The second game of the season is the toughest sell all year. Pretty much any normal person with a reasonable and appropriate amount of interest in baseball has just been to Opening Day, and there isn't necessarily all that much interest in making it two days in a row. I could always get a dozen or so people up for Opening Day; the next day, not so much. This is understandable, and probably also, like, correct. So on day two, you really start to get the lay of the land, start to see what it's going to be like not on those rare forty-thousand-plus nights, but what it will look like when the Royals are in on a Tuesday night: oh OK, cool, there are only going to be about a dozen other people in my preferred section of the 500s; my nemesis, the really fat guy who is always getting his Mr. Sub all over himself and yells these really, really long things at the players -- "Hey Chone Figgins you suck today just like the last time you were in town which was an overcast day in July but before that you played well the previous series but I still didn't like you and I yelled something at least this long at you then oh shit I just got my Mr. Sub all over me and my promotional Mr. Sub sportsbag just a second" -- will again be joining me in the cheap seats this year; and oh hey, there's
Maureen the cheerleading usher: "When I say [x], you say hit! [x]! Hit! [x]! Hit! [x]! Hit! Hit! Hit!"
What I am saying here is that the day after Opening Day is opening day for the most dedicated fans, the true hardcores. It is Opening Day for Hardcores. It is Hardcore Opening Day. It is the Hardcore Home Opener. It is Hardcore HomO Day.
MLB actually kind of nailed it, though, by opening up on Thursday/Friday this year instead of a Monday, so the second game of the season falls on a day where someone other than my nemesis and I might want to take in a ballgame. So instead of the usual twelve thousand or so, there were 27,194 at the game yesterday watching Kyle Drabek throw smoke. (Morrow was supposed to get the start, but is missing at least one with arm trouble that is in absolutely in no way serious at all so I don't need to worry, right?) Drabek took a no-hitter into the sixth, struck out seven (including three of the first four), walked three, and allowed only one-hit over seven innings, and it was an inside-out kind of thing. Nobody really hit him all that hard all day -- that little opposite field bloop was pretty much the only thing that got out of the infield. It . . . it was awesome.
In the end, the solo home runs from Jayson Nix and Jose Molina (any offensive production you get out of a Molina is of course "gravy" [lol they are heavyset]) were all that was needed, but what I was more excited about on the offensive side was that Adam Lind totally got a hit off a lefty! And he drove another pitch to the wall. If Lind does anything at all against lefties this year, there is hope for him. Travis Snider hit a rad pinch-hit two-RBI double, powered by this astoundingly shitty mustache:
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| Don't hate me because I am shitty looking. |
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That picture is actually from Opening Day, but trust me when I tell you it didn't get any less shitty on day two.
I will leave you for now with the following exchange between Jerry Howarth and Alan Ashby, who really summed up the day perfectly:
JH: Well, Kyle Drabek, congratulations, young man! You're 23, the world is your oyster! And you have just won your first major league game, and what do you do to earn it? Seven innings, you give up one run on one hit, and win it 6-1, wow!
AA: You got me hungry for oysters right now, and some good baseball, which I think is coming our way with these Jays.
Exactly.
KS
