I will preface this post by saying that the results of opening day are really useless. There are 161 more games to play and, as the 2010 Giants and myriad of other teams can attest, a whole lot changes from April to October. The countless videos and articles on sites like ESPN.com talking about the meaning of the Cardinals 3 errors yesterday are just filling airtime (or site-time as it may be) and are a symptom of the ridiculous 24-hour news cycle we value so much. That said, allow me to overanalyze yesterday’s games:
Yankees 6- Tigers 3: Mark Teixeira hit a home run perhaps indicating that he may not suffer 
from his usual April allergy to offensive success. Neither CC Sabathia or Justin Verlander looked particularly sharp but its just opening day and that doesn’t really matter. The Yankees rebuilt bullpen worked like a charm with Joba Chamberlain going the 7th, Rafael Soriano the 8th, and Mo Rivera the 9th to nail down the win. The Yankees are on pace to go 162-0 and I for one think they can do it.
Braves 2- Nationals 0: Derek Lowe looked as good as Ian Desmond looked bad. Jayson Werth had a hit in his first at bat with the Nats, I think he’ll have a big year. Johnny Venters and Craig Kimbrel are absolutely filthy and single handedly (double handedly?) make the Braves bullpen very formidable. Danny Espinosa had 2 hits which according to ESPN probably means he’ll hit .500 this year.
Angels 4- Royals 2: Didn’t watch this one, sorry.
Reds 7- Brewers 6: A walkoff home run isn’t a bad way to start a season. John Axford better shake off an opening day blown save because he’s important to this team going forward. Although I think all opening day games mean very little, this one is particularly meaningless because its so strange. Obviously very few games are going to play out this way for either team so I don’t think we learned a whole lot. Maybe the Reds can ride the high from this one and play well the next couple of days though. The one thing to take away from this game is that Edison Volquez struggled. Hopefully, that’s not a sign of things to come.
Padres 5- Cardinals 3, 11 innings: I didn’t watch this one either but Albert Pujols went 0-5. Who thinks thats indicative of what his season will be? Me neither.
Dodgers2- Giants 1: Clayton Kershaw and Tim Lincecum are great. Brandon Belt will be.
-Max Frankel
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