Roy is Roy and College Baseball

A couple of sports notes caught my eye early this morning. Number one--and I saw this one first hand-- Roy Oswalt is as good as ever. Since that is the case I have decided nothing less than a can't miss future superstar should be part of any deal sending Roy to a post season bound club. So, choose well Ed Wade--should you choose at all.

Personally, I have absolutely no qualms about Roy sticking around. This Astro team as offensively challenged as it has been has the makings of a pretty darn good pitching staff. When one includes the top arms in the farm system there IS hope.

Don't get all excited. Other than improvement this year, which I definitely expect, the real growth will be in 2011 and 2012. By that point Oswalt will be at the end of his contract and may retire or move on. Until then he would be a continuing good role model for the young arms like Bud Norris and Felipe Paulino and others yet untoched by the major leagues on the way up.

COLLEGE TOURNEYS FIRING UP

The other item that caught my eye was one score from the Big 12 post season baseball tourney. It was: Missouri 7, Texas 3. That was a win by the number eight (last) seed in pool #1 against the number one seed and number one team in the country.

It does not eliminate the Longhorns from anything, but is still instructive. Even a club with as good a pitching staff as Texas can be caught on a given day by a given team. No, Texas is not in a must win situation in the Big 12 Tourney. They know they will host a regional and super regional. (OK they don't really KNOW yet, but they are pretty darn sure.) So, not winning the post season tourney in the league is not so important for them. They would still like to, however. Losing the opening game means some other teams need to do some upsetting to get them to the final on Sunday on FSN regional networks.

Texas plays Texas Tech Thursday at 3pm. Then they play A&M on Saturday. They have to win both AND hope that Missouri can pull off another upset at 7:30 today or they won't be playing on Sunday. It is that simple.

Meanwhile, in Houston at the University of Houston the C-USA tourney is underway. The dominance of Rice over the last few years is on the line. The Owls should be an NCAA tourney team win or lose the tourney. But their seeding and where they play is very much up in the air. That is often crucial is giving teams a good shot to get all the way to the College World Series in Omaha.

ASTROS CLOSE OUT IN MILWAUKEE

Meanwhile the Astros close out their short three game series in Milwaukee with an afternoon game on Thursday. Then it is off to legitimate NL Central contender Cincinnati for the weekend. Was the hitting resurgence of the Astros' 3-4-5 hitters on Wednesday real or a temporary fluke? Think real because Lee, Berkman and Pence ARE better than they have shown for the first 45 games.

Sad news for the career of Gregg Zaun. I did a pre game interview with the former Astro on Wednesday while he was waiting for a final determination of the extent of his shoulder injury. He got bad news. He has a torn labrum which will require either surgery or a long long rest. At 39 his very career may be in jeopardy. A good guy, Zaunie, and we hope however things go from here things are positive.