It was awesome. The atmosphere from the first inning, or even yesterday coming to the field was awesome. I was super pumped. To finally get to play on this field was awesome. It's a dream ever since you were a little kid. It was a great night.
— Baseball Lawyer (@Bballlawyer) March 27, 2018
*A.J. Hinch is getting tired of the "complacency" talk:
Pretty soon we're going to stop talking about that and just get to playing games. You're going to hear the same stuff you've heard from me for a couple seasons: we need to have winning series, winning weeks, and winning months.
*Justin Verlander:
What I said to the team right before we broke camp, I was so impressed with how passionate these guys were, how hard they worked in Spring Training. No complacency. Everybody is getting ready for the start of the season. Whether it's infield drills or a game, or World Series Game 7, it's fun to be a part of.
*Dallas Keuchel is ready to go:
Spring is long in the sense of the monotony of everything, but the routine of starting pitchers is crucial and every day counts. I was able to take each day and figure out what my plan of attack was. At the end, this last start, I feel like I accomplished a lot and got myself ready for a good outing on Friday.
Friday will be G2 at Arlington, a game at which The Wife and I will be in attendance.
Also within that link, we find that Yuli Gurriel took BP against a "high-velocity pitching machine," (presumably not Justin Verlander, who is also a high-velocity pitching machine), and that Evan Gattis is okay despite taking a pitch off the left elbow.
*Keuchel is a happy dude, telling Tyler Kepner:
I honestly didn't think that we could, potentially, be this good, just knowing what we did last year. Never in my wildest dreams did I think, in the off-season, we were going to get Gerrit. That's pretty cool to me. We got better.
*Lance McCullers is experimenting with a variety of leg kicks.
*The home run spike has pitchers rethinking the idea of keeping the ball down.
*Will Harris is "sneakily elite."
*In The Athletic: The Astros feel comfortable enough to break out the 4-man outfield during the season.
*Try to wrap your head around this one: The consensus among MLB.com reporters is that the Astros will win the World Series again, after the Yankees beat the Astros in the ALCS.
*J.D. Davis is MLB.com's Astros' impact prospect.
*What do you do you're a reporter and when you're married to your newspaper's competition?
*Jim Crane will #NeverForget:
#Astros owner Jim Crane acknowledges it's a little extra special to open the regular season against the Rangers: "We had a few problems with Texas last year, not wanting to switch games with us. There's plenty incentive to want to try to beat up on Texas, that's for sure." pic.twitter.com/cBRxc9KORW— Mark Berman (@MarkBermanFox26) March 26, 2018
