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No games were played in the NBA last night so today’s recap will focus on opening day in the MLB season:

Firstly two games were postponed due to bad weather with some pundits asking why the decision was made to start Boston’s and Chicago’s season at home when the weather was more likely to be bad rather than away to teams in the Sun Belt, where the weather would have been fine.

So the first game actually played on Monday was between the New York Mets and the Cincinnati Reds in Cincinnati, the first game in a three game series. Most teams started with their main pitchers for opening day and the Mets weren’t different. Johan Santana pitched 5.2 innings in which time he struck out 7 Reds batters and only gave up 3 hits and 1 run, the only run scored by Cincy in the whole game.

On a cold day in Ohio the Mets just sneaked this one due to the Reds poor batting and managed to win 2-1 despite leaving 12 men on base all game. Left fielder Daniel Murphy hit a home run in the 5th and ground out in the 6th in a play that saw Luis Castillo score from third for the Mets winning run before Brandon Phillips replied in the bottom of the 6th with a sac. fly that scored Darnell McDonald.

Next up Texas made easy work of the Cleveland Indians in Texas, winning 9-1. The damage was done mostly in the 2nd innings when Rangers catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia (that’s easy for you to say!) singled to right to send Blalock and Byrd to home plate before Kinsler singled to shallow left center to send the aforementioned Saltalamacchia and Andrus through to score. By the time Cleveland did manage to get their solitary run it was too little, too late, by that time Texas were up 7-0 and the Rangers then proceeded to score two more runs with Saltalamacchia getting himself a homer before Young had an RBI single. Kinsler ended the day 3 for 5 with 2 RBIs and a run. Rangers’ pitcher Kevin Millwood managed to complete 7 innings, striking out 5 and only giving up the one run to collect the win.

In Arizona the Diamondbacks ground out a victory in an opening day thriller at Chase Field, 9-8, over the Colorado Rockies. There were a total of 22 hits in this game and 8 home runs in a real shootout in the mid-West. I don’t think anyone wants to see the pitching stats so we’ll just look at the batting stats where D’Backs third baseman Chad Tracy hit 3 of 4 for 2 runs and 2 RBIs and tied Rockies right fielder Brad Hawpe for the game’s best stats, Hawpe also went 3 of 4 for 3 RBIs and 1 run.

In Baltimore the Orioles had their fans dreaming of a shot at the play-offs later this year with a strong performance over the Yankees. The O’s batting line-up managed to send C.C Sabathia packing after only 4.1 innings, Sabathia gave up 8 hits, 6 earned runs and 5 walks and no strike outs before being replaced while opposing pitcher Jeremy Guthrie completed 6 innings but gave up 7 hits and 3 earned runs despite earning the win, the Orioles won this one 10-5.

A total of 18 runs were scored in Florida as the Washington Nationals fell to the Marlins 12-6. Most of the damage was done in the first 3 Marlins’ innings with 6 of their 12 being scored, after these 3 horror innings Nationals’ starter John Lannan was rightly taken out of the game after giving up 2 home runs and 6 earned runs but no Nats’ pitcher really got a hold of the game. Ricky Nolasco earned the win but gave up 6 hits and 4 earned runs in a batter’s game.

Pittsburgh stunned the St.Louis Cardinals in the top of the 9th to win 6-4 at Busch Stadium in the first of a three game series. Trailing 4-2 thanks to a Ryan Ludwick homer and a Ad LaRoche RBI in the 8th the Pirates rallied thanks to 3 RBI double from Jack Wilson when the bases were loaded. Paul Maholm threw 6.2 innings for the Pirates, giving up only 1 earned run and 7 hits but failed to get the win, that was claimed by John Grabow who only completed .2 innings before Matt Capps earned his first save of the season by closing out the bottom of the 9th and striking out one.

The team from the North side of Chicago won their first game of the season in the first game of their 3 game series in Houston thanks to second baseman Mike Fontenot’s 2 runs and a early surge from the Cubs that saw them 3-0 up by the end of the 4th innings. Carlos Zambrano pitched 6 innings for the Cubbies and struck 6 out and allowing only 1 earned run to collect the win before Kevin Gregg earned the save in the 9th innings.

James Loney’s 2 RBIs set up the Dodgers for their first road win of the season at San Diego along with a strong pitching performance from Hiroki Kuroda, who only gave up 1 earned run. Loney hit 3 of 4 and including the first two Los Angeles runs in the 1st inning before Jonathon Broxton got the save late on to close out this 4-1 win.

Another team hoping for a good first half of the season to finally push for the American League play-offs are the Toronto Blue Jays. Their star pitcher Roy Halladay put in a strong performance to delight the home crowd and frustrate Detroit in a strange game where there had to be a 10 minute delay in the bottom of the 8th due to fans throwing objects onto the outfield. Toronto won this one 12-5 after an explosive first innings when they scored 4 runs before an even better 4th innings when they scored 5 including a Travis Snider home run. Halladay kept the Tigers at bay for 6 innings before giving up 4 runs in the 7th, despite this the Jays had enough firepower to see off the Tigers and their star batter in this game was Adam Lind who was 4 of 5 on the day and batted in 6 runs.

The Seattle Mariners shocked the Minnesota Twins in the first game of the season winning 6-1 away from home in a series where the Twins were heavily favoured to sweep.  The Mariners pulled away in the 6th when Franklin Gutierrez scored a 2 run homer to center field before scoring two more in the 9th to see the game out. Most pundits are predicting a long season for the Mariners but they’ll take heart from wins like this and will hope to take at least one game in every road series.

Finally the L.A Angels coasted to victory at home to the Oakland Athletics, 3-0, on the back of a solid pitching performance by Joe Saunders who completed 6.2 innings while giving up only 3 hits in a tame batting performance by the A’s. Howie Kendrick was responsible for the majority of the Angels’ 3 runs scoring an RBI single in the 3rd before hitting a homer in the 5th. The Angels will hope to sweep the Athletics to signal their intent in the AL West.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 11:50 pm and is filed under MLB Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.