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As Chris Daughtry once said, “It’s not Ober.” I’m sure that’s what we were all thinking last Sunday afternoon, when — for the second straight season — Ober jogged out for his first start of the year and was rocked for eight earned runs in an abbreviated outing.
Both times, it was easy to feel like that wasn’t Ober, particularly because in 2024, Bailey’s remaining starts produced a 3.60 ERA and 3.59 FIP in over 175 innings. Still, his blow-up against the Kansas City Royals loomed large over his year-end statistics, with his final ERA hovering right around 4.00 essentially on the back of that outing alone.
In statistics, baseball, and restaurant reviews, you can’t just scrap the parts you don’t like and then evaluate the rest. But there is something to be said for both implosions coming in the first start of the campaign, and if Ober can make whatever adjustment he was able to work through last April, there’s every reason to believe he’ll still be the key cog in the center of Minnesota’s rotation.
For Houston, starter Spencer Arrighetti had a much nicer debut. The sophomore starter twirled six innings of one-hit ball in a 2-1 win over the New York Mets on March 29th. Arrighetti added a sinker in the offseason, complementing a diverse arsenal that now technically features six pitches (five of which were featured at least 10% of the time in his 2025 entrance.)
Ober’s other task will be to shut down the top of the order in a similar fashion to Thursday’s losing home opener, although the expectation for Jose Altuve to strike out five more times is probably pretty slim. It’s a bit of a new look for the Houston lineup sans Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker, but any lineup with Yordan Alvarez hitting third is no lineup I want to see, no matter what the supporting cast.
And as for Daughtry? Well, the 45-year-old singer-songwriter released “Shock to the System (Part One)” with his band last year, and is working on blackout arm sleeve tats. He will soon celebrate the sixth anniversary of his appearance on FOX’s The Masked Singer.
GO TWINS GO!
