A Soft Spot in My Heart for Triples and Astros and Oakland's Swings - Baseball Players as Game of Thrones Characters, Part Two

Welcome back to our Opening Weekend preview of both the 2013 baseball season, and the third season of Game of Thrones!  It was nice of Major League Baseball to realize that everyone would be glued to the GoT season premiere and act accordingly by programming a game featuring the Astros, wasn't it?  Without further ado, let's continue our comparison of Major League Baseball players to our favorite Westerosi inhabitants!  

Nelson Cruz is Khal Drogo

When you're featured in ESPN's The Body issue, there's a great deal of attention focused on your physical attributes, and Nelson Cruz, as told by Michael Young, has all of them.  

"Nelly goes about 6'3, 230 pounds and he's country strong.  We were in the weight room one day and some guys were benching 315 pounds.  Nelly walks in and says 'Let me hop in.'  And he just starting pushing 315 right away.  Without stretching.  As a warmup set."

I assume that the part of the story where he got an ingrown toenail and had to miss a quarter of the season was omitted, but the fact of the matter is, that when Cruz, like Drogo, is on the field, he's a game-changer and a destroyer of worlds, but the most seemingly minor of scratches can sideline him for weeks at a time.  Trust me, I've owned him in fantasy for the past four years and sometimes I can't help but think I want to smother him with a pillow.  Then he hits two homers and steals a base, and he's my moon and my stars again.  

 David Eckstein is Tyrion Lannister

Short, but winners all day y'all.  

Josh Hamilton is Bronn

There's nobody you'd rather have on your team, and there's nothing he'd rather have than that money.  

Scott Boras is Walder Frey

Nobody ever WANTS to do business with Scott Boras.  However, when one agent controls a majority of the best talent in baseball, when you're assembling a winning team, you need to go to him, hat in hand, and sell your soul.  That's the case with Robb Stark when the young king, eager to reach King's Landing to rip Joffrey's guts out and save his sisters, makes a deal with Frey to take on one of his little wiener kids as a squire, marry Arya to another of his wiener kids and, worst of all, marry himself to one of Frey's daughters that Walder deems suitable, all to cross a bridge.  

Much like teams that sign Boras' clients often find themselves with buyer's remorse in the sixth or seventh year of the deal, so too did Robb Stark regret making the deal when he fell in love, but as it all turned out, it was no big d.