Well, That Was Exciting, Reds 7-6

The medium reddish fantabulous fabtraption sputtered briefly before finally getting going in the 9th inning in the opener today. Phillips lined a single off the wall, Votto walked, Rolen reached on a fielder's choice when McGehee (which has way too many letters) attempted to tag Phillips, who may or may not have run out of the basepath, and missed. Bruce k'd (at least he picked up two singles earlier in the game) for our 1. Gomes hit the ball well but was only resulted a lone RBI when Gomez tracked it down. Then Razor Ramon, the solid first string catcher about which I have said nothing negative, ever, hit John Axford's 0-1 pitch out of the yard to right. That was, for those of you who didn't bother to look at the box score, was his 4th hit of the game, his third to right. Pretty exciting. Additionally, sell out crowd? That's also pretty exciting. Maybe they'll be able to buy another Corey Patterson-type player with this income boon.

The late inning walk off covered up a few problems existing earlier in the game, namely, the starting pitcher with the longish weave. The Brewers needed all of 6 pitches to go up 2-0 on back-to-back homers by Weeks and Gomez to start the year. He mostly cooled out as the game went on, exiting after 6 after giving up 5. He generated some swings and misses but appeared more hittable than viewers may recall in the past. At least more hittable than I recall. But, since we can count on 7 runs every game from the offense, not a big deal. The pen wasn't bad. Jordan Smith gave up a run but that was helped along by a Gomes error and a balk, which I suppose goes back to the pitcher. Bray, LeCure and Ondrusek pitched well enough.

All in all, quite a pleasing opening. Reds on pace to win the 162 predicted by most media outlets. Reds! Reds! Reds!