Photo by Bob Levey /Stringer/Getty Images.
Here's your all-inclusive guide to Astros opening day
Baseball is finally back for the 2020 season, we'll hope and see for how long. But at 8:10 p.m. next Friday, Justin Verlander will take the mound at Minute Maid Park to throw the unceremonial first pitch of what has to be the strangest season in Astros – and every other team's – history.
Teams will start the COVID-shortened, 60-game season, with a 30-man roster, which will be whittled down to 26 players after about a month. Both the American and (gasp) National Leagues will use designated hitters. The Astros have a new manager, Dusty Baker, and new general manager, James Click, for their season of vindication. Relievers will have to face at least three batters unless the inning ends first. Players won't be allowed to spit or high-five each other. The Astros third baseman shaved his head again. Phillies infielder Didi Gregorius will wear a face mask during games. Extra innings will start with a runner on second base. Fun fact: if that runner crosses home plate, it will be scored an unearned run.
Subject to change, here's the Astros starting pitching for the opening 4-game set against the Seattle Mariners. Verlander on Friday night, Lance McCullers goes Saturday (3:10 p.m.), followed by Zack Greinke on Sunday (1:10 p.m.) and Josh James on Monday (6:10 p.m.) Like most of the schedule, the games against Seattle will be televised on ATT SportsNet SW. Unlike the NBA, baseball teams will not be confined to a coronavirus-protective bubble, which means everything about this season really is subject to change.
The Astros will play 40 games against American League West rivals and 20 games against the National League West. No Yankees, no Red Sox. The season will be split evenly, 30 games each at home and on the road. The Astros will be trying to repeat as American League champions, win the American League West for the fourth consecutive time, and top last year's 107-game win total. It would be the first time the Astros have done any of those.
Baseball's opening day always has been special, since April 22, 1876 when Boston beat Philadelphia, 6-5, in what is regarded as baseball's first professional opening day. The game took just over two hours to play. Wouldn't that be nice? We could be home in time for Dominique. Here's how the N.Y. Clipper newspaper covered that first contest: "Weather was favorable and the attendance large, over 3,000 persons being inside the inclosure."
While today's players are far superior to those of 1876, so are today's sports writers. I'm sure my baseball scribe buddy Richard Justice would have written "more than 3,000 fans" and "enclosure" instead of "inclosure," which I'm not sure is even a word. Next week Justice will report that the paid attendance at Astros' Opening Day will be, in the words of George Costanza, "absolute zero." The 2020 baseball season, at least at the start, will be played without fans. Forget Dollar Dogs on Tuesdays.
Baseball, being a game of stats, has a special column for Opening Day. Tom Seaver holds the record for most Opening Day starts with 16. In 1940, Cleveland's Bob Feller threw the only Opening Day no-hitter, beating the Chicago White Sox, 1-0 in old and cold Comiskey Park. Temperature at game time: 35 degrees. Largest attendance for an Opening Day: 74,420 at Cleveland's Municipal Stadium to watch the hometown Indians beat the Tigers, 2-1. Henry Aaron hit his 714th homer, tying Babe Ruth's all-time record (at the time) on Opening Day in 1974. Presidents often have thrown out first pitches on Opening Day. In 1950, ambidextrous Harry Truman threw out two pitches – one righty and one lefty. Frank Robinson holds the record for most home runs on Open Day – eight dingers for four different teams. Three players have hit homers in four consecutive Opening Days: Todd Hundley (1994-97), Gary Carter (1977-80) and Yogi Berra (1955-58). Astros soon-to-be free agent George Springer (sign him!) enters 2020 riding a three Opening Day homer streak.
The strangest Opening Day game, though, had to be way back on April 11, 1907, when the Philadelphia Phillies beat the New York Giants … by forfeit. If you had to guess the reason for the forfeit, you'd be here forever still guessing.
New York forfeited the game because a Giants fan hit umpire Bill Klem in the head with a snowball.
Snow had fallen in New York the night before the game. The Phils were leading 3-0 in the top of the ninth when fans began throwing snowballs at each other. Some fans ran on the field and one of them threw a perfect strike, clobbering Klem in the head with a frozen fastball. Since the home team is responsible for stadium security, Klem stopped the game and gave the win to the Phillies by forfeit.
Whoever threw the snowball beaned the most famous umpire in baseball history. Klem umped big league games from 1905 to 1941. The "Old Arbitrator" worked games in 18 World Series (a record) and is credited with being the first to use arm signals to indicate balls and strikes. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953. His plaque does not show him getting smacked with a snowball.
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There's no denying that this year's World Series champs (LA Dodgers) have some serious firepower on their roster. And one of the ways they were able to assemble such a talented team involved players like Shohei Ohtani being willing to differ their money.
Just this week, there was some speculation that the Yankees could do something similar when restructuring Gerrit Cole's contract, that would allow them more flexibility in the present.
The Yankees ended up calling Cole's bluff about opting out, and no adjustment was made to the contract.
But this situation got us thinking, would the Astros consider a tactic like this to maximize the roster? At this point, it doesn't seem all that likely. Just last year, the team handed out a $95 million contract to Josh Hader, without any differed money.
The other factor that also has to come into play is the tax threshold. The organization would have to give the okay to go over it again in order to make a splash signing this offseason. Which unfortunately does not sound like the plan right now when listening to GM Dana Brown at the Winter Meetings.
Astros pitcher hires a new agent
Now that MLB free agency is in full swing, most of the attention moving forward will be focused on players like Alex Bregman, Pete Alonso, and Juan Soto.
But for Astros fans, there might be someone else to keep an eye on this offseason and next. Starting pitcher Hunter Brown quietly hired super agent Scott Boras recently.
With Brown still another season away from his first year of arbitration, he should be with the Astros for the foreseeable future.
However, the hiring of Boras does raise some interesting questions. Why make the move now? Certainly, Brown could use some more cash, as he's set to make less than a million in 2025.
Perhaps Brown wants to land some HEB commercials to fatten his wallet. And if Bregman does leave the team in free agency, a spot will open up for another player, in theory. And three of the players in the HEB ads are represented by Boras (Jose Altuve, Lance McCullers Jr. and Bregman).
Jeremy Pena has been stacking cash from Taquerias Arandas for several years now, maybe Brown would like an opportunity to do an endorsement similar to that.
I say all this half kidding, but Brown does look like the future ace of this staff, and I'm sure there are plenty of advertisers that would have interest in Hunter.
There is another element that could have initiated the hiring of Boras. Would Brown be willing to sign an extension early with the Astros similar to the deal the team made with Cristian Javier?
Their situations are actually pretty comparable, except Javier was one year further into his career (3 years of MLB service time) and eligible for arbitration before agreeing to the extension.
If Brown was heading into arbitration this offseason, it wouldn't be surprising at all for the Astros to be considering a long-term deal with him that buys up all his arbitration years. The 'Stros love these types of contract extensions. We've seen them do it with Bregman, the aforementioned Javier, and others.
One of the main differences though between Brown and Javier is their rookie year numbers. Brown only pitched 20.1 innings in his first season (2022). While Javier pitched 54.1 innings his rookie year. However, his rookie season was in 2020, so Javier completed a full year of service time despite the shortened season. Whereas Brown didn't get called up until September 2022.
Another difference is performance. Javier never posted an ERA over 3.55 in his first three seasons. As opposed to Brown, who had a disastrous year in 2023. He made 29 starts, recording an ERA over 5.
It wasn't until May of 2024 that Brown started using his two-seam fastball with great success and becoming one of the most dominant pitchers in the American League.
The Astros had a bigger sample size to judge Javier. However, if Brown has another quality season in 2025, Houston and Brown should definitely be having conversations about an extension. Especially with Framber Valdez being in the final year of his contract in 2025. Hunter could be the unquestioned ace one year from now.
Still, though, there are some concerns with handing out these early extensions. For example, if the Astros had it to do over again, would they still extend Javier?
After receiving his extension before the 2023 season, he went on to post the highest ERA of his career (4.56), and then blew out his elbow in May 2024.
And if we're going by Luis Garcia's recovery timeline from Tommy John surgery, we may not see Javier pitch at all in 2025.
So even with a sample size of three terrific seasons, the Javier extension looks like a miss with the benefit of hindsight. It will be interesting to see if that deal impacts Dana Brown's decision-making going forward.
Especially since Javier was Dana's first big contract extension as the Astros GM.
Be sure to watch the video as we discuss how the Astros can get the most out of their roster, the pros and cons of signing Hunter Brown early, and much more!
*Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcasts. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and Charlie Pallilo discuss varied Astros topics. The post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon. Find all via The SportsMap HOU YouTube channel or listen to episodes in their entirety at Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
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