I watched most of last night's Astros-Twins game, getting to see the 2006 debut of Roger Clemens. My observations:
- Rocket was very good. I was performing a diaper change during the inning where he gave up the two runs, but he generally had the Twins off balance and didn't give up too many hard hit balls. However, he only lasted five innings because he kept getting into three-ball counts, and he wasn't quite dominant enough to keep the Twins from fouling off a lot of pitches, driving up his pitch count. My guess is that he'll be good for around 6 innings and 0-2 runs most of the time.
- Francisco Liriano is awesome. I repeat: Awesome.
- Lots of other RBI sightings at the game. Bert Blyleven is the color man for Twins broadcasts, and he also was the answer to the AFLAC trivia question ("Who was the last Twin to strike out 15 batters in one game?"). Phil Garner manages the Astros, so there were a few shots of him. Nolan Ryan was spotted in the crowd; he appeared to be drinking some sort of vanilla shake or smoothie. Since it was a Twins broadcast, they also got a shot late in the game of the Astros' hitting coach, Gary Gaetti (although you couldn't see most of his face when they tried to zoom in on him).