I'm seeing Sabathia pitch as a Yankee for the first time...and while I obviously don't mind seeing them suffer, I hope they put some kind of weight clause in CC's contract. I don't even know if it's possible in baseball, but to give this behemoth that much money for that long of a period without some sort of protection would be insane.

Baltimore is hitting him around nicely.

7 years for a gargantuan man who pitched 600 innings last year.

Well it is pretty cold in Baltimore, so I'm not sure I'd put that much stock in his pitching performance.

I hate picking up guys based on a one game sample size, but this Emilio Bonifacio kid is just absolutely tearing it up today. 4-4 with an inside the park home run, a bunt single, 2 or 3 stolen bases and 4 runs scored already. Not a bad start to the season.

I'd much rather listen to Steve Phillips than Joe Morgan. He's easy to listen to and he seems like a very intelligent guy. However, he doesn't know jack shit about baseball and as a Met fan I have a hard time taking any of his analysis seriously.



Hershiser was amazing his first game in the booth and I believe I even posted about it here. Since then, though, its as if he was told to dumb it down a bit because he's been good, but not great and he doesn't go as in-depth with things as he did.

Reds manage 3 hits today. That'll probably be about their average.

A 3B with 2B eligibility, in my Yahoo league at least. Had an open roster spot anyway, worth a flier. Thanks.

Yeah, even if he is the next Tuffy Rhodes, if you have an open spot, why not?

There we go. I picked him up after his 4th AB of the day and he promptly grounds out his first AB after.

The jinx is solid and still rolling!

Now to nab some Red Sox players...

I had the same exact reaction. His commentary was so cerebral and focused that I wonder if ESPN told him to tone it down. If so that's a shame because he and Al Leiter have been the two best color guys I've heard in a long time. It's probably not a coincidence that both are recently retired pitchers and also new to the broadcast booth.

Fixed that for you ;)

Mlb audio mobile is already broken. Worked earlier. Sigh

O's finished off the Yankees 10-5. Not a fan of the camera crew on the YES network.

/tk

Just off the top of my head, thinking about the games I've caught with Hershiser working, I suspect it might not be so much a case of tone down the intellect as shorten the points. Doing that could have the same effect, harder to make a deep point in less time, but on a weekly/national game there's probably less tolerance built-in for in depth stuff.

I mean, I grew accustomed to, and didn't mind, having some of the discussions during Braves games go on through 2-3 innings but it's easier to get away with that when you have the same audience for 150 games a year.

Fucking Heilman, where was that last year you bum!

So it's only opening day and the odds of the Jays doing much this year are pretty low, but it sure is a treat to watch Halladay work. Nice of the guys to give him a cushy lead but he looks like he's in one of those zones where 2 or 3 runs would have been enough.

Now if they can just field a team that'll make him want to stay in Toronto once his contract is up.

I like Purcey as my "deep" sleeper in fantasy baseball this year. :)

SI

Jays bats are gonna give teams hell. Not the best offense by any means, but some solid contact guys who can motor a bit. Halladay is the best pitcher in baseball also.

Wow, my opening game jinx factor is in mid season form.

Come on Doc, lock it down.

And I say that and it's 9-5 now.

What's going on in Toronto?

SI

Enough people being idiots and throwing stuff on the field (including baseballs) that Leyland pulled the Tigers off the field. PA announcement that if it continued that the game could be forfeited as well as legal action pursued against those found to be throwing items, then the Tigers retake the field.

Pure stupidity really. I hope the fans around those tossing the stuff are pointing them out for the ushers/security to get rid of.

and yet again the Cardinals look for a closer...

Woot. This is likely the only time all year the Pirates will be over .500

Btw, loving the fact that ESPN is now including "OPS" in its summary about the batter and obviously they've been telling their commentators to explain it a bit (especially Steve Phillips). Not bad, ESPN. Soon they'll be throwing around Adjusted ERA+ and VORP ;).

Haven't thought about it for a bit, but IIRC, Frankie is pointing to his grandmother or grandfather when he does that. He does it after every save. He also fist pumps a lot.

He also usually puts two batters on before trying. He must have been amped today and forgot.

I LOL'd.

me too.

Heh, I hope you guys are laughing at the second part, because the first part, I am serious (he's pointing to whichever one of his grandparents has passed away, pretty sure it's grandpa).

Yeah, in about 30 years ;)

SI

The best part was when Miller was talking about OPS and how Chipper Jones OPS was great last season, Morgan comes in and says "You have to remember he almost hit .400 last season." I chuckled, then cried a tear for the loss of Ken Tremendous.

Nevermind his insanity about the traditional stats vs. sabremetric, I'm simply wondering how 44 points away is "almost".

You're on Blackberry? When I looked into ordering it yesterday, it said audio wasn't available until after opening day. Maybe they had issues with it. I'd like to know if it works before getting it for today's games.

I wouldn't put too much stock into Sabathia's performance. As I recall, he was terrible in April last year and seemed to recover fairly well. I mean, I hope the guy never wins a game as a Yankee, and yesterday was certainly fun to listen to, but I'm sure he'll be fine. Unfortunately.

From the ESPN bottom line, I believe he was 1-4 with an ERA over 7 last April. So, yah... waaay too early.

1-4 with a 7.76 ERA. And two more bad starts to begin May after that.

Signed up for Gameday Audio. Ready for the White Sox-Royals season opener. Gonna be a cold one.

Ugh. Not only are the Nats the ones that allowed this, but they traded him to Florida in the offseason (in the deal that got Scott Olsen and Josh Willingham).

The only positive not yesterday was that Adam Dunn started his contract off right, with a monster 3 run shot. He apparently has had an opening day homer in 4 of the last 5 seasons.

2 hours until Lincecum time. I'm pumped. Just please don't get shelled in the first inning.

I would rather they list OBP and SLG separately, but they are making an effort.

Kindof ugly game in Chicago. Buehrle has thrown 80 pitches thru 4 but the Royals have left 7 guys on. The White Sox had a runner thrown out at home. 1-1 bottom 4.

SI

I can officially confirm that I am disliked by my family.

My father got tickets to yesterday's (now today's) Sox game. First time he's ever had a spare ticket offered to him too. But does he offer to take me...his firstborn son? Nope. He's taking my sister instead :rant: . Just for that I'm going to tell the nursing home attendents to let him sit in his feces for a few extra hours every year on Opening Day.

Are you having a tough time dealing with the reality of not being Daddy's Girl, DT?

:p

he didn't spend hours in the yard playing catch with my sister, or teaching my sister how to pitch

Could that be because she didn't NEED his tutelage to be good at those things? :)

Apparently AJ Pierzynski stayed out too late last night:

(from MLB GameCast)

MVP...MVP!!

Lil-Petey puts the third pitch he sees into the Monster seats!

Why does it always have to be Jim fucking Thome

SI

And Hillman should be shot for putting in Farnsworth instead of Cruz

SI

No, I think the GM bears the blame on this one. When the GM goes out and overspends on a bad setup guy, the manager is pretty much forced to use him, isn't he? That signing was ridiculous, even before Farnsworth threw a pitch this year.

Agreed, but I thought there was at least a recognition it was a bad move when they brought in Cruz at a similar cost (and a 2nd round draft pick) after the market had fallen apart.

Anyways, way to win the damn game today with Cruz and Soria, your two best arms in the pen, doing their level best to help us win with a total of... 0 IP. That still falls at the foot of the manager as well as the GM.

SI

I agree, but having Farnsworth at all is a bad move. But I agree that he should be relegated to 6th/7th inning at best. And more than 1 run lead, too.

The Rodgers Center has suspended the serving of alcohol for tonight, and two other events (I thought it said one Argonauts game?) because of the Jays fans throwing shit on the field yesterday.

Was there a singular reason for them acting batshit insane, outside of being Canadian?

Do they need another reason?

http://www.tsn.ca/mlb/story/?id=274136

Looks like it wasn't actually for what happened yesterday.

Loving the 4-2 White Sox win to open the year. :)

Now if we can just get Dewayne Wise out of the damn lineup. :mad:

It's so weird watching the Braves on Peachtree TV. There are no commercials, they just show the field in the background with the sound muted.

Yeah, a guy on this Tigs forum said it was from yesterday but apparently it was from them serving Minors a while back.

Still no idea WTF happened yesterday. Jays were up 7 when they went nuts.

A few Toronto FC fans got arrested when they traveled to Columbus for an away match, for boozing up and fighting with security apparently. Gotta keep an eye on those Canadians...

Huh?

Yeah. They show the top/bottom half of an inning, once three outs are made the sound goes out and the camera crew shows a shot of the players going out to their positions and throwing the ball around. Once the "commercial break" is over and the players are ready to begin again, the sound comes back and the game is broadcast normally.

Also, no other programming shows up on this channel other than when the Braves play once or twice a week. I think it's because I live in the Southeast but rather far (five hours) from Atlanta or something.

Okay, now I get it, I wasn't sure where you were. Sounds like you're part of the deal they cut with Comcast and a couple of other cable systems to give them better access to the Braves in some of the FSN territories. It helps the team overall because it lengthens their reach and in theory gives the local systems some additional inventory to sell.

The problem in some of the markets (yours sounds like one) is that I knew about the deals that were struck several weeks before anyone bothered to even tell the local cable sales people. Kind of hard to sell it if you don't even know it's available. Of course given the reduction in sales force at Turner (which owns Peachtree TV) it wouldn't have been completely out of the realm of possibility that they had unsold inventory too. What you're seeing is basically the raw feed, same as the one that shows up on the concourse at the stadium.

LOL Blue Jays ..

Tigs have runners on 2nd and 3rd, Inge up, Everett on deck. They go for the IBB and Purcey overthrows the catcher. Guillen gets caught between home and 3rd and Thames is 3/4 of the way to third, so it looks like a base running clusterfuck, when Barajas throws the ball to second, except it's a shitty throw and sails into CF, scoring Guillen and sending Thames to third.

Agree. Rany summed it up well today: "The worst part of all this is that we all saw it coming. Every last one of us knew from the moment they read Hillman’s words about keeping Farnsworth in the eighth-inning role that it would cost the Royals dearly at some point. We didn’t know it would be Opening Day, against one of our chief rivals, with the justice meted out by one of our greatest nemeses. But we knew it was coming. With the Royals, no bad decision ever goes unpunished."

I was posting a bunch over at royalsreview at the time and we all knew it was coming. That's what's so damning. And Rany was also right to point out that Farnsworth is no less than the 3rd most responsible person because GMDM never should have signed him so Hillman couldn't have stupidly played him. But, again, at least GMDM signed Cruz at the cost of a draft pick so he at least recognized his mistake a little.

(also, from Rany: "Regardless of whether he learns or not, Hillman is getting no slack with me this year. He cost us this game, plain and simple. He cost us a two-game swing in the standings with a divisional rival. The odds that the outcome of this game – the outcome of Hillman’s decision – keeps the Royals out of the postseason are something like 1%. Think about that: it’s still Opening Day, and there’s a one-in-a-hundred shot that the Royals just blew the division.")

SI

Well the great signing that was Brandon Lyon wasted an Edwin Jackson gem tonight. The only solace is my 3 pitchers in the FOFC hardcore league tonight were Jurrjens, Jackson and Bedard.

We'll trade you the Professor for Lyon straight up

SI

Braves 2-0
Phillies 0-2

This feels good

(taking the time to gloat, because I don't think it will last.)

It's a good thing that Thome hit that homerun. The White Sox looked terrible outside of that one inning. They're going to need a lot of 3 run homers this season to make up for their total lack of overall speed.

Sure, they have three piano movers in the middle of their lineup but it's not as if team speed has been one of the key ingredients in lineup construction since the Reagan presidency.

SI

This is going to be another long season.

It cost them a couple of runs yesterday. I guess it all evens out in the end. Watching the White Sox is like watching Big 10 basketball. You can win with it, but it can be pretty painful to watch.

I'm not sure that there was a worse scenario for the Royals than a 2-0 count against Thome. That dude can flat-out mash the ball when he's provided that kind of advantage. The Royals really need to make sure that Soria is ready in that situation going forward. It wouldn't kill him to get a 4 out save.

Someone at RR summed it up well. It's not that this was just bad luck and hindsight that people are jumping on. Everyone in the gameday thread knew- we didn't all just think- we all knew- what was coming when he came in to start the 8th. The problem wasn't that pitching Farnsworth was the worse of two bad options. I remember Soren talking once about Buddy Bell and his criticizing his bullpen management when all he had were guys who could add gas to the fire and saying "would you like death by shark or death by alligator" or something to that effect. This isn't the case here- they have some bullpen depth and even had the option of sending Gil out for the 8th.

Hillman picked the fifth best option he had and they go something like this (in order of preference):
1) Juan Cruz- he should be your setup guy as he's your second best bullpen arm. Oh, and he's a lefty which helps when 3 of 5 guys coming up are lefties.
2) Bring in Soria for 4 (or 5 or 6) outs. He hasn't pitched since Sunday. Easily this is the most high leveraged situation in the game. Put in your best player.
3) Go to Mahay to face Thome. Again, Thome kills straight fastballs and Farnsworth throws- you guessed it. Mahay is a lefty and Thome's lefty/right splits are quite pronounced. You take him from a 1.050 OPS hitter down to .750.
4) Pitch Meche for the 8th. He was cruising and only had 91 pitches thru 7. I'm ok with bringing a guy out too early to keep wear from his arm, tho, so this is not the best option.
5) Go to the pr0FF3ss0r

SI

Cruz is mos def a righty.

I'm not a stat geek, but you obviously present a great case for bringing in Cruz (unless he's not a lefty). I wasn't watching the game, so I'm not sure if Soria/Cruz was even warming. I would have taken Soria as a viable alternative. There's no way Thome could sit on the fastball that much given Soria's ability to locate that big curveball.

Thank God they play daily in MLB and we can move on.

Yeah, my bad. I was thinking Mahay. Cruz just is a lot better pitcher overall ;)

SI

Amen. Time to watch Zack today

SI

MLB Network has Thursday Night baseball and I just saw their schedule. 16 different teams on their initial 8 games so it's not just Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, etc :)

Thursday Night Baseball on MLB Network | MLB Network: TV Schedule

SI

IMHO this is one of the best parts of baseball regular season. Less teeth-gnashing over every single loss.

Yeah, football has a whole sport talk news cycle where Monday is a day for overreactions (good or bad), Tuesday is for looking around the league, Wednesday is for "deeper reflections", Thursday is for looking forward to the next week, and Friday is full-on game preview.

I really like sports talk during baseball season so much more.

SI

Agreed! Plus, while it's nice to have football season where every game means so much and there's so much buildup, it's also nice to have baseball season where losing one game is not that big of a deal and things are more leisurely.

Atlanta is putting another hurtin' on the Phils, their season looks about over. Time to focus on the Mets.

Yup, 3 into 162 is time to quit on a team ;)

I mean, if you didn't like the makeup of the team before the season started, that's one thing. But, really, after 1 bad series?

SI

Hey now, my Giants are 1-0. It's clearly their division to lose.

I'm just letting myself get a little giddy at their nice start. The past three years have been rough for Braves fans, especially when you consider that they won the division every year from when I was in third grade until after my college graduation.

In the end I suspect they'll finish in third around .500

I think the Braves might have more of a shot than they're getting credit for. I look at the NL East, and they might have most solid starting 5 from front to back, especially when Hanson comes up. The Mets and the Phillies don't have nearly that deep of a staff. I don't know if the Braves can compete offensively with those two teams, but it wouldn't surprise me if their pitching made the division more than a two team race.

consecutive bases-loaded walks for Philly to make it a 3-run game, and now Jimmy Rollins gets a chance to actually do something positive for my fantasy team this year.

Or in the bullpen.

Does a bases-loaded walk count as an RBI? If so, I guess that'll have to do for my 'something positive.'

Hah, yeah.

Epic bullpen fail, wow.

Yep.

They have more speed than last year, though that's certainly not saying much.

I didn't get a chance to see the game and could only follow for an inning or two on the MLB Gameday thing or whatev, but the White Sox nearly lost the game when they only got 1 run after loading the bases with no outs in the bottom of the second.

Nice of the Phillies offense to finally wake up.

Heh, maybe Lidge blows his first save on his first save opportunity.

That'd be ironic.

Then again, maybe not.

Nice to get that monkey off our backs.

Four bases loaded walks in one inning is remarkable. If the Braves have to lose at least they have done so in an unconventional manner.

Heck, I could've told you to stay away from Rollins. He's done, maybe even as soon as this year. There's a reason the Phils didn't trade Jason Donald.

For those of you who are into symmettries, in game 3 of the 2008 season the Phillies(0-2 at the time) came back from 6-1 down to win 7-6. It was not a walkfest like this one (although the winning run scored on a walkoff walk in the 10th), more of a single fest.

Yep, just about over there ;).