So Close You Can Almost Taste It

I'm talking about matzah, of course. Boxes and boxes of matzah, shmura matzah, matzah balls, matzah farfel kugel, matzah cookies... That's the thing about Passover - wherever you look there's matzah. It actually tastes pretty good, especially slathered in zhug (Yemenite chile paste). And of course, matzah balls...  Okay, I'm joking - it's Astros Opening Day that's SOOOOOO close. Play Ball! 

After weeks of no-account Kissimmee games, tomorrow night the Astros will be suiting up for the real thing. Roy O will, of course, be on the mound for his eighth consecutive opening day start. After all the rainouts and the pulled body parts, his total IP for all of Spring Training only hit 10 innings - 4 of them in the March 16 game I attended. With so little game time this Spring, his back injection last week, and his disappointing season last year, it's hard to predict how Oswalt will do this year. I'd like to be predicting 7 fast innings for him for tomorrow night's opener against the Giants,  but I'm not sure he's up for much of a pitch count yet.

I won't actually find out until Tuesday night. Right about the time Roy takes the mound tomorrow night, I'll be breaking bread - I mean matzah - with long-time friends, at a holiday meal celebrating the last night of Passover. That means, of course, no TV, radio, or mlb.tv broadcast for me until the holiday ends at 8:17 Tuesday night. If my curiosity gets the best of me, I just may have to go to a neighbor on Tuesday morning to borrow a newspaper to check the box scores.

With only a day to go before the season starts, I should use this blog posting to make some kind of prophetic remarks about the 2010 season. Last year, the Astros frankly sucked. They haven't made any earthshaking changes in the off-season, and they had a losing record in Spring Training. All of the serious professional prognosticators are predicting gloom and doom for the Astros - somewhere close to the bottom of a mediocre division. I was very impressed by the bullpen at the Spring Training games I attended, and the offensive stats for the final roster guys weren't bad at all. But I'll admit that there are some pretty heavy concerns about the rotation.

Happily, I'm a fan, so I'm allowed to indulge in outrageous optimism in the face of not-quite-ideal evidence.  I don't have to worry about ruining my professional reputation by predicting a playoff spot for a team that, by all accounts, is likely to be on the shady side of .500. I can blithely profess my faith that we're going all the way in 2010 - just like we almost did in 2005. To be honest - I did NOT have an epiphany at Spring Training this year, as I did in 2005, when I clearly "saw" Bagwell and Biggio on the team that won the pennant. So for now, I'm going to punt on predictions, hope for the best, and cheer for my guys.

If anyone is reading this, look for me on Twitter on or about 8:18 Tuesday night. I'll be back! Meanwhile, happy Passover, and PLAY BALL - matzah ball!