Sports Time Radio

Well after quite a delay the Major League Baseball season finally got underway Thursday evening with two games. The New York Yankees beat the defending World Series champion Washington Nationals 6-1 in a game that was shortened to 5 1/3rd innings due to rain. In the second game the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the San Francisco Giants 8-1; that game went all 9 innings.

Now if you’ve listened to the Sports Time Radio podcast or just kept up with the blogs right here you know that I’ve been hot and cold or maybe you’d call it here or there on if I was going to watch baseball this season. Like a lot of fans I was very frustrated with the way the negotiations went, but in the end I was right there to watch Max Scherzer throw the first pitch of the season to Aaron Hicks.

What I didn’t expect to happen was how bored I was by the Yankees/Nationals game. Honestly I don’t know what my issue with the game was, but luckily when my two local Chicago teams started the season yesterday I found myself enjoying those games much, much more. Maybe the problem was I’m not really invested that much into this shortened baseball season; so seeing the Yankees and the Nationals start the season didn’t get me excited for baseball. I guess I’ll have to play it by ear and see how it goes today as there will be quite a few games for me to watch, but only two of them will feature the teams in my area.

I should have access to a minimum of five games today. At 12:05 p.m. Fox will be showing it’s first game of the season featuring the Milwaukee Brewers at the Chicago Cubs. At 1:10 p.m. the Chicago White Sox will be hosting the Minnesota Twins. At 1:15 p.m. the MLB Network will be showing the Pittsburgh Pirates at the St. Louis Cardinals. Then at 3:10 p.m. Fox will be showing the San Francisco Giants at the Los Angeles Dodgers. The final game that I’ll have a chance to watch will be on Fox Sports 1 at 8:10 p.m. as the San Diego Padres host the Arizona Diamondbacks.

All the listed start times are for the Central time zone; which of course is where I live.

The listed pitching match ups for these games are as follows. Corbin Burnes starts for Milwaukee, Yu Darvish starts for the Cubs. Randy Dobnak is starting for the Twins while Dallas Keuchel stats for the White Sox. Trevor Williams starts for the Pirates while Adam Wainwright starts for the Cardinals. San Francisco has yet to announce their starting pitcher for todays game, but the Dodgers listed start is Alex Wood. In the last televised game in my area the Diamondbacks are starting Robbie Ray while the Padres are going with Dinelson Lamet.

There are your games and your starting pitchers for the televised games; so what I want to know from you is; what are your viewing habits going to be today? The only game you won’t be getting would be the White Sox/Twins game unless you live in that viewing area and if not it would be replaced by your local teams broadcast. Are you planning on watching one game? Or will you watch two games? Is it possible that you’ll watch three or even four games? Or are you just planning on skipping all of the baseball games today?

What I’d also be interested in knowing from you is; what was your highlight from opening day?

As for me I’m not sure if you would call it a highlight, but the thing that I enjoyed the most was watch Kyle Hendricks of the Cubs pitch a complete game shutout against the Brewers. With all the talk coming into this season I wasn’t expecting to see a pitcher throw a complete game in all of the 60 games each team was playing and here Hendricks throws one in the Cub home opener.

Hendricks was allowed to go 9 innings because he kept his pitch count down. Hendricks threw just 103 pitches in his complete game shutout with 74 of them being for strikes. He struck out nine while giving up just three hits. Interestingly all three of Milwaukee’s hits where by Orlando Arcia who was hitting 9th for the Brewers. The 1 through 8 hitters in Milwaukee’s line up went 0 for 27 against Hendricks.

To be fair Hendricks wasn’t the only opening day starter to register a complete game, but he was the only one that went 9 innings. In Thursday nights game Max Scherzer and Gerrit Cole get credit for a complete games. Since the game was rained shorten and they where the only two pitcher to appear for their teams it goes down as a complete game for each pitcher and while Scherzer did strikeout 11 and Cole gave up just 1 hit neither outing was as impressive as Hendricks was.

I wanted to leave baseball for a story that’s been confusing me for the better part of a week now; Antonio Brown.

Brown had been working out with Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and there was some talk that Seattle might be interested in signing him. Then kind of out of the blue Brown more or less said that he was retiring from football. Then just two days later Brown backtracked on his retirement and then went on to blame to NFL for holding up his career.

In case you don’t remember the NFL is investigating Brown for about sexual assault and rape allegations. That means Brown is head for a suspension or possible a spot on the Commissioner’s Exempt List. Of course Brown would have to be signed by a team before he could serve out any suspension. Even with this hanging over his head there are multiple teams that have shown some interest in possibly signing Brown.

Brown played in just 1 game last season with the New England Patriots even though he signed a big money deal with the Oakland raiders during the off season. I don’t think we need to rehash all the incidents he had with them before being released. He did catch 4 passes and score a touchdown in his one game with New England last season.

If your favorite NFL team was desperate for a wide receiver would you like to see them sign Brown? He is very talented, but he appears to bring a lot of baggage with him.

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