HAPPY BASEBALL DAY! Finally, after months of waiting, baseball is back tonight - real, live, honest-to-goodness counts-in-the-standings baseball.It doesn't seem quite like Opening Day when it's completely dark here in Minnesota before the first pitch is thrown, but I suppose somebody has to open the season on the West Coast.
I'll have the game thread up later tonight, but for now, a look at tonight's game...
Probable Pitchers
Baker is making his first Opening Day start for the Twins. You may remember that he started last season hurt, then got bombed for two months; he was 2-6 on June 1, but turned it around the last four months to finish 15-9. Baker had a 3.67 ERA over that span, statistics that the team hopes he duplicates.
In the spring this year, Baker was 3-1 with a 4.50 ERA, striking out 22 and walking just three batters in 22 innings.
Weaver is making his second Opening Day start for the Angels - with his first coming in 2008, also against the Twins. (The righthander lost that start - to Livan Hernandez, of all people - 3-2, as Carlos Gomez went 2-3 and scored twice.) He was Anaheim's workhorse last season, finishing 10th in the AL with 211 innings pitched, and was 16-8. Bert would be proud of him - he got decisions in 11 of his last 12 starts, going 6-5 over that stretch. Weaver also won a game in the ALDS and pitched three times in the ALCS against the Yankees, twice in relief.
Weaver was 1-1 with a 5.71 ERA in just over 17 innings of spring work. He struck out ten and walked four.
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