AWW WELL... ITS ONLY OPENING DAY

SOMEONE didn't have it today.

After a good spring training, Ol' Curt had his first bad start of the year. Unfortunately, it was on the first game of the year. After the first inning it was never close. Schilling actually got a fair number of swings and misses, but his control was off, often forcing Varitek to reach across the plate to glove his offerings.

I guess if your ace pitcher is going to have an off day you'd rather it be early on in the season and on a day when your offense falls asleep. And fortunately (?) for the Red Sox, that's exactly what happened. The Red Sox offense was just as lousy as Schilling was. Just to illustrate the point, the Sox had two guys get thrown out at second base by at least ten feet each.

Three years ago, the Red Sox started the season by losing 7-2 on opening day. Curt Schilling took the loss in that game too. As everyone not living on Mars knows, the Red Sox went on to win the World Series.

Every year as baseball season starts I have to pull myself out of my football game mindset. In football every game is vitally important because there are only 16 of them. But in baseball there are one hundred million games (OK, actually 162), so you can afford to lose one once in a while. You'd like to start the year off on a good note, but there are still 161 games left to rectify this one.