A Clichéd Opening Day Post

 

Today the baseball season officially started. Well, as a Phillies fan, the season officially started. After a long spring full of minor league performances it was surprising, to say the least, to watch the Phillies take the season opener in Texas. Having been shut out in their last three pre-season games, I guess the offense decided to wake up as they realized that these games actually count.

While the opening slug fest was a great way to start the season, I am still heading into this drawn out campaign with a considerable amount of trepidation. Given their performance in recent years and the questionable roster moves that have been made during the offseason, I doubt that they will be able to seriously content. However, there are always those seasons when things just seem to click and, out of nowhere, a season to remember comes to fruition.

It wasn’t long ago when the Phillies headed into a season having finished dead last the year before only to find themselves in the World Series. When you look at that 1993 roster, especially when you compare it to the competition, there is no way that anyone could have anticipated the season that they had. It was one of those instances when the right players found themselves on a team during the right season, at the right time in their careers.

It is for that reason that I still have an ounce of hope for this roster. When you look at the players on an individual basis, they are clearly better than that team but the question is whether the players feed off of one another and push (or pull) in the same direction. It would also be a great way to both honor the late Jim Fregosi and encourage the ailing Darren Daulton by shocking the NL East and running away with the division.

Either way, I think this is going to be an entertaining team to watch. They could come together or they could turn out to be a dugout full of McMurphys waiting to Amaro to shove a pillow in their face at the trade deadline. I guess we will just have to watch, wait, and see what happens. Of course, if you don’t have time to watch a protracted game full of replays, warnings, and pitching changes you can always read about it on my other blog.

So, how do you think the Phillies will fair this season? Will they pull things together and finally return Ryno to the postseason or will Bowa be calling everyone Private Pyle as they struggle to resemble a major league ball club? Of course, they could always end up in the middle but that wouldn’t be interesting to think about so let’s hope for the extremes. With this team, I can’t tell what is going to happen which makes for an intriguing beginning to the season. What do you think?

The real reason why we now have instant replay!