Phil Garner has announced that Roy Oswalt will be the Opening Day starter. The usual suspects are surprised, thinking that this is disrespectful to Roger Clemens, who, after all, was “supposed to” be promised the Opening Day start if he re-signed, but will instead be the #3, as he was slated to be last year before Andy Pettite was injured
First, Roger did QUITE well in the #2/3 spot, if yall remember from last year.
Second, Roy IS an ace, and will hopefully be our ace for more years than the 2 years he is signed for at this time.
According to Lee Sinins,
After 3.01 ERA/33 RSAA and 2.97 ERA/21 RSAA seasons, Oswalt had a 3.49 ERA/22 RSAA in 35 starts (36 games). He has a 3.11 career ERA, compared to his league average of 4.26, and 105 RSAA in 120 games.
Only 4 active pitchers had more RSAA than Oswalt, through the age of
26–
RSAA
1 Pedro Martinez 177
2 Roger Clemens 175
3 Mike Mussina 127
4 Barry Zito 116
5 Roy Oswalt 105
6 Tim Hudson 104
7 Mark Buehrle 102
8 Johan Santana 86
T9 Greg Maddux 84
T9 Roy Halladay 84
T9 Andy Pettitte 84
translation:
Roy is GOOD.
Third – Opening Day is ALREADY sold out. Roger alone will sell tickets, no matter how bad the team plays, and money talks, yes it does. Also, the fact that Roger will be pitching against other teams’ #3 pitchers may get us a few more wins, considering the fact that we have so few bats and we gonna need all the wins we can get.
In other news, no one has been dropped from the team, sent down or released, which I think at this point is sensible. Taveras is fast, but you can’t steal first. Charlton Jimerson, who was highly touted just a few years ago, took hitting lessons from Tony Gwynn this winter – maybe that will help, because no one on the Astros outfield is hitting very well so far. I hope Chris Burke can win the second base job with Biggio backing him up, but so far, he isn’t hitting either. Well, spring training MAY not predict how the team will do during the regular season, but so far we are we are .250 – and yes, I know some of these games were played without the regulars.
One last thing – Andy Pettitte will not be starting today because he sprained his ankle, so Tim Redding will go instead. That is, Tim Redding as in “if I ain’t startin, I wanna be departin” and if boy don’t get his stuff together, he sure nuff WILL get his wish…..
Tags: Houston Astros, MLB
