Lousy Opening Day

I had a lot of excitement going in to today's Opening Day of baseball. I work 2 jobs but am lucky enough to have off for both of them today. So that meant I was able to watch baseball throughout the whole day. My wife is a big baseball fan, and was excited as well. She also gets a little excited wishing that she was at a ballpark somewhere, so she had me pick up hotdogs for lunch as the afternoon games started.

So the hotdogs were consumed as the pre game shows were ending. I went with MASN for the Nationals pre game coverage for a bit, and MASN has room for a lot of improvement. The graphics, camera work, and on-air personalities are all below par. I guess that fits well with the Nationals stadium and roster.

The highlight of the Nationals game for me was seeing the 2 F-18s flyover the stadium on TV, and then heading outside to watch them fly over head a minute later. Living right up the Anacostia River I was pretty sure I would get to see them before they headed back to the airfield they came from. After that the game really wasn't worth watching. John Patterson, who is supposed to be the only decent starter for the Nats, was awful. Dontrelle Willis, who is fun to watch just like Ken Griffey Jr. was 15 years ago, pitched well for the Marlins. Throw in some great hitting from Hanley Ramirez and Miguel Cabrera, and this game soon became boring. I'm watching the Angels-Rangers game right now, and the commentators were commenting about how they can't imagine how many games the Nats could lose. Its exciting to have baseball back in DC, but ownership better make a huge effort to build a competitive team next offseason or the effect of having a new ballpark won't last long.

With a boring game on MASN, I watched a lot more of the D-Rays - Yankees game on ESPN. I was hoping Scott Kazmir would upstage Carl Pavano, but he just didn't have it today. The Yankees starting Pavano on opening day is a joke, but they still manage to pull out a win. I've been sick of the Yankees winning ways for a long time, but they are going on 9 years as AL East Champions. The last time anybody else finished in first place was 1997 when the O's went wire to wire. That has been way too long, and it pisses me off that they are so much weaker than before yet still better than anybody else in the division.

The focus of my day though was definitely the Orioles playing the Twins at 7. I didn't have high expectations for a win with Santana on the mound, but I was hoping for an upset. 4 runs in 6 innings against Santana was a great result for the offense, but unfortunately Erik Bedard let the O's down with a turly disappointing start. I know he will get it things together and have a great year, but its a downer not to have a good result on Opening Day. One of the great things about baseball though is that there isn't a lot of time to get down. There is usually a game the next day to give you new hope, and I'm hopeful that Daniel Cabrera will have a better day tommorow night than Boof Bonser. BOOF! This guy must not take anything seriously with a name like that.

Opening Day

Opening Day is tommorow for the O's and the Nats, and its still strange to have 2 teams in the area. It will be an adjustment trying to catch the O's on MASN, but atleast the Nats will consistently be on TV now as well. I don't get the chance to make it out to the games as much as I'd like, but by following the games on TV it is possible to really get a feel for the players. I've never really gotten into the Nats yet because they were never really on TV. It will be interesting to see if people start to connect to the team a little more now that they have a good TV deal in place.

I'm not quite sure how to feel about the Orioles this season. They made some improvements since last season by adding Bradford, Williamson, Baez, and Walker to the bullpen. They also added some talent to the lineup with Jay Payton and Aubrey Huff. (Note to self...Don't name your next son Aubrey.) However, when you look at the team as a whole its hard to see them being much better than last year. Will the bullpen help really lead to more wins? Its hard to judge that.
I think the most important thing for the Orioles will be how Adam Loewen and Daniel Cabrera will perform. Each had great outings last year that really made them look like potential difference makers. However, both of them could also be counted on for some off days, especially Cabrera. I think Loewen will do very well after making his debut last year. Hopefully he got a taste of what to expect, and can be trusted to go deeper into games.
Jarret Wright and Steve Trachsel are veteran newcomers, that have looked shaky in spring training. However, I have faith that they can't do worse than Rodrigo Lopez and Bruce Chen pitched last year. Hell...if either of them wins a game he will have done better than Chen!

So...the pitching looks to have improved. Huff and Payton came in to bolster the lineup, while you didn't lose much production from last year with your core guys coming back. I think a full year of Nick Markakis in RF is extremely exciting. He could challenge Miguel Tejada as the best hitter on the club in 2007. Overall the O's should be a better team. The question in my mind is how much better can they be. Will they be a more respectable 4th place club in the AL East, or can they possibly catch NY, Boston, or Toronto? I really can't tell at this point, but I'm definitely excited for the season to get started on Monday night.