Welcome to the Space City. Oh the city Pacey, Gret, Gret great,
Welcome to another Space City Saturday. On Sports Talk seven ninety Michael Cutters
Live and local h Town breakdown up the world that matters to you, the
Houstons world, all these great Houston fans here. We love you all,
So finish up on that to do list, flute up the cooler, because
you can't drink in talk sports all day if you don't start. Now.
This is Space City Saturday. Here's seven nineties Astros insider Michael Cunner. Let's
go. We got a busy Saturday for ourselves and we can get off here
with Space City Saturday. Michael Connor here with you until twelve clock as we're
talking. As you heard there all thanks Houston Sports. Of course you get
a day with me on your radio because we're doing this show. Then at
four o'clock I'll have you for the Astros on Deck show ahead of game two
of three this weekend against the Cleveland Guardians. And then once again later this
evening, hopefully a lot earlier than last night, you will have me for
the tenth Inning show after the ball game tonight. Well, we will kick
things off with the Astros. We're gonna get into some NBA finals as we
move along the world of golf. This week was kind of busy. I
know that there's not a lot of you that talk about golf all the time,
but if there's one opportunity to talk about it when I can, this
makes sense. It's a pretty big story this week in that world of golf
that we will get to later on in the show. Texans and OTAs and
everybody else getting ready for the season, what's been going on, the free
agent that is out there that apparently still wants to have a reunion, and
Houston will get too as well. Maybe a little bit of rockets because we're
getting closer and closer to the day that maybe James Harden is back in the
city of Houston. So much again to get through in this show today,
but we will kick things off again with the Houston Astros. If you were
he should have been up last night because the game starts earlier. I will
say selfishly, I absolutely love these East Coast time starts because it's a six
o'clock start and usually it's done by Like the other night, I was getting
done at like nine thirty, and you know, I'd in bed by ten.
And I sound like an old person when I say this, and I'm
aging myself completely, but I'm not even that. I mean thirty two years
old. I shouldn't feel like this, but that's just how I feel.
I like to go to bed early and I like to get up early.
I'm a weirdo. I've always been that way, so I love these early
starts. But if you started off the ball game last night at six o'clock,
you were able to hear us on the tenth Inning Show well after eleven
last night. I think we didn't get off the air until eleven twenty ish
because a lot of you were listening. A lot of you were calling in
last night, which I appreciate you. Which, by the way, you
can join us today at seven one three two one two five seven ninety seven
one three two one two five seven ninety. Of course you can find me
on Twitter at MC seven. The station is at Sports Talk seven ninety.
Last night we had we got plenty of you in after a long, lengthy
marathon where neither team wanted to win the baseball game. Now the Astros pitching
lets them down. Last night, Christian Javier, I look these are,
these are pitchers, these are human beings, and I go through it every
single time. And look, last night, I'm not gonna lie to you.
I was a little bit more on the spicy side on Twitter because I
was I was ready to go with some of these people. I have found
myself being less engaged with what I find to be overreaction and as I've moved
along in life, and you know, last night, I'm not gonna lie
to you. I had a couple of drinks as we were sitting around watching
the game and everything. And when I say a couple of drinks, I
had a couple of glasses of wine last night, because it's our usual Friday
staple here in our home between the two of us, and I went back
and forth with a few people. I want to get to a point where
we can remember that this is a one hundred and sixty two game marathon.
And now, look, I'm not coming on here this morning and making excuses
for the Houston Astros. Right now. They're playing like absolute crap across the
board. They're not playing good enough baseball. They were self inflicted a lot
of those losses in Toronto in that four game series where they drop three of
them. It's on them. They are professionals. They are not performing to
their capabilities right now. And last night they squandered an opportunity to go and
gain a game back in the American League West and get themselves back to four
games, but instead they lose. Texas also loses, so they stay at
five games back last night. Of course, Texas has lost two games in
a row now, which makes it even more frustrating that you've had two consecutive
losses that you should absolutely walked away with a victory in and they just did
not get that in either one of them. But I will say I absolutely
personally cannot stand the overreaction like it's a football game. In one hundred sixty
two games season. There's one thing that drives me more mad than anything else.
It is that in my life, losses are important. They will matter.
They could come back and kick you in the ass later on in the
season. I get it. But they play. They have not even played
a hundred games in this season, yet they play one sixty two. The
sky is not completely falling. Yes, things right now are not great,
but this is the ebbs and flows of a baseball season. They go through
it. Every single year. That's why you can't get too high when the
things are great. You can't get too low when the things are bad.
Right now, things are bad. On top of the bad play, the
poor pitching last night, out of one of your aces, you've lost your
Don Alvarez for a little bit, and who knows how long that's going to
be. Hopefully it's not significant. I would assume we'll get a better update
from Dana Brown tomorrow when he visits with Robert Ford on the pregame show ahead
of Game three, in the final game of the road trip. You'll hear
it here on Sports Talk seven ninety. But that, of course the Astros
general manager. But things just don't feel great at the moment. But there's
no reason to act like everything is coming to an end. There's no reason
to overreact to You can Here's where I'm at. You can be mad about
certain thing For me, you can be mad about certain things in a game
like last night. Something I'm mad about there's no freaking reason in the world
that Raphael Montero should be pitching in a one run game that matters in the
seventh inning. Now, look, I get bullpen usage and Dusty brought it
up in the postgame. They've been riding the hell out of Brian obre you
lately and they could not use him last night. I get it. It
is difficult, and you might think, oh my god, you know,
like they're professional baseball players. They throw pitches like the body does get worn
down when you're throwing that much, that hard all the time. And I'm
telling you, guys, don't some of you don't understand how much they're throwing,
even pregame and then warming up and doing all those things like it adds
up. So I do get at times where workloads need to be dialed back,
you can't. And we saw it last year. They won a World
Series because of how little they were able to put in terms of workload overall
and their bullpen throughout the regular season. I've brought this up a few times.
The last seventy five games a last season, their starter went five innings
or more and every single start. That's incredible. So they did not tax
their bullpen. Now they haven't really had to tax their bullpen like significantly on
this road trip until last night. That's the good news. Overall, they've
been pretty good these guys that they've had been they've had filling in in this
rotation. They've done a really good job of finding their way at least into
the sixth inning and getting through the sixth inning sometimes that has been a massive
point of saving some guys. The frustrating part about all that, though,
is they've had these guys give you results that are good enough to go win,
and you're not winning these baseball games. It gets back to the core
issue of this baseball team, and that is what Dana Brown has acknowledged this
week. It is they are a bad offensive team. Score nine runs last
night. Of course, they get a three run home run in the first
from Jose A. Bray You, they get another a few more runs there
later, and then they go quiet for a good long while. You always
have to tip your cap to pitching in certain spots and say, hey,
you know what, you did your job there, You beat us. It
is what it is. You move on to the next pitch, the next
at bat, whatever it might be, the next day, and you fight
on again. But they offensively this season have not been good enough. And
they during this stretch after coming off of a stretch, by the way,
and I think the exact record was I saw it from Evan Grant of the
Dallas Morning News a few days ago. The day escapes me, escapes me.
But it was earlier this week. I believe it was like Monday,
he tweeted out. Over the last twenty six games, the Astros had a
nineteen and seven record. It was tied for the best record in baseball in
those twenty six games. Guess who it was tied with the Texas Rangers.
The Astros made up no ground in the American League West, then like none.
They had some brief moments where they did, but like it's just been
one of those seasons. They've not been bad. That's the impressive thing.
If you want to go, you know when you acknowledge the bad, and
last night was bad again they lose another The baseball game Montera stinks. Ryan
Pressley cannot go without mentioning that he has another bad outing. He's had some
blips on the radar of late. But they absolutely have played great baseball up
until this point. For a team that has been so dogged by injuries,
that does not sound like it's going to get better anytime soon for some of
them. And they've just lost their biggest thumper. This is their biggest test
of everything that they've lost so far. Right now they are in their biggest
period of time for being tested without your Don Alvarez. He matters more than
anybody else in that line about two Bay matters a ton, Alex Bregman matters
a ton, Kyle Tucker matters a ton. Nobody means more than you're Don
Alvarez. He is one of the best run producers in the game. He
comes through constantly in the clutch. He is your biggest power threat of everybody
else. This is going to be a problem, hopefully for no more than
the ten day period of this Injurlist stint. But if it's if it's past
that, hold your breath, seriously, hold your breath. It's gonna be
tough. It's gonna be on the guys like Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman to
go to another even to another level than where they're at. It's going to
take jose A. Bray you not being a complete dumpster fire and hitting the
ball over the fence a little bit more like he did last night. It's
gonna take Jeremy Paenia becoming more consistent and stop having these two game spurts where
he looks great and then five games where he looks terrible. It's gonna take
Jose Altuve getting to be Jose Altuve as difficult as it is still for a
guy to jump right into it and get his timing in the first few weeks
back. They're gonna need more out of him. Fingers crossed that you're don
Alvarez is coming back to this ball club quickly because they cannot sustain a lengthy
period of time without him in the lineup. They've been able to sustain again
all the pitching injuries, basically running out triple A pitchers left and right,
and they have a record that's over a five hundred damn impressive. Still does
not feel good enough at all. They have a lot of work to do
to improve this roster. They have a lot of holes in this roster.
They know it, but they have to do it. You can talk about
it, talk about it, talk about it. If they don't have a
deadline, that's busy. It is a failure. I don't want to sit
here and come onto the radio and talk about the deadline being a failure.
The miss here misqu's there. It's a tough market. You might not have
the ammunition to go out and do certain things in the trade market. I
get it, But the clock is ticking towards that trade deadline, and it's
a while away still, But as each day progresses forward, there's more and
more feeling that you absolutely need some big time upgrades to this baseball team.
Because I said it last night in the Tenth Inning Show, and I'll say
it again right here at this moment. If we were going to postseason baseball,
this team is not good enough to win a World Series. It's not
This team would probably have a difficult time unless there are two studs. They're
there. Three studs at the top of this rotation went out and pitched their
asses off. They could have a difficult time getting through a series right now
in the best of five. I don't know that they hit enough consistently.
I think I know that they can pitch well enough, even with the little
blip slat like last night with Presley, with Montero, who's been terrible,
they can get through a series pitching wise. They've kept their pitching numbers right
at the top and basically every single category major League Baseball this year for a
reason. They're that good they're that talented and it's a damn opressive but I
will not lie to you. Coming to you here this morning after another tough
light night last night, not being able to gain any sort of ground on
the Texas Rangers. I'm frustrated the first time since the end of the twenty
sixteen season that they have been five games back in the division race. It
doesn't feel right. Long, long haul ago and for as mad as some
of you can be, or as down in the dumps as some of you
can be, just remember it is a one hundred sixty two game marathon and
it's never going to be perfect. We'll get to a couple of those relievers
from last night, the struggles that they had, and I do want to
discuss the complete overreaction again that's some of them getting We'll do that next here
on a Space City Saturday. You can join us at seven one three two
one two five seven ninety. Come on in here as we're talking to your
strows on Sports Talk seven ninety. Space City Saturday continues. Find Sports Talk
seven ninety. Michael Connor back here with you for the show that we call
Space City Saturday. I was about to call it the on Deck Show,
it's not the on Deck Show. I'll do the on deck Show later this
afternoon, four o'clock ahead of the five. I think it's five ten first
pitch. I should probably know this because I have to do the show again.
Yes, five to ten our first, five ten, Our first pitch
this evening, it'd be JP France up against Tristan McKenzie. Tristan McKenzie is
a tough nut to crack, one of the better young pitchers in baseball.
It just came back from his injury. But man, I am I am
not optimistic, to be perfectly honest with you about tonight's baseball game. Having
a lot of offense and hopefully mackenzie is still kind of easing his way into
the season. But so far as he are a zero and his brief amount
of time pitching, he's pretty damn good. We'll see what happens in that
one at night again, I'll have you for the on Deck Show starting at
four, and then the tenth inning show after the ball game. By the
way, you can join us this morning here at seven one three two one
two five seven ninety seven one three two one two five seven ninety we're discussing
the Astros. We will get into other things as we move along. It's
not gonna be just Astrost this morning. I do some other stuff that I
want to get to, whether it be something new coming to this country,
something that's about to wrap up in one of those cities or part of one
of those cities that I'm talking about being new in this country. A lot
of cool thing, maybe not cool thing, but just things going on in
the world sports that we'll get too as we move along here. But the
Astros last night, tough fourteen inning loss you'd expect in this world, and
I need to go. I gotta figure it out or go find where I
can see where I can find it. But maybe somebody has it or you
can tweet it to me. At MC seven ninety. That has to be
the longest game in baseball last night. That was insane. Like we live
in this world now where there are the ghost runners, the runners that start
off the ending on second base, which you know, I know there's still
a lot of people that don't love it. Personally, I think it's completely
fine in the regular season. It keeps you from going through these games.
Yet last night's game four hours, three minutes. I mean absolute and Sandy.
We're averaging. By the way, no one's gonna tick it up a
little bit across Major League baseball this season two hours, thirty six minutes.
I think it was the exact number so far for games. I've loved the
pace of games this year. I've been very, very pleased that, you
know, the dumb early yelling and bickering about it has gone away because I
think you're all seeing as it goes along. This is better. The runs
and baseball are up, the batting averages are up, the stolen bases are
up, like everything offensively is up. It's been a better product, and
it's moving quicker. There's not so much dead time. Like it's awesome.
I absolutely love it. But four hours, three minutes last night they lose
two guys in the bullpen. Really just did not have it. And I
went to Twitter last night during the game, like, you know, we'll
do quite a bit because I mean, we're just talking Astro's baseball, and
I took the bait of oh my god, the sky is falling, and
you know I I got into it with a few people. One person and
those of you on hold just wait a second. I'm gonna get to here.
In just one second, I got into it about Ryan Pressley and one
guys sitting here tweeting Ryan Presley's terrible, Like why do we have to do
this every time a closer blows one save? Ryan Pressley is not terrible.
Ryan Pressley, for three years now has been one of the most consistent and
most successful and just overall best closers in baseball. The numbers are right there,
like you can go use your eyeballs and look it up and look at
his conversion rates and look at his whip and look at all the important things,
and then go to the postseason. Then look at the run he just
went on from last season through the postseason to the beginning of this year before
he finally blew a save, Like he's great and I'm done with this.
Oh my god, He's just not a shut down close. It's so stupid.
It is so stupid. He blew a game last night. It is
what it is. It happens. You're not going to go unless you are
you know, Marianna Rivera, which nobody has been him other than him.
You're not going to go through seasons or Brad Lidge in his perfect season with
the Phillies that one year they're going to blow a game. Does that mean
that you can see I'm I'm not sitting here making an excuse for him.
Last night he hung a pitch over the middle of the plate, got crushed
for a hit, gave up the winning run. He didn't have his best
stuff last night. He is in a slump like everybody else can be.
Right now. That's the thing I think we fall into is people like,
oh, we worry about hitters and slumps, but like you know, pitchers
go through slumps too. It happens. So that's where like, I just
can't do the complete This guy is terrible. He's the worst. Now,
I will give you on the Montero one. Raphael Montero stinks and every single
day that they keep rolling him out there, it is another reminder of how
god awful that contract was this past offseason. And we will get back into
that just how bad their off season was, because it was atrocious what they
did and it sucks, but it's the truth. They have been that bad
in terms of results from it. It was an abysmal off season. Let's
go to the phone lines though now seven one, three, two on two
five seven, ninety. We'll talk to Eddie first this morning. Hello Eddie,
Hey, Michael, let's up. Hey, let's not call him.
And I've asked about the long seventeen game stretch. Is there any reason why
the actress had to play Backminion games in a row. It's just kind of
seems like almost unfair. I don't I don't recall or oh I've heard that
any other teams had to play seventeen games in a row. And also one
thing about the slumps. I think Brian Brady was going through a slump.
He just had to look himself. I mean, he started out okay and
then he's just the last several games. He might have a good any hearing
there, but I seem like he's had more struggles or he hasn't had any
clean, clean us for a while, thank you, Eddie. Um,
yeah, look he's going through it a little bit right now. He You
know, I know that everybody wants a clean inning all the time, and
I would too. Excuse me, I just had a sneezing fit while you
were calling. Um, I want to clean inning every single time as well.
It's just it's not realistic to be consistent. That's just it's just not
how it is. And I think we've watched this Astro's bullpen for the last
couple of years. We all know that they have a few guys that unfortunate,
as great as their results are, unfortunately they just kind of lived through
traffic. You know, it's it's it is baseball. I will say that,
you know, that's that's just I think that's just the reality of the
situation that every single team is gonna be like that or have guys like that.
And I don't think we've we're at a point now anymore where hitters are
getting beat by ninety five plus anymore. Like it just they just don't.
They are all so accustomed to it and used to it that you can have
a million relievers come in and blow ninety nine and unless you got you know,
Duran of Minnesota who's throwing one oh three plus, or joice of of
the Angels the other day who's blowing one oh three plus, Like those are
only kind of fastball as these guys are missing these days. So you gotta
be elite at your secondary pitches. And I think at the moment for Brian
to Brayu along with some of these other guys their their secondary stuff is not
as crisp. Now here's my question, how much of these guys are hiting
How many of these guys, whether it's Pressley, whether it's Brian A.
Brayu, whether it's a Christian Javier last night, how many of these guys
that pitch in the World Baseball Classic that had to ramp their springs up,
how much of them are hitting a wall right now? They might be hitting
their mid season wall to the beginning in June, because a mid season wall
is a very real thing. Guys get not necessarily dead arm, but it
happens every single year at some point, like Pitcher's arms just get tired.
I wonder if some of these guys are hitting that stage that would be that
would be an interesting thing to find out. I don't think that anybody's gonna
really tell you. They're never gonna admit to that, but I think that
that is something that is a possibility for this team. And then on the
seventeen games in a row stretch. You know, I've tried to look it
up, but I think a lot of teams have these kind of stretches during
the year. It's just a scheduling quirk. I mean, look, they
had every Thursday off for the first two months of the season, so like
they had a very beneficial schedule early on. But like, I'll just go
pull up a random team here in a minute, and I'll find a stretch
of games and see what their longest period of time playing is, because I'm
gonna go ahead and assume most of these teams at some point have a have
a streak of at least fifteen straight games in fifteen days. I'd be shocked
if they didn't. Let's go back to the phone lines and talk to James.
What's up, James? I don't I love too much of Release Kitchen.
I don't And maybe this is I'm just all observing it, but I
don't see what it can rolled him freshly out that he gives them a lot
of games. I mean, that game shouldn't win it Exchangeling, and he
went out there, couldn't get one last out and that des put him in
Exchang. Isn't it the first time he's done it. I remember a playoff
lady he gave up, came into a game in the bottom of the Nathan
name was six loans or something like that. I don't know. What he
did not below. He did not blow any hold on. He did not
blow any playoff game last year. That's interaccurate. Well, he blew one
guy. I remember one game he came in and gave up six clowns.
It was a boy was leading by three round the bottom of the ninth.
He comes in there and they lost a game. He definitely last night.
That shouldn't even win. That shouldn't even win if he isn'tland and he should
have been to shipped that out. But if he thought him out there,
I mean, how old is this guy? I mean, what does his
contract status? I mean, is he a trade value of something? No?
Why what trade? Here's a serious question. Okay, so why I
don't understand that here we got thank you for the phone call. I don't
understand. I don't understand necessarily that mindset. I'm gonna go ahead and run
through Ryan Pressley's numbers. Since he has become the closer for the Houston Astros
in twenty twenty and robertos Sooner got hurt early in the season, Ryan Pressley
took over in the shortened COVID year. That year, he went twelve of
sixteen converting saves in twenty twenty one, he went twenty six of twenty eight,
so only two times did he come in and blow a safe. Last
year he went thirty three or thirty seven, so four times throughout the year
he blew a save opportunity. So far this year he's eleven of thirteen when
we go to the postseason. For Ryan Pressley, over the last few years,
let's go ahead and pull up those numbers real quick. In twenty twenty
he went four of four in save opportunities in the postseason. In twenty twenty
one he went one of one, and then in twenty twenty two he went
six of six, So you're inaccurate. He is perfect in the postseason eleven
of eleven in save opportunities in his career, and his postseason era over that
period of time with the Houston Astros is two point five six and in the
last two years, over a total of over twenty innings, he has given
up two runs in the postseason. It's inaccurate. I think that this false
narrative that continues to be built because we are too unfortunately too short sighted on
how we view things are being going and just looking up the numbers, the
numbers tell you that's not true. They run him out there because he is
elite at finishing games. I just gave you all the numbers. He is
one of the most consistent back end of the game pitchers in baseball. And
it's not even close. And they're not going to stop running him out there.
And they shouldn't stop running him out there because he had a couple of
games recently where he sucked. Now, if this streak went on for a
month, then you have to dial it back a little bit. It's not
going to continue for a month. His stuff is too good. He will
find his way back. Three of his last four outings, he's given up
runs, He's blown two saves. It is what it is. You can
find a stretch like that in every single season for a pitcher, every single
year they have him locked up for a few more years. He's under contract
this year, he's under contract next year, has a team option at through
the twenty twenty four season if they want to pick it up, which they
probably will, and he'll be thirty six that season. He's not falling off
the cliff anytime soon. I promise you that. So it's something that unfortunately,
I get the frustration of a pitcher like him going out and blowing it
last night. But this is where I act asked that we stopped doing this
football reaction to everything. That reaction is silly and it's inaccurate. You're gonna
come to me with it. You gotta have something to prove that you're right.
That's not right. Nothing you said there unfortunately. Seven one three two
one two five seven ninety is our phone number here to join us on Sports
Talk seven. I need a little Space City Saturday. All right, we'll
continue some of the bitching X Well, let's look back on the things that
have gone on. Let's look at the contracts that we're handed out. Let's
talk about why the Astros are in some of this position that they're in.
And we'll do that next here on Sports Talk seven ninety. Welcome back to
Space City Saturday. Sports Talk seven ninety Welcome back to Space City Saturday.
Here on Sports Talk seven. I need Michael Connor back here with you until
twelve o'clock. You can join us at seven one three two one two five
seven ninety. Seven one three two one two five seven ninety is the number
or to get to those of you on hold here in just a minute,
we're gonna get through some of the stuff. When in terms of the Astros
offseason that continues to linger and what they didn't do, in my opinion,
to solidify this baseball team in certain areas, and the frustration of it because
of the results. Again last night popping back up, but I real quick
wanted to give an update to a few minutes ago. And I'm sorry,
I can't remember who called. May it was James or no, it was
Eddie. Eddie you called last night about it. At night said I would
go look at a couple of random teams in terms of the Astros playing this
stretch of seventeen games in a row, And I just went and pulled up
two of the top teams in the American League, and the Astros aren't the
only team that's going through a stretch like this. Of course, I mentioned
that the Astros had every Thursday off so far in the first two months of
the regular season, which was awesome, like you love that for your team,
you love that for your pitching and made things very easy. But they've
been in this stretch of seventeen games in a run. I think without a
doubt they're probably getting to the end of it where they see the light at
the end of the tunnel for a day off on Monday. You know,
the mental exhaustion from it is very real. They've been on the road.
They probably want to get back home, getting their own beds and just enjoy
a day off, get away from baseball for a day. You know how
that is for your job, How peaceful and nice it is when you just
get a break for a minute. It's the same thing for a professional baseball
player, for any professional athlete, to get those kind of breaks. But
I just pulled up, like I mentioned, a couple of the random a
couple of the top teams in the American League, and I pulled up Tampa
Bay, and I pulled up the New York Yankees. I'm just looking at
Tampa schedule. Just last month, in the month of May, they had
one day off. They played the first stretch of the month thirteen days,
thirteen games, and then they played sixteen games in sixteen days. So it's
not just the Astros they get it. I pulled up the New York Yankees
as well. They in the month of May went through a stretch where they
played seventeen consecutive days, just like the Astros are doing now from the fifth
of May through the twenty first of May. So like it's not just the
Strows or Fortunately that are doing it. They didn't just like single them out.
Everybody he's got everybody's got months where they have a lot of days off.
Like you look at the Yankees right now, they're benefiting in this month
from going through that already in their schedule. They've got every Monday off in
this month and they have a Thursday off, so they've got a total of
five off days in the month of June. Where you go and look at
again, like the Tampa Bay Rays just a month ago had one day off
in the month. It's crazy, and they're going through a month right behind
it. The Rays are where they are playing. They are playing every almost
every single day in the month. Again, they're playing every day but two
Mondays at the end of the month. So they're in another stretch right now
where they have played a lot of baseball in a lot of days. They
are on a current stretch at the moment where Tampa has played. They've been
on the they've been going since the sixteenth of May, and they had an
off day finally yesterday because of a rain out, but then they had to
bounced back and play I shouldn't say that that was his past week, and
they'd to bounced back and play a double head. And they're going again until
the eighteenth of June. I mean just wild. So it's just quirks of
the scheduling in Major League Baseball. Let's go back to the phone lines and
seven one, three, two and two five is seven ninety. We will
talk to Steve. Steve Hi, I just I'm getting over last night.
No, I'm you know what everything you're talking about and saying you're right.
I mean, my god, they're human beings. I mean, seventeen games,
seventeen days, they're tired, and they're hurt. And the fact that
that Seth mart game has bitched like he did last night, he deserves an
Academy award, particularly with those two guys in that lineup over there that could
close their eyes and beat you. It's amazing that we went as far as
we did in that volume. Would have been great to win it. But
having said all that, we're still only five games back. Only and I
said, because of this, if the Rangers are really for real, it
beat ten or twelve games ahead. Right now, I just don't believe them.
They're great, They're enough great, no question, But I really think
once the Astros get healthy, I think they're gonna be fine and make some
changes in the lineup. I like Dusty Baker as a person, Okay,
I liked him as a ball player, but I just think that he makes
bonehead decisions with the lineup sometimes. I know guys need to rest, but
flipping Alt two of it and Dubon or you know, Alt two of he's
got to lead off, you know, and then Dubon second, or Dubon
can lead off now. But with Papinia is not the leadoff guy. He
struggles and it's proven more when he hits further down in the lineup. So
two things have to happen. Number One, Maldonado's a double play waiting to
happen. He can't be in there anymore. Diaz has got to be the
catcher period. He hits for a higher average as a higher ops. He's
the real deal. And Dubon got to play more, and I know he'll
play more now with You're gone out, But we've got to put that guy
in the lineup just to buy it as much as we can. He needs
to be in there to help the offense. So I hope Dusty sees that.
And I don't know what his thinking is, but sometimes he makes decisions.
I'm just sitting there scratching my head, going, what da hell are
you thinking? So That's where I'm at right now. Thank you, Steve.
I appreciate the phone call, appreciate you listening here to Space City Saturday
on Sports Talk seven ninety. I am going to kind of disagree on the
overall view of Dusty Baker. I know that it is the lands of the
manager's lap. Quite often. I think that we go too far and are
unfair to Dusty Baker a lot, which is again and we shouldn't. Shouldn't
we shouldn't be at this point at anymore because it's been so long since that
era was. But you know, we came off the era of AJ Hinch,
who was a younger manager who a lot of people liked him. Was
here for the start of this one, the First World Series, and people
loved him, and people, you know, went crazy for him. And
I think you romanticize, you were like, oh, he just never made
mistakes. He made plenty of mistakes. I can give you one big one
like pulling Zack Grinky in Game seven of the World Series in twenty nineteen.
That was a bad one. There's plenty of not going to Garrett Cole out
of the bullpen that night. That was another big one in that game that
probably costs the Astros a World Series. And I'm sure haunts Aj in the
back of his mind to an extent to this day and the pitching decisions that
he made. Dusty came in and took over for a guy that is always
going to be viewed as a legend in this city. But he's done an
incredible job here. The Astros have kept winning with Dusty Baker. Dusty's not
costing the Astros every single night. I think if there's something that you want
to be mad about last night, it's using Rafaelmontera in that spot. But
then it gets back to you go look at it and this is the stuff
that I know that it is difficult to grasp too. But there's a lot
of stuff that these managers do that are out of their hands in today's baseball,
And that sounds like like crazy, I know, But the training staff
comes to the manager every day and has a sheet of guys that are need
rest, don't need rest, have worked too much, haven't worked enough,
And they make decisions off of that. They make decisions off of numbers and
matchups and everything. And with the lineup the last few nights, what I
prefer to see jose Al Twoba continue to be the leadoff hitter that he is.
Of course, I don't understand why they keep putting Dubon there and putting
jose Al two a number two. Maybe they're trying to get out two a
little bit more protection get him, Maybe put him in a spot where there's
a guy on base, because du Bon's been doing a nice job of getting
on base quickly. You get Dubon on base, you get out two bit
behind him, boom, instead of it being a solo home run for Roosel
two bays to two run home running, you're leading the game, like I
can get that kind of thinking. Jeremy paineon being a leadoff hitter, I'm
past it too. That's fine. You don't have to do that one anymore.
But Jeremy Paine in the two holes had success. They do need to
find a way to get Dubon in the lineup. As much as you know
he might not be a high on base guy in terms of walks and everything.
He's getting hits. He's hit number three hundred his ops as well over
seven thirty. He's an above average player based off this season, even if
he doesn't thump the ball very much. They need that guy, and I
understand when to get him the most at bats that you can get. So
overall, if you're gonna keep this lineup going for a minute where it's dubon
one and I'll twove a two, I'm okay with it, because again,
a'l tuva behind him with some thump can easily make it a two nothing ball
game like that, and think about what that does for your pitcher so quickly
into the game, getting a two o lead matters. Let's guys settle in
So that line of thinking is not a problem. It's the pitching usage at
times. But again, you're so limited throughout this stretch where they're seventeen games
and seventeen days and guys are worn out and they need rest, and it's
it is difficult. I get it. He has to. Here's the unfortunate
truth. He has to use Rafael want tear. You know why Rafael want
tear is on the roster. You can't just have a guy on the roster
not using now you could say, of course the head that was says our
Salazar for so long, and that made no sense at all. They've brought
him back up now, so you're gonna get yan Ardias. He's gonna consistently
play now with your don Ben out, he's gonna be a lot of dh
and I think and that's the spot to put him, I will agree.
I think overall it's time to start the transition from Martin Maldonado two ya Inardias.
But I get the manager's standpoint here, I truly do, and I
think that that's you and I can't be in dusty shoes and he isn't in
our shoes. As fans, we can hear each other and probably understand each
other's point of view to an extent, But if you're a manager in dusty
spot coming off of a World Series, you'd be one of the best teams
in baseball since he's been here. Dusty, by the way, and this
is where I think it's completely unfair to him. This guy has won almost
sixty percent of his regular season games since he's been a Houston Astros manager.
He's got a record of two sixty six and one eighty two, he's got
two pennance in a world series title, and we still get calls and we
get things on social media. This needs to be his last year. He
needs to go. Just like, can you embrace the fact that this guy
wins. There is no manager that's perfect, that makes perfect decisions every single
night. It's just it's not happening. But they didn't come to bring Dusty
and think about how many franchises would have crumbled after what happened here and then
not one to the level of expectation. To keep this team together like he
did matters. And I'm telling you the players absolutely love the man. They
love the man, and there's a reason why they stayed together because he unifies
them as a unit. We can't always be like, ah, the manager,
the manager, the manager. It's just it's unfair. There's so many
things they're out of his hand. When he's deserving of his criticism, you
give it to him again, like last night, Raphael Montero. I'm not
using him there. I'm asking somebody to buck up if it's me. But
again, I'm not making the decision if it's me. I'm going hey,
Brian and Brown, I know you're worn out a little bit right now.
I need this ball game tonight. I need this ball game tonight. And
we are teetering here and our starter didn't have his best night and we need
to find a way to keep this thing locked down. Can you do it
for me? Can you give me one inning? I'd roll the dice that
way, because unfortunately he's gonna have to wear guys out this season compared to
last year. He doesn't have the luxury of resting guys the same way he
did a year ago where they had a huge division lead, where their starters
were insanely healthy and they went deep into games consistently and getting guys days off
left and right, and his lineup wasn't injured like He absolutely had the benefit
of all that last year and doesn't have that this year, and it sucks.
So he has a tougher job of managing this season than he did last
year. But again, they have a record this thirty six and twenty eight
with a team that's as banged up as they are. I'm fine with the
manager. I don't think there's anything wrong with what Dusty Baker's doing this season
at all in the big picture of course seven two on two five, seven
nineties our phone Humber to join us here on the happen is going to call
it the tenth Inning Show. Now I'm all over the place, the show
that we call A City Saturday here on Sports Talk seven niney. You can
come in here and join us this morning until twelve o'clock. We'll continue some
of the astro's discussion, the latest on the injury injury front and are we
awaiting the two words for one picture that we are unfortunately A two used to
I guess we'll discuss that next. You're on Sports Talk seven ninety It's Space
City Saturday. On Sports Talk seven ninety here they we're here with you until
twelve o'clock today Space City Saturday. Michael Connor back here with you. We've
been talking about your Houston astros here this morning we will get into some other
things in the world of sports an hour two of the show. Nastro's topics
not going away as well. You can get in here and discuss them throughout
the entire show at seven one three two one two five seven ninety seven one
three two one two five seven ninety. Of course on Twitter at MC seven
ninety. The Astros with a tough loss last night. They will look to
bounce back in game two of this three game series tonight this evening should say
with a five ten first pitch, I'll be with you for the on deck
show starting at four o'clock here on seven ninety. Then we'll do the tenth
inning show afterwards, where they hopefully have some bodies to get through it.
Nut And we did have a caller earlier that mentioned it had tips to us
Seth Martinez. Last night, the Astros were down to their last guy basically
available, and they had him unfortunately, had to go out there and wear
it. And I know that you could be like, well, why are
you praising Seth Martinez. He gave up the runs and he gave up winning
run. Now, look, they're unearned runs for the most part, because
of course the ghost runner on second base to start the innings. And I
know that he did give up the game winning hit or whatever, but the
guy's out of gas. I mean, you're asking a guy who's not stretched
out to pitch three innings, to pitch three innings like he did. It's
very difficult to go and do that, and unfortunately last night he just had
to be that guy. Will be interested to see if they do any sort
of roster move for today, maybe option him out for a couple of days
if they can, or however many required days they're supposed to be. I
don't know if they necessarily will do that. They might be able to get
back to having Ronel Blanco in the bullpen here pretty soon, because they're gonna
have some days off after this. They're gonna have a day off here on
Monday in Houston, and they'll play this stretch of home games this week.
It'll be a total of six nine games nine game homestand and then I'll have
another day off after it, so it's just nine days in a row.
They might not need to make a roster move. Seth Martinez, excuse me,
might just be able to sit for a couple of days and you could
go to Ronel Blanco on the bullpen if you need him for some sort of
length at some point. He of course pitched the other day in the Toronto
series, so we'll see exactly what they do with that. Again. The
pitching matchup today JP France up against Tristan McKenzie is gonna be a difficult one.
I'll tell you this, if if the Cleveland Guardians want to trade one
of their guys, they want to offload some of these players that they're having
a disappointing season so far overall, I don't think they're necessarily going to but
man, i'd love to get my hands on Tristan McKenzie at some point,
or Shane Bieber, whoever might be for that Cleveland team. The Asters will
definitely be looking to some sort of starting pitching come the trade deadline here in
the month. I think it's August. It's August first, now I believe
the MLB trade deadline. I for some reason, I'm having a brain fart
on this one and remembering the exact day and time because they didn't move it
yet. It's August first, and I think it's like three o'clock in the
afternoon in our time or two o'clock in the afternoon our time when it officially
ticks off. So we'll see how much work they can get done. Unfortunately,
with the news of the injuries for the week, and if you do
want to get in here, I do want to do this. Seven one
three two one two five, seven ninety. Excuse me, the Astros.
You want to say a prayer for the astro's injury situation. Let's just you
know, friends, let's just get in here and say some prayers on the
air to the baseball gods. You know, you want to say whatever you
want to say to get to get your guys right and get them back on
the field. We're here for you here on Sports Talk seven ninety. Be
with us on this fine, fine Saturday here in Houston, Texas. That
might be you know, about one hundred degrees outside, because apparently we're in
the middle of August and it's the early June now, But come on in,
say hello and say a prayer for your Houston Astros. Like I'll kick
things off, I'll say, I want to pray for your Don Alvarez and
his oblique. I hope he's getting plenty of good sleep and very little movement
and going to be back here in the short ten day period the Astros see
him nation home runs with the rest of the season and the oblique does not
become a problem all year. That would be, that'd be a good thing
for the Astros. Do you want to say a prayer for lance for colors,
that'd probably be an important one to say. Unfortunately, if you missed
that news this week with the Astros' is really like, there's not a lot
of updates on these injuries. As we go about, They've been as they
always are, overly coy on them. I think Dana Brown, the new
general manager, gives a lot more than we've heard from really anybody else.
I know it's a sticking point for a man that covers the Astros channel rome
of the athletic A lot of teams will make their and I say a lot
of teams. I think most teams in baseball make their head athletic trainers available
forment on injuries to reporters. And the Astros are one of the only teams
in baseball that does not do that. And I think it's frustrating to him,
and it's frustrating to a lot of people. I think that there's no
reason to hide behind injuries. I just don't. I've never understood it,
and I won't understand it like that. Dusty will go, well, it's
Hippa or you know, it's um. You don't want to give the other
team in advantage or something for Fanish, for one like, Okay, your
guy's hurt. They know he's hurt, or they know he's got something banged
up, Like you can comment on it and you keep reporters happy, and
you build a little bit of trust with the with the fan base, and
you don't have to worry about it, so you know, it's not I
don't think it's that big of a deal to have to say something about an
injury occasionally. But mccullors this week another setback. He's gonna have an MRI.
And I just think that we're going down this road where we're going to
hear the words Tommy John again. Like I just it just feels that way
since the start of spring, the way this thing is played out house slow,
it's been just to get him back onto a mound for what was supposed
to be a small strain and he literally said it's small muscle strain, and
like whatever, what I can't remember the exact terminology, but he's like,
it's really really small. I'm sorry, but that's not that just I can't
believe it. There's no way that a small strain keeps you out this log
and keeps you from throwing, you know, until the month of almost June
where he was getting to the point where he was throwing in the low nineties
and hadn't even you know, thrown a damn curveball or a slider or anything
of a breaking variety off of a mound, and then you have a setback
like this is unfortunately, I think, going the way that we all expected
to go at this point. And I don't think that we're going to see
him this year. I don't think that we're going to see him for the
most of for the most part next season as well. And it sucks.
It absolutely sucks because the Astros need him to be good. And unfortunately,
you go back and look this contract now that he's signed that went into effect
last year. He is pitched, and he's making eighty five million dollars on
this contract. It's all guaranteed. Of course, last year he pitched eight
games in the regular season, he pitched in the postseason, was great in
Seattle, but he made three more starts. He's made eleven starts so far,
and he's gonna have made in those first two years over thirty million dollars,
over thirty two million, almost thirty two million dollars, and he's got
three more years at over seventeen point seven per year now for tax purposes,
on the on the on their on their books, it's all averaged out.
So it's the average of the eighty five million bad contracts, the only way
to put it, and he don't feel good about its future at all.
Real quick, before we need to grab the top of the hour break,
let's get Sam in here on Sports Talk seven ninety. Hello Sam, He
was going on MC listen. Man, I just had a question. I've
been I always listening to you guys, A big fan. So yesterday and
I was watching the game. You know, we went to top the top
part of the tenth why don't we? And I understand sometimes the line up
was summing up out two way bregually whatever it is you want if you want
their back. Well, I was wondering, why don't most a lot of
managers, or at least dust teams. Why didn't you give you the bunt
into the mental third? Um? You know, I know he did it
with Mount Nato. That's setting the tenth inning, I mean the eleventh inning,
but not the tenth. So I was just wondering, you know,
if there's some strategy there. I know you know, the line up matters
who's coming up. But I think at the tenth inning there was a I
think it was a McCormick who could or whoever it was, it could have
bunted it, but he ended up striking out or or getting out. So
I wasn't too sure about that. I'm just gonna remember, but I wanted
to get your opinion on that, and would you do that more often than
not? Yeah? Thank you, Sam, Thank you. I appreciate you
listening. We appreciate you to listen to everything here on seven ninety if you
want to join us like Sam did seven one three, two on two five,
seven ninety four. Um, you know last night, I think that
that was a situation where you know, you probably I've always felt that I
don't mind taking a risk of bunting in those spots and you know, getting
the runner over. But I will say I get why teams don't do it.
Um. The analytics that all these teams have tell you that bunning is
a waste of time. It's giving up and out to move ninety feet,
and any big League or worth his weight and salt is in scoring position at
second base, and all it takes is a hit there and you're taking the
chance, so you're guaranteeing yourself and out with a bunt where you let the
guys swing the bat. You would expect. Now, look, this is
about expectation. It's not about what it's always gonna happen. But you would
expect any big leaguer that can put the bat to ball, can advance the
runner to third, and then you're taking the opportunity of it also becoming a
base hit. The scores the run, then you have no outs, and
so, like I get overall the big picture of it, it's about the
analytics, and what the analytics tell you is that bunting is stupid. That's
why we don't see it in baseball anymore. It's a given away out certain
guys. I think it always makes sense Maldonado, if he's up, I'd
always bunt him. I wouldn't even think about it twice. But that's just
I just think that's where they're at. And I don't know that they're ever
gonna get to a spot where they take more chances on bunting, because you
know, you're almost I think most teams going to those extra innings now and
they all they feel like they're going to always score that runner from second base
didn't work out the first two innings last night of those extra innings for both
teams, which is kind of crazy. But um yeah, I don't know.
I don't know if you're gonna see a change in it with the way
that they they take this thing on seven one three two one two five seven
ninety again, that is our phone number to join us here this morning,
one hour to go on Space City Saturday. Some big news in the world
of sports, the golf world. I do want to discuss that. We'll
do that to kick off our number two of the show right here on Sports
Talk seven ninety City Creating, Degraded, Degraded. Welcome to another Space City
Saturday. On Sports Talk seven ninety Michael Cutters Live and local e each town,
breakdown up the world that matters to you, Houstons the world. All
these great Houston fans here. We love him all. So finished up on
that to do list. Loot up the cooler because you can't drink in talk
sports all day if you don't start. Now. This is Face City Saturday.
Here are seven nineties Astro's insider Michael cunner Hill. I see every time
I hear that intro here the show's Face City Saturday on Sports Talk seven ninety.
When I hear the we want Houston, it just gives me chills.
Man. That was one of the best runs of anything, watching all those
eightiots go out there and chant we want Houston, and then Martine Aldonado,
I'll never forget the Astro's winning, of course, and he's on the field
after they want Houston. They got Houston, Suck it. It felt awesome.
That was one of the best nights of my life personally, and I
get to do a lot of very cool things throughout the years, and traveling
to watch the Astros when they've been in the postseason has been one of them.
When you go into these other ballparks and they just crushed the souls of
all these fan bases that night in New York, Chris Gordy and I were
there. Of course, we've traveled together throughout this entire run. We've been
very lucky to do that throughout these years. But being in New York that
night after they of course we're dealing with the rain, and there was the
delay that night and they'd been they were up three oz in the series and
it was pretty convincing on that three zero and it felt like it was completely
over and just how empty that ballpark was at the start, and how cheap
tickets were at Yankee Stadium for a game that was an ALCS game, even
if they weren't dead yet, and then to watch the Astros fall behind Jeremy
Payne you hit that home run, and then that place just emptied more and
more as the night went on, and then we get out there. They
allow us as media out on the field after the game and to see all
the Astros fans that were there, and it just it it was very It
was one of the coolest, coolest nights of my life to go and experience.
Again, very very lucky to get to do that kind of stuff.
And then of course talk about it here on the radio, but again that's
just because I hear that we want Houston. That brings me back to that
memory every single time. A very very awesome year was twenty twenty two.
We want twenty twenty three to be just as good, of course, and
we'll get more into them as we move along. Said one three two on
two five seven ninety is our phone number. They're back in action today.
Again five ten, first pitch here on seven ninety. I've got you for
the on Deck show starting at four o'clock, tenth inning show after so a
day full of me once again on your radio today here on a Saturday.
So strap in and let's do this thing all day long and hopefully talk about
a win later, because I don't want to talk about another loss that I'm
not gonna lie. Coming on super late last night and having to do that
after a fourteen inning loss. It's never my favorite thing. And I am
on a run for myself recently. I think they've lost the last three games
I've done, so give me a win, please. I did the Monday
game against Toronto and that one since then when I've been on the air,
so and they've lost four in a row for the first time this season,
which is just absolutely sucks. Before we get into that golf stuff that I
did want to get to for a few minutes, let's talk to John.
What's up John? Hey, Michael, I wanted to ask you, tell
you why why are nobody's focused on the hitting. We're the number one pitching
team in baseball, but we're like number twenty in hitting. Yeah, I
mean we've been talking about it all year. They're terrible. But I'm saying
I keep hearing people say they want to trade for another picture. They need
more pitching. They need more pitching. We need we need our hitters that
we have to hit. Oh yeah, they need. I think I think
they need both. I think they need a bat and I think they need
pitching. They're gonna need one of each at least. M But I will
I will disagree with you on one one issue, this whole putting a fanom
baseball person at sucking base. What's gonna happened if somebody rolls and they have
like a Jack Morris game where they're pitching a perfect game or a one hit
or and then they put somebody at sucker base and they sacrifice from fly over
the third and then it sacrifice fly and then he loses. He loses the
perfect game without adverd giving up a hit. I mean, what's gonna happen
then, Mike. And that's the risk of doing this. But I'm gonna
go ahead and say this there that's probably never gonna happen. Teams aren't gonna
let their pitcher go that long. They mean, hell, letting guy go
to the tenth inning anymore like that never even happens. I mean, they're
not gonna change on that. Yeah, they're not gonna change the rules unfortunately
for that one scenario. There is a case for somebody that with us magical
nights and they you know, they throw ninety pitches and they're in the ninth
then and that has happened, you know, Look, yeah, that could
absolutely happen. I just think we don't see pitchers get to that number anymore,
um through innings. I mean that, Yeah, they're so far up
in pitchcount because they strike out so many guys these days that they run pitch
counts up that I just think it's such a far out scenario, But I'd
love to see the what a team would do in that spot. On a
side note, were you were you want that shy Fair baseball team with Bank
Brandon facing? No, I played you guys wanted a baseball I played baseball
at Jersey Village. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't.
I didn't know. I thought you were a different person. So no hated
we hated sci Fair. So there's my there's my contribution to sci Fair.
They always there's another shy Wood. There's another SHI team in there right now,
and my team's Magnolia West. So we have a chance here coming up
at noon, Buddy, So I remeably doing your show, Michael Dick,
thank you. I appreciate it. Hey, good luck to Magnolia West today.
Back when I'm black, when I was at Jersey Village, Magnolia was
in our division, or was in our district. Still we played Magnolia and
tom Ball still back in those days. So and then we had straight Jesuit
was also in it. It was I don't even know who the hell's in
that of that district anymore. I really, I haven't even been back to
watch Jersey Village baseball, and for years I don't. I don't know how
they do these days. We were not very good when I was there.
I'll tell you that we sucked. Said one three two, one two five
seven. I need the number to join us. I appreciate all the phone
calls here this morning, of course, all you contributing throughout the show.
We're getting We're here until twelve today and getting in plenty of Astro's discussion because
the fortunately things are just not great right now. We'll get back into them
here in just a bit. I don't want to go completely off on them
because I mean, look right now, it's the only thing going on.
It is June. I get the Astros, you get the Rockets sitting idle
off seasons getting ready to come up. The Texans are going through all their
off season stuff. They've been having a few things here and there, but
really overall talking points, it's just all made up stuff. There's not a
lot. Oh and Justin just tweeted us said, Cifer hated y'all. I
know, and look, but we were easy to hate. I guess we
weren't very good at anything. Justin, I'm sorry. We sucked at everything
we did. And literally I think my senior year and I play football.
In my senior year, I was done at that point because I got hurt.
I just didn't want to play football anymore. But we didn't win a
single game in football that year, and then baseball wasn't very good. It
just we sucked. Um. But the the Texans not doing much. A
lot of that topic or those things that you know, people talk about is
just made up to fill time, and it's it's just like going online.
It's it's stupid reaction. I know, there's another station in town that does
a lot of topics that honestly are a complete waste of time to me.
I know that there's some people out there they don't feel that way, but
there's a lot of crap that they're talking about that just does not matter,
and it's just made up and it's just stupid. Um any of the Astros,
of course, that are the only team that's going right now, and
that's that's what is at the at the top of the of the mind every
single day with what's going on. But the the world of sports in general,
of course, the NBA Finals are going on right now. Nuggets take
a three one lead in the series. That thing's over. They're going back
to Denver. I'm gonna be shocked if Miami has any chance to even extend
that series. I think they're gonna finish that thing off in Game five in
my opinion, and we'll see exactly what happens. Though I've not watched a
lot of the NBA Finals, to be perfectly honest with you, I watched.
I did watch quite a bit of the Conference finals. Now again,
i'd live in a home. We have our nephew that lives with us,
he's fifteen and he's a freaking basketball halic. So I think I get a
little bit more overall NBA than I would if he wasn't here. But we
even he has not wanted to watch the NBA Finals that much. We've not
watched a lot of it. We did watch some of Game three the other
night, probably this most of the second half of that one. That was
pretty entertaining game overall, I thought for the most part. But again,
I think that series I'll probably in here pretty soon. But the world of
golf this week had a nice shake up that nobody saw coming. And I
know that a lot of you don't care about golf. I will say,
if you don't like golf, and it's a lot like for me, and
recently my wife and I have found ourselves getting into the Netflix series Drive to
Survive the F one Show. And I've done this before. I've talked on
the air because I know there's a lot of people out there that become fascinated
with F one and I've asked and we've done plenty of discussion on the air,
like should I get into it? And people are I don't know,
and some people are all, yeah, absolutely, and I will tell you
this. Watching that show, I've gotten into F one. I've watched like
the last three races now, and this week we've discovered the F one video
game. And let me just go ahead and tell you something. Right now,
me and the nephews are playing the F one video game and that thing
is freaking addicting. It is an absolute problem for me in this home.
I've genuinely like and I always thought it was crazy. As you get older,
like everybody always said, you'll stop playing video games as much. My
cousin I had. You know, my cousin growing up, He's nine years
older than me, but super close. We always grew up around each other
and did everything. He's like my brother and everything, and he was kind
of like that too, Like just one day he just kind of stopped playing
video games. I think we just kind of phased it out, not necessarily
stopped, but it just becomes a lot less important when you got other things
going on in your life. And that's really happened for me. Over the
last like three years. I've really slowed down on playing video games. Like
it'll be three four months between playing something, or I'll play with the boys
or whatever, and that'll be it. But we discovered this F one video
game and I cannot stop doing the F one video game. It's gonna be
an issue for me. But all that to say, the world of golf
this week kind of rocked by the And I say I bring up the F
one because if you've not watched the Netflix show Full Swing and you're curious about
golf and the personalities and all that, and maybe you want to get into
golf kind of like me with the F one thing, I think you should
go watch the Full Swing show on Netflix. I thought it was phenomenal and
get you some insight into some of these guys. You could see on the
side of them. I can get a lot of these A lot of them
come off very likable. I thought brooks Kepka I used to be a team
brooks Kepca guy, but you know, I think he came off really douche
in the show, and his wife came off as the worst. But overall,
like it made me, and I'm a huge golf guy, it made
me like even more gung ho to go watch golf. And I play golf
all the time, so it just it just built my passion for it even
more. But watch the show, maybe they'll get you into golf a little
bit. But got spicy this week because the PGA Tour and Live or the
private or the public investment Investment Fund, the Saudi backed fund of the Saudi
government, who has more money than God because of the oil that they have
over there. They've basically bought the PGA Tour for sure, everything that's being
said or it's a partnership, or we still have control that you don't for
now you might have control. But they put the guy who's running Live,
who basically is the front for the prints whatever of Saudi Arabia, forget his
name, weird week. Didn't expect this to happen. I think the PGA
Tour ran out of money and saw the future was we don't have enough money
to withstand paying our players the elevated sums of money that we're paying them because
the Live came in and did what they did and forced our hand into doing
it, which is great for the golfers and they should make more money.
But I think I saw the rioting on the wall unfortunately, and they had
to do this and give them power and put that guy on the board,
and as the think he's the CEO or CFO of of the PGA too,
whatever it might be. The PGA Tour Commissioner remains in a top position as
well. It's just crazy, absolutely crazy, a lot of egg on a
lot of face this week. I'm not one of these people that's gonna get
into the political side of it necessarily. Look, the Saudi crap is the
Saudi crap. I know their history of brutalness to people and human rights,
and you know the way things go. But like, I'm not gonna sit
here and make everything a political battle. When it comes to sports, their
Saudi money is littered across it. There are sponsorships across all sports that have
Saudi money involved in them, and I think if we peeled back the curtain
on all of it, there'd be a lot of people online go alight,
I go to sports for sports. At the end of the day, you're
gonna get the best golfers in the world back together, and now they'll look
overall, they didn't take a lot of great golfers. They took a lot
of guys that are later in their careers and done. But they did take
some younger talents and proven talent. Brooks Kepco of course, having just won
another PGA championship, he's finally back into form of being one of the best
players in the world. It's been a long time since he's been that because
of his injuries that he's been going through. So I'm a proponent of getting
those guys back now. A lot of pissed off PGA Tour players, which
they should be, because some of these guys passed up on hundreds of millions
of dollars to make the jump and they're just gonna be allowed to walk back
in. There needs to be some sort of penalty for them absolutely to come
back, like they should have to pay money or whatever it might be to
get back their tour cards. But it sounds like the days of live or
over after this year, which I'm fine with. I didn't. I watched
probably half an hour of the first live Golf tournament when they started last year,
when they played over in London, and when it was on YouTube,
and that was it. I haven't watched a single second of it being on
the CW. I don't think anybody's watching it. I don't watch like I'm
not this golf person where I'm you know, crazy watching every second of these
smaller tournaments like the Canadian Open this weekend, I'm not watching it. There's
the certain tournaments, the more elevated tournaments where you get the fields to be
great that I'm absolutely getting myself into, which, by the way, if
you've missed that, they did announce recently the Houston Open dates for next year
in the spring, right before the Master's gonna be a perfect time to finally
get back into the spring. Was awesome for that golf tournament. Going to
get a lot of huge names back here in the city of Houston, including
Brooks Kepka next year, who helped the redesign on that course. You know
he'll be back out there playing that because his buddy Jim Crane went to him
with that one. But overall, very weird week for the game of golf.
And know that we're not gonna get a lot of discussion on it overall,
but if you do want to give a comment or two, you can
always can set one, three, two on two five seven ninety. Just
wasn't expecting it and weird, and I get the online and a lot of
the egg on the face that the PGA Tour put itself through this past week.
They shouldn't have been kind of like with all the cheating stuff with other
teams throughout the years on the Astros side of it, where the Astros got
caught because they had a player talk and then all the stuff that came out
about it, and then he had all these people say all these things.
Then you get these little things here and there, and they come back they
got it like Aaron Judge got all this or the Dodgers they got all this
egg on their face because all these things have come out about them and what
they've done, and it's like, shouldn't have done it. This is where
you keep your mouth closed in certain situations, and some people just don't know
how to do that. Seven one three, two one two five, seven
ninety is our phone number. To join us here this morning on a Space
City Saturday, the free agency tour of a wide receiver continues. We'll discuss
him and his interest of returning to the city of Houston and what are the
realistic chances of it. Next here on Sports Talk seven ninety. This is
Space City Saturday on Sports Talk seven ninety. Any more Cowbell here on Space
City Saturday. Michael Connor back here with you. Seven one three two on
two five seven ninety is our number to join us here. We're here until
noon. I'll be back with you again after the show later this afternoon four
o'clock here on Sports Talk seven ninety for the Astros on deck show ahead of
game two of three this weekend in Cleveland against the Guardians. The Stros needing
a bounce back in the worst way possible after the unfortunate last night. The
unfortunate loss. They now lost four in a row, first time this season
they've lost that many. Tristan McKenzie versus JP France this evening, hopefully a
good pitching matchup. About that on the mound, The Guardians probably feel a
little bit better about their side of things, but the Astros feel good about
their JP Fran has been pretty good so far this season, so the Astros
will see if they can get back into it. Seven one three, two
on two five seven ninety is our number to join us. We'll get into
that free agency thing here in just a moment. We want to get to
you guys in the phone lines. Let's talk to Scott next here on Space
City Saturday. Hello Scott, Hey, how are you doing today? Good?
Hey? I was gonna ask your opinion about the World Baseball Classic and
how if it had any effect on spring training and now he talked earlier about
some injuries and players hitting the walls that was good or bad for the baseball.
And then I'll hang up. But one other question. What is a
bray you chewing on put he's up on that bad or playing Jose brew you?
Oh yeah? Um? Chewing tobaccos? Yes, man, if he
quit chewing so much to bacco, he may have energy to hit better maybe.
Um. Yeah, go hang up and get you in here. I'll
hang up and get your thoughts on the World Baseball Classic. Yeah, thank
you for the phone call. Um, yeah, bray you he likes himself.
And I don't know for sure what it is. I mean, there's
a lot of those guys that use that stuff. And look at somebody that
played a lot of baseball in my life. Unfortunately, it was a habit
for me for a long time as well. I understand the chewing tobacco thing.
I quit it, thank god. Um, and I've not done it
for it's been it's been a few years now. Um, but it's a
bad habit and um, I think he's probably it looks to me like he's
one of those guys. Now. I only know this because I again played
baseball and you can see guys do this, and we tried it at some
point where you do the I don't know if he's doing the actual chewing tobacco
where you wrap it and gum, which sounds disgusting, I know, but
some people like that, or if he's just doing the good old I think
it's what he does and he just kind of puts it into his front lip
and let's sit there. But you know, that's that's everybody. Um,
that's that's everybody's different thing. It's it's it's a baseball thing. Um.
Hell, Dusty Baker still does it to this day. It'll be the funniest
thing ever, which is a little inside of the baseball thing. Like you'll
be sitting there and Dusty you'll be talking to you. And if you've if
you ever use chewing tobacco before Copenhagen, fine cut is about as difficult as
it gets because it's like putting sand and near a lip, and Dusty he'll
just sit there and he'll grab that can and he'll put his tongue to it
and he'll just pop it into his mouth with his tongue, and it's like,
oh my god, this guy and you're gonna use chewing tobacco. At
least be a badass about it. Dusty Baker is a badass about it.
But Joseph bre he definitely does a lot of it. All the World Baseball
Classic thing. Look, you know, I've never been a big fan.
I understand that these players, it is a huge honor for them, especially
these Latin I mean really all of them. It's not just the Latin players,
but the Latin players. I think there's a little bit more to it
because these guys come from countries where you know, it's it's tough to get
here. Um, it's it's tough to be this player and to get these
opportunities and get out of a you know, for a lot of them,
a life of poverty in these places. They they hit the big time,
and to go back to those places and to give and to grow the game
and all those things matters to them, and to represent that country matters.
But I've never loved it from the standpoint of the timing of it, and
I don't think there's perfect time for it outside of shutting down your season.
I think it just kind of gets back to it makes no sense. It's
it just if I was a team and we saw the Astros do this from
er Valdez, I would ask my players are not playing it. You can't
force them to do it, but I would ask them to not playing it.
I never would I never would never want a guy to play in it.
Hitters, I'm not so worried about. It's more pitchers than anything else.
Hitters, you can go out there outlook. The Jose Altuvee thing happened.
That's a freak thing that could happen in a spring training game. That
could happen at any point. It's just baseball. But with pitchers. I
hate it because, especially for the Astros this past year, you know they
had to they had a short off season because they finished in November again last
year they got December off. But then you have to basically start your throwing
program again in January, and most of those guys would start. You know,
they're never completely shutting down. They probably shut down. Even the guys
that get done in October at the end of September or early October, they're
probably shutting down for a couple of weeks before they even you know that before
they're doing anything, or they're they're tossing lightly in doing stuff and just keeping
things as it is. I mean, I think the training is just so
completely different from where it's even been in the years past that and you're never
these guys are never stopping to the point most of them where they're out of
shape to playing games. But you have to ramp things up so quickly to
get yourself to a spot where you can pitch competitively in these games. To
where I do wonder now as we've hit the month of June or these guys
hitting and everybody goes through it. Are these guys hitting a midseason wall earlier
than most because they did ramp up so hard and then they went through the
rest of the spring once they got back into their spring camps, and then
they here they are and we all you know, that's how it's a better
question obviously for the players or whatever. And you know, I get out
there to the ballpark next week and I'll ask a couple of these guys because
it would be interesting to hear their perspective on it now a few months in
after having pitched in it. But maybe they don't feel like it's it's the
case, maybe they just pretty normal and they just had to start earlier.
But I do wonder on the level of exhaustion that they've hit overall, in
terms of their arms, how they're feeling their body in general, because they've
been going now. I mean, they've been going hard since probably the end
of January and it is June, and they still have all of these months
left of baseball and hopefully good baseball to be played and getting themselves back into
the postseason. And I mean, like I want to win another World Series.
I have a lot more fun doing radio when we're talking about winning a
title than when we're not talking about winning a title. And I'd like to
do that with them again. I'd like to do that with all three teams
in this city. Seven one, three, two on two five, seven
ninety again, that is our phone number to join us here this morning.
We've got thirty eight minutes to go here on Space City Saturday to the football
world and that free agent and what is going on with him and do we
consider we still consider ourselves a contender or do you consider this team a contender
to get his services here in the city of Houston. We'll discuss that next
here on Sports Talk seven ninety, Space City Saturday. Continues Sports Talk seven
nineties Space City Saturday, and you're on Sports Talk seven ninety. We're rolling
along with you here for about twenty eight more minutes. So on Sports Talk
seven ninety can join us at seven one three two one two five seven ninety
seven one three two on two five seven niney. Michael connerback here with you.
Will get back into the strows to wrap things up in the final segment
of the show as they look to bounce back and in there losing streak today
in game two of the three game weekend series in that Cleveland whence you'll hear
right here on Sports Talk seven ninety. Of course you can find me on
Twitter at MC seven ninety. Again the station at Sports Talk seven ninety always
typically available to you when we were doing things or watching games, whatever might
be, trying to make sure that we're always getting back to you and talking
sports because it's what our lifeblood is. And of course one of the lifebloods
has been kind of dull for the last few years, which has been the
Houston Texans because they've been very, very bad and it's been a you know,
just a revolving door of terrible coaches and bad decisions, and it feels
like finally we are all at a spot where we can gather together and rally
behind a head coach, rally behind his staff, rally behind a quarterback.
Of course, because they draft CJ. Stroud, Texans have gone through OTAs
and we're getting to the mini camp stages. Training camp will be here at
the end shoot. Now, we don't have an official date I think yet.
I need to needed a double check on that, but I don't think
that the dates have come out. Just if they have, I missed them.
But it's the end of July. Early August is when they always get
started. They'll be back out there on the field officially and then ramping things
up to play preseason football. Three preseason games, which, by the way,
I think it's the last game against the Dolphins. One of those games
got moved to a national TV on NFL network, Which does anybody have NFL
Network? I don't think. I mean, I'm I'm a cord cutter.
I'm a streamer of everything, so I don't have NFL network, but I'm
sure it'll be available on one of the broadcast TV station saw to plug my
old bunny ears into the TV in the living room and watch it, which
I will do even if I'm the baseball guy, and I love baseball.
I love all three sports, and I do love to be able to talk
about all three of them. I miss talking about all three of them consistently,
even if the Rockets stink and the Texans have stuck. But I'm very
excited as somebody that was around. Of course I've mentioned this before, but
I was twelve years old when the Texans started in two thousand and two.
So like, this is my football team, and you know, I know
that you're you're you're probably gonna you know, how how is this your football
whatever might be. You know, I'm supposed to be by partial or you're
supposed to be level headed on the radio. I want them to win,
and I know that they're not on our station and everything, and some people
think we thrive off them being terrible or we just want them to suck,
and everybody hits seven ninety hates the Texans and it's the dumbest thing. Ever,
Like I don't hate the Texans. I want them to win. I
want all three teams to win. I'm a Houston sports guy. That's all
I want in my life is to have the three teams that I've cared about
my entire life being great. And I feel like for all the bad stuff
that they've done and all the craft that they've put us through, and all
the banging our heads against the wall and yelling at each other and doing whatever
it is that we've done, this finally we're getting past that point. There's
finally time for optimism. And it's a good feeling. It's better than the
feeling of crap that we have all been through for the past few years of
that franchise. But there is still a guy that is out there that has
made it known, I guess through sources or whatever it might be, that
he would like to see himself or he was interested at least in being back
in Houston, and that of course, is DeAndre Hopkins. Now, the
Texans don't necessarily have the cap space available to do it, but the cap
is a The cap is a very I think, subjective thing, and it's
not subjective, it's real. But like every single team, if you want
a player or you want to do something, they will all figure out a
way to work the salary cap, so that's not going to be an issue
at all. I keep going through this and thinking about it and where the
football team is and where their death is at the position, and if you
can get the deal done, which is going to take money. It's not
going to take the money that he was making on the contract that the Cardinals
just released him from, but it's going to take at least ten million dollars
at minimum to get him and guaranteed money for this season and whatever it was
would be if it's a lengthy deal after that, I would I still would
like to see him back here in the city of Houston. And it's not
just because I'm selfishly wanting the player back in Houston, because he's a Texans
legend. He's the second best receiver in terms of all the numbers and the
history of the franchise. He would have eclipsed Andre Johnson in all those categories
in all likelihood if he had stayed in Houston. Now, he could have
had the suspension here and the injuries here, and it might have been a
little bit tough based off of that, but he probably would have eclipsed Andrew
Johnson in every major category in the history of the franchise, and you know,
I know that their history of Ring of Honor stuff is not very lengthy
because they've not had a lot of guys necessarily that are worthy of it.
The only people that are in it, of course, are cal McNair.
Are not calming? Yeah, why am I thinking cal McNair. What's his
dad's name, Bob McNair. Sorry to hope he's resting easily, Bob McNair.
He's in it. And then of course Andrew Johnson was put in it.
I do think that Aaron Foster belongs in it. That's just me personally.
I put him in there. When the day comes, I think there's
a conversation that has to be had about Dwayne Brown being in it as well,
Like those are the only guys that really pop off to me as the
other guys that belong in that kind of in that kind of spot. But
when in DeAndre Hopkins day comes and his career does end, he also believes
in there. I'm totally shorten jj Wat there. I forgot about j Watt
because he just retired. JJ Watt should be in there this year, Like
you don't even have to think about that when you put him into your Ring
of Honor immediately and have a whole big day and ceremony celebrating him because he's
either one or two in terms of the best players in the history of the
franchise and what they've had, probably number one just because of the awards that
he had, which is three Defensive Player of the Year awards. But the
team could absolutely, in my opinion, use them, could use the production
that DeAndre Hopkins could give you. And I think that, you know,
will they necessarily get involved in it. I doubt it. I think if
they were going to get involved in it at this point, we probably to
hurt a little bit more on them. I think he's pushing it because he
would like to get back here. You see the stuff about you know,
his family still here and all that, and he does spend a lot of
his offseason still back in the city of Houston. That's that's that's not crazy,
but that's just the I think. The thing is a Houstonian that I've
always loved is that guys come here in sports and then they don't leave.
You come to this city and you realize, goly, I mean, like
this is a great place to live. Quality of life is unbelievable. Of
course, there's a huge benefit of the tax purpose there all that stuff.
Cost of livings way cheap. Now, cost of living is going way up
for everybody, but it's cheaper than it is in a lot of places.
So I get why people fall in love and they don't want to leave this
city once they get here. But them the football team could use this player
this season, and I think for you know, for CJ. Stroud,
having him out there with some of those that the guys would be kind of
a big deal. Considering, you know, we don't know what John Metsch's
gonna be necessarily when he plays. I think that I'm pretty confident in him.
A lot of people talk very highly of Tank Dell. Nico Collins is
a guy that you know, has shown some flashes at times, but I
don't think that there's any reason to think he's gonna take some big leap at
any point and be a number one receiver for anybody. He's probably a two
or three at best on most teams. They have Robert Woods, who says
he's finally, you know, the healthiest healthiest he's been since the ACL tear.
And maybe you can get a little bit of something out of him,
But that's not a number one in your team, and he's later in his
career, so that's something that you know, I'm not going to get completely
behind. As well as being this true, amazing legit option for you,
it's not the most inspiring position. Again, the wide receiver spot for the
Houston Texans, their depth and it they do have Dalton Schultz that they've signed
for the Dallas Cowboys. The tight end spot, and I'm, for me,
hand up, I think that this offense is going to be more tight
end involved. And I think I was the most because we went through as
as fans, of course, the Gary Kubiak era where look for as much
as we dog Kubiak and certain things, and they never got over the time.
They're very average throughout a lot of those years. Then they finally broke
through and then they just fell off the face of the earth real quickly and
he was gone. Those offense, those days of that offense were a lot
of fun. They were They were always really great at running the football,
they were always great at getting guys wide, hoping like it just worked,
not included the tight end. So I'm excited about seeing the possibility of tight
end play being a thing again in Houston, Texas this year, and I
think it matters. I think in today's game, the mismatches that you create
with the tight end position matters. And I think Dalton Schultz is nothing like
He's not a best in the league type of guy, but he's got good
size, he's got good speed, he's a good physical guy. They gave
him good guaranteed money for this one year for a reason. I think he's
going to be a very effective player for them, better than they've had at
the tight end position for a very long time. And again, I think
more than anything, it's because the offense Bill O'Brien, for whatever freaking reason,
for years just ignored the tight end position and they just did not get
him involved any of them in the kind of way that they needed to the
last couple of years. Even care about that, because the Texans coaching staff
was just not good. The game plans are not good. Nothing about the
last couple of years or good. So I'm not going to even really criticize
or even evaluate what they did and say, well, that's whatever. I'm
optimistic about this season. But again, I think that based on the depth
that they have maybe the lack of overall like, oh my god, this
guy's great. I could see a scenario where yes, you go ahead and
you say, hey, we should probably get ourselves involved in the mix for
DeAndre Hopkins, especially if his market doesn't play out. He's already visited the
Titans, he's visited there. He's going to visit the New England Patriots this
week, which of course is funny because of the whole DeAndre Hopkins army,
the whole Bill O'Brien relationship with him, or whatever it might be, the
Bill trading him to the Cardinals like he did. But Bill's not making the
decisions there, and it would be hilarious at Bill Belichick says, Hey,
Bill O'Brien, buckup, Buttercup, you gotta deal with this even if you
don't like this whatever it might be. And just the awkwardness. I don't
know, maybe there's no awkwardness. Maybe maybe they're completely fine and they've taught
who knows, But I think that'd be a fun fly to beyond the wall
kind of conversation if DeAndre Hopkins walked into the room as a New England Patriot
for the first day, as Bill O'Brien's back at the offensive coordinator position.
That'd be pretty darn hilarious. Seven one three two on two five, seven
nineties the number to join us here on Space City Saturday. Will wrap things
up at the final segment of the show next here on Sports Talk seven ninety.
It's Space City Saturday on Sports Talk seven ninety. Here final few minutes
of Space City Saturday here on Sports Talk seven ninety and a note the show
is coming to an end here if you wanted me to peel back the curtain.
So I'm sitting in my office at my house and doing the show with
you this morning. I always have my when I'm on the air from the
house, I always have my trusty Psychekick. We have three dogs with us
here at the house. We've had for all three of them together for four
years. But one of them we've had four or six or says she's about
to be seven. And he is at the point where he is jumping up
on trying to jump up on one of my lap because he always sits with
me when we do the radio shows. This is crazy. So if you
hear me from home and you've never really heard barking because he is the world's
greatest sidekick. He sits right at my feet under my desk on a bed.
His name is Bear, and he's hanging out with me right now.
But he's ready to get his butt up and go outside. So the show
will be ending momentarily. And but we've been talking to the Astros this morning.
Of course, I'll be back with you again this afternoon four o'clock for
the Astros on Deck show again after the game for the tenth inning show as
well, and hopefully get a victory today. I did not mention this throughout
the show today. I know that again this is we did talk for a
minute golf, and I've talked about my appreciation that I've started to have for
I've always loved golf. Golf has always been one of my sports that I
watched. That's not something that we talk about. And I think that you
know, we have our three hard core sports of course that we care about
in the city with a three professional teams, and you know, I know
that some of you might listen to it at some points, like watching some
of them becomes a job to an extent, like watching the Rockets the last
couple of years, watching the Texans last couple of years, it's become a
job and it's tough, and I don't want to do it all the time.
And I think anybody that's in this position that when you're doing it,
like you don't want to sit there and you know, watch bad teams all
the time. So I'm happy that we're probably getting to a spot that you
know, we're going to have excitement and more reason to watch these teams and
optimism across the board every single year. But I will say as I've as
I've gone along as a sports fan, I mentioned the golf is one of
those things that like, I feel like there are sports that I can escape
too, to get away from those three teams and get a break that I
don't have to come on the air and talk about ever, because they're not
sports that we talk about. I do want to briefly mention one of the
sports quick because today if you're into the world of soccer, which I've become
a massive, massive soccer fan over the last few years, and Chelsea FCS
my squad very rough year for the team from West London. I was just
over there recently and we went to Stanford Bridge and went over to the game
against Brighton and everything, and it was it was. It's been a very
tough year to be a to be a fan of Chelsea. They've got a
very busy transfer window that's about to come for them, but Champions League Final
is later this afternoon. If you've never watched um much soccer, you think
it's this dumb, silly sport. I know there's some people that's never going
to come around to it because well, they only score like one or two
goals maybe per game. Like okay, I think you have to how We'll
say, you have to kind of learn the intricacies and the appreciation for just
how difficult it is and how fast these guys move and how quick like the
decision making and just the athletic ability to do what they do is is pretty
intense. So I've I've loved the escape of it. And part of the
reason why I love it because it happens during the middle of the day,
sometimes during the weekdays, and I have the ability to watch it on like
a Tuesday afternoon at two o'clock they'll be playing a game and it's great.
I know a lot of people don't have the ability to do that. But
the Champions League Final today. Manchester City is going for what they call the
treble. They've already won the Premier League, which they did very they did
very stylishly with Roling Holland leading them in there at charge. And if you
watch soccer all you weren't able to see all these guys. They played in
Houston in the preseason last year and they're gonna come back. All these teams
come back to the States. There's gonna be some games at Energy coming again
this summer. I think Manchester United is coming here. I had to go
look again, but they've won that. They've won the FA Cup, which
is the English Football Association Cup over there, which matters to them. And
then they have a chance today to win their first Champions League title. It's
the one thing that they have not been able to do. The last time
that they had a chance to do it, they lost in Chelsea. Sucks
for them, which was great for me. I've got I've got my picture
action. I'm sitting here at it right now from my recent trip to London.
We have I have my picture of me with the two Champions League trophies
at Stanford Bridge. It's a great day. I got to got to I
got to touch both of them, and I had the FIFA Club World Cup
Trophy in front of me, So that's that's something that is very cool to
me. But I love the game of soccer. I've grown to love it
quite a bit. I never played it, so there's certain things that I
don't even know about it, and I'm not gonna sit here and break down
a lot of the stuff, but I love the intensity and the passion of
it. I think that the intensity of European soccer is awesome and almost unmatched
in any kind of sport. For as great as we are with football and
everything, I think that they are just absolute dire love of that sport in
the atmosphere that it provides, and having been there recently for it in Europe
it is I think it's I think it's better than anything that's going in sports.
I really really do it. I think if you ever have the opportunity
to go and to watch a game, do it a go, if you're
overseas or whatever, go see a game wherever it might be, go see
a European soccer game, and I think it would give you a true appreciation
for just how big of a deal it is over there. And you know,
maybe be singing it in person. If you're not a fan of it,
we'll change your mind. But inter Milan Manchester City today, I think
Manchester City's gonna win. I know that Ross is gonna be geared up Ross
via reality. Yeah, I know that. You guys know who he is.
He's a big Manchester City fan, so he's had a very good year
with them. They're led by a Pep Guardiola. He's very good. Now,
my boy, I'm gonna be rooting for I'm gonna be rooting for inter
Milan or not inter Milan. Yes, inter Milan. I was about to
say ac Milan. Ac Milan is the other team. I was just in
Milan too, inter Milan because they've got one of my favorite players ever that
I've ever watched, and he's unfortunately a product of Chelsea or he's a player
for Chelsea now who's out on loan and I don't think he's coming back.
Ramolu Lukaku, who's one of the biggest brewers in the game and very very
physical out there. But man, when he can put the foot on the
ball and just crash in the back of the net, he hits it as
hard as anybody. So there we go. I got my soccer talk out
of the way this afternoon Champions League before we do the on deck show.
You know I will be watching that. Let's get one more phone call in
here real quick. Let's talk to Lewis. What's up Lewis? Hey?
Great show? Um, well that was some soccer soliloquy. You almost got
me interested in almost turning it on to watch. You know, hey,
I'm telling you watched it, seriously watched today. I think it's two o'clock,
the exact times on CBS the Champions Lock finally into the intensity of it
today. If you don't like it at all, it will catch you.
I'm telling you. I got you. Hey, So I got I need
a quick opinion. I know we're short on time, you know. Instead
of everybody pissing and moaning about oh, you know, we've got the number
four pick the rockets, I think people are really missing the fact that Udoka
is putting a really good coaching staff together, especially Royal Ivy. That guy's
got a lot of connections. But my question to you is this, with
the fourth in the twentieth pick, do you think taking number four and maybe
either including twenty or maybe putting now, I'm not a big Sangoon guy.
You think that would be enough to get us up to number two. I
just want to know what your thoughts are and have a great weekend. Thank
you. I think they could get in the mix. And that's funny you
mentioned I'm actually wearing my Alpern Shangoon at Rockets seven ninety social media night shirt
right now. I like Shangoon offensively but defensively. He's got a lot of
room to grow. I think that can probably get a conversation started. Excuse
me, you might have to throw in a future pick as well. I
don't know, you know, if Charlotte's gonna be willing to move off of
that. I don't know if the Rockets are looking to jump up that if.
I think the Rockets could jump up that far if they, if they
would, you know, if they have the opportunity to do it, they'll
probably they probably want to, just because I think they probably want to get
Scoot Henderson, who feels like a guaranteed lock to be a monster. I
just don't know that necessarily the Hornets are going to jump out of that spot.
If you're the Hornets, when you want to just go ahead and take
Brandon Miller. You got Lamela Ball there. You probably feel pretty good about
that. To me, getting the three is where you want to be.
And Portland is you know, I'm not sure I believe all the smoke screens
of well they're they're trading it, or they're not trading it, or the
closer we get they're not going to trade it. I don't know about all
that. I think that if you make the right offer for any team for
a draft pick at some point, and you know they'll give you, they'll
give you the pick if you if you make the offer that they're looking for.
Especially Portland, it's a weird, weird time for them. Are they
keeping Damion Lillard there? They not, But I'd prefer the Rockets to move
up and they're gonna get a good player at four. I'd be shocked if
they don't get a good player four. I'm so excited about the coaching staff
that they do have. The coaching staff that they put together, that Adocos
put together. I think it's gonna be a really, really different brand of
basketball. The biggest question is going to still be is is James Harden part
of it? I don't necessarily know that. I love that. I'm not
going to be completely behind it, but I think it's just inevitable, and
I think that we have to just embrace what it is. That he's probably
going to be back in the city of Houston, and you have to hope
that he fits into what they want to do and he takes the hard coaching
because the Dooka is going to coach them hard. So that's gonna be interesting.
But I winner in the middle of the week and you want to watch
the sports, It's like I want to turn the Rockets game. They're gonna
go get out there and get smoked by thirty because they play no deefend whatever
it might be. I think we're getting back to that point. But that's
gonna do it for us here today. Appreciate all you that listen to us
here on Space City Saturday. We'll do next Saturday ten to twelve. You
can join me again this afternoon. We'll have the Astros on Deck show starting
at four o'clock ahead of Astros and Guardians. I will talk to you all
then right here on Sports Talk seven ninety