Due to yesterday's rainout, Sean Marshall, who was to have started today, will work out of the pen this weekend and will start next Thursday against St. Louis. This is actually fine, as the unscheduled day off yesterday will give Lou a little extra flexibility in the bullpen today and tomorrow. The Astros will also shuffle their pitching rotation; yesterday's scheduled Astros starter, Brian Moehler, will start tomorrow vs. Rich Harden. This is good news too, as Moehler is more suited for the waiver wire than anyone's starting rotation.
Lou Piniella reminded reporters that he, too, spent several years in the minor leagues before making it as a major league regular at age 25 in 1969, when he was named AL Rookie of the Year with the Royals. Maybe that's why he's willing to give a guy like Bobby Scales a shot. Here's Lou's minor league record, which includes three full years at Triple-A. Remember that this was in the early years of the expansion era; the four-team expansion of 1969 allowed guys like that, who otherwise might have been stuck in the minors, to get major league jobs.
And if the Seattle Pilots, who chose Lou from the Cleveland Indians in the 1968 expansion draft, hadn't been shortsighted and traded him to Kansas City just before Opening Day in 1969, Lou might have played out his career as... a Milwaukee Brewer.
The three top teams in the NL Central -- the Cubs, Cardinals and Brewers -- all got rained out Friday. The Reds lost to the Padres in San Diego, so the Cubs moved into sole possession of third place, half a game ahead of Cincinnati, and half a game behind both Milwaukee & St. Louis.
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When I looked at those numbers, I thought, "That can't be Roy Oswalt", but it is. He's had a bad year. He threw pretty well against the Cubs on Opening Day, but the Cubs won anyway. He's had a couple of good starts and several mediocre ones and the nine homers in 44 innings is... well, a lot. While it seems like he was always beating the Cubs, the truth is that his 12-12, 3.86 lifetime record against them is below his career norms. So, this isn't as big a mismatch as you might think.
Randy Wells threw well in his first major league start last Friday. He'll be facing the Astros for the first time and has never faced anyone on their current roster. If you think those words sound familiar, they should. I just copied/pasted them from yesterday's preview.
Today's game is not available on EI, although it will be on MLB.TV. It is subject to Bud's Stupid Blackout Policy, because for some reason Fox Sports and MLB think that allowing people to watch games from noon to 3 pm CT would infringe on their 3 to 6 pm CT timeslot. This is idiotic thinking, but YOU try to tell them that. For today's other games see the MLB.com Mediacenter.
Baseball-reference.com game preview
Overflow comment threads will post today at 1 pm, 2 pm and 2:45 pm CDT.
Discuss amongst yourselves.