Thoughts on Opening Day

The 2009 MLB season is officially underway as by the time you are reading this every team in the league will have played at least once.  Lots of interesting things happened over the past 2 days that have the baseball community excited and fantasy owners, like me, frustrated beyond belief.  Here are some of the most interesting story lines from the first 2 days of the MLB season.

The Mets Didn't Blow It

Last year no team blew more saves than the NY Mets.  They led the league with 25 saves blown as all season their bullpen continually let them down when it counted.  Because of this they ended up missing the playoffs for the second straight year and were called chokers by the entire baseball world.

This is no longer an issue it seems as in the off-season the Mets added both JJ Putz and Francisco Rodriguez to make sure no more saves get blown.  Both men pitched on opening day and both looked great as K-rod struck out the side in the 9th to close out the 2-1 game. Mets fans must be loving life right now as for the time being it seems like the 8th and 9th innings are no longer a grueling punishment but something to look forward to.

$341 Million for Nothing

Yesterday Yankees watched as their two prized free agents CC Sabathia and Mark Texeira gave them nothing to cheer about.  Tex went 0 for 4 at the plate and and left 4 men on base.  CC fared no better going just 4.1 innings giving up 6 runs and failing to record a single strikeout (first time he has done that since 2005).   

As a Red Sox fan this was one of the greatest baseball games I have ever watched as Yankees fans quickly turned on their new "all-stars" and boo'd them off the field.  The Yankees spent $423.5 million on free agents this off-season.  Let's just hope that AJ Burnett can do better than CC or did.

Aces Getting Worked

It seems that an abnormal amount of premiere pitchers got roughed up over the last few days.  I understand that since every team had its best pitcher throw on opening day this is bound to happen but some guys pitched some real god awful games.  Tim Lincecum, CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee, James Shields, and Brandon Webb all pitched some of the worst games of their careers.

Webb gave up 6 runs in 4 innings

Sabathia gave up 6 runs in 4.1 innings

Lincecum gave up 3 runs in 3 innings

Lee gave up 7 runs in 5 innings

Shields gave up 5 runs in 5.1 innings

Lee and Lincecum were Cy Young winners last year and all of these men won at least 15 games last season.  It is too early to start getting worried now, unless you're New York and your ace is officially the fattest player in baseball history, but these guys are going to have to turn it around if their teams have any hopes of doing well this season.

How Bout Them Blue Jays

The Jays are off to a great start this season as last night they pumped the Tigers 12-5 and tonight came back in the 9th inning to win 5-4.  This is a team that many people, including myself, wrote off before the season started.  Now I am not going to crown them champs just yet, I mean they are playing the Tigers, but their ability to hit in clutch situations and produce runs with 2 outs is impressive.

The Jays got 6 RBI from Adam Lind and clutch hitting from everyone on the roster on opening day.  Aaron Hill hit a 3 run bomb in tonight's game to give the Jays the lead, which BJ Ryan would blow only to bailed out by the bats in the 9th.  This was the problem for the Jays last season and if they can continue this play then you never know what might happen.

Also I want to take this time to apologize to my friend Steve Wilkin.  Wilkin took Travis Snider is the 7th round of our fantasy draft and I mocked him mercilessly.   Snider is batting .500 currently and already hit a home run (to opposite field no less) so I guess as it stands right now he was a solid pick.

The Red Sox aka God's Team

 

I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the best baseball team ever, the Boston Red Sox.  Their home opener was snowed out so it happened today and it was well wroth the wait.  Josh Beckett was dominant as he struck out 10 and gave up only 2 hits and 1 run in 7 innings of work.

The offense looked good as Dustin Pedroia hit a home run and everyone had at least 1 hit except for that scrub Jacoby Ellsbury.  Hell even Jason Varitek hit a home run.

Jonathan Papelbon came on in the 9th and threw pure gas and got the Rays to go 3 up and 3 down in the 9th.  A typical clean Red Sox game.  Starting off the season with a big win.  Gotta love it.

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