MLB: What an Opening Day!
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Somewhere between Christmas morning and your birthday lies the celebration of Opening Day in the Major Leagues. You get a funny feeling in your stomach when our National Pastime gears up for another season.
Whether or not it’s a good feeling or a bad feeling is another story. Some teams already have the stomach churning, after just nine innings. Others have butterflies, the good kind, however.
Let’s take a look at Opening Day 2008.
“Baddy” Zito:
The guy is a total waste of $126 million. I can think of about 12 million other things to do with that kind of money, and it certainly does not involve a mediocre pitcher who throws five innings, gives up four runs, and basically looks like he’s throwing a beach ball up to the plate on every pitch.
That would be four straight opening day’s for the Overpaid One and in turn he has given four straight losses. He is nothing more than a middle-of-the-rotation starter, yet is still being treated like a Number One.
Zito needs to find himself quickly before this becomes another lost season for himself and the Giants.
Bullpen Woes:
Granted, it is just one game. But a lot can be said about some of the bullpens that are assembled around the league.
Kerry Wood, who looked like the flamethrower of old during the spring, sprung into the regular season by allowing three runs in the 9th inning to the Brewers, en route to a 4-3 10 inning loss. Eric Gagne, who was on the other side of the field, also allowed three runs in the 9th inning to the Cubs but was saved in the 10th by his offense.
Tom “Flash” Gordon came in with more of a crash as he attempted to hold the game together in the 9th for the Phillies, but gave up five earned runs in just 20 pitches, getting through one-third of an inning. Flashy stuff there.
Both Pittsburgh and Atlanta had major issues with the Pirates bullpen allowing seven runs and the Braves bullpen giving up the same in this wild, extra inning affair.
There just do not seem to be enough solid arms to go around, as teams are scrambling to find people to plug the holes in relief. It’s going to be a crazy season if this continues to be the norm throughout the majors.
Midseason Form:
Even though the back ends of the pitching staff have looked rather disgusting, some aces looked rather enticing after opening day.
Johan Santana looked golden in his first start with the New York Mets, having just a Josh Willingham home run spoil his marvelous opener. In true Santana fashion, he struck out eight over seven solid innings.
Jake Peavy burned through the Houston lineup rather easily as well, leading the Padres to a 4-0 win in the final game of the night. He went seven as well giving up just three hits.
James Shields, the new ace of the Rays pitching staff looked stellar as well going seven strong. Brady Penny had an easy go against the sloppy San Francisco offense as he turned in 6 2/3 shutout innings.
Ben Sheets and Carlos Zambrano dueled in Chicago each giving up nothing, yet both grabbing a no-decision.
It’s safe to say that many of these guys appear to be ready for the season, and bring high hopes to their respective franchises.
And we wait…:
Two games were rained out and will be played on Tuesday, including the much-anticipated Yankees season opener against Toronto in the Bronx.
St. Louis and Colorado were also postponed a day, even though Albert Pujols smacked a home run, which will not count.
All of those factors piled together brought us an interesting and exciting opening day of baseball.
Let’s hope the next 161 are just as nice.
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