Welcome once again to a new season with your Houston Astros. As always, we’ll try to give you information and notes in a different way. There’s one thing which I’m really glad about, and is that I won’t be holding the fort all by myself this time: Besides good friends such as Thomas, Bernardo and other bloggers, we are joined by people who are known by all of you: Alyson Footer, someone who really knows her Astros, and the voice of the Houston Astros in Spanish himself, my good friend Francisco Romero.

So there’ll be a little bit something for everyone this time around.

We saw Roy Oswalt last night in a game which became so painful for us, in which Venezuela was mercilessly pounded by the US offense. Roy O proved himself why he is one of the premiere starters in baseball, and that’s what matters most. He won’t return to Kissimmee just yet; in the meantime Carlos Lee is taking the plane back to Florida after his team Panama’s elimination from the World Baseball Classic.

This is been a Spring Training quite interesting to see. And a hard one as well. We know there isn’t anything more worthless than Grapefruit League scores, but it’s true that it would be so much nicer to see a win every now and then at Osceola County Stadium.

I’m sure Cecil Cooper will try to energize the troops back again to see if bats start swinging the right way and things change a bit. But we know that’s not the main goal.

It’s all about breaking down performances and seeing which players will survive all cuts and stay in the 40-man roster. It’s time to see if prospects (which there are plenty to see) can stay or they could be well-kept in the Minors for a September callup. That’s a positive effect of Tejada, Lee and Oswalt being absent for the WBC if you ask me.

Are there reasons to panic yet? Not quite. Most especially if your main players are somewhere else. But it’s true that, despite we know that is not what it’s all about, a win every now and then would make this spring a bit more joyful.