Two days before the Braves open their spring training slate of games, Bobby Cox announced his starting rotation and in doing so announced that embattled starting pitcher Derek Lowe will be the team's opening day starter for the regular season. Tommy Hanson begins the first spring training game on Tuesday against the Mets at Port St. Lucie. Tim Hudson starts on Wednesday, Kenshin Kawakami on Thursday, and in a telling sign of who is behind the Braves top-5 starters on their depth chart, Kris Medlen will start on Saturday, filling in for Jair Jurrjens. This is certainly a rebuke against Jo-Jo Reyes.
David O'Brien passes along the full slate of pitchers for the first week of games:
Tuesday: Tommy Hanson, Kris Medlen, Jesse Chavez, Michael Dunn, Chris Resop, James Parr, and Manny Acosta.
Wednesday: Tim Hudson, Jonny Venters, Peter Moylan, Eric O’Flaherty, Steve Marek, Jeff Lyman, and Mariano Gomez.
Thursday: Kenshin Kawakami, Jo-Jo Reyes, Lee Hyde, Erik Cordier, and Juan Abreu.
Friday: Derek Lowe, Takashi Saito, Billy Wagner, Todd Redmond, Mike Minor, Michael Dunn and Jesse Chavez.
Saturday: Kris Medlen, Kyle Cofield, Jose Ortegano, Jonny Venters, Manny Acosta, Chris Resop, and Craig Kimbrel.
A reminder that the first game against for the Braves on Tuesday is televised on the MLB Network.
So Braves fans, your starting rotation for 2010 is Lowe, Jurrjens, Hanson, Hudson, Kawakami. Hanson and Hudson are in nice spots in the rotation where they could rack up a lot of wins this year.