Houston Astros: Three things to expect for Opening Day 2018

Who’s On First?

Who’s on First? Who!

What’s the guy’s name on first base? No, what’s the guy’s name on second base?

I’m not asking you who’s on second.

Who’s on first?

I don’t know!

THIRD BASE!

If y’all don’t know what that’s from, you got some catching up to do. 

But while the Abbott and Costello skit is the best baseball skit ever, we do have a question to ask ourselves.

Who’s on first?

Let me rephrase that.

Who’s going to play first? That’s better.

When the Houston Astros take the field on Opening Day, they will be without their first baseman Yuli Gurriel for five games. In case you forgot, Gurriel was suspended because of his inappropriate gesture to Yu Darvish during Game 3 of the World Series. While MLB could’ve made it easier by suspending Gurriel for Game 4 of the World Series, which he wasn’t much help like most everyone else, they decided to wait until 2018 where there would be no pay.

Obviously, some Dodger fans hate that and they feel he should’ve been suspended for the remainder of the series so that they could’ve won the World Series, which is ridiculous because they still had to beat Jose Altuve, George Springer, Carlos Correa, and Alex Bregman. That never happened. Plus, those same Dodger fans who supported Darvish in the incident, booed him in Game 7 when he got shelled. Now that Darvish is with the Cubs, we should put this incident to bed.

But back to our situation. What do we do at first base? It’s only five games, which isn’t much. But we would like to get off to a great start by hopefully going 5-0 or 4-1 in that stretch. So I figured out a few ways to avoid trouble.

Scenario 1: Marwin Gonzalez at first. Derek Fisher in left.

We know Marwin Gonzalez is the best utilityman ever. Bar none! Obviously, he’s spent much of the past season out in left field, but he can play first. So if we have him play first, we would then have Derek Fisher start in left field.

Scenario 2: Tyler White at first.

Of course, we do have a familiar first baseman in Tyler White who has shown to handle the pressure of playing for a professional team. So we keep Marwin in left field and have Tyler White play at first base.

Scenario 3: Evan Gattis at first.

This one sounds least likely to happen. But these days, you have some catchers play first base every other day. So we have Gattis rotate with Brian McCann for catching duties. But on days when McCann catches and Marwin is in left, have El Oso Blanco play first for one or two games.

Scenario 4: Lance Berkman?

I was thinking about Jeff Bagwell, but his arm prevents from first. So I thought of the next best option in Lance Berkman. So Berkman is 42 years old. But he still looks like he can deliver. I say sign the guy for a five-day contract and let him play first. Then have Gattis bat for him every time.

So Opening Day will have an interesting question for us with regards to first base. Then again, it will also have an interesting question as to who we’re playing.