Photo © Baltimore Sun

The Crow and Diamond Dave are in love with Brian Bob! Adam Jones gets a great reception! Aubrey Huff scores a subtly sick burn on Dioner Navarro! Jeremy Guthrie explains what happens when you throw a fastball to a man expecting a fastball and leave it in the kill zone!

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"It was like, all right, hopefully this is as the season goes."

-- Adam Jones, on his run down the orange carpet

"That’s Brian Roberts. He’s one of the premier leadoff hitters, not only in this league but in the game. I wouldn’t expect anything different from him. I don’t think anything bothers him."

-- Dave Trembley

"Brian's fabulous. I'm glad we have him."

-- Terry Crowley

"I thought Guthrie threw strikes, but his location wasn’t what we’re used to. The location of his secondary pitches is what got him in trouble."

-- Trembley

"He was expecting a fastball and I threw a fastball. If it was a better location, we'd have a better result. It was up around the belt and he did a nice job on it."

-- Jeremy Guthrie, on Eric Hinske's fourth inning solo homer

"They’ve got a nice offense one through nine. Even Navarro had three hits. He’s a guy you just can’t sleep on."

-- Aubrey Huff

"I've got no problem with guys being aggressive to start the season. If guys are going to be around the plate, I want them to swing the bat."

-- Trembley

AND LET'S NOT FORGET THE BOOING!

"It was expected. If I was in their situation, I would have booed me, too. It was a stupid thing to do. I'm sure the fans have been itching to get at me."

-- Huff, on getting booed for calling Baltimore a "horseshit town" this offseason

"I thought it was hilarious, to be honest with you. I was booing him, too."

-- Kevin Millar

"Guys were laughing at it. Millar actually thought he was going to get a little bit, but he got off light."

-- Huff

"From what I heard, it was a pretty big deal up here, which I didn't realize that much until the next morning after the show was over. In Lauderdale, I didn't get anything, so I figured, 'OK, it'll be all right,' but whew."

-- Huff

"The fans have every right to receive anybody in this ballpark any way they want. Huff's here to play baseball, the fans are here to watch the game and support their team any way they want."

-- Trembley

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It is what it is. It was what it was. The first loss of God knows how many -- there could be about 100 more of these to come.

Talkin' points:

• Jim Palmer -- still an arrogant SOB.
• Adam Jones -- not so hot with offspeed pitches.
• Jeremy Guthrie -- looked OK. Not great. Not terrible.
• Matt Albers -- looked good.
• Brian Burres -- yeah, he mopped up.
• Brian Roberts -- MACHINE. 2-for-2 with two walks, a steal and a run scored. I'm gonna miss you when you go, Brian Bob.
• Kevin Millar -- cleaned up the only opportunity he really got.
• Double steals -- exciting!
• Melvin Mora -- had one of THOSE games he has, where he can't do anything whatsoever right and makes idiotic sub-rookie mistakes.
• James Shields -- he can pitch.
• Terry Crowley -- hitters look the same as always, hacking away without working counts.

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YOU MAKE THE MAGIC HAPPEN...

It's two in the morning. I'm watching Major League. It's Opening Day. As the great Lou Brown said:

All right people, we got 10 minutes 'till game time, let's all gather 'round. I'm not much for giving inspirational addresses, but I'd just like to point out that every newspaper in the country has picked us to finish last. The local press seems to think that we'd save everyone the time and trouble if we just went out and shot ourselves. Me, I'm for wasting sportswriters' time. So I figured we ought to hang around for a while and see if we can give 'em all a nice big shitburger to eat!

I say we need a sense of humor about this season. Be ready to let it wash over you, unless things start seeming truly dire, like the kids can't play and nothing at all ever goes right.

But for a little while, for Opening Day, let's have some fun. Let's go O's!

(I'm going to abstain from fancy lineup stuff this year, for the record. I've just decided against it.)

RAYS STARTING LINEUP

Starting Pitcher: James Shields, RH (3.85/1.11, 12-8)

1. Akinori Iwamura, 2B (.285/.359/.411, 7, 34)
   
2. Carl Crawford, LF (.315/.355/.466, 11, 80, 50 SB)
   
3. Carlos Pena, 1B (.282/.411/.627, 46, 121)
   
4. B.J. Upton, CF (.300/.386/.508, 24, 82)
   
5. Cliff Floyd, DH (.284/.373/.422, 9, 45)
   
6. Willie Aybar, 3B (.280/.364/.403, 4, 30)
   
7. Eric Hinske, RF (.204/.317/.398, 6, 21)
   
8. Dioner Navarro, C (.227/.286/.356, 9, 44)
   
9. Jason Bartlett, SS (.265/.339/.361, 5, 43)

Photo © Charles Krupa / AP

In preparation for the season-opening series against the newly-renamed Tampa Bay Rays, myself and R.J. Anderson of DRays Bay and Beyond the Boxscore exchanged five questions apiece. Here's some scoop on the Rays.

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1. You know what it's like to go through a true youth movement. We've lost plenty over the last ten years, but do you have any advice on what it's like to deal with talented young players on the Major League level? Because that's not exactly an Oriole trademark lately.

The key is the term "talented", the 2002 Rays were young, but that youth included Toby Hall, Brent Abernathy, Jared Sandberg, and Jason Tyner. I would simply advise to not expect too much. B.J. Upton had a rough stint in 2006 that had most writing him off, meanwhile everyone expected Delmon Young to win rookie of the year last season, Upton not only had the better season, he didn’t run himself out of town with his mouth. I can’t help but look at Adam Jones nad have a feeling that he’s going to sneak up on a ton of teams this year, I know he’s not technically a rookie, but if you’re going to put high expectations on a youngster he’s the one.
 
2. Seriously -- how exciting is having Kazmir, Shields and Garza fronting the rotation?
 
Very. Troy Percival seems to think so too, he even had a t-shirt made comparing the trio to the eerily similar Braves’ trio from the early 90’s; Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, and Steve Avery.

3. There is a lot of talent in Tampa. How soon do you think the Rays can really become contenders in the AL East, given that most things break right with the players, and also assuming the Red Sox and Yankees keep on keepin' on?

Hopefully next year, but just because you’re a contender doesn’t mean you have a chance to win the division, as you guys know. In a way it’s easy to get down on the idea that even if everything goes our way – the rotation filling out and bubbling over to a dominant pen, the lineup being good like people think, ect. – it still might not be enough to win the division. Then you remember that Hank Steinbrenner won’t shut up and that this, after all, is baseball and you have to believe that before 2012 the Rays will have reached the playoffs. 
 
4. We all know the pitchers, Crawford and the finally-emerged Carlos Pena, but who's the most underrated Ray?

Akinori Iwamura. Some Rays fans have ran their mouths saying he’s an average player from being benched, frankly they don’t know what they’re talking about. His transition from third to second has been seemingly flawless, and while he’s not a huge power hitter, his approach to hitting is far better than people give him credit for. 
 
5. What's the general feeling on manager Joe Maddon? We never hear anything about this guy.

He’s polarizing, mainly because he’s quirky and he’s  managed the Rays to the worst record in each of his seasons at helm, but when we win – if we win perhaps – he’s going to be a blast. He’s a very intelligent guy, upon arrival an article was written about his fascination with Malcolm Gladwell’s great book Blink. He’s a fan of red wine, and to reference what I mean look up his quotes about "face", liking "we, not I", and about talking to Joe Girardi regarding the Elliot Johnson collision at the plate where he essentially takes a question and turns it into a conversation on what he likes including the line: "I like iTunes, I’ve downloaded some stuff off of there…"

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