Spring Training isn’t on pause, but the World Baseball Classic will overshadow it for a while. Honestly, the tournament is a good way to break up the monotony of camp, and I am looking forward to it. Quality baseball with real stakes in March? Sign me up for it every single time.
For the Astros who aren’t participating in the WBC, though, there are still some storylines to follow. Isaac Paredes finally gets a look at first base, with Christian Walker starting as DH. Cristian Javier gets the starting nod, opposite of Team Venezuela’s Eduard Bazardo. If you want to watch today’s game and see stars like Ronald Acuña Jr. and Jackson Chourio, it does appear it’ll be on the Space City Home Network.
The infield logjam continues to cast a shadow on what the Astros are doing. There is little doubt at this point that Dana Brown would trade Paredes in order to add another left-handed bat who can play the outfield. Whether that’ll happen soon is anyone’s guess. If a trade doesn’t happen soon, Joe Espada and the players will have to be flexible to maximize the lineup, which includes Paredes. While a short-term arrangement early in the season might be tolerable, I doubt it would be a tenable situation for an entire season. I could be wrong, but that is my take on it for now.
Regardless of whether you can watch the game or not, you can find The Launch Angle readers in our Discord chat server, where we will be discussing the game live.
Just use this link to join: https://discord.gg/DKXDJw9qF. For those of you who have participated in gamethreads at other site(s) in the past, you’ll probably recognize some familiar names and fellow Astros fans. (Just please say hello once you join, so we know you’re not a bot.)
Photo courtesy of Pixel Pete
