Jesse Chavez will start for the Texas Rangers against the Houston Astros in Saturday’s game, Ranger manager Chris Woodward announced tonight, per the beat guys on Twitter. The righthanded Chavez will presumably be an opener for lefthanded Drew Smyly, whose turn it is to start tomorrow.
This is a situation where an opener makes a lot of sense. Smyly is a lefthanded who has batters twice this season, and 20 batters three times. The idea behind the opener is to have him face the first 4-6 batters, then let the regular starting pitcher plan on facing roughly 20-25 batters.