The more things change...

Unfortunately, the more they stay the same. Painful. At least it wasn't Dotel, the guy we paid all the money to NOT blow saves, in the game. It was just Riske. But he was supposed to be good too! Whatever. My theory is this: there are only about 10-12 guys in baseball that NO MATTER WHAT you turn the ball over to them in the 9th with a lead. I believe that if the guy you put in in the 8th is blowing them away, STICK WITH HIM. If you have Rivera, put him in. If you have Papelbon, put him in. Maybe BJ Ryan, maybe Street, probably K-Rod. Not David Riske. I have no problem with David Riske pitching, but if you have a guy in the game that dominated the 8th, and the guy (Joakim Soria) hasn't allowed a run this year yet anyway, let him pitch the 9th. Ok, I'm off my soap box.

Well, so far it seems like this season has been right about the exact opposite of what I thought. I went into the season thinking,"Even though we don't have any pitching, the middle of our lineup will get us some wins, with Teahen, Sweeney, Gordon, and Shealy." Then, of course, are starters go out with a 2 ERA in the 1st six games and Sweeney, Gordon, and Shealy start 3-60. I know that looks like I'm exaggerating, but that's about right.

I went to 2 games last week, opening day and Greinke vs. Dice-K. Gotta love that KC weather, 85 degrees monday and 35 thursday. With all the hype around Dice-K, he and Greinke had about the same line: 7 IP, 1 ER, 8-10 K's. And Greinke K'ed Big Papi 3 times. It was beautiful. Hitting...not so beautiful.

CRAP!! We should be 3-3 against probably the best team in baseball and the defending AL champs. 2-4 just doesn't feel the same.

Side note: JJ and I went to opening day with our friends Jason and Danielle. They weren't keeping track like they usually do, but Jason threw the fastest pitch of the day at the "speed pitch" area. Usually, they list that on the scoreboard around the 7th inning. He threw 75 MPH. And he's left handed. Put him out there instead of Jimmy Gobble and no one would know the difference.

With all of our starters pitching well, I wonder what we'll do when Luke Hudson is back. Before everyone pitched it seemed obvious that it would be either De La Rosa or Duckworth. But right now, those 2 combined have thrown about 14 innings allowing 1 earned run. It better not be Greinke. I don't see how it would. It has always seemed to me that De La Rosa is the perfect 1 inning lefty out of the pen, or the lefty-lefty guy. That's a lot of lefties. Can I say lefty 34 more times, please? I still see our rotation as Meche, Perez, Greinke, Hudson, Elarton with De La Rosa and Duckworth taking Wellemeyer and Braun's places in the bullpen.

Whatever. None of this matters if we can't get the middle of our lineup over .150.