by Johnny Hall

Created on: April 06, 2007   Last Updated: April 27, 2007

Thoughts on the Final Opening Day at RFK

I am one of the few people in the DC area who actually enjoy watching games at RFK. I am very excited about the brand new stadium but RFK will be missed.

I will start by saying my expectations for this season are very realistic, all I ask is that they give 100% effort everyday and that they play smart baseball. I think given the current situation it would be unrealistic to expect too much more than that.

The weather was absolutely perfect for a ball game yesterday and a bad day at the ballpark beats a good day at the desk anyday! I personally like RFK but they seemed to have a few issues yesterday. The will call line for tickets was still very long while the national anthem was being sung, there is no way the poor people in those lines had the opprotunity to see the first inning. On to concessions, they seemed to be a bit rusty or the crowd may have been larger than they had expected because they could not keep up with the food demand and were turning people away because the food needed 10-15 minutes to cook. Now about the game.

It was troubling to see two guys get hurt, even with minor injuries, when you are not an icredibly deep team to begin with. Patterson, who is expected to be the guy on this very young and inexperienced pitching staff, struggled mightily. Most of his trouble seemed to stem from falling behind hitters , when he threw first pitch strikes he was incredibly effective the problem was first pitch strikes were few and far between. As the season moves on , Patterson is going to have to pitch deep into games to provide a break for a bullpen that may say a lot of innings when the younger pitchers take the mound.

There were a few bright spots in this 9-2 drubbing. Ryan Zimmerman is a legit major league third baseman that you can build this young franchise around. He made two nice plays with the glove and went 2-3 with a triple and a run scored. The middle of the lineup (spots 3-5) was a respectable 5-9 with both runs scored. If they get some production out of the 1 and 2 hole in the batting order they may be able to put up competitive offensive numbers.

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