Hardball Heaven

That's what it was for the Red Sox on Monday as they stumbled badly out of the gate and dropped an ugly 7-1 decision to the Royals. There really were no highlights, save for an early RBI double from Big Papi that gave the Sox an early lead. After that, it was all about bad baserunning, bad pitching, and a complete lack of offense. It's only one game, I know, but trust me when I say it was a DISMAL opener. It was worse than that awful mustache there on Curt's face way back when.

Even worse for the boys, they had to wait an extra day - in Kansas City, no less - to atone for Monday's stinkbomb. Tonight we get to see if Josh Beckett has fixed what ailed him last year. He goes against lefty Odalis Perez in what is a must-win (kidding - kinda) for the Sox.

Other Opening Day observations and notes:

- Tremendous pitching performances turned in by the Mariners' Felix Hernandez (shutout, 3-hitter, 12 k's) and Milwaukee's Ben Sheets (CG, 2 hits)

- The Yankees wasted no time putting some crooked numbers on the board, plating 9 guys against the Devil Dogs. Whatever the record for runs in a season is, the Yanks are going to obliterate it

- My top pitcher on my roto team is already friggin' hurt. Cards' ace Chris Carpenter turned in a shaky performance on Monday and is experiencing some pain in his throwing elbow. Word so far is that it isn't serious. Those who say roto isn't all about luck are flat-out wrong

- The Mets are going to be awfully damn good this year -- and the Nationals are going to be awfully damn bad

- As far as our local squad, I'm worried. We've got three guys in our lineup that no pitcher wants to face (Ortiz, Manny, Drew) while the Yanks have at least 7 or 8

- I still can't believe we traded Hanley Ramirez. It reeks of Jeff Bagwell for Larry Andersen in '88