It's Dave Bush vs. Zack Greinke. Gwynn will be starting in center, since Bud Selig sent Mike Cameron to his room without dessert. I don't think anybody doubted this, but it's now official that TGJ is your opening day starter.
I don't know if we're getting a Mug today, so consider this your catch-all thread until and unless we do:
- Both Greg Aquino and Dennis Sarfate have made the Orioles pen. Through some combination of pitching well and having no competition, Aquino appears to have worked his way into a set-up role.
- Jose Capellan, not so much. The Rockies demoted him.
- If you wondered just how bad the Johan Santana trade leaves the Twins this year, Livan Hernandez is their opening day starter. They will get Francisco Liriano back in a couple of weeks, though.
- The wild and woolly Cardinals outfield appears to be set: Schumaker in right, Ankiel in center, and Duncan in left. If I were a Cards fan, I wouldn't be terribly excited about the season based on that news, but I would be really curious to see how it would play out.
-
This article from David Pinto suggests that the Rays have the best rotation in their division. When I ran my MINER projections back in October, I came to the same conclusion, and that was before TB traded for Matt Garza. Actually, my projections are even more optimistic than Pinto is: they say that TB has the best rotation in all of baseball. Granted, it may not look that way once the Rays defense gets done with them.
- The bad news is that it's now official: Doug Davis has thyroid cancer. The good news is that it appears to be treatable. It has not been a good spring for players involved in that trade.