Opening Day !!

A beautiful 90 degree day in Arlington for baseball. For my two oldest sons it was their first opening day, and while they may not have thought much of it, ( although Gman did think it was cool to skip school )I will always have that memory to hold on to. The baseball season is a marathon, but opening day is always one of the most anticipated sports days of the year. It signals Spring is here, and our national pastime is back in the spotlight. For the Rangers, it marks the beginning of possibly the most anticipated season in franchise history. The offseason was dominated by is Cliff signing or not and are the Rangers trading Michael Young, and as it turned out neither happened and to me that's a good thing.

As usual, The Ballpark was in peak shape for her debut and the fans still seem to be riding high from the World Series showing. Two things seemed obvious as the introductions were taking place: the fans and Chuck Morgan showed their love for Michael Young ( his intro. was preceeded by "the all-time Ranger hit leader" ), and secondly, in the eyes of fans, David Murphy deserves more respect than he gets here from management. I've said it once, I still believe it to be true now, even the Yankees realize you don't trade or get rid of your leader. Michael Young is the foundation this team was built around, and while Beltre is a great player, his signing was not necessarily needed.

Now, for the game itself. Julio Bourbon didn't do himself any favors by knocking the ball away from Cruz as he is camped out under a routine fly ball to start the game, and at some point, putting your best team on the field will override protecting Hamilton. If Wash and management are hell-bent on keeping Josh out of CF they should have gone after a proven CF player in the offseason, otherwise Murphy, Hamilton, and Cruz in the OF gives this team the best chance at success. This line-up 1-9 is top 5 in baseball and will keep this team in the chase. The bullpen, although they did cost CJ a win, managed to get the ball to Feliz with a lead, but it was interesting to see that Wash did not go to O'day in the 7th in a tight game. A great start to the season for the Rangers, but I'm really interested in games 3-5, when we get into the unknown part of the pitching staff and when the bullpen might have to be leaned on hard.

GO RANGERS!!