Berkman, hitting .308 in June, is going back to the #3 spot. Matsui, hitting .364 since he returned from injury, will soon be back at #2. Yeah, let's mess around with that.
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And this is something we'll revisit in depth later this morning, but there's a rotation spot to consider on Tuesday. Mike Hampton is eligible to come off the DL on Tuesday. Currentlly, it's as follows:
1. Roy
2. Wandy
3. Ortiz
4. Paulino
5. Moehler
Of course, Mike Hampton is to return, so who gets left out?
"We’ve talked about it and made some plans, just got to figure out if that’s a good plan. It’d be pretty hard to not run Felipe out there. Russ has pitched well. Wandy’s one of the mainstays. Roy’s a mainstay. Moehler’s pitched pretty good, and so has Hampton. What do you do? We’ve got to figure out how to map it out to where they all stay on the hill somehow. ... We’ll go with matchups or something. I don’t know."
Roy and Wandy are locks. Ortiz stays. The Astros just got rid of Backe to get Paulino in the rotation. Moehler has a 6.00+ ERA. Again, we'll look at this more this morning, but it seems pretty clear to me - unless we're talking about sending a reliever down to make room, and have Moehler appear in long relief, as Ortiz did earlier this season.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
