Opening Day 2008

From around the league:

Philadelphia 6 Green Day 4
Philly gets a big 2 run homer from Rocky Balboni who drove in 4 runs on the day. Charlie Zito goes 7-6-4-3-0-2 for the win, and Steve King gets the save.

Portland 3 Florida 2
Roger Lewis pitches 8 dominant innings of 1-hit ball (8-1-1-1-4-7) to get the victory and Jet Storm picks up the save. On the first play of the game, George Kird misplayed a pop-up to let Kimba Bartee reach base. Kird more than made up for the miscue when he threw out Bartee trying to steal 2nd on the next play, and later hit the decisive solo homer to provide the insurance run that Portland needed.

Los Angeles 3 Detroit 1
Jason Baret dominates (8-3-1-0-4-7) to get the win and Randy Wagner picks up the save. In a losing effort, Travis Steele gets beaned with a pitch and will be out of action for about 1 week.

Alaska 5 St. Louis 3
Jojo Lewis is unimpressive in his Alaska debut (6-9-3-3-4-5) but picks up the win anyway. Reggie Stocker goes 3-3 with 2 doubles and George Frog goes 2-4 with 2 RBIs. George Cunningham wins the closers job and gets the job done with a perfect 9th. Ryne Solo decides to go with the Tony LaRussa strategy and bats his pitcher 8th, with rookie Wilfredo Martin batting 9th. Alaska also starts 4 rookies in this game.

Hawaii 2 Bay Area 0
Jared DeMario pitches 8 strong innings (8-2-0-0-2-2) to get the win, and Troy Lewis strikes out the side in the 9th to pick up the save. DeMario also helped himself by driving in the only 2 runs of the game with a 2 out 5th inning single.

Denver 8 New York 1
Denver pounds out 14 hits and rocks Pedro Lewis (6-10-5-5-3-8). Denver's new outfield does well with Jack Hollis picking up a double and triple and Keith Cerrano getting 3 hits and 2 doubles. Bill Neuman was unhittable in the win for Denver (7-1-1-1-2-6). Ricky Buckley went 0-4 with a strikeout and 2 errors in the loss.

Hollywood 6 Toronto 1
Rene St. Claire (8-7-1-1-2-8) handled his old club and outpitched Danny Almonte (4-6-6-6-3-3). Geoff Favre and Keith Vasbinder hit homeruns to account for all of the scoring in the 4th inning, with Favre's hit being a grand slam.