Speaker 1: Is the Matt Thomas Show with.
Speaker 2: Ross eleven to two. Here on the Matt Thomas Show
with Ross Sports Talk seven ninety with you until twelve o'clock,
at which point we will head into Astros on Deck
Mode one. Ten to first pitch, Astro's going for a
sweep against the Boston Red Sox after taking the first
couple of games in this series, and right now please
to be joined by our weekly baseball guest, Brian bogas
Sevic of Space City Home Network and of course a
former Astro himself. Brian appreciate the time. As always, Let's
just go ahead and start with this offense, leading the
entire majors in runs scored first couple of games. Scuffling
a bit, let's just kind of do with more of
a macro before to getting into some of the individual hitters.
But just how are the Astros doing this? Piling up
all these runs?
Speaker 1: You know what, They're doing it a lot of different ways,
which is a good thing. If you're going to score
runs consistently over the course of the season, you're going
to have to be able to do it in multiple ways.
And you know, we've seen the long innings that they
had a couple of times against the Angels, we've seen
more of a power quick strike offense show up. Here
against the Red Sox, there's been some aggressive base running.
They're working walks, so there's a lot of traffic on bases.
Extra base hits are piling up. Besides just the home runs.
They're driving the ball all over the field. So you know,
right now, it's they're scoring runs a ton of different ways,
which is great and it's a lot of fun to watch.
But you know, if you're going to try to look
at it further down the road and say, what does
that mean for the long haul, it means you know,
there's going to be times when you're not doing one
or the other, but you know you can continue to
go out there and have an offense that can that
can put up runs no matter what.
Speaker 2: Astros second in team ops in baseball right now, and well,
let's get into the micro some of the individuals, starting
with Jordan Alvarez. That guy's pretty good.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. It's just, you know, having a season like
last year where he was out so much and when
he was here he wasn't fully healthy. You know, you
almost forget what it looks like when he's fully healthy
and totally locked in, which is what he is right now.
It just looks like everything at the plate is moving
so slowly for him. When he gets a good pitch
to hit, he just unleashes a swing that you know
he's hitting the ball a mile. But it's the takes
that are really impressive for a guy to have that,
you know, violent and powerful a swing. When he takes
the ball, he doesn't flinch. It's not a bunch of
check swings. It's not starting early to get the bat
head out. He had some tough, some tough takes on
two strike breaking balls yesterday that he's seeing it out
of the hand. And when you have a guy who's
seeing the ball that well, the swing is so pure,
he can drive the ball to any part of the ballpark.
It's just he really does feel dangerous on every single pitch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we hear that a lot. Brian seeing the
ball well, and it's something that that kind of comes
and goes. Can you explain that to us, like what
does that mean, I'm seeing the ball well? And what
does that mean when it pales to I'm not seeing
the ball well well?
Speaker 1: You know, you have to pick up different hues to
tip you off as to what pitch is coming. Right
a fastball, a slide or a change up. There's different
things that you can find, and when your timing's not right,
or maybe you have a little bit of head movement,
it takes longer to recognize those things. The ball seems
like it's sped up on you. But when everything's kind
of moving slow, when your head and your eyes are
real still, you'll see the little bit of different arm
angle that a pitcher has on a fastball versus a changeup,
or you'll see the breaking ball pop up out of
the guy's hand just a little bit earlier. That'll tip
you off as to what pitch it is. And for
your do on right now, it almost seems like as
soon as that pitcher's arm get up above his head,
he's recognizing what pitch is coming. He's doing the calculation
on where it needs to start versus where it needs
to land for it to be a pitch that he's
going to go after, and all those decisions that are
happening in you know, fractions of a second, it seems
like he's got way more time than he actually does.
Speaker 2: Brian boga Sevic with US here on Sports Talk seven
ninety hose al two v eight walks in the first
six games. That certainly has jumped out at us. What
are you seeing from him as far as meshing being
the same old al Tuove who is going to be
a Hall of Famer into maybe a different approach. Is
that what you're seeing from him so far?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know, I don't think the approach is
necessarily be more patient in terms of him walking as
much as he had, But I think it's an approach
of being committed to hitting the ball in the middle
of the field using the other way, not being so
full happy, not trying to force pull side power. And
what that's allowed him to do is see the ball
a little bit longer and make better swing decisions. A
lot of the pitches that he's laid off of, especially
later in counts, have been breaking balls down in a way,
pitches that you know he would have committed early to
and maybe swung over the top of or chopped into
the ground last year. He's waiting just a little bit
longer because he's comfortable hitting the ball in the middle
of the field and able to lay off those pitches.
And but what the thing is is that he's not
giving anything up to do that. We saw the two
home runs the other night, both of those were on
the pull side, So how did that happen? Well, he's
seeing the ball long enough to make good swing decisions,
but the swing is in a good place to where
he's still quick enough when a hanging breaking ball shows
up or a sinker leaks back in, he's still quick
enough to get around on it and drive it. And
it's just he's in a really good spot right now
where the swing's in a good spot and the approaches
in a good spot, and he's covering everything.
Speaker 2: Brian bogas Evin continuing with us here on Sports Talk
seven ninety, Why was Lance mccaullor's junior so good and
how does he keep it up?
Speaker 1: Well, you saw it in spring training. You saw, first
of all, the stuff being a little bit sharper than
it was last year, the velocity up a little bit,
the breaking ball spin a little bit tighter. But you
also saw a more committed approach to attacking his zone.
And a lot of that probably comes from just the
confidence in the stuff being a little bit better. But
what we saw on that first start was even turned
up a little bit more from what we saw in
spring training. It was a guy who looked like every
pitch that he was throwing, he wanted to induce the swing,
he wanted to induce contact because he was confident that
his stuff was going to beat the hitters in the zone.
It looked like, you know, at times last year where
he wanted to get chases, he wanted to get swings
at pitches that weren't going to be able to be
put in play because he didn't trust his stuff to
be to play in the zone. And this year, it
just looks like he's got to increase confidence in what
his pitches are, what the shape of them are, what
the velocity of those pitches are, and going out there
and saying, hey, I hope you swing and I hope
you hit it because I know that I'm gonna win.
Speaker 2: We'll get to Jeremy Penny in a second. He is
out of the lineup today, But just just kind of
a general question, what does that when we always talk
about in baseball day game after a night game and
that being a grind. Can you just kind of take
us through that. How much of those extra couple hours
change your routine? Of course, Christian Vasquez in the lineup today.
Of course, you try to keep catchers off their feet
at a day game after a night game. What happens,
What changes with those extra six hours or so that
get shaved off with the day game.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, the obvious thing is just the quick turnaround.
You know, you're on your feet running around finishing the
game last night at ten o'clock, and now these guys
are already back on the field. They're just finished taking
round balls here at you know, eleven o'clock. So a
quicker turnaround, but it interrupts your regular routine of getting
ready for the game. A lot of these guys, you know,
they get here twelve one o'clock in the afternoon, do
you eat, You start to get stretched out, You do
some work in the weight room, get some work in
the training room, and it's this slow build up to
be to work in the batting practice to then get
yourself ready for the game, and you just don't have
time to do that. So it's an abbreviated routine. You
have to get on your feet a little bit quicker,
maybe don't have as much time to check all those boxes.
You just have to hit kind of the main points
that you want to get to. So it's a combination
of a quick turnaround and just not having as much
time to recover, but also the abbreviated routine for whatever
it is that you do to get yourself ready for
a seven o'clock game.
Speaker 2: Did you ever have an injury similar to Jeremy's.
Speaker 1: No, not something like that that I was still kind
of working through on the build up back. I mean,
I've had broken bones and stuff, but by the time
I was back into gameplay, I was one hundred percent
full go. I mean, where he's what it looks like
he's at right now is a guy who's covered from
the injury but still in the build up phase. And
if it would have been a non non factor, if
this would have happened earlier in spring and he could
have used the last week or two to do that
more natural build up. You know, in spring training, you're
not going to take a guy who with him played
in a while and just say, Okay, you've got nine
innings back to back to back to back days. So
just kind of the timing of it, it's more of
it feels like it's a build up of we are
protecting your body, not necessarily trying trying to baby or
nurse an injury.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Brian Bogasavik with us here on Sports Talk seven
ninety Mike Burrows on the mound. We were very excited
about his results in spring training. First start didn't go
maybe the way whoa really anybody on the astros side wanted.
What did you see from him in the first start?
Was he need to improve today?
Speaker 1: Honestly, you know, besides two swings, it wasn't really a
whole lot different than what we saw in spring training.
And he gave us five runs. Four of them were
on a three run homer that landed in the front
row of the Crawford boxes, and then you know, Mike
Trout locked in like that gets a whole lot of guys.
So really the stuff didn't look all that different. The
bottom line wasn't I don't think what anybody would have
expected based on how he threw the ball in spring.
What I think is really interesting about his matchup today
is what we saw from Lance two nights ago and
then Hunter yesterday was a lot of really aggressive pitching
early in the count, a lot of strikes, a lot
of attacking with fastballs, get ahead, put away, get ahead,
put away, and that was exactly what Mike Burroughs m
O was all throughout spring training. He was working fast,
he's ahead of everybody, and it looked like a guy
who really had no interest in messing around and setting
up pitches. It was just here's my stuff, it's good,
I'm going at you with it, and I think I'm
going to beat you. So I think that approach that
he had all throughout the spring plays well against what
this Boston offense is in its current state. So yeah,
I think from a bottom line aspect, the first start
of the year wasn't exactly what you would have wanted,
But I don't think what he was was all that
different from what we was on spring.
Speaker 2: All right, there you go, Brian Bogus have a great stuff.
As always our weekly to excuse me Wednesday guest here
on Sports Talk seven ninety throughout the baseball season. Brian,
thanks for the time. We'll talk to you next week.
Speaker 1: All right, Thanks Av.