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This is it: time to quit talkin' and start chalkin', as the Diamondbacks 2007 baseball season finally gets under way. I feel like a kid on Christmas morning, waiting impatiently for his parents to finish making coffee so we can get down to the real important stuff. Melvin has already announced his line-up:
- Drew, SS
- Byrnes, RF
- Hudson, 2B
- Tracy, 3B
- Hairston, LF
- Jackson, 1B
- Young, CF
- Snyder, C
- Webb, P
Odd to see Hudson in the three-hole and Tracy batting clean-up - the latter goes totally against what was said during Spring Training: "Melvin doesn't want Tracy to change his approach because of expectations that come with hitting in the No. 4 hole." So he just puts him there on Opening Day. The explanation for both slots is "He's had a lot of success against this club in this ballpark. He and Hudson have the best numbers off Cook and we're going to hit those guys three and four."
Not happy with this. Sure, they're both batting over .400 against Cook, but you know how many plate-appearances he's basing this on? 16 for Hudson; 29 for Tracy. And only Tony Clark (11) also has double-figure at-bats against Cook. We'll see how this pans out today though. Looks like the 7-8-9 innings will also generally belong to Peña, Lyon and Valverde, according to Melvin's comments.
And that's it. Probably won't be able to comment much, since I am at work, and will thus be limited to a small window at the bottom of the screen. :-( No matter. I'll do what I can, and will certainly be scheduling my lunch for gametime!
And with that...PLAY BALL!!!!