Keith's Sports Journal: Foul Ball: The Return!

With baseball returning that can mean only one thing, the return of the Foul Ball posts! Foul Ball is a quick recap of the previous nights games that will look at the hero's, dud's, wacky stats, and wacky Ozzie quotes. Home team comes first in the boxscore.

LA Dodgers 2 San Francisco 1: One of main worries about the 2011 Giants would be their defense. Huff and Burrell in the outfield and 1,000-year old Miguel Tejada at short worried me. So of course it's the defense that failed the Giants on Thursday night. The Giants committed three errors on the night, including two in the sixth inning which lead to the Dodgers taking the lead for good. Lincecum was okay in his debut giving up five hits and walking three, but he wasn't spectacular. Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw on the other hand was spectacular going seven innings giving up four hits, no runs, one walk and striking out nine. Just a frustrating game to watch as a Giants fan and a reminder that despite the Giants winning the series last year, they played in a lot of frustrating games like this last year. Giants are now on pace for the worst season in baseball history.

Cincinnati 7 Milwaukee 6: This game was about as good as it gets for an opening day game. There were a combined 13 runs scored and 6 home runs, including a walkoff, and a blown call by an ump already. Edison Volquez of the Reds gave up back-to-back home runs to start the game and gave up 3 runs total in the first inning but continued pitching until the seventh inning. The Brewers may have improved their starting pitching, but their bullpen continues to stink. John Axford, the Rollie Fingers look-a-like, gave up four runs in the ninth inning including a walkoff three-run home run to Ramon Hernandez. Oh yeah, Pete Rose at the game dressed like this.

NY Yankees 6 Detroit 3: Just the Tigers luck. They come back to tie the Yankees in the fifth inning only to lose the game on a home run by one of their former players. Curtis Granderson hit a home run in the seventh inning to give the Yankees the lead for good and Mariano Rivera closed out the game for his 560th career save.

Washington 0 Atlanta 2: Different season, same old Natinals. The Braves scored two runs in the first two innings and that would be all what they would need as Derek Lowe pitched 5 2/3 innings giving up no runs, 3 hits and striking out six. Newly acquired National Jayson Werth went 1-for-4 in his debut with a strikeout. Werth still looks like the wrestler Edge by the way.

St. Louis 3 San Diego 5 in 11: Of course on the day the Giants lose a one-run game, the Padres make a comeback in the ninth inning and defeat the Cardinals in extra innings. Cameron Maybin hit a two-run home run in the ninth inning off of Cardinals closer Ryan Franklin to tie the game and send it to extras. Maybin then knocked in the winning run in the 11th inning. Albert Pujols didn't exactly endure himself to St. Louis fans in the game after his contract talks in the off-season by grounding into three double plays including a costly one in the ninth inning.

Albert Pujols Quote: From the AP recap, “Definitely we had our chances,” Pujols said. “A couple times we had men in scoring position and I didn’t do my job.” I would say so Albert. Grounding into three double plays and leaving four guys on base isn't doing your job.

Kansas City 2 Anaheim 4: The Royals started their 0-162 campaign with a loss to the California Angels, but accomplished an unlikely feat in the game when three relievers all made their major league debuts in the game back-to-back-to-back. So they have that going for them.

Create a Caption: And people give Giants fans crap about eating sushi at the ballpark.