seventy fiveduring that time, walking a little bit
more than he had at the beginningof the season. His eye has remained
very good. He just hadn't drawnthat and then he walks. And in
the time without Kyle Tucker, he'sbeen even better. Alex Bregman hitting three

(01:11:04):
point fifty four since Kyle Tucker hithimself with a baseball off of his own
bat with an OPS of eight seventyone. That is a major change.
It also is having an eight seventyone OPS is really impressive. It's incredibly
impressive considering he's homered zero times.He is not homerd since Kyle Tucker left

(01:11:27):
the lineup, but his ops iseight seventy one. That is hard to
do. He put his play towords in what he had to say about
the sweep over the weekend of theOrioles. What does it mean? It
means a lot. Obviously, they'rea great ball club and they got a
great pitching stat But we swung thebat really well all day to day and

(01:11:47):
all series long. And he's veryproud of the effort and the preparation and
the guys, and we got tokeep that rolling. Fourteen runs, eight
runs, five runs in each ofthe three games, twenty seven runs against
an Orioles pitching staff that's also verygood. The top five pitching staff they
faced, three had been good starters. Grayson Rodriguez looked like he was a

(01:12:09):
good starter for some of the night. Then the Astros battered him out the
door. Corbin Burns, while notawful, he did give them seven innings,
but it was one of the mostsuccessful offensive days against him all season,
and they took a part Suarez rightthere in the first inning. As
you heard to open up this show, Joe a Spot agreed and thinks,
like I've been saying, this iskind of who the Astros are and who

(01:12:30):
they can be and who their offenseneeds to be. You know what I
feel like from like we were,there was intent behind every take, every
swing, every bat there was thegame plan was there and we need not
let up. That's that's our offense, he said, dynamic offense that could
beat you in many different ways,and we show that against a really good

(01:12:51):
team. I think that's what Iwrestle with about this weekend. What was
more impressive the fact that the Astrosoffense did what it did against a very
good pitching staff from Baltimore or thefact that the Astros pitching injured as it
was and make shift I guess,as it was in the opener of this

(01:13:12):
series, did what it did tothat offense, and I'm guessing it's the
latter. It is probably the moreimpressive of the two, but I don't
want to give credit where it's duethere at the expense of the former.
They win games when they both happen. Yeah, that's what you got to
take out of this. It's notone versus the other. It's when they
do this. They're the twenty twentytwo Astros. They are the twenty seventeen

(01:13:33):
Astros. They are the twenty nineteenAstros. They are the twenty twenty three
Astros except for the home ballpark part. That's why you win when both.
I mean, why do we keeptalking about the Oriols being so hot.
They really weren't hot. That's justwho they are. Great offense, great
pitching, no kidding, They're atthe top of the league. That's what
this team, even with any otherissues they have and personnel and injuries and

(01:13:55):
managerial and general managers that stuff.Throw it out. Look at his wearing
these uniforms. They're way better thanthis. And I know eventually people saying,
no, they're not. They're thirtythree and forty. They're not very
good. You've got to face this. They are not playing well. They're
producing bad baseball. But what wesaw this weekend can't be and should not

(01:14:16):
be. The anomaies should not bewell. They just couldn't keep it going
all year. Why not. It'sthe same guys for the most part,
if not better in some areas,if not on the ascent in some ways.
For the age of some of theseplayers, there's and granted the Tucker
being away from the lineup can't bedismissed. That clearly is part of it.

(01:14:38):
But you only struck out five timesoffensively on Saturday and Sunday. You
didn't have to hit the ball over. You hit the ball over the fence
to start the game, and thenyou scored seven runs without doing it again.
You got two sack flies that broughthome runs. You got a single
and a double and another single,and you drove home three more runs.
There's nobody on it and nobody outin the first inning after altwo Ve and

(01:15:00):
you put together a three run inningplus his one. Given the rest of
each respective roster, what's more ofa boon to get this tandem back for
this respective team? Is it Schureserand Josh Young or is it Verlander and
Kyle Tucker? To me, it'sthe Rangers, because Verlanders, not the

(01:15:21):
Verlander the Katy. Their offense isway worse than the Astros this year.
They're not a good offense period.The Astros should be better. It's kind
of annoying, I'm sure to fans, even though Tucker greater than Josh Young,
no doubt about it, and Verlandervery easily could be better than Push
in my opinion. So I mean, who knows what Scherzer will be.

(01:15:43):
He's thrown five innings this year.Verlander's done that a lot. Well,
he only has thrown five innings.There were five very good innings yesterday against
a good Royals team. But it'sannoying I think for fans to see the
Astros among the leaders and batting averageas a team, among the leaders in
home runs during the stretch of winninggames. There among the leaders in runs
scored and ops and all the thingsthat go with the show for it.

(01:16:03):
Well, they should be scoring allseason long, should have been scoring more
runs. What did they do thisweekend? They had a nine run inning.
Hadn't done that all year? Theyscored twenty seven runs in the weekend.
Because there, it's exactly what Joesaid. And we have to go
back to the Wednesday appearance for DanaBrown with Sean Salisbury Show. He said
things he hasn't said all year,and he set him in the most polite

(01:16:26):
but direct way possible. I knowthe players would agree with me type stuff.
These guys need to do more,They need to have better at bats.
I've been saying that forever. Doesn'tmean you have to give your at
bat away. You don't have tobunt, you don't have to you know,
push a ball. You just haveto be smarter about what you're doing.
And it's not necessarily being patient.I'm all swore as thrown what eighteen

(01:16:46):
nineteen pitches and it was for nothing. It's okay to be aggressive and have
good at bats. They're not completelydivergent ideas, but they had more successful,
smarter at bats up and down theline up. Yesterday we're talking about
Yander Diaz having good at bats andJeremy Paine you having good at bats,
and Joey Loperfedo still has not hadfifty at bats having very good at bats.

(01:17:09):
It was nice to see the Keystonecops out there on the Orioles infield
on two different occasions unable to tagBregman or throw the ball successfully to third
base well, and then they threwthe ball at low Perfido when he was
sliding into second and got another runhome. He looked like he had shot,
which he kind of did with abaseball. He should have been wearing
a vest lar right there in thechest. You got to give Bregman credit

(01:17:32):
on the bass pads. He madea sweet move. Seen it before.
Hey, how you doing athletics.That's right, That was the matrix,
as was mentioned on the television sideof the broadcast. All right, I
know Football five's coming up at thetop of the hour, but let's check
in on the AFC South a littlebit early as well. When we return,
we will explain. But first Iwant to explain to you where you

(01:17:55):
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in Houston. That's primeway FCU dotcom. Adam Clinton and Adam Wexlor,
the A team now continues. SoI can't decide if you're gonna agree with
it so much it's not gonna bea problem, or if you're well,
let's just put it this way,the Texans running back situation not among the

(01:19:50):
highest ranked. Depending on who you'retalking to, you and I have different
reasons. I guess why we're I'mnot a huge fan of the Joe Mixon
signing. Yours is more football related, I would assume just based on what
you said, and mine is morepersonal. I've just always been kind of
consistent about how I feel about him. But as it pertains to this upcoming

(01:20:15):
Texan season, I still maintain,and this actually ties into the running back
situation, I still maintain I'm lesscomfortable with the offensive line than anything else
they've done, or in this case, not done in my opinion, to
improve, even more so than takingout the running back that was primarily their

(01:20:35):
bell cow last season and replacing himwith Joe Mixon. Well, yeah,
it's pretty much the only place onthe team. They didn't do anything too
every place. I mean, ifeveryone's healthy on the offensive line, then
one hundred percent of the snaps atall five compositions will be taken by somebody
that was a twenty twenty three Texan. So you have the continuity that you

(01:20:56):
would look forward not at all,because those guys were all hurt for the
most part, saying they just didn'tgo. They didn't bring anybody in.
They didn't there's no competition from anybodythat wasn't already on the team. It's
just Kenyan Green getting healthy, KendrickGreen getting healthy, Jared Patterson and Jew
Scruggs being healthy, Titus Howard gettinghealthy, Laromye Tonsill, and Shack Mason
staying healthy. Those are the guyI mean, there could be maybe one

(01:21:17):
other name in the mix. Ifyou think Blake Fisher is going to play
a role, I personally don't.I mean, I think it's almost a
given he's the swing tackle at bestfor this team. And that would be
the one player they brought in tobe a reserve, to not truly compete
for playing time unless forced to doso. But the same could be said
for Scruggs and Patterson a year ago, and they both started games on the

(01:21:39):
interior line, many of them forthe Houston Texans last year. But yeah,
they didn't put they didn't address thatposition because they felt like they had
already done it in different ways.They'd committed financially to both their tackles.
They were pleased enough with both oftheir interior alignment picks a year ago,
and to that I would I wouldprobably tip my cap to them on the
Patterson pick, being that it wasa much later round pick, and Scrugs,

(01:22:00):
who many thought they reached for Ithought he played perfectly fine for where
he was drafted, and now youadd Blake Fisher to that, and maybe
things will work out if Kendrick Greencan give you some depth and obviously if
Kenyan Green can be your starter,which it's not a big leap to have
him turn in his best season asa player, because he's had two bad
seasons, both marks by injury lastyear completely in the year before took him

(01:22:24):
off the field. The problem iswhen he was on the field, he
wasn't really effective. So yes,I would be one hundred times out of
one hundred, i'd feel confident sayingyeah, I think he's due for his
best year, but that's not sayingvery much. They addressed everything else.
They added Stefan Diggs, They draftedCade Stover. It could easily be their
number two tight end. They addedJoe Mixon for Devin Singletary, and on

(01:22:45):
and on and on. They've addedlinebackers, they had guys in the secondary,
they added guys along the defensive line, almost an entirely new defensive line,
but they brought back the offensive lineand just felt like a healthy group
would be one that would be muchimproved, which is a pretty big lead
to take, and I think itwas a lateral move in the running back
department. I'm not going to sithere and applaud running backs, even though

(01:23:05):
I'm not trying to be mean andact like I could do it. But
running for a thousand yards in theNFL' let's move away from that.
It was already not much of athing. I didn't think in a sixteen
game season, becomes even less ofa thing in a seventeen game season.
If you get two hundred, youknow, two hundred and fifteen, two
hundred and twenty carries, two hundredtwenty five carries. To be exact,

(01:23:26):
all you had to do is averagefour yards a carry, and you're sitting
at nine hundred yards. That's that'snot a lot. I mean, if
you get any more carries than that, meaning you're the number one, well
now you're gonna have a thousand yardseason without doing anything of significance. Running
for four yards of carry is whatJoe Mixon did a year ago with the
Bengals with half a season of borrow, half a season of Browning and an
exceptional receiving corps. That's bad.Four point zero yards per carry is not

(01:23:51):
good it's not among the best backs. It's not even close. It's among
the worst starting backs. I'm notsaying he'll do that again, but it's
also last year you're back wasn't muchbetter. He was arguably better. I
mean, Devin Singletary essentially did whathe's done his whole career, except he
got a few more carries and wasa little less successful because they didn't have

(01:24:13):
his wide open and offense. Iknow that seems hard to believe, but
the way that he was used inBuffalo with Josh Allen being back there,
it was a little harder to focusin on their running game and he had.
You know, he was about fourpoint five four point six yards of
carry with Buffalo. He was fourto last year with Houston four to two.
Also not good. It has tobe better than that for your number
one back or else you're just notconsidered a very good running team and they

(01:24:34):
don't have the luxury of having theirquarterback run for them. Some teams have
Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen or JalenHurts. They don't, and that's fine,
but that means it's all on yourbacks and your line and your scheme
to get it done. Those areall things that go in their favors.
Scheme is fine, the talent aroundhim is fine. My gosh, there's
not a defensive coordinator in the NFLthe Colts Week one, for instance.

(01:24:58):
He's not sitting there saying, Man, I tell you what, Shane,
We're gonna win this game if wecan just shut down Joe Mixon and force
CJ. Stroud to beat us,if we can force the Texans to throw.
I know that's the cliche for coaches. Well, it all starts with
stopping the running game. I'm tryingnot to laugh in people's faces when they
say that, because it never isanymore, not in this day and age.

(01:25:19):
So their running game is not gonnabe dramatically improved for any of those
reasons, both in who they broughtin and what their line looks like.
Is the best case scenario then alike a lateral twenty twenty four as it
pertains to what they had got outof that position in twenty twenty three.
Is that your best case scenario?Then the best case scenario is not being

(01:25:40):
tied to how well did you runthe football, but how effective were you
when Joe Mixon had the ball inhis hands because they have to use it
more as a receiver than they didwith Singletary. I think they missed out
on using Singletary more as a receiver, and I think they know better and
have acquired a player who is goodcatching the football is good. Out of
the backfield, is good. Ithink in the red zone that's where you
need to focus. I mean maybeI just kind of spun it in a
way that makes it sound bad.He can be more successful if they use

(01:26:03):
him the right way. And Itend to believe when you add him as
desperate as they were, and youextend him for whatever their reasons were,
then you probably know what you needto do with him. I'm giving them
the benefit of the doubt on thathere on June twenty fourth, plenty More
on the pig skin coming up inthe next segment because it's football at five.

(01:26:24):
To start our number three straight ahead, two lifelong Houston sports guys named
Adam Talking Your Teams series, AdamClinton and Adam Wexler are the A team
A Why you had a bustle football? It's five o'clock some it's five o'clock

(01:26:53):
football. Professional football in America isa special game. Football at five conversation
on a Monday edition of the program, I am I'm hesitant to go down

(01:27:13):
the rabbit hole that is the Titansales executive slash Instagram model who got arrested
for assaulting a bar security guard.That does sound awful to talk about here
on the sports talk radio station thatwe're on. Terrible, terrible idea you
have. Nobody wants to hear anythingabout that. Have you seen her a
second straight day talking about somebody whowent to Georgia? Why are you bagging

(01:27:38):
on Georgia. I'm merely stating afact. You're just stating facts, right,
Nothing but HW was littered with peopleerroneously saying that Kelly Stafford got with
the backup quarterback, even mistaking whichbackup quarterback it was while she and Matthew
We're at Georgia today. A differentstory about an extremely re Georgia graduate.

(01:28:01):
As a matter of fact, classof twenty twenty four. How do you
say her last name? You don't? You just say Mary Kate? You
do? People are gonna think I'mtalking about an Olsen twin. I don't
think Mary Kate Whichelonis will care ifyou just call her Mary Kate really,
really surprised that a twenty three yearold sales executive for the Titans moonlights date

(01:28:26):
jobs as an Instagram model. Imean, you might say it the other
way around, even though one soundsmore like a nine to five or she
probably makes less money as an insidesales executive, probably in the sales pod
with Ricky, alex Amanda and Isabellaworking under Ryan and Eric and Jordan and
Brianna in the ticket operations department forthe Tennessee Titans organization. Let me ask
you this, if you looked likeher and had her social following, you

(01:28:50):
wouldn't be cold calling ticket John Robinson, You're not the former GM of the
team, are you? No,I'm just John Robinson. I live in
Nashville. Who's this? Oh?This is Mary Kate with the Titans.
I was wondering if you are afootball fan. I sure am Mary Kate.
All right, hang on one second, can we do a zoom call

(01:29:12):
instead? Maybe a FaceTime? Seriously, if women that looked like her did
that method of trying to sell,for example, men football tickets, I
think she'd be wildly successful versus coldcalling. Well, who knows, she
may be wildly successful again, there'sonly five inside sales executives currently listed on
the staff directory at the Titans,and she's one of them. She's twenty

(01:29:34):
percent of their inside sales executive force. Well, she's also wildly successful at
getting kicked out of Whiskey Row.In fact, she's batting a thousand at
that. Allegedly she hit a securityguard oops yeah, six times. Oops
yeah, oops, oops, oopsand oops. Yeah. He kicked her

(01:29:56):
out for now. Get this,It's not like it was for legit reason.
It was because she was trying tosneak in her boyfriend, who didn't
have an ID. Come on,bro, Yeah, you're in your early
twenties, which presumably this twenty threeyear old recent college grad would have a
boyfriend in that age. I meanmaybe he's twenty. Maybe he his ID

(01:30:17):
would indicate that he's underage. Yeah, well, I'm usually that's the case
if you're trying to sneak somebody inwithout her. He didn't just forget it.
I doubt it. Like his wallet. Maybe he lost his wallet,
I don't know. Maybe he leftto order another coke until it shows up.
Anyway. The alleged incident happened aroundeleven fifteen local time. Back on

(01:30:38):
Tuesday, January eighteenth, which inand of itself is amazing. You're going
to the bar at eleven fifteen onTuesday night. When you said January eighteenth,
did you mean June? Yeah?Did I say January? I'm sorry,
June eighteenth, So last week right, not six months ago? What
you're this ticket executive sales person recentlyhired, so she's not even been there

(01:31:01):
in the season. I mean,the job must be tough. If you're
trying to get your load on afterwork on a Tuesday night, that's I
man, I'm I know a lotof pressures. You know, it's probably
true. She's having to try andsell Will Levis in a division that has
CJ shroud, so she probably is. You're gonna want to get in now,

(01:31:23):
Wait till you see our new stadiumand you're gonna have options on these
seats in the new stadium. It'sgonna be awesome. Will Levis. I
mean, I'm sure you're on socialmedia. You know what kind of guy
he is. He is ripped,He eats bananas with the peels on.
This is our guy. This he'sputting Nanny's in his coffee. He does
maybe for a joke maybe for note. Well, yeah, I really do

(01:31:45):
like Will Levis. What about DerrickHenry coming back? Well, no,
he's in Baltimore. But that's okay. We got lots of other great young
players here. We just drafted orsigned Calvin Ridley, and DeAndre Hopkins is
still here when he's not being afashion model. We're all set. Come
on in, man, put yourmoney down. So, yes, recently
hired. This is their first gig. She was excited about it back when

(01:32:06):
she posted about it in February.She works for the team. There's no
word from the team on if thisincident has changed her employment status. She
does have a much larger following onInstagram than I would presume before. Other
account executives have about thirty two thousandfollowers there. Yeah, because she's hotter

(01:32:28):
than them. Well, it's notjust about that, it's that because of
that, she's a model. She'sa paid working all the way. What
are the qualifications for quote ig model? You just have to kind of look
not ugly and have a bunch oftoasts there. You could spin it or
say it however you want to makewhatever you're talking about sound great. But

(01:32:49):
she does work. She has anagency. She works with an agency,
a modeling agency, so I thinkthat's at least fair enough to call her
a model, not just an igmodel. She gets paid, then that's
as I said, all right.When officers arrived, they located wish Alonis
is that how you said her lastname? I like it on the ground

(01:33:09):
detained by security. Officers asked securityto back up so they could speak with
her, and while officers walked withher to their patrol car, they noticed
she showed several signs of impairment andreeked of alcohol. This is a quote
according to a report from Scoop Nashville. Then is that mister Nashville's first name?

(01:33:30):
Scoop? I guess? Or isthis a rag of he gets a
rag? Then officers spoke with securityguard Noah Williams, who stated he witnessed
her attempting to sneak her boyfriend intothe bar. Williams added that when he
went to remove her, she becameaggressive and struck him six times in the
head before other security guards took herdown. They include a TikTok video of

(01:33:56):
her from her as she puts ither her Vegas modeling throwback days. If
you will, I can't imagine thisguy removed her without her These six blows
of the head really counting. Imean, if you're a security guard and

(01:34:17):
a drunk, really hot chick startsacting unruly, I mean, that's basically
after the sixth strike is probably whenit decided, all right, against my
better judgment, I'm gonna have toremove her. She's really hot. I'm
just saying, you don't think peopleget away with things because they're hot.

(01:34:39):
It was more likely she could havejust said, come on, let him
in please, versus sneaking him in. How do you sneak someone in?
You distract the bouncer or the cardloooker and he goes behind. I wonder
if this case it was the onehe was the one that she, you
know, deceived, possibly, andthat's why I would imagine this is probably

(01:35:00):
not mean from a where we arein twenty twenty four standpoint. If this
assists her in any way on becomingeven more well known on social media,
could be an avenue for success downthe road. Versus will the Titans say,
yeah, just go ahead and notdo that again. But yeah,
you're fine here, they might say. Otherwise, it depends on how much
goodwill she has built up since Februarywhen she was hired point yep, she

(01:35:25):
was with the team star. Shewas very excited to be joining the Titans
organization after soon would be graduating,which she now has from Georgia. I
know that this is like the deadestperiod of the NFL offseason right now,
like this exact week basically, youknow, you know, several players on
the roster are both aware of thisand discussing it. There's no doubt in
my mind. Yeah, they're probablysaying, man, I don't even know

(01:35:46):
who that is. I've never seenher before. I think they have,
well she truthfully. I mean,how often do you think she's been in
the building while they've been in thebuilding, considering there was an employment until
February. They go in and outof the building to work out and do
things, but there's not a lotof practices. They're not with the rest
of the staff during most of theoff season versus in season. You might
have some you know, season ticketget togethers, you might have other events

(01:36:10):
where the team is around the restof the staff they don't normally see.
But you know how it is inany working environment when someone shows up that
looks like that where it gets adifferent. Yeah, if someone that looked
like that worked here, we'd allsee her every day because we all work
in one little office. It's notlike that in an NFL time. My
point is, they walk down tothe cafeteria, they go to the team

(01:36:30):
auditorium, they hit the locker room, they hit the sauna, they go
to the weight room, and theyhit the bubble. I don't know that
they're going upstairs to wander around theoffice hall. You want me to prove
you wrong, Yes, I betif you go to her Instagram account right
now and start right hold on,let me go through there for the first
time. Okay, I'm there,and you think I've been listening to you
this whole time. Just roll up, scroll down to the beach. Back

(01:36:54):
to the beach, Go with yourfriends, go with more friends. Pretend
you play for Georgia by wearing theirjersey. Now, pretend you don't play
for Georgia, not wearing any timebut on a Santa hat. I've not
seen any of these pictures. Totalhypotheticals, right, so then you probably
haven't gone to her followers. I'mnot looking at to see who any of
the thirty one nine hundred people arethat is correct. I bet you amongst

(01:37:14):
those thirty one thousand plus there aremultiple Titans players who follow her. I
would bet good money. I meanI would probably have to speed that proces,
which I would dispute your point byadding some of those players myself,
so then they would show up peoplewho also follow But in that I have
not done that. The only currentTitans player I follow, I imagine,

(01:37:35):
is just DeAndre He does not appearto be a because you never followed him
from when he was traded for aham sand If you want to know when
Isaiah Cannon has signed a new dealwith somebody overseas, I can tell you
because I still follow him. Samewith Demo, same with Ben Macklamore.
You don't unfollow guys as soon asthey're out of town sometimes but usually not.
Then these people aren't like serial posters. Is when I find out that

(01:37:58):
I'm still following a guy that Idon't want to follow and only did because
he was on the team. Sothat happens often actually, So that's our
look around the AFC South. Lastsegment talking about the Texans O line,
this segment talking about the Titans frontoffice, the deep deep reaches of the
Titans from office to say out.A front office is very literate on the
staff directory. Thus fair game.I mean, if Natalie Logan had done

(01:38:20):
this or matt Yutzi had done this, we'd mention it. They don't have
thirty one thousand followers on highly unlikelythat Scott Baldwin has thirty one thousand followers
either, but he might have tocheck. It's also highly unlikely that he
was once a model in Vegas.You don't think the manager of Systems and
Compliance, James Stromyer, doesn't havethirty one thousand followers. He sounds more
like Lumberg just by his title.M Yeah, I don't have that many.

(01:38:44):
He probably has like three hundred.We've got an entire people and culture
department. The Titans do five members, and she's not one of them.
No, she's in ticket sales andbusiness operations strategy if you will. Her
strategy did not work for her smalllegal department. Two people, general counsel
and yeah VP general counsel and thestaff council. Okay, I don't know

(01:39:09):
what the difference is, but thereyou go. I mean, the staffer
just does whatever the general er tellsthem to do keeps Amy Adams, I
look like a thumb strunk out oftrouble. Yes, exactly, all right.
Job description, keep the thumb outof trouble, please hired. Good
job. This job description is easierthan when her dad was around. Controlling

(01:39:30):
owner, coach, chairman, boardof directors, Amy Adams strunk. This
is your franchise. Waity go,Mary Kate, you made it on the
show today. See if you comeback. Absolutely, Kelly will be back.
I don't know about Mary Kate.Yeah, no, I can probably
assure you of that. All right, when we come back. Some of
the things we have not gotten tohere on a Monday edition of the program,
it's called in case you missed it, it is straight ahead. We

(01:39:54):
now returned to Adam Clinton and AdamWexlwerth on Sports Talk. All right,
a handful of items I'm sure worthyof our discussion time we've not yet gotten
into, and of course a fewthings from the onset of the program probably
need a revisit, including the Astrosheading into this week on a five game

(01:40:15):
winning streak after dispatching of the Orioles, won the last two games of the
series against the White Sox, thenthree straight against the Orioles. We'll take
that five game winning streak into tomorrow'sgame, a two game series, so
Tomorrow and Wednesday afternoon against the Rockies. Wednesday afternoon, a reminder, we
will take the show out to theGeorge R. Brown Convention Center. We'll
handle things after the Astros game fromthere and get you into our draft coverage

(01:40:40):
because the NBA Draft, in caseyou missed it, is Wednesday and Thursday,
Wednesday, the first round. Obviously, the Rockets, I think everybody
knows has the third pick. Havethe third pick in the upcoming NBA draft.
What else have we not discussed orneed to revisit? Well, even
though there's no Astros tonight, it'sstill a huge TV night. We could

(01:41:01):
see a local university crowned national championin college baseball, Tennessee and Texas A
and M taking on each other.If you're a hockey fan, Game seven,
can the Edmonton Oilers pull it offand win four straight games to beat
the Florida Panthers to claim Lord Stanley'sCup? Or also too, if you
are a streaming fan and you wantto catch up on what's happening with the

(01:41:24):
teams that are in front of theAstros. Well, just before we finished,
in about thirty minutes, the Marinersstart up a series with the Rays,
and also to a little bit lateron tonight the Rangers taking on the
Brewers. Who helps the Astros morethe Rays or the Brewers. Well,

(01:41:44):
the Mariners are on the road.To me, that's a never mind.
Never mind that are at the Rails. Oh get swiped in Tampa. They
are not gonna lose every game.They will, but they just do not
play well on the road. Theyhad one big offensive outburst against the Marlins.
That was the game they won,and they got clobbered in the other
two games. The Rangers probably gota little bit of a boost and that

(01:42:05):
Max Schers are returned, and theyobviously had a good weekend. If it's
against a very good Royals team andthey are on the road, so I
think that's a good situation for Houston. Again, I'm not really concerned about
the Rangers. I look at theRangers when they play teams that the Astros
need to lose, and I hopethe Rangers beat them tonight. It's not
one of those nights since they're playinga National League team. They're playing at

(01:42:26):
the Brewers very good team and likelythe division winner in the NL Central.
The other two teams in the divisionare also playing each other. What else?
All Right? So if you thoughtthat with Texas moving to the SEC
meant that the Longhorn Network was goingto cease to exist, well you don't
have to worry about that. Theschool announcing today that Longhorn Network is now

(01:42:48):
part of a reimagined form of onlinestreaming that is going to start on July
first, by quote, advancing atut storytelling for the next generation of Longhorn
fans and sports enthusiasts. I realizeI'm sitting in here with a Longhorn,
but honestly, was anybody actually worriedthat the Longhorn Network was going away?

(01:43:10):
Did they even know that it stillexisted? Even though I understand what the
press release says, and I understandwhat the old Longhorn Network was doing,
and there's a lot of similarities toit, including produced by Learfield in Texas.
The network will feature highlights and exclusivebehind the scenes access to sports programs,
interviews with student athletes and coaches.A twenty four to seven channel,

(01:43:34):
it replays the greatest games and theLonghorn Network archive. In other words,
yeah, that's what the Longhorn Networkwas most utilizing their time for. But
in its previous form of having,you know, five hour pregame shows before
Texas Football and three hour postgame showsairing a lot of the games as the

(01:43:58):
only outlet that was airing lot ofthe games across their sports department, that's
what's going away. That's why allof their anchors and all of the people
that work there and everybody that wasbehind the scenes put together all these it
was awesome being here pieces when theLonghorn Network as we know it went away.
Serious question, were you saying thatjust for effect? Or was there

(01:44:19):
actually five hour pregame shows? I'mtrying. I mean five hours probably a
little much. Let's say a twothirty kickoff. They definitely were on the
air by noon, but they mighthave been on around eleven. I mean,
again, the biggest diehard Longhorn fanout there, that's too much.
Well, it's pretty hard to believeanybody's if you're not going to the game,
then maybe you've watched a nice pieceof it, But what else is

(01:44:41):
on at eleven o'clock the other games? Right? If you're a die hard
fan, especially of the teams you'llbe playing or have played, or in
your conference. You're probably watching themplay as opposed to being there. But
you're the Longhorn Network. Of course, that's what you do. That's what
teams football networks do you ever,But aren't you kind of surprised? I

(01:45:02):
don't know, maybe you're not.It's cool to see some of the former
players on it, and they're litteredwith them all these years. But when
the Longhorn Network came out, whichit's got to be ten years old,
had a fifteen year deal with jends up cutting short because they ended up
going to the SEC before the fifteenyears did I mean, did you think
it was gonna work? Define work? The longer point said you want to

(01:45:25):
give us three hundred million. Oh. I can't why it happened. But
the actual execution of like Okay networkwas fine. It's also produced a lot
of people. You know, SamPonder worked there, Jane Slater worked there,
Kaylee Rtungue worked there. A lotof the people that we see a
lot attractive at all. Well,they're also look at the jobs they currently
have. But that's okay. Sothere's someone who also do worked at CSN.

(01:45:47):
I know why that failed, andit wasn't because of a lack of
content. Yeah, I wouldn't.The Longhorn Network definitely did not fail.
There was nothing for it. There'sno bar. Here's what it is.
It didn't have to generate money.That's ironic to anything. It's just this
is the Yeah, but that's what'sironic to me. You said it doesn't
fail. It didn't fail. Butlike CSN didn't fail from the standpoint of

(01:46:08):
this is really good content. Itfailed for the dumbest reasons, whereas the
long worn network never had really goodcontent. It's here, we're going to
air Vince Young beating USC for themillionth time and everything else nobody cares about.
Not good content is relative. Theyare a network catering to a very
specific only audience. Yeah, Austin'srather large, all things considered, it's

(01:46:34):
super specific. Yeah, so they, you know, call it unsuccessful that
they weren't putting content that people wanted. The people that wanted their content is
who they were catering to. Justget the DVD and you can watch the
game, like I have. Ihave that DVD. What else you have?
I'm sure it's on YouTube somewhere too. Finally, Tyler Dunn of Golong
recently had an ex unnamed Cowboys personnelperson on with them and they talked about

(01:47:00):
Mike McCarthy going into what many peoplebelieve is a lame duck season. According
to this unnamed personnel person that McCarthyis getting quote fed up with Jerry Jones's
undermining quote He's doing the best hecan. Some of the people I've talked
with have said that he's getting fedup with it just a little bit.
You know this because I've said itbefore. This news this isn't news,

(01:47:23):
by the way. This is justsomeone put it out there, you know,
in written or auditory form. Thishas been happening the whole time.
We knew this would happen the daythat they had that press conference where they
were uncomfortably wild about each other publiclyin front of the cameras. But this
is just the latest reason why Ijust don't see anything other than a colossal

(01:47:44):
fall, flat on your face seasonfor the Cowboys upcoming. There's just too
many signs that it's coming. Yeah. Ti Dunn was probably made his way
to a couple of different teams offseasons, workouts and other things to write
some of the stuff does a greatjob. He was in Houston for some
of their offseason work and had achance to go behind the scenes with a
few people. I don't have adate on when this was put to pen,

(01:48:09):
but it probably, like Ac said, was sometime around January eighth,
a day after he was hired.I mean, I just getting fed up
with Jerry Jones. I'm sure ithappened very very quickly. He gets in
his office. What are you doing? Because even though you know it's coming,
he's not a meddaling owner. It'she's I don't even think it's meddling.
It's his team. He can dowhat he wants. He really,

(01:48:30):
really, really more than any otherowner ever we've ever seen, and we've
ever covered. I'm not saying it'snever happened before, but in this era,
it's pretty unique to have as muchsay in everything. It's not like
Mark Cuban had a lot of say. And I feel like it's nothing compared
to Jerry Jones. And it's changeda little bit with the sentinel of the
team. But you know, ofcourse you would be frustrated by it.

(01:48:53):
Of course you'd be annoyed by it, but you knew that was coming,
so I don't even think it mighthave been something new for him to say
or to tell this unnamed personnel person. It probably happened from the jump,
and he's been knowing from the dayhe said, I'll take all your money
and win a bunch of regular seasongames. It's just something I have to
deal with. And I'm telling younow, I know that they have the

(01:49:14):
Giants and the Commanders in their division, so that'll help. But like you
know, there their schedule, especiallysome of the road games that they have
on their schedule, like the Commandersand the Giants and the Falcons, and
I get it, there's some gummeasin there. But again, you're talking
about a team that's won what twelvethirteen games the last how many years in

(01:49:35):
a row? Exactly twelve three straightyears. I don't see twelve wins on
that schedule for this team. Sowith their lame duck cut coach and their
personnel and their owner who's continuing tomeddle, and Dak Prescott's situation and oh,
by the way, we brought backEzekiel Elliott's carcass, this team is
going to suck this year. SoDak Prescott and Tom Brady go to play

(01:49:59):
Deshaun Watson week one too. Whyis Tom Brady part of the Cowboys team
there? So they'll lose to theBrowns in Cleveland in week one? The
Browns are fully healthy, the Cowboysare fully healthy, and it's in Cleveland.
You don't think they're gonna be favored. Okay, And then they play
Derek Carr's team. Yeah, no, in Dallas, that's it. Yeah,

(01:50:20):
they get the Ravens in Dallas.They get slaughtered in Dallas by the
Ravens. Yes, then it's timefor Primetime on Thursday Night with Daniel Jones
and the Giants. Right, you'retwo and two, Okay, two and
two at worst, could be threeand one. You're playing Russell Fields or
you're playing Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh.Okay, you're playing Mike Tomlin and Pittsburgh

(01:50:41):
again a night game. You're gettingslaughtered at home by Detroit. Well,
then you're gonna lose to Detroit inSan Francisco, and then you better beat
Atlanta because then you're gonna lose tothe Philly in Houston. But that's when
you lose that Atlanta game. Thisis always fun win lost when lost,
well, you're talking about the Cowboysand actual tangible things that could go into
them having a bad season before youstart going over their schedule and make believes

(01:51:05):
all the scores. It just again, I'll be shocked if they I'll be
shocked if they win double digit games. I really mean that, all right,
Cowboys, we'd a bet on this. So the playoffs in twenty twenty
four. They're not even the bestteam in their division. They don't have
to be. You're right, butthey're not. I don't disagree. Okay,

(01:51:27):
it is the eighteen here on SportsTalk seven ninety. You know,
I want to get to something thatwe should have gotten to in our football
at five segment coming must have missedit. It's we did, and we
didn't get to it this segment either. But it's worth it. It's a
little it's a few days old,but it's worth it. I I know
WEX will be interested just because ofthe person who is the subject in this

(01:51:48):
story. I'll explain when we comeback. Hey, it's a man top
s every Rockets game Sports Talk sevento ninety a streaming on the iHeartRadio home
of Rockets Basketball. Do you likemaking fun of Joe Flacco? Sure,
because I do. I wanted tomake fun of the voters, but the

(01:52:09):
AP knew that they had to tellhim how dumb they were. But I'm
sure that's that's what this is about. Oh good, good, Yeah,
I had that in the in thein the holster for a few days.
The AP decided since their voters aretoo dumb, they had to change the
voting criteria for Comeback Player of theYear. It now should no longer include
you voting for players who got reallybad at football and then came back and

(01:52:32):
played a little bit better and wonsome games. I don't know what the
problem is, right, because here'sthe official statement from AP senior NFL writer
Rob mah next to each other.But he hand these all the AP voting
regulations, and he's always the onewho has all the results and who voted

(01:52:54):
for who, and which voter preventedDemko Ryans from winning the Coach of the
Year award, et cetera. Yeah, Jack, can I read it the
way I think he sounds? Accordingto how his name is spelled. A
spirit of the he couldn't understand hispronunciation. His name is m aa d
d hi. Yeah, Rob Maddie. Rob sounds like this. The spirit
of the Ankey Compact Player of theYear award is to honor a player who

(01:53:18):
has demonstrated resilience in the fantas ofadversity by overcoming illness, physical injury,
or other circumstances that led him tomiss playing time the previous season. Let
me stop right there? Can Ipick up right there? No, because
Joe Flacco qualified. He missed playingtime the previous season because he sucks and

(01:53:39):
he's old and he's washed. SoI don't understand what the problem is here.
Wex As my friend from a CBSsports Jared Dubin continues, it would
appear the AP would rather that playerslike Damar Hamlin, to a Tagoba Lowell,
Lamar Jackson, or Kelly Stafford's husband, who were all among the favorites
to win the award after missing partof the previous season due to either injuries

(01:54:00):
or medical emergencies win the award,rather than someone like Flacco coma who was
merely coming back from performing badly.Like how hard is this to understand?
Good though? Like you're not.So many players have a bad year than
a good year. He landed ina perfect situation where Cleveland was like look,

(01:54:20):
our current quarterbacks have noodle arms,can't stay healthy and are playing terribly.
Would you police come in here anddo what you did for the Jets
and do what you did for theRavee. Just throw the ball down the
field and we'll see what happens.And for most of the regular season it
worked, and then they got tothe postseason and it was an embarrassing display

(01:54:41):
of touchdown passes to the other teamby Joe Flacco in the Browns lone playoff
game. Do you think I'm surehe's still smiling because up on that mantle
is the twenty twenty three AP ComebackPlayer of the Year Award. He's gonna
have so many stories to tell illegalbringing back the award. Hopefully he's the
one who gives out the award nextyear. It was a great story for

(01:55:03):
me last year. If you guysremember, I was overcoming suckiness and then
I won the award. I wasovercoming suckiness. You know, I remember
watching the actual ceremony when what's hispace they used to produce for the gym
Rome show wasn't running around screaming andbeing breathless. Joe gets up there and
it's like he knows even he knows. He gets up there and he's like,

(01:55:26):
I don't really know what I'm doinghere, and now I have to
give a speech. I our generationis used to ambulance going on the field
because of Madden and running players overon their way to the hurt player.
Well, that's that's actually NFL blitz. Oh excuse me, NFL blitz.
Yeah, but it Madden does someform of I'm glad that it doesn't happen
as often in the context of areal NFL season, but it did recently

(01:55:51):
enough that a twenty twenty three playerTomorrow Hamlin could have might have been your
choice for comeback players. No,no, no, for some people it
was. He did receive some votes, Yeah, some votes, but not
enough. Not over Joe Joe Flacco, who's as boring to listen to and
look at as he is to watchplay. I hate, hate with a

(01:56:14):
capital H that that guy has multipleplayoff victories over the Houston Texans. Right,
he did beat them twice, didn'the? I know he did once.
I think it's only once hasn't hewon? And one against them,
Well, then maybe he beat thema bunch during the regular season, except
for the one time. He didn'twhen they put up fifty at home,
and that's why it feels like itwas more than once. But man,

(01:56:36):
just it almost well, it didfeel like they won most of the time
in spite of him, except forthe one season where he just didn't really
completely suck and they won the SuperBowl because of other things that had nothing
to do with him. Thus elite, he sucks. That's what the dust
Is Award winner. Who's backup?Is he again? This year? Indianapolis?

(01:56:59):
Right? Oh great, I getto see a stupid boring face at
least twice this year because I'm gonnahave to watch those two games and you
better not. Actually, I hopeyou don't play it on. Oh my
goodness. If they get to seeJoe Flacco twice again this year, please
yes, especially in the first game. That's really good for the Texans fortunes.
So if they see him twice thisyear, they won't see him a
third time. No, they won'tbecause the Colts will be sitting at home

(01:57:24):
just like last year. Final segmentof the show coming up next, not
before I tell you guys about whatyou can see Joe Flacco in a cult's
uniform with twenty twenty vision and specificallyyou guys who are teachers out there.
First of all, you have avery very difficult job, especially in this
day and age. But you knowwhat Berkeley I Center wants to reward you.

(01:57:46):
They want you to know that thereis great news for all teachers and
educational staff. Over sixteen hundred dollarsin LASIK savings, A free pair of
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(01:58:09):
all they're doing this too. They'rejust doing this because they know how much
you guys mean to the community andthey want to say thank you, so
over sixteen hundred dollars in LASIK savingswhen you get that LASIK procedure for all
you teachers and educational staff out there, the free designer sunglasses and a Visa
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(01:58:30):
c Lasik dot com to find outall the details. B eclasic dot com
is the website, or you cancall them and say, hey, what's
this stuff about that? I heardAdam Clanton talking about on Sports Talk seven
ninety seven one three five two sixeyes seven one three five two six e
y ees to see everything in everyonein your classroom this year seven one three

(01:58:50):
five two six eyes or b E. C. Lasik dot Com, Adam
Clinton, Adam Wexler A continues,continues all the football basketball in my Sports
Talk seven ninety home for your ownteams. So we're gonna do one of
the two things tomorrow. We're eithergonna do the show here or pending the

(01:59:13):
text I'm about to receive, wecould be out at the ballpark with Jeff
Blumm. You're just gonna have tolisten to find out. Yeah, a
little bit of an early takeaway onFriday with the Astros making their way to
the Big Strawberry to visit Darryl Strawberry'steam. Four games out there and the
opportunity for us to be off theair. You know what my favorite earlier
than normal, Yeah, Well presentsus with the idea of trying to catch

(01:59:35):
up with him in person rather thanbriefly on the phone on a Friday show.
You know what my favorite Darryl Strawberrystory is, Well, you hit
the speaker at the Dome Yep.The fans liked to chant at him.
Had a nice chantable name. I'lltell you when you're getting warmer. Uh
No, I don't know what isit. When he missed the victory parade

(01:59:55):
in eighty six because he was ata crackhouse, he had some his words,
not mine. He had some majorleague issues, that is for sure.
Dude, He's at the crackhouse andhe sees the parade on TV and
he goes, oh, I wassupposed to be there. If that's not
an indicator of the kind of problemshe had, that's I don't know what
is and what he's overcome he has. It's actually, you know, all

(02:00:15):
the things that from his pre majorleague career and then during there and then
after it's it has turned into agood story, and quite honestly, he
knows it and fans know it.There was much more awesome baseball that we
could have seen from him from froma left handed hitter in that body.
There really aren't very, if anycomparisons to him. Is extremely unique major

(02:00:38):
league baseball player, and a goodone. But he played for the Mets,
so we don't like him. Wow. He was hardly the only one
on drugs when they won that championship. Yep, I mean that's thirty for
thirty is incredible. See that's whyI feel like the eighty six Rockets really
should have won at all, becausethey were full of drugs. Yes,

(02:01:01):
Lloyd Wiggins and Lucas. How cometheir druggies got to win and ours didn't.
The Cowboys are famous for their druguse and titles and house to do
all that. Mets are relatively famousfor their title and drug use and problems
that many of their players have had. For you, like, think about
that you brought up Dykstra. DarrylStrawberry at the time was in a much

(02:01:26):
worse place. And look at himnow and look at Lenny, Well,
Lenny looks like he got hit bya truck about fifty times, back and
forth and back and forth, justkept running over him. More likely he
said give me, I can takeit, do it again. Is that
all you got? I think?Lenny Dykstra follows me on Twitter. Yeah

(02:01:49):
he was. He He did morethings to the Astros than I care to
recall in that postseason. But who'sthe guy that's on their broadcast crew still?
Well, both Darling and Keith Hernandezare a part of it in some
former fashion. Okay, you've gota gun to your head, you got
to pick which one? Take thatback? Just different, Darling, does
I gotta figure out how to gotmy head? Which ones? Douce here?

(02:02:10):
Oh, I don't know what itis about Hernandez. You hate him.
We're thirty forty years deep on this. I think it's a travesty that
he split the MVP Award with WillieStargel in the seventies, nineteen seventy nine.
I think it's embarrassing they did that, and then he went, you
know, his Cardinal's career I wentreal happy with, but it's it's okay.
Mets career can't stand and most ofhis broadcasting. If it wasn't for

(02:02:33):
Seinfeld, he'd have nothing going forhim. His appearance and story arc on
Seinfeld was brilliant. My favorite partof that, I think was it a
thirty for thirty but it was longerthan just an hour long, right,
it was, But it was likea It was like a long form documentary,
but it wasn't like episodic event.Okay, on what on the on

(02:02:55):
the Mets? The eighty six Metswas when they were talking about Mike Scott,
like they were afraid of him.Well they were, they were afraid
of them not being able to convincethe umpires that he was cheating. Yeah,
but there were guys they were inaready knew they weren't going to hit
him. Yeah, that's what theyI mean, that's why the stupid billion

(02:03:15):
inning Game six with the Billy Hatchthe series like the Rockets and the Warriors.
Yep, that's what eighty six was. Yep. If the Astros win
Game six, if they get wontwo more runs in the last inning,
they were down three, they scoredtwo the winning runs at the plate,
the series is over. Because they'rehanding the ball to Mike Scott, who's
their second best player? Who theeighty six Astros who was just there?

(02:03:38):
You're saying he's their best player.Who's there Chris Paul? Because that guy
went down in Game five? Soyou have to win that Game six without
whoever that is? Well, yeah, there was no different. I'm just
saying if they if they win thatgame, it's over. Like the Rockets
knew if they win that series,the title was there, and they could
have won Game six. They couldhave. Certainly, they certainly could have
won it in regulation. They couldhave won Game seven to But all anybody

(02:04:00):
wants to talk about is all themiss three pointers. Never mind the four
point plays that weren't called because ScottFoster is a terrible hee. There were
some poor officiating in the series.Wasn't in game stix for the Astros,
but some plays that calls that couldhave been made differently. A double play
ball, I think we weren't goingto hit that effort, I think is
what he said. I don't doubtthat for a second. Mike Scott Man

(02:04:21):
what an absolute beast. But atthe end of the day, I think
in the stories that haven't been toldbut they have, we we know it
was up. I mean, whichpart the Mets weren't wrong about? What
his ability to get guys out?Oh yeah, it wasn't scuffing the ball.

(02:04:43):
It was something. Okay, Well, then let's talk about all the
substances you are on. I'm justsaying it's just it's there is a storyline
we actually will touch on tomorrow fromthe Yankees perspective and the Major League Baseball
fans perspective, didn't get to ittoday, It'll still be true tomorrow about
Astros. Their treatment their punishment phase, which is still ongoing for something that

(02:05:05):
many more than just them were clearlyand many times over have been told about.
Many others were participating in. Oneof my favorite things about this so
we can sweep by the Astros overthe Orioles, was a particular Orioles fan
that was very upset about how theygot no punishment, which I responded,
oh, so that they could sweepyour team seven years later and you could

(02:05:27):
whine about it online. But that'sOrioles fans. They don't know how good
they have it. Maybe they'll learnAnyWho. I can tell you how good
you'll have it when you got toone of two locations Classic Elite Chevy Sugarland
or Classic Elite Chevy Highway six.The Classic Elite rev Up Summer Sales event
is going on right now, andyou need to take advantage of it because

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they've got twenty twenty four customs Silveradosfor four ninety nine down and four ninety
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least eight one thousand off twenty twentythree tahoes and suburbans always high in demand.
They've got them and they are markeddown eight grand off. They they

(02:06:09):
are the GM Dealer of the Yearthirteen years in a row. They're gonna
show you why when you head onout there to Classic Elite Chevy sugar Land,
rolling out the red carpet, showingyou what it means when they say
together, let's drive, and bythey, I mean Jeff and Tiffany Sebastian,
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(02:06:30):
When you purchase a new vehicle fromeither location, you're getting a lifetime engine
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Chevy sugar Land, Classic Elite ChevyHighway sixth the Nightcap with Ross Verial coming
up next. He is very veryenthused about hosting this bit of radio coming

(02:06:56):
up. Keep it right here forDan for wex I may see. It
is the A team here on SportsTalk seven ninety Back at it again tomorrow
from Minute May Park

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