NATS (1-0) BETTER THAN BRAVES TODAY

 another season 
 of Washington Nationals 
 baseball feels begins 

 Ultimate Harper homers 
 in first at-bat; shit is lit 

Indians 4, Blue Jays 1: Yes But Also Baseball

Jose Bautista, seen here looking like I feel whenever I think about Jose Bautista

Tonight was a judo night, which is a night even more sacred than a baseball night -- even, indeed(s), a baseball opening night -- so I didn't really catch any of the game except that except except except when I got in the car to go to judo there was totally baseball on the radio and when I got back in after judo there was totally also baseball on the radio and sure the Blue Jays were losing and it didn't sound at all awesome in that respect however the out-of-town update revealed that Yu Darvish had been striking out all of the Astros and was perfect through a substantial number of innings and on the whole my thoughts and indeed my feelings were like baseball yusssssss.

KS

Blue Jays 7, Indians 4 (F/16): Blue Jays Open Their 2012 Championship Season with the Longest Opening Day Game in Major League History

maybe baseball is impossibly beautiful, big deal

It began as all epic journeys begin: with dudes like, quick, Poseidon isn't around, let's get this shit going before he gets back and is mad. In fact it was nothing like that at all, but it ended up being really great! I will not fault Ricky Romero for being far less than his best on this day, as it was really cold and windy in Cleveland, and I am not at my best under those conditions either. For the longest time, what we were looking at here was a 4-1 game in which Romero had been tagged for a three-run shot, and Blue Jay bats had been stifled except for the unstoppably amazingly great Jose Bautista who is the best and who homered. 


But then a rad top of the ninth pretty much fell out of the sky: Yunel Escobar singled, Kelly Johnson did likewise, and a Bautista shot to centre was knocked down by the wind and ended up a sac fly rather than his second round tripper of the day. Adam Lind was up next, and I pretty much lost it (in my brain) when he looked at a fastball for a strike on a 3-1 pitch, like, I was thinking thoughts like "3-1 and a chance to tie it in the ninth you've got to be swinging like a big dog Adam Lind like a big dog" and I don't know what that means exactly but I really felt it. But he walked!  And was sensibly pinch-run for, because say what you will about Rajai Davis, but that guy can run fast. He had occasion to pretty much right away, too, as E5 got a hold of one, doubling off the wall on another one knocked down by the wind (Edwin came out of the box like yep there it is, a dinger but in the end it was not). 


And then it was 4-4 pretty much forever. The coolest thing that happened during all of the scorelessness that followed was definitely when John Farrell turned into Mike Scosia for a minute and brought sure-handed forty-four-year-old Omar Vizquel into the game as a fifth infielder and the Blue Jays turned a double play to get out of a seriously sticky spot in the twelfth. (One time the Angels did that in Toronto! Chone Figgins got a different glove!) My vote for the least cool thing to happen during of all of that scorelesness was when Rajai Davis bunted terribly and then froze in the batter's box instead of running and made me so mad that I don't even know man. 


But then! J. P. Arencibia -- who way, way earlier in the game did a cool thing where he scrambled after a pitch in the dirt and dove to tag out Shin Soo "Big League" Choo at the plate -- hit a three-run home run in the top of the sixteenth after attempting to bunt on the previous pitch. Had he not bunted that first one foul, who can say? Who can know? Also, while we are asking questions: how must it have felt to have sat out in the cold in Cleveland for sixteen innings to watch your side lose like that?


Anyway, what a great way to start the season, if you are either the Toronto Blue Jays or me. I would like to tip my hat (I am not wearing a hat, but I have been enjoying watermelon Big League Chew, which is in my view a greater act of baseball fandom) to the Toronto bullpen, because eleven innings of shut-out baseball is awesome even if it is only Cleveland. Let's hear it, too, at least a little, for Colby Rasmus, who made a terrific diving grab in centre early on (he just straight up missed one for an error later, but let's not dwell). And while J. P. Arencibia is totally the home run hero on the day, let us note, finally, that Jose "@JoeyBatts19" Bautista went 3-4 with a HR, 2 BB, and a sacrifice fly. Because he is the best hitter.


Yours in baseball,


KS

it sure was!

Nationals Opening Day!

Last year I started the season saying it was a quest for .500, and the Nationals ended up 80-81, starting to reach relevancy. This year, though the excitement is much higher, and Senor Strasburg has given us an Opening Day Strasmas, and the large shadow of The Ultimate Harper looms from Triple-A over the upcoming summer months, and there has been talk bandied about of possible wild card appearances (especially now since the wild card has been cheapened with an unbalanced 5th team per league… so stupid, and I don’t mean the extra playoff teams but the idiotic unbalanced structure they went to, which goes 1000% against the natural mathematical nerdery that is deeply woven into baseball’s freak tapestry), I think it is important to just say to ourselves, shoot for .500. Sure, we can hope for more promise and more googly eyes towards the future, but this is a young team with a pitching staff made of unproven cyborgs and veteran frankensteins, and a team full of positional prospects that still need to pan out as golden nuggets. And if everything goes halfway right, then the Nationals should be able to win half their games.
It is important to look across the field on this Opening Day, at those sad bastard Chicago Cubs, who have had potential and promise time and time again turn into a hermaphroditic goat, fellating itself upon the dreams of hapless Cubs fans worldwide (who are perhaps the blackest rimmed most hipster goofus fanbase in the Universe). Hell, it’s hard not to cringe in memory of Kerry Wood every time Strasburg’s intense man-boyish goatee is hurling the ol’ Thor testicle at another batter. (By the way, in an effort to convince myself that baseball is more manly and agreeable to my genetic viking spirit, I have pretended that “Thor testicle” is an old slang term for a baseball, even signing up for assorted baseball-related –pedia sites to edit it into older pages. I hope you will help support that effort. Let’s not question the manliness of clutching a man’s testicle for sport though. I did not give it much thought and had been listening to a lot of Ghostface Killah’s Ironman CD at the time.) I mean, the Nationals have only been in D.C. for a handful of years, and are only two World Series titles behind the Cubs at this point, but that has been a long, hard row to hoe for the Chicago Cubs franchise, full of frustration and crushed hopes.
But this afternoon we all start fresh, and the Nationals kick-off their 2012 season, one that has a wide-eyed, shit-eating grin towards the future. This season is foreplay, so if the vaginal cavity of professional baseball is properly lubricated and ready for the Nationals to fuck shit up this postseason, then so be it; I will not frown upon such a thing. But also, 81-81 is still a good benchmark to aim for. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s just try to be better than the Cubs.

3-4

Ooooooooooh yeeeeeeeaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh DIG IT!

Craig Robinson on Home Openers

Click to make it readable.


KS

Blue Jays 13, Twins 3, and the heart soars.

"Blue Jays Spank Twins," the ESPN headline, was surpassed in luridness only by the Globe and Mail's "Blue Jays Thump Twins in Opener." What a night, though. The on-field ceremony for Pat Gillick and Roberto Alomar, who now have Hall of Fame banners hanging next to the World Series pennants, was pretty neat. Alomar talked about how pleased he was to be headed to the Hall of Fame as a member of the "Blue Yays," which is actually the preferred pronunciation, and Gillick gets full marks for referencing Halifax ("from Halifax to Vancouver" has to be understood as a deliberate slight against Victoria and St. John's, though, right?). They even brought out Baseball Feelings-favourite Bert Blyleven, which was a nice touch. And Jose Bautista was awarded the pretty baller Silver Slugger trophy.  All good things.


And then the Blue Yays hit everything, and it ruled, and they made Carl Pavano (was anyone dissed harder in The Yankee Years?) look awful.  Well, he kind of did that to himself: his breaking stuff didn't exactly break, he left balls out over the plate, and he even got rattled and balked. These things happen, and when they do, it is awesome. J. P. Arencibia hit two home runs and a triple, Lind and Bautista went back to back, Davis and Escobar pulled off a double steal in the first, Romero pitched well into the seventh and totally would have gotten out of the inning had E5 not committed an egregious Edwin Encarnacion on a potential double play ball, and Casey Janssen made a ridiculous diving play and little scoop toss to first to end the eighth. Awesome.  Just . . . awesome.   


The crowd was as dumb as ever on Opening Day, with fights breaking out in the 500s and an endless stream of shit hitting the field and delaying the game. Opening Day almost always devolves into amateur hour in Toronto, and I'm not trying to be all "gentlemen, please, come now, etc." and wearing a monocle about it (OK maybe a really little one); I just hated when you'd be watching the game and then all of a sudden a couple of seats over there'd be a fight and then everybody's up and you can't see the field, and the fight itself is never even interesting because the guy whose sitting in the higher row always wins because he's punching downhill.  Frankly, it's not sporting.   


But baseball is!  Let's play like at least 161 more games of it!   


KS