Oh yeah. Brandon Lyon is still on the team, and he'll start throwing again on Monday for six weeks, take some time off, and start back up around Christmas.
So that means that Mark Melancon and his fairly-impressive rookie season will likely head to the 8th inning. Because Lyon will get over $5m next season, and I doubt the Astros will pay that much for an 8th inning guy. Unless he melts down in the 2012 season opener. And he's mentally preparing anyone who will listen for the unseemly possibility that he'll be in pain:
“The surgery I had, I’m not going to say it’s not a major surgery. Any surgery you have is major. But as far as the repair, it wasn’t reconstructing the shoulder. I’m not going to say I’ll come back to spring training and not feel anything, that it’s going to be completely gone.”
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
