by Tommy Gimler
Major League Baseball’s opening week and a half featured four Opening Days, one streaker, and something that hasn’t happened since 1966.
Stud Team: Tampa Bay Rays
All six Tampa Bay Rays fans enjoyed their Easter weekend as the Rays were one of five teams to start the year with a 3-game sweep at home. What makes the Rays’ sweep the most impressive is that it came against the Yankees, a team that had just as many if not more fans in the seats. Tampa Bay’s pitching staff held one of the most potent offenses in check, holding the Yankees to a .212 batting average and only five extra-base hits. The Rays’ offense shelled Yankees’ ace CC Sabathia and beat Mariano Rivera in the same game. For the series, Tampa Bay hit .302, scored 18 runs, slugged .563, and finished 11th out 15 teams in attendance.
Runner Up: Detroit Tigers, Arizona Diamondbacks
DUD Team: Atlanta Braves
Somebody cue the Titanic theme because this ship is going down. ESPN’s Dan Szymborski predicted the Atlanta Braves would finish 2nd in the NL East. That’s not going to happen if you hit .151 and score seven runs against, wait for it, the New York Mets. The Braves have now lost 21 of their last 30 games dating back to September 1 of last year.
Runner Up: Minnesota Twins
Surprise Stud Team: Kansas City Royals
The Kansas City Royals are 2-1 through three games for two reasons: Ned Yost hasn’t done anything stupid and Yuniesky Betancourt hasn’t made an error. Albert Pujols finished the series with 3 hits and 3 walks for the Angels, but he failed to score and only drove in one run.
Runner Up: Baltimore Orioles
Surprise DUD Team: Colorado Rockies
The Colorado Rockies’ Jamie Moyer is almost old enough to get a free cup of coffee at Perkins, so it shouldn’t be shocking that the Astros took that game. But to lose two of three against Carlos Lee and his kids is unacceptable.
Runner Up: San Francisco Giants
He said that? New Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen in Time magazine regarding Fidel Castro:
“I respect Fidel Castro. You know why? Many people have tried to kill Fidel Castro in the last 60 years, yet that son of a bitch is still there.”
The DUD’s take: Stupid is as stupid does. Ozzie Guillen has said many stupid things before, but this takes the cake. Might as well show up at your next presser draped in a Confederate flag and talk about how awesome Hitler and Stalin were, too.
He said that in response? ESPN’s Dan Le BeTard on the Guillen quote:
“This is the worst possible thing that Ozzie Guillen could have said. I can’t think of anything else, given the customers, that would have been worse.”
The DUD’s take: No it isn’t. Guillen could have said that he would love to smoke a few stogies with Castro while they burn innocent Cuban refugees and their children on every street corner in Havana, and I’m pretty sure that would have been worse.
Stud Player: Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera finished the weekend with numbers fatter than Prince Fielder: .455 BA, .533 OBP, 1.273 slugging, 1.806 OPS, 3 HR’s, 8 RBI, 5 runs, and 3 BB.
Runners Up: David Freese, Evan Longoria, Kyle Lohse
DUD Player: Toronto SS Yunel Escobar had only two hits in 19 at-bats for a .105 batting average. He also struck out five times.
Runner Up: Jayson Werth, Alex Gordon, Ike Davis, Josh Beckett, Yovani Gallardo
DUD Trivia
Help Me, Daddy
Is Colby Rasmus’s father Ronnie Milsap? Rasmus’s hitting coach is his father, and after going 0 for 7 on Opening Day, the former Cardinals CF might want to shop elsewhere. Rasmus joined Indians’ 1B Casey Kotchman to become the first two players to go 0 for 7 on Opening Day since the Detroit Tigers’ Frank Bolling in 1959.
Wicked Pissah
The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox are both 0-3 for the first time since 1966. The last time the Yankees started the season 0-3, they won the 1998 World Series. The last time the Red Sox opened 0-3, and ironically I’m currently choking on my chicken sandwich, was last year.
Hey, Verlander: Below Me
Detroit Tigers pitcher Duane Below became only the third Tigers reliever since 1918 to pick up relief wins in two of the Tigers’ first three games in a season. Paul Gibson in 1991 and Tom Morgan in 1960 are the other two to accomplish the feat.
How The DUD’s Over/Under Bets Look:
Milwaukee Brewers OVER 81.5 wins – DAMN
LA Angels of Anaheim OVER 89.5 wins – DAMN
Kansas City Royals UNDER 78.5 wins – DAMN
Houston Astros UNDER 62.5 wins – DAMN
On pace for: 0-4
