Opening Day, Come and Gone

Opening Day has come and gone and some things have changed as others remain. I’m just hoping that caught your attention so that you’ll read the rest of the entry, but I all ready have your click so what’s the difference. Just kidding aka jk. LOL aka laugh out loud. Okay, I’ll stop. The White Sox got out the gate clean and then immediately stumbled into a four game skid. Same old same old…not enough offense while wasting quality starts, errors, Ozzie over-managing and exhausting the bullpen in the season’s first week of games. Misuse of the bullpen in the opening series may have cost the Sox a game against the Twins, amongst other things. Like….when Pierre got on first base and was bunted over on a sacrifice by Beckham. It was well-executed, but they’re paying Pierre to get on base and straight-steal bases!Ozzie should have let him run and if he stole second cleanly then he could have been bunted over to third leaving it to Quentin to come thru with a mere sac-fly or possible pass-ball or wild pitch for Pierre to score. That’s a gamble you have to take in that situation, which is taylor-made to your liking with Pierre being your base runner. At least Mark Buehrle has started the season off 2-0. Peavy had the worst outing in the first go around of the pitching rotation and it still wasn't even THAT bad of an outing. Sweaty Freddie was the pitcher I was most skeptical of and he had a good outing, but he made one mistake by leaving a pitch up in the zone and it was crushed which lead to a 2-run homer and a White Sox loss 2-1. Yesterday, Pierre made an excellent play when he stood far enough away when Thome peppered a ball off of the wall from a Bobby Jenks offering and made an even better throw to his relay man from just in front of the warning track. J.J. Hardy was just rounding third as the throw reached the cutoff man on one hop. A strike was thrown to A.J. who was waiting for J.J. in a good looking game-ending play. Hopefully Ozzie gets back to baseball basics and can get the Sox on an early season roll. The Sox head to the Rogers Center in Toronto, a place where they've dropped the their last ten games played there and haven't won a game in that building since 2007. Good Luck boys.

Tape & Pine Tar:

The Cubs stumbled right out of the gate, but have come away with a few wins since then. There will be more on the Cubs this week after today's home opener.

The Blackhawks lost their last regular season game to the Red Wings. A good game and a tough loss to take as it cost the Hawks home ice throughout the Westen Conference playoffs, especially since it was an overtime loss due to what I beileve was a mental error by Big Byf. Possible more on that was well, but they do start their first round on Friday against Nashville.

The Bulls are a game closer to making the playoffs after beating up on the depleted Toronto Raptors. Too bad because I'm hoping they don't make it so that they get an outside shot at getting a top ten pick in the lottery.

As always, listen to Cover 3 streaming live on sportstownchicago.com every Monday evening from 7 to 9. PREACH.