After the long dark winter of our discontent, and background noise about games with oversized and misshapen balls, the new season has finally arrived. Sports Illustrated picks the Angels to beat the Dodgers in the first Freeway World Series, and even such sabermatic stalwarts as ESPN's Rob Neyer pick the Angels to win their division. Sports Illustrated aside, few are picking the Dodgers, and that's great with me. After two games, the Angels are 2 - 0, the Dodgers 0 - 2. Just the way I like it.For the Angels, this is a turnover year. Darin Erstad, Tim Salmon, and Adam Kennedy, stars of the 2002 World Championship, are gone, but a highly touted crop of young prospects has finally matured: Howie Kendrick (second base) and Casey Kotchman (first base) look to be stars in their own right; their young catchers, Mike Napoli and Jeff Mathis, are coming into their own, and they still have Brandon Wood and Dallas McPherson waiting in the triple-A wings. Garret Anderson, the remaining veteran, is apparantly healthier than he's been in several years. Their starting pitching is as solid as it gets: Bartolo Colon, Jered Weaver, John Lackey, Ervin Santana, and Kelvim Escobar. Their bullpen is lights-out: Justin Speier, Scot Shields, and K-Rod (Frankie Rodriguez).
The dark cloud on the horizon: Colon and Weaver are both recovering from injuries. For the first half of April, Joe Saunders and Dustin Moseley will be starting in their place. Are Colon and Weaver really going to come all the way back? Will Joe Saunders, Dustin Moseley, and Hector Carrosco be able to cover them if they don't? But even in the worse case, I don't see Texas, Seattle, or arch-rival Oakland winning more games.
Ahh, the joys - the sunny perspective - of Spring...
3 comments:
I don't know anything about baseball, and I don't follow it at all. And still I fondly remember the play-offs we watched a couple of years ago. Where the White Socks beat the Yankees in a spectacular way. That was an absolute world-class thriller.
It left me to be a White Socks fan forever, even though I never watch them play, don't follow anything they're doing, and don't know the name of any player in the team.
And I was really impressed at how quickly you, a Dutchman, picked up on the nuances of the sport. As I recall, you said that baseball was taught in Netherland schools.
But it was the Red Sox (of Boston) we watched trample the Yankees together in 2004, going on to win the World Series. The White Sox (of Chicago)won the World Series the following year.
Aha, different colour... Good thing that the White Socks won the following year. But I am a lifetime fan of the Red Socks (of Boston, indeed).
At school in the Netherlands the occasional baseball game is played. Not very seriously at all, and very infrequently. And we don't go into US teams and such at all (not in any teams at all, actually). Baseball is also never on television over here.
It is an addictive game, and I think I picked it up a bit because you told me a lot about it, and I looked up a lot on the internet.
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