LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I know we ended up with baseball last year, which was great, but there is NOTHING like a traditional Opening Day in March/April. Can’t believe we haven’t had this since 2019.
I have to admit, I almost did have a meltdown yesterday when rumors started circulating on Twitter that the Brewers may have had positive COVID tests. I said some AWFUL things out loud when, for a brief second, I thought Opening Day was going to be taken away from us again. I sounded like Lt. Dan screaming at God during the storm/boat scene in Forrest Gump. Fortunately, the test turned out to be a false-positive. Everything is a green light and there are going to be fans in the stands at Miller Park today. It’s a beautiful thing.
And I would honestly be fired up no matter what the prospects of the team were heading into today. But in addition to it being Opening Day, it’s Opening Day and the Brewers have a good team. I realize that spring training numbers are about as relevant as the height and weight you put down on your drivers license, but it was encouraging that EVERY player that scuffled offensively last year (Yelich/Hiura/Garcia/Narvaez/everybody) had a good spring. We’ve got a year-in-year-out MVP candidate in Yelich, we’ve got two Gold Glovers in the outfield, a Gold Glover at 2nd base, and a 1-2 punch in the backend of the bullpen in Williams and Hader that is as good as anyone else’s in the league.
If you want to back me into a corner about something I’m worried about, it would be the starting rotation. Woodruff/Burnes are the clear 1A, 1B, but after that you’ve got question marks. Adrian Houser had a good 2019, had two really good starts in 2020, then fell apart. His spring was a disaster until his last start. Freddy Peralta is a consistent wild card, is he better as a starter or out of the bullpen, will he be able to reign in his control, these seem to be perpetual question marks. And Brett Anderson is Brett Anderson. He’ll go .500 with an ERA a little above or below 4. Beyond that they don’t have a lot of depth. Lindblom is in the bullpen, you’ve got a little depth at AAA with Jordan Zimmermann and Zack Godley, but I wouldn’t say those are guys you can rely on. If Houser looks like 2019 Houser, and Peralta DOES get it figured out? Look out. But it’s hard to say anything definitive at this point.
But this is a team that should be ‘in it’ in an up for grabs NL Central all year. A mutual friend/blogger that we all know and love has a HEAVY entertainment point bet on the over of 82.5 wins, and another nice wager on the Brewers making the playoffs that pays 2 to 1. Let’s. Go.
PS: Can’t have an Opening Day blog without the greatest baseball movie speech of all time:
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