Texans' Winston impresses Oswalt, Lee, Cooper, Valverde

If Eric Winston of the Texans can hit a curveball or splitter, he might have a future in baseball.

I've seen Barry Bonds, Mike Piazza, Sammy Sosa, Carlos Lee, Lance Berkman and several other players have amazing home run displays in batting practice.

Those guys could put on some displays, but nothing quite drew the awes from baseball players quite like all the fuss Winston caused this afternoon at Minute Maid Park.

Winston, Mario Williams and several other Texans were at Minute Maid Park to help raise money for the Boys and Girls Club. In their batting practice, they raised $31,800.

Winston also raised some eyebrows. "Diablo," said Astros closer Jose Valverde after watching Winston drill several shots into the second deck behind the right field wall with his powerful lefthanded swing. "Sign him. Sign him."

"He's getting through the ball pretty well," Oswalt said of Winston. "It's a long ways, especially a guy who hasn't played baseball in a couple years. It shows how much athleticism there is in football, too."

Valverde said he'd feed Winston a healthy supply of splitters if he ever had to really face him, but Winston modestly admitted he wouldn't want any part of Oswalt or Valverde.

"Those guys are so good," Winston said of Valverde and Oswalt. "I'm not even going to get close to come acting like I can hit off one of these guys. The general public has no idea how good these guys are. They're amazing. I'm not going to act like I can come in here and hit off the worst pitcher in Single-A, much less a major-league talent."

That may be true, but Winston really impressed the Astros.

"I think we should (sign Winston)," Cecil Cooper joked. "Tonight. If he can hit the curveball he might have a contract. That was a pretty awesome display. I haven't even seen Berkman hit them up there. So he put a good swing. He put a lot of good swings today. We might have to keep him for a while."

As for Mario Williams?

"Mario, I don't know about," Cooper said.

Either way, the Texans raised some good funds with their Reliant Energy Home Run Derby for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Houston.

(blogs.chron.com)