FanPost

Opening Day Starting Pitcher (Poll)


This should really be a fanshot, but you can't put a poll in a fanshot.


With Football season mercifully over, until they start covering mini camp in 2 weeks, we can now turn our Cincinnati sports eyes to baseball.

Over the past five seasons Aaron Harang and opening day became synonymous, I really just began to associate the big guy with the start of all things wonderful. But with Harang now toiling in San Diego the Reds have lost their staff ace Emeritus.

So who will take the ball on March 31st? The easy answer would be Bronson Arroyo, he has age, wisdom, and has pitched pretty well over the last two years; except last year Arroyo said he doesn't want to pitch on opening day. So it probably comes down to Johnny Cueto and Edinson Volquez.

Last season Cueto took a big step in his career, he kept his ERA under 4 and was pretty solid throughout the entire season with some flashes of brilliance. Yet the post-opt Edinson Volquez missed the first half of the season struggled early on but was pretty dominant in September; so good that he was given the ball in game one of the NLDS (I think, I have no memory of this game so I prefer to think it never happened). Also Volquez was pretty dominant in 2008, so that counts for something I guess.

Of course there is the Dark Horse, RR favorite, Travis Wood. Wood looked very good last year, he started 17 games, but didn't face many teams multiple times, so in some ways Wood is still untested and unproven, and has yet to prove himself 3 times around the league.

Who is your choice to take the honor of standing on the bump at 2:10 on March 31st?