“Baseball’s Opening Week”

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“Bizarre”…that’s the only way to describe week one of the baseball season.

A look at some of the topics, the teams, the storylines:

PADRES…Me thinks it was a fractured Cactus League because so many players were gone to be part of the WBC.

The pitching setbacks are still bothering this team.  Joe Musgrove isn’t ready yet.  Adrian Morejon is gone for 10-weeks with elbow joint issues.  Drew Pomeranz continues to have setbacks in his comeback from elbow issues.  Craig Stammen’s shoulder capsule issue may end his career.  Nebil Crismatt and Luis Garcia both have ERA’s north of 16.00 so far.

There is no Fernando Tatis till April 20th.  Juan Soto started like he finished up last year in San Diego, poorly, with a (.190) average.  Teams are running on their catchers, stealing bases easily.

The first homestand is now complete, and I thought they would go (6-0), but they lost 3-games to the lowly Rockies and Diamondbacks.

Tuesday’s loss to Arizona was as strange as it could be.

Manny Machado was ejected in the first inning, on a pitch clock violation for standing in the box, as the clock got to (:08), he tried to call timeout to adjust his gloves.  The umpire said no, called an automatic strike three, leading to an argument and an ejection.

Yu Darvish danced in and out of trouble, going five innings in his first start, walking four, hitting two batters and throwing lots of pitches.  The bullpen gave up 7-runs in the game.  The Padres played kick ball, adding two errors to the boxscore.

Arizona stole 5-bases, stole home, leadoff man Josh Rojas had 3-hits.  Bottom of the order guy Geraldo Perdomo had 3-RBIs.

So as they packed their suitcases for a road trip to face the Braves and the Mets, they will give the ball on Thursday to Blake Snell, whose opening day start was a bad outing of walks and hits and a loss to Colorado.

Sure it is early in the season, but it’s not a complete team yet.
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DODGERS….A surprise start and new names doing well.

James Outman hitting (.280) with extra base hit power.  Trayce Thompson, 3-homers and 8RBIs in one game.  Miguel Rojas making lots of plays at shortstop like he did during his Gold Glove run with the Marlins.

Julio Urias and Clayton Kershaw started quick.  So did emergency starter Michael Grove.  Noah Syndegaard, after an up and down spring, went 6-strong innings and gave up just 1-run in his first start.

Yes it’s early in LA too, and they have opened the season against the bottom dwellers in Colorado and Arizona.

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ANGELS….Do we start with Shohei Ohtani or Anthony Rendon?

Showtime Shohei is hitting home runs and now is ready to make his next start of the season, coming off the spectacular games in the WBC.

The Halos are out of the gate quickly, battering the bad A’s, but also beating the Mariners in Seattle.

Ohtani-Mike Trout-Taylor Ward-Hunter Renfroe have all hit homers in week one.

As for Rendon, he sits thru the weekend after his confrontation with an A’s fan.  Two years of injuries, and he is not all the way back.  And now he is under the four game suspension for grabbing a heckler by the shirt and then slapping him on the way to the clubhouse.  Nice decision making by a so called leader.

Add into the mess with owner Arte Moreno, who has real bad relationship problems with the media.  Now we find out, Moreno is refusing to send his radio broadcasters on the road, to save 300,000 in travel expenses.  Make them do road games from home and take away their chance of working the clubhouse and being on the road with this team.

This comes after Moreno denigrated his Spanish broadcast crew the last two years, limiting access, removing them from their radio booth, and in essence failing to serve the large Hispanic community of Orange County.

Now the Angels order their flagship station, AM 830, which Moreno owns, to fire  an ‘insider reporter’ from the Athletic, for being negative about the team.  Nice credibility.

Early in the season, the Angels are doing well on the field, not so well off the field.

Week one in the books, who knows where all this goes.

A strange start, a bizarre week for the Friars-the Blue-the Halos.
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