Major League Baseball "2007 Season" Talkback

[Anarky]

Mariners off to a great start courtesy of a filthy outing by Felix Hernandez. The M's need this win too, the A's owned them last season.

A-Rod had a strong opener, perhaps the start of another MVP season in the Bronx (TBD)

hmmm, new look for the Diamondbacks, I like it. 10 yrs in, I understand the change to scare up new revenue on merchandising.

[Duke]

They said he was trying to develop a change-up during spring training. Guess we know how that turned out. It appears he was trying that out during the 3rd and 4th when he got hammered, his location was crap. Oh well, he'll still have probably 5+ complete games and a sub-3 ERA.

Oh yea, I know that. It's just that Juan Rincon, Francisco Cordero, and Jamie Walker are currently my only fantasy pitchers that have an ERA under 5.00 right now. Not exactly the best way to start the season. :P

In O's news: Aside from a boneheaded error in the 6th, Cabrera was freaking awesome tonight. Not sure if that's because of Cabrera's progress this year or because he's just naturally good against the Twins. Too bad Mora & Tejada are still way too aggressive at the plate with runners in scoring position.

Can't wait for Hernandez and Payton to come back. Neither of these backup catchers can throw to second base (though the catcher tonight [I keep forgetting his name] had pretty good chemistry with Cabrera), and Millar is just flat-out embarrassing. I understand that he missed 10 games of Spring Training and all, but he's a veteran of the game. He shouldn't be THAT bad out there.

Elsewhere, I'm SO glad I'm not a Nationals fan. At least the O's pitching has been pretty good these first 2 games, the Nationals' pitching is just plain embarrassing. Maybe they'd do better if they got rid of Vonnie Holliday and Roy Knight.

And Barry Zito continues the "Awesome pitchers suck on Opening Day" trend we're seeing so far. Pittsburgh rides off their late-inning heroics from last night, making me glad I'm not an Astros fan too.

[FireStarterLE]

Mets won tonight ... but the only thing I'm seeing right now is that the Cardinals haven't found their offense, not that the pitchers are dominating (except for Sunday of course) their lineup

Elsewhere, I'm SO glad I'm not a Nationals fan. At least the O's pitching has been pretty good these first 2 games, the Nationals' pitching is just plain embarrassing. Maybe they'd do better if they got rid of Vonnie Holliday and Roy Knight.

The Nats seems like they'll be one of the NL teams to lose 100 this year, not looking to good for them right now

[purplehairedwonder]

How could I forget to post on the Braves' first win of the season? Best thing: we have a bullpen this year! Last year the Braves would have dropped that game 85% of the time. I'm liking what I'm seeing, even if it is only one game. Tonight I'm interested in seeing how Hudson does. He's been looking promising in the spring and if he can get back to his dominant status, the Braves' pitching staff is going to be scary good this year.

[Lutochris]

Now they're saying Carpenter has a sore arm and will miss his next start. Crap.

[Duke]

Now they're saying Carpenter has a sore arm and will miss his next start. Crap.

I know it's extremely early in the season, but it's kind of sad that this is the biggest story in baseball right now. Guess that's what happens when Spring training is freaking boring.

[Lutochris]

Just thought I'd throw this out there, here's an indication of how much St. Louis was enjoying the Cardinal game yesterday. Around the 6th inning, out of nowhere Joe Buck just randomly said, "I wonder how Sanjaya sung tonight".

I love that guy.

[Draft]

I know it's baseball season when Boston loses 7-1 to the worst team in MLB last year

[Duke]

OK, the previous two games had at least some kind of positives (the bullpen, Cabrera, Huff), but my god, tonight's Twins/O's game is just embarrassing. Nobody can field the damn ball, the Twins are hitting it in the O's blind spots, and both Wright and Guthrie can't seem to find the strike zone after the 2nd inning. Geez, these guys are as bad as the Nationals pitchers the last two nights. It doesn't help that the O's hitters are swinging at virtually every pitch and forcing everything, resulting in a lot of routine fly & ground outs.

At least the rest of the league is diversifying a bit in terms of records, with a lot of 0-2 teams winning and 2-0 teams losing. And I'd have hated to be in the field during the Indians and Tigers games with that wind blowing everywhere. Poor Magglio Ordonez.

[FireStarterLE]

And this is how StL. backs up it's Championship? Only 2 runs in the opening series

On the brighter side of things, 2-0 ATL. Scoring may not be as pretty as how other teams are getting runs, but it wont change the fact that that's 2 wins Braves ... no wins team who has been picked to be strong competition.

Still, gotta give the Phils starters credit. But if they look at how last years Braves team was with their bullpen, they need to work on that in order to stay strong

[Duke]

Ripkin & Gwynn to join TBS Team.

Now if only TBS would actually show games that aren't at the same time as the O's games.

[KuwabaraTheMan]

Tigers went up big, then made it close. An ugly win, but a win nonetheless.

Basically it served to prove that Jason Grilli has no place on this team. But aside from that, a good game from the Tigers, offensively and from Nate Robertson.

Todd Jones was 'Todd Jones' in the 9th, which I guess is fine since he gets the job done.

[Tay the Cat]

hmmm, new look for the Diamondbacks, I like it. 10 yrs in, I understand the change to scare up new revenue on merchandising.

Unfortunately nobody in Arizona does. Me being one of them.

[Condiment King]

Unfortunately nobody in Arizona does. Me being one of them.

Yeah, the uniforms are godawful ugly.

I like how the Mets sweep the Cardinals and rather than say, "Hey, the Mets rotation isn't as bad as we thought maybe," they say, "Man, these Cardinals sure can't hit anything, even the Mets' pitching!"

[BCVM22]

Yeah, the uniforms are godawful ugly.

I like how the Mets sweep the Cardinals and rather than say, "Hey, the Mets rotation isn't as bad as we thought maybe," they say, "Man, these Cardinals sure can't hit anything, even the Mets' pitching!"

I think that your choice of whomever "they" are has far more to do with that than anything that actually happened between the white lines.

[Duke]

Well, Bonds has his first homer of the year (Thankfully this means no lengthy "When will Bonds hit his first homer?" discussions), so, of course, ESPN will start its daily Baseball Tonight interruptions where we'll see every single Bonds at-bat. Joy.

Speaking of Bonds, he and Ken Griffey Jr., among others, will be the representatives of their respective teams on Jackie Robinson Day on April 15th. Each team will field one representative who will wear the number 42 for that day only. Surprised Bug Selig actually let Bonds wear the number. I know it has nothing to do with the homerun chase, but considering everyone in the business side is downplaying Bonds as much as possible, I'm a bit surprised he was the one chosen.

Finally, MLB has reached an agreement which will allow the "Extra Innings" package remain on DirecTV while also allowing MLB to launch their channel onto 40 million basic cable homes in 2009. For once, MLB trumped the NFL.

[Fan of Sponge]

Well good news outside of the diamond for cable television fans who order Extra Innings for this year. The deal with Indemand, Direct TV, and the cable companies completed a deal late last night. Anyways here are the details:http://redsox.bostonherald.com/other...ticleid=192971

This will make my Dad and myself happy as he will be able to watch all of out of market teams we don't get like the Yankees and Red Sox when he goes to the cable company tomorrow. We got Sportstime Ohio a few weeks ago so our Indians games aren't blacked out anymore.

As for my team, the Reds, it's too early to tell how they will do. They can stink it up by June or hang in the race till September.

[BCVM22]

Complete list of MLB players and coaches to honor Jackie Robinson on April 15, courtesy of MLB.com:

Angels: Gary Matthews Jr.
Astros: All players
Athletics: Milton Bradley
Blue Jays: Vernon Wells, Frank Thomas, Royce Clayton and hitting coach Mickey Brantley
Braves: Andruw Jones
Brewers: All players
Cardinals: All players
Cubs: Derrek Lee, Cliff Floyd, Jacque Jones and Daryle Ward
Devil Rays: Carl Crawford
Diamondbacks: Orlando Hudson
Dodgers: All players
Giants: Barry Bonds
Indians: Josh Barfield, Grady Sizemore and C.C. Sabathia
Mariners: Arthur Rhodes
Marlins: Dontrelle Willis
Mets: Manager Willie Randolph
Nationals: Dmitri Young
Orioles: Corey Patterson
Padres: Mike Cameron
Phillies: All players
Pirates: All players
Rangers: Manager Ron Washington
Red Sox: Coco Crisp
Reds: Ken Griffey Jr.
Rockies: LaTroy Hawkins
Royals: Reggie Sanders, Emil Brown
Tigers: Gary Sheffield, Curtis Granderson, Marcus Thames, Craig Monroe and hitting coach Lloyd McClendon
Twins: Torii Hunter, Rondell White and first-base coach Jerry White
White Sox: Jermaine Dye, first-base coach Harold Baines and third-base coach Razor Shines
Yankees: Mariano Rivera (uniform No. 42 grandfathered in 1997), Robinson Cano, Derek Jeter and manager Joe Torre

[FireStarterLE]

Missed todays games being that it was kinda early, but I do like the fact that they're 3-0 (yeah J.Roll right now you guys are the team to beat ... you and the nationals) and I also like that the offense got together for a team effort in the win. What I didn't like was all the walks, there is no need to be pitching erratically like that in the 9th.

Hopefully be a fun series vs. the mets this weekend

[Duke]

The Diamondbacks should be thankful Bergman was so wild in the first inning, what with having to throw 50 pitches in the first inning and giving up 3 runs, since they had practically no offense after that. Hariston's foul ball to the knee looked like it was really painful.