Opening Day Morning Links

Your Opening Day matchup is Justin Verlander versus Cole Hamels, and the DMN has some choice cuts of small sample sizes to scout.

Joey Gallo will be batting second in the Opening Day lineup, just like superstars Mike Trout, Jose Altuve, and Francisco Lindor.

Here are five things you may not have known about the Houston Astros, including such facts as “Jose Altuve is two apples tall” and “you provoked the current iteration of the Astros with your Silver Boot celebrations.”

Maybe 2018 is all about getting Clayton Kershaw in 2019.

T.R. Sullivan’s pre game story includes quotes from the Astros about winning another World Series and a quote from Cole Hamels about playing some fun baseball.

Ranger reliever Chris Martin could become the first Arlingtonian to pitch for the Rangers.

So you’re saying there’s a chance!

Shin-Soo Choo is an optimistic kind of chap.

The Tim Lincecum circus looks to be delayed until early May, with him starting the season on the 10 day DL.

Levi Weaver says that they’re aiming to make the mundane mesmerizing in the The Athletic’s coverage of the Rangers this season, which seems apropos given our prospects for the season.

And if today you’re feeling beat down because even though Jose Altuve looks like a bunny in a waistcoat who lives in a shoe he’s 4-4 with 20 RBI’s against Cole Hamels, just remember... 70,000 years ago a star passed within 0.8 light years of the earth, disrupting the orbits of Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt objects, and potentially contributing to a human population bottleneck that winnowed the total worldwide population of Homo sapiens to less than 10,000 breeding pairs. So it’s worth noting that even though we may be embarking on a meaningless season, the cold orbital mechanics of an unfeeling universe could wipe us all out at any moment and reduce the Astros 2017 World Series victory to the same ashbin of cosmic insignificance as the rest of the sum total of human existence. Go Rangers!