Opening day

Ok, yes, officially the baseball season opened yesterday with the Mets and Cardinals, but as far as I'm concerned the baseball season opens at about 4:00 this afternoon, when the Red Sox play the Royals.

I haven't had time to write much other than software and academic papers recently, but I'm certainly going to be doing weekly Pythagorean reports starting Monday, and I'm going to try to be posting more than just those. I will, I think, have to start writing shorter here, rather than the long format which I'm more comfortable with. But I'm still here and still functional and still looking forward to the baseball season.

A couple of odds and ends:

- This Red Sox team has the potential to be not just a good team, but a great one. The top five in the batting order will be on base as much as any team's top five. There has been a lot of concern expressed about the bottom of the order - I'm not concerned. I expect good things from both Coco Crisp and Dustin Pedroia, and think that both Varitek and Lowell will be acceptable. All in all, they'll score a lot of runs.

- The pitching rotation will be good. The bullpen will be fine. The defense will be better than last year, with Pedroia an upgrade over Loretta and Lugo not a downgrade over Gonzalez. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth about the SS defense, and Lugo will certainly make more errors than Gonzalez did, but he'll also get to more balls, which no one in the media will notice.

- My prediction: The Red Sox win 97 games and the AL East. The Yankees win 93 and the AL Wild Card. The Blue Jays, Orioles and Devil Rays all will between 75 and 85 games.

- I haven't had a chance to follow things closely this spring, so I've no idea why Carl Pavano will be starting for the Yankees today. I know that Wang is hurt, but where's is Pettitte? Where is Mussina? Who else is in that starting rotation? They will score a ton of runs, but if Carl Pavano is starting on opening day, what does that say about the pitching?

- Early nomination for baseball quote of the year comes from The Baseball Crank last week: "The Hated Yankees have named Carl Pavano their Opening Day starter, I suppose on the theory that if they wait 4 more days he might not be available."


Play Ball!!