Jim Cowsert-USA TODAY Sports
Today is opening day for the Texas Rangers. They will play the Houston Astros at 7 pm central time.
It will be Matt Harrison’s first opening day start, and most likely his last. Bud Norris is also making his first career opening day start, but unlike Harrison, Norris will be starting opening day for many years to come. Whether or not he is still on the Astros.
This will be the first opportunity to see which of the young center fielders Jon Daniels and the Rangers have chosen to keep as their starter. Whether it will be Julio Borbon, Craig Gentry or Leonys Martin remains to be seen.
We will also find out today if the Rangers think it will be more valuable to have one of those young guys, who isn’t in center, play left or David Murphy. Sadly, Murphy has been very consistent for Texas over the last few seasons, but he may be out of a job due to how well the young outfielders played during spring.
In Houston, they don’t have a whole lot of lineup competitions to decide. While the positions are already set, for now, there are a lot of young players who might be ready in a year or two and may be up during this season.
My prediction for the game would be that the Rangers are going to win pretty easily, as I see them doing against the Astros almost every game this year. The Rangers are going to show today just how good they can be against a much weaker Astros team.
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