An Opening Day of Sorts

Hello and welcome to the 2007 major league baseball season and to my new baseball blog. I am Mike's evil twin, and I will be your guide through 162 exciting games (well, 2430 games, I guess). I've been a Twins fan since birth and am looking forward to focusing largely on the Twins over the course of the season. Because I live in Central Pennsylvania and because of MLB and DirecTV's shady arrangement, however, I also have access to every other team (except the Pirates, because I'm apparently in their territory and DirecTV doesn't carry the local FoxSportsNet, so the games are always blacked out on Extra Innings and I can't find them anywhere else, thank you very much MLB and DirecTV), I will also be covering the rest of the league. Hopefully, no one will go unappreciated. Except the Nationals. Seriously, field a real team.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to this year. Here are some notes from a long day of watching baseball and getting less work done than I should have:

ll be interesting to see how this year stacks up to last for both of them.

Joe Mauer's swing in the first inning was about the prettiest thing I've seen in 2007 (save for my wife and son). He drove a fastball away to left-center with an inside-out swing. Excellent contact.

Dick Bremer thinks that Twins fans this year will be hoping for "Johan and Boof and a hole in the roof". In a related story, Dick Bremer has just emerged from a winter of seclusion in which he was writing that one joke. Good job Dick. Not at all forced.

Twins' manager Ron Gardenhire read his lineup for the cameras before the start of the game, and, apparently impressed, said "Hey, we should win, right?" Funny Gardy. That said, yes you should. And I think you'd have a better chance of winning if you didn't have Chris Heintz on your bench or (if you did need to keep a 3rd C), put Redmond in the DH spot so that your best IF reserve is available for late-game pinch hitting. Also, you should have done a better job of sifting through rotation candidates. Oh well, all's well that ends well.

All the special guests are out to talk about Opening Day and Herb Carneal. I miss Herb already, and I've barely heard his voice since moving to Maine in 1997. Kent Hrbek, Brad Radke, Harmon Killebrew, Paris Bennett. By the way, Harm looks like a healthy and benevolent Dick Cheney. I bet he'd never eat a puppy. Harm Killebrew for VP!

Around the league (other games I had time to watch):

Nook Logan made a very nice catch in center for the Nats, just before slamming into the fence. It looks like he’s re-aggravated an ankle injury from spring training. While this is bad for Logan, it’s probably a good thing for the Nats. Logan is an offensive cipher, and his defense (despite his speed) is typically adventurous. If it means more playing time for Ryan Church and Chris Snelling, this will help the team this season. That said, nothing is going to help this Nats team much. 100 losses seems assured.

The first homer I see this year is hit by Miguel Cabrera, a monster shot to the upper deck in left field at RFK (a tough hitters' park). In a related story, Miguel Cabrera is very very very good.

Elsewhere, the plight of Alex Rodriguez continued. He overran a foul popup (that, apparently, no one could see, it was crazy overcast in NYC yesterday) for an error and struck out with the bases loaded and was regularly booed by Yankees fans yesterday. Jeter made an error a couple innings later, by the way, and no one booed at all. I am not an A-Rod hater, but it really looks like he’s no longer comfortable on a baseball diamond. Before last year, he just looked like a baseball player. Now, he seems awkward and hesitant. It’s hard to watch him, not just because it’s hard not to feel bad for him, but because his game has gotten uglier, if that makes any sense. I hope he recovers, but only after being traded to an NL team.

Scott Kazmir, of the D-Rays, is the kind of pitcher who should be skipped when the Yankees are in town. He's young and he's wild, and the Yankees are the most patient team in the world. True to form, Kazmir threw 31 pitches in the first, at least 50 through 2 innings. He tired quickly and hit the showers after giving up 5 runs in 5 innings, turning a tie game over to one of the worst bullpens in the league.

Lyle Overbay, of the Blue Jays has a nice swing in his first AB, hitting a solid double to the opposite field. Underrated player because he’s not a slugger. He’s as productive and important as Doug Mientkiewicz was supposed to be for the Twins back in the day. Excellent defense, solid gap power, patience, and a high batting average.

Wow! Great play by Carlos Guillen yesterday, going behind the bag, spinning, and throwing out the runner. Guillen’s recent contract extension (4 years, $48 million) will be a bargain if his health issues (I think it’s a bad back) is under control. He’s a switch-hitting Jeter with better range at short.

A few paragraphs about strikeouts:
Curtis Granderson, of the Tigers, starts the season off well, hitting a short punch after choking up with two strikes that ends up a line-drive single into center off of Roy Halladay, aka The Second Best Pitcher in the American League. Granderson struck out a ton last year, and while I don’t think that strikeouts are necessarily bad things, I think that missing the ball entirely completely eliminates the chance that the ball could fall in. More players, I think, should be choking up with two strikes.

Adam Dunn hits a long homer to give the Reds a two-run lead in his first at bat. Dunn has taken a lot of heat for his strikeouts, which he’s talked about and said that he’s going to improve on. While some guys benefit from striking out less, Dunn may be the rare player who would not benefit from it. He is so powerful and his swing is such an upper-cut that any messing with his swing could be really detrimental to his power. That said, he hit another homer later in the game, going 2/3 with 2 HR, 3 RBI, 1 BB, and 1 K. So what do I know?

Alfonso Soriano in a Cubs uniform. I wonder whether the stat-head community has underestimated Soriano as a player. He went to RFK Stadium and thrived. He’s been willing to switch positions. I wonder what, with his speed, he’d hit if he just struck out a little less (160 last year).

A few paragraphs on pitching:

I looked up yesterday and suddenly Gil Meche was leaving to a standing ovation in Kansas City. I thought I was on Mars. Nope, I'm still here but the 7.1 innings of work he did yesterday means that we have to wait at least 4 more days to deride his 5 year, $55 million dollar contract. 7.1 IP, 6 H, 1 BB, 6 K, 1 R against the Red Sox (and the best lineup in baseball).

Felix Hernandez? He's good. 8 full innings, 3 hits, 0 runs, 14 Ks. I didn't catch much of the game, but he was absolutely blowing his fastball past Oakland hitters in the minutes leading up to the Twins game. I wonder whether we're underestimating the Mariners a little. While I still don't like their offseason moves, it seems to me that their starting rotation and front line talent (Hernandez, Putz, Sexson, Ichiro!) stack up well with anybody else in their division, and their supporting cast (Lopez, Beltre, Ibanez, Johjima are better than average.

Aaron Harang shut down the revamped Cubs lineup. No extra base hits for the Cubbies yesterday, just 8 singles (6 of which came off of Harang in 7 innings of work).

Finally, Ben Sheets pitched the first Opening Day complete game in 15 years yesterday. First, 15 years??? My, how this game has changed. Second, Sheets did it without his customary gaudy K totals, racking up just 3 in 9 innings. Sheets only gave up 2 baserunners all game (a Jeff Kent HR and a Brady Clark 2B), meaning he faced just 2 over the minimum 27 batters. It was undoubtedly a great performance, but one that he'll have trouble repeating if he doesn't strike out more batters. This, of course, is a very small sample size.

Until next time, loyal readers