Sunday, March 29, 2009

Jeremy Guthrie Named Opening Day Starter For Orioles

The Orioles have named Jeremy Guthrie the Opening Day starter according to Jeff Zrebiec of the Baltimore Sun. He did this last year and will faceoff against C.C. Sabathia when they host the Yankees on April 6th.

Guthrie has spent most of his spring training with the U.S. WBC team, but he barely pitched at all. Now back in uniform with the Orioles he has struggled getting into his groove. Koji Uehara was thought to be the best pitcher so far in spring training, but the Orioles will stick with their ace Guthrie and start him Opening Day.

With so many questions about the Orioles rotation, Guthrie will need to be back to form. The fact is this rotation has a lot of arms but nobody standing out that will be in the rotation. The O's don't want to throw their top three pitching prospects into the fire yet, them being Chris Tillman, Brian Matusz, and Jake Arrieta, but in order to ensure that the Orioles don't bring them up yet, they need their stopgaps to perform. Having a solid ace will easily help matters. A lot of support will be needed from Guthrie and Uehara in order to lead the rotation successfully.

(Photo credit: AP)

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