The Blue Workhorse

Opening Day is one of the most glorious days in sports, despite the fact that MLB tried to ruin it by having an opening series in Japan and then by having a one game series (yea, that’s not even possible Major League Baseball - a series means multiple) in Washington.

Now that all the teams and players have each put on the uniform for the first official games of the season, and to honor the first true day of the MLB schedule, we make initial observations on every team about what we saw on Opening Day after watching some games and examining boxscores:

Thankfully for the Seattle Mariners, when they lost 15 of their last 17 games last season and ran themselves out of a possible playoff berth, they were overlooked because a team in New York was having an even more colossal collapse. After all was said and done, the M’s ended up 6 games behind the division champ Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, or whatever they want to call themselves.

This offseason Seattle made sure they had a pitching staff that wouldn’t be able to go through the rotation more than 3 times with only two wins. They traded for Erik Bedard and Carlos Silva to bolster their pitching staff. However, LAA of A also made significant moves in the off-season by signing free agent Torii Hunter and trading away Orlando Cabrera to strengthen their starting rotation with Jon Garland.

The Red Sox, with two World Series titles in the last four years, are one of the favorites again this year. While the Red Sox are looking for championship titles, other division rivals have other goals: the Toronto Blue Jays are looking to move pass either the Red Sox or Yankees and get back into the top two in the division. However, they may have to hold off the upstart Tampa Bay (no longer Devil) Rays just to keep the #3 slot. The Rays first goal will be to finish above .500 for the first time in team history, but greater goals are just beyond the horizon.

In terms of a fantasy impact, expect his rations to be solid again this year. Bedard posted a WHIP of 1.09 and his BAA (Batting Average Against) fell from .258 to .212 (from 2006 to 2007), while pitching in the tough American League East where he was facing the monstrous lineups of New York and Boston.

Bedard brings a deceptive delivery with a plus fastball, and teaming with Mel Stottlemyre, Seattle’s new pitching coach, should help him as well.