Let the record show that, last night, I dreamt the Diamondbacks made the playoffs. It was kinda vague on the details - like what year this was! - but it seemed that we won the first game fairly convincingly, and when I woke up late the next morning, the second game was already under way, which implies we were playing an East Coast team on the road.
However, in my dream I then got distracted by our teenage daughter taking a shower with a friend...er, perhaps I should reword that, before Mrs. Snakepit reaches for the rusty bread-knife. The distraction was that they were taking it in our shower, and I was supposed to be getting ready for work, dammit. Much hammering on the door ensued, and the baseball was, regrettably, forgotten. It does, though, represent the first appearance of the D'backs in my dreams, and let's hope it's an omen of some sorts.
At least things started satisfactorily enough, with the D'backs extending their unbeaten streak to five months, preserving their perfect record for 2006, with a 9-2 victory over the World Champion Chicago White Sox. Obviously, as meaningless games go, the first one of spring training is probably close to top of the pile, but I'd still rather come out on the right end of a scoreline like that, rather than staring up from the "two" end.
Tracy went 2-for-2 with a walk, as did Terrero, who also had a pair of RBI. And we had the first at-bats in a Diamondbacks uniform for a number of our top prospects, including both Upton and Drew. The former flailed and failed miserably in his opener, but then laced a tie-breaking two-run triple that let him show some impressive wheels. Batista and Ortiz both allowed runs in their brief stints: Miggy has now departed for the World Baseball Classic.
On the evidence of yesterday, it certainly looks like Byrnes would be the leadoff man, in the event of Counsell's injury proving troublesome long-term. He was there in the opener, and managed the triple-crown on the basepaths: a stolen base, a caught stealing and a pickoff. At least initially, looks like we are being fairly aggressive once we get on base. Today's game, also against Chicago, is already under way, but is not being broadcast, so I'm as clueless as anyone. :-) Webb starts for us, and Buehrle for the Sox.
And here are the final batch of community projections, for the various members of the bench. These are particularly vulnerable, because they depend enormously - particularly HR and RBI numbers, obviously - on how many at-bats they get. In the cases of Cintron and Terrero, they may not even make it as far as the Opening Day roster. Not bothering to do individual comments for these players, since they are pretty much self-explanatory.
BA OBP SLG OPS HR RBI
Carlos Quentin .273 .358 .453 .811 6 22
Luis Terrero .240 .306 .366 .672 3 13
Alex Cintron .275 .311 .410 .721 5 23
Andy Green .255 .354 .395 .749 2 11
Damian Easley .237 .310 .412 .722 8 29
Stephen Drew .269 .345 .387 .732 4 23
Jeff DaVanon .255 .348 .355 .703 2 16
Over the weekend (or thereabouts), I'll go back over the previous installments, add in the opinions offered there, and then come up with our AZ Snakepit official predictions.