Tonight's the night

Well, tomorrow afternoon's the night, as long as we agree that "the night" has taken on a new meaning, like "the occasion of the first Washington Nationals game of the year." It's ¡Livan! vs. Tom Glavine, and make sure you enjoy it. With our rotation, three out of five Nats games are going to be almost too depressing to think about, so we must treasure our time with Livan and the scrawny babyface who wants us to call him Big Nasty.

Actually, Pedro Astacio's injury has had the happy effect of making the Nats more watchable, at least from my perspective. It's more fun to root for young guys with potential than has-been vets running out the clock, and now we get Giant Jon Rauch instead of Astacio. It's not all beer and skittles, of course. Our depth is that much less . . . deep with Astacio gone, and Rauch isn't exactly Livanish as far as going deep into ballgames. But I'll be rooting hard for the Giant, not least because I have recently acquired a very rare Rauch rookie card from Japan, and a good performance from Rauch could up its value to the point that I could dig myself out of the hole I created by stocking up on Superfriends Christmas collectible plates. I swore those things were going to increase in value.

Translation: "Rauchu, Pitcher and Forever Tallness. Fight!"

UPDATE: Never mind!

In the meantime, right-hander Ryan Drese is expected to take Astacio's place in the rotation. Drese, who is on the disabled list, will pitch in a Minor League game on Monday and throw 75 pitches.

So everything I said at the beginning about being depressed 60% of the time is still true. And I'm never going to make any money on my rookie card.