Sorry I haven’t been writing much lately – between my being sick and this **** computer, it’s been tough. Fortunately, not much of anything has been happening.

Catchers:
Brad Ausmus
Raul Chavez (can you believe this guy was drafted as a shortstop????!!!!)
Humberto Quintero (is on the list to play for Venezuela in the Bud Selig Exhibition)
JR House

Well, you KNOW that Brad will catch around 3 of 4 games. You KNOW that Chavez can’t hit or run. Who knows what Quintero can do and House has been out of baseball for over a year. Well, plenty of guys will be throwing, so at least there will be 4 guys catching.

Pitchers:
- first, the GOOD news – Roy Oswalt and Andy Pettite will NOT be in Bud Selig’s idiotic exhibition thingy.
- but the bad news is that Dan Wheeler, Brad Lidge and Mike Gallo (he’s playing for Italy) will.

Anyhow, here are the pitchers who reported:
- from the 40 man roster:
Roy Oswalt
Andy Pettitte
Brandon Backe
Wandy Rodriguez (is on the list to play for the DR, but as far as I know, hasn’t been picked)
Ezequiel Astacio
Jason Hirsh RHP
Taylor Buchholz RHP
Matt Albers RHP
James Barthmaier RHP
Juan Gutierrez RHP
Mark McLemore LHP
Trever Miller LHP
Fernando Nieve RHP (is on the list to play for Venezuela, but as far as I know, hasn’t been picked)
Felipe Paulino RHP
Chad Qualls RHP
Russ Springer RHP

- and NRI
Dave Borkowski RHP
Jared Gothreaux RHP
Steve Sparks RHP
Joe Valentine RHP
Carlos Hernandez LHP is playing for Venezuela in the WB waste of time. (He supposedly has gotten back some of the velocity he lost after his shoulder surgery 3 years ago – we’ll see…)

And I suppose I gotta say something about the Roger dance. As yall know. Roger IS pitching for the US team. And after that? Well, he just hasn’t made up his mind about what SHOULD he do, he just can NOT make up his mind just yet – he’s thinking, he’s thinking. It’s either return home to Fenway as the Prodigal Saviour (until the first time he gives up a run to the MFY) or back to the Almighty Yankees or maybe to Coors AL (AKA the Ballpark in Arlington) or back here where he belongs after resting up for a few months so he’ll still have enough gas to WIN the WS this time.

I still don’t believe he gonna go back Up There, even though I guess a LOT of people thinkin he wants a bidding war more than anything and I don’t think he wants to pitch in the heat of Arlington Stadium and see his ERA go over 4. AND he still hasn’t taken the stuff out of his locker here at the Box – and he DID say he wants to actively participate as soon as his personal services contract starts. I think he really DOES like working with the young guys, and you know there’s gonna be at least one new one on the team, as well as Wandy and Zeke…

Tags: Houston Astros, MLB

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006 at 12:46 am and is filed under Astros baseball, spring training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.