Relax, Plaschke!

The thing I love about LA Times sportswriter, Bill Plaschke is his misplaced emotion, excitement and sentimentality. The thing I hate about him are his misplaced emotion, excitement and sentimentality. After a solid, but modest win against the minor league caliber San Diego Daddies in the season opener, Plaschke proclaimed that all the Dodgers' questions were answered and alluded to the October pop! of champagne bottles. Kemp homered and looked more selective. THAT game. (though he was badly fooled his first AB) Manny caused a little havoc on the bases. Loney hit in the clutch. Kuroda held his own through 5 2/3 and the bullpen didn't implode, with strong outings by Wade, Kuo and Broxton. The Blue were well on their way to an undefeated season. ... until last night when they stunk.

Randy Wolf looked just like I said he'd look: mediocre to bad. Okay, so it was just one game. No "I told you so's" from this blogger. I'm sure he'll pitch a gem this weekend. Then he'll stink again. Because he's Randy Wolf. The bats looked way off. Manny was being Andruw Jones and, like I predicted, Casey Blake, in spite of a weak sac fly, left many, many men on base as he flailed away. Furcal and Hudson lost that Opening Day magic from 27 hours prior and stunk. Ethier looked etherial. In other words, he seemed to be anethetized - sleepwalking through the game, offensively and defensively. Nice jump, Andre. Way to turn a double or an out into a triple in the 1st. Know Manny's the best hitter on the team, but wonder how long this Manny hitting 3rd, Ethier batting clean-up thing is gonna go on. Am I the only one who remembers how Ethier hit when he was batting IN FRONT of Manny last year??

Guillermo Mota looked a little shaky in his Dodger "re-debut" but the rest of the new pen - Ohman and Belasario, looked fine. Bottom line, they're 1-1 after having lost to one of the weakest starting lineups I've seen since the 1969 expansion Seattle Pilots. The season is now a mere 160 games long. They need to play much, much better in order to win the 89-93 games necessary to win the West. So, at least for April, hold off on that bubbly, Mr. Bubbly.

At least the season has begun and I can concentrate on baseball and get my mind off some of the little annoyances life has to offer of late. By the way, anyone got a place for me to live? Something to eat, maybe?