Monday, April 05, 2004

Opening Day, baby. Opening Damn Day.

Roy Oswalt vs. Kirk Rueter, 6:05 pm.

Roy O has looked great all spring, and he's said all the right things about his groin feeling great. (In case you were weirded out by that last sentence, he had a groin injury last year.) But I still haven't seen him pitch, and he still has the high leg kick, so I'll reserve judgment 'til after tonight's game.

Rueter is a soft-tossing lefty who should get his brains bashed in tonight. Here's our lineup and their respective OPS last year against righties, then lefties:

Biggio 759 / 775
Everett 648 / 912
Bagwell 870 / 1020
Kent 829 / 989
Berkman 950 / 847
Hidalgo 951 / 985
Ensberg 867 / 1020
Ausmus 560 / 751


...Tremble in fear, left-handed pitchers. Seriously. Look at that. The lowest OPS on the team among starting position players is Ausmus at 751. Then Biggio at 775. Then Berkman at 847. Then 5 (5!!!!) guys with OPS of 912 or better against lefties (Everett was probably a little lucky, but the other 4 NO). Too bad both the Cubs and the Cardinals have no lefties, 'cause we are built to destroy them.

Long story short, we should rip up on Rueter tonight. I mean, obviously, it's just one game, and anything can happen....but look at that lineup again. We're gonna bring the pain.

Oh, and Barry Bonds needs 2 HR's to catch Willie Mays, and he gets 3 games at The Juice Box to go for it. I hope we go after him - I remember when he was chasing 70 and Dierker made us intentionally walk him tons of times and Kent would always rip us up after that...I hate that. Go after Bonds.

I'll be watching the Astros game tonight, so someone else watch the NCAA Championship Game and tell me about it tomorrow. Thanks.

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