Opening Day

That was not at all the glorious debut of the 2006 Reds I was hoping for. I held out hope throughout the entire game (regardless of how that last post sounds), but it didn't do much good. So, lets get down to the business of recapping the events I didn't block from memory.

The top of the first should have been my clue to stop watching and go to class. But no, Harang's 35 pitches and Chicago's 5 runs were not enough to deter me. I sat on the couch, talking Harang through the inning (because he can totally hear me) and contemplating whether or not I should start bawling. Matt Murton is now my official Least Favorite Cub. I called Christina 19 minutes into the game and left her a message to let her know how splendidly it was going.

The bottom of the 1st brought Adam Dunn's sac fly for the year. It was good of him to get that over with early. It did, however, bring on a lot of talk about how long it took him to hit one last year. The sac fly got Tony Womack (I think I'm going to call him T-Wo) home, bringing the score to 5-1 Cubbies.

A bathroom break caused me to miss the entirety of the top of the 2nd, so it must have been a pretty good one for Harang. It also caused me to miss an interesting call about having been drawn as a finalist in a contest to win a new Cadillac Escalade. I didn't enter any contest to win a new Escalade, so I'm not calling back. There wasn't much action in the bottom of the 2nd. Or at least, if there was, it's in the "blocked memory" section.

Scott Hatteberg got himself a nice 3-run homer in the 3rd, cutting the Cubs down to just a one-run lead. Dunn hit one out of the park (which we almost missed thanks to Bud Selig's incessant blabbering) in the 5th to get the score tied. Unfortunately, that was the closest the Reds got to victory today. Through a series of crap (contained mostly within that most painful 6th inning), the score ended up 16-7, with the Cubs thoroughly embarassing our Reds.

Dunn's defensive skills certainly didn't help today. He had a couple of nice plays, and he did have a sac fly and a homerun, but then there was the rest of the game. He ran into the outfield wall only to come up empty-handed a few times, and also took a less-than-spectacular spill trying to get to a ball he shouldn't have missed. I've seen him play better than that, so I'm gonna blame that mostly on the wind. It was pretty nasty today. Or perhaps, as the TV personalities said, he was just having one of those days you'd rather forget.

Maybe the whole loss can be chalked up to the Cubs fancy batting helmets, with their obvious aerodynamic superiority. They have airholes! How can the hole-less-helmeted Reds compete with that?

At least it didn't get rained out.

Anyway, on to the next game! And in the mean time, check out RHM's new Cub's game.