McTaggart writes, The Astros envision (Castro) taking over the starting job in 2010 and staying there for a long time.
“That’s our hope,” Wade said. “That’s one of the reasons why when we talk about our catching situation we weren’t hellbent to go out and make a catching move that had a long-term impact because we think with the young guys we have now, we have the ability to have some long-term ability behind the plate.” “We think he’s going to come up pretty quickly.” Link
“we think with the young guys we have now, we have the ability to have some long-term ability” that’s vague enough to suggest he’s also talking about Towles. But with Cooper talking like all Palmsiano has to do is not wet himself, Towles will likely start the season in the minors too.
Backe playing with fire
Backe strained his ribcage on the last pitch of the first inning.
“… my landing foot, slipped on me a little bit and caused me to basically collapse on that side..“It gave me a good jolt,” Backe said. “I knew something happened. Just luckily it was a pitch the guy popped up and I got out of the inning. The second inning, I felt it the whole time and couldn’t really let the ball go because I didn’t want to hurt it anymore.”
“I wanted to see if I could get through the inning I was supposed to get through. I came in from the second inning and I asked them to let me go out and they didn’t want me to.” Link
So instead of admitting he’s injured, he pitches an inning where he admits he had no business pitching and wanted to try yet another inning. Last outing he got mad and started flipping up curve balls that weren’t ready. This is not a smart player.